The country keeps trying to file these incidents as separate folders.

Minneapolis: ICE shoots and kills a woman in the street.

Portland: federal agents shoot two people during a vehicle stop.

Columbus: residents trade sightings in group chats and Facebook posts, because official channels won’t — or can’t — provide clarity.

But the folders all belong in the same cabinet.

Because the pattern isn’t random. It’s procedural.

And the question Columbus keeps avoiding isn’t “Is this happening here?”

It’s: “How close are we to it turning deadly?”

A 48-hour timeline of federal force — and public backlash

Wednesday, Jan. 7 — Minneapolis

A 37-year-old woman, Renée Nicole Macklin Good, is shot and killed by an ICE agent in south Minneapolis during a federal operation. Within hours, competing narratives harden: federal officials frame it as self-defense; local leaders say the video doesn’t support the story.

The killing happens less than a mile from where George Floyd was murdered — in a city that has become global shorthand for what state violence looks like when it’s caught on camera.

Then Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey does something rare: he speaks like a human being.

He calls the official story “bullshit.”

And to ICE, he says: “Get the fuck out of Minneapolis.”

That isn’t just profanity. It’s a boundary.

Thursday, Jan. 8 — Portland

A day later, in Portland, federal agents shoot two people during what DHS describes as a “targeted vehicle stop.” Again, the same ingredients appear: a vehicle, a claim that it was “weaponized,” gunfire, confusion, and protests outside a federal facility.

Friday, Jan. 9 — Columbus

Columbus isn’t watching this from the sidelines.

ICE has been active here under “Operation Buckeye,” and the community response is no longer abstract — it’s operational: people are trying to warn each other in real time.

Which brings us to the most revealing detail of all: in the absence of official transparency, residents build their own systems.

The vehicle script: how “public safety” gets narrated

Across Minneapolis and Portland — and in Columbus’ own recent history — the same justification repeats so often it should be printed on the back of the badge:

A person is in a vehicle.

Officers/agents move in close.

The vehicle becomes the alleged threat.

Shots fired.

“Self-defense.”

The argument shifts from the bullet to the wording.

This is not a metaphor. Columbus already lived the local version.

In August 2023, Ta’Kiya Young — 21, pregnant — was killed in the Columbus area after a confrontation at her vehicle. Bodycam footage showed an officer in front of her car as it moved; he fired through the windshield. In November 2025, a jury acquitted the officer of all charges.

Different badge. Same logic. Same aftermath: grief, video, legal insulation.

A detail that keeps getting people hurt: identity and confusion

In the publicly circulated bystander videos from Minneapolis, you hear commands — urgent, shouted orders — but in the audio that has been shared widely, there is not a clean, unmistakable moment where agents calmly identify themselves in a way that would reduce confusion instantly.

That matters because this is the street, not a courtroom transcript. If armed people rush a vehicle and bark orders without clearly announcing who they are, the result is predictable: panic, misinterpretation, split-second decisions — and tragedy.

Cities like Columbus don’t have to “cooperate” with ICE to inherit the consequences of ICE tactics. They just have to share streets.

Columbus: “Operation Buckeye” plus an information vacuum

ICE has already been running elevated enforcement in central Ohio. City leaders have offered careful statements: Columbus doesn’t enforce federal immigration law, and the increased presence is described as unwelcome.

But the lived experience on the ground is simpler than the press releases:

Residents don’t feel “informed.”

They feel uncertain.

And in uncertainty, fear spreads faster than facts.

That vacuum is now being filled — publicly — by grassroots tracking.

Late-breaking: Columbus residents are now crowd-sourcing ICE sightings

On Friday, January 9, a local activist network Columbus 50501, posting alongside 614 ICE Watch, shared an “ICE Update” graphic and caption stating that “ICE is Back in Columbus” and urging residents to “be aware and cautious.

The post listed community-reported sightings around the city — including the State Route 161 corridor near Toro Market, the Morse Road area, the Cleveland Avenue corridor, and the Godown Dog Park area, among other general locations.

The Free Press has not independently verified each reported sighting. But the significance isn’t whether every timestamp and location is perfect — it’s what the post represents: a public that no longer expects official channels to protect them with information.

When government won’t provide clarity, people start building their own warning systems.

That’s not “panic.” That’s adaptation.

The mayor test: Minneapolis drew a line. Portland demanded a halt. Columbus is hedging.

Minneapolis’ mayor told ICE to leave — in language nobody could misunderstand.

Portland’s leadership demanded federal operations stop locally after Thursday’s shooting.

Columbus’ leadership has offered disapproval, but not an ultimatum. Not a line. Not the kind of public posture that changes behavior.

Which forces the blunt question Columbus keeps trying to soften:

When will Mayor Andy Ginther grow a spine and tell ICE to get the fuck out of our city — before someone gets killed here?

Not as theater. As governance.

Because a city that waits for the body first is not “managing public safety.”

It’s managing optics.

What we still don’t know — and what officials won’t answer

If this is going to be treated like public safety, then the public deserves public answers:

What exactly are the rules of engagement for federal agents operating in Columbus neighborhoods?

Are agents required to clearly identify themselves — visually and verbally — and when?

What is Columbus’ rapid-response protocol when federal operations spill into local streets?

Who is accountable when narratives conflict and video tells a different story?

If residents are reduced to crowd-sourcing sightings, what does that say about trust in local leadership?

The warning isn’t Minneapolis. The warning is the pattern.

Minneapolis is not “over there.” Portland is not “somewhere else.”

They’re the latest examples of what happens when enforcement expands, tensions rise, vehicles become “threats,” and accountability becomes a debate instead of a process.

Columbus already has the ingredients. The only question left is whether leadership will act before the next memorial, or only speak after it.