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Minnesota

Political repression plays out state by state — shaped by local institutions, prosecutors, and movements for defense. These are the documented political prisoners and cases the census holds for Minnesota.

169Documented
8In custody
158Released
1Awaiting trial

Eras of repression in Minnesota

Where Minnesota’s entries fall across the census’s historical eras.

1910s 43 2020s 38 1940s 29 2010s 20 1970s 11 1980s 10

Documented cases

169 entries in the census — every one stays in the record, whether the case is open or closed.

Heidi Nybroten
Released
Heidi Nybroten, age 26, of Minneapolis, Greenpeace 28 - September 2019 Houston Ship Channel bridge rappel.
Dion Ortiz
Released
Dion Ortiz is one of the Standing Rock 6 and a protestor at Standing Rock against the Dakota Access Pipeline....
Eric Oseland
Eric Oseland was one of eight defendants known as the RNC 8 who were accused of plotting to disrupt the Republ...
Cortez Aaron Rice
Released
Cortez Aaron Rice, 32, was charged November 24, 2021 in Minneapolis with felony harassment / retaliation again...
Igal Roodenko
Released
Igal Roodenko was involved in leftist politics and pacifism, spending time during World War II in a camp for c...
Archie Sinclair
Released
Archie Sinclair, a laborer and a writer for Solidarity and The Industrial Worker, from Bemidji, Minnesota, was...
Carl Skoglund
Released
Swedish-born Teamster organizer; co-founder of American Trotskyism. Emigrated 1911; joined the IWW; founding C...
Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis
Released
Venezuelan national shot in the leg by ICE Agent Castro on January 14, 2026 during Operation Metro Surge — the...
Sigfrid Stenberg
Released
Sigfrid Stenberg, the manager of the IWW paper Alarm, from Minneapolis, Minnesota, was convicted at the mass I...
Mylene Vialard
Released
Mylene Vialard, age 54, attached herself to a 25-foot bamboo tower blocking a Line 3 pipeline pumping station...
Frank Westerlund
Released
Frank Westerlund, an IWW organizer from Duluth, Minnesota, was convicted at the mass IWW trial in Chicago, sen...
Matthew White
Released
Matthew White is an activist and participant in the George Floyd uprising legal repression cases in the United...
Bryce Michael Williams
Released
On August 25, 2020 Bryce Michael Williams was indicted with co-defendants Robinson, Turner, and Wolfe on arson...
Branden Wolfe
Released
Branden Michael Wolfe’s arrest stemmed from the mass protests and unrest that followed the killing of George F...
Mena Yousif
Accessory after the fact to arson (helped husband Jose Felan flee); held ~7 months pretrial. Sentence: Time se...
Garrett Ziegler
Released
Molotov cocktails into Dakota County courthouse, Apple Valley (May 2020). Sentence: 60 months federal prison....
M
Montez Terriel Lee Jr.
In Custody
Montez Terriel Lee Jr., 25, was charged with arson in Minneapolis, MN, after maliciously damaging and destroyi...
E
Eddie Alberts
Released
Eddie Alberts was a Minneapolis WPA striker imprisoned following the 1939 strike against changes to federal wo...
B
Bailey Marie Baldus
Released
On the night of May 28, 2020 Bailey Marie Baldus, 19, was caught on surveillance camera with co-defendants Mck...
N
Nancy Beaulieu
Released
Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) water protector and organizer charged with criminal trespass for the eight-day Fire Light...
B
Brad Beneke
Released
Member of the Winona raiding team in the July 10, 1970 Minnesota Eight actions. Convicted Dec 3, 1970; as one...
M
Monica Bicking
Released
Monica Bicking was one of the RNC 8 indicted for organizing affinity-group disruption of the 2008 Republican N...
E
Erica Bouza
Released
Wife of then-Minneapolis Police Chief Tony Bouza. Became national news in April 1983 when she and 138 other an...
S
Stanley S. Brandberg
Released
Stanley S. Brandberg was a conscientious objector from Minnesota imprisoned during World War I. Court-martiale...

Institutions in Minnesota

Prisons, jails, and detention centers in Minnesota that appear in the census’s case files.

FCI WasecaWaseca, Minnesota
16 cases
FCI SandstoneSandstone, Minnesota
13 cases
U.S. District Court, District of MinnesotaMinneapolis, Minnesota
8 cases
Ramsey County District CourtSt. Paul, Minnesota
7 cases
White Earth Tribal Court
3 cases
FPC DuluthDuluth, Minnesota
1 case
Ramsey County WorkhouseSaint Paul, Minnesota
1 case
ICE detention (Minnesota and Texas facilities)
1 case