Reporter shot twice with pepper balls by federal officer in Minnesota

JT Cestkowski, a reporter for the news outlet Status Coup, was shot in the arm and buttocks with pepper balls by Department of Homeland Security agents while reporting on protests outside a federal building in the Minneapolis suburb of Fort Snelling, Minnesota, on Jan. 11, 2026.

The Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building has been a focal point of protests for its use as a base for the federal immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities area. Demonstrations escalated after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot Renee Good while officers were conducting an operation Jan. 7 in Minneapolis.

Cestkowski told the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker that he was reporting alongside photojournalist Jon Farina, livestreaming as protesters gathered outside the facility following reports that federal officers had deployed tear gas.

“When we first walked up, things were calm,” he said. “But agents were sort of in this pattern of, every 30-45 minutes or so, they would come out into the crowd and deploy tear gas, flash bangs, pepper balls, pepper spray.”

Several hours into their reporting, the journalists were interviewing a demonstrator who had been detained for seven hours in the Whipple building and had just been released. They were across the street, where agents had directed the crowd to stand.

“We were hearing her story when the agent started firing off flash-bang grenades and tear gas canisters and the like,” Cestkowski said. He added that, at the time, he and Farina believed Farina had been struck by one of those munitions, but later determined, based on the bruising, that it was more likely a pepper ball.

Approximately two minutes later, while Cestkowski was interviewing a 16-year-old demonstrator, federal officers launched a second volley at the crowd.

“Again, we were standing on the side of the street where people had been directed to stand, and yet the girl we were interviewing got hit in the foot and I myself got hit in my behind and in the back of my arm,” he told the Tracker. He said that he did not suffer any injury or bruising as a result, crediting his thick winter clothing layers.

Cestkowski said that throughout the day, both he and Farina were also repeatedly caught in the clouds of tear gas and impacted by the deployment of stun grenades.

“No distinction was made between press and protesters,” he added. “Those weapons aren’t precise. And certainly in the way they were used that night, there was no precision as to who they were targeting. They were just blanket firing into the whole crowd.”

In the livestream footage of the news crew’s coverage, Cestkowski can be seen wearing large press credentials around his neck and carrying a mic bearing the Status Coup logo. Farina was also wearing credentials and was carrying a professional camera.

Cestkowski said they left the protest shortly after because they were both “fried.”

“When you go running away from that stuff, you don’t need to run very far, but it feels like the longest sprint of your life because you’re not only worried about being in the line of fire or taking the stuff in,” he said. “You have to be aware of your surroundings — I’m trying to look out for Jon, Jon’s trying to look out for me — and just keeping yourself safe. It’s very mentally and physically taxing to go through that.”

Neither DHS nor ICE responded to requests for comment or additional information about the protest response that day. In a statement released Jan. 12, Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin defended the agency’s presence in Minnesota but did not address the reported use of munitions against journalists.

Both the city of Minneapolis and the state have since sued the Trump administration, arguing the unprecedented deployment of federal agents violates constitutional rights.