NBC News host Joe Fryer reported that the criminal cases against two Minnesota women accused of obstructing federal immigration officers have now been dismissed, months after the women said they helped a federal agent who appeared to be having a seizure while they were detained.
The women, Tippy Amundson and Heather Zemien, had been taken into custody during a high-profile ICE operation in Brooklyn Park, a Minneapolis suburb, on January 22.
According to Fryer, dash cam video showed the moment federal authorities descended on a car before agents took Amundson and Zemien into custody. At the time, the Department of Homeland Security accused the women of obstructing Border Patrol operations in the neighborhood, saying they had disobeyed law enforcement commands and ignored warnings.
Amundson and Zemien have denied those claims from the beginning.
Cases Dismissed With Prejudice
Fryer said NBC News learned that the violation notices against Amundson and Zemien were dismissed in April, nearly three months after their arrests.
The women had received notices from the U.S. Attorney’s Office accusing them of assaulting, resisting, or impeding certain officers, Fryer reported. But about two weeks before the NBC interview, the U.S. Attorney filed motions to dismiss the citations with prejudice.
That legal phrase matters. As Fryer explained, it means the cases are permanently closed.
A judge granted the motions, ending the criminal cases against both women.
NBC News said it repeatedly reached out to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minneapolis for comment, but Fryer reported that the network had not yet heard back.
For a case that began with the heavy language of obstruction and impeding officers, that quiet ending is striking. The public accusations were loud. The dismissal, at least as described in the court papers, came with no detailed explanation.
A Medical Emergency In The Back Of An SUV
The story drew national attention not only because of the arrests, but because of what Amundson and Zemien said happened afterward.
Fryer said the women told NBC News in January that while they were handcuffed in the back of an SUV on the way to a federal detention center, one agent began having a medical emergency. They believed it was a seizure.
Amundson and Zemien said they alerted other agents in the vehicle.
According to Fryer’s summary of their earlier account, Amundson said she was then uncuffed so she could help the agent into a recovery position, make sure his airway was clear, and help keep him calm until emergency medical workers arrived.
The women said they were then taken back into custody and brought to the detention center.
It is one of the stranger pieces of the whole case. Two women accused of interfering with officers say they helped save, or at least stabilize, one of those officers during a medical emergency moments later.
That does not decide a legal case by itself, of course, but it does make the situation harder to flatten into a simple story about two people refusing orders.
Amundson Says She Felt Relief
When Fryer asked Amundson how she reacted when she learned the cases were being dismissed, she said she felt relief.
“I think there was definitely a lot of relief,” Amundson told NBC News, saying she and Zemien had always believed they were within their rights.
Amundson described the two women as mothers in the neighborhood at a bus stop when the situation began. She said the dismissal meant there would not be consequences for doing what she believed was right.
Her answer was calm, but the point behind it was serious. In her telling, she and Zemien were not trying to obstruct an operation. They were present in their own community, and then the day turned into something much larger.
Zemien took a sharper tone when Fryer asked whether she believed the charges were dropped because the women helped the agent or because of the publicity around the case.
“Absolutely not,” Zemien said.
She said there were people watching while they helped, and yet they were still arrested. Zemien argued that arrests draw more attention than convictions and said the situation was about “theatrics” and fear.
Zemien also said she believed the women were within their constitutional rights, while accusing federal agents of terrorizing their neighbors and then continuing to terrorize them.
Those are strong words, and they show how deeply this case sits inside a larger fight over the immigration operation in Minnesota. To Zemien, the dismissal did not erase what happened; it only confirmed that the charges should not have been brought in the first place.
DHS Disputed Their Account
Fryer also raised a statement DHS issued after NBC’s earlier interview with the women.
According to Fryer, a DHS spokesperson accused Amundson and Zemien of lying to law enforcement by saying they were nurses. DHS also said the women remained secured in the vehicle during the incident and that agents rendered assistance.
Amundson rejected that version.
She said it was “just another lie” and pointed to footage from a police department surveillance camera that she said showed her outside the vehicle, standing near the federal vehicle and motioning with her hands.
Amundson said she did not claim to be a nurse. She said she told officers she had medical training, which she said she does have.
She also said she works as a PCA, or personal care assistant, and that her training helped her recognize an emergency situation and a seizure.
“I think what them dismissing it just kind of speaks to their dishonesty in the situation,” Amundson said, arguing that officials were trying to tell their own version no matter what the footage showed.
Fryer was careful in describing the video. He said it was taken from a Brooklyn Center police precinct parking lot and that the moment appears in the corner of the footage. NBC News had zoomed in and brightened it, he said, but could not say with certainty exactly what was happening.
Amundson then walked viewers through what she saw in the footage.
She identified herself as the hooded figure walking back toward the truck with an officer and said the video showed her hands were free. She also said the video was motion-sensored, which caused it to cut in and out as cars passed through the area.
That kind of footage may not answer every question cleanly, but it does matter. In cases like this, video often becomes the one thing both sides have to deal with, even when they disagree about what it proves.
Attorney Says There Was No Case
Fryer then brought in the women’s attorney, Ed Shaw, and noted that the court papers from the U.S. Attorney’s Office did not explain why the cases were being dismissed.
Shaw said he did not have more insight than Fryer into the official reasoning, but he offered his own view of what likely happened.
According to Shaw, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minneapolis has been short-handed, with several attorneys quitting this year, some in protest. He said he gives credit to whoever made the decision to dismiss the cases.
Shaw said the decision to file the charges began with ICE agents on the ground, but once the case reached the U.S. Attorney’s Office, he believed any lawyer reviewing the facts would see there was not a case.
“Tippy and Heather did not commit a crime,” Shaw told NBC News.
He said they were “rounded up like many other people” while doing nothing wrong except being in their community and expressing an opinion the federal government may not have agreed with.
Shaw argued that expressing that opinion is not a crime.
He also pointed to video from before the clip involving the medical emergency, saying it showed Amundson and Zemien in their car in a parking lot before people came from all directions and forced them out.
“They certainly weren’t the ones committing a crime here,” Shaw said, adding that he believed “cooler heads prevailed” at the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Life In The Neighborhood Afterward
Near the end of the interview, Fryer asked Zemien what life in Minnesota is like now.
Zemien said she still goes out in her neighborhood and observes, and she has still seen ICE activity there. She said she had not recently seen agents arresting anyone, but she had seen them patrolling the neighborhood.
At the same time, Zemien said people seem to feel a little more relieved than before.
She said neighbors are starting to walk around again, and Amundson had recently messaged her that the neighborhood was beginning to feel more normal.
Zemien said ICE activity is still present, but not as much as it was before.
That final detail gives the story a quieter ending than the one it began with. The charges are gone, but the fear and tension around the operation have not vanished overnight.
For Amundson and Zemien, the legal threat may be over. But the case still leaves behind a bigger question about what happens when ordinary people, federal force, protest, community fear, and unclear evidence all crash into each other at once.
Fryer closed the NBC News segment by thanking Amundson, Zemien, and Shaw for joining the program and updating viewers on a story the network has followed throughout the year.
A former park ranger and wildlife conservationist, Lisa’s passion for survival started with her deep connection to nature. Raised on a small farm in northern Wisconsin, she learned how to grow her own food, raise livestock, and live off the land. Lisa is our dedicated Second Amendment news writer and also focuses on homesteading, natural remedies, and survival strategies. Lisa aims to help others live more sustainably and prepare for the unexpected.
