A recently obtained Chicago Police Department (CPD) report reveals the point of view of an unidentified Black man placed in a chokehold and temporarily detained by federal immigration agents following a car crash on the West Side in 2025.
About 30 minutes after an Oct. 1 collision at the intersection of California Avenue and Congress Parkway in East Garfield Park, a Chicago Police officer conducted a field interview from the perspective of the man, captured on witness video being placed in a chokehold by a federal agent. An agent claimed he was investigating a robbery when the crash occurred.
While on the scene, the man told a Chicago police officer he wasn’t involved in the crash and started running because he didn’t know it was federal agents jumping out of their vehicles, according to a newly obtained CPD report. He said he had nothing to do with a robbery. The agent, however, told a 911 dispatcher he witnessed a robbery.
Upon release, the man ran away, according to bystanders, and as of this writing, the man could not be found.
Equity and Transformation’s (E.A.T.) organizing director Maurice Woodard witnessed the aftermath of the accident. In a recent follow-up interview with The TRiiBE, he said it was shocking to hear the man’s perspective.
“They’d already had the dude hemmed up, and they were making it appear as if he was their subject and he had gotten out of the car,” Woodard said. “So if that’s not the case, then they just grabbed a random Black man and caused a commotion, like, it was already bad, but that makes it even worse.”
Through a public records request, The TRiiBE obtained an Investigatory Stop Report from CPD conducted at the crash scene. The report was taken at 2:31 p.m., more than half an hour after a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agent called 911 to report the crash and an alleged robbery, which he claimed had occurred moments before.
Did an actual robbery occur? In an email to The TRiiBE, CPD said, “There are no finalized reports for robbery for that date and location.” While an initial CPD press statement didn’t mention that officers on the scene were responding to a robbery, the stop report does. When they arrived at the scene, they were met by federal agents who told them they had detained a man possibly related to the robbery.
Personal identifying information, such as the man’s first and last name, birth month and day, address and cell phone number, was redacted in the report. However, the man’s age and physical description weren’t removed. He was listed as a 25-year-old Black man with a slender build, dreadlocks, wearing a white T-shirt and gray shorts.
That physical description aligns with an account from a BP gas station security guard who told The TRiiBE he saw a Black man in a white T-shirt running through the back door, as well as bystander video.
Witness videos showed agents walking down an alley alongside the BP gas station, with a Black man wearing a white T-shirt and gray shorts, hands behind his back. Another witness video shows federal agents placing him in a chokehold at the intersection of California Avenue and Congress Parkway. A bystander can be heard on the video demanding answers, asking why the agents were choking the man.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) denied the report of agents choking a Black man: “This is FALSE, the man was not choked,” a DHS spokesperson emailed to The TRiiBE on Oct. 2, 2025.
DHS also said agents “witnessed what they believed to be a theft in progress. As they went to engage with the individual, he fled in a vehicle and proceeded to crash into another motorist. Agents attempted to render first aid when the suspect started resisting.”
After relaying information to Chicago police, federal agents walked the man over to a CPD vehicle and released him, according to the stop report. (Documents don’t indicate how many agents were involved.) The identity of the officer who filed the report is unknown. Their name and star number were also redacted; however, the officer who wrote the report is part of the 11th District — Harrison. The unidentified beat officer conducted a field interview with the man, who said he was crossing the intersection at Congress and California when he was almost hit by the two vehicles involved in the traffic crash.
“He didn’t know that the people jumping out of their vehicles were federal agents, and he started running, at which time he was detained by federal agents,” the stop report reads.
The man told police he wasn’t in the car that caused the crash and had nothing to do with a robbery.
DHS and federal agents have lied in narratives about use-of-force incidents and past shootings, including Chicagoan Marimar Martinez, who was shot five times by a federal agent last year, and the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis earlier this year and Silverio Villegas González in a suburb outside of Chicago last fall.
“It just shows where our federal government is and the type of time they’re on right now,” Woodard said. “They are grabbing for power, and they’re going to lie and mislead people.”
Woodard further said the aftermath of the car crash and other high-profile incidents involving federal agents demonstrates the lengths the Trump administration will go to cover up its conduct.
“It’s disrespectful, like, ‘Yeah, we’re gonna lie. We’re gonna do what we want, and there’s nothing you could do about it.’ So that’s the kind of messaging I received from that,” according to Woodard. “The more information you get, it’s just clear that they are lying. They are intimidating people, taking advantage of people, and they can just get away with it forever.”
Last year, during the launch of DHS’s so-called “Operation Midway Blitz,” Chicago police Supt. Larry Snelling repeatedly said officers do not interfere with federal enforcement operations.
He recently praised and defended Chicago police officers for their response during the Midway Blitz operation at a special Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability public hearing in Brighton Park.
“So what I’m going to tell you is this: When it comes to the Chicago Police Department and the Chicago police officers, our officers showed up to keep down violence,” Snelling said.
At the same time, community residents at the meeting were critical of CPD’s conduct. They accused them of collaborating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and CBP agents, which is prohibited under Chicago’s Welcoming City Ordinance.
Woodard is seeking accountability on behalf of the unidentified Black man and others who were harmed during “Operation Midway Blitz.”
“They raided buildings in Chicago and killed people in Minneapolis. They shot someone in Chicago while they were here,” he said. “So, at the core, the answer would be to stop the deployment of ICE to cities. I would like to see those officers who assaulted that man be named and identified, and there be some type of reprimand.”
Due to the chaotic scene at the accident site, Woodard and others couldn’t catch up with him to see if the man needed help. He wants the man, whoever he may be, to know that the community at E.A.T. could be a resource and a haven should he seek them out.
“I’m sure that was a traumatic experience, and we want to give him a community to be in, but we haven’t been able to find him,” Woodard said. “We don’t know his name.”
