After federal agents were seen “choking” a Black man following a car crash this afternoon on Chicago’s West Side, Davina Jeans showed up to the scene just before 3:30 p.m. today to retrieve her sister’s personal belongings from one of the damaged vehicles.
Jeans said her sister called her around 2:00 p.m. to let her know she’d been in a car accident and asked that she go to the scene to pack up her things. Her sister’s Infiniti SUV was left at the intersection of Congress Parkway and California Avenue.
It’s unclear why Jeans’s sister left the scene and what led to the car crash. While The TRiiBE interviewed Jeans, there were about three Chicago police officers at the scene directing traffic and helping Jeans transfer bags to her car. They asked her to move her car after the transfer and then asked The TRiiBE to move. The interview lasted less than five minutes.
The federal agents were no longer at the scene.
“I had just came and got whatever was in the car,” Jeans told The TRiiBE after packing up the last of her sister’s things.
Jeans said her sister told her that somebody in a car tried to speed onto the Eisenhower Expressway while she was driving north on California through the intersection. The sister’s condition is unknown.
A family friend who was driving down Congress spotted Jeans and pulled over on the side of the street, parked, and asked if she was “OK.” The family friend drove off shortly after.
By the time Jeans arrived on the scene, all of the federal agents were gone.
Around 3:40 p.m., The TRiiBE reached out to Don Terry, the director of news affairs and communications for the Chicago Police Department. He said he didn’t know any details about the incident and asked us to send him the video of what occurred.
Later at 5:00 p.m., Terry called back to say he still didn’t have any information and advised us to reach out to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS).
Just before 6:30 p.m., CPD released the following statement:
“On October 1, 2025 at approximately 2:36 p.m., Chicago Police Department officers responded to the 2800 block of W. Congress Parkway for an auto accident with injuries.
Unit #1, a white sedan driven by an unknown operator, was traveling eastbound on Congress Pkwy. Unit #2, a 49-year-old female operating a black sedan, was traveling northbound on California Ave. Unit #1 then struck Unit #2’s vehicle. Unit #2 driver sustained injuries to her shoulder, neck, and hip and was transported to Mount Sinai in good condition. Unit #1 driver fled from the vehicle. No citations issued.
While on scene, Chicago Police Department supervisors were notified that federal authorities detained an individual who was possibly connected to the auto accident. Following further investigation, an Investigatory Stop Report was completed and the detained individual was released on scene. This investigation continues.
In accordance with the City of Chicago’s Municipal Code and Welcoming City Ordinance, at no point did CPD coordinate or assist federal authorities with immigration enforcement.”
The TRiiBE reached out to the DHS, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) seeking answers about the interaction. The departments have not yet responded.
Just after 2:24 p.m., staffers from Equity and Transformation (EAT) reached out to The TRiiBE to share that federal agents were “choking” a Black man outside their headquarters, located in the same building as the Westside Justice Center (WJC) at 601 S. California Ave.
Members of EAT then shared videos of federal agents “choking” a Black man on the ground at the intersection of Congress Parkway and California Avenue, where the car crash occurred.
It’s also unclear why federal agents seemingly placed the man in a chokehold.
Video obtained by The TRiiBE shows a federal agent with his hands around the neck of a Black man following an apparent car crash on the West Side near California Avenue and Congress Parkway. This incident happened this afternoon.
“Why is y’all touching him,” an emotional man says at the scene. “Why is you choking him, man? Why is he choking him, man?”
In the video, the same man goes on to say, “Y’all supposed to be out here choking Mexicans, foe.” Earlier this month, TRiiBE publisher Morgan Elise Johnson called for multi-racial unity as the Trump administration increased its militarization of American cities.
Sherina Ashford, WJC’s community navigator, overheard the man witnessing the scene and told him, “Sweetie, you should be quiet because they bother all colors. They’re not just on one color right now,” referring to federal agents.
Maurice Woodard, E.A.T. ‘s organizing director, echoed Ashford’s sentiment.
“You’re a fool if you ever thought that was gonna happen or they’d walk past a bunch of Black people and not bother us,” he said.
Charise Walker, the West Side Justice Center’s chief financial officer, said she looked out of her office window and saw dozens of federal agents.
“You look out your window and you go ‘oh, them folks not supposed to be here,” Walker told The TRiiBE.
A trio of staffers, including Walker, walked over the crash site, where they observed a white Chevy Malibu and an Infiniti SUV. As they approached the scene, they saw at least 20 federal agents.
Ashford said a woman at the scene told her that a man, who was in the white Malibu, had come out of the gas station on California and Harrison before the crash. She told her that she didn’t know where federal agents had come from.
Woodard said the federal agents were securing the perimeter around the accident, so they weren’t letting drivers go down on California Avenue, Congress Parkway or Harrison Street.
Multiple people in the white Chevy Malibu, she said, began running from the vehicle and dispersed in different areas. Following the accident, Walker said she witnessed a federal agent in a white GMC SUV hit a man who was running from the scene. The man got away; he took off running westbound down Congress.
“It was a federal officer in a white GMC [SUV]. They hit one of the people who jumped out of the [Chevy] Malibu,” Walker recalled.
One Black man, who jumped out the white Chevy Malibu, was detained by federal agents. As this was happening, Walker and Ashford and EAT’s organizing director Maurice Woodard recorded the incidents on their cellphone.
“They was around him, like, beating them on the ground, kind of stomping him out and stuff and they put him in the back of a blue [Ford] Expedition,” Woodard said, explaining what he saw on the scene. The federal agents on the scene were riding in unmarked vehicles, Woodard added.
The federal agents stayed on the scene until Chicago police officers arrived. The Black man initially detained by federal agents was released. He was last seen walking down Congress, according to Woodard.
“We couldn’t even stop him; he just ran,” Woodard said about the man who was temporarily detained. “After you get beat up by the police and you get let go, you get gone. So I think that’s what happened to that brother. We couldn’t get up with him.”
There was also an ambulance on the scene, but Walker said she didn’t see anyone getting medical aid before the EMT left the scene.
Since federal agents have begun carrying out “Operation Midway Blitz” immigration enforcement, Walker said she hadn’t seen any federal agent activity near their office.
Though it was their first time witnessing federal agents in the area, the staffers felt prepared to document what happened.
“We’ve been practicing and training for this,” Walker said about observing and documenting federal agent activity. “So it’s kind of like, we put it all in action.”
E.A.T. and other Black-led civic and community-based organizations have been hosting Know-Your-Rights training over the last month. Woodard said he circulated what happened among the organization’s networks, like the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and the National Lawyers Guild.
Ashford said as she was filming at the accident scene, a federal agent told her to put her camera down. She told him, “Pull your mask off.”
In a separate video shared with The TRiiBE, an agent says to a witness recording the scene, “Just so you guys know, this is not an immigration enforcement action.” The agent goes on to say that they are responding to a robbery in progress.
This week, federal agent activity has pivoted to predominantly-Black neighborhoods in Chicago. Overnight on Tuesday, a raid took place in South Shore. Witnesses reported federal agents detaining at least 40 people after swarms of agents entered an apartment building on 75th Street and South Shore Drive and left a trail of destruction after kicking down doors and tossing the belongings of occupants.
Today, Block Club Chicago reported that federal agents detained four people outside of a homeless shelter in Bronzeville this morning. According to a witness who was at the scene, 25 to 30 federal agents arrived at the shelter in several unmarked vehicles.
