15 Members Of Minneapolis Anti-ICE Group Face Federal Charges After Months of Confrontations

MINNEAPOLIS, MN — A member of a Minneapolis direct action group followed a federal immigration officer across state lines to Hudson, Wisconsin. Another allegedly sideswiped an agent's government vehicle on a Twin Cities highway. A third showed up to an active ICE operation near 28th and Bloomington, knocked notes out of an agent's hand, and kicked the federal vehicle hard enough to dent it.

Those are among the allegations in a federal indictment unsealed Monday charging 15 members of Direct Action Minnesota, known as DAMN, with conspiracy to impede federal officers, interstate stalking, assault on federal officers, and destruction of government property.

Homeland Security Investigations agents arrested 12 of the defendants in a coordinated sweep over the preceding 24 hours, according to the Justice Department. Two remain at large and one was already in federal custody.

According to the indictment, the group ran a sophisticated surveillance operation targeting federal immigration agents at the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in the Twin Cities, tracking government vehicles by license plate in a searchable database and coordinating pursuits in real time through encrypted Signal group chats.

Prosecutors say members used a dispatcher system to deploy "commuters" who would follow agents from the Whipple Building to their destinations, sometimes across state lines.

The group also organized large-scale blockades at the Whipple Building on Jan. 23 and March 1, the indictment alleges, deploying flipped trailers and metal anti-vehicle obstacles called Czech hedgehogs to seal off roads, while shield teams physically pushed through lines of officers on foot.

The indictment quotes defendant Isaac Sant describing the surveillance work at an April event in Seattle, telling attendees: "We go down to Whipple building and hang out there all day and photograph every ICE vehicle that's coming in and out."

Sant described the group's license plate database as publicly searchable and said members maintained a constantly refreshed list of vehicles confirmed on the road each day so "commuters can know what we have confirmed on the road at the moment," according to prosecutors.

Fellow defendant Cameron Kennedy, also speaking in Seattle according to the indictment, described the burning of the Minneapolis Police Department's Third Precinct during the 2020 George Floyd unrest as "the happiest moment of my life" and called himself a "revolutionary anarchist."

In a February Facebook post cited in the indictment, Kennedy wrote that nonviolent protest alone would never succeed: "You absolutely need militants to win."

In April, the Justice Department says, DAMN members traveled to Chicago, Ann Arbor, and Seattle for what they called an "Anarchist Speaking Tour," training other groups around the country on their blockade and surveillance tactics.

"For those who choose to threaten or harm federal officers, the Department of Justice will hold you accountable," said U.S. Attorney Daniel N. Rosen. "The direct actions alleged in the indictment are un-American. And they will be met with swift justice."

The 15 defendants named in the indictment are Isaac Auman Sant, Emmett James Doyle, Cameron Kennedy, Callum Robinet, Erik Davis, Brian Stillwell Apland, Kyle Wagner, Hannah Margaret Van De Water Davis, Treasure Cay Thoreson, Nathan Junho Kim, Alec Stewart, Douglas Misterek, Dustin Scott Beisell, William Morgan, and Natasha Rakotz.