A day after President Donald Trump summoned 300 Illinois National Guard troops into federal service, one of his immigration enforcement officials 700 miles away in Illinois sent an email praising the people who turned out to be “the difference maker” in calming local protests.
His email didn’t brag about soldiers, border agents or any branch of federal law enforcement. Instead, the official wrote that the Department of Homeland Security “did not have to intervene with any protesters” the weekend of Oct. 4 — after the Illinois State Police showed up outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview.
“It’s clear that ISP is the difference maker in this scenario, and we are grateful for their leadership,” Peter Sukmanowski, assistant director of ICE’s Chicago field office, wrote. “Hopefully, we can keep it up for the long-haul.”
The email sent Oct. 5 to a handful of ICE officials, and forwarded on to ISP, stands in clear contrast to rhetoric from the Trump administration that weekend. It’s among the hundreds of pages of documents that U.S. District Judge April Perry relied upon Oct. 9 to temporarily block the Trump administration from deploying National Guard troops within Illinois.
The Trump team argued to Perry about a “brazen new form of hostility” targeting federal law enforcement. They submitted their own evidence to Perry complaining about federal employees being doxxed and having their families threatened. They said bounties have been placed on the heads of officers and “criminal enterprises” have “escalated their tactics.”
But days after a grand jury refused to hand up a federal indictment over claims of assault against federal officers, and a separate judge found protesters were subjected to “unreasonable and excessive” force, Perry concluded that the Trump administration’s “perception of events” around Chicago “are simply unreliable.”
The Chicago Sun-Times has since reviewed the records placed in front of her by Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, City Hall and the Trump administration. They offer a behind-the-scenes snapshot from law enforcement and government officials, and show a divide in both the mission, scope and purpose of ICE enforcement in the Chicago area.
‘This is unreasonable use of force’
Gil Kerlikowske, who served as commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection under President Barack Obama from 2014 to 2017, wrote in a lengthy declaration that DHS hasn’t been following applicable use-of-force standards in policing the Chicago area, “including by using force against people who are not engaged in threatening acts, misusing crowd-control munitions and tear gas, and indiscriminately using force that needlessly injures people who pose no threat to law enforcement.”
The Rev. David Black of the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago was shot in the head by a pepper ball by DHS agents on the rooftop of the ICE processing center in Broadview on Sept. 19. In videos shared on social media and according to a Sun-Times photojournalist on the scene, Black was gesturing with his arms outstretched seconds before he was shot and fell to his knees on the ground.
Black then began yelling at officers. ICE agents came outside the fence three minutes after the pepper ball shooting and lined up outside the facility, facing Black and others. The agents then moved forward, and one agent sprayed Black in the face with a blue OC spray can, a nonlethal aerosol spray derived from cayenne pepper. Black said he was hit seven times on his arms, face and torso with “exploding pellets that contained some kind of chemical agent.”
According to CBP and DHS policies provided in an exhibit, pepper balls are intended to be used for “area saturation” against people who “at a minimum, demonstrate active resistance.” It is intended to be fired “against an inanimate object to disperse powder into an area” and should not be deployed if an agent is “less than 10 feet from the subject unless the use of deadly force is reasonable and necessary.”
Officers may not “intentionally target the head, neck, spine or groin of an intended subject, unless the use of deadly force is reasonable,” the policy reads.
DHS claimed “agitators were blocking an ICE vehicle from leaving the federal facility” and said law enforcement “verbally warned” them about the use of force if they didn’t move. In interviews, Black has denied he was blocking an ICE vehicle and said there was no order to disperse.
Kerlikowske wrote in his declaration that he has reviewed media coverage of DHS agents shooting pepper balls directly at people who were not acting aggressively toward an officer, officers body-slamming individuals at protests and throwing them to the ground and federal agents throwing gas canisters onto the street from a vehicle, “right in the middle of an urban area without any active protest.”
“This is an unreasonable use of force, as gas canisters should be thrown at pavement to disperse large crowds. They should never be directed directly at individuals,” Kerlikowske wrote. “Law enforcement should never use tear gas near schools, hospitals, nursing homes or other sensitive places. Nor should they use tear gas without EMS readily available …”
Lack of ‘urban policing’ training
Perry cited Chicago’s “history of strained policing” in her ruling. She’s certainly familiar. She had a hand in prosecuting Jon Burge, the late former Chicago police commander tied to allegations of torture; and in investigating Jason Van Dyke, the former Chicago police officer found guilty of the second-degree murder of teenager Laquan McDonald.
The judge noted from the bench that “it can be hard for federal authorities, and certainly those from Texas, to appreciate” the nuances of that history in Chicago.
Kerlikowske pointed to the lack of “urban policing” training that DHS agents have, writing that the “lack of training of policing an urban environment is apparent in observing the conduct of DHS agents in Broadview, Illinois.”
“… DHS agents present are policing with masks on, with chemical munitions, without body-worn camera, without a visible identification number, and without clear communications to protesters. I would not expect to see any well-trained officers policing in such a manner,” Kurlikowske wrote.
He details that DHS officers do not receive training on how to conduct a vehicle stop or how to engage in a foot pursuit or vehicle pursuit in an urban area, and said both types of pursuits can frequently end in harm to innocent bystanders.
“… Further, I have observed DHS agents attempting to control crowds through body slams and the firing of less lethal munitions directly at people. … It is apparent to me that these DHS officers lack the skills and experience to address the law enforcement issues raised by protesting crowds.”
‘Intended to provoke the crowd’
DHS Secretary Kristi Noem visited Broadview’s ICE facility on Oct. 3 — two days before the ICE official wrote his email praising the Illinois State Police.
Her motorcade had two options when it came time to leave. It could take Beach Street, where no protesters waited for her. Or it could take Harvard Street, which was full of them. Noem chose Harvard Street.
That’s according to another declaration submitted to Perry by ISP Major Donald Orseno.
To begin making way for Noem, federal agents warned the protesters at Harvard Street to move, Orseno wrote. When the feds concluded the crowd would need to be pushed back even further, agents allegedly asked ISP if “gas” would be useful.
ISP assured the feds the situation was “under control,” Orseno said.
“Once the roadway was clear, the secretary’s motorcade advanced through the area,” Orseno wrote. “No pepper balls, gas or other chemical or irritant agents were deployed. … After the secretary’s motorcade departed, the number of protesters near the facility began to decrease.”
Broadview Police Chief Thomas Mills cited Noem’s visit to the facility in his own declaration to Perry. Mills told the judge that Noem made law enforcement’s job “harder” that day.
“Her presence and actions seemed to be intended to provoke the crowd,” Mills wrote. “I did not see any legitimate law enforcement purpose for what she was doing.”
‘Aztec death whistles’
Russell Hott, the field office director for ICE’s Chicago office, wrote that officers continue to face threats, detailing that his own tires were slashed near the Broadview facility. He said the incident “was repeated more than a dozen times” and both government and personally owned vehicles have been targeted.
He also cites an incident in which a “protester pulled down the mask of an officer” as an example of a threat on June 17 outside an immigration court building.
Some of those instances remain under investigation. Some have led to criminal charges that are pending, with defense attorneys vigorously fighting back. And in the assault case leveled against Chicagoans Ray Collins and Jocelyne Robledo, a grand jury actually refused to indict — a highly unusual event in Chicago’s federal courthouse.
Citing an Oct. 4 incident, Hott writes that protesters slashed the tires of a government-owned van. ICE officers abandoned the vehicle for their own safety, Hott wrote, and upon returning, found all the windows had been smashed.
“Chicago Police Department impounded the vehicle, and ICE was required to pay to retrieve the vehicle,” Hott wrote.
Protesters, whom Hott repeatedly calls “rioters,” shot fireworks at officers stationed outside Broadview, which he said carries the potential to cause burns, blindness and more significant injury. In early September, people threw bottles and rocks at officers, as well as bottles of tear gas, he wrote.
“It is clear that rioters have sought to permanently maim ERO personnel,” Hott said. “When standing close to officers, rioters have used ‘Aztec Death Whistles,’ which sound like a human screaming and are generally 100-110 decibels in volume.”
ICE officers also called police for help three times on Sept. 13 when protesters threw rocks near the facility’s gates and damaged 12 vehicles, “resulting in slashed tires and flour poured into a vehicle’s gas tank.”
“Broadview Police Department informed officers that it would get back to them but never responded,” he wrote.
Contributing: Ashlee Rezin