Federal prosecutors are seeking a 2½-year prison sentence for the man who admitted firing a gun “in proximity of” U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents last fall in the waning days of Operation Midway Blitz.
Hector Gomez, 46, is one of only two people convicted of a non-immigration crime tied to the Trump administration’s deportation campaign in the Chicago area last year. Gomez pleaded guilty in April to illegally possessing a firearm as a felon.
Gomez, who was born in Mexico and has no lawful status in the United States, is set to be sentenced July 20 by U.S. District Judge Matthew Kennelly. Gomez’s attorneys have sought a brief delay.
They are seeking an 18-month sentence and acknowledge that he’s likely to be deported once he finishes his prison time.
Federal prosecutors have charged 33 known defendants with non-immigration crimes tied to Midway Blitz. Twenty-four were cleared, and five are on track to see their charges dismissed. Charges against two others are still pending.
The claim that agents had been fired upon in early November was met with skepticism, especially when no charges were initially announced against an alleged shooter. Then-U.S. Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino told Fox News a suspect had been found “within 48 hours.”
But, in a recent court filing, Gomez’s lawyers wrote that he fired his weapon as agents “arrested members of Mr. Gomez’s community in Little Village.”
“Evidence shows that Mr. Gomez’s discharge of a firearm was in an upward trajectory,” attorneys Michael Monaco and Kathleen Dorsey wrote. “That is, any shots fired were pointed above the heads of CBP agents and any other community members present, and not in the direction of any person.”
They also wrote that the incident took place during one of multiple “binge-drinking” episodes Gomez has experienced since he began drinking at 14. They said he told them “he had been drinking the night before until 2 or 3 in the morning, and started drinking again immediately upon waking the morning of November 8.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jill Bhalakia wrote that Gomez purchased a beer that morning. Then, a little more than an hour later, driving a black Jeep Wrangler, he fired at least two rounds near Border Patrol agents around the 2400 block of South Kedzie Avenue. The area was “busy with pedestrians, vehicles and CBP agents actively engaged in law enforcement activity,” she wrote.
Gomez fled but parked nearby, around the 3100 block of West 26th Street, the prosecutor wrote. Then, around 2:30 p.m., she said Gomez got out of the Jeep and brandished the gun in front of an unnamed victim, “laughing profusely” as he did so.
The Chicago police later found the gun in Gomez’s lap as he sat in the vehicle’s driver’s seat “near beer bottles in the center console,” according to Bhalakia.
Bhalakia wrote that Gomez has been removed from the United States “on multiple occasions,” has a 2010 illegal entry conviction and was the subject of a final order of removal on Dec. 10. He also was convicted last year of aggravated unlawful possession of a weapon.
Monaco and Dorsey wrote that Gomez was born in a rural area of Mexico and was kidnapped in 2008 or 2009 along with his father and youngest sister and held for ransom. His family sold their belongings to pay the ransom, according to the his lawyers.
He is now married, and his wife lives in Mexico and cares for their three children, according to Monaco and Dorsey. They called him a “hardworking member of his community” who has worked at Mexican restaurants and done odd jobs to support his family.
Bhalakia argued that Gomez’s crime “not only endangered the community … but also further jeopardized his ability to be present for his wife and children.”