"Teach ‘Em A Lesson": Shocking Body Cam Video Exposes Trump Border Chief’s Illegal Arrests

“It’s all about arresting people,” Trump border chief Greg Bovino says in explosive new video revealing the cruelty— and incompetence—of DHS agents during "Operation Midway Blitz" in Chicago

***Status Coup has been reporting ON THE GROUND in Chicago and Charlotte on Trump’s violent ICE Invasion for over 2 MONTHS. This has taken A LOT of resources—and no other outlets are doing this kind of in-the-trenches reporting. We REALLY need more viewers to become paid Status Coup members in order to continue doing this important ON THE GROUND reporting. Please support our INDEPENDENT reporting as a paying Status Coup member for as low as $5 bucks a month***

“I think if we push this whole fucking block back, that ought to teach ‘em a lesson,” Greg Bovino, the Border Patrol commander in charge of Operation Midway Blitz, fumed to a group of agents outside of the ICE detention center in Broadview, Illinois in late September. “And if it doesn’t, we arrest.”

The “‘em” Bovino referenced was a crowd of peaceful protesters and a handful of journalists there to cover the Sept. 27 demonstration. Protesters had come to exercise their First Amendment rights to challenge, and document, the Trump administration’s occupation of the Windy City. Just minutes later, Status Coup videojournalist Jon Farina would become one of dozens of people violently coughing, and receiving a flow of saline solution poured into his eyes to wash away the tear gas deployed by Bovino and his Border Patrol brigade’s heavy-handed tactics.

Plenty of cameras caught the racist patrols, abductions, and abuses committed by the Trump administration that have become hallmarks of Operation Midway Blitz. But few viral videos captured the cruel decision-making process, action-hero cosplay, and incompetence from the perspective of the federal agents responsible.

However, newly released body camera video from several Chicago-area incidents in September and October offers new insight into what is perhaps the Trump administration’s most openly fascistic policy goal.

“It’s all about arresting people,” Bovino said during the Sept. 27 protest, as recorded by an agent’s body camera.

The video makes clear that the agents themselves do not believe President Trump’s pronouncements that accelerating immigration raids are about improving public safety. Rather, they are there to inflict pain—and terror—throughout entire metropolitan areas that dare to elect leaders who oppose Trump’s authoritarian vision for the nation.

The pain is the point.

On Oct. 14, agents engaged in a car chase through a Chicago neighborhood, going so fast their tires could be heard squealing at every turn. The agent in the driver’s seat repeatedly asked for permission to crash into the vehicle ahead of him in a PIT (precision immobilization technique) maneuver— despite admitting he lacks a certification.

How exactly does that advance public safety? Federal agents, of course, could just get the suspect’s license plate and report the vehicle to local police…

But that would prematurely end their power trip.

Another agent waved a gun at customers inside a Walgreens. Federal authorities threw tear gas canisters at peaceful protesters several times. Their demands for proof of citizenship were so jarring, and their show of force so aggressive, that they provoked clear fight-or-flight responses in several people they racially profiled.

The horrors of their tactics are occasionally interrupted by darkly comedic moments of buffoonery. On at least two occasions video showed agents struggling to pull the pins on a stinger grenade and a tear gas canister. In one case, the agent eventually gives up after several tries.

During the Sept. 27 protest, after agents had heroically teargassed protesters and journalists, Bovino and another agent can be heard talking about how they could not get their gas masks to fit—thereby effectively teargassing themselves.

“By the time I put on my fucking mask, the smoke was gone, so I had to [take] the thing back off,” the agent says. “I was already crying.”

“Even though I had mine on, it didn’t work,” Bovino responds.

“Leaked?” the other agent asks.

“Yes,” Bovino said. “I thought I had a really good seal on it, but I guess I didn’t… I tightened the shit out of it. I might have over-tightened it.”

The over-tightening of America’s fascist forces are headed to New Orleans next.

We’ll stay on it.

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We are INDEPENDENT and need more funding to continue showing you the front lines of the battle against fascism in America. Please support our justice journalism as a paying Status Coup member for as low as $5 bucks a month.