where Fuentes was handcuffed at Humboldt Park Health as agents targeted a nearby emergency room<\/a>. People reported being hit with tear gas and smoke as they approached the grocery store. <\/p>\n\u201cSo 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,\u201d Fuentes said.<\/p>\n
![\"Ald.](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1759542685_690_Blank-2000-x-1300-8-1024x666.jpg\")
Ald. Jessie Fuentes (26th) was handcuffed and briefly detained by federal agents on Oct. 3, 2025. Credit: Provided<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy eyes were burning, I was coughing, my skin was really itchy,\u201d Denton said. \u201cIt was completely unprovoked. All they needed to do was just back up and go around.\u201d<\/p>\n
He described the incident as \u201ca terrifying waste of money\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just want them to get the hell out of the city,\u201d Denton said.<\/p>\n
![\"YouTube](\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/ek3eXgETkdg\/hqdefault.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
The incident left her shaken, she said, especially as an immigrant from Kazakhstan who fled an authoritarian regime.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought this is a country where I can have freedom. Did I think this would happen to me in America? No,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think a lot of people don\u2019t understand how good they have it in this country, maybe because they didn\u2019t experience it in other countries. I\u2019m afraid that this country will become authoritarian because of everything that is happening,\u201d she said. \u201cThis is how it starts, with the baby steps, with normalizing this behavior. \u2026 I hope people don\u2019t tolerate this kind of behavior. If this is going to become normal, there will be no hope in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
\u201cThe mobilization of the community was amazing. Everyone was making sure that every person they passed knew what was happening,\u201d Dixon said. \u201cPeople started calling around to the schools immediately, like the city mobilized so fast in the face of this.\u201d<\/p>\n
For more on ICE activity across the city Friday, click here.<\/a><\/p>\nKnow Your Rights<\/p>\n
Listen to the Block Club Chicago podcast:<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LOGAN SQUARE \u2014 A family walking with their 2-year-old in Logan Square found themselves running for cover Friday…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":275996,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[51,50,121074,52],"class_list":{"0":"post-275995","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-operation-midway-blitz","11":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115313396010902341","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/275996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/IMG_5042-768x1024.jpg\")
A smoke grenade dropped at the intersection of Armitage and Central Park Avenue by federal agents. Credit: Melody Mercado, Block Club Chicago<\/p>\n