Feds: Many agents targeted since ID documents stolen during unrest at Minneapolis shooting

As many as 15 FBI agents and employees have been harassed and threatened since identification documents were stolen last month from two vandalized federal government vehicles during unrest in Minneapolis involving anti-ICE demonstrators, according to a criminal complaint.

The disclosure came in a complaint last week in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis charging Jose Alberto Ramirez, 28, of suburban Chicago with transmitting a threat to injure someone.

Ramirez was arrested on Jan. 29 and appeared in a northern Illinois courtroom for a detention hearing on Feb. 3, when “we argued strenuously for his release” ahead of his transfer to Minnesota, defense attorney Joshua Kutnick told the Minnesota Star Tribune.

More broadly, the complaint against Ramirez reveals how widespread the consequences have been following the theft of the government identification documents in north Minneapolis on Jan. 14, when agents’ vehicles were vandalized and government property, including two guns, were stolen during a chaotic protest after a federal agent shot and wounded a man fleeing authorities.

The shooting occurred seven days after the killing of Renee Good by an ICE agent and more than a week before the killing of Alex Pretti by Border Patrol agents.

“After the employees’ personal information and documentation was compromised,” the complaint read, “several of the documents, including residential addresses, phone numbers, and emails, were posted publicly online on social media.”

It would not be long, the complaint continued, before “approximately 10 to 15 FBI agents and employees ... began receiving multiple harassing and threatening phone calls and emails and suspicious drive-bys to their residences, where vehicles would slow down as they passed the employees’ residences before driving away.”

According to the complaint:

Ramirez made threats of physical harm against the Minnesota-based agent and his child, who is away at school out of state, that include his accurate name, a racial epithet and references to firebombing and going after his parents and a child as well as a Facebook direct message to the child discussing how much information was available about the agent.

The agent told an investigator the message was so upsetting that he considered relocating his child to another state. The agent added that he has taken “significant security precautions at work and a home to ensure the safety” of himself and his immediate family.

The messages in their various forms came from “23 different senders to [the agent’s] work cellphone,” according to the complaint, which did not reveal whether other suspects have been identified.

One string of text messages sent to the agent included the sender’s phone number, which led investigators to identify and arrest Ramirez, who lives in Schaumburg, Ill.