CHICAGO (AP) — A high-speed chase involving Border Patrol agents led to the pursued person's arrest Tuesday afternoon in a residential street on Chicago ’s South Side, authorities said, and footage from the scene shows protesters gathering before agents deployed a tear gas to disperse them.
While federal agents conducted an immigration enforcement operation, a driver suspected of being in the country illegally rammed into a Border Patrol vehicle before
fleeing, Department of Homeland Security officials said. The agents chased the vehicle until the driver stopped and attempted to run away, according to DHS.
As agents arrested the person, a crowd began to form and “crowd control methods were used,” DHS officials said. Chicago Police Department confirmed that federal agents deployed tear gas into the street. Federal agents have deployed tear gas on other residential streets in recent weeks.
Footage from ABC 7 shows dozens of protesters waving flags as several federal agents and local police officers hold them back from the street. Border Patrol agents can be seen throwing tear gas canisters into the crowd, enveloping the street in a white haze as protesters cough and run from the area.
CPD officers arrived about 11 a.m. after a 911 call about a car accident involving federal authorities, the agency said. A few members of the crowd that formed began throwing objects at the federal agents, according to the CPD.
Thirteen Chicago police officers were exposed to tear gas, the agency said.
Illinois Go. JB Pritzker on Tuesday called federal agents’ treatment of protesters “abominable,” saying they’ve been hit with tear gas, pepper pellets and rubber bullets “just when they’re holding signs and expressing themselves.”
“I’ve never seen it like this in the United States of America,” he said.
Over the weekend, federal agents also deployed tear gas in the northern Chicago neighborhood of Albany Park, and earlier this month, agents threw canisters of tear gas out of a vehicle near a grocery store on the city’s West Side.
Andrew Denton told The Associated Press that he was hit with tear gas as he arrived at the grocery store to pick up lunch. He said about 20 people were in the area, including older people and families with children, adding that students at an elementary school next door were also outside during their recess.
“It feels pretty sad that this is the reality, that the current administration is treating the communities of Chicago in this way,” he said at the time.
Protests over the federal immigration crackdown have erupted throughout Chicago, mostly outside a federal immigration facility in the west Chicago suburb of Broadview but also spreading into neighborhood streets.
Some of these demonstrations have involved following federal agents' vehicles.
Most recently, federal prosecutors last week obtained a grand jury indictment against a woman and man accused of using their vehicles to strike and then box in a Border Patrol agent’s vehicle. The agent then exited his car and fired five shots at the woman, injuring her. The two were released Monday pending trial.
Meanwhile, immigration activists rallied Tuesday in Springfield to call for an expansion of what are commonly known as “sanctuary city” protections under the state’s Trust Act, which prohibits state and local law enforcement from cooperating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
