Is Sacramento the next Minneapolis? A local awakening is happening | Opinion
The federal siege of Minneapolis that has left two citizens dead is beginning to hit home here in Sacramento, as outraged residents filled City Council chambers Tuesday, a throng that spilled into the lobby, for a meeting that was nothing short of a civic venting session.
Sacramento and Minneapolis are remarkably the same, and it is hardly far-fetched to wonder how it would feel if the state of our cities was reversed. Imagine if a federal Homeland Security force about nearly 10 times the size of the Sacramento police patrol descends upon the city. That’s what Minneapolis is facing.
“It’s unfathomable to understand,” said Mayor Kevin McCarty, who missed Tuesday’s meeting to fly back to a national mayor’s conference in Washington, D.C. “But honestly, we’ve had to think about it.”
Minneapolis and Sacramento have roughly the same population. Our metropolitan areas are home to state capitals. We both have proud Hmong communities. And we are next to great rivers.
How a federal force of 4,000 would feel here
Press reports out of Minneapolis estimate the federal presence in the city at as many as 4,000 officers from the U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement and the U.S. Border Patrol. Let’s think about this number from a Sacramento perspective.
The Sacramento Police Department, for example, has 1,092 positions overall, both sworn officers and staff. The operations department, where the actual cops on the street work, has only 450 employees.
A gathering of 4,000 officers is too big to meet in downtown Sacramento’s Memorial Auditorium.
It would take every hotel room within three-mile radius of downtown to give each of the officers a place to sleep.
Sacramento has never experienced anything close to this level of a law enforcement presence. In 2020, when Sacramento was in the throes of civil disobedience and riots fueled by anarchists, the city imposed a curfew and called in the National Guard, moves that angered demonstrators protesting the murder of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police.
In the Minneapolis neighborhood equivalent of our Oak Park, a diverse middle class community, 37-year-old Reneé Good was shot three times by an ICE officer while she was alone in her Honda Pilot on Jan. 7.
In a neighborhood with more than twice the population of our North Highlands, our densest community, 37-year-old Alex Pretti on Saturday was shot by unnamed members of the U.S. Border Patrol.
McCarty briefly met the mayor of Minneapolis, Jacob Frey, at the same conference last year.
“I can’t imagine being in those shoes,” McCarty said. “I’ve sat down with our police chief and our city manager and talked about what it would look like if, God forbid, something like this happens.”
On paper, the city of Sacramento has done just about everything possible to stand up for its residents. For decades, it has had a policy to not cooperate with any federal pursuit of a resident solely based on their immigration status. There is no sharing of data.
That didn’t keep more than 100 speakers Tuesday afternoon from demanding that the city to do more.
“The pain I am hearing today….hopefully you can make it go away,” said Karen Humphrey, a local board member of the National Women’s Political Caucus.
“I know there are a lot of people who are passionate and angry,” said Marbella Sala, president of the Gardenland Northgate Neighborhood Association and a frequent speaker at council meetings.
What’s now happening in Sacramento, said McCarty, is “just this awakening.”
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who called Donald Trump “creepy” and “weird as hell” as the vice presidential candidate for Kamala Harris, is a frequent target of presidential comments. The verbal war between our governor, Gavin Newsom, and Trump is well documented.
Is it possible to prepare?
What can Sacramento really do if a siege happens here, and one of our own is fatally shot 10 times in the back, as is what happened to Pretti?
“Keep the peace,” McCarty said. “The president wants chaos.”
We have been witnessing some remarkable bravery and community from the residents of Minneapolis. Their protests are overwhelmingly peaceful as they shout and record the actions of federal officers. The unspeakable images of Pretti’s killing that they have shared with the world are undoubtedly responsible for Trump showing some signs of retreat. For now.
“They will simply regroup,” Humphrey told the Sacramento City Council on Tuesday..
She is, sadly and probably, right. Hopefully, as McCarty said, Sacramento never becomes a target of the federal government under Trump. But if our worst fears are realized, we have an example from Minneapolis on how to counteract a lethal adversary that is tragically our own government.
This story was originally published January 29, 2026 at 5:00 AM.