Crime & Law

Federal Agents Have Already Violated Judge’s Order Restricting Their Use of Force, Attorneys Claim

Attorneys representing a group of Chicago journalists and protesters claim immigration agents have repeatedly violated a sweeping injunction limiting the use of “riot control weapons,” less than a week after it was put into effect by a federal judge.

Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are accused of firing pepper balls at moving vehicles, deploying tear gas and flash bangs in Little Village and exposing a 1-year-old and her family to chemical munitions as they traveled to a local warehouse store.

Those accusations come in a new filing Thursday made by attorneys representing the Chicago Headline Club, Chicago Newspaper Guild Local 34071, Block Club Chicago and other media organizations who’ve alleged immigration agents have engaged in a “pattern of extreme brutality” that’s part of a “concerted and ongoing effort to silence the press and civilians.”

Attorneys for the group asked the court to “take notice of apparent violations” of the preliminary injunction, issued by U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis in that case last week. The order restricts federal agents from using force unless it is “objectively necessary to stop an immediate threat of the person causing serious bodily injury or death to another person,” and requires that two separate warnings must be given before force is used.

The Trump administration has already appealed Ellis’ order and has asked an appellate court to immediately stay the injunction.

The first violation included in the report allegedly occurred as Ellis was issuing that order last Thursday, when federal agents shot pepper balls at a moving vehicle, then at the driver of that vehicle, whom attorneys said “posed no threat to them.”

Those agents then allegedly fired more pepper balls at people nearby who were honking their horns and recording the agents’ conduct, the filing states.

On Saturday, federal agents allegedly deployed tear gas and flash bangs near 26th Street and Pulaski Road in the Little Village neighborhood as people in the area protested and recorded the agents, the filing states.

Attorneys also wrote that witnesses at the scene did not report seeing any violence that would have justified such force from agents.

“As with other incidents,” the filing states, “the chemical munitions were deployed in response to protected speech and meted out against civilians without cause, apparently in direct defiance of this Court’s order.”

That same day, agents allegedly fired a chemical or pepper spray into a moving vehicle, reaching a 1-year-old baby inside. The incident occurred near 26th Street and Ogden Avenue in Cicero, just outside the city limits. A video taken by a passenger in the family’s car and released by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights on Sunday morning shows the distinctive orange mist of pepper spray enveloping the car’s driver and the baby.

The driver pulls over into the parking lot at Sam’s Club to frantically wipe away the irritant from his eyes and comfort the baby, who cries as a woman attempts to wipe away the irritant from her face.

The court filing also notes that Department of Homeland Security officials claimed someone fired shots at agents conducting an aggressive immigration raid through Little Village on Saturday morning.

Government attorneys claimed that just before 9:30 a.m., a man fired five times at agents and fled from the scene. Around the same time, they claimed, a paint can was thrown through an agent’s car window and bricks were hurled at a Border Patrol vehicle from a rooftop.

No one was injured in the shooting reported by federal agents, according to a spokesperson for the Chicago Police Department.

The plaintiffs’ attorneys note that they’ve asked the government “repeatedly to provide documentary or video evidence regarding supporting their account,” but have thus far not received it.

Heather Cherone contributed to this report.

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