Video shows immigration agent punching restrained man after car collision turns into confrontation
Police in a Chicago suburb are collecting videos and other evidence to send to the Illinois attorney general’s office after a car crash involving a U.S. Border Patrol vehicle led to a violent arrest caught on video showing an agent repeatedly punching a man in the head while pinned to the ground.
Immigration agents arrested three people after a sedan collided with the rear of the U.S. Border Patrol vehicle around noon Friday in the city of Evanston. The episode drew a crowd of onlookers and quickly escalated.
Videos posted to social media show some in the crowd appearing to try to interfere with the arrests. Federal agents are seen at times deploying pepper spray, punching a man who approaches the officers, and pointing a gun in the direction of another woman who opened the agents’ vehicle door, where a detainee had been placed.
Federal agents have been spreading throughout Evanston in recent days as part of President Donald Trump’s immigration enforcement activities in the Chicago region. In response some Evanston community members have set up “rapid response” teams, organizing to warn residents when federal agents are spotted and working to slow the agents as they travel through the region.
One agent who was restraining a man on the ground Friday appeared to punch him in the head as it was pressed against the asphalt. The Department of Homeland Security later said the officer delivered “defensive strikes” after the man “grabbed the agent’s genitals and squeezed.”
Some witnesses claimed online that the agents caused the crash by suddenly braking in front of the sedan, though federal officials disputed that account. City leaders swiftly condemned the agents’ actions.
In a news conference shortly after the episode, Mayor Daniel Biss said immigration agents had “beaten people up” and “abducted them.”
“It is an outrage,” Biss said. “Our message for ICE is simple: Get the hell out of Evanston.”
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that the agents were being “aggressively tailgated” and the sedan hit them as they tried to make a U-turn.
“A hostile crowd then surrounded agents and their vehicle, verbally abusing and spitting on them,” the agency said. “One physically assaulted a Border Patrol agent and kicked an agent. As he was being arrested, he grabbed the agent’s genitals and squeezed them. The agent delivered several defensive strikes to free himself.”
The mayor has urged more people to join the rapid response team, and city officials have passed ordinances declaring city property to be “No ICE Zones.” This week the Evanston Police Department began sending a supervisor to any reported immigration enforcement scene to document what happens and collect evidence for the Illinois attorney general’s Civil Rights Division, Police Cmdr. Ryan Glew said.
Glew said officers received calls from both federal agents and bystanders. A supervisor arrived after the arrests were made, and several people were treated by paramedics for exposure to pepper spray.
“When we responded those efforts were focused on stabilizing the situation and preventing further conflict between ICE agents and community members,” he said.
Allie Harned, a social worker at Chute Middle School, was part of the crowd that formed after the collision.
“This was awful. There were ICE agents and CBP agents pointing guns at community members, spraying pepper spray in the face of community members,” she said at the news conference.
“This was terrifying to community members,” Harned said. “It was horrifying to a student who happened to be in a car and witnessed it. It is not OK.”
___
This story has been updated to correct the spelling of the Evanston mayor’s name to Biss, not Bis.