Gregory Bovino and Operation Midway Blitz: force against protesters and journalists, and lies about it

Editor's note: a federal judge found the agents' force shocked the conscience; her order was later set aside because the case ended, not on its merits.

Operation Midway Blitz moved hundreds of federal agents into Chicago in early September 2025 under Bovino's on-the-ground command, with a stated mandate to arrest 'the worst of the worst.' Journalists, clergy, and residents sued. After reviewing roughly 500 hours of body-camera footage and 47 videos, and hearing three days of Bovino's deposition, Judge Sara Ellis issued a preliminary injunction on November 6 and a 233-page opinion on November 20. She found agents fired tear gas, pepper balls, and flashbang grenades indiscriminately and without the warnings their own reports claimed they had given, shot pepper balls at the heads of journalists and praying clergy, and pushed people to the ground and laughed. 'The use of force shocks the conscience,' she wrote, finding violations of the First Amendment rights to speech, assembly, and the free exercise of religion.

The credibility findings were unusually direct. Ellis wrote that she found Bovino 'evasive' across three days of sworn testimony, 'either providing cute responses to Plaintiffs' counsel's questions or outright lying.' Bovino had said a rock struck his helmet before he threw tear gas into a crowd in Little Village; he later admitted under oath that no rock was thrown until after he deployed the gas. Ellis found no evidence of violent rioters in the footage, and that agents' reports had described 'neighborhood moms and dads, Chicago Bears fans, people dressed in Halloween costumes' as professional agitators. She found that one agent used ChatGPT to compose a use-of-force report from a one-line prompt and several images, and that another appeared to have 'brake-checked other motorists in an attempt to force accidents that agents could then use as justifications for deploying force.' Of the government's evidence overall she wrote, 'every minor inconsistency adds up, and at some point, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to believe almost anything that Defendants represent.'

The government contested both the findings and the remedy. DHS called Ellis an activist judge risking the lives of law enforcement officers, and McLaughlin said her 'thoughts on 20th century poetry and Chief Bovino's conduct in the order are noted.' The Seventh Circuit stayed the injunction, calling it 'overbroad' and 'too prescriptive,' while cautioning against overreading its stay and noting a quick appeal could produce a more tailored order; McLaughlin called that a win for the rule of law. An earlier order requiring Bovino to report to Ellis daily was overturned as a violation of the separation of powers. Bovino was subsequently deployed to Charlotte, Louisiana, and Minneapolis, where the shooting of Renee Good occurred (MIL-08). The masking and identification issues raised here are documented at MED-17.