Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker was expected to speak Monday about the deployment of federal agents in Chicago.
This comes after a federal agent fired a pepper ball at a CBS News Chicago reporter outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in the west Chicago suburb of Broadview.
Reporter Asal Rezaei said there was no active protest or protesters at the facility, and she was alone with no one around her at the time of the incident Sunday morning.
In a report filed with Broadview police, Rezaei said she was driving her truck with her driver’s side window down, while approaching the 25th Avenue entrance to see if any activity was taking place, before leaving the area.
That’s when she said a masked ICE agent, who saw her window down, shot a pepper ball about 50 feet from the inside of the fence, hitting her truck’s driver’s side panel, causing the chemical agents to engulf the inside of her truck.
“I was sitting right there with my window opened,” Rezaei said. “A lot of it went inside my car and on my face. I immediately felt it burning. I started throwing up.”
The Broadview Police Department said it has launched a criminal investigation, and said the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is expected to cooperate.
CBS News Chicago reporter Darius Johnson said he has also been overcome by chemical agents while covering protests at the Broadview facility, more than a week ago.
Johnson and his photographer were overcome by tear gas once agents threw it. Johnson does not believe he and his crew were directly targeted, but he said there was “no regard for the media.”
This past Friday during protests, Johnson said he witnessed that whenever protesters touched the fence outside the ICE processing facility, they were hit with pepper balls or rubber bullets.
After all this, ICE agents were also spotted downtown along the Chicago River and on Michigan Avenue on Sunday afternoon. Some were masked, carrying long guns, and walking in packs amongst shoppers and tourists.
Video into the CBS News Chicago newsroom showed what appeared to be federal agents detaining a mother and her children in front of dozens of people during the downtown deployment Sunday. CBS News Chicago is told it happened just before 1 p.m. Sunday on Michigan Avenue.
Gov. Pritzker has already slammed the deployment downtown, saying armed agents have no place in the Loop or in Chicago.
Pritzker will talk at 3 p.m. Monday.
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