Federal agents chased and detained a shirtless man in Albany Park Tuesday morning, hitting a woman’s car with a black Nissan SUV and using a taser during the arrest. A loaded ammunition magazine was later retrieved from the street, while unmarked vehicles, pep
It was 8:07 a.m. Tuesday when a black Nissan SUV turned east on West Lawrence Avenue near Kedzie Avenue, chasing a man who was shirtless. What happened next spilled into the intersection and quickly became something the neighborhood couldn’t ignore.
Before the chase, a different black Nissan SUV pulled out of the parking lot of a nearby grocery store and hit a woman’s car, officials and witnesses described, blocking the man from running. The woman was stopped at a red light at the time the crash struck her car.
During the chaotic encounter, federal agents also threatened to arrest the woman who was behind the wheel. Several agents wrestled the shirtless man to the ground. In that struggle. one agent dropped a magazine fully loaded with ammunition on West Lawrence Avenue. and a supervisor retrieved it minutes after agents left the scene.
As the man was brought down under the front bumper of an agents’ vehicle, he screamed for help, asking agents to get off him. One agent then used a taser. The agent aimed the taser at bystanders and a journalist before and after the tasing, according to what happened on scene.
Another agent pulled out a can of pepper spray and pointed it at the crowd as he waved vehicles away down the street. The scene drew immediate attention: more than two dozen people arrived to face off against about seven agents between five different vehicles. all equipped with aftermarket emergency lights but otherwise unmarked.
Onlookers began filming, blowing whistles and screaming at the agents. One agent had a Jerusalem cross sticker on the back of his phone—a Christian symbol dating to the Crusades that more recently has been associated with white supremacy, a detail that added to the anger among residents.
Chicago police arrived minutes after agents left. They took a report of the crash and spoke to witnesses; one officer said if it was a confirmed hit-and-run. Major Accidents would take over the investigation. The officer also described the exchange with the woman whose car was hit. saying. “[The agents] didn’t want to show us proof of that.”.
The Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
When federal agents left, they drove south toward the Irving Park neighborhood. In a video posted to social media, Ald. Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez (33rd) confirmed the man was detained. She warned residents as multiple nearby schools were having outdoor activities during the day. and she said she suspected federal vehicles had been parked and circling near Haugan Elementary School the morning before. Her office and the Northwest Side Rapid Response team had put out an alert about cars on Kedzie.
“They took a neighbor from Kedzie and Lawrence,” Rodriguez Sanchez said. “We’re trying to keep an eye on everything because there are a few graduations and field days today. Please be careful, take care of yourself if you’re vulnerable, they’re outside in the community right now.”
The intersection—West Lawrence Avenue near North Kedzie Avenue—has already been a flashpoint. It’s the same location where federal agents detained a man in October while firing pepper balls at residents. and blocks away from where agents detained another man and deployed tear gas two weeks before that.
An additional layer of concern followed Tuesday’s incident from a separate set of numbers. A WBEZ/Chicago Sun-Times analysis of data from the Deportation Data Project, a collective of lawyers and academics, found that 580 people have been detained in the Chicago area from Jan. 1 through mid-March.
Police and residents are now left with the question that hung over West Lawrence Avenue long after the last vehicles pulled away: why an unmarked pursuit that began with a shirtless man ended with a woman’s car struck at a red light. a loaded ammunition magazine left at the curb. and a scene that drew schools. bystanders. and reporters into the middle.
Albany Park federal agents Immigration and Customs Enforcement Department of Homeland Security car crash taser pepper spray unmarked vehicles West Lawrence Avenue Kedzie Avenue Chicago police Major Accidents Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez
Unmarked cars again… like who even knows they’re federal.
So the shirtless guy gets chased, but the woman in the Nissan gets hit and then they threaten her too?? That’s messed up. I don’t care what he did if they’re tasing people.
Wait I thought the taser was only supposed to be for the suspect, not “by those people” and some journalist. Also the whole “black Nissan SUV” thing sounds like it could’ve been the grocery store guy not them? Idk, all these SUVs look the same in the morning.
This neighborhood can’t catch a break. They say they retrieved a loaded magazine off the street like that’s normal?? And they had aftermarket emergency lights but still “unmarked” so basically stealth cops. Why would an agent aim a taser at bystanders… unless the plan was to scare everybody? Smh.