What began as another night of tense demonstrations in Minneapolis turned into a harrowing live TV moment on January 24, when veteran CNN correspondent Sara Sidner was hit with tear gas fired by federal agents deployed under President Donald Trump’s sweeping immigration enforcement surge.
Sidner, reporting from a street thick with protesters demanding answers after yet another fatal federal shooting, suddenly broke into violent coughing. Her voice cracked. Her eyes watered. The camera shook as smoke drifted across the lens.
“We need to move, this is extreme,” she said on-air, her voice strained as tear gas rolled down the block with unmistakable military force.
CNN just cut to Sara Sidner at the Minneapolis scene and she’s visibly in distress:
— Brian Allen (@allenanalysis) January 24, 2026
“I’m trying to breathe.”
That’s where we are right now. pic.twitter.com/ksLCjCXlcu
Producers cut the feed as her coughing worsened. But the chaos had only begun.
When Sidner reappeared later in the broadcast, she stood wedged between angry protesters chanting for accountability and a row of armored federal officers. Within seconds, another canister detonated nearby.
She flinched. She gasped again. And the screen abruptly cut back to the studio.
Local demonstrator Jaime Richardson, 27, told reporters, “We watched her struggling to breathe, and it felt like the country was watching what we go through every night. This isn’t crowd control. It’s intimidation.”
The Trump administration has repeatedly defended its expanded deployment of DHS tactical units, calling them “necessary reinforcements” amid what it describes as a rise in threats to federal authorities.
Minnesota leaders, however, say the surge is escalating tensions far beyond anything the city has seen.
Just hours before Sidner’s on-air struggle, federal agents shot and killed 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti during an immigration operation in Minneapolis. Federal officials claim Pretti had a handgun and resisted violently, but witnesses told local outlets they saw officers approach with weapons already drawn.
“I heard shouting, then gunfire. It didn’t feel like an arrest. It felt like an ambush,” said neighbor Cynthia Rowe, who ran outside when she heard the shots.
The killing occurred barely a mile from where 22-year-old Renee Good was fatally shot by an ICE officer on January 7 — an incident that has sparked sustained protests across the Twin Cities and beyond.
Civil rights attorney Marlon Vega said the two deaths in less than three weeks “have become a tipping point,” adding, “You cannot occupy an American city with federal police and expect people to remain silent.”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who has frequently clashed with Trump’s immigration crackdown, said he has seen footage of Pretti’s killing and rejects DHS’ early narrative.
“What I see with my eyes makes their explanation almost impossible to believe,” he told reporters. “It’s nonsense. It’s lies.”
Walz accused the federal government of escalating tensions deliberately by flooding Minnesota with what he described as “thousands of untrained, unvetted officers.”
He posted on social media late Thursday: “Pull them out of Minnesota. Now. Before more people die.”
DHS has circulated a photo of a handgun it claims was recovered at the scene of Pretti’s shooting, but activists say they’ve seen too many conflicting accounts to accept federal statements at face value.
Minneapolis residents say the city feels transformed — part protest zone, part military operation.
“It’s like we’re living inside a live news alert,” said student organizer Lila Perdomo. “Every night there’s another siren, another flash bang, another family terrified of the people who are supposed to protect them.”
Sidner later updated viewers, saying she had recovered from the tear gas but hoped her on-air struggle would “show the country how intense things have become here.”
As protests continue and the tear gas settles each night, Minneapolis remains a flashpoint in a broader national debate over immigration enforcement, federal power, and what many see as the unchecked authority of a second Trump presidency.
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Criminapolis has daily murders but WOKE NextGen, Democrats, ILLEGALS, LSM will only focus on ICE occassionally defending itself from armed ILLEGALS/criminals/crime supporters…