Overview
- A preliminary injunction hearing starts Wednesday at 9 a.m., with Judge Sara Ellis considering extended restrictions as her temporary restraining order is set to expire Thursday.
- Plaintiffs plan to present body-cam video and excerpts of Gregory Bovino’s deposition to argue agents used tear gas without warning and mocked crowds, citing testimony that he tossed gas before being hit by a rock and alleging he fabricated the rock claim.
- Court filings also say video undercuts official accounts of a Broadview confrontation that Bovino denied involved force, and contend he urged officers to arrest protesters over “hyperbolic comments” and to “go hard.”
- The government says agents confronted violent rioters, issued dispersal orders and used nonlethal tactics as needed, while warning an injunction would hinder enforcement; Justice Department lawyers are seeking to seal some material, a step Ellis signaled she is disinclined to grant broadly.
- In an AP interview, Bovino defended the operation as targeting “criminal illegal aliens,” touted more than 3,200 arrests and said agents will remain in Chicago “a good while,” as an appeals court blocked Ellis’s daily check-in order but left other limits and body-camera rules intact.