Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson, 55, shook her head when asked about the military presence, and said the whole situation seemed unnecessary and overblown.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Broadview Mayor Katrina Thompson.<\/p>\n
(Mayor Katrina Thompson FB)<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s calm in the city of Chicago. It\u2019s no different than most major cities. Sure, it has issues. They all do. But they don\u2019t call for the National Guard,\u201d she said. \u201cThe last time I remember a National Guard coming in to a city was with Rodney King. But that was different. People were enraged. There were riots in the streets. People were looting shops and businesses. There is nothing like that happening here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thompson grew up in Inglewood and graduated from Inglewood High School in 1988. She was in Los Angeles during the 1992 riots and keenly remembers the rage, violence and fear.<\/p>\n
She\u2019s adamant that what happened then has no comparison to what\u2019s happening in Chicago now.<\/p>\n
This week, about 200 Texas National Guard troops and 300 Illinois National Guard troops were deployed to the Chicago area by Trump to protect federal agents and property from protesters. About 20 California National Guard troops were also pulled into political battle, deployed to provide \u201crefresher training,\u201d the North American Aerospace Defense Command said in a statement. \u201cThese California National Guard soldiers will not be supporting the Federal Protection Mission in Illinois.\u201d<\/p>\n
On Thursday afternoon, a federal judge in Chicago entered a 14-day temporary restraining order preventing the federalization and deployment of the National Guard in Illinois. U.S. District Judge April Perry said she had \u201cseen no credible evidence that there is a danger of rebellion in Illinois\u201d and described the Trump administration\u2019s version of events as \u201csimply unreliable.\u201d She said National Guard troops would \u201conly add fuel to the fire.\u201d<\/p>\n
In downtown Chicago, people are shopping. Going to work. On Wednesday night, after a protest had formed downtown near the Trump International Hotel & Tower, the streets were nearly deserted. A few young men were seen going into the Elephant & Castle pub near the Chicago Board of Trade building, while a happy-looking couple strolled along the Chicago Riverwalk, holding hands and giggling. <\/p>\n
Thompson said she is not interested in jumping into the national political fray and is focused on the things that are important to her constituents \u2014 such as making sure that the streets are clean, that Broadview\u2019s police and firefighters have the resources and support they need, and that her residents feel safe.<\/p>\n
But Thompson did find herself in the spotlight last week when she denied Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem access to the Broadview Municipal Building\u2019s bathroom.<\/p>\n
Thompson said that it was nothing personal, but that Noem showed up, unannounced, with a camera crew and a videographer. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe came with a whole bunch of military people dressed in their military gear. And I said I\u2019m not letting you in here. We work here. We don\u2019t know what your intent is. If she had good intentions, you know what professionals do? They call and make an appointment. They don\u2019t show up unannounced with dozens of people carrying guns,\u201d Thompson said.<\/p>\n
Thompson is also suing the federal government for erecting a fence around the ICE facility that she fears could prevent her first responders from getting inside should someone \u2014 detainee, ICE agent or government official \u2014 need help.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we talk about people having strokes, every second matters,\u201d she said. \u201cIf we can\u2019t get to them, that person could be severely disabled for a lifetime, or lose their life because a decision was made \u2014 without consulting us \u2014 that that\u2019s the way it should be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Outside the facility on Thursday, protesters were outnumbered roughly 4 to 1 by local, county and state law enforcement, as well as local and national media. <\/p>\n
Kate Madrigal, 37, a homemaker, said she had come several times to the site to protest. Her husband is a naturalized citizen and together they have four children.<\/p>\n
She said they live in fear that someone is going to take her husband or scare her kids, and she\u2019s felt compelled to be bear witness and be present because \u201cif my kids ask me what I did during this period to help, I want to tell them I was here. I did something.\u201d<\/p>\n
Next to her were two other women who have also been showing up with sporadic visits \u2014 driving from Aurora when their work schedules allow. <\/p>\n
Jen Monaco and Maya Willis said they\u2019ve also felt pulled to the site to keep an eye on the troops and show support for those being detained. Monaco said she often cleans up the debris left behind from the day before, and showed a reporter photos of rubber bullets, empty tear gas casements and spent pepper balls that she\u2019d cleaned up.<\/p>\n
She said until the media showed up in force Thursday, ICE agents had been harassing, scaring, and shooting at protesters with these kinds of crowd control devices. Agents have also shoved and assaulted protesters, they said.<\/p>\n
Cook County sheriff\u2019s police and the Illinois State Police were on scene, occasionally shouting into bullhorns when protesters or reporters crossed the concrete barriers that had been erected to create a protest zone or box.<\/p>\n
At one point, a white man wearing a sombrero, poncho and fake mustache walked around and through the small group of protesters, yelling racial slurs and taunting them. He said he was there to represent \u201cMexicans for ICE\u201d before taking off his shirt and challenging another protester to a fight.<\/p>\n
The police moved him away but allowed him to continue calling out and chanting. A man in a Chicago Bears T-shirt egged him on and said the man looked like he worked out a lot.<\/p>\n
Two other women showed up around the same time, with wigs, and yelled curses at the ICE officials and National Guard troops on the other side of the new chain-link fence surrounding the facility.<\/p>\n
Thompson has instituted a curfew around the facility, allowing protests to occur only between f 9 a.m. and 6 p.m.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have business in the area and people need to get to work. We\u2019ve got kids who need to get to school,\u201d she said. \u201cLet\u2019s let them do what they need to do, and then you all can come in and protest.\u201d<\/p>\n
But some protesters thought the curfew violated their right to free speech. Robert Held, a Chicago-based trust and estate lawyer, received a citation about 7:45 am for having come to the site before curfew was lifted. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not going to pay it,\u201d he said, suggesting he\u2019d heard the violation could cost him $750. \u201cThe ordinance is invalidly based. It violates my 1st Amendment rights.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BROADVIEW, Ill.\u00a0\u2014\u00a0The streets were quiet just a block from the ICE processing facility where the National Guard deployed…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":291735,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5123],"tags":[1582,276,960,62766,149528,6808,6285,14443,1818,2961,224,5337,7090,3546,7207,1809,4532,625,8603,277],"class_list":{"0":"post-291734","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-los-angeles","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-chicago","11":"tag-downtown-chicago","12":"tag-dozen-people","13":"tag-facility","14":"tag-federal-agent","15":"tag-ice-agent","16":"tag-illinois","17":"tag-la","18":"tag-los-angeles","19":"tag-losangeles","20":"tag-national-guard","21":"tag-people","22":"tag-police","23":"tag-protest","24":"tag-protester","25":"tag-street","26":"tag-thompson","27":"tag-trump"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115349462186498037","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291734","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=291734"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/291734\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/291735"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=291734"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=291734"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=291734"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}