CBRN event in United States of America on Sun 25th January 2026

More than 500 protesters descended on the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in South Portland on Saturday to condemn the fatal shooting of a 37-year-old man in Minneapolis by a federal officer. During Portland protests, federal officers deployed chemical munitions at least five times by 9 p.m., including after protesters funneled into the ICE building driveway and pushed a large metal trash bin up against the facility’s white barred gates. Protesters called for federal immigration agents to decamp from Portland. Wynter Crowder, 20, lives in Portland and rode the bus to the demonstration. She said she joined other protesters “on the front lines” and was struck by munitions fired by federal officers. The non-lethal rounds “ripped through my sign and hit my neck,” Crowder said. “It really hurt. Even though I’m hit, I’m going to keep fighting.” The man shot in Minneapolis was identified by his parents as Alex Pretti, an intensive care unit nurse. He had participated in protests following the killing of Renee Good by an ICE officer on Jan. 7. Bystanders captured Saturday’s shooting of Pretti on video, which quickly went viral. Pretti can be seen with a phone in his hand, but no videos appear to show him with a visible weapon. The scene in Portland recalled the intensity of summer 2025 protests at the facility, when several people used a stop sign as a makeshift battering ram to break the front door of the ICE building. Most protests over the subsequent months at the ICE facility have remained nonviolent, even after President Donald Trump’s push last fall for a National Guard deployment to Portland, which he subsequently abandoned. Tensions rose after a group of an estimated 300 demonstrators who had marched from Elizabeth Caruthers Park made it to the ICE building and joined with a sizable group already there. The total crowd size then swelled to around 500 people, and dozens of demonstrators filled the ICE facility driveway. They typically stay off the driveway because a thick, painted blue line demarcates the federal property line, and crossing it has triggered federal officers to emerge and detain demonstrators. Federal officials made periodic announcements from a loudspeaker calling the demonstration an unlawful assembly. Officers’ use of tear gas, smoke grenades and other chemical munitions is the subject of a federal lawsuit filed in December by the manager of the Gray’s Landing apartment complex across the street from the ICE facility. Reach Community Development, which owns Gray’s Landing, asked a judge to end what it alleged was officers’ “shocking and unconstitutional poisoning” of its residents and their apartments. On Saturday, protesters who were gassed fled across the street to the entrance to the Gray’s Landing parking garage, where protesters who acted as medics had established a makeshift “medical triage.” Earlier in the day, Portland Mayor Keith Wilson and Council President Jamie Dunphy called on protesters to remain peaceful in the wake of the Minnesota shooting. “Calm and purposeful does not mean passive,“ they wrote in a joint statement, later adding, “We ask those making their voices heard in the aftermath of this horrific tragedy to do so peacefully.” Rick Mitchell, 73, of Portland, said he is a legal observer who came out to protest yet another fatal shooting by federal officers. He said conflicting reports have emerged about the events leading to Pretti’s death in Minnesota. “But let’s just say the Department of Homeland Security doesn’t have a very good record on telling the truth,” Mitchell said.