Commentary by Jerry Lanson
The raid took place in the dead of night, as heavily armed men burst into unit after unit of a Chicago apartment building in a chilling scene with little precedent in American law enforcement.
Reported the Chicago Sun-Times: “Armed federal agents in military fatigues busted down their doors … pulling men, women and children from their apartments, some of them naked, residents and witnesses said. Agents approached or entered nearly every apartment in the five-story building, and US citizens were among those detained for hours.”
Those arrested were neither killers nor terrorists. A spokesman for the FBI’s Chicago office called it a “targeted immigration enforcement operation,” though the Department of Homeland Security said “some” of those arrested “are believed to be involved in drug trafficking” and weapons crimes.
Then there were people like Rodrick Johnson, 67, a US citizen who eventually was released. He told the newspaper that after agents broke down his door, he was dragged out in zip-ties (a short of handcuff) and left tied up for three hours. He said his request to see a warrant and talk to a lawyer were ignored.
This horror show, in the final hours of September 30, was in complete violation of legal due process in this country. Yet the story, one that demanded high-profile coverage and follow-up in the country’s national newspapers and television networks sort of dribbled out and then fizzled.
The New York Times did publish a front-page story October 1, but one in the parlance of journalism, it “buried the lead.” It downplayed the incident and focused instead on the Trump administration following through on its enforcement promise.
Wrote the NYT:
“The Trump administration has vowed for more than a month to bring a show of federal force to Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city, to crack down on illegal immigration.
“This week, the administration has visibly followed through. On Sunday, federal officers in camouflage patrolled tourist-heavy areas of downtown Chicago in a conspicuous pack, attracting stares and taunts, including from a bicyclist the agents tried to chase. On Monday, US military officials said that 100 National Guard troops would be deployed to Illinois to protect federal facilities, a mobilization that is expected in the coming days.
And early on Tuesday, federal agents, using drones, helicopters, trucks and dozens of vehicles, conducted a middle-of the-night raid on a rundown apartment building on the South Side of Chicago, leaving the building mostly empty of residents by morning and neighbors stunned.”
CNN at least got straight to the point when, two days later on October 3, it got around to posting the story under the headline, “37 People Arrested and American Kids Separated from Parents After ICE Raid at Chicago apartment.” [The raid was actually carried out by the Border Patrol and other Homeland Security Agency officers.]
“Adults and children alike were pulled from their Chicago apartments, crying and screaming, during a large overnight raid that left tenants and neighbors spoken,” began the story.
“I’ve been on military bases for a good portion of my life,” said Darrell Ballard, who lives in the building next door. “And the activity I saw – it was an invasion.”
As for The Washington Post, it put up an Associated Press story – not one written by its own staff – on Oct. 6. Like the NYT, it wrapped the raid into an overview of aggressive federal actions, beginning like this:
“CHICAGO – Storming an apartment complex by helicopter as families slept. Deploying chemical agents near a public school. Handcuffing a Chicago City Council member near a hospital.
“Activists, residents and leaders say increasingly combative tactics used by federal immigration agents are sparking violence and fueling neighborhood tensions in the nation’s third-largest city.”
A few caveats are in order. First, story selection and play are always a relative process in newsrooms. Editors, producers and news organizations have to weigh the importance of one story against other news of the day. And the onslaught of news in recent weeks has been extraordinary – the promise at last of peace in the Middle East, the US government shutdown, and the broader battle over militarization of American cities all have vied for attention.
Secondly, national news organization often seek to put news in a broader context and always attempt to report responsibly and fairly.
Even so, when reporters and editors downplay such overt violations of Americans’ rights, they endanger all our freedoms and their own credibility. Some apparently small stories – consider the Watergate break-in, for example – demand detailed coverage and aggressive follow-up. Without it, the public learns next to nothing.
In recent days, Donald Trump has moved aggressively to impose federal rule over the states.
He’s already cowed Congress, the highest court and a growing swath of American businesses, universities and – yes – media companies.
Last week, he twice threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act, an 1807 law
that allows the president to deploy the US military domestically and federalize National Guard troops under specific circumstances. It was last used by President George H.W. Bush in 1992 during the Los Angeles riots, but that was at the request of the governor and mayor – not against their will. The law, broadly and vaguely written in ways that allow a president to suppress “an insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination or conspiracy” in a state, has yet to be tested.
Trump has said, however, that Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and the Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson should be jailed for opposing the deployment of Illinois and Texas National Guard troops in Chicago, a city in which – like Washington D.C. before it – crime rates have been in decline.
Pritzker, for his part, has called the Trump administration’s actions, “an unconstitutional invasion of Illinois by the federal government.”
In a New York Times article headlined “JB Pritzker has had it with Democrats Who Won’t Stand up to Trump,” the governor also chided fellow Democrats.
“This is exactly the moment for people to stand up,” he said. “And do I sense enough people are doing it? No, I don’t. It shouldn’t be that there are Democrats that are afraid, because you know what? We’re the targets. We need to be strong, we need to fight back.”
The same message arguably could be sent to news organizations, college presidents, law firms, big businesses and more. But while fear undoubtedly is a factor, it alone doesn’t explain the actions or inactions of we, the people.
Unless the leading news media show and tell American people about specifically egregious actions happening against them on the ground in Chicago and elsewhere, they’re less likely to know how to respond, less able to formulate intelligent opinions of what they believe is right and wrong.
As Pritzker might say, this is exactly the moment for news outlets to cover the news aggressively, not slowly or tepidly – and to follow up on stories such as those people left zip-tied on the streets of Chicago, their apartments ransacked. What happens to American citizens, even poor ones, matters. They are protected by our Constitution, just like everyone else.
Perhaps you’ll remember. It was The Washington Post that told its readers – until dropping the slogan at the outset of Trump’s second term – Democracy Dies in Darkness.
This column first appeared in Lanson’s Substack From the Grassroots.