A gay Minneapolis pastor says federal immigration agents handcuffed him, pointed a gun at his face, and taunted him while he stood among nonviolent protesters just blocks from where an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot Renee Nicole Good, a mother of three who also leaves behind a wife. The encounter has become a visceral symbol of fear, fury, and deepening mistrust between federal authorities and communities already scarred by violence.

The Rev. Kenny Callaghan, a gay senior pastor at All God’s Children Metropolitan Community Church whose congregation sits near Portland Avenue and East 31st Street, told The Advocate in an interview Friday that he went toward a commotion on Wednesday morning after hearing that a group of federal agents was surrounding and threatening what he perceived to be a Hispanic woman, not specifically in response to the earlier shooting.

Callaghan said his initial instinct was pastoral and protective — he was not seeking confrontation but was concerned that agents appeared to be menacing the woman. 

A crowd began swelling after learning that ICE had killed Good, a 37-year-old mother, only a few blocks away. He described the street as charged with electricity — chants rolling through the neighborhood, whistles piercing the air, and masked federal agents moving through a sea of Minneapolis residents who were grieving and angry but resolutely nonviolent.

“I saw ICE agents circling a young woman who appeared to be Hispanic,” he said. “I said to this ICE agent, ‘Take me, stop harassing her.’

An agent immediately raised a firearm at his face, Callaghan said, and asked, “Are you afraid now?” He said he replied no, and moments later, he was handcuffed and placed in a black SUV. Inside the vehicle, Callaghan said, the same agent returned repeatedly to ask whether he was “afraid yet.” He remained there for about 30 minutes and was released without being arrested or charged, he said.

Before letting him go, Callaghan said, the agent told him, “You’re white anyway. You wouldn’t be any fun,” a remark he said made plain what he experienced as racial targeting.

“I never, ever saw systemic racism so blatantly in all my life as I heard that day,” Callaghan said. “What I saw was a use of fear and intimidation with people.”

Callaghan was not arrested or charged with a crime.

Callaghan’s account also collides with the Trump administration’s public assertions about what happened on Portland Avenue — claims that have been increasingly challenged by multiple videos circulating online that appear to show a far less clear-cut encounter than federal officials have described. In his interview with The Advocate, Callaghan dismissed the government’s version of events that the ICE agent was acting in self-defense as “lies” and “gaslighting,” saying he has little confidence that federal officials are being truthful about the circumstances surrounding Good’s killing or the treatment of demonstrators that followed. “They just don’t care,” he said, adding that the administration “feels like they have the right to do whatever they damn well please, including murdering people.”’

ICE agents on patrol in Minneapolis.Kenny Callaghan

The confrontation unfolded as word rippled through the crowd that Good had been shot and killed just blocks away. Callaghan said the atmosphere transformed instantly. He said that grief hardened into defiant chants of “We are not afraid.” Masked agents without visible name badges moved through the scene, he said, as demonstrators stood their ground.

Callaghan said learning that Good was queer intensified the sense of personal loss. “Not only is she a neighbor — she is my people, my community,” he said. He accused the Trump administration and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem of misrepresenting what happened that day. 

He described what he witnessed as part of a broader pattern of intimidation, with agents pepper-spraying demonstrators, pushing people to the ground, handcuffing bystanders, and placing peaceful protesters in federal vehicles.

Though he said he was not afraid during the confrontation, Callaghan acknowledged that knowing someone was shot and killed only a few blocks away has changed how he thinks about his own safety.

“Now I know that even I could be killed by ICE simply for existing,” he said, but he added that it will not stop his activism.

“It will not stop me from standing up and speaking up for people that are marginalized in any way, especially immigrants,” he said. “America was built on the backs of immigrants. We must stand up and support our immigrant siblings.”

Callaghan rooted his resolve in both faith and history, invoking Jesus as an immigrant child fleeing political violence and describing protest as part of his spiritual DNA — and the DNA of Metropolitan Community Church congregations nationwide.

He said Minneapolis residents have become deeply practiced in nonviolent resistance following the murder of George Floyd, learning how to organize, show up, and demand accountability even in moments of deep grief. The community response to Good’s killing, he said, reflects that legacy — one of collective action, mutual support, and refusal to be silenced.

“ICE can come and do all that they want to do,” Callaghan said, “but they’d better know that they’re going to be confronted with people who are going to stand up and speak up.”

The Advocate contacted Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin for comment on Callaghan’s allegations. When asked about the incident, McLaughlin refused to answer questions about the officers, instead asking, “Do you know why our officers wear masks?”