Cook County state's attorney hits back on 'heavy-handed' petition for Operation Midway Blitz outside prosecutor

Madeline Buckley, Chicago Tribune on Mar 24, 2026

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CHICAGO — The Cook County state’s attorney’s office on Tuesday hit back at an effort to appoint an outside prosecutor to investigate potential wrongdoing by federal agents during Operation Midway Blitz, filing a response in court arguing that the move was driven by public outrage rather than the law.

Earlier this month, a group of community members, organizations and politicians filed a petition in Cook County Circuit Court asking a judge to appoint a special prosecutor to potentially prosecute immigration agents for their actions during the Trump administration’s controversial immigration enforcement operation last fall.

The petition, which accuses Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke of failing to act during the operation, outlines numerous clashes between agents and civilians throughout the fall, most seriously, the killing of Silverio Villegas González in September and the wounding of Marimar Martínez in October.

The matter had its first airing Tuesday morning at the Leighton Criminal Court Building before Judge Erica Reddick, who is the presiding judge of the criminal division and will hear arguments to decide whether the issue merits an appointment. During a brief hearing, prosecutors filed a response opposing the motion, and the parties set a new court date for next month.

“The State’s Attorney, like many others in Cook County, is ‘horrified by the thuggish and inappropriate conduct of ICE agents’ in Chicago and elsewhere,” the office’s court filing said. “But that horror does not mean that she — or any other prosecutor whether specially appointed or elected — can willfully violate the law.”

The petition is the most recent effort by community members and organizations seeking out ways to hold federal agents accountable for alleged misconduct during immigration enforcement operations in the Chicago area. The issue of state prosecutors pursuing criminal charges against immigration agents has been an ongoing matter of public debate, with advocacy groups pushing for state prosecutions in the absence of trustworthy federal investigations while Burke has said the law only allows her to charge on-duty agents in narrow circumstances.

One Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent is facing a misdemeanor charge for allegedly body-slamming a protester at a gas station, but he was off-duty at the time.

“The outrage across Cook County at the crimes committed by federal agents is palpable across the jurisdiction,” the petition reads. “Collectively, (the petitioners) represent a cross-section of the many citizens and residents of Cook County calling for accountability, investigation, and criminal liability for the federal agents responsible.”

In its response, the Cook County state’s attorney’s office said the law does not allow prosecutors to initiate prosecutions simply because “the general public and elected officials would like them to.” The response maintains that the office does not have a conflict of interest to meet the requirements for the assignment of an outside prosecutor.

The office argued that the petitioners disagree with Burke’s prosecutorial decisions, and would “prefer that she make those decisions based on public sentiment, political pressure, the urging of elected officials and information gleaned from newspaper articles and civil pleadings” rather than on a criminal investigation conducted by law enforcement.

The response also called the effort a “heavy-handed attempt … to usurp the authority of the elected prosecutor.”

“Petitioners are asking this Court to ignore the law and appoint a special prosecutor citing public outrage and the will of multiple political figures as support for their position,” the office said.

The prosecution’s response also criticized a request by the petitioners to have input in the selection of a special prosecutor, and it took a shot at the attorneys’ work in the federal civil lawsuit against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in Chicago Headline Club v. Noem. Attorneys from the civil rights firm Loevy and Loevy are arguing the matter on behalf of the petitioners.

“Petitioners tout their work in Chicago Headline Club, but put simply, this experienced firm’s failure to take seriously a cornerstone principle of federal law in such a case involving the public interest — even after that principle was expressly raised by their opponent — played a significant role in the complete undoing of literally everything they supposedly sought to achieve in the Chicago Headline Club litigation, invalidating a favorable injunction at the expense of their clients,” the state’s response said.

But after the hearing, attorneys were critical of what they called Burke’s lack of action.

“As far as we can tell, no prosecutorial action has been taken, none is contemplated and none will be forthcoming unless and until an independent special prosecutor is appointed to do the job that the state’s attorney was elected to perform,” said Locke Bowman, a partner at Loevy and Loevy.

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