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.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, October 6, 2026, the Evanston RoundTable\u2019s My Ly, a Report for America corps member, reported that Evanston police officers identified a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer \u2014 shown in videos with the title \u201csupervisory detention and deportation officer\u201d \u2014 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. \u201cAt that point he just started resisting, started fighting so we cuffed him and we ended up on the ground,\u201d he said. \u201cHis wallet popped out, his paperwork showed up.\u201d 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 \u201ctheir software\u201d for verification. An officer asked, \u201cSo you say you got the wrong guy?\u201d 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, \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you say that to begin with?\u201d 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 \u201cfeared they would be attacked.\u201d A paramedic asked an officer, \u201cso ICE just tackled the guy and took off?\u201d 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 \u201cpunching a guy and putting their knee into his back,\u201d 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\u2019s identity, DHS told the RoundTable it \u201cwill never confirm or deny attempts to dox our law enforcement officers,\u201d said \u201cICE officers offered the individual assistance, he refused,\u201d and added: \u201cDHS enforcement operations are highly targeted, and officers do their due diligence. We know who we are targeting ahead of time.\u201d In September, DHS said the incident started because the man \u201crefused to identify himself\u201d and was not \u201ccooperative.\u201d<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Highly targeted is the alibi. The tackle is the method. Sit with the department\u2019s 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\u2019s fault. He did not show his ID fast enough. He was not cooperative. Why didn\u2019t you say that to begin with? That is the state\u2019s 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 \u201ctheir software,\u201d 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?<\/p>\n
Sources:<\/strong> Evanston RoundTable, Oct. 6, 2026<\/a>; CNN, Sept. 24, 2026<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u2014 Theo Ashford-Lindstr\u00f6m<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Evanston police records identify the ICE supervisor who confirmed agents had \u201cthe wrong guy\u201d after a U.S. citizen was taken to the ground on Howard Street and left with head, neck and teeth injuries. DHS calls naming him doxxing and says its operations are \u201chighly targeted.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":338,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[5,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-news"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/theo-evanston-highly-targeted-1007am.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/339\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thetheolowgen.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}