"It almost brought tears to my eyes seeing his lifeless body lying on the streets of Minneapolis," said nurse Anne Phillips.
Outside the Durham VA, where they treat veterans, they honored someone who served others.
"Everybody that comes into this field comes into with the attitude of we are here to help people, it doesn't matter who you are, we are here to help you," said Dr. Kathard, a VA physician.
For VA nurses, seeing the escalation of ICE in places like Minneapolis creates a moral crisis.
"I think if you see ICE agents come into hospitals or violating human rights of our fellow Americans, of our community members, so I think it's more of a crime to stay silent, so I think he was well within his rights as a nurse as a fellow American," says nurse Summer Lillie.
And as ICE continues to ramp up enforcement, some nurses told ABC11 that when federal agents were in the Triangle, watching out for the community extended beyond just their work in the hospitals.
"When ICE was here in our local community, we were out in the streets, we worked together to get kids to school safely, to feed families who were too afraid to come out of their house, it's what you do as a community, not just as a nurse but as a community," Phillips said.
It's a lesson some say is important to teach the next generation.
"We are people, and we need to be treated as people. No one should be getting killed for trying to help someone. So Durham is a place of love. Everyone here is loved by someone in us, so we just need to be doing better about this," says Liam Norris, the son of a Durham VA nurse.