Mayor says city remains vigilant after Sunday incident

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers detained and injured a U.S. citizen in Evanston, Illinois on Sunday morning after mistaking him for the person they were seeking, according to the Evanston Police Department and witness accounts captured on bystander and surveillance video.

Evanston police said officers responded to the scene at the intersection of Dodge and Howard streets after the federal agents had already left. The man, who resembled the person the agents were seeking and initially refused to provide identification, was taken to St. Francis Hospital for treatment of injuries to his head, neck and teeth. The city’s police chief met him at the hospital, and a technician photographed his injuries.

“Today, EPD responded to a sighting of federal agents at Dodge/Howard, where a U.S. citizen was briefly detained and then released,” Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss posted on X. “The person was treated at St. Francis Hospital for minor injuries. EPD continues to investigate the situation, and we will remain vigilant about federal activities.”

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, addressing CNN, said the encounter unfolded after the man resembled the operation’s target. “ICE encountered an individual who resembled the target. ICE approached the individual and immediately identified themselves as law enforcement,” the statement said, according to UPI, adding that the man did not initially identify himself. The ICE agents “later left the scene without further incident once the individual finally identified himself,” the statement said; DHS said the man refused help from the agents.

Surveillance video shows the man struggling with the ICE officers before being put on the ground. At least three bystander vehicles parked nearby and their occupants began watching and filming. One bystander’s video begins with the man on the ground with one agent holding him there. A man’s voice is then heard saying he is a U.S. citizen, the source article reports, after which the officers release him and step away. The man tells the officers not to touch him, and the agents leave the scene in their vehicles. Bystanders step in to help the man and call for help.

Witness Miguel Olivares, who was on a break near a Mexican restaurant, told CNN affiliate WLS Chicago what drew him to the scene. “It looked like police vehicles until I started hearing, ‘I’m a U.S. citizen. I’m a U.S. citizen,’” Olivares said, and he began filming. “They were being rough with him; they had him pinned against the floor, and it looked like one of the agents hit him in the face,” he said.

Ryan Garton, 56, a marketing executive in Evanston, told The New York Times he noticed the confrontation on his way home from his son’s soccer game. “I saw two ICE agents pinning a guy to the ground,” he said, adding that they were “beating him up.” Garton said he parked his car and knelt to comfort the man along with other witnesses. The man told Garton that he had been in an emergency room the previous day and was walking to fill a prescription when the agents approached him.

“He was like, ‘I don’t understand. I’m a citizen,’” Garton said the man told him. “‘Why did they attack me?’” Garton told The Times that the agents’ conduct was unacceptable regardless of intent. “Let’s say it was a fugitive and they got the wrong guy,” he said. “If you tackle the wrong guy, you don’t leave him on the ground bleeding and drive off. It’s like fleeing the scene of a crime.”

Sanctuary Evanston spokesperson Nathan Ryan characterized the encounter as part of a broader pattern. “People are horrified to see this happening on the streets of Evanston or any other U.S. city,” he told The Times. “It’s been a continuation of the violence we’ve seen, and it reinforces that it’s not about safety, it’s about violence. It’s about the federal government sabotaging the safety of our cities.”

The Evanston confrontation occurred the same day an ICE agent shot a man in Austin, Texas, according to UPI’s reporting.