Federal immigration authorities made multiple arrests Friday morning and detained a WGN-TV employee after targeting a small group of landscapers in Lincoln Square on the North Side. The chaotic scene ended with the agents slamming into a woman’s vehicle and speeding off.
That woman watched as her boyfriend’s car was towed hours later with part of its rear bumper hanging off. She said she lives in the area but declined to comment further and wouldn’t give her name.
Other bystanders described the scene in the middle of the street in the 2400 block of West Foster Avenue as “violent” and “horrifying.”
Videos posted online showed U.S. Border Patrol agents dressed in tactical gear kneeling over a woman who they had face down on the street with her hands behind her back. In one video, the woman identified herself as Debbie Brockman and said she works for WGN-TV. A neighbor who witnessed the agents said she didn’t know why Brockman was being detained.
In its own news report, WGN-TV said it is “still in the process of searching for and obtaining video showing the moment leading up to the employee’s detainment. WGN-TV also learned that the Border Patrol released the employee from federal custody as of 3 p.m. Friday.” The station reported she works in WGN-TV’s creative services department.
Video appears to show a black SUV was stopped diagonally in front of the federal agents’ silver Chrysler minivan just as they were about to leave. The agents did not try to go around the SUV. Instead, an agent got out of the van and walked up to the SUV, trying to open its door. When that was unsuccessful, the agents returned to the van and quickly pulled away, hitting the side of the SUV as the van sped away.
Residents recorded video of agents elsewhere in the neighborhood Friday morning, including another arrest just blocks from Foster and Lincoln. The morning activity appeared to begin with the landscapers.
“I heard screaming, and I went to the window, and I saw a man being taken by a few [federal] agents,” said Jessica Felker, who lives on West Foster Avenue just east of North Lincoln Avenue. “They shoved him in a minivan very violently.”
Jennifer Welday said she first heard honking and yelling just after 8:30 a.m. She lives near the scene, too, and came out to witness a man she believed to be a landscaper being led into a van by federal agents. She said watching the arrests and the feds ramming the vehicle was “extremely scary.”
“It’s just horrible to see,” Welday said. “This should never happen. Lawless is how it felt.
“They knew they hit [the car] and kept going,” she said. “It made a very loud sound and clearly lots of damage.”
Neighbor Nancy Molden said she believed two other landscapers escaped arrest. She called the ordeal “absolutely horrifying.”
“That was the most frightening thing I have seen in Chicago, living here 20-odd years,” Molden said.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Contributing: Nader Issa