How a months-old press conference became the center of a national narrative — and why the full story is far more complicated than headlines suggest

As tensions over federal immigration enforcement continue to grip American cities, one video clip has circulated more than almost any other on social media: Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling standing at a podium, delivering an unusually blunt warning to anyone who might physically obstruct federal agents. The clip went viral in January 2026, praised by millions as a rare moment of clarity from a major-city law enforcement leader. But the story behind that video — and the broader conflict it represents — is significantly more complex than the viral narrative suggests.

A Warning That Predates the Flashpoint
Snelling’s remarks were not, as widely shared posts claim, a response to the fatal shooting of Renee Nicole Good by an ICE agent in Minneapolis on January 7, 2026. The press conference took place on October 6, 2025 — three months earlier — following a separate set of incidents in Chicago involving federal agents and civilians. That distinction matters, because it changes the context entirely.
On October 4, 2025, a 30-year-old U.S. citizen named Marimar Martinez was shot five times by a Customs and Border Protection agent after her vehicle and a federal law enforcement vehicle collided in Chicago. A federal criminal complaint accused Martinez of ramming the federal vehicle. Two days later, Snelling held a press conference to address public confusion about CPD’s role in those incidents and to clarify the legal landscape around interactions with federal officers.
During that briefing, Snelling delivered remarks that would later be stripped of their original context and repackaged as commentary on the Minneapolis shooting. He stated plainly that ICE and Homeland Security Investigations agents are sworn law enforcement officers, and that civilians who box in, ram, or persistently follow federal vehicles are engaging in conduct that can legally and practically justify a use-of-force response. He warned that ramming any vehicle containing law enforcement officers constitutes deadly force under the law, and that doing so opens the door to a lethal response.
Those statements are factually grounded in established use-of-force doctrine. But a fact-check by MEAWW confirmed that Snelling made no reference to the Minneapolis incident, and his remarks have since been mischaracterized online as a direct endorsement of ICE agent Jonathan Ross’s actions — something Snelling never stated.

What Actually Happened in Minneapolis
The shooting of Renee Nicole Good on January 7, 2026 is a separate event entirely — one that has generated its own wave of investigation, protest, and political response.
Good, a 37-year-old U.S. citizen and mother of three, was fatally shot by ICE agent Jonathan Ross during a confrontation on a residential street in south Minneapolis. Multiple video recordings of the incident exist. According to an ABC News metadata analysis, 399 milliseconds separated the first two gunshots fired by Ross. The Department of Homeland Security claimed Good attempted to weaponize her vehicle against the agent. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey publicly disputed that characterization after reviewing the footage.
The FBI has taken over the investigation. Good’s death was the ninth time since September 2025 that ICE agents opened fire on individuals across five states and Washington, D.C. A YouGov/Economist poll conducted January 16–19 found that 66 percent of Americans surveyed said the shooter should be investigated, while 53 percent said ICE behaved unprofessionally during the encounter.
The shooting detonated a political firestorm that has since engulfed multiple cities — including Chicago, where the underlying tensions between local government and federal immigration enforcement had already been simmering for months.

Snelling’s Balancing Act
What the viral clip omits is that Snelling’s October 6 press conference was also an exercise in navigating competing pressures from both sides. He acknowledged that his officers were being used as political pawns. He confirmed that CPD abides by the Illinois TRUST Act, which restricts local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration enforcement and bars the department from collecting or sharing residents’ immigration status.
At the same time, he stated that Chicago police “cannot and will not” arrest federal agents conducting immigration enforcement in Chicago. He urged residents not to physically interfere with those operations, regardless of their political views on immigration policy.
He also admitted there had likely been miscommunication between high-ranking CPD officials regarding the department’s response to the October incidents and committed to an internal investigation. “One thing about law enforcement, I’ll tell you this right now: You’re damned if you do, and you’re damned if you don’t. We accept that,” he told reporters.
It was not, in other words, a one-sided endorsement of federal authority. It was a superintendent trying to thread an extraordinarily narrow needle between state law, federal operations, public safety, and political crossfire — and being candid about how difficult that balance is.

Mayor Johnson’s Escalating Response
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson has staked out a position on the other end of the spectrum — though his actual statements are more precisely framed than how they have been characterized by partisan coverage.
In October 2025, Johnson signed an executive order establishing “ICE-free zones” on city property, prohibiting federal agents from using city-owned parking lots, garages, vacant lots, or school grounds as staging areas for immigration enforcement. The order included provisions for signage and encouraged private landowners to do the same.
On January 31, 2026 — just weeks after the Minneapolis shooting reignited the national debate — Johnson signed a second executive order, designated EO 2026-01 and titled “ICE On Notice.” This directive instructs CPD to document federal immigration enforcement activity, including through body-worn cameras, and to refer evidence of felony violations by federal agents to the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office for potential prosecution. Chicago became the first city in the country to formally create that framework.
Johnson’s language has been sharply critical. He has described federal immigration operations as “lawless” and accused them of “terrorizing” Chicago residents. But the characterization that he called ICE “Trump’s lawless, racist force” does not appear in his verified public statements. His actual framing has focused on accountability for agents who he says violate constitutional protections — a distinction that matters in understanding the legal and political argument he is actually making.
The Department of Homeland Security has pushed back forcefully, with spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin calling claims of criminal misconduct by ICE agents “FALSE” and stating that DHS personnel are held to the “highest professional standard.”

The Larger Pattern
The conflict playing out between Chicago’s city government and the federal government is not an isolated dispute. It is one node in a rapidly expanding network of confrontations between the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement apparatus and Democratic-led cities and states.
Nine local district attorneys launched a coalition in late January 2026 to assist in prosecuting federal law enforcement officers who violate state laws. New York Governor Kathy Hochul proposed legislation prohibiting cooperation agreements between local police and ICE. A federal judge in Minnesota identified 96 court orders that ICE agents had violated since January 1, 2026, alone.
Border czar Tom Homan acknowledged publicly that the immigration enforcement effort in Minnesota needed to be “fixed,” saying his team was working on a drawdown plan while sharpening the operational focus on undocumented individuals with criminal records. He conceded that “not everything that’s been done here has been perfect.”
Superintendent Snelling’s October warning — stripped of context and recirculated as a battle cry — captured something real: the legal and physical danger that confronting armed federal officers can create. But the full picture of what is happening in Chicago, in Minneapolis, and in cities across the country does not fit neatly into any single narrative. It is a story about competing authorities, competing definitions of lawfulness, and the consequences when those definitions collide on the streets of American cities.

Sources: ABC7 Chicago, WTTW News, CNN, NBC News, ABC News, Chicago Sun-Times, City of Chicago Mayor’s Office (chicago.gov), CBS News Chicago, MEAWW Fact Check, Wikipedia (Killing of Renee Good), YouGov/Economist polling data.