Minnesota photojournalist shot at with pepper balls during immigration protest

Freelance photojournalist Tim Evans was targeted with crowd-control munitions and threatened with arrest by federal officers while reporting on anti-deportation protests outside a federal building in the Minneapolis suburb of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, on Jan. 16, 2026.

Evans told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker he was on assignment for Reuters at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, covering demonstrations against the ongoing federal immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities area.

The building has been a focal point of protests for its use as a base for federal agents, and demonstrations escalated after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot Renee Good while conducting an operation Jan. 7 in Minneapolis.

Evans said that in the days prior, protests and the federal law enforcement response had followed a similar pattern: Demonstrators would take to the street, advancing toward the fencing erected around the federal building. Federal agents would then call for everyone to move back to the sidewalk, with some individuals refusing to do so.

“Then they would send agents out and then deploy munitions and kind of push people back across the street, oftentimes arresting or detaining a couple of people in the process,” he said.

Events Jan. 16 unfolded in that manner, at one point with a man standing in the road taunting the officers in the building and flaunting his noncompliance with their orders.

“A group of agents, a few dozen, came out in riot gear and chased that man, trying to detain him,” Evans said. “He ended up running down the road and kind of disappeared from sight.”

When the agents returned, they formed a line in the road to prevent demonstrators from returning to the street and threatened everyone with arrest if they did not stay off the main road.

Evans told the Tracker a member of Customs and Border Protection’s Special Response Team took notice of him as he documented the scene. Evans said he was walking back and forth between the sidewalks on either side of a cul-de-sac that led to a parking lot across from the federal building.

“At one point, I kind of crossed over, crouched down to get a photograph of the agents across the street,” Evans told the Tracker. Then, one of the agents — the same one who had taken note of him earlier — suddenly shot a few pepper balls at the ground directly in front of him.

Evans said that he was clearly identifiable as a journalist, as he wore press credentials around his neck, had large “PRESS” labels in all caps on his helmet and vest, and was carrying a large, professional camera. “It’s hard not for it to feel targeted,” the photojournalist said.

He added that, in a photo capturing the moment when one of the chemical munition rounds exploded on impact ahead of him, the agent almost appears to be making eye contact with him.

The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment.