Nearly a week after a Mexican immigrant was fatally shot by an immigration officer during a traffic stop in the Chicago area, his family in Mexico and community members continue to seek answers as they call for more transparency in the probe looking into the sequence of events surrounding his death.
The Mexican Consulate in Chicago and local police confirmed the the FBI is leading the investigation into the death of 38-year-old Silverio Villegas González, a single father of two boys.
A spokesperson for the FBI Chicago Field Office did not confirm or deny their involvement in the investigation, but told NBC News in an email that “as a general matter, we examine the facts with consideration of federal criminal statutes. We then proceed as appropriate, whether by investigating or referring the matter to the relevant partners.”
With law enforcement releasing little information about the ongoing probe, some community members in the Chicago area feel like they “have to stitch this together” themselves, with “no expectation of a real investigation,” Brandon Lee, an organizer with the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights. “The community is expected to do their own.”
Speaking to Telemundo Chicago from Mexico, Jorge Villegas González, Silverio’s brother, said his family “wants justice to be done.”
“It’s completely devastating, the way he lost his life. It’s not fair,” Jorge said in Spanish. “It doesn’t seem logical to me to use lethal force like that against someone who is completely unarmed.”
What’s known about the incident
Relatives and friends of Villegas González said he was driving to work Friday morning after having dropped off his sons, who are 6 and 3, at school and day care.
Blanca Mora, Villegas González’s girlfriend, told Telemundo Chicago that she had been messaging him that morning. “He said he was going to get something to eat and head to work. But after that, I didn’t hear anything,” Mora said in Spanish.
That’s because that morning Villegas González was fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Franklin Park, a suburb of Chicago.
According to ICE, two officers pulled Villegas González over, but he resisted arrest and attempted to flee the scene.
Surveillance footage from a nearby nail salon broadcast by a local CBS News TV station shows an SUV blocking Villegas Gonzalez’s car. Two ICE agents are seen by Villegas Gonzalez’s car, one on the passenger side and the other on the driver’s side. Villegas Gonzalez starts backing up. As he drives his car forward, the ICE officer standing by the passenger side attempts to go after Villegas Gonzalez; the other officer is not visible in the video anymore.
One ICE officer “was hit by the car and dragged a significant distance,” according to a statement from the Department of Homeland Security, which added the officer “sustained multiple injuries and is in stable condition.”
“Fearing for his own life, the officer fired his weapon,” striking Villegas González, DHS stated.
Surveillance footage from a nearby auto shop captured the sounds of at least two gun shots.
A video from a witness shows the two ICE officers removing an injured Villegas González from his car after he crashed into a cargo truck. A video from the cargo truck driver obtained by Telemundo Chicago shows both ICE officers providing first aid to Villegas González.
According to ICE, both Villegas González and the injured officer were taken to a hospital. Villegas González died of multiple gunshot wounds at the hospital. The ICE agent, who has not yet been named, was released from the hospital after receiving care for back injuries, lacerations to the hand and knee tears.
DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said the injured officer “followed his training, used appropriate force, and properly enforced the law to protect the public and law enforcement.”
DHS policies, which also apply to ICE, state that deadly force should not be used against someone whose actions are only a threat to themselves or property. This does not apply if the person poses an “imminent threat of death or serious physical injury to the officer” or anyone else, according to a 2023 report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office. The policy also states that “firearms shall not be discharged solely to disable moving vehicles.”
Neither of the officers involved in Villegas González’s death were wearing body cameras, a senior DHS official told NBC News.
According to ICE policies, agents are required to wear body cameras and activate them “as soon as practicable at the beginning of an Enforcement Activity and deactivation when the activity is concluded.” But because body cameras have not yet been distributed across all of ICE, the requirements only apply to officers in places where the cameras have been given out.
ICE did not say what the requirement was for the officers involved in Villegas González’s fatal shooting.
At a news conference on Monday, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a Democrat, said: “We’ve asked ICE for all of the information around it, they have given very little … This is the most unusual situation I’ve seen in my entire lifetime, where we have no transparency and the federal government is not policing itself.”
Jorge Villegas González, Silverio’s brother, told Telemundo Chicago: “There are millions of undocumented Latinos in the United States — this happened to us now, who knows if tomorrow or the day after tomorrow it may happen to someone else. Let this end now.”
Who was Villegas González?
Immigration authorities say they were after Villegas González because he was not legally present in the United States and had “a history of reckless driving.”
“He is not what he is being accused of,” Blanca Mora, Villegas Gonzalez’s girlfriend, said in Spanish. “He has no crime.”
An NBC News review of publicly available records found that Villegas González had never been criminally charged. He did plead guilty to four traffic violations, including speeding, as recent as 2013.
“I feel bad,” Mora said as she described Villegas González as a single father of two boys who “was a very serious, reserved person who didn’t like problems. He was very responsible.”
According to the Mexican Consulate in Chicago, Villegas González was originally from the state of Michoacán. He worked as a cook at a restaurant near the Franklin Park area.