Senior U.S. Border Patrol official Gregory Bovino was ordered to appear in federal court on weekdays until Nov. 5 to give a daily update on immigration enforcement operations in Chicago amid scrutiny.
U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis ordered Bovino to comply with her request in an effort to oversee the reported use of tear gas and pepper spray on local citizens. She also ordered him to produce all use-of-force reports since Sept. 2 and through Saturday.
Ellis is presiding over a lawsuit from residents who say they’ve been endangered by the chemical agents sprayed by immigration enforcement officials.
Bovino, who appeared in court wearing his green uniform, has been recorded deploying a tear gas canister — as have other Department of Homeland Security officials.
But Bovino told the judge Tuesday that during operations he’s not been wearing a body camera and has not been trained to wear the device to record live footage, according to NewsNation’s Juliette Johnson.
Bovino agreed to receive training and start wearing a body camera by Friday as Ellis warned that she doesn’t “want to hear that ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] is out and about on Halloween where children are present,” after Border Patrol officials reportedly released the substance at a children’s Halloween parade over the weekend.
After reviewing footage from the event, Ellis told Bovino that “get back” or “get out of here,” are not proper warnings and said agents must clearly give the crowd time to disperse before deploying tear gas.
“I suspect that now knowing where we are and that he understands what I have said, I don’t know that we’re going to see a whole lot of tear gas deployed over the next week,” Ellis said during the hearing, according to NewsNation.
“Mr. Bovino will be here every day at 6 to tell me what happened,” she added, referring to the ordered daily 6 p.m. appearances.
Ellis had already ordered agents to wear badges and banned them from using certain riot control techniques against peaceful protesters and journalists, according to The Associated Press. While she told the court room she’s “not telling the agency how to operate, not telling them how to enforce the law,” she added that she’s “not afraid” to enforce the temporary restraining order.