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Protests Over Deadly Minneapolis Shooting Spread Nationwide; Fed Agents Say Pretti Violently Resisted Officers; Minnesota Leaders Condemn Shooting Of Alex Pretti; Trump Administration Doubles Down On Support For ICE Agents; Massive Winter Storm Brings Snow, Bone- Chilling Temperatures; Nearly 10,000 Flights Canceled Sunday Due To Winter Storm; Northeast Texas Grapples With Growing Power Outages; Deep Freeze In Denver As Broncos Face Off With The Patriots; Airlines At Memphis Airport Under Reduced Flight Schedule Today. Today: Federal Agents Fatally Shoot Another Minneapolis Resident; ICE Agents Have Shot Three People In Less Than A Month In Minnesota; Ice Storm Slams South As Freezing Rain Hits Atlanta; Minneapolis Leaders: Crime Trending Down Before ICE Operation. Aired 6-7a ET

Aired January 25, 2026 - 06:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[06:00:38]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: It is Sunday, January 25th. I'm Victor Blackwell. Welcome to CNN THIS MORNING.

We're following two big stories today. The first more unrest in Minnesota after federal agents shoot and kill a man they say was armed with a gun. Protests immediately broke out. State Democratic leaders are outraged. We'll tell you what we're hearing from the Trump administration about this shooting.

Plus, the freezing rain and the snow and the sleet and the ice and the cold all piling up from this winter storm, stretches from New Mexico to New York and beyond. Travel in some places virtually impossible and one -- once that snow moves out, that's when the cold really sets in. We've got your forecast ahead.

And despite that raging winter storm, thousands of people nationwide organized rallies protesting another deadly shooting by ICE agents in Minneapolis. There were demonstrations in California all the way to Washington, D.C.

Listen, a warning first, the video you're about to see is of some of the moments leading up to the shooting. The video is disturbing, but it's important that you see it. An ICE agent shot and killed 37-year- old Alex Pretti during ongoing protests in the city. Pretti's family says that he was a nurse at the local V.A. hospital. Border patrol commander Greg Bovino claimed Pretti approached agents with a handgun and then, quote, "violently resisted" when officers tried to disarm him.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GREGORY BOVINO, BORDER PATROL COMMANDER: If you obstruct a law enforcement officer or assault a law enforcement officer, you are in violation of the law and will be arrested. Our law enforcement officers take an oath to protect the public. We go to work every day to protect our friends, our neighbors, and our fellow citizens. The fact of the matter is that the law does not enforce itself.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Now, while Pretti was legally permitted to carry a gun, a CNN review of witness videos does not show that Pretti ever took out the gun, never brandished it. You can see in this video he was carrying a cell phone at one point. Condemnation from protesters and Minnesota lawmakers came quickly after the shooting.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. AMY KLOBUCHAR (D-MN): Our message is really clear and straightforward, we need ICE out of Minnesota. They are not making us more safe, as the tragic, tragic killing this morning, as people saw it viscerally on that video, shows us. They are making us less safe. This city has been under siege.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Now, as the investigation is ramping up, a judge granted a temporary restraining order to protect case evidence from alteration. CNN's Marybel Gonzalez reports from Minneapolis.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MARYBEL GONZALEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): In an already tense scene in Minneapolis, Minnesota, now inflamed by the deadly shooting of 37-year-old Alex Pretti by a border patrol agent, Saturday. Protesters were marching in the city calling for immigrations and customs enforcement to leave.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We're mad that our people are getting murdered. ICE is creating a massive problem here. They are the violence in this city.

GONZALEZ (voice-over): The Department of Homeland Security said agents were conducting a targeted operation when an armed individual approached them.

KRISTI NOEM, HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY: The officers attempted to disarm this individual, but the armed suspect reacted violently. Fearing for his life and for the lives of his fellow officers around him, an agent fired defensive shots.

GONZALEZ (voice-over): Several elected leaders are denouncing that account.

SEN. TINA SMITH (D-MN): The Trump administration has already called Alex Pretti a domestic terrorist. He was a nurse.

GONZALEZ (voice-over): Video shows an officer appeared to move the gun just before the shooting, according to a CNN analysis. Minnesota Governor Tim Walz adds Pretti was a lawful gun owner. He's demanding a state led investigation into the shooting as state investigators claim federal officials are impeding their access.

GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN): The federal government cannot be trusted to lead this investigation. The state will handle it, period.

GONZALEZ (voice-over): The Minneapolis mayor says the city will seek a temporary restraining order to halt immigration operations there.

MAYOR JACOB FREY (D), MINNEAPOLIS: The chaos that we are seeing is caused directly by ICE border control and this federal administration.

GONZALEZ (voice-over): I'm Marybel Gonzalez reporting.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: You heard there the state and local officials are calling for ICE to pack up and leave Minneapolis.

[06:05:04]

But the Trump administration says they're not going anywhere. Attorney General Pam Bondi says that several federal agencies are now on the way to Minneapolis to support ICE. CNN's Kristen Holmes has more on how President Trump is reacting.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Victor, the White House and the administration as a whole is doubling down on having these federal agents, not only in Minneapolis and Minnesota, but across the country. We saw the Department of Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem, who I was told was in touch with the White House all day, the White House wanted her to be the face of the response and she does oversee the agency that was responsible here. And her messaging was to essentially blame everyone else.

She blamed the man who was shot. She blamed local officials. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NOEM: We don't have this problem in Texas or in Florida because those individuals in those states work with us, and they make sure that they keep peace and calm while they bring criminals to justice. In Minneapolis, Governor Walz and Mayor Frey, they instead choose violence. They instead choose to encourage the destruction of their city and the crime against their people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: And now we should note that we see no indication that President Trump or the administration is going to remove any of the agents they have in Minnesota despite what we're seeing on the ground there, the tensions rising. But the other thing to pay attention to is the fact that President Trump seems to be doubling down on this effort as a whole on his immigration agenda. He has seen the polling. He knows these numbers that have come out that show that a majority of Americans don't like what they're seeing from these ICE agents. However, he has privately blamed not what they're actually doing on the ground but instead blame the messaging around it, saying that his people were not promoting the positive things about ICE as much as they could be.

But of course, Victor, just to note what Americans are seeing is what they don't like. And, of course, that is the images that have been out there. The videos surrounding these events over the last several weeks, Victor.

BLACKWELL: Kristen Holmes, thank you. This is the second fatal shooting by federal agent in Minneapolis in less than a month. You'll remember Renee Good was shot and killed just a few weeks ago.

Well, CNN spoke with law enforcement contributor Steve Moore to get his insight about the shooting in Minneapolis. And here's what he says the city should be doing to decrease the chances of this happening again.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE MOORE, CNN LAW ENFORCEMENT CONTRIBUTOR: While Minneapolis may be trying to get ICE out of Minneapolis and out of Minnesota right now, in the meantime -- until it happens, you've still got the problem that you have protesters in direct contact with ICE agents.

ICE agents may be trained for a lot of things, but if they've gotten any training on crowd control, it's been ad hoc. So, what usually happens in a situation like this is the local police, Minneapolis Police Department, maybe even Minnesota state police, they deal with the protesters. They deal with agitators, if there are any.

They're the ones who handle the streets because this is their city. They know it. They can de-escalate better. They use different techniques, and they're the ones who could be between ICE and the protesters.

The issue is that both shootings occurred while agents were not directly involved in immigration enforcement, they occurred while they were dealing with protesters and or alleged obstructionists. So, if the -- if there had been a barrier of Minneapolis state police -- I mean, think about it, would you have rather had Minneapolis state police dealing with Ms. Good and Mr. Pretti? Or would you like to have had ICE doing it? And Minneapolis has been absent. Minneapolis police have been absent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Now, coming up later this morning on "STATE OF THE UNION" Border Patrol commander-at-large Greg Bovino will talk live more about the shooting in Minneapolis. "STATE OF THE UNION" begins at 9:00 eastern right here on CNN.

Other big story this morning, that fierce winter storm is still pushing east after dumping inches of snow from Oklahoma to Arkansas. It's bringing in bone-chilling temperatures to millions of people across more than 2,000 miles from Texas to New England today. Stretches of the interstate are shut down, of course, because of the dangerous conditions.

And according to FlightAware, nearly 10,000 flights within, into or out of the U.S. are canceled today. That accounts for almost a quarter of the flights scheduled every day. Power outages, let's talk about those. It's starting to tick up with nearly 240,000 customers without power in the Gulf states alone.

[06:10:04]

And communities are operating warming centers to keep people safe.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RACHEL GODEAUX, CHIEF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICER, LCG: Our main concern is making sure that we have the shelter set up to where, you know, people are not looking for alternative places to stay causing additional fire or a burden on the public safety resources. So by having everybody here, we're able to provide a hot meal, we're able to provide those services here on site without having to respond elsewhere in the community.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Now, this snow is good news for some people. Kids especially. Look at this. This is Oklahoma. Took the opportunity to do a little sledding, have some fun in the snow. Oklahoma City saw 5.5 inches of snow yesterday.

We got live team coverage of this winter storm and arctic blast. Ivan Rodriguez is in Dallas. Meteorologist Allison Chinchar is at the weather center. Ivan, you first. Tell us what you're seeing around you there.

IVAN RODRIGUEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Victor, good morning. It's very cold this morning. We woke up to some fresh snow. That snow is going to stick around here with us for maybe the afternoon hours, but we're going to lose the freezing rain, which is some good news.

We're standing in a park right now over -- on an overpass, I should say. And you can see that this fresh snow. It's actually -- because of that cold weather it's not necessarily fluffy anymore. It's really sticking to the ground. So, it's really almost like the lighter sheet of ice.

But here's where you can see at least part of a highway. Not too much traffic. So far we have seen some cars on it. We've also seen snowplows begin to go both ways here. I think that might be some sort of emergency crew, not necessarily a snowplow, but this is sort of the image that we've been seeing so far this morning. And it's these conditions that are going to stick around with that bitter cold is going to lead to dangerous road conditions for the rest of today and going also into tomorrow. When we're looking at air travel, though, here at Dallas-Fort Worth, there's more than 40 percent of flights that were canceled. We're beginning to see an uptick in cancellations in other airports now as the storm is continuing to move east. We're looking at Charlotte. We're looking at Atlanta Hartsfield-Jackson.

They are beginning to see a lot more cancellations for power outages here across the state of Texas. It's more than 80,000 so far. In Dallas County, just more than 700. So, not too many power outages in comparison to the population size. But that's something else that were keeping an eye on here as well, Victor.

BLACKWELL: All right. Feels like one below out there. Ivan Rodriguez, dealing with the snow and ice, thanks so much.

Let me take you to Louisville, Kentucky. Officers are pleading with drivers to slow down. Or better yet, stay off the ice. They're putting it bluntly here. Stop bragging that you grew up driving in worse. This ain't buffalo. That's a quote.

They've already handled more than 45 crashes across the metro area, and speed keeps making a bad situation worse. City crews are out nonstop salting and plowing the main roads, but they say that the roads are slick and dangerous.

Saint Louis now a major crash involving several semis on a bridge shows just how rough things have gotten there. Traffic has crawled for hours, long delays and lanes are shut down. It's one more reason officials want people to avoid driving unless they absolutely must.

First responders in that area have been slammed, answering more than 250 calls for help, assisting dozens of stranded drivers and working nearly 30 crashes as the storm moved through. We'll have the Louisville mayor coming up next hour.

All right. We're getting a live look from Denver now, our affiliate there. That's Empower Field. We have it for you. There it is, where the Broncos and the Patriots will face off later today. It's about 12 degrees right now. Feels closer to five.

The matchup is shaping up to be one of the coldest of the entire season. And that raises a whole new set of challenges on the field.

CNN meteorologist Allison Chinchar is here. It is here now. Where's -- who's feeling it the worst?

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST: A lot of people.

BLACKWELL: Yes. Yes, it's bad on a lot of spots.

CHINCHAR: I would say there's a lot of folks. It's not easy to narrow it down because you have the snow component. You have the ice component. You also have the rain component. You even have some thunderstorms out there into the mix as well.

Here's a look at the live radar. Again, all of that purple color that is the snow. And the dark purple that would be very heavy snow that is coming down.

You've got some green down to the south and a lot of pink on that map, indicating either sleet or freezing rain. Look at this. Do you see where the lightning is over the pink? You have thunder ice in some areas, meaning it is coming down so heavy right now in the form of sleet or freezing rain, which is not what you want.

So again, most of that is kind of centered over portions of northern Louisiana sliding into Mississippi. Also getting some icing now across Atlanta and up through Greenville. Spartanburg still some rain across Birmingham. But again, you've got a lot of these areas that are kind of going to go back and forth between a lot of these precipitation types as we go through the day today. Farther to the north, snow is the big concern at the moment.

[06:15:02]

So places like Philly, New York, Washington, D.C., Cleveland, Cincinnati all getting snow. And at times it is very, very heavy as it comes down.

So, here's a look as we go through the rest of the day. By late morning, still very heavy snow across portions of the mid-Atlantic and into the northeast. You start to see a warm up this afternoon. So places like Nashville and Huntsville, you're going to see that change back over into rain as the temperatures warm back up.

Same thing for Atlanta. By late afternoon, you start to see that changing back over into rain and then it continues through the evening hours. Unfortunately for some folks though, that temperature is going to hover right around 30 to 32 and you're just not ever going to make that transition back to rain. It's going to stay freezing rain for several hours today. Everything finally exits the area by the time we get to very early Monday.

This is a look at the latest ice totals. Now you may think to yourself, OK, this looks like a different number than yesterday. Keep in mind this is taking into account how much has already fallen. So, this number is going to be less because we've already had a quarter to half an inch that has fallen in some places.

So, so far now we are expecting an additional quarter inch of ice on the map of what you see. And the heaviest snow that's really left is going to be focused over the mid-Atlantic and northeast.

BLACKWELL: All right. Allison, thank you. Well, from the snow and the thunder ice, you said some communities getting, and the extreme cold, next what airports are doing to clear the runways and keep the planes in the skies.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:21:09]

BLACKWELL: Memphis, Tennessee, is set to get hit with extreme cold, according to the National Weather Service. An extreme cold warning starts at 6:00 tonight and lasts until noon Tuesday. Crews at the Memphis International Airport have been working 24 hours to clear the runways as snow and ice build. The airport is working under a reduced schedule.

Joining us now is Glen Thomas, the public information officer for the Memphis Shelby County Airport Authority. Glen, good morning to you. A nearly 10,000 flights canceled into, out of, and within the U.S. Are any going into or out of your airport?

GLEN THOMAS, SPOKESMAN, MEMPHIS-SHELBY COUNTY AIRPORT AUTHORITY: Good morning, Victor. Yes, we actually are open. We do have some flights coming and going today. The airlines are -- they've got a reduced schedule today, but they are trying to get back into form.

BLACKWELL: All right. So, we're taking a look at the airport there. Give us an idea of the conditions.

THOMAS; Well, since the storm rolled in Friday evening, our crews have been working 12 hour shifts, and they've been working around the clock. A lot of the staff that is working on this is living at our mission support center. So they have -- they have not been home, but they have done a great job of keeping the runways open. That's not to say that a lot of this weather doesn't affect some of the airline schedules, but they have been working very hard.

BLACKWELL: So talk to me about the cargo end of this. FedEx is headquartered in Memphis, so the busiest for cargo airport is. What does this mean for shipping? What does this mean for packages?

THOMAS: Well, certainly the weather is affecting all air travel. We're seeing this all across the U.S. so throughout the airline networks, cargo and commercial, they are affected. You know, each of those airlines deals with it in their own way.

And for us, you know, different types of precipitation require different types of treatment. So some requires chemicals and some requires the snowplows and the snow blowers that you see that make for great video. But it can be challenging because this storm has brought a mix.

BLACKWELL: And so we talked about the temperatures that are coming, that cold warning that lasts until Tuesday. Have you seen the worst of the precipitation, do you think?

THOMAS: I believe the forecast indicates that the precipitation will end today. Obviously without it going above freezing for the next several days, we know that we'll still have to work to keep those runways clear.

BLACKWELL: Yes. And so worse than having your flight delayed or canceled is being at the airport or stuck at the airport when that happens. Do you know if you have people who were there, who were stuck at Memphis airport?

THOMAS: I definitely think we've had a few. But given that we're not really a connecting airport, it has not been as much of an issue. But we do have some boots on the ground. Our terminal operations folks are out there in the lobby assisting passengers the best they can, giving them some additional direction.

BLACKWELL: Yes, the advice is always to check before you leave, before you go. And of course, in a storm like this where 10,000 cancellations in one day, most people are going to do that anyway. But fortunately you don't have too many people who are stuck there at the airport. Talk to me about preparations for when the airport, not reopens, but returns to more normal traffic.

THOMAS: I think you'll see the airlines like to move quickly. And, I think, you'll see in the coming days at Memphis that they will move quickly to get back to normal operations. So our job at the airport authority is to manage the facilities, keep those runways and surface areas clear of snow and ice and safe.

[06:25:03]

And to give you an idea of the real estate we've got, it's 226 miles of a two-lane road. So they are working, essentially, the distance between here in Birmingham.

BLACKWELL: All right. Well, they got a big job to do, and they're doing it. Glen Thomas, thank you for spending a couple of minutes with me as we take a look at this storm and how it has impacted the airport there in Memphis. Enjoy the day. Stay warm.

Protesters are demanding answers after a border patrol agent shot and killed a man. We'll take you to one of those protests that started out chaotic, but then ended in silence and with prayer.

And here's a live look at Washington, D.C. Snow just starting to come down here. More on the winter storm that's now moving into the northeast.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:30:14]

VICTOR BLACKWELL, CNN ANCHOR: More now on our breaking coverage of the unrest in Minneapolis where a U.S. citizen has been fatally shot by a federal agent for the second time in 17 days.

This time it was Alex Jeffrey Pretti. Thirty-seven years old, intensive care nurse who Minnesota police say had no criminal record. The Department of Homeland Security claims he had a handgun and, quote, violently resisted when agents tried to disarm him. The DHS secretary is describing him as a domestic terrorist.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz calls those claims nonsense and lies.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GOV. TIM WALZ (D-MN): They think they can provoke us into abandoning our values. Well, they're dead wrong. We'll keep the peace. We'll secure the justice with our neighbors, and we'll see this occupation ends.

Minnesotans and Minnesota law enforcement that continuously is being denigrated by this administration will continue to be the adults in the room, the professionals in the room, the decent human beings in the room that will keep the peace.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLACKWELL: Well, the governor and the mayor of Minneapolis are demanding that President Trump pull federal troops out of the state, and Minnesotans seem willing to keep up the protest until that happens.

Let's get more now from CNN's Sara Sidner.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SARA SIDNER, CNN SENIOR NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Look, people who are out here from Minneapolis, people who have been protesting, are saying, don't believe the lies, believe your eyes.

There is plenty of video out there showing what happened, with DHS now trying to say that this man, 37-year-old Alex Pretti, saying he was here to massacre law enforcement, and then they say, look at the video, look at what he was doing here. He was here trying to protect someone who he put his arms around. You see him doing that in several of these videos, trying to get her, it looked like, away from ICE. That's what one witness said, who was in the donut shop that I spoke with.

And they're trying to say that he was here for some other reason, for some dastardly dangerous reason. People here say it is ICE that is dangerous, not the people that they have been going after, not the people that they have killed. They have shot three people in less than a month.

So there is a reason why people are out in the streets, and they do not plan to stop coming out in these streets. Their demand is to have ICE leave this community now.

Now, what you saw earlier today was a lot of tear gas fired by federal agents. Then you had state and local police come in. It seemed they formed a line allowing the federal agents to leave, and then things did begin to calm down.

But I will show you this, because things have gone from fury and dealing with war-like situations in the middle of the street, which, really, this is Eat Street here in Minneapolis. This is a place that you normally come to have a great meal. It is multicultural. There are all kinds of different wonderful restaurants here.

Turned into this morning a war zone. I was here for it. It did look like that. And you know I have covered many wars in my time. I'm going to have Jerry (ph) let you see what's happening now, because it started with fury, and it is really ending in solemn sorrow for the death of 37-year-old Alex Pretti. He was a ICU nurse at the local veterans facility here. He was a person who came out, and you can see him in one video filming people. He may have been called out with many others. You know, they use this system where they're communicating with each other when they see ICE action to have people come out and, as they say, protect their own. And he was out here, certainly in one video. You see him using his camera.

And we learned also from the governor that he had a legal permit to carry. There is nothing illegal about carrying a weapon in Minnesota if you have the permit for it, and he had that. So, there are a lot of questions that must be asked about the federal government's version of events versus what you were seeing on video and what you were hearing from witnesses.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: And CNN has analyzed several videos, several angles of Saturday's incident. And Tom Foreman is reporting now that they raised questions about whether the shooting was a necessary act of self- defense.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

TOM FOREMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I want to start with the very first statement made by the Trump administration in the aftermath of the shooting.

It was a tweet by the Department of Homeland Security showing a firearm on what appears to be the seat of a car, and the tweet reads, an individual approached U.S. Border Patrol officers with a 9mm semi- automatic handgun seen here. You see the picture behind it there. This looks like a situation where an individual wanted to do maximum damage and massacre law enforcement.

Now, we have this new angle of the video that's just been cleared by CNN, and it shows the lead-up to this deadly altercation. This is what I want you to take a look at. Of course, this is a disturbing video.

[06:35:06]

Let's take some time, though, and watch this together. Some things to note. As it begins, you see Pretti out there in the middle of the street. He shows up right in this area here. You start seeing him, and he is, at one point, using his camera. There he is, right there. And he's pointing to traffic, sort of waving traffic through.

At some moment here, you see that law enforcement approaches him, and he backs away as they start moving up on him. He is not trying to move toward them. He's backing away. Then you're going to see one of these officers approach a woman near him and really forcefully shove her to the ground, right there. And Pretti starts rushing over toward her.

Now, they're both getting pepper sprayed at this point. He gets grabbed, and he's taken over to the ground here. This is about 15 seconds from when officers turned to him. He's now on the ground. They are on top of him. The officers are all around. He does not appear to have a weapon in his hand. He doesn't brandish anything. He doesn't seem to do anything.

And then, all of a sudden, you see one agent in the middle there. Look, he turns away, and that's when the shooting begins. One shot, followed by, in our analysis, nine other shots there.

We heard from Border Patrol Chief Greg Bovino, he was asked at what point Pretti brandished a weapon in all of this. This was his answer.

GREGORY BOVINO, COMMANDER AT LARGE, U.S. BORDER PATROL: Allie (ph), this situation, again, is evolving. This situation is under investigation. Those facts will come to light.

FOREMAN: This is important because, an important detail, because concealed carry is legal. We know from local officials Pretti had a permit to carry a weapon. And law enforcement analysts here on CNN have raised questions as to why the picture of this gun that DHS shared online was shown on the seat of a car and not in the scene where Pretti was shot. And we now have an answer.

CNN analysis shows, if you watch all those videos carefully, you see a federal agent right there who appears to be removing a gun. This is very critical to remember. That piece of video you're seeing right there is happening about a second or maybe slightly less than a second before the shooting begins.

Now, it is just video. We have to look at it. There will be a lot of questions here, but that's the reason people say you have to have a truly impartial and fair investigation here, because if he removed the gun before all this shooting broke out, then why is this man now dead?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: All right. In the next hour, I'll talk with the former Philadelphia police commissioner, also a former police chief in D.C., Charles Ramsey. Get his take on the shooting and his analysis from the video that has been released.

Also, the winter storm moving east, bearing down on the East Coast and the Northeast. And Allison, we're not just talking about the snow and the ice, but the temperature is so cold.

ALLISON CHINCHAR, CNN METEOROLOGIST (on-camera): And we've got even more. You've got your snow, your ice, your rain and some tornadoes.

We'll talk about that, coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[06:42:55]

BLACKWELL: Let me get you caught up on the impact of this winter weather storm, because the impact is growing by the hour. The snow and sleet and freezing rain pushing east making travel dangerous. Atlanta is already getting hit with freezing rain. That's the big fear there. The ice coating roads, power lines, anything it can cling to as the system sweeps across the south. More than a dozen governors have declared states of emergency, of course, they're urging drivers to stay off the roads. Power outages could last for several days as crews work to back -- get the power lines back up.

Right now, Texas and Mississippi and Louisiana are seeing the most trouble. Nearly 100,000 power outages in Texas even more than that in Mississippi and more than 375,000 Louisiana, those numbers are still climbing. We're seeing moments that really capture what people are dealing with to and also how they're stepping up for one another.

This is Plainview, Texas drivers were stuck on a slick hill wheel spinning on the snow-covered road. And then some folks jumped in pushed the car to help make those drivers help them get through the snow. Powerful snapshot of just how tough conditions are right now. We're seeing that all over.

CNN meteorologist Allison Chinchar is back. You talked about all of the winter weather and now there's more.

CHINCHAR (on-camera): Yes. Yes.

BLACKWELL: Yes.

CHINCHAR (on-camera): I mean as if it we didn't have enough on our plate, you know, now we can add a few more things to it. And a lot of it has to do with these temperatures that we have out here.

Yes, we've got a lot of very cold temperatures, but down to the south, you have some places that are in the 70s right now. So that heat is in turn bringing the potential for severe thunderstorms. And you can see that, look at all that thunder and lightning down there. now some of it is with the rains, you've got thunderstorms, but some of that lightning is over the pink color. Meaning we have thunder ice and thunder sleet into the mix as well. But also, on the north side a lot of incredibly heavy snow coming down.

Look at some of these ice totals so far, keep in mind these may not seem like that high of numbers, but in almost every single one of these places, it's still coming down. So, these are just numbers so far. You've got areas of Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Tennessee all looking at roughly half an inch of ice already that's accumulated in portions of Starkville, Mississippi, looking at already a quarter of an inch of ice.

[06:45:07]

And again, look at a lot of these states, those same states we just listed, they're still dealing with that pink color indicating that frozen precipitation and not the snow kind. You also have, again, a lot of that lightning we talked about down there where those really, really heavy bands of moisture are starting to spread in.

Now, the continuing problem is going to be this afternoon. Once you start getting the real heating of the day, that's actually going to develop some of those strong to severe thunderstorms. Yes, this means we could even have some tornadoes. You could have some damaging winds, along with all of the other components of this storm. This is going to be the main area of concern for what we just talked about.

So again, kind of really right there along the Gulf Coast, but it could even creep into portions of southern Georgia as well.

Now, on the northern side, we talked about snow is really just going to be the big issue here. That's for the Ohio Valley, the Mid- Atlantic, the Northeast, and it's going to continue that way as we head in through the remainder of the day.

You'll notice here when you look at these, a lot of the pink color is gone from areas of the Tennessee Valley and back into the plains. That's because they've already had several inches that have already fallen, a lot of six to eight inch marks in those particular areas where we have the bulk of the snow that's going to fall today. That's really going to be focused over the Northeast and the Mid-Atlantic, where it's just now starting to ramp up.

Same thing for the ice. This number at this point, we're still looking at maybe up to another quarter of an inch in a few spots, but that's on top of some of those numbers that you already saw. So still looking at overall storm totals of half an inch to up to one inch total of ice.

Here's a look at the forecast radar. Again, you can see we've got a lot of the ice still a component of this storm, especially across the Carolinas and Virginia. Onto the north side, this is where we're going to see that heavy snow areas of what we're looking at, at the Mid- Atlantic and into the Northeast. But yes, you also notice again the dark color there, the yellow and the green. That's where we have the biggest threat for some of those thunderstorms.

BLACKWELL: All right, we know you'll be watching it. Allison Chinchar, thank you.

Next, we're getting you more on Minneapolis. The Trump administration claims immigration enforcement is aimed at lowering crime, but community leaders in Minnesota say it's doing the exact opposite.

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[06:51:32]

BLACKWELL: Let's get you more now on that fatal shooting of an ICU nurse in Minneapolis by federal agents. Now, the Trump administration claims that the overall enforcement operation is designed to drive down crime. But when you ask some community leaders in Minneapolis, that was already happening in the city and the federal crackdown is having the opposite effect.

CNN's Omar Jimenez takes a look.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The temperature is around negative 20 degrees right now, even colder with windchill. Where this food is going is for the most part to people who are too scared to come outside right now because of the increased federal immigration enforcement presence here in Minneapolis.

SERGIO AMEZCUA, SENIOR PASTOR, DHH CHURCH: My assistant pastor, a lot of people, I say 20, 10, 2000. I'm like, what?

JIMENEZ: Wow.

AMEZCUA: Two thousand.

JIMENEZ (voice-over): Sergio Amezcua's Minneapolis church has a predominantly Latino congregation. He says services don't look like they used to.

JIMENEZ: How many people are we talking?

AMEZCUA: We have around 500 to 600 people in the normal days.

JIMENEZ: Yes.

AMEZCUA: Right now, we get a hundred or 80. We're lucky.

JIMENEZ (voice-over): It's a sense of community that's been disrupted and one, he says, has been part of driving down violent crime in the city after spikes in 2021 and 2020.

AMEZCUA: If you look at the police department right now, it looks way different than 2020. They're really working with the people of Minneapolis and that's making the difference.

JIMENEZ (voice-over): Whatever the exact formula, Minneapolis has seen results. Now, even though homicide rates are still up in the city compared to pre-pandemic levels, according to a recent study by the Council on Criminal Justice, murders and the number of gunshot wound victims both down more than 15 percent compared to 2024 and much lower than the 2021 peak. And it's similar to nationwide decreases for what's expected to be the third year in a row, according to FBI data.

The Trump administration is already tying the trends to increased immigration enforcement, despite this Minneapolis operation not starting until December of 2025.

JD VANCE, VICE PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES: We're enforcing the immigration laws and getting very violent criminals out of our country. And number two, because we're enforcing our criminal laws.

MARY MORIARTY, PROSECUTOR, HENNEPIN COUNTY: It has nothing to do with crime going down because that was already happening.

JIMENEZ (voice-over): Mary Moriarty is the chief prosecutor for Hennepin County, which includes Minneapolis.

JIMENEZ: Your concern is this dynamic of fear is going to make it harder for you to prosecute cases.

MORIARTY: Yes.

JIMENEZ: Really?

MORIARTY: That's already happened. We've had witnesses who are immigrants who are afraid to come to court because ICE is around this building, the courthouse. That means that witnesses that we may need to prosecute a violent crime are not going to be available to us and have not been available to us.

(CROSSTALK)

JIMENEZ (voice-over): The at times chaotic dynamic has even been criticized by police chiefs in the area.

AXEL HENRY, CHIEF, ST. PAUL POLICE: Can we find a way to make sure that we can do these things without scaring the hell out of our community members?

JIMENEZ (voice-over): And to start the year as Minneapolis police chief Brian O'Hara announced drops in crime, he worried about the increased presence of federal agents.

BRIAN O'HARA, CHIEF, MINNEAPOLIS POLICE: The greatest risk to me is that there would be unrest or that there would be a tragedy.

JIMENEZ (voice-over): The next day, Rene Good was shot and killed during a confrontation with ICE agents. It led to even more agents deployed to Minnesota, more anger, more fear.

AMEZCUA: Sometimes when I get an Amazon package at home, my 12-year- olds run to me, dad, dad, daddy, ICE is here. And I'm like, what? So, it was just an Amazon package.

[06:55:00]

JIMENEZ (voice-over): He sees that fear as he delivers those meals.

AMEZCUA: En el nombre de Jesus. Amen.

Most people need that. They're alone all day looking up in the window. So we get food, but we also give them food for their soul, you know and let them know that we're going to get through this.

JIMENEZ (voice-over): Omar Jimenez, CNN, Minneapolis.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BLACKWELL: And there is much more ahead on the next hour "CNN This Morning Weekend." The winter storm is blasting the east dropping the record snow totals and bringing dangerous Arctic air. Live team coverage at the top of the hour.

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