Nearly a year after President Donald Trump launched his pummeling deportation campaign throughout the Chicago area, a group of residents began a new effort Monday to hold federal agents accountable for alleged crimes by filing police reports and demanding investigations.
They include Marimar Martinez, the woman shot five times by Border Patrol agent Charles Exum last October. Despite early hints of a federal investigation into the circumstances of her shooting, Martinez said she has yet to be interviewed by the feds in the 10 months since.
So for the first time Monday, Martinez called on state and local authorities to act, instead. She did so while joining eight others who marched into the Chicago Police Department’s Area 3 headquarters in North Center to report the feds’ alleged crimes.
“Today, I am demanding our local and state officials do their job and protect their citizens from these criminal conducts that [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and Border Patrol have inflicted upon their victims,” Martinez said.
No federal agent has been charged with an on-duty crime connected to the Operation Midway Blitz deportation campaign despite widespread calls for accountability. Cook County Circuit Judge Erica Reddick in May denied a request for a special prosecutor who might have investigated the agents after asking whether anyone had actually filed a police report.
“Today, we are answering that concern,” said Berto Aguayo, an attorney and community organizer who alleges he and others were indiscriminately tear gassed by federal agents.
“When ordinary people have the courage to do their job as citizens, we expect that the people entrusted with enforcing our laws do their job,” Aguayo told reporters. “So today we have three words for the Cook County state’s attorney and any other investigatory body: Do your job.”
Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke’s office has stressed it is the responsibility of law enforcement agencies like the Chicago Police Department to investigate and build a case against agents accused of violating the law before her office can bring charges.
That makes Monday’s “mass filing” of police reports a possible key step toward that end, especially given the question posed by Reddick. A CPD spokesperson on Monday said each report “will be reviewed to determine whether there was a violation of local or state law.”
Meanwhile, Burke’s office formed a new task force in July to help guide and support such investigations — including by assessing whether criminal charges are warranted. Her office also released a charging protocol earlier in the year.
“No one is above the law — including federal agents — and the [Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office] will not hesitate to prosecute any case when it is supported by the evidence and the law,” Burke’s office said in a statement.
Cook County Commissioner Jessica Vásquez helped organize Monday’s filing effort. She said everyone reporting a crime had their own attorney and evidence to hand over to police. She also promised Monday’s event would not be the last.
Brian Orozco, an attorney assisting many clients Monday, said the alleged crimes ranged from illegal detention to battery to attempted murder.
Jimmy Arce of the Illinois Accountability Commission also acknowledged “one very important voice who couldn’t speak with us because his life had been cut short.” It was a reference to Silverio Villegas González, a father who was fatally shot by ICE agents in Franklin Park last September.
The Illinois State Police opened an investigation into Villegas González’s death in April.
Others have notably tried — and failed — to file reports with local police. Leo Feler, a Lake View man who alleges agents illegally entered his home to chase after construction workers, said he was twice turned away from a Chicago police station.
The second time, he said an officer filed a report for criminal damage to property but he later received a call from a sergeant informing him they wouldn’t be moving forward with the case.
It wasn’t until just last month that the Chicago Police Department finally issued formal guidelines on how to treat complaints against federal agents.
The guidance came after public outcry that CPD was not complying with a six-month-old mayoral executive order requiring the department to develop formal procedures for receiving complaints and collecting evidence against federal agents suspected of breaking the law.
The new guidelines require officers to notify their supervisors of a complaint and fill out an information report identifying the federal agent or agency involved, as well as witness and complainant information. Officers are required to give the complainant a report number.
Beyond that, complaints can be escalated upon review by supervisors. For instance, if the incident involved a death, shooting or other act of violence, a case would be referred to CPD’s detectives bureau and then, potentially, the Cook County State’s Attorney.
O’Neill Burke’s office in July formed a new task force to address the kind of investigations sought by Martinez and others Monday.
Known as the Federal Enforcement Action Felony Review Group, it’s meant to assist with “matters involving on-duty federal law enforcement activity, including immigration enforcement actions, conduct related to voter rights and election activity, and any other misconduct perpetrated by federal law enforcement that is potentially criminal in nature,” according to Burke’s office.
It’s expected to draw members from Burke’s felony review and grand jury units, among others, with preferences for staff with federal court experience.
While O’Neill Burke’s office must approve any felony charges, local law enforcement have the power to make misdemeanor charging decisions on their own.
Martinez’s trip inside the Area 3 headquarters lasted about two hours. She later said it took officers at least a half hour to take down her statement. Once outside, she said she felt good about the whole experience.
“At 10 months, I’ve been waiting for this,” Martinez said. “I’ve actually been waiting for this to come out and speak up. It’s time. Change starts with us.”