LOGAN SQUARE — A family walking with their 2-year-old in Logan Square found themselves running for cover Friday afternoon after a masked federal agent threw a smoke grenade onto a crowded street of people in Logan Square.
The incident, caught on video around noon outside of Rico Fresh grocery store, 3552 W. Armitage Ave., shows an SUV of masked agents attempting to enter the grocery store parking lot. Witnesses told the Sun-Times that ICE agents had been targeting the Mexican grocery store for several weeks.
Bill Higgins and Jessica Dixon were walking home with their 2-year-old from school when they heard drivers honking their horns and using their vehicles to prevent federal agents from entering the grocery store parking lot. People were also blowing whistles to alert neighbors as a helicopter circled above.
The couple lives a block away from the grocery store, which they believe was being targeted by immigration officials. ICE did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Smoke suddenly filled the air, Dixon said. She got smoke in her eyes while her husband rushed ahead with their child in a stroller.
“It hit me even before I realized it,” Dixon said. “I thought I was outside the cloud of it, but after a few seconds … it’s just like a burning in your eyes and in your lungs. And I just started coughing, and my eyes were tearing.”
A video Dixon took before she started coughing shows smoke filling the air and a man yelling out for water for his burning eyes.
A smoke grenade dropped at the intersection of Armitage and Central Park Avenue by federal agents. Credit: Melody Mercado, Block Club Chicago
“It seems reasonable to expect that in an American city, you could go a block away from your own house and not worry about getting tear gassed when you’re just getting home from preschool,” Dixon said.
The couple’s 2-year-old son slept through the entire incident and did not sustain any injuries, but the family worries about what the future holds for their neighborhood.
“I felt scared for people in our community that this is intended to terrorize, and I felt rage about that,” Dixon said.
Dixon filed a police report about the incident. Chicago Police confirmed an investigation has been opened.
The incident comes amid a flurry of ICE activity throughout Chicago on Friday. Numerous people have reported seeing agents patrolling and detaining people across the city and suburbs, and U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was involved in a raid at a local Walmart.
Ald. Jessie Fuentes (26th) confirmed the Rico Fresh incident at a press conference in Humboldt Park on Friday, following another incident where Fuentes was handcuffed at Humboldt Park Health as agents targeted a nearby emergency room. People reported being hit with tear gas and smoke as they approached the grocery store.
“So individuals who were just driving their car, driving past Armitage, had to pull over because their eyes were pepper-sprayed. This is an escalation. These individuals are not only having a huge presence in our community, but they are violently attacking our residents,” Fuentes said.
Ald. Jessie Fuentes (26th) was handcuffed and briefly detained by federal agents on Oct. 3, 2025. Credit: Provided
Other videos from the scene taken by neighbors and passersby show a federal agent using his baton to strike something several times outside the frame of the video while cars boxed them in on Armitage.
Andrew Denton told Block Club Chicago he was headed to Rico Fresh to buy lunch when he saw a white ICE vehicle being blocked by a man on a scooter. Instead of backing up or driving around, the agents rolled down a window and released what he described as a gas canister.
“My eyes were burning, I was coughing, my skin was really itchy,” Denton said. “It was completely unprovoked. All they needed to do was just back up and go around.”
He described the incident as “a terrifying waste of money” that disproportionately harmed the Hispanic community. Denton, who frequents the grocery store, said he had followed reports of ICE raids online but was surprised to see them in his neighborhood.
“I just want them to get the hell out of the city,” Denton said.
Another resident, who did not want to share her name for safety reasons, said she was walking out of Rico Fresh when she saw the clouds of smoke. She said her lungs and eyes burned, making it impossible for her to see. She walked to a nearby alley, where a woman loading her groceries into a car gave her a water bottle to wash out her eyes.
The incident left her shaken, she said, especially as an immigrant from Kazakhstan who fled an authoritarian regime.
“I thought this is a country where I can have freedom. Did I think this would happen to me in America? No,” she said.
The woman criticized ICE officers for endangering children walking home from school and shoppers in the area. She urged local officials, including Gov. JB Pritzker, to take action to prevent similar incidents.
“I think a lot of people don’t understand how good they have it in this country, maybe because they didn’t experience it in other countries. I’m afraid that this country will become authoritarian because of everything that is happening,” she said. “This is how it starts, with the baby steps, with normalizing this behavior. … I hope people don’t tolerate this kind of behavior. If this is going to become normal, there will be no hope in the future.”
Although the scene was upsetting to Dixon and Higgins, they said they were comforted by the wave of solidarity during the incident. Parents leaving preschool, shoppers at Rico Fresh and residents on nearby streets quickly warned one another, honking car horns, blowing whistles and shouting to alert people to get inside
“The mobilization of the community was amazing. Everyone was making sure that every person they passed knew what was happening,” Dixon said. “People started calling around to the schools immediately, like the city mobilized so fast in the face of this.”
For more on ICE activity across the city Friday, click here.
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