By Renee Hickman and Heather Schlitz
FRANKLIN PARK, Illinois (Reuters) -Rudy Repa, a 27-year-old resident of Franklin Park, Illinois, placed a single marigold at a makeshift memorial near the spot where a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer fatally shot a man from Mexico during an attempted arrest in the Chicago suburb.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security said an officer shot Silverio Villegas-Gonzalez, 38, during a traffic stop on Friday in Franklin Park. In a statement, the agency said Villegas-Gonzalez was in the country illegally and had attempted to flee in his car, dragging and injuring the officer.
The death of Villegas-Gonzalez has angered community members like Repa and heightened safety fears among the region’s Latino residents.
On Saturday, about 100 people, including Repa, turned out for a vigil for Villegas-Gonzalez in Franklin Park, a community in which around half of the residents are Hispanic or Latino.
“I’m incredibly mad and I want justice for our community,” said Repa.
DHS on September 8 launched a deportation crackdown in Illinois that it said was targeting criminals among immigrants in the U.S. without legal status. The department said the operation was necessary because of city and state “sanctuary” laws that limit cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson have called for an accounting of the incident involving Villegas-Gonzalez. On Saturday, Johnson said on X it was an “avoidable tragedy.”
U.S. Representative Delia Ramirez said at a press conference Villegas-Gonzalez was shot immediately after dropping off his children at a nearby school.
ICE declined to provide more details on the incident over the weekend. It referred to a press release that said Villegas-Gonzalez had a history of reckless driving and the ICE agent fired his weapon because he feared for his life.
Alexandra Calleja, 34, teared up as she spoke at Saturday’s vigil about the killing.
“I think he might have gotten scared,” she said. “He might have wanted to leave because it crossed his mind that, ‘If I get taken away I’ll never see my kids again’.”
Many residents attending the vigil on Saturday were also immigrants, born in places like Guatemala and Chile.
Pritzker said last month he thought President Donald Trump’s administration was timing ICE operations to coincide with celebrations for Mexican Independence Day, which falls on September 16 and is a major event in Chicago’s large Mexican-American community.
A large Mexican Independence Day parade in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood on Sunday still drew thousands of attendees to enjoy music, singing and dancing. There were anti-ICE signs along the route and volunteers on the lookout for federal agents.
Marco Villalobos, 46, who was part of the parade, said he did not bring his three children because he worried ICE agents might be there.
“It’s a terrible thing; they’re trying to hunt people down,” he said of Villegas-Gonzalez’s death.
(Reporting by Renee Hickman and Heather Schlitz in Chicago; Editing by Chris Reese)
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