Crime & Law
Cook County Judge Rejects Push to Appoint Special Prosecutor to Investigate Alleged ICE Misconduct
A Cook County judge has rejected calls for a special prosecutor to probe allegations of criminal misconduct committed by federal immigration agents after Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke refused to launch her own investigations.
Judge Erica Reddick’s ruling Thursday came after more than 400 attorneys, clergy members, elected officials and community organizers accused O’Neill Burke of abandoning her official duties in refusing to investigate widespread allegations of crimes committed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in and around Chicago.
But Reddick found that it is law enforcement agencies, not the prosecutor’s office, that are tasked with launching such investigations. She ruled that even if she agreed to appoint a special prosecutor, that person would be bound by the same restrictions as O’Neill Burke.
“It cannot be shown the state’s attorney, at least at this point, has abandoned her duty,” Reddick said. “The court finds that the required showing has not been made.”
Reddick further found that the petitioners failed to establish that O’Neill Burke has any conflict of interest preventing her from carrying out her duties as state’s attorney.
O’Neill Burke on Thursday reiterated that the petition was “meritless” and that her office will review all cases brought to it by local law enforcement.
“What the ruling today says is that the State’s Attorney’s Office has not abdicated our duty, that the facts that gave rise to this petition are not based on the law,” O’Neill Burke said.
Attorneys with the law firm of Loevy and Loevy, which represented the petitioners, noted that Reddick’s ruling was made without prejudice, which will allow them to make a similar request for a special prosecutor in the future if circumstance warrant it.
One of those attorneys, Locke Bowman, said he could not have been more disappointed with Reddick’s ruling, but added that the “path to accountability does not end here.”
He instead said the pressure now must be put on the Chicago Police Department and other law enforcement agencies to investigate the allegations brought before them.
“We will be knocking on their doors,” Bowman said. “We will insist on investigations, we will insist those investigations take place with effectiveness. And when the investigations happen, we will expect that, pursuant to her protocol, the Cook County State’s Attorney will undertake the appropriate next step.”
The petitioners argued that despite “overwhelming evidence” of criminal misconduct carried out by federal agents during the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement efforts during “Operation Midway Blitz,” O’Neill Burke’s office has taken no action to investigate or prosecute those alleged crimes.
O’Neill Burke had repeatedly rejected calls for a special prosecutor, saying the petitioner's plan was “frivolous, contrary to centuries of legal precedent and court rulings, (and) riddled with factual errors.” Her office argued that it cannot serve as lead investigator in these cases and must first be presented with evidence by law enforcement before considering filing criminal charges.
Her office has pointed to a new protocol it implemented this year that calls for the use of all available prosecutorial tools to support law enforcement investigations into the use of force by federal immigration officers.
Prosecutors said that acts as a “roadmap” for law enforcement to investigate these types of cases, including a plan to preserve relevant evidence in case a future federal administration decides to pursue criminal charges.
But the coalition has said many of the alleged crimes carried out by ICE and Border Patrol agents were recorded on camera, while dozens of sworn declarations and hundreds of hours of video evidence have already been submitted in federal lawsuits detailing the broad allegations.
Reddick on Thursday cited a 2017 ruling by the Illinois Supreme Court in the case of People v. Ringland, in which the high court found that state’s attorney’s offices were precluded from hiring their own investigators to conduct their own traffic stops on highways.
Reddick said that doing so would essentially allow prosecutors to operate their own police force.
Reddick’s ruling also comes after a state board documenting ICE misconduct found late last month that federal agents engaged in “illegal and violent conduct” throughout Midway Blitz. That board, the Illinois Accountability Commission, forwarded its findings to Cook County prosecutors as well as police agencies in Chicago, Evanston, Franklin Park and Elgin for further investigation.
Ruben Castillo, the former chief judge for the Northern District of Illinois who chaired the commission and is among the coalition members seeking a special prosecutor, said last month that if O’Neill Burke doesn’t want to investigate these allegations, she should “step aside” and let someone else do it.
Since then, police in Franklin Park have sought assistance from the Illinois State Police in investigating Silverio Villegas González’s killing by a federal agent last fall. O’Neill Burke’s office confirmed it is assisting that investigation in a “supportive role.”
Villegas González was killed on Sept. 12, just days after the Trump administration launched its expanded immigration enforcement efforts in Illinois through Midway Blitz.
He was stopped by ICE agents while driving in suburban Franklin Park and allegedly attempted to flee when he was killed. Homeland Security officials claimed he intentionally struck and seriously injured an agent with his vehicle, though body camera footage from just after the shooting reportedly captured that agent saying his injuries were “nothing major.”
But the petitioners argued in a filing last week that even as O’Neill Burke’s office has begun assisting in that investigation, it has refused to get involved in “dozens” of other cases, which has left “the victims of those crimes without any prospect for justice and accountability.”
While she rejected their request, Reddick on Thursday did say the coalition has “established that many people in Cook County have set forth clear and compelling evidence they are victims of criminal wrongdoing … and that wrongdoing was violent and unprovoked.”
Note: Loevy and Loevy has done legal work for WTTW News.
