By Renee Hickman and Lizbeth Diaz
CHICAGO/MEXICO CITY (Reuters) -When Silverio Villegas Gonzalez was 12 minutes late for his shift at Tom & Jerry's Gyros, a diner on Chicago's northwest side, his manager knew something was wrong. The short order cook always let someone know if he was running late, even by just 5 minutes.
Earlier that morning, Villegas Gonzalez, 38, had been fatally shot by a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent shortly after dropping his children off at a school and daycare
in the suburb of Franklin Park. The agents were attempting to arrest him as part of a massive immigration sweep launched by U.S. President Donald Trump. Villegas Gonzalez was the Chicago crackdown's first casualty.
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement after the Sept. 12 incident that Villegas Gonzalez was “a criminal illegal alien” with “a history of reckless driving” who steered his car at agents, causing one to fear for his life and fire his weapon, killing Villegas Gonzalez.
DHS told Reuters on Friday that they would conduct their own investigation into the incident after the first agency that responded had finished its review. Both Franklin Park police and the FBI responded to the shooting incident, but it wasn't clear which agency was investigating.
The FBI declined to comment citing a lack of staff to respond to media inquiries due to the government shutdown. Franklin Park police did not respond to Reuters' request for comment.
A RESERVED BOY FROM IRIMBO
Reuters interviews with family and coworkers, and a review of public records, present a more nuanced picture of a man who left his quiet village years ago for economic opportunity and worked long hours to support his children. A man who had gotten sober after heavy drinking resulted in liver disease, and who had become one woman's steadfast partner.
"He was so soft-spoken," said Ashley Alekna, manager of the diner, describing him as a kind, dependable presence during his 11-hour shifts in a kitchen full of boisterous personalities, making food for the crowds that spilled in from the community college across the street.
Villegas Gonzalez made a similar impression on Blanca Mora, his partner, when they were growing up in Irimbo, a small town in Michoacán, Mexico.
Mora says they were in their early teens when they started greeting each other around town, meeting to chat on the corner near her grandparents' house.
People often leave Irimbo for opportunities beyond the tiny town, including Villegas Gonzalez's older brother, Jorge.
Jorge, who first went to the U.S. in 1998, remembers his little brother watching him walk away.
“He was a kid,” said Jorge. “He hid so I wouldn’t see him crying.”
FATHER OF TWO
In 2007, Silverio followed his brother north, part of a wave of more than 348,000 Mexican emigrants to the U.S. that year, U.S. Census data showed, as President Felipe Calderon's violent war against drug cartels deepened.
Villegas Gonzalez found employment in the restaurant kitchens where, according to recent National Restaurant Association data, 46% of the nation's chefs and 31% of its cooks are foreign-born.
He met a woman, and they had two sons. Jorge Villegas Gonzalez said his younger brother often struggled to cover the bills.
Between 2011 and 2019, Villegas Gonzalez was cited for a handful of traffic offenses, one for driving more than 30 miles per hour over the speed limit. He was also ticketed for driving an uninsured vehicle and having a broken tail light. He had no criminal record.
His abuse of alcohol during those years led to a diagnosis of liver disease, he told Alekna later. A doctor told him if he kept drinking, it would kill him.
He had been sober for more than a year when he died, co-workers and Mora said.
Mora and Villegas Gonzalez fell out of touch when he moved to the U.S. But she eventually moved there too, looking for her mother who had left Mexico to better support her three children years before. She never found her mother, she said, but she found love with the reserved boy from home.
She visited him when he was sick and later, the two became a couple. Villegas Gonzalez, his two sons, Mora and her 13-year-old daughter eventually all lived together in Franklin Park.
A FAMILY IN FRANKLIN PARK
Mora said Villegas Gonzalez took his sons to the library three times a week, played with Lego and banned phones at the dinner table so the newly blended family could focus on each other.
He began to open up to his co-workers, said Alekna, cracking little jokes throughout the day. When his younger son celebrated his birthday, they helped him bake a Minecraft video game-themed cake, with green icing.
The morning he was killed, Villegas Gonzalez dropped his older son off at Passow Elementary School in Franklin Park, and then his younger son at Small World Learning Center, just around the corner.
Minutes later, surveillance video from a nail salon showed ICE agents pulling him over, each leaning into his front car windows. Villegas Gonzalez backed up and tried to drive away as the agent on the passenger side chased on foot. The agent on the driver's side was not visible as Villegas Gonzalez drove forward.
In separate surveillance footage from another nearby business, what sounds like two gunshots can be heard around the same time. Police records and bodycam footage indicated that Villegas Gonzalez quickly crashed into a parked delivery truck.
A few hours later, Jorge Villegas Gonzalez was driving a minibus through the streets of Irimbo when he got the call that his brother was dead.
Villegas Gonzalez's two boys were taken to foster care, Mora said.
“When he closed his eyes at night," she said, "he was thinking about the children.”
(Reporting by Renee Hickman in Chicago and Lizbeth Diaz in Mexico City; Editing by Emily Schmall and Michael Learmonth)
