Illinois State Police investigating fatal ICE shooting of Silverio Villegas González

CHICAGO — Eight months after a federal immigration agent shot and killed a man in the earliest days of “Operation Midway Blitz,” the Illinois State Police has opened an investigation into the fatal shooting.

The investigation was prompted by a request last week from the police department of Franklin Park, a near-west suburb of Chicago where Silverio Villegas González was fatally shot on Sept. 12, 2025. Shortly after Villegas González dropped off his children at school and daycare on that Friday morning, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents pulled him over and, in the altercation that followed, shot him in the neck.

The call for an ISP probe came the same day a state panel appointed by Gov. JB Pritzker published a 204-page report detailing alleged misconduct by on-duty federal immigration agents during the Trump administration’s Chicago-focused mass deportation campaign last fall. After a series of hearings, the Illinois Accountability Commission issued findings that federal agents engaged in “patterns of illegal and violent conduct,” according to commission chair and former U.S. District Judge Ruben Castillo.

Read more: Accountability Commission refers federal agents for investigation, possible prosecution for conduct last fall | State commission finds agent abuses were ‘greenlit by Washington’ for Operation Midway Blitz

After its April 30 release, the report and other materials from the investigation were forwarded to several law enforcement agencies, including the Franklin Park Police Department.

ISP spokesperson Melaney Arnold confirmed the investigation, specifying that Franklin Park Police requested a review from the ISP’s Public Integrity Task Force, which investigates officer-involved shootings across the state. The investigation is already underway.

“When complete, the case will be turned over to the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office,” Arnold said in a statement, declining to provide additional information “at this time.”

Push for a special prosecutor

Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke has spent months fending off a political pressure campaign from a growing number of public officials and community leaders demanding she open investigations into immigration agents’ alleged wrongdoing. But the prosecutor maintains her office has limited legal authority to do so without a request from law enforcement, which she has not received.

Burke spokesperson Elyssa Cherney confirmed the state’s attorney’s office has “been in contact with ISP and will play a supportive role in their investigation.”

“We are unable to comment further on a pending law enforcement investigation,” she said.

In the meantime, a Cook County judge is weighing whether to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate — and possibly charge — immigration agents for alleged abuses in lieu of Burke. After lengthy arguments in and out of court, a decision in the matter is set for Monday, May 11.

More than 400 Cook County residents, including elected officials and community leaders, have signed on to a petition for a special prosecutor, accusing Burke of “abdicating her duty.” A lawyer for the coalition argued in court last month that federal agents’ alleged behavior was “textbook law enforcement misconduct,” which any state’s attorney has a responsibility to look into when a law enforcement agency is refusing to investigate itself.

Read more: Mid-May ruling set for special prosecutor demand to investigate alleged ‘Operation Midway Blitz’ abuses | Legal battle intensifies over appointing special prosecutor for alleged ‘Operation Midway Blitz’ abuses

Burke’s office said it has not received any requests for investigation from law enforcement agencies. She’s also pointed to federal agents’ relative immunity from state prosecution under the U.S. Constitution’s supremacy clause and Illinois Supreme Court precedent.

In a March court filing, lawyers for Burke’s office argued that if she — or a special prosecutor — were to bring charges against agents without following proper protocol, they’d risk being thrown out on appeal, thus undermining the coalition’s accountability goals.

“Investigating and charging a case simply to have it dismissed before trial … would bring no accountability for any criminal acts arising out of Operation Midway Blitz and does nothing to advance the public interest,” the filing said.

In February, as the pressure to prosecute grew louder, Burke’s office put together guidelines for handling any future investigations of federal agents. The protocol, which was written with guidance from Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul, stipulates the state’s attorney’s Law Enforcement Review Unit can help investigate once a law enforcement agency “believes that there is sufficient evidence to support felony charging and is seeking felony review.”

The protocol also outlines how the state’s attorney’s office can request evidence from the federal government. While Burke’s office itself doesn’t have subpoena power, a grand jury would. It also has the option to send a voluntary “Touhy request” to the feds. Following immigration agents’ fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis in January, the Hennepin County prosecutor made such requests of the Trump administration, then sued when the asks were rebuffed.

But a future Democratic presidential administration may be inclined to answer the requests, which could set in motion a wave of new or stalled investigations and prosecutions into federal agents’ behavior.

Villegas González shooting

The fatal shooting of Villegas González was one of several Operation Midway Blitz flashpoints scrutinized by the Illinois Accountability Commission.

Witnesses who testified at commission hearings noted Villegas González’s death received much less media attention, especially from national news outlets, than those of white U.S. citizens Renée Good and Alex Pretti at the hands of federal agents in Minneapolis. Those shootings were caught on video, while the agents who shot Villegas González were not wearing body cameras, according to reporting from the Chicago Sun-Times.

The shooting of Marimar Martinez, an American citizen of Hispanic heritage, only began to receive widespread focus outside of the Chicago area after the Minneapolis shooting deaths. She was shot five times by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol agents in early October but the next month, authorities dropped all charges that they briefly filed against her.

Read more: ‘My own government attempted to execute me,’ Chicago woman shot by Border Patrol testifies | Judge rules to release evidence in Border Patrol shooting of Marimar Martinez | Marimar Martinez, Chicago woman shot and briefly charged by Border Patrol, moves to sue

Villegas González, 38, was a Mexican national who’d been living in the U.S. since 2007. On Sept. 12, ICE agents in an unmarked vehicle pulled him over 2 ½ blocks from his younger son’s daycare. The Illinois Accountability Commission reviewed multiple videos, including security footage. It showed federal agents leaning against his car from both the driver’s and passenger’s side windows for about eight seconds before Villegas González began to reverse his vehicle, then pulled forward into an open lane of traffic, away from the agents.

One of the agents fired shots at Villegas González, who then crashed into a parked delivery truck. He was pronounced dead an hour later at a nearby hospital. The Cook County Medical Examiner found Villegas González sustained two bullet wounds: One entered through the back of his neck and remained in his chest, while another grazed two of his fingers.

After the shooting, the Department of Homeland Security issued a statement claiming Villegas González had “refused to follow law enforcements commands and drove his car at law enforcement officers,” hitting one of the ICE agents and dragging him “a significant distance.” The statement also implied the agent received medical treatment for “multiple injuries.”

But according to body-worn camera video from a Franklin Park Police officer who responded to the scene, one of the agents described the cuts and bruises to his knees, elbows and hands as “nothing major.” The other agent told the officer that Villegas González “tried to run us over.” The DHS statement defended the agents’ response: “Fearing for his own life, the officer fired his weapon,” the news release said.

In a subsequent statement, DHS also called Villegas González “a criminal illegal alien with a history of reckless driving,” though Cook County court records show that only one of his four traffic citations between 2010 and 2019 was for driving above the speed limit, according to reporting from Block Club Chicago. The other three were for driving with an expired license and without vehicle insurance.

According to Franklin Park Police body-worn camera footage, Franklin Park’s then-police chief Michael Witz told another officer that local law enforcement couldn’t investigate the shooting.

“No, because it’s a federal shooting; you’re not gonna investigate a federal officer,” Witz said. “We have to wait ‘til their bosses get here.”

According to the Illinois State Police, the FBI is the “primary investigating agency,” but it has not made public any findings about the incident in the eight months since it happened.

In its report, the Illinois Accountability Commission determined “there is reasonable cause to believe that federal agents shot and killed Villegas González without apparent justification.”

The commission cited a 2023 DHS use-of-force policy that prohibits immigration agents from shooting a firearm “solely … to disable moving vehicles.” The policy also stipulates that deadly force may only be used to prevent escape if an agent reasonably believes “the subject poses a significant threat of death or serious physical harm” to the agent or others and that such force “is necessary to prevent escape.”

Capitol News Illinois is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news service that distributes state government coverage to hundreds of news outlets statewide. It is funded primarily by the Illinois Press Foundation and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation.