A federal judge has restricted the federal government’s use of tear gas and other types of anti-riot measures in Chicago.
On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis said during a hearing that government witnesses’ claims of violence at protests in Chicago were not credible, citing several occasions where she said video recordings contradicted immigration officials’ accounts about what happened.
“The government would have people believe instead that the Chicagoland area is in a visehold of violence, ransacked by rioters, and attacked by agitators,” she said. “That simply is untrue.”
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in a statement from a spokesperson on the ruling described protesters in the city as “rioters, gangbangers and terrorists” who pose a threat to federal agents.
“Despite these real dangers, our law enforcement shows incredible restraint in exhausting all options before force is escalated,” the DHS spokesperson said, noting that the government would appeal the decision.
The spokesperson described the injunction as “an extreme act by an activist judge that risks the lives and livelihoods of law enforcement officers.”
Ellis has seen at least one of her earlier rulings related to immigration enforcement in the city overruled, and this latest ruling could face similar challenges if the judge is found to have overstepped her authority by an appellate court. If it isn’t overturned in a higher court, Ellis’s ruling will stay in effect as proceedings related to this issue move forward.
The court hearing comes amid escalating showdowns between protestors opposed to the administration’s immigration enforcement operations and federal agents in America’s third-largest city.
For weeks, protestors and civil liberties groups have alleged that tactics used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have become increasingly aggressive in the city.
Ellis agreed with these allegations in her ruling, finding that the government’s use of force in several cases wasn’t merited by the circumstances on the ground.
Hellbound and Down 