Roughly 200 people gathered on Park City’s Main Street Monday afternoon, Jan. 26, waving signs with messages like “Melt ICE with kindness” and “Stop executing your citizens.”
The protests come in the middle of the 2026 Sundance Film Festival and two days after Border Patrol agents shot Minneapolis resident Alex Pretti in the back about 10 times after he was apparently filming them with his phone.
Parkite Jeanne Sheahan carried a poster that read “We are all Minnesotans.”
“My husband’s from Minnesota,” she said. “We’ve been crying nonstop, but we wanted to get out and show our support for Minnesota and show our advocacy against this administration and the torture and abuse of people unnecessarily.”
She said she’s an attorney and cares deeply about people’s constitutional rights.
“The other side of my sign says, ‘It was murder. Facts matter,’” she said. “We all know what we saw with our eyes and what we heard with our ears, and there’s no question. We need leaders to support the facts, and then we need them to do something – and Congress can end this now. They can end the occupation of Minnesota now.”
Pretti’s death was the second fatal shooting by federal agents in Minneapolis this month. Renee Good was killed by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer Jan. 7.
Danielle Demeter brought a “We need snow, not ICE” sign to the protest.
“We can’t keep watching innocent people exercising their constitutional rights getting executed,” she said. “It is not okay.”
Monday’s crowd was much larger than expected for Riki Case, who helped organize the event. She had already been planning some demonstrations during Sundance, but Pretti’s death made her feel a greater sense of urgency.
“It made us even more determined to come out here,” she said. “It’s outrageous. I’m originally from Germany; I became a [U.S.] citizen coming up on three years ago. This is Hitler 2.0, and we just can’t do that again.”
Case said protests are “performative,” but she said it’s important to create visibility and invite people to pay attention.
Sundance attendees joined locals in condemning the violence, including actor and director Olivia Wilde and actor Natalie Portman, who wore “ICE Out” pins to their film premieres in Park City Sunday.
