Mary Rooke Commentary and Analysis Writer
The media spun a narrative that Destiny Jackson, a 32-year-old mother of six from Minneapolis, and her family were innocent bystanders when Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deployed tear gas under their car.
The Jackson family was reportedly driving home from their son’s basketball game when they got caught between law enforcement and protesters. CNN immediately had her on as a guest to detail how her 6-month-old infant was gasping for air and needed CPR. She told the audience that she had to wash tear gas out of her other children’s eyes. This story gained widespread sympathy, and the family labeled themselves as “ICE victims” in a GoFundMe campaign that raised over $176,000. Or so the story goes. But with most narratives propped up by left-wing media, apply the slightest bit of scrutiny, and the house of cards collapses.
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OMFG!
LIES. We are being lied to.
Remember the sob story about the family with the baby getting tear gassed at the north Minneapolis riot last Wednesday, Jan. 14? They said they were just passing through the area on the way home from their son’s basketball game.NO! Here they… pic.twitter.com/1uryQj2Sdw
— CrimeWatchMpls (@CrimeWatchMpls) January 21, 2026
The emotionally charged portrayal of the family as helpless victims began to unravel as inconsistencies in her story show that she played a more active role in the protests than she initially admitted. One of the core pillars of Jackson’s initial story was that her family was unwittingly caught in the middle of the protest, and even Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison echoed her claims in a statement to CNN.
She said her family pulled over because a road was blocked. They were supposedly trapped by escalating chaos and couldn’t drive away before the tear gas hit. She admitted that her husband left the vehicle, but said only to assess the situation. She also said she left to find her mother, who was attending the protest. (Sign up for Mary Rooke’s weekly newsletter here!)
New video footage, first reported by Crime Watch Mpls, shows Jackson and her husband, without their children, lingering at or near the protest site for at least 45 minutes. Jackson is heard engaging with protesters from the same livestream, saying, “We’re going to kill these motherf**kers,” reportedly saying this about ICE agents in response to a question about whether protesters had weapons or guns. Jackson later claimed that her comments were sarcastic and that she believes that “shooting and killing people is unacceptable.”
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One of our followers went through the livestream video of the Jan. 14 north Minneapolis riot to document that Shawn and Destiny Jackson were still milling around and outside their vehicle just minutes and moments before tear gas was deployed.https://t.co/1cX9se3YVj— CrimeWatchMpls (@CrimeWatchMpls) January 23, 2026
CNN, which initially propped Jackson up as a victim of ICE’s brutality, said it cannot independently verify her claim that the vehicle was physically trapped when the protest heated up.
If you have vulnerable children (several reportedly have severe asthma), why are you staying almost an hour at an anti-ICE protest, especially knowing how violent and chaotic they typically end up being? Additionally, why are you threatening to kill ICE agents on a livestream?
The narrative that Jackson and her husband were passive and blameless only holds up if you have the deductive reasoning skills of a koala.
Female anti-ICE protesters have played a key role in the chaos in Minnesota. They are textbook militant practitioners of left-wing orthodoxy. Without religion’s emphasis on humility and divine purpose, these women elevate political identity as the mark of a “holy” life. Nothing is more important to them than devoutly following the core tenets of their faith; even their children’s safety comes second to marching on.
Jackson is no different than the viral Minneapolis mother who posted a video bundling her 18-month-old to go out in sub-zero temperatures to protest ICE. She ended her performative video admitting that the reason she is risking her child’s life is “because my babies aren’t more important than else’s.” This is textbook left-wing orthodoxy zealotry. She’s prostrating herself before the idols of equality, collectivism, and expanded empathy. This is what happens when ideology overrides instinct. It’s a bastardization of maternal protectionism.
BREAKING – A Minneapolis “mother” is going viral after taking her 18 month old baby out into sub zero temperatures to protest against ICE because, in her own words, her baby doesn’t hold any more value than that of an illegal. pic.twitter.com/aDS9h8foM2
— Right Angle News Network (@Rightanglenews) January 23, 2026
These women are literally carrying their children into the fray because not risking their children’s lives to save a convicted or accused child rapist from being deported would perpetuate inequality, and we can’t have that.
Jackson maintains her family’s trauma is real and undeserved. And she may be right about her children experiencing trauma from this incident and the fact that they didn’t deserve it. However, the culprit here is not ICE agents trying to protect each other from violent mobs. Jackson and her husband chose to go to the protest, get out of the car, and mingle with fellow protesters for about 45 minutes. They put their children in danger. The only reason their infant needed CPR and their other children needed care for their tear gas-soaked eyes was because of them. (5 Left-Wing Deceptions That Shaped The Trump Border Agenda Debate)
The case of the Jackson family seems to be yet another left-wing hoax cooked up to make victims out of perpetrators with the help of their cronies in the corrupt media.
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