Judge orders Bovino not to terrorize children on Halloween and orders him to report to her court daily
U.S. Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino appeared at Chicago’s Dirksen Federal Courthouse on Tuesday for a preliminary injunction hearing as part of an ongoing lawsuit over the feds’ treatment of protesters during the ongoing immigration blitz. Bovino agreed to return to U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis courtroom every weekday at 6 p.m. to give her updates until a Nov. 5 preliminary hearing on the case.
Mayor Brandon Johnson called U.S. Border Patrol commander Gregory Bovino a “barbaric individual” who needs to be held to “some level of accountability.”
Johnson said the regular court appearances by Bovino ordered by U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis is “a start in the right direction.” But, it does not even begin to assuage the mayor’s concerns about the way Bovino and his troops have conducted the citywide immigration raids that have terrorized Chicagoans.
“The Trump administration said they were going to go after the ‘worst of the worst’ like criminals. Individual who have caused harm. And that’s not what’s happening,” Johnson told reporters on Tuesday during his weekly City Hall news conference.
The mayor was not appeased when told that U.S. Border Patrol has been given until the end of the week to produce use of force reports and body-worn camera footage since Sept. 2.
“It’s a start. I don’t know if there’s anything that’s going to assuage my apprehension or even, quite frankly, my rejection of their approach simply because it has been incredibly gruesome,” Johnson said.
Ellis says that, given her chat with Bovino today, “I don’t know that we’re going to see a whole lot of tear gas being deployed over the next week.”
Ellis reminded the plaintiffs: “Mr. Bovino’s going to be here every day at 6 to tell me what happened.
The judge says she will “enter and continue” the motion.
“I come at this expecting that everybody acts in good faith.”
So the judge is not granting the motion to ban the use of tear gas. But she’s not denying it, either. She’s keeping it in her back pocket.
“I know my lane,” she said. “And I will stay in my lane. But I’m also not afraid to enforce this TRO. If they are using tear gas, they better be able to back it up. And if they can’t, then they will lose that as something they can use.”
Ellis continued, “Halloween is on Friday. I do not want to get violation reports from the plaintiffs that show that agents are out and about on Halloween, where kids are present and tear gas is being deployed.” [Continue reading…]