Federal agents detained two men, including one who ran into a Gurnee high school classroom, on Thursday following a 10-minute car chase that started in Waukegan and caused multiple crashes.
In a statementWarren Township High School said no students were detained and the two people federal agents were chasing were not students or affiliated with the school.
“This was very difficult for many of our staff and students,” said Superintendent Danny Woestman. “Please keep those individuals and their families in your thoughts and prayers today.”
The arrest started in Waukegan when agents attempted to pull over the men, leading to a 10-minute car chase that resulted in multiple crashes. The men jumped out of their vehicle, which was damaged in the chase.
According to Woestman’s description of video footage that captured the end of the chase, a truck pulled into the school’s parking lot around 8:18 am Two people then exited the vehicle, one of whom fell within seconds and was detained by masked agents in the parking lot. Another person ran into a classroom through an exterior door, and federal agents detained that person in front of students about a minute later.
As they walked the two people they detained to vehicles, a federal agent pointed pepper spray at “community and staff members” who had gathered nearby, which the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights said included students and rapid response community members.
DHS officials accused the two of a litany of past felonies and said they “recklessly endangered the public by starting a high speed car chase and then driving onto school grounds, possibly to seek protection since they are ‘ICE Free Zones.’”
One of the men, Samuel Suarez-Cuevas, pleaded guilty earlier this year to domestic battery, a misdemeanor, in Lake County Circuit Court, and was sentenced to 90 days, according to court records.
The other man, Josafat Garcia-Roa, had previously been charged with possession of a controlled substance in 2009 and misdemeanor DUI in 2005, in Lake County. Court records show Garcia-Roa completed both sentences satisfactorily and had the latter charge vacated.
ICIRR corroborated Woestman’s description of the events at the school, and said it was the latest example of President Donald Trump’s administration getting “increasingly hostile.”
Dulce Ortiz, executive director of Mano a Mano Family Resource Center and board president of ICIRR, said the car chase was an inevitability given that Lake County residents had been reporting federal agents recklessly driving for weeks.
Customs and border protection policy allows agents to engage in car chases for as long as “the law enforcement benefit and need for emergency driving outweighs the immediate and potential danger created by such emergency driving” — all up to the determination of the agent driving. Emergency lights and sirens are required during these pursuits.
Part of that calculus is the severity of the charges against a person who is being chased and the potential danger they pose to the public if they aren’t detained.
“Officers/Agents must operate CBP emergency equipped vehicles in a reasonable and prudent manner and are responsible for continuously evaluating and balancing that the law enforcement benefit of, and need for, emergency driving outweighs the immediate and potential danger created by such emergency driving,” the policy reads.
Despite not being new, it was still an escalation, Ortiz said.
“Not to the level that it got to today, but we have seen them run red lights, run stop signs,” Ortiz said. “They feel like they aren’t accountable to anybody, and it’s a danger to pedestrians and community members. … It’s not only creating chaos and terror and fear in our communities, but it’s really sad this is impacting our students.”
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