On July 15th, South Side Weekly released recordings of calls from the June 4th mass detention incident at the 2245 S. Michigan Avenue immigration office, which cast doubt on the Chicago Police Department (CPD)’s account of their involvement in the incident.
At the July 1st hearing of the Committee on Immigrant and Refugee Rights, CPD Director of Community Policing Glen Brooks stated that CPD officers “arrived without knowledge of immigration enforcement occurring at the location.” But the call records tell a different story.
In the first phone call to 911, the caller clearly identified themselves as an ICE contractor. More concerningly, the Crime Prevention Information Center (CPIC) officer who called in the incident moments later appeared to be well aware that agents were arresting and transporting detainees. CPD released a notification of the incident shortly after that call stating clearly that Homeland Security agents needed “assistance with crowd control attempting to transport several arrestees from building to vehicle [while] a large group is gathered outside.”
While CPD maintains that responding officers were not made aware of this information, these calls raise urgent questions about the veracity of that account: why were the responding officers not made aware? Why did it take such a long time for officers on the scene to determine that civil immigration enforcement was occurring, and what were their communications with ICE agents during that time?
Both Governor Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson spoke out in support of CPD’s handling of this incident before the full information was released, claiming that CPD did not and would not ever cooperate with ICE.” This incident begs the question: if this isn’t what cooperating with ICE looks like, what does?
The public deserves an answer, and they deserve it now.
While we are grateful that Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office has agreed to open an investigation, the City must do the same. We reiterate our call for an immediate investigation by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, and a review of how and why this incident occurred without internal accountability by the Office of the Inspector General. We also demand the immediate release of all communications and documentation related to the June 4th incident. Given the choice of Alds. Lopez and Napolitano to defer and publish SOr2025-0017810, it is crucial that the administration release this information without delay.
The stakes could not be higher: the federal government has just opted to increase ICE’s budget to make it the largest law enforcement agency in the country. ICE has been given a nearly limitless budget and deputized by the President of the United States to racially profile and unlawfully detain and deport our neighbors––and commit violence against those who dare to protest their despicable actions.
We cannot afford to hide behind empty statements while Chicagoans are being terrorized and hunted down. We must act immediately to provide transparency and accountability for what happened on June 4th, and to change our protocols so that we are fully equipped to protect our city in the months ahead.