CNN Coverage Interrupted – Reporter Exposed to Tear Gas During Minneapolis Demonstrations

 While covering live from Minneapolis, Minnesota, a January 24, 2026, video reveals a CNN journalist clearly impacted by tear gas.

Following conflicts between federal law enforcement and demonstrators objecting to a recent shooting by immigration officers, the film and accompanying reporting underline the severity of the situation on the ground.

As smoke envelops the street in the clip, CNN's Sara Sidner can be heard coughing continuously and pleading to the camera crew she is "trying to breathe." Her coworker in the studio reduces back to another anchor at one point as Sidner struggles to speak clearly given the discomfort the gas causes.

She afterward claimed she had briefly taken refuge nearby since the tear gas impaired her capacity to keep reporting from the scene. Law enforcement frequently uses tear gas, a chemical irritant, to break up crowds during protests or civil disruption.

Particularly in high concentrations, it can result in eye irritation, respiratory discomfort, and coughing. Reporters covering protests have occasionally been inadvertently impacted while capturing significant events as they are positioned near where law enforcement actions are happening.

The Minneapolis protests on this day were part of a bigger reaction to a fatal event earlier in the day when federal immigration officials shot and killed a local person, which sparked a lot of anger from the public and a lot of people in the streets came out to protest.

To control crowds, federal authorities employed tear gas in several places, which resulted in scenes reporters from numerous channels recorded.

When the tear gas was set out, CNN's reporting crew had been near one of these events. Thick clouds in the video make it hard to see more than a short distance, and the reporter's voice shows how the irritant in the air is affecting him. The network briefly removed the broadcast from her location as things grew worse until the situation improved.

Events in which journalists are harmed while reporting on demonstrations are not exactly novel. Press freedom groups have recorded several instances in recent years in which journalists have been confronted with crowd management techniques such as tear gas or rubber bullets only for being near the scene they were reporting on. Such events have sparked debates on how police interacts with the media at contentious public meetings.

Minneapolis also had other news anchors on the ground reporting what they were witnessing and pleading with both demonstrators and police to refrain from confrontation. Live coverage was especially difficult because tear gas and other crowd control tactics added to an environment of fear.

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