I Had Never Been to a Protest Until ICE Invaded My City

I was just a guy on the couch. Now I’m a full-time activist.

By Chris Ostroushko

My actual name is Chris, but a lot of people know me now as “MN Angry Man.” Truth is, I never asked for that nickname, or for a lot of people to know who I am. I never asked for any of this. My life used to be simple. I was sitting in my cushy house in the suburbs of Minneapolis, and I was getting so mad watching videos about what was happening to our city, as the Trump administration flooded the streets with armed, masked agents.

From my couch, I started arguing with people on social media, and I kept getting more and more frustrated. My wife was trying to ease her own anxiety over the situation by doing yoga, going to the gym, and doing lots of self care. She’d come home and find me ranting, constantly angry, and fighting with people online. She couldn’t find peace, and she kept asking me why I was putting my energy into fighting with people online instead of redirecting it into action or purpose.

That was the turning point.

I had never protested in my life. Never. My brother is the one who does that stuff, not me. But after a federal agent killed Renee Good, something in me just couldn’t stay quiet. My wife and I went down to Good’s memorial on the Sunday after she was killed. I started talking to people there, hearing their stories, and learning more about the inhumane, horrible ways federal agents were treating people in my city. The more stories I heard, the more I wanted to find out the truth of what was happening in Minneapolis. And the national media was not covering the full story.

So, my wife and I decided to start going down to Whipple, the federal building where the government is incarcerating detained immigrants. On the night of Wednesday, January 14, we got wind that there was a situation happening in North Minneapolis. We decided to go see what was going on, and we got there right after an ICE agent shot Julio C. Sosa-Celis. What I walked into did not feel like a normal neighborhood—it was total pandemonium. It felt like a war zone.

You see all this stuff on the news, the administration talking about “law and order” or “securing the streets.” Let me tell you what that actually looks like based on what I’ve witnessed. It looks like American citizens getting shot with tear gas, pepper bullets, and other “less-than-lethal” rounds just for standing on a sidewalk and protesting. That night in North Minneapolis, we got hit with all this stuff, choking on the air in our own city.

Zach from the independent media channel Status Coup tried to interview me four times while all of this was going on. I kept telling him “no.” I didn't want the spotlight. And my brother had told me about the importance of staying anonymous, so that our family couldn’t be targeted by federal agents. But finally, after watching those agents fire on us, watching the absolute insanity of it, I snapped. I was so upset. I finally said, "You know what? F**k it. Just follow me around and I'll talk to you."

That rant went viral. Two million views. The next morning, people and friends were messaging me from L.A., Colorado, even Germany. At first I had no clue the clip was so popular. I went to work and my wife called me, totally scared. She asked me, “Are we supposed to uproot and move now?” Of course, I was glad that my words resonated with people, but I didn’t intend to put my family and myself in the spotlight. It was a little scary at first.

But here’s one thing you have to understand: these federal agents are trying to scare people. They aren’t trying to be polite or follow the rules. Federal agents act like they have absolute immunity for their actions. They feel like they can do whatever they want. And the scary thing is, if we don’t speak up, fight back, and reclaim this democracy, it might turn out that they’re right in the end.

The government says this “Metro Surge” operation is about undocumented immigrants—and just the dangerous ones. That is a lie and I’ve witnessed it with my own eyes. They’re going after anybody who disagrees with what they’re doing. And even if it was “just” immigrants, I’d still be here doing this, because our community is made up of immigrants from all over. They don’t deserve to be subjected to the government’s violent, unwarranted, and dehumanizing tactics.

I have friends—people born here, people with jobs and families—who got detained. All they were doing was driving home from work. As I said in my rant, “What the f**k?” Since when is driving home a crime? And it’s not just the detentions. I’ve watched agents detain people, cuff them, render them completely defenseless, and then still beat them up. That isn’t policy. That’s brutality.

I’m a regular guy. I have a family, a job, and a life that, until recently, didn’t include any of this stuff. But I’m also a person who cares about people, and I love the place that I call home. I could not sit by while masked agents tore my community apart, and went after my friends and neighbors.

I’m just here trying to stand up for my city. Call it cliché, but we’re all human beings here. I don’t care who you are, what color you are, how or when you got here. It doesn’t matter. This is wrong. I’m not going to look the other way.

Since that video went viral, I’ve pretty much turned into a full-time activist. I’ve been out there in the streets almost every day. I’ve spoken before bigger crowds than I ever would have imagined, and talked to more reporters and news outlets than I can count. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around it, to be honest. I created a movement just by ranting about a horrible situation. But obviously, the words resonated because everyone else is seeing the same thing I am. They’re seeing the injustice.

So here is my message to everyone watching this happen: Don’t bow down.

Make sure you are observing and recording everything. Pull out your phones. Don’t let them work in the dark. Protest. Speak out. Because someday this will end. This administration, these policies—they aren’t forever.

Chris Ostroushko had never been to a protest until he went viral as “MN Angry Man.” He is a participant in Home of the Brave, an initiative dedicated to exposing this administration’s corruption, cruelty, and lawlessness.