Crime & Law
Group of Cook County Leaders Seek Special Prosecutor, Claim Eileen O’Neill Burke ‘Abandoned’ Duties to Investigate ICE
A Border Patrol agent’s badge is seen near an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Ill., Oct. 3, 2025. (AP Photo / Erin Hooley, File)
A coalition of Chicago-area officials, organizations and individuals has taken the first step in a push for a special prosecutor to investigate criminal misconduct by federal agents last fall during the Trump administration’s expanded immigration enforcement operations.
That coalition, which includes more than 200 elected officials, community organizations, attorneys and religious leaders on Thursday filed a petition in Cook County court after they said State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke has failed to hold federal agents accountable.
“Absent such (an) appointment, the message to federal agents operating in Cook County would remain clear: you may shoot unarmed civilians, assault journalists and clergy, brutalize protesters, and lie under oath with impunity,” the group wrote in its 55-page petition states.
The coalition claims there is “overwhelming evidence” of criminal misconduct carried out by federal agents during Midway Blitz, but despite that, O’Neill Burke’s office has taken no action to investigate or prosecute those alleged crimes.
Attorneys with the law firm of Loevy and Loevy, which filed the petition, argued this represents a conflict of interest and an “abandonment” by the state’s attorney’s office of its duties.
“The State’s Attorney cannot represent the people of Cook County while turning a blind eye to egregious acts of violence that federal agents have inflicted on them in her jurisdiction,” they stated in the petition.
O’Neill Burke has rejected calls for a special prosecutor and called the coalition’s plan “frivolous, contrary to centuries of legal precedent and court rulings, (and) riddled with factual errors.”
In a statement earlier this week, she said the petition would only make it “more difficult” for her office to prosecute ICE agents who break the law.
A spokesperson for O’Neill Burke’s office declined to comment specifically on the petition Thursday, but did note that the office has not been contacted by law enforcement to review any investigations related to on-duty conduct of federal immigration agents.
Numerous calls for criminal charges have been made after federal agents killed Silverio Villegas González during a traffic stop in suburban Franklin Park and critically wounded Marimar Martinez in Brighton Park in separate incidents during the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement surge last fall.
No agents have yet been charged with a crime in either case.
“People are tired of hearing nothing can be done,” Marcie Rodriguez, executive director of the Enlace Chicago community group, said during a news conference announcing the petition in Federal Plaza Thursday afternoon. “Someone needs to show this administration that no one is above the law.”
O’Neill Burke in her statement said she has no statutory authority to lead investigations into criminal conduct and instead pointed to a new protocol change she implemented last month that calls for the use of all available prosecutorial tools to support law enforcement investigations into the use of force by federal immigration officers.
She said that protocol includes a plan to preserve relevant evidence in case a future federal administration decides to pursue criminal charges.
But the coalition argued that while that new protocol outlines the legal standards prosecutors must adhere to, it “does nothing to shift the State’s Attorney’s position of inaction.”
The petition will go before Cook County Chief Judge Erica Reddick for a hearing later this month. The coalition is not calling for any specific charges to be filed, but instead for an investigation to determine what crimes did occur and who should be held responsible.
Earlier this week, local prosecutors in Hennepin County Minnesota — which includes Minneapolis, which like Chicago saw a surge in ICE enforcement last year — announced they are investigating 17 potential criminal incidents involving federal agents.
Steve Art, an attorney with Loevy and Loevy, said O’Neill Burke has not made any commitment to act similarly.
“What we’ve seen in Cook County is that the elected state’s attorney has abdicated her duty to the people of Cook County,” he said, “by refusing to investigate those crimes, by refusing to bring prosecutions, by refusing to do that in the face of incredibly well-documented crimes.”
Note: Loevy and Loevy has done legal work for WTTW News.
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