The wintry whiteout that swept across half the United States over the weekend could not erase what the country had just seen unfold in Minneapolis. No amount of snow could block out the images: furious protesters clashing with masked officers, clouds of tear gas wafting through neighborhoods — and for the second time in three weeks, video of an American citizen being shot dead by a federal agent.
And for the second time in three weeks, the Trump administration’s account of a deadly shooting contradicted what many in the country believe they saw. Federal officials described both victims as “domestic terrorists” intent on harming federal agents; critics of the administration, and many others, said such a description was belied by the video evidence.
Scenes from the violent unrest in Minneapolis played on a loop throughout the weekend, overshadowing the extreme weather and two N.F.L. playoff games. The images conveyed the unmistakable sense of consequence, of a watershed moment, prompting reflections about what the nation stands for, and where it is heading. Minneapolis seemed close, no matter where one lived.
In Georgia, a high school teacher anticipated the questions his students would ask about the latest shooting death. In Indiana, broadcasts of the violence dampened a 97th birthday celebration. In Iowa, a married couple, on an outing with their autistic son, disagreed about what had happened, while in Wisconsin, a supporter of President Trump marveled at what she considered the stupidity of some protesters.
And in Rhode Island, a snowbound student at Brown University cried when he saw the video from Saturday of immigration officers pepper-spraying Alex Pretti, a 37- year-old registered nurse, wrestling him to the cold Minneapolis ground, and shooting him to death.
“I didn’t get any sleep last night,” the student, Jack DiPrimio, 23, said on Sunday. “The video was just replaying over and over again in my head.”
The weekend’s turn of events in Minnesota began with a campaign promise. Since returning to office a year ago, President Trump has sought to make good on his vow to rid the country of undocumented immigrants he describes as criminals.
Agents for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have carried out sweeps in a succession of Democrat-controlled cities, all the while being dogged by protesters. Critics have denounced the operations as cruel, often unconstitutional, fraught with mistaken or improper detentions — even un-American.
In December, ICE turned to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area with a focus on its large Somali community. The Trump administration has blamed an ongoing fraud scandal in Minnesota, involving billions of dollars in federal funding, on the state’s Somali immigrants, whom Mr. Trump demonized as “garbage” in comments widely denounced as bigoted.
Then, on Jan. 7, an ICE agent fired three times into an S.U.V. as it was pulling away from a confrontation, killing the 37-year-old driver, Renee Good. Federal officials have maintained that the agent acted in self-defense, while state and local officials have disputed that account of the fatal moment, which was filmed from several angles.
Tensions continued to escalate all month, with furious protests, arrests and the shooting and wounding of a Venezuelan man by an immigration officer.
Then: Saturday.
Mr. Pretti, a nurse at a Veterans Affairs hospital with no criminal record, was using his cellphone to record a protest when he stepped between a woman and an immigration agent who was pepper spraying her. As he, too, was hit with pepper spray, several agents threw him to the ground and, in the ensuing scrum, saw that he had a gun, which he never drew and was legally carrying.
They opened fire, in a brutal scene that was witnessed, recorded and quickly shared.
As the inclement weather brought much of the country to a standstill, many people could not help but see the disturbing video, hear the Trump administration’s rushed justifications — including the unsubstantiated claim by Gregory Bovino, a senior Border Patrol official, that Mr. Pretti had been out to “massacre law enforcement” — and ruminate.
In Crown Point, Ind., more than a dozen family members gathered Saturday night to celebrate the 97th birthday of Jerry Weber. But they found themselves glued to the television and the disturbing reports from Minnesota, including another shooting death.
“It’s kind of like living in your own world and living in a second world at the same time,” said Mr. Weber’s son, Gerry Weber, a civil rights attorney. “We drove through a snowstorm to get to our family’s house and celebrate dad’s birthday, and then we’re back to the television, watching America fall apart.”
Mr. Weber had flown in from the Atlanta area, where Ray Brown, 40, who teaches advanced-placement U.S. history at Northview High School, in Johns Creek, Ga., was also trying to process what was happening in Minnesota — and how he would respond to questions from his students about the constitutionality, and propriety, of the government’s actions.
The teacher said that he tries to give his students, many of whom are from immigrant families, the space to question why certain federal departments exist.
“I’m going to have to present a very diplomatic view,” Mr. Brown said. “Which is revolting to hear myself say, because I think that taking a life is wrong, no matter what.”
In many frozen corners, people expressed admiration for the protesters in Minneapolis, as well as a resolve to follow their lead.
In south-central Pennsylvania, Brandie Kessler, a communications professional, spent Saturday night at the home of her in-laws just outside of Harrisburg. After arriving, she made a mordant comment to her mother-in-law as they sat in the living room.
“I said, kind of sarcastically, ‘I guess I need to prepare my own obituary in case there’s something that happens at a demonstration here,’” Ms. Kessler, 42, recalled. “In case I go out to peacefully protest — which I am completely entitled to do — and I’m gunned down.”
On Sunday morning, with snow blanketing the rolling landscape outside, Ms. Kessler felt frustrated, even disoriented, by what was happening, and not just in Minnesota. The polarization. The violence. The deaths.
“I don’t know everything there is to know about what happened in Minneapolis,” Ms. Kessler said, her voice breaking. “But I know what I saw. I don’t know how someone could watch the same thing and say everything is OK.”
Sandi Lipinski, a sales director in Waukesha, Wis., was not suggesting that everything was OK, but after going to church and running a few errands on Sunday, she shared a decidedly different view.
She said she supported President Trump’s efforts to detain and deport undocumented immigrants. And she expressed little sympathy for protesters who are following ICE agents around and sometimes taunting them.
“They are going to carry guns and use cars as weapons, then they run the risk of getting killed,” Ms. Lipinski, 62, said. “That’s just stupidity. They should stay home or go to work or go to school and stay out of the street and let everybody do their own jobs.”
Other stunning developments unfolded last week, including the Trump administration’s resolve to acquire Greenland. But the crisis in Minnesota seemed to dominate the nation’s collective thoughts.
In Waterville, Maine, Nancy Smith sat behind the counter of her store, Smitty’s Book Cellar, and thought about Minnesota — and the similar ICE operation that started last week in her own state. “I don’t want the same things to happen here,” Ms. Smith, 55, said. “I don’t want the same things to happen anywhere.”
In Atlanta, Jamie Christy, a 30-year-old lawyer who heads her neighborhood’s Young Republican chapter, did not see the video of Mr. Pretti’s shooting until taking a lunch break on Sunday. Soon she was replaying it again and again, at full and partial speed, to see what could have necessitated the use of deadly force.
“It’s completely unjustified,” she said.
And at an upscale mall in West Des Moines, Iowa, where the temperature was in the single digits, a married couple, Jennifer Stitz and Don Caves, finished their food-court meal on Sunday evening while trying to find common ground on Minnesota and the country. Mr. Caves’s 18-year-old son, Carsten, sat nearby, playing a game on a tablet.
Mr. Caves, a high school Bible teacher, and Ms. Stitz, an accountant, both voted for Mr. Trump in 2024. But as they discussed the shooting deaths in Minneapolis, their viewpoints diverged.
Mr. Caves, 62, said that the shootings were “absolutely terrible,” but he maintained that Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti had put themselves in harm’s way.
“I just don’t understand why people would interfere in other people doing their job, especially law enforcement,” Mr. Caves said. “Get out of their way. They’ve got guns.”
He said he supported peaceful protest, but added: “Don’t get in the way between point A and point B, the good guys going and getting the bad guys. And that’s the situation that our officers have been facing.”
Ms. Stitz, 54, listened quietly — and then disagreed.
She said she was troubled by both deaths in Minneapolis. Mr. Pretti, she said, had “every right” to carry a gun, and ICE agents could have simply let Ms. Good drive away and then trace her through her license plate. Both victims, she said, had the right to protest.
“This is not China or a communist country where, you know, you get killed for protesting,” Ms. Stitz said. She added: “Something needs to change, is what I feel.”
The mall was closing. The couple gathered up their leftover food and, with Mr. Caves’s son, headed out into the night’s unforgiving cold.
David C. Adams contributed reporting from Miami; Curt Anderson from St. Petersburg, Fla., Murray Carpenter from Belfast, Maine; Sydney Cromwell from Waterville, Maine; Kristi Eaton from Tulsa, Abigail Geiger from Carlisle, Pa.; Sean Keenan from Atlanta; Ann Hinga Klein from West Des Moines, Iowa; Tom Li from Providence; Eduardo Medina from Durham, N.C.; Alessandro Marazzi Sassoon from Atlanta; Jamie McGee from Nashville and Dan Simmons from Milwaukee.
Dan Barry is a longtime reporter and columnist, having written both the “This Land” and “About New York” columns. The author of several books, he writes on myriad topics, including New York City, sports, culture and the nation.
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