Did anti-ICE protesters in Minneapolis smash car windows? Here’s the truth

Claim:

A video authentically documents the aftermath of an anti-ICE protest in Minneapolis on Jan. 30, 2026, showing demonstrators broke dozens of car windows during a march.

Rating:

Context

The video showing a row of parked vehicles with broken windows dated to Jan. 29, the day before the Jan. 30 anti-ICE demonstration. Minneapolis Police spokesperson Trevor Folke confirmed to Snopes details of the window-smashing incident on Jan. 29, adding, “There is nothing to indicate the damage was related to protest activity.” It was unknown who broke the windows at the time of this writing.

A rumor that circulated online in January 2026 claimed a video documented the aftermath of a protest against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents in Minneapolis on Jan. 30, 2026, and showed that demonstrators broke dozens of car windows during their march.

For example, users on Facebook (archived), Instagram (archived) and X (archived) shared the video, which consisted of two clips simultaneously playing side by side. The video on the left showed an alleged aerial view of a Jan. 30 anti-ICE protest in Minneapolis, and the video on the right showed construction workers looking at a row of parked vehicles with shattered windows.

The caption of one such post read, “BREAKING – Leftist anti ICE agitators marched through Minneapolis yesterday, smashing the driver side windows of cars they encountered and leaving many construction and blue collar workers with their vehicles destroyed.”

Other (archived) users (archived) shared (archived) only the clip showing smashed car windows (or still images from the clip), also alleging the people who demonstrated on Jan. 30 vandalized the vehicles. The clip displayed the caption, “60 Windows broken into working downtown Minneapolis.”

In short, both clips (the aerial view of the protest and the footage of the smashed windows) were real videos of scenes in Minneapolis, which meant they were not generated using artificial intelligence (AI). But the claim that the parked vehicles showed damage from protesters on Jan. 30 was false. In other words, users who spread the rumor were sharing genuine videos with misleading and untrue captions.

In reality, the video showing construction workers and broken car windows originated from Jan. 29, the day before the Jan. 30 anti-ICE march, and the identity of the individual (or individuals) who smashed the windows was unknown.

Minneapolis Police spokesperson Trevor Folke confirmed to Snopes via email the contents of a Jan. 29 incident report documenting 24 damaged vehicles in the same location as the video. Folke added, “There is nothing to indicate the damage was related to protest activity.”

Reports of people breaking windows on multiple cars in one area have long affected Minneapolis residents, before 2026 anti-ICE protests. Online searches for the terms “Minneapolis” and “broken car windows” located numerous news articles and video reports since July 2025 documenting cases of people breaking dozens or hundreds of car windows in sprees.

In the side-by-side video, the left side clip authentically matched a high-angle view (archived) of a large Minneapolis “ICE Out” march on Jan. 30. The original videographer was unknown. 

A reverse image search found the video showing construction workers looking at the car window damage originated with Instagram user @grantamelse. That account posted (archived) the video just after 11 a.m. on Jan. 29. (We submitted a comment under the user’s post asking for further information about the video, including if the user personally filmed it and, if so, when.)

The location in the user’s video — found in Google “Street View” — matched the area of East 21st Street, just west of 14th Avenue South, in Minneapolis. Construction depicted in the clip pertained to a new building for the Native American Community Clinic. We did not locate evidence suggesting a large crowd of protesters marched on the same block on Jan. 30.

A second video (archived) documenting the same vehicle damage appeared online before the Jan. 30 protest and march. A third video posted (archived) on Feb. 1 featured a caption alleging the crime occurred morning of Jan. 29.

People across the U.S. dubbed Jan. 30 a “Nationwide Day of Action,” urging people not to go to school, work or shop in protest of the U.S. President Donald Trump administration’s immigration enforcement tactics. Crowds in cities nationwide, in addition to Minneapolis, took to the streets. The protests followed the Minneapolis fatal shootings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of federal agents.

Similarly, we previously fact-checked a photo that some people erroneously believed showed mounds of trash left by protesters in Seattle.

Sources