A DePaul University student was charged with spitting on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent working at O’Hare Airport amid a partial government shutdown prompted by calls to reform ICE.
Brett Heier, 20, “intentionally and forcefully” spat on the agent Sunday evening while leaving Terminal 2 at O’Hare, according to a Chicago police arrest report. Heier faces a felony charge of aggravated battery to a peace officer.
But his lawyer, Barry Sheppard, argued that his client is only accused of spitting on the agent’s shoe, and it may have been unintentional. The arrest report notes that Heier was taking medication for an abscessed tooth.
“In the past, [ICE] seems to have made smaller incidents larger than life,” Sheppard said in an interview, “and I feel this one was also blown out of proportion.”
A spokesperson for ICE said its employees “are grappling with a 1,300% increase in assaults, a 3,200% increase in vehicle attacks and a staggering 8,000% uptick in death threats as they put their lives on the line to arrest murderers, rapists, pedophiles, and gang members.”
The ICE agent who was allegedly hit by the spit identified Heier’s photo in a lineup, along with a second agency official. Chicago cops arrested Heier Tuesday as he left his Lincoln Park apartment, and he was ordered released from custody during his first court hearing Wednesday.
The alleged spitting incident at O’Hare came a week after President Donald Trump announced he was sending ICE agents to airports across the country to assist with security amid the fight over DHS funding.
The resulting government shutdown has led to long lines at airports and staffing issues among TSA agents, who went unpaid from mid-February until Trump signed an executive order giving them back pay last week.
Employees of other DHS agencies, including ICE and Customs and Border Protection, have continued to earn paychecks because they’re being funded by Trump’s domestic policy bill passed over the summer.
The shutdown was prompted by Democrats’ unanswered calls for reforms after two U.S. citizens were fatally shot during an aggressive deportation campaign in Minnesota earlier this year.
Meantime, Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke has faced mounting calls to investigate and prosecute immigration agents who carried out a similar operation in the Chicago area. She has said she’s legally handcuffed when it comes to targeting the feds, even as legal efforts have been launched to install a special prosecutor in her office to do just that.
A spokesperson for the state’s attorney declined to comment on Heier’s case and the decision to charge him with a felony.
Heier’s attorney, Sheppard, said his client’s alleged actions fall under the “broad gambit of freedom of expression.”
“He’s a very good young man who does well in college, never had any type of arrest for anything before,” Sheppard said.
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