By CHRISTINE FERNANDO, Associated Press

CHICAGO (AP) — A judge’s blistering 223-page opinion has offered a cache of striking new details from body camera footage about agents’ use of force during a federal immigration crackdown in the Chicago area dubbed “Operation Midway Blitz.”

U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis’ opinion issued Thursday recounts many high-profile clashes between federal agents and protesters, repeatedly using body camera footage to refute the federal government’s narratives from court, use-of-force reports, filmed depositions and press releases. It describes scenes of agents launching tear gas without warning, aiming rubber rounds at reporters, tackling protesters and laughing as blood oozed from a demonstrator’s ear — incidents Ellis says were flatly at odds with the government’s own narratives.

Ellis expressed surprise about federal officials pointing her to specific videos, which she later found showed agents violating her orders restricting the use of force.

The opinion outlines Ellis’ findings in issuing a preliminary injunction earlier this month in response to a lawsuit filed by news outlets and protesters who claimed federal officers used excessive force during an immigration crackdown that has netted more than 3,000 arrests since September across the nation’s third-largest city and its many suburbs. Among other things, Ellis’ order restricted agents from using physical force and chemical agents like tear gas and pepper balls, unless necessary or to prevent an “an immediate threat.” She said the current practices violated the constitutional rights of journalists and protesters.

A federal appeals court on Wednesday temporarily halted the order, calling it “overbroad” and “too prescriptive.” But the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also cautioned against “overreading” its stay and said a quick appeal process could lead to a “more tailored and appropriate” order.

Law enforcement officers watch from top of a building as protesters gather outside an ICE processing facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview, Ill., Friday, Nov. 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)

Judge says footage shows excessive force

The opinion delineates the results of Ellis’ review of extensive body-worn camera footage and testimony that she says reflected indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force as agents repeatedly used tear gas, rubber bullets, pepper balls and flashbangs without warnings or justification. It also described tense moments when Ellis says agents shot flash-bang grenades at the backs of protesters as they fled, kicked protesters on the ground, caused a car accident during a Halloween celebration, threatened to shoot residents while pointing guns at them, shot pepper balls at the heads of journalists and praying clergy members, and tackled protesters to the ground.

The opinion accuses federal agents of not following Ellis’ previous orders by using tear gas and other weapons on peaceful protesters, failing to give two explicit warnings before deploying munitions and not wearing clear identification.

It also described agents’ apparent delight as they lobbed tear gas canisters at protesters. One agent declared that “We’re definitely gassing them when we leave. Just start throwing (expletive)” and another said “We can (expletive) ’em up,” according to body camera footage described in the opinion.

Ellis also accused agents of “actively attempting to rile up the protesters,” making “dismissive remarks” and “laughing” while firing munitions at protesters. She described agents who “laughed and made jokes about tear gassing protesters” and were “pushing people to the ground and then laughing about it, even as blood oozed from the ears of someone they pushed.” In another instance, she described an agent saying ”No one can hear you” after tackling and arresting a reporter as he yelled that he was a journalist and sought out his colleague.

FILE – A federal immigration enforcement agent sprays Rev. David Black, of the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, as he demonstrates outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Ill, on Sept. 19, 2025. (Ashlee Rezin/Chicago Sun-Times via AP, File)

Judge criticizes Border Patrol leader

The judge also accused Greg Bovino, the senior U.S. Border Patrol official leading the immigration crackdown in the Chicago area, of being “evasive” and “outright lying” during his testimony, including by lying about being hit in the head with a rock during a protest in the predominantly Mexican American Chicago neighborhood of Little Village. Bovino repeatedly went back-and-forth between claiming he was hit with a rock before or after he fired tear gas at the crowd, according to the opinion.

In one instance after another, Ellis used footage to dispute claims by agents, including that Bovino saw Latin Kings gang members take weapons out of their car in Little Village and that a protester threw a bicycle at an agent. Body-worn camera footage also revealed that an agent used the AI tool ChatGPT to write the narrative for a report based off just a “brief sentence about an encounter and several images,” according to the opinion.

Taken together, Ellis said the documentation showed the federal government’s narrative was “simply not credible,” saying her review of the body camera footage supported plaintiffs’ allegations by “undermining all of Defendants’ claims.”

Related Articles

Kashoggi’s widow and Democrats demand release of a call transcript with Trump and Saudi crown prince

A new crash test dummy that better resembles women gets key government endorsement

Officer acquitted in death of Ta’Kiya Young, a pregnant Black mother accused of shoplifting

Police say a man has been shot and killed after wielding a knife at St. Louis airport

More swings rock Wall Street, except stocks are jumping this time

Pride in Chicago

Steeped in pride for Chicago, the judge’s opinion painted an image of Chicago far different from the portrayal of federal attorneys, who characterized it as a place “ransacked by rioters.” Instead, Ellis proudly described neighbors showing up for one another by “standing on the sidewalk to document law enforcement activities and protest against immigration enforcement activities they believe to be unjust, or simply praying the Rosary to provide comfort and bear witness to those detained at the Broadview detention facility who are facing fear and uncertainty.”

“This description of rapid response network members, neighborhood moms and dads, Chicago Bears fans, people dressed in Halloween costumes, and the lawyer who lives on the block as professional agitators undermines the agents’ credibility,” she wrote.

The University of Minnesota, its physicians group and Fairview will return to negotiations on the future of the university’s medical school, but Fairview says it remains committed to the agreement university officials have opposed.

University officials reached an agreement to resume negotiations Thursday night, U President Rebecca Cunningham said in a statement Friday. Attorney General Keith Ellison will manage the talks with a mutually agreed-upon mediator who will be selected soon.

“The progress all parties have made to date is significant, and I thank the parties for building on this work and recognizing that time is of the essence in bringing this matter to closure in a way that secures continuity of high-quality patient care, retention of world-class physicians, and long-term support for the Medical School that trains 70 percent of all doctors in Minnesota,” Ellison said, in a statement. “This has always been and continues to be the goal.”

Fairview Health Services last week announced it had reached a 10-year partnership with University of Minnesota Physicians to fund the state’s medical school, which includes a $1 billion commitment from Fairview to continue investment in the medical center as well as the Masonic Children’s Hospital and other academic sites. Ellison at the time praised the deal as a “strong step forward,” but university officials opposed it, saying the physicians overstepped their authority.

The U’s Board of Regents, in a resolution last week, condemned the deal. This week, the leader with the physicians group was removed from a vice presidential role at the university. Cunningham and university regents were expected to meet on “clinical partnership options and next steps” Friday afternoon, but the meeting was canceled ahead of the announcement of renewed negotiations.

A previous deal between the U and Fairview is set to expire in 2026. Minneapolis-based Fairview owns health care facilities on the university’s Twin Cities campus, including the teaching hospital for the medical school.

“University of Minnesota Physicians (M Physicians), the clinical practice for the faculty of the University of Minnesota Medical School, looks forward to advancing our foundational clinical agreement with Fairview Health Services while continuing to serve the academic mission of the University of Minnesota,” M Physicians said in a statement Friday. “We intend to complete our definitive clinical agreement with Fairview by the end of 2025.”

Talks to extend the partnership between the university and Fairview have been ongoing since February 2024.

Officials with Fairview expressed appreciation for the return to negotiations in statements Friday, but they also indicated that they remain committed to their “foundational and binding” agreement previously reached with M Physicians.

“Our goal is to engage constructively to find solutions that clarify the University’s research and education mission while respecting and upholding the integrity of the agreement already in place,” Fairview officials said in a statement Friday.

Stabilizing the faculty practice is urgent as physician departures from M Physicians are currently nearly 30% higher than average, according to Fairview.

“Fairview will continue to participate in time-limited discussions, but it would be irresponsible to allow open-ended negotiations, to revisit terms that have already been settled, or to return to structures that have already failed,” the statement said. “The foundational agreement already reached between Fairview and UMP offers a clear path forward, and it is essential that the work continues without unnecessary barriers.”

Related Articles

University of Minnesota removes doctor from VP post after Fairview deal

UMN Board of Regents: U physicians group acted ‘unlawfully’ in reaching Fairview deal

Fairview Health Services, UMN Physicians partnership draws criticism from U administrators

Ellison thanked the parties for their work and strategic facilitator Lois Quam, who he said will remain as a facilitator in the process. Cunningham on Friday acknowledged the work ahead and the need to rebuild trust.

“This significant step forward gives me confidence we will reach an agreement that best serves the health and healthcare needs of Minnesota—not only for today, but for decades to come,” Cunningham said in her statement to staff and students. “The University is fully committed to negotiating in good faith and forging a plan of action that most strongly supports patients and our state. We are also dedicated to achieving a timely solution that is both practical and extraordinary, allowing the University to sustain and grow our academic mission.”

By STEPHEN GROVES and LISA MASCARO, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The widow of Washington Post journalist Jamal Kashoggi called Friday for the release of the transcript of a 2019 phone call that President Donald Trump had with Mohammed bin Salman, joining Democratic lawmakers who are raising questions about whether Trump personally benefitted from his embrace of the Saudi crown prince.

Hanan Elatr Khashoggi appeared on Capitol Hill on Friday morning on the heels of Trump’s dismissal of U.S. intelligence findings that Prince Mohammed most likely had culpability in the October 2018 slaying of her husband. Trump also lavished the Saudi ruler this week with some of Washington’s highest honors for a foreign dignitary, deepening the business and military relationship between the two nations.

Saudi intelligence officials and a forensic doctor killed and dismembered Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018.

“There is no justification to kidnap him, torture him, to kill him and to cut him to pieces,” Hanan Elatr Khashoggi said Friday during an emotional news conference. “This is a terrorist act.”

FILE – Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi speaks during a press conference in Manama, Bahrain on Dec. 15, 2014. (AP Photo/Hasan Jamali, File)

The demand in Congress for the Trump administration to release the call transcripts is being led Rep. Eugene Vindman, a freshman Democrat from Virginia who was deputy legal adviser to the National Security Council during Trump’s first term.

Vindman, who has reviewed the transcript of the phone call with Prince Mohammed, declined to go into specifics of the classified document Friday, but said it used “the terminology of quid pro quo, the ensuing benefits that the president reaped.”

The Democratic lawmakers also pointed out that Trump’s family has extensive business dealings in Saudi Arabia that at times have benefitted from the prince’s direct involvement.

The situation carries echoes of Trump’s first impeachment over his July 2019 call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in which he asked the new Ukraine president to do him a “favor” in investigating his presidential rival, Joe Biden. At the time, Trump ended up releasing a transcript of the call with Zelenskyy in which he also said he would withhold $400 million in military aid.

Related Articles

Progress on overdose deaths could be jeopardized by federal cuts, critics say

FDA’s plan to boost biosimilar drugs could stall at the patent office

Once a patient’s in custody, ICE can be at hospital bedsides — but detainees have rights

ICE courthouse arrests meet resistance from Democratic states

Latino US citizens racially profiled by federal immigration agents in Chicago: ‘I felt like a piece of trash’

Vindman, then at the security council, also reviewed that call. He said that out of all the calls he reviewed in his job, the calls with Zelenskyy and Prince Mohammed stood out as the most concerning. He called the transcript of the call with the Saudi ruler “shocking.”

“The Kashoggi family and the American people deserve to know what was said on that call,” he added.

When asked if the White House would release the transcript, White House communications director Steven Cheung in a statement called Vindman “a bitter back-bencher who nobody takes seriously. He is a serial liar and was part of the hoax relating to the perfect Ukraine call, in which the Ukrainian president said so himself.”

Vindman’s twin brother, then-Army officer, Lt. Col. Alex Vindman, also worked at the National Security Council at the time, and had a prominent role in Trump’s 2019 impeachment.

Eugene Vindman was not as public a figure in that impeachment trial as his brother was. But after the Senate voted to acquit Trump of the House impeachment charges, the White House reassigned Alex Vindman from the council and pushed Eugene Vindman out, too.

Eugene Vindman ran for office representing northern Virginia last year.

It is unlikely that the Trump administration would voluntarily release the 2019 call transcript with Prince Mohammed. Democratic lawmakers, who are in the minority, also have little power to force its release. They also stayed away from speculating whether Trump’s relationship with Prince Mohammed would be grounds for another impeachment inquiry if they retake the House next year.

Still, they said the interaction was emblematic of the direction that Trump is leading the country.

“We are being drawn in the direction of authoritarian monarchy, in tyranny right now,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat.

After the Pinnacle Group sent 93 of its buildings into a bankruptcy auction, tenants are calling on the city to responsibly steward their properties to a new owner.

Tenants at Pinnacle Group buildings rallied outside Brooklyn’s Federal Courthouse on
Thursday. (Patrick Spauster/City Limits)

Across 5,000 households, 93 buildings, 50 tenant unions, and four boroughs, tenants of Pinnacle are fed up.

Pinnacle Group’s portfolio of rent stabilized housing has been troubled for years, with rapidly accumulating housing code violations, no electricity, and deteriorating buildings.

Earlier this year the struggling real estate company put the properties up for bankruptcy auction. Starting Friday, Nov. 21, investors can bid on the portfolio.

Tenants, gathered outside Brooklyn’s Federal Courthouse Thursday, called on Judge David S. Jones to slow down the auction process and give them a chance to work with the city and make sure that a responsible owner—or tenants themselves—can take over.

“We are here because of gross neglect, harassment, and abuse of tenants,” said Charlie Dulik, a Pinnacle tenant on Ocean Avenue in Flatbush at the Thursday night rally. “We don’t know what’s gonna happen to our buildings. We don’t know if they’re gonna be bought by another slumlord. We don’t know if we’re gonna have electricity in our common areas tomorrow.”

Organizers with the Union of Pinnacle Tenants want to put the buildings in a community land trust, where tenants would control their homes through a cooperative board, or seek a deal with the city to make the buildings affordable in the long term.

When Signature Bank collapsed in 2023, New York City and the federal government helped funnel the 70,000 unit portfolio to a partnership led by the Community Preservation Corporation (CPC), a group that specializes in preserving affordable housing.

“We do not deserve this willful neglect of our buildings. We deserve a say in what happens to our homes,” said Vivian Kuo, a Pinnacle tenant in Manhattan for the last five years. She said her building had broken elevators, pests, and leaks.

The auction of the portfolio comes amid intense deliberations over the future of rent stabilized housing in New York City. Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani has promised a four-year rent freeze for all rent stabilized units.

But critics have warned that a rent freeze could cut funding for the operations of some rent stabilized buildings—forcing owners to defer maintenance and causing tenants to live in substandard conditions.

Even some nonprofit developers, like CPC Chief Executive Rafael Cestero, have raised the alarm over how rent-stabilized affordable housing is struggling.

State rent laws passed in 2019 made it more difficult for owners to remove units from stabilization. That left some large rent stabilized portfolios, like Pinnacle’s, with fewer avenues to hike rents—a practice the company was known for before the law change. 

“They recklessly gambled and want tenants to pay for it,” said Dulik.

A spokesperson for the Pinnacle Group declined to comment on this story.

Here’s what else happened in housing this week—

ICYMI, from City Limits:

Two weeks ago, New Yorkers passed three housing ballot measures that change how the city approves affordable housing projects. See how voters in each Council district weighed in on the proposals, which divided both lawmakers and housing advocates.

As outgoing Mayor Eric Adams weighs appointing new members to the city’s Rent Guidelines Board during his final weeks in office, tenant groups have a message for any potential candidates: don’t take the gig. 

The City Council last week passed the OneLIC plan, which will update zoning rules for 54 blocks near the East River waterfront in Hunters Point North. It’s expected to create more housing than any neighborhood-specific rezoning in the last 25 years.

ICYMI, from other local newsrooms:

A group representing local plumbers is calling for NYCHA to conduct comprehensive emergency boiler inspections after a partial building collapse in The Bronx last month, The City reports.

The developers behind the senior housing project planned for the Elizabeth Street Garden site are suing the Adams Administration, which sought to squash the development by making the garden an official city park, according to Gothamist.

Debate over the city’s rules for short-term rentals like Airbnb rages on, the New York Post reports.

Outside the city, New York State is increasingly turning to hotels to house homeless families, according to NY1.

The post Pinnacle Tenants Demand City Intervene to Save Their Homes, And What Else Happened This Week in Housing appeared first on City Limits.