{"id":501146,"date":"2026-01-08T10:48:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T10:48:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/501146\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T10:48:13","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T10:48:13","slug":"new-indictment-cites-shooting-near-border-patrol-agents-in-chicago-still-doesnt-charge-gunman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/501146\/","title":{"rendered":"New indictment cites shooting near Border Patrol agents in Chicago, still doesn’t charge gunman"},"content":{"rendered":"

Two months after Homeland Security officials announced that someone had opened fire<\/a> on immigration agents in Little Village, a federal grand jury leveled new accusations pointing to a man already facing gun charges \u2014 but still did not accuse him of pulling the trigger.<\/p>\n

A new indictment alleges that, nearly five hours after someone fired a pistol from the driver\u2019s seat of a black Jeep Wrangler \u201cin proximity of\u201d U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents on Nov. 8, that same gun was found in the lap of Hector Gomez as he sat in the driver\u2019s seat of a black Jeep Wrangler parked about two blocks away from the shooting scene.<\/p>\n

Gomez matches the description provided by Homeland Security of the suspected shooter, and federal officials charged him in November<\/a> with possessing a firearm as an undocumented immigrant. In doing so, they piled on to weapons charges he already faced in state court.<\/p>\n

Now, Wednesday\u2019s indictment adds a charge accusing him of also being a felon in possession of a firearm.<\/p>\n

But the indictment stops well short of charging Gomez with any crime related to the shooting, or even of putting the weapon in his hand when shots were fired. It alleges he \u201cbrandished a firearm\u201d at a separate victim around 2:07 p.m., shortly before he was found with the gun.<\/p>\n

A state court grand jury has also stopped short of accusing Gomez of firing at immigration agents.<\/p>\n

Gomez\u2019s attorney, Michael Monaco, declined to comment.<\/p>\n

Gomez, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who goes by a variety of aliases, was arrested after aiming the gun at a woman and \u201claughing profusely,\u201d according to a Chicago police report. His arrest came after a chaotic day in Little Village toward the end of the Border Patrol\u2019s monthslong campaign in the Chicago area.<\/p>\n

The Department of Homeland Security initially reported on social media that \u201can unknown male driving a black Jeep fired shots at agents and fled the scene.\u201d Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol commander who led \u201cOperation Midway Blitz,\u201d later appeared on Fox News and took a victory lap.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithin 48 hours, they already have a suspect,\u201d Bovino said.<\/p>\n

Gomez is among at least 31 people who have faced criminal charges in federal court, unrelated to immigration, that were tied to \u201cOperation Midway Blitz.\u201d <\/b>But charges against 14 of those people have already been dropped.<\/p>\n

No one has been convicted, so far.<\/p>\n

The feds\u2019 claims that someone had opened fire on agents in Little Village quickly drew skepticism. Amid separate litigation revolving around the deportation campaign, attorneys told U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis they\u2019d asked \u201crepeatedly\u201d for the Justice Department to hand over footage of the incident.<\/p>\n

However, the same attorneys have since sought to voluntarily dismiss that lawsuit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two months after Homeland Security officials announced that someone had opened fire on immigration agents in Little Village,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":501147,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,5386,1818],"class_list":{"0":"post-501146","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-chicago","9":"tag-il","10":"tag-illinois"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115859089264334100","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501146","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=501146"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501146\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}