For two weeks, CBP commander Greg Bovino was gone from the streets of Chicago. Federal officials said at a court hearing earlier in the month that his brief absence from the Trump administration’s escalation in the city was due to a “groin injury” he sustained during a supposed scuffle with protestors.
Bovino returned to Chicago this week. Almost immediately, he was accused of personally violating a court order.
In a hasty filing on Thursday afternoon, attorneys representing journalists and protestors said that Bovino apparently launched a gas canister at a crowd of protestors in Chicago in potential violation of a court order that limits the use of gas and other riot-control measures in the city.
They attached a video clip, and included the following still in the court filing:
Earlier this month, a Chicago federal judge, Sara L. Ellis for the Northern District of Illinois, banned federal law enforcement in Chicago from using tear gas and other riot-control measures in the city on those who “are not posing an immediate threat to the safety of a law enforcement officer or others.” It’s already been a sticking point: after federal agents purportedly violated an earlier version of the order by firing tear gas, she expanded it to mandate that they use body cameras.
The video that attorneys linked in their filing appears to show a crowd of protestors approaching and yelling at armed and masked law enforcement agents. Some agents are wearing clothing that mark them as members of the Border Patrol.
Eventually, Bovino appears behind a line of law enforcement officers and appears to throw a silver can towards the crowd. People run away as a cloud begins to emerge from the ground.
Bovino, TPM reported, has become a leading figure in the Trump administration’s campaign to escalate tensions in predominantly liberal cities. In Chicago, he led showy operations over the qualms of local officials, seemingly designed to generate large amounts of attention while assigning federal law enforcement agents missions for which they often lack training: crowd control and local policing.
Earlier on Thursday, Judge Ellis gave attorneys three extra hours to depose Bovino in the case. That happened after Bovino reappeared at immigration raids on Wednesday.
The video on Thursday appears to show Bovino personally launching a canister into a crowd. Judge Ellis, who issued the restraining order, has already expressed frustration with Trump administration law enforcement potentially flouting her orders in the case.
“I live in Chicago, if folks haven’t noticed, and I’m not blind, right?” Ellis reportedly said at a hearing earlier this month. “So, I don’t live in a cave. I have a phone. I have a TV. I have a computer and I tend to get news.”
She reportedly added: “At least from what I’m seeing, I’m having serious concerns that my order’s being followed.”
In a statement on Friday, DHS Press Secretary Tricia McLaughlin told TPM that Bovino threw a chemical canister out of necessity, while under attack by “commercial artillery shell fireworks” and after having been hit in the head with a rock.
For two weeks, CBP commander Greg Bovino was gone from the streets of Chicago. Federal officials said at a court hearing earlier in the month that his brief absence from the Trump administration’s escalation in the city was due to a “groin injury” he sustained during a supposed scuffle with protestors.
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Groin injury eh? Got kicked inna nuts did’ja Bovino?
It was the skate board as he tried to do what Hegseth did.
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Anyone who thinks that a benefit of fascism is “efficient decision-making” has clearly never studied the history of the Third Reich.
And here’s some of that “infrastructure and economic growth” for you. This is the Krupp works, clearly prospering from all those wartime contracts.
Tough guys like Bovino love to demonstrate their bona fides to their audience of one, who will award him a Purple Heart for his “groin injury”, which most likely involved a picture of Kristi Noem in full combat gear.