Did ICE agents pepper spray students at a school?
Executive summary
Multiple news reports describe federal agents deploying chemical irritants during the chaotic federal operation in Minneapolis, and a Roosevelt High School student told KSTP that “some students were pepper‑sprayed” during an apparent ICE presence at the school [1]; however, available reporting provides no corroborated, on‑the‑record confirmation from officials that ICE agents intentionally pepper‑sprayed students inside school grounds, only eyewitness claims and video showing agents using irritants on nearby protesters [1] [2] [3].
1. What the direct claims say: a student’s account of pepper spray at Roosevelt
Local station KSTP published a student report saying apparent ICE agents arrived at Roosevelt High School, that administrators tried to get them off school property, and that “some students were pepper‑sprayed during the incident,” while video from the scene shows federal agents and a person on the ground [1]; that student statement is the primary piece of reporting that asserts students were pepper‑sprayed at the school [1].
2. Broader visual and media evidence: agents using chemical irritants on crowds nearby
Independent video and multiple outlets documented federal agents deploying chemical irritants—CNBC described a Border Patrol Tactical Unit agent spraying pepper spray into the face of a protester, and Fox9 reported agents appearing to deploy pepper balls as they moved through a crowd where some people threw snowballs at them [2] [3]; similar coverage and opinion pieces note media investigations finding repeated uses of teargas and pepper projectiles during recent ICE operations [4] [5].
3. What official sources have (not) confirmed
Reporting collected here does not include an on‑record statement from ICE or school officials explicitly confirming that ICE agents pepper‑sprayed students on school property; the school district did cancel classes for safety reasons after the shooting and related incidents, but the cancellations are described as precautionary rather than an admission that students were deliberately targeted with chemical agents [6] [7] [1].
4. Context matters: protests, crowd control, and proximity to a shooting
The crowd control context is central: agents fatally shot a woman earlier that day, which drew large protests and a heavily armed federal presence in neighborhoods and near schools, and multiple outlets describe confrontations between agents and protesters—including throwing of snowballs and subsequent use of irritants—so any chemical exposure of students might plausibly be collateral from crowd control actions near, rather than inside, classrooms [2] [3] [1] [6].
5. Competing narratives and possible agendas in coverage
Official voices defending agents framed the operations as necessary and claimed agents faced threats, while local officials and protesters characterized the agent actions as excessive; outlets like Newsweek and The Guardian capture these divergent frames, meaning eyewitness claims—powerful but not equivalent to verified facts—can be amplified by partisan narratives on both sides [7] [6]; this reporting sample contains eyewitness testimony and video of irritant use but lacks an unequivocal, independently verified chain of evidence that students on school property were deliberately pepper‑sprayed by ICE.
6. Bottom line answer
Based on the sources reviewed: there is a contemporaneous student eyewitness report that “some students were pepper‑sprayed” at Roosevelt High School [1], and there is corroborating visual and media evidence that federal agents deployed pepper spray/pepper balls against protesters nearby [2] [3], but there is no confirmed, on‑record official verification in these reports that ICE agents intentionally pepper‑sprayed students inside the school; the claim remains plausible but not independently corroborated by the available reporting [1] [2] [3] [6].