They tackled the wrong man and called it highly targeted. I know the sentence. It is what a department says when the crosshairs were drawn in advance, the man in them was simply standing nearby, and the paperwork afterward still insists the aim was perfect.
On Tuesday, October 6, 2026, the Evanston RoundTable’s My Ly, a Report for America corps member, reported that Evanston police officers identified a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer — shown in videos with the title “supervisory detention and deportation officer” — as one of the federal agents who mistakenly detained a U.S. citizen on September 20, according to police reports the RoundTable obtained. The RoundTable prints his name; I am going to call him the supervisor, because this story is not one man, it is one sentence. In body camera footage, the supervisor told officers the man looked similar to the target of the investigation, and said he told the man they would place him in custody but that he was not under arrest. “At that point he just started resisting, started fighting so we cuffed him and we ended up on the ground,” he said. “His wallet popped out, his paperwork showed up.” A witness account said one of the agents threw the wallet and papers on the ground. After the agents determined the man was not their target, the supervisor said, they tried to scan his face for “their software” for verification. An officer asked, “So you say you got the wrong guy?” He confirmed it. In the 911 recording, the man asks agents not to touch him and says he does not need to show his ID; after he shouts that he is a U.S. citizen, the agent responds, “Why didn’t you say that to begin with?” Police reached the 1700 block of Howard Street shortly before 10 a.m. and found the man, an Evanston resident, on the ground surrounded by people helping him; he reported injuries to his head, neck and teeth, and officers called an ambulance. Security camera footage, the RoundTable reports, shows the agents speeding off and leaving him there. They later told police they left because they “feared they would be attacked.” A paramedic asked an officer, “so ICE just tackled the guy and took off?” Five federal agents had been working the area in separate vehicles, looking for someone with Chicago-area addresses and a warrant. CNN reported in September that a witness, Ryan Garton, said he saw agents “punching a guy and putting their knee into his back,” and that the man had been in the emergency room the day before and was on his way to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription. Asked this week about the supervisor’s identity, DHS told the RoundTable it “will never confirm or deny attempts to dox our law enforcement officers,” said “ICE officers offered the individual assistance, he refused,” and added: “DHS enforcement operations are highly targeted, and officers do their due diligence. We know who we are targeting ahead of time.” In September, DHS said the incident started because the man “refused to identify himself” and was not “cooperative.”
Deb has started carrying her passport to the grocery store, in a Ziploc, next to the coupons. Taryn asked whether the stroller is going to need a document pocket. I told them nobody should need paperwork to walk to the pharmacy, and then I checked my own wallet anyway. I love them. They are seasoning.
Highly targeted is the alibi. The tackle is the method. Sit with the department’s sentence until it confesses: we know who we are targeting ahead of time. I believe them. They knew exactly who they were targeting, a person with a Chicago-area address and a warrant. What they did not know was who they were tackling, and the whole machine is built so that the gap between those two becomes the citizen’s fault. He did not show his ID fast enough. He was not cooperative. Why didn’t you say that to begin with? That is the state’s favorite question, and listen to what it assumes: that a man on his own sidewalk owes the badge an account of himself before the badge owes him a reason. Then the face scan for “their software,” the fast exit, the man left on Howard Street for strangers to kneel beside, and, two weeks later, the one thing the department rushes to protect is the name of the officer who confirmed the mistake. I used to think the fix was a better party in the building. I have watched the building long enough now. Whoever holds the lease, the vest fits the same. And I am not handing a halo to the local department either; a police report is still the state writing about the state, and a newsroom had to go get it. The only people in this story who behaved like a public were the strangers who stopped their cars. I am keeping the cardigan. Fill the notebook. Then ask the department, out loud, the only question that matters: who, exactly, did you know ahead of time?
Sources: Evanston RoundTable, Oct. 6, 2026; CNN, Sept. 24, 2026.
— Theo Ashford-Lindström
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