Crime & Law
Oversight Board Quizzes Top Cop on Why CPD Didn’t Stop Federal Agents During Aggressive Immigration Raids
Video: WTTW News senior reporter Heather Cherone appears on “Chicago Tonight” at 5:30 p.m. April 2, 2026, ahead of the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability meeting at Kelly High School in Brighton Park.
Chicago’s police oversight board pressed Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling on Thursday about why Chicago police officers did not do more to stop federal agents from carrying out aggressive immigration raids across the city.
The special meeting of the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability at Kelly High School in Brighton Park came months after the oversight board asked Snelling to appear at a meeting to answer questions about his department’s response to the aggressive immigration raids launched by President Donald Trump as part of his effort to carry out the largest mass deportation campaign in U.S. history.
Not only did Chicago police officers comply with the Welcoming City ordinance, but they also kept Chicagoans safe during tense confrontations with heavily armed federal agents that nearly spiraled out of control, Snelling told the commission and a nearly full auditorium.
“Our officers showed up to keep down violence,” Snelling said.
But Snelling also acknowledged CPD struggled to respond to the Trump administration’s decision to send hundreds of agents to Chicago and ordered them to aggressively detain anyone they suspected of being undocumented.
“No one wrote the ordinance and the law with this type of immigration enforcement in mind,” Snelling said. “I do not believe, under any circumstances, that anyone writing those policies, those orders, those laws, believe that we would see, what we saw this past fall.”
Snelling specifically defended officers’ actions on Oct. 4, when federal agents shot Marimar Martinez five times. The meeting took place less than a mile from the spot where the shooting took place and protests erupted.
After federal agents armed with military-style weapons and combat fatigues fired tear gas and pepper balls at the crowd, CPD officers in their regular uniforms separated protesters and the agents. Twenty-seven officers were injured by that tear gas during that incident.
“The people who needed protection are the ones that we stopped further from being shot,” Snelling said. “If our officers were involved in collaborating, they wouldn’t have taken that for the people in that community.”
Martinez was charged with a felony after federal officials accused her of trying to ram agents with her vehicle. The case was dismissed after videos emerged that Martinez’s attorneys said showed an agent steering his vehicle into Martinez’s truck.
After Martinez was shot, Snelling said his officers “cannot and will not” arrest federal agents conducting immigration enforcement operations in Chicago and implored residents not to interfere with those efforts.
There is no evidence that CPD investigated the shooting.
Snelling was repeatedly jeered by the crowd, some of whom held signs calling on CPD to “end ICE and CPD collaboration,” referring to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
As the meeting ended, approximately two dozen people started a chant of “CPD, KKK, ICE, they are all the same.”
The leaders of the protest were forcibly removed from the auditorium before officials ended meeting.
Security guards remove protesters who disrupted the meeting of the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability on April 2, 2026, by denouncing CPD’s response to efforts by federal agents to deport undocumented immigrants. (Heather Cherone / WTTW News)
Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order Jan. 31 that he said would lay “the groundwork to prosecute Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents for criminal misconduct” in Chicago.
Johnson’s executive order gave police brass 30 days to develop a policy directing officers to document suspected misconduct or criminal violations by ICE and Border Patrol agents and identify those responsible.
“CPD shall issue guidance in consultation with the Corporation Counsel and mayor’s Office of Immigrant, Migrant and Refugee Rights within 30 days from the effective date of this order establishing procedures for implementing the requirements of this order,” according to the executive order.
But Johnson said March 26 at a City Hall news conference that a new policy is not necessary, despite that provision of the executive order and CPD’s acknowledgement to WTTW News that a new policy had been drafted but not finalized.
Snelling told the commission the new policy remains “in the works” and is now being reviewed by Johnson administration officials.
While targeted immigration enforcement actions have continued in the city and surrounding suburbs, federal agents have not returned in large numbers to Chicago since the end of December. City officials have warned they were preparing for increased enforcement actions once the weather warmed up for good.
After declaring Johnson’s executive order “wholly inappropriate,” Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke unveiled a new protocol that she said would allow the use of force by federal immigration officers to be scrutinized.
However, a coalition of Chicago-area officials, organizations and individuals argued O’Neill Burke failed to hold federal agents accountable and asked a Cook County judge to appoint a special prosecutor to handle the probes.
O’Neill Burke’s office has called that effort a “frivolous” attempt to violate the law.
Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling, far right, answers questions from the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (Heather Cherone / WTTW News)
Commission President Remel Terry apologized for holding the meeting during Passover and just days before Easter, saying they had unsuccessfully tried to reschedule it but felt it “urgently” needed to take place.
Snelling said he was very busy keeping “the entire city safe” and could not easily rearrange his schedule.
“I can’t drop things and just show up when I’m called with a week’s notice,” Snelling said.
WTTW News coverage of policing and police reform is supported by The Joyce Foundation.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
