Via The Minnesota Star Tribune

By Alicia Eler

March 3, 2026

January 7th, 2026 - After the murder of Renee Good by a masked federal agent, a vigil was held in her honor. Upward of 10,000 Minnesotans showed up to pay their respects at the location she was killed

What happens next depends on the family’s wishes.

Ryan Vizzions started collecting posters from the spontaneous public memorial that sprung up at the site of Renee Good’s killing. The traveling photographer appointed himself the site’s caretaker.

He also gathered many other items — a cookie jar filled with handwritten letters rolled into scrolls, letters addressed to Good’s family, a canvas covered with names of people killed by federal agents since 2025.

“All these are prayers,” Vizzions said. “These are things that people brought because they cared. We owe it to them to try and preserve them and save them and make it so the future can learn about what happened here.”

When it comes to archiving spontaneous public memorials, there are no clear pathways for what to do. The work is fluid, and caretakers volunteer because they feel called to do so. It’s all open-ended and grassroots; people write the rules as they go along. Even the city of Minneapolis doesn’t have timelines for what happens to memorials, city spokeswoman Jess Olstad said.

At Good’s site, it’s unknown where the gathered items will ultimately go, but community members are in contact with the Good family about next steps.

Vizzions initially rented a storage unit for the posters and other items, but moved them to a more secure undisclosed residential location in south Minneapolis.

“These sites emerge when the future feels uncertain and the past feels unfinished,” said Alex Pretti memorial site caretaker Jadah Green, 43, at a “Caring for Spontaneous Public Memorials After State Violence” panel discussion Feb. 27. “They are not permanent installations. They are not yet historical memory. They are living thresholds.”

Vulnerable memorials

Vizzions has been guarding, cleaning and organizing the site since the week after Good was killed. The site is vulnerable to changing weather and vandalism ― like when someone poured gasoline on it and lit a nearby pile of wood on fire Feb. 17.

 Via ACLU

Landmark Settlement Announced in Lawsuit Challenging Unlawful Questioning of Journalists at the Border

The settlement comes after five journalists were unlawfully targeted for and questioned about their reporting near the U.S-Mexico border

In a win for freedom of the press, the American Civil Liberties Union, the New York Civil Liberties Union, ACLU of San Diego, and Covington & Burling LLP announced a settlement today in a federal lawsuit challenging the unlawful targeting and questioning of five photojournalists at the U.S.-Mexico border. The lawsuit, filed in November 2019 in federal court in the Eastern District of New York against U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), claimed that border officials violated the journalists’ First Amendment rights. The journalists claimed that they were unconstitutionally targeted for secondary inspection, detention, and questioning by U.S. border officials on the basis of their reporting near the U.S.-Mexico border in 2018 and 2019. In March 2021, the district court denied the government’s motion to dismiss the case, holding that the plaintiffs had plausibly alleged that border officials violated their First Amendment rights. The case was settled in January 2026.

“The future of our democracy depends on the freedom of the press, now more than ever,” said plaintiff Bing Guan. “It’s clear the government’s actions were meant to instill fear in journalists like me, to cow us into standing down from reporting what is happening on the ground. After being targeted for doing just that, I am grateful for what our lawsuit has achieved in defending the rights of journalists to report free from government officials’ scrutiny.”

Full release here

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 Via Reading The Pictures

February 23, 2026

A spontaneous ICE encounter on a St. Paul block becomes a rare picture of practiced solidarity—and a case study in how images can answer federal power.

By Michael Shaw

Leila Navidi’s photograph for the Minneapolis Star Tribune shows St. Paul neighbors on a Cathedral Hill sidewalk on February 11, 2026, standing shoulder to shoulder with their phones raised as militarized ICE agents turn away.

What began as a spontaneous response to a high‑speed crash caused by an ICE chase becomes, in her frame, a rare picture of collective solidarity—everyday residents forming a united front, documenting federal power, and quietly claiming the moral ground.

While the image went viral, little was written about why it had such an impact. In our latest Chatting the Pictures video, we read it detail by detail, to show how its composition, timing, and gestures have made it a breakthrough resistance picture for this state and this moment. Watch now:

More: The events that built this picture

 Via El Pais

February 23, 2026

American photographer Carol Guzy, a four-time Pulitzer Prize winner, asserts that, in light of the brutal anti-immigration crusade being waged by the US government, the work of photojournalists ‘is more important than ever’

 Via The Association of International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD) Exposure Newsletter

February 19, 2026

 Via Minnesota Star Tribune

February 18, 2026

Someone doused Renee Good’s south Minneapolis memorial and a nearby pile of wood with gasoline and started a fire at about 9 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 17.

A fence was charred, and several items in the memorial were damaged, but the memorial site at 34th Street and Portland Avenue wasn’t burned down. No one was injured, Minneapolis police said.

Photojournalist Ryan Vizzions, 43, smelled gasoline from inside his van, which was parked near the memorial site.

“I looked out my windshield and I see orange,” he said. “My eyes lit up.”

Vizzions jumped out of the van after seeing the flames. Neighbors who live in the apartment building in front of Good’s memorial used two fire extinguishers to put out the blaze, he said.

Community members had covered the memorial site with a tarp earlier to protect it from the rain.

“We’ve been hypervigilant in our neighborhood and obviously everyone’s keeping an eye out all of the time,” said Wren Clinefelter, 23, who lives near the memorial. “So it’s definitely very disheartening to hear that someone would try and burn down a memorial for a woman who was killed in our neighborhood.”

Vizzions posted a video of the scene to his Instagram account.

More with video reporting via WCCO on Facebook

Via Prism

February 18, 2026

"Masked federal agents have abducted anyone they suspect of being a migrant—from workplaces, houses, courthouses, schools, and streets. ICE has forced its way into people’s homes with battering rams, dragged a pregnant woman through the snow, taken children as young as five into custody, and killed American citizens Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.

And at every step, journalists have documented the rapidly escalating state violence—often at great risk to themselves. While covering ICE’s enforcement surge in Los Angeles, TV reporter Lauren Tomasi was live on air when a Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) officer aimed his weapon directly at Tomasi at close range, hitting her with “nonlethal ammunition.” Photographer Nick Stern required emergency surgery after LAPD shot his thigh with a plastic bullet. In Chicago, an ICE agent shot a pepper ball into the parked car of reporter Asal Rezaei, and in New York, ICE agents shoved visual journalist L. Vural Elibol, causing a head injury that required emergency services.

Ryanne Mena, who covered the ICE raids for the Southern California News Group, was shot on June 6 in the left thigh with a pepper ball bullet. The following day, she was struck in the head with a rubber bullet and the reporter next to her was hit in the head with a tear gas canister. Mena, who has asthma, had difficulty breathing and bystanders helped the reporters flush their eyes with water.

“I spent the rest of that day with a grueling headache. I threw up later that night, and two days later I was diagnosed with a concussion,” said Mena, who noted that a half year later, her brain fog is just now starting to dissipate and that she continues to experience heightened anxiety.

In Minneapolis, freelance photographer John Abernathy was surrounded and tackled by immigration agents on Jan. 15. “They set off a flash bang and then tear gas,” he explained. “I was shot twice with pepper bullets in my leg. I was then surrounded by border police and taken to the ground where they sprayed me in the face with pepper spray. My face was on fire. My eyes were on fire. I was gasping and gagging. I ended up having multiple injuries from the pepper bullets, chemical burns in my eye, and abrasions from being taken down.”' --click for full article

"I asked journalists who have been covering the ICE raids in LA, Oakland, Chicago, and Minneapolis to share their advice on staying safe. Here’s what they said"

 Via The New York Times

by Georgia Fort

Ms. Fort is an independent journalist based in Minnesota.

February 5, 2026