Brooklyn Park police chief revealed ICE agents drew guns on an off-duty officer and knocked her phone from her hand

At a January 20, 2026 news conference, Brooklyn Park Police Chief Mark Bruley said one of his off-duty officers, a U.S. citizen, was pulled over by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents after she drove past an ICE vehicle. The agents boxed in her car and demanded her paperwork; when she became concerned and tried to record the encounter on her phone, an agent knocked the phone from her hand. The agents had their guns drawn throughout the stop. The officer was forced to identify herself as a Brooklyn Park police officer before the agents left without comment or apology. Bruley described the officer as "recently" stopped but did not give an exact date, and no source located narrows the stop to a specific day; this entry is dated to the January 20 disclosure rather than an unconfirmed date for the stop itself.

Bruley, flanked by Hennepin County Sheriff Dawanna Witt and St. Paul Police Chief Axel Henry at the same news conference, said officers and residents in Minnesota have been stopped by federal agents "solely because of the color of their skin," with American citizens "forced to produce paperwork to determine if they are here legally." Henry said his department's employees had experienced similar treatment, including "traffic stops that were clearly outside the bounds of what federal agents are allowed to do." Witt said the conduct is illegal and damages local law enforcement's relationship with the community. A DHS spokesperson told USA Today the agency could find "no record of ICE or Border Patrol stopping and questioning a police officer" and could not verify the claim without a name; DHS Secretary Kristi Noem has said all operations are "targeted" and that people near a target "may be subject to questioning." The disclosure came amid the broader Operation Metro Surge federal immigration deployment in the Twin Cities and heightened scrutiny following the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good on January 7.