CHICAGO (WLS) — The U.S. Department of Justice has appealed a federal judge’s order that mandated Customs and Border Protection Commander-at-Large Greg Bovino to check-in with the judge daily to ensure compliance with a temporary restraining order that restricted federal agents’ use of force.
The DOJ filed the appeal just hours before Bovino was slated to check-in with the court for the first time Wednesday.
The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals responded to the appeal later Wednesday and decided to temporarily pause the order requiring Bovino to appear in court daily.
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The first meeting with Judge Sara Ellis was set to be an opportunity for the judge to review with Commander Bovino any use of force incidents that may have taken place between Border Patrol agents and residents.
One of the incidents that could come up is one in Aurora Wednesday morning, where agents appear to have pepper sprayed a woman’s vehicle with her two young children inside.
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Cell phone video taken outside an Aurora grocery store Wednesday morning showed Elizabeth Pineda moments after federal agents appear to have shot pepper bullets at her vehicle’s windshield. Her two young children were in the backseat of the car.
Speaking to ABC7 shortly after leaving Mercy Hospital Wednesday, Pineda, who is a member of Aurora’s rapid response team, recounted what happened shorty after she pulled into the grocery store, attracted by the whistles used to alert residents of agents’ presence in the area. She admits she was unwittingly blocking one of the agents’ vehicles in.
“He decides to back up and tell me that I need to get the **** out, or I’m going to get arrested,” Pineda said. “There’s agents coming at me. All I hear is them shooting. I thought they were hitting my windshield, I didn’t think they were actually shooting at me until everything happened.”
It was just Tuesday when Judge Ellis ordered Border Patrol Commander Bovino to make sure his agents have their body-worn cameras rolling during all encounters with the public, while also having their identifiers clearly visible on at least two locations. This comes as she seeks to enforce a temporary restraining order that forbids all federal agents participating in Operation Midway Blitz from using chemical agents when their physical safety is not in danger and without giving at least two clear warnings about what they are about to do.
“They didn’t acknowledge that my kids were in the car. I had no form of weapon in order for them to attack me how they did,” Pineda said. “No cameras were visible. No numbers were visible. They did have their badges, but I couldn’t make it out.”
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While it’s still not clear what agency the officers involved belong to, the incident illustrates the type of encounter that Judge Ellis is expected to bring up at the daily meetings she’s ordered Border Patrol Commander Bovino to have with her between now and November 5.
Bovino appeared on Fox News Wednesday in anticipation of that first meeting.
“If she wants to meet with me every day then she’s going to see, she’s going to have a very good first hand look at just how bad things really are on the streets of Chicago… we’ve never been in violation of any TRO, any regulation,” Bovino said. “We’re going to speed those apprehensions up, and no, we are going to go harder. We go harder now. I’m not worried about it at all.”
Regardless of the Department of Justice’s appeal on the the judge’s decision to have Bovino appear before her daily in court, Bovino is already scheduled to be back in court Thursday at 10 a.m. to sit for what could be an up to five-hour deposition regarding his agency’s use of force practices in Chicago.
ABC News contributed to this report.
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