Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson has signed a new executive order shrinking the designated “free speech zones” for demonstrations outside the west suburb’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility, citing “chaos” at Saturday night’s protest.
It’s the latest executive order Thompson has signed to contain ongoing protests outside the facility, despite criticism from protesters and activists. Last week, she signed an order designating a curfew for demonstrations from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily.
Cook County and state law enforcement agencies set up “designated protest areas” at the facility earlier this month.
The designated protest zone at 2000 S. 25th Ave. is being closed, leaving the areas on Beach Street — about 4,000 square feet based on satellite imagery — as the only places for protesters to gather near the facility, according to a statement from Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson.
In a Monday morning statement, Thompson said the decision was made in consultation with Illinois State Police and the Cook County sheriff. She said protesters were “creating chaos at the expense of the people who call Broadview home,” and later rejected the idea her order infringed on First Amendment rights.
“We have a right to protect the residents that live here. So we have to put protocols in place to make sure that everybody is safe. This is a public safety issue. It’s not to take anybody’s rights away,” Thompson said at a morning news conference. “We don’t need the National Guard. We don’t. But we have a right to protect the integrity of this village.”
State police confirmed all decisions on protest zones are a joint decision from unified command, which includes the village of Broadview and oversees safety outside the facility. The Cook County Sheriff’s Office didn’t respond immediately to a request for comment.
A Sun-Times reporter covering the protest Saturday witnessed few disturbances before state police officers pushed the crowd of protesters onto and eventually down 25th Avenue, lunging at protesters who fell while backpedaling. Before then, six protesters were quickly arrested at various points in the day after stepping over the barricade of the “free speech zone,” sometimes attempting to block federal vehicles.
Later, after a handful of demonstrators heckled a federal vehicle in the street, state police pushed all protesters out of the designated protest areas and onto 25th Avenue. This was about 30 minutes before the town’s protest curfew.
Rob Held, a member of the board of governors of the Chicago Council of Lawyers who was detained by Border Patrol while protesting outside the facility last month, told the Sun-Times Monday that demonstrators were “taunted and egged on by advancing police forces” Saturday night.
“What I saw was a poorly led, poorly trained police force acting aggressively and inappropriately to create an occasionally violent situation with protesters,” Held said. “It’s their conduct and understanding that a large crowd is not going to disperse in 30 seconds. … A more practical, gracious approach would go a long way in diffusing the tension at 6 p.m.”
Thompson said making the free speech zone smaller “will provide for both the serenity of residents and safety of protesters” by keeping protesters off 25th Avenue and away from the residential area across the street.
“Broadview residents lack the protesters’ privilege to return to calm, quiet neighborhoods for undisturbed rest,” she said. “[And] it has been only God’s grace alone that a protester has not been struck and killed by a motorist on 25th Avenue, given how frequently protesters dash onto this busy, four-lane street.”
Held agreed with the mayor’s decision, but added that the current zones are too small and that demonstrators need guarantees they won’t be hit with chemical or rubber munitions while in the designated areas.
A spokesperson for Broadview said the existing zones will not be expanded, and that she was grateful to all law enforcement responding to “help control unwieldy protests.”
A resident of the neighborhood bordering 25th Avenue said the protest noise has been down since the curfew went into place — though helicopters and police sirens have continued — and thinks that will continue with the latest move eliminating one of the free speech zones.
“It all just bleeds into the neighborhood,” the resident said. “I want these people to have their voices heard, and we may not be standing there with them, but we get what the cause is. … We just want people to be safe, and our neighborhood to be peaceful.”
Contributing: Mitchell Armentrout, Tyler Pasciak-LaRiviere