Chicagoans Urge Appointment of Prosecutor to Charge ICE Officers

Attorneys representing Chicago residents frustrated by the local top cop’s response to immigration officers’ violence went to state court Friday demanding a special prosecutor be appointed to prosecute federal law enforcement personnel.

Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke has not investigated, convened a grand jury or brought any charges against US Immigration and Custom Enforcement or Customs and Border Protection officers, attorneys for hundreds of petitioners said. Chicagoans have clambered for accountability after two high-profile shootings of residents and myriad other incidents where officers injured protesters during and after the Midway Blitz surge of immigration enforcement last year.

“These were aggravated batteries, assaults, kidnapping, conspiracy and acts of perjury,” Meg Gould, lawyer for the petitioners and attorney at Loevy & Loevy, told Cook County Circuit Judge Erica L. Reddick. “She has the duty to investigate crimes she knows have happened.”

The movement to appoint an aggressive lawyer to indict federal officials has garnered support from a Who’s Who of area leaders, including roughly 80 federal, state and local elected officials; nearly 80 local nonprofits; dozens of religious leaders, and a handful of law professors.

Burke’s team argues it’s being proactive, and playing an appropriate role with limited options. She claimed investigations may be penned in by federal immunity and a lack of investigation cooperation from the Trump administration. But Burke also claimed the office was trying to make a difference by issuing guidelines for local police investigations into ICE officers.

“The office should not be the primary investigator of crimes. We assist law enforcement when they’re investigating,” said Yvette Loizon, the office’s chief of policy.

Reality or Lethargy?

Throughout the hearing Reddick asked whether this petition fits under the Illinois law allowing parties to appoint special prosecutors if the state’s attorney has a conflict of interest or is unable to fulfill their duty.

Most of Reddick’s questions to the petitioners focused on whether these alleged crimes have been filed in reports with the state’s attorney office or local law enforcement. The petitioners didn’t know and said these crimes were obvious and open.

Reddick focused her questions to the state attorney focused on whether the office would or could actually bring cases.

Loizon said bringing cases will be hard, and adding another player in the mix could hamper that work. She said the office also doesn’t have a relationship with federal law enforcement that could create a conflict.

“There’s never been a statement made by the Cook County attorney’s office that she would not prosecute cases against federal law enforcement officers,” Loizon said. “There’s legitimate public outrage, but that outrage doesn’t justify the appointment of a special prosecutor.”

In her filing to the court Burke raised “nonexistent legal barriers to investigation of these crimes” showing no intention to pursue these cases, Gould said.

“In the face of law enforcement misconduct she has a duty to investigate,” Gould said. “There are no exercises of prosecutorial discretion here—there’s no action at all.”

Loizon said the office’s role is only to support investigations of crimes that have been reported to local law enforcement.

“We do not scour the internet, we do not scour newspaper articles, we do not scour federal testimony to find crimes to prosecute,” she said.

Reddick set a hearing for May 11 and said she hoped to have a ruling by that date.

The case is In re Appointment of a Special Prosecutor, Ill. Cir. Ct., No. 2026-MR-00017, hearing held 4/24/26.