Mother of tear-gassed family faces backlash as video raises questions about a comment from before the incident

By Taylor Galgano, CNN

(CNN) — One week ago, Destiny Jackson spoke with CNN about her family of eight getting tear gassed in Minneapolis while stopped on their way home from her son’s basketball game on January 14.

The family says they did not realize an anti-ICE protest was happening around them when they first reached the scene. Video from the scene showed her children rushing out of the car and into a nearby house for safety, on the same night a federal agent shot a man in the leg.

It was one of several interviews Jackson had done that week with different news outlets. Someone asked her to make a GoFundMe, so she did, she said — and donations poured in, raising more than $170,000 in all.

Since then, Jackson tells CNN she has faced online attacks by far-right social media users and select media publications.

That’s partly because, since CNN published the story, a one-hour-and-36-minute livestream from that evening has surfaced, which was first reported by Crime Watch Mpls and then covered by the Daily Mail, that shows Jackson at the actual protest itself without her children – at one point, making an inflammatory comment on camera.

But that’s also because Jackson has a past criminal record.

In two interviews with CNN on January 23 and 24, Jackson explained more about why she was seen at the protest in the livestream and addressed her previous criminal charges.

Video shows the couple at the protest

In her January 17 interview with CNN, Jackson said she had retrieved her mother from the protest before getting back into her vehicle with her six kids and husband to leave the area.

That’s when she says she heard commotion from the protest and told her husband to drive away, but said they were blocked in and couldn’t get out. From there, a tear gas canister rolled under her car and exploded.

In the newly surfaced video, she and her husband appear in and out of frame at or near the protest for at least 45 minutes.

Jackson explained she and her husband were driving home from her son’s basketball game when they noticed the road ahead was blocked off. Cars were coming from every direction, while some cars were parked on the street, so they pulled over to allow cars to pass, she said.

Her husband wanted to know what was happening, so he got out of the car to ask around. From the passenger seat, Jackson says she coincidentally noticed her mother, her mother’s boyfriend and a family friend crossing the street. She called out to them and they came to talk to her, explaining they were headed to a protest.

Shortly after, her family friend came back to the car because it was too cold. At that point, Jackson said she didn’t want her mom to be at the protest because she was recently diagnosed with congestive heart failure, so she walked to the protest to try to get her mother to leave. Her family friend, whom she refers to as “auntie,” stayed in the car to watch Jackson’s children.

Jackson said she was trying to get her mom to leave the entire time she was at the demonstration, but added she also talked to people while she was there. Her husband is just “nosy,” and wanted to see what was happening, she said.

In recent interviews with CNN, she explained she had been able to leave before the situation turned heated, but she had not wanted to because she was focused on her mother. It was when the situation escalated that her family’s vehicle became trapped and they couldn’t get out of the area, Jackson said.

Although CNN cannot independently confirm that Jackson’s vehicle was trapped when the protest escalated, Minnesota Attorney General Ellison previously told CNN the family was “caught in the middle of” the situation.

Department of Homeland Security Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin also said in an email to CNN on January 16: “This family was the victim of rioters and agitators whose lawless behavior is encouraged by Minnesota’s top leaders.”

Tear gas and an inflammatory comment

About 10 minutes before the livestream captured what appears to be flash bangs going off, Jackson is seen in the video talking to a friend in a car, away from the demonstration.

The livestreamer comes up to the two of them, and in response to a prompt from the livestreamer, Jackson says: “We’re going to kill these motherf**kers.”

The livestreamer responds: “No you not, no she not.”

It’s unclear, from the video alone, what Jackson meant.

“Shooting and killing people is unacceptable, that was completely taken out of context,” Jackson said to CNN.

She explained the livestreamer had been talking about guns and weapons, so she claims she was sarcastically asking him if he was going to kill federal agents.

“I was like sarcastically asking him that … I wasn’t saying we’re going to like, that we were gonna kill ICE, no,” she said.

About three minutes after Jackson’s comment in the livestream, her husband is seen standing in a crowd of protesters who were chanting, “Pigs, go home.” He is not seen chanting with the protesters in the livestream.

A few minutes later, what appear to be flash-bang devices start to go off and the crowd disperses.

Jackson is seen in the passenger seat of her car a few minutes later, recording on her phone. A few seconds later, it appears that a tear gas canister goes off near her vehicle.

Jackson tells CNN that they couldn’t move their car once the demonstration near them escalated.

A tear gas canister rolled under the family’s car and exploded underneath it, she said. Bystanders helped her get her children out of the car, with her 6-month-old being the last to make it out.

She said she gave the baby mouth-to-mouth resuscitation while people poured milk on her other children’s eyes because of the tear gas.

Jackson said she went to the hospital with her baby and two of her children, who have severe asthma.

The city of Minneapolis said in a statement the tear gas caused “a 6-month-old infant inside the vehicle to experience breathing difficulties,” according to initial reports.

When police and the fire department were able to reach the family, “the infant was breathing and stable, but (in) serious condition,” according to the statement.

As of Saturday, Jackson and her baby are still dealing with congestion from the tear gas, she said, with her baby taking medication to clear his airways.

Jackson’s past becomes part of the conversation

Critics are upset that Jackson is collecting money on a GoFundMe after getting tear gassed given her criminal record, she tells CNN.

Court records show Jackson agreed to plead guilty to “aiding an offender – accomplice after the fact” in June 2021. In the same case, she was also charged with murder, but the charges were later dismissed, according to a court document.

James Moore, who Jackson says was her boyfriend at the time, was sentenced to 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to intentional second-degree murder in 2020, according to a Hennepin County Attorney’s Office statement.

Moore fatally shot a man who was lured to an apartment to sell marijuana in an apparent robbery gone wrong, the statement says. Moore and another man ran into Jackson’s apartment after the shooting.

A witness said it was Jackson who lured the man by creating a fake Facebook message, according to the statement and a criminal complaint. From there, Moore and another man “had devised a plan to rob (the victim) when he arrived,” the prosecutor’s statement says.

However, Jackson was only convicted of “aiding an offender – accomplice after the fact.”

“I had nothing to do with anybody being killed,” Jackson tells CNN, explaining that the accomplice after-the-fact charge was based on the fact that the men fled to her apartment after the killing. Jackson also claims she was not the person to write the Facebook message, explaining she gave her boyfriend access to her account.

“Now that (I’m) an adult and all that stuff, like we don’t share our passwords and stuff with people,” she said.

She was sentenced to 28 days in jail, which she had already served at the time, and five years of probation, according to court records. She tells CNN she has a few months left of her probation.

She believes if she had never made a GoFundMe, she doesn’t think so much “negativity” about her story would have surfaced.

“What happened to us was traumatic, you know, in our mind, we feel so guilty … yes, I probably should have left sooner than we did,” she said. “It’s very traumatizing, like the things that we went through and the things that people are saying.”

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