EAST SIDE — Federal agents were seen chasing and arresting people around the Southeast Side in at least four separate incidents Tuesday, one of which resulted in a car crash that sent at least one man to the hospital.
Residents in South Chicago and East Side were stopped or detained in the four incidents Tuesday morning and afternoon, according to residents, local activists and a nationwide map tracking reports of ICE activity.
In one incident Tuesday morning, of which video footage was obtained by the Sun-Times, the driver of a large white SUV occupied by agents with U.S. Customs and Border Protection appears to deliberately hit a smaller red SUV.
The video shows the driver and passenger of the red SUV fall out of the vehicle before they are chased by federal agents who jumped out of the white SUV, according to the Sun-Times.
The crash took place a little before 11 a.m., according to bystanders. Chicago police confirmed they responded to the crash at 11:07 a.m., adding that local officers were not involved in the federal immigration operation.
Following the crash, one man was taken to Advocate Trinity Hospital in Calumet Heights for treatment Tuesday afternoon. Attorneys from the National Lawyers Guild, First Defense Legal Aid and Hispanic Lawyers of Illinois waited outside the hospital’s emergency room as an immigration attorney went inside to try to speak with the man.
The federal agents also nearly hit a pedestrian in Tuesday’s crash, said Marilu Moreno, a citizenship and program manager with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights who was on the scene Tuesday.
The crash took place as Border Patrol agents executed an “authorized precision immobilization technique [or PIT] maneuver,” said a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security who did not share their name. Two people were arrested following the crash, the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson alleged that the driver of the red SUV did not have legal status to be in the U.S. and claimed that driver rammed the Border Patrol vehicle prior to the crash.
Block Club has not independently verified the spokesperson’s narrative. Homeland Security officials also alleged 30-year-old Marimar Martinez rammed a Border Patrol vehicle before federal agents shot her in Brighton Park earlier this month, a claim that Martinez’s attorney has since said is contradicted by body camera footage of the incident.
A bystander holds the remains of what appear to be a Pocket Tactical Saf-Smoke smoke grenade and a 40-millimeter Direct Impact OC pepper round after federal agents crashed into and arrested two people near 105th Street and Avenue N Tuesday morning. Credit: Maxwell Evans/Block Club Chicago
Attorney Cindy Medina-Cervantes said she tried repeatedly to speak with one of the men injured in Tuesday’s crash at Trinity Hospital Tuesday as two federal agents stood guarding the entryway to his room.
The agents identified themselves as being with Homeland Security, but they refused to tell her their names, Medina-Cervantes said.
The agents first told her she could speak with the man after he received an MRI to check for fractures, Medina-Cervantes said. Later, a different pair of agents told her that she could “maybe” see him after he was discharged, she said.
Agents did not allow Medina-Cervantes to pass along legal forms to the man that would have named her as his attorney, she said. She stood outside the man’s room, keeping an eye on him and making sure the agents did not try to speak with him without an attorney present.
“I told them, ‘I’m very concerned for my client’s wellbeing, and once you move him and transfer him out, I don’t know where he’s going to be,’” Medina-Cervantes said.
The agents “kept saying, ‘We’re not ICE and he’s not under arrest,’” Medina-Cervantes said. “So, I kept saying, ‘If he’s not under arrest, then why can’t I speak to him?’ And they kept saying it was because they had him in custody. So, I said, ‘OK, so you do have him in custody so, therefore, he has a right to speak with me.’”
The man was ultimately released from the hospital into the custody of federal authorities, continuing a pattern of attorneys being denied access to their clients without a legal basis, Jennifer Crespo with Hispanic Lawyers of Illinois said.
A similar situation took place earlier this month, when a man ended up at Humboldt Park Health after he fell when ICE agents were chasing him. Federal agents also did not allow that man to speak with attorneys, and they handcuffed Ald. Jessie Fuentes (26th) when she tried to intervene on his behalf.
“We’re up against an entity that doesn’t seem to care what the rules are. And the policy and procedures in place are either not written, not confirmed, not permanent. They change all the time,” Crespo said. “So it is a concern because what we’re hearing on the ground is people essentially being disappeared. If you lose track of somebody, how do you find them?”
A car with dual flags, one reading “F–k ICE” in the style of President Donald Trump’s campaign materials and the other combining the Mexican and U.S. flags, drives past Gallistel Language Academy on 104th Street Tuesday afternoon. Numerous cars were seen driving the streets of East Side with Mexican and other flags after federal immigration agents were seen chasing and arresting people in the neighborhood Tuesday. Credit: Maxwell Evans/Block Club Chicago
Also Tuesday, The TriiBE reported that multiple videos shared online and with the publication depicted masked Border Patrol agents raiding a nearby Walgreens in the 3600 block of East 106th Street. The video showed an older white agent pinning down a young Black man outside the store while another person can be heard shouting, “he’s a citizen!”
Following the Tuesday morning crash, neighbors came outside to see what happened as more federal agents arrived and a tow truck came to remove the crashed vehicle, bystanders said.
Several dozen agents — some of whom were armed with long guns and others with riot-control weapons — “tear-gassed the crowd three times” over the next couple hours, Moreno said.
“The last time, everybody was just coughing and gasping for air,” she said.
Juanita Garnica told CBS2 her 16-year-old son and his 19-year-old cousin were detained during the protest, but she doesn’t know why or by which agency.
“I don’t know what to do to bring them back. They didn’t give me no information,” Garnica told CBS2. “Nobody called me. Nobody did anything. I don’t know where my son’s at.”
Block Club arrived at 105th Street and Avenue N around 12:45 p.m., soon after agents deployed tear gas against protesters for the third and final time that day, bystanders said. The smell of tear gas was still present in the area at that time, while several passersby on 105th Street had red, watery eyes.
Discarded canisters of tear gas were seen in the street, and 13 Chicago police officers were among those exposed to the gas, a department spokesperson said.
A federal judge on Thursday banned agents from using riot-control weapons like pepper-spray bullets and tear gas against peaceful journalists and protesters. The judge also bannedagents from arresting journalists and others who are not posing an immediate threat to the safety of law enforcement.
Immigration agents “like to create violence, and every time they go into a neighborhood, that’s what they do. They’re picking people at random,” Moreno said. “It’s not about whether you have papers, it’s just how we look.”
Several protesters lobbed plastic bottles at the ICE vehicles, but the agents were not at risk of any real harm as they tear-gassed the neighborhood, said one East Side resident on the scene who declined to share their name.
“This is pissing me off. I didn’t see nobody getting aggressive, trying to get on [the agents],” said the resident, a former U.S. Marine who wore a shirt reading “American grown with Polish roots.”
“Citizens are scared to death. You’ve got f–ing masked people throwing people in cars, and they’re not supposed to fight?” they said.
Another crash — seemingly unrelated to any immigration enforcement — occurred at 105th Street and Avenue N Tuesday soon after federal agents left the intersection Tuesday afternoon, as neighbors gathered in the streets.
No severe injuries were immediately apparent, as occupants of both cars exited their vehicles and spoke to each other following the crash.
A protester flies a Mexican flag near 105th Street and Avenue M in East Side Tuesday afternoon, a couple hours after federal agents crashed into a red SUV and arrested two occupants about a block away. Credit: Maxwell Evans/Block Club Chicago
Teachers and staff at George Washington High School, 3535 E. 114th St., received a notice from school administrators Tuesday warning them that ICE was in the area and that students had planned a walkout from the school at 2 p.m., according to a copy of the notice provided to Block Club.
The notice asked teachers to encourage students to stay in the school building and to wait in the main office after school to be picked up if they felt unsafe. Administrators notified Chicago Public Schools Safety and Security and staff was instructed not to penalize any students who may not show up for after school activities out of concern for their safety, according to the message.
Members of the Southeast Side Rapid Response Team reported sightings of federal immigration agents in at least three other locations in the area Tuesday.
At least three officers took away two people near 91st Street and Commercial Avenue, at least four officers took away four people near 106th Street and Ewing Avenue, and at least two officers pulled over a vehicle near 105th Street and Avenue O, according to the group.
The Southeast Side response team and others across Chicago have rallied to protect and warn residents in Chicago neighborhoods as President Donald Trump’s administration ramps up its efforts to detain and deport people.
Block Club confirmed Ald. Peter Chico (10th) was on the scene Tuesday afternoon. State Sen. Robert Peters said he was in Springfield Tuesday, but that his staff were on site in a statement posted to social media.
“All eyes on the East Side right now! ICE cannot just come into our communities and wreak havoc like this,” Peters said in the statement. “ICE behavior is unacceptable. And if we know one thing about East Siders, it’s that they don’t tolerate this kind of bulls–t.”
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