Broadview, IL, Limit Area Where People Can Protest ICE Facility
The latest protest spilled onto major streets and led to 15 arrests.
In Broadview, IL, Mayor Katrina Thompson reduced the area around the ICE facility where people can protest after a weekend protest got out of hand, leading to 15 arrests.
Broadview is about 12.7 miles west of Chicago. For those from Chicago, it’s located just north of Brookfield Zoo.
Thompson placed the safety zone right at the ICE facility. She has already signed an executive order allowing protests to occur between 9 AM and 6 PM.
From The Center Square:
“[T]oo many protesters are raising their fists rather than their voices, creating chaos at the expense of the people who call Broadview home,” Thompson said. “Broadview residents lack the protestors’ privilege to return to calm, quiet neighborhoods for undisturbed rest.”
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“Additionally, it has been only God’s grace alone that a protester has not been struck and killed by a motorist on 25th Avenue given how frequently protesters dash onto this busy, four-lane street,” she said. “This new measure will provide for both the serenity of residents and safety of protestors.”
Thompson stressed she supported the protesters’ right to free speech.
But Thomson added: “Nevertheless, my first priority is to defend public safety and the residents who live here and people who work here. They deserve stability, safety, and respect, a quality of life that is currently being denied to them. They deserve the love and kindness that they expect by being Broadview residents.”
The protests on Saturday happened after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit gave President Donald Trump control over the National Guard in Illinois with an administrative stay.
However, the court did not permit Trump to deploy the National Guard to Illinois.
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Comments
“[T]oo many protesters are raising their fists rather than their voices, creating chaos at the expense of the people who call Broadview home”
So it’s OK to punch a Nazi… just not in my back yard.
“it’s located just north of Brookfield Zoo.”
Can’t wait to see their expansion plans.
What a novel idea – NOT.
This sounds like the mayor is making a modified version of Florida’s Halo Law. The HALO Law establishes a mandatory 25-foot buffer zone around first responders—law enforcement officers, firefighters, and emergency medical personnel—while they are actively performing their duties to enhance their safety.
Protesters can protest but cannot block facilities or attack. They would also have to be back from various buildings and vehicles.
Don’t like HALO. So long as you’re not interfering or placing the safety of responders in jeopardy, you have a right to be as close to emergency personnel as you care to get. Leave it up to the common sense of the responders to evaluate the situation and the individuals who may or may not threaten their safety. Was the law not already clear enough to allow for such arrests? Yes or no, HALO is an over-reaction. If no, then just make common sense the rule. Allow LEOs to arrest based on an articulable threat posed by someone placed under arrest.
A strict limit seems like the best comprise. It gives 1st responders ability to work unimpeded, allows folks to observe/record from a minimal distance 25 ft. With a set distance everyone, LEO and those who want to peacefully/quietly observe/film can each know what the objective ‘rule’ actually is v some subjective crap where LEO says ‘go across the street’ or some random demands to be over the shoulder of LEO b/c ‘they have a right to record’.
The fact that this is a government imposed limit, rather than relying on the judgment of a responder that is related to the specifics of an incident and its scene, is what makes it odious. These people work for us, not the other way around. Arresting someone for nothing more than being within a certain distance is abusive when the person arrested wasn’t actually obstructing or threatening. What happened to a cop just telling someone “Get back” and arresting them when they don’t comply? Oh, right, people no longer listen to police commands. Then why does anyone think blockheads like that are going to abide by the HALO rule? Those people should be arrested one way or the other, but not everyone else should be treated like them.
I don’t understand your rejection of an objective limit simply b/c it is imposed by the gov’t. This removes the subjective confusion and inconsistency from a ‘bad’ LEO or a ‘bad’ bystander.
How does one mount a defense in the aftermath if there’s no objective standard? We gonna expect a Judge/Jury to second guess the LEO on a subjective standard when you’ve rejected an objective standard?
It doesn’t matter if someone is a ‘choir boy’ with no evil intent when they come too close to an active scene. The LEO has no way to determine that in the moment. Especially when the trend seems to be for bystanders to surround the scene, move closer, yelling and screaming, creating chaos. An objective 25 foot minimum distance seems to be a very minimal burden on the public that balances the legitimate interests of all.
As we have seen, far too many people have terrible judgment. So no, judgment calls are not the way things should be done. You really do have to have a hard line because some people are going to tiptoe up to it no matter what.
The condemnation of “poor judgment” is used by politicians to limit our freedom. Not everyone should be treated like the lowest common denominator just because “far too many people have terrible judgment.” We’re supposed to be treated by government as individuals whose rights and liberties are respected, and not be treated as if part of an ignorant, careless, or criminal collective.
Thinking like yours is why we have background checks, waiting periods, and licensing schemes to exercise our right to arms, to give a few examples. Yet somehow these rules never work to prevent the crimes they’re meant to address. It’s always the next law that will, and then it’s the one after that.
Dave,
Let’s use your 2A analogy and apply it here. What you are arguing for by demanding a subjective standard is ‘may issue’. By contrast with an objective standard it becomes a ‘shall issue’.
You insist that gov’t agents will not act in good faith so shouldn’t be trusted but simultaneously want to grant these same untrustworthy govt agents broad discretion with an entirely subjective standard which leaves the decision about ‘safe distance” in the hands of LEO without any real basis to later challenge that decision.
IMO a clearly defined, transparent, objective standard allows us to hold everyone accountable, LEO and bystanders, by removing confusion, discretion and subjectivity from the situation.
To CommoChief,
And you’re arguing that our liberties were meant to be subject to constraints imposed by government, and that you trust the government to impose these restraints “in good faith.” When has that happened? Government regularly acts in bad faith and has proven itself to not be trustworthy in its management of our rights and liberties.
I also didn’t propose that the government agent’s word couldn’t be challenged. The law allows the agent to arrest people who are doing no harm to the detriment of persons who are innocent of any actual wrong-doing. You’d replace the officer’s judgment with a standard that will definitely harm innocent people. That’s superior to the occasional poor judgment of an officer?
Is there allowance in this law for a citizen who comes to an officer’s assistance? What if you’re at the scene of an incident and an officer approaches you? Are you forced to retreat? If he orders you nearer, can you refuse his order?
Many of these officers are carrying lethal weapons. If they’re not well-trained enough in the use of their judgment to manage the scene of an incident, or if an individual officer’s judgment can’t otherwise be trusted, how is it that they can be trusted with the ability to take a life and to not abuse that ability?
Is there allowance in this law for a citizen who comes to an officer’s assistance?
Yes.
What if you’re at the scene of an incident and an officer approaches you? Are you forced to retreat?
Can you say ‘useless contrarianism indicative of an awareness that one has lost the argument”?
The laws have discretion built in, but the objective base provides a general leeway that is all to needed at times.
If he orders you nearer, can you refuse his order?
Dave,
I am not doing any such thing. Govt agents are people, which means they are flawed and quite capable of acting selfish, harmful, evil ways.
With an objective standard to hold their actions to we can at minimum remove the ability to inject uncertainty about whether a given action is reasonable. Here it the set distance is 25 feet then that’s it. Not 26 feet, not 126 feet, not ‘get back behind that sign over there’.
Your insistence on a subjective standard allows the LEO to use his sole discretion to decide how close is too close. Instead of the elected representatives of the People, the legislature, setting an unambiguous, objective standard of 25 feet.
The nest way to ‘police the police’ is to have objective standards to hold them to in every encounter v subjective standards that each LEO is free to interpret how they see fit. Hard to argue that a LEO is somehow abusing discretion or acting unreasonable about the distance to stay back with an objective basis for comparison.
Medics and fire are one thing. But when a cop is processing, say, your wife, you really want to be up there as close as you can be to him.
Maybe don’t marry a rabid rainbow haired lunatic Karen that thinks people can’t physically confront her while she acts like a violent psychopath.
Doesn’t matter how close you get, once a police officer decide you’re being arrested, then you’re being arrested. You can’t talk them out of it at that point and trying to do so does nothing but cause more problems. You may not like it, but you’re just going to have to let it happen and then deal with it after she gets downtown or wherever the jail happens to be
True that. You might be able to beat the charge in court tomorrow but you ain’t gonna beat the ride to jail tonight.
The problem is that enough people can’t control themselves and do interfere so a buffer is needed.
It’s not clear to me that the mayor has created a “HALO” zone. I initially read the article as saying she shrank the perimeter of the area where protesting is allowed. Note that she cites concern for residents and not federal agents.
These losers lead absolutely pathetic lives. Just look at them.
I’ve been watching video of some of the crowd control in PDX.
ICE officers SUCK at hands on action.
I’ve rolled with cops and so I know how weak their hands on game is, but these guys are not the A team for going toe to toe with crowds. I know that except for SWAT, no one really is any good.
If you are going to send guys out there to go toe to toe with crowds and not let them use lethal force (or hand held cattle prod/tasers from the looks of it)- at least make sure they’ve got some ground game.
Seriously it looks like the JV football team at the local middle school.
Meh use bean bag and pellet rounds. Employ far more pepper spray. Use shields to push with batons using the end to strike like a bayonet thrust (no overhead strikes or baseball bat swings). Use flash bangs. Use vehicles to deploy from another location to disrupt the mob from relying on TTP of ‘ICE says move back 3x then come out front gate with only 20 agents every time’. Disrupt the mob decision loop by changing up how/when they exit, what tactics are used, from what direction and how many agents. Hell swear in the NG members as ‘special’ US Marshals and deploy them.
Water cannons
So my opinion, they let the terrorists off way too easy. Plenty of times I’ve seen they should have arrested someone and they didn’t and I think that’s a mistake. People learn the wrong lesson when they get away with stuff
Ice should not have to deal with citizens. Interference alone should be grounds for arrest.
Close to the zoo
Probably a few pens available
Sure are.
The zoo director is a Soros Democrat.
He keeps letting the big cats and the wolves back on the street.
Sounds a little like the ‘safe space zones’ around abortion facilities some places. Except pro-lifers tend to be peaceful and civilised, whereas too many of the anti-ICE crowd are neither civilised nor peaceful.
Can a Mayor issue an EO restricting someone’s right to engage in 1st Amendment activities?
Time, place and manner restrictions are lawful. The 1A is NOT a ‘get out of jail fee card’. The 1A protects the right to ‘peaceably assemble’ which means at minimum the crowd/mob can’t engage in otherwise unlawful acts then seek to use the 1A as a shield.