{"id":41567,"date":"2026-06-17T12:35:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T12:35:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/41567\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T12:35:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T12:35:18","slug":"protesters-sprayed-with-chemical-outside-st-paul-courthouse-during-antifa-case-hearing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/41567\/","title":{"rendered":"Protesters sprayed with chemical outside St. Paul courthouse during antifa case hearing"},"content":{"rendered":"

A group protesting charges against 15 people accused of anti-ICE actions was sprayed by law enforcement with a chemical irritant outside the federal courthouse in St. Paul.<\/p>\n

It happened in the 2 o\u2019clock hour Tuesday afternoon, just hours after the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office announced charges against 15 people allegedly tied to two Minneapolis-based antifa groups.<\/p>\n

RELATED: US Attorney for Minnesota charges 15 anti-ICE protesters, alleging ties to antifa groups<\/a><\/p>\n

Several of those defendants were appearing in court for the first time at 2 p.m.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe tried to get into the courthouse to pack the court,\u201d a protester told 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS. However, after the court filled up, the protester said their group waited outside and held the courthouse doors open.<\/p>\n

\"\"A protester reacts after being sprayed with a chemical irritant outside the St. Paul federal courthouse on June 16, 2026. (KSTP-TV)<\/p>\n

After initially refusing an order to shut the courthouse doors, the protester said security deployed tear gas or some other chemical irritant.<\/p>\n

Video captured by a 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS photographer showed an orange chemical on the outside of a door to the courthouse, where two apparent chemical canisters remained on the ground.<\/p>\n

Dozens of protesters were heard chanting, \u201cDrop the charges, drop them now.\u201d<\/p>\n

5 EYEWITNESS NEWS has reached out to the U.S. Marshals for comment on what happened but hasn\u2019t yet heard back.<\/p>\n

This is a developing story. 5 EYEWITNESS NEWS has crews at the scene and will continue to update this story as more details are confirmed.<\/p>\n

To get the latest updates, download the KSTP app below.<\/p>\n

\"iPhone<\/a>\"Android<\/a>\"ICE<\/a>Click the image above for more ICE-related coverage.
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFor Related Stories:\u00a0Court<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Federal Court<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Pilar Pedraza<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0Protest<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0St. Paul<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A group protesting charges against 15 people accused of anti-ICE actions was sprayed by law enforcement with a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":41568,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[5814,1506,8,9,23650,1423,7212,7],"class_list":["post-41567","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-top-stories","tag-court","tag-federal-court","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-pilar-pedraza","tag-protest","tag-st-paul","tag-top-stories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116765479801762113","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41567","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41567"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41567\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41568"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41567"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41567"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41567"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}