Frigid winter weather didn’t deter a crowd of approximately 120 people from turning out Sunday for what organizers called an “emergency protest” in response to the second shooting death in Minnesota by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers this month.

The event, held on two sidewalks on the northeast corner of the Ogle County Courthouse Square in downtown Oregon, was organized by Indivisible of Ogle County, the local chapter of the Indivisible Project network.

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Approximately 120 people attended Indivisible of Ogle County's protest on Sunday, Jan. 25, 2026, in downtown Oregon carrying signs criticizing the Trump administration's deployment of ICE officers in several states and the Saturday shooting death of Alex Pretti by ICE agents in Minneapolis. (Earleen Hinton)

Indivisible of Ogle County organized several rallies in 2025 critical of the Trump administration’s policies and actions and one candlelight vigil for the first woman shot and killed by ICE officers in Minneapolis earlier this month.

“We the people of the United States must stand up, Indivisible, to fight for liberty and justice for all,” said Jan Buttron of Chana, one of the Sunday afternoon event organizers. “Today, we are here because yesterday an ICU nurse, Alex Pretti, was murdered by our federal government while he was helping a woman who had just been sprayed in the face with pepper spray.”

Buttron said that within an hour of the shooting federal officials put out a “false narrative of the account” claiming Pretti was a" domestic terrorist" and were “lying to the American people”.

“The United States of America has been taken over by a fascist regime,” said Buttron, calling Congress ineffective in its role as the branch of government that is supposed to be a “check on executive power”.

That ineffectiveness by lawmakers has allowed the Trump administration to “murder its own citizens, violate the Constitution, unlawfully break into people’s homes and businesses with no warrant, and disappear people all in violation of U.S. international law,” Buttron said.

During Sunday’s protest – called “No More Gestapo! Emergency protest in response to the second ICE murder in Minnesota” – many attendees carried signs referring to Pretti and Renee Nicole Good, 37, a Minnesota woman who was fatally shot by ICE officers on Jan. 7 – also in Minneapolis.

One woman carried a sign with a drawing of Pretti that said “Are you OK: Last words of Alex Pretti”.

Juanita Spahn, a U.S. Air Force veteran of Rochelle, held a sign that said “I am a Veteran Standing up for the Constitution.”

She was motivated to attend the Sunday event because of her pledge to defend the Constitution while serving in the armed forces.

“I’m here today because I took an oath to defend the Constitution and I’m seeing the Constitution be disregarded by this administration in all sorts of ways,” she said. “And no one has relieved me on my duty to defend the Constitution. I will be out here and do whatever I can to defend it until I die.”

Spahn said she was a teacher in Cicero for 21 years before moving to Rochelle.

“It tore me up to see what they put that community through,” she said. “That started my activism.”

Spahn was one of the 120 people who braved temperatures in the single digits and wind chills below zero to attend the event. Portable propane warming stations were placed on the northeast corner of the square, allowing participants to warm themselves during the 2-hour event.

Hand warmers were also distributed by volunteers.

Some motorists passing through the busy intersection of state Routes 64 and 2 honked their horns in support of the protesters.

But at least one motorist showed opposition by yelling “Go home!” out the window, which prompted a “We are home!” reply from one protester.

Sunday’s event followed a Jan. 9 candlelight vigil for Good, who was fatally shot by ICE officers Jan. 7.

That vigil was part of a nationwide weekend of action, “Ice out for Good,” which organizers said was created to take action against ICE violence and “stand in solidarity with all the victims” to show “strength and compassion of our community”.

Abbey Harris, an Indivisible of Ogle County volunteer, said the organized events are meant to showcase citizens’s rights to speak out.

“Using our First Amendment rights to speak out for our neighbors is a fundamental American value,” Harris said. “We refuse to let the government dehumanize marginalized communities or lie about the violence we are seeing on video.”

At the Good vigil, Harris said that the Trump administration’s designation of peaceful dissenters as domestic terrorists is a “dangerous weaponization of words” and an attempt “to criminalize First Amendment rights”.

“Ogle County Indivisible is incredibly proud of those who stood up today. It isn’t easy to stand out there when the temperatures drop but your presence spoke volumes,” Harris said.