Photojournalist shot in foot with pepper ball at Illinois immigration protest

JT Cestkowski, a reporter for the news outlet Status Coup, was shot in the foot with a crowd-control munition by Illinois State Police while reporting on protests outside an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in the Chicago suburb of Broadview on Nov. 1, 2025.

The facility, where detainees are being held and processed ahead of deportation, has drawn escalating protests and federal response since early September, following the Department of Homeland Security’s launch of the federal immigration crackdown, Operation Midway Blitz.

Following pressure from Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, a unified command composed of local law enforcement agencies and headed by the Illinois State Police took over the protest response Oct. 2, establishing designated protest zones around the building.

Cestkowski was reporting alongside photojournalist Jon Farina, livestreaming as protesters gathered — some in Halloween costumes — outside the facility.

“We’ve been going live out there in Broadview for weeks now,” Cestkowski said. “This protest started much like all the others, with folks just standing inside of the designated protest areas that are set up there for around the first hour or so that we were there.”

He told the Tracker that protesters then created a picket line across the street. After a while, police intervened, shoving back protesters and press alike: Cestkowski said that an officer directly told him and Farina that he didn’t care that they were media.

“Then things began to calm down and I started to think that that was kind of going to be the end of the action for the day,” Cestkowski said. “But then a group of protesters had some signs that they used to form a wall, and they grouped up in the street again. This time, they started walking toward the detention facility rather than just picketing.”

At an hour and 15 minutes into the livestream, protesters are seen forming a line with shields that Cestkowski said appeared to be made of foam core board bearing messages including “Free our neighbors” and “Migra y policia la misma porqueria” (“ICE and police are the same old shit”). The protesters slowly march forward, eventually met by lines of state troopers.

A trooper armed with a pepper ball gun then fires a series of the chemical munitions at the feet of the demonstrators, and another announces that it is an unlawful assembly. As troopers kneel to don gas masks, another walking with a bullhorn appears to directly order the gaggle of journalists to comply with the dispersal order.

“The protesters themselves were in the street proper, spilling over onto the sidewalks a little bit, and the press were basically the extreme flanks,” Cestkowski told the Tracker. “We were up on the grass to either side of the street, largely two groups, and it was pretty clear to me where the press was versus where the protesters were.

“But that didn’t stop the police from firing those pepper balls directly into the crowd of press, at least on our side of the street.”

Cestkowski said that he was shot in the foot while standing behind Farina, who he said was the intended target and was struck multiple times in the legs. While Cestkowski didn’t suffer any bruising from the shot to his foot, he said that after prolonged exposure to the chemical irritant, he was left coughing for three to four hours afterward.

When reached by email about the assaults of Farina, Cestkowski and a third journalist that day, Illinois State Police Chief Public Information Officer Melaney Arnold wrote, “How were the individuals identified as press; what were they wearing? In situations like this, it can be difficult to distinguish between protestors and media.”

Arnold did not respond to subsequent emails or the initial questions sent by the Tracker. In response to an incident in October, Arnold told the Tracker, “ISP and the Unified Command’s highest priority is to protect the community and the rights of individuals to express their First Amendment rights — whether they are protestors or members of the media.”