Federal agents terrorized Chicago citizens over the weekend, as part of “Operation Midway Blitz,” President Donald Trump’s law enforcement crackdown on a major Democratic city.
On Friday, Border Patrol agents violently arrested Deborah Brockman, a producer for Chicago television station WGN-TV. Two agents held down Brockman while zip-tying her hands, before multiple agents shoved her into an unmarked van. Her arrest seemingly violated a temporary restraining order made the day before barring agents from detaining journalists.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin alleged in a statement that Brockman had thrown objects at the agents’ vehicle and was “placed under arrest for assault on a federal law enforcement officer.” Brockman was later released, and WGN told Newsweek that no charges were brought against her.
As the vehicle carrying Brockman drove away, it slammed into a seemingly stationary vehicle before continuing on.
McLaughlin claimed that “several violent agitators” had attempted to block the vehicle from leaving. “In fear of public & law enforcement safety, officers used their service vehicle to strike a suspect’s vehicle and create an opening,” McLaughlin said in a statement, adding that the incident “reflects a growing and dangerous trend of illegal aliens violently resisting arrest and agitators and criminals ramming cars into our law enforcement officers.”
In a video of the incident, multiple bystanders berated the officers, but none appeared to approach them or their vehicle.
DropSite News’s Ryan Grim said that McLaughlin’s justification was “Orwellian.”
“To explain why ICE rammed its car into another vehicle, the spokeswoman says it ‘reflects a growing and dangerous trend of … agitators and criminals ramming cars into our law enforcement officers,’” he wrote in a post on X. “Um, the opposite happened. Clearly. So weird.”
On Saturday, at least 15 people were arrested while protesting at an ICE processing center in Broadview, a neighborhood of Chicago. Detainees reportedly face charges ranging from criminal damage to government property to disobeying police orders.
One of the individuals arrested was Elias Cepeda, an organizer and martial arts instructor who has reportedly been on the lookout for ICE agents in his neighborhood since the beginning of the school year. He and other advocates hoped to warn residents of Pilsen, where many Mexicans reside, about ICE activities so that they could avoid arrest or violence.
DHS claimed Cepeda, who was armed at the time of arrest, was a “violent rioter” with “suspected ties to antifa and previous social media posts calling ICE Nazis.”
In a viral video posted Saturday by Joshua Reed Eakle, an executive director at Project Liberal Action, four law enforcement vehicles swarmed a car on a suburban Chicago street. An agent pulled the driver from her car as she pleaded with officers that she was only 15 years old. The arresting officer then threw her to the ground and appeared to put his knee on her neck as he restrained her hands behind her back. Block Club Chicago reported the arrest took place in Hoffman Estates.
Meanwhile, roughly 400 protesters gathered in Rogers Park Saturday after a tamale vendor and at least three others were arrested nearby earlier in the week, Block Club Chicago reported.
And on Sunday, federal agents released tear gas on residents responding to a violent arrest during a protest in Albany Park, the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
Attorney Samay Gheewala said he was among many residents forcefully pushed to the ground by federal officers, after he’d approached to do “usual lawyer stuff” on behalf of people being arrested. Federal agents reportedly gave no warning before administering tear gas canisters, despite a temporary restraining order issued last week that required officers to issue two warnings before using riot control weapons.
Alderman Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez and state Senator Graciela Guzmán came running with a group of rapid responders, but by the time they arrived, one man had already been taken.
“This is part of the chaos they like to bring to our communities,” Guzmán said.
Rodriguez-Sanchez told the Sun-Times that one person “was saved due to the efforts of our communities, but unfortunately, somebody was [still] kidnapped from our neighborhood today.”
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