An Oak Park native accused of assaulting U.S. Customs and Border Patrol Chief Gregory Bovino appeared in federal court for a hearing Thursday.
Cole Sheridan was arrested by federal agents and charged with assaulting, resisting or impeding a federal officer in connection with a reported altercation with Bovino during a protest at the Broadview ICE facility the morning of Oct. 3. Federal agents said Sheridan shoved Bovino back in response after the top-ranking Border Patrol agent had pushed him and other protestors.
Sheridan appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Heather McShain on Thursday, Oct. 9 for a probable cause hearing after she’d ruled to grant him pretrial release earlier this week. McShain did not make a ruling at the end of the hours-long hearing, saying she’d take extra time reviewing the body worn camera footage of the incident overnight before ruling on the matter Friday afternoon.
In probable cause hearings, judges rule on if law enforcement had sufficient grounds to make an arrest in order for the case to proceed. The government only has to prove that there’s a better than 50% chance that it had enough probable cause for the case to move forward.
U.S. Attorney William Hogan said that Sheridan faced the charges because he had resisted agents and not complied with orders like other protestors.
“There were many protestors in the video who were not arrested,” Hogan said. “That’s because they complied with law enforcement’s lawful orders. Mr. Sheridan, despite his impressive educational background and obvious understanding of English, did not.”
Sheridan’s attorney Ben Horwitz said that the Border Patrol agents were at fault in the incident, that they had set out to make a statement with a “show of force” and that his client did not break the law while peacefully exercising his right to protest.
“This was an incident instigated by the federal authorities,” Horwitz said. “This was a wildly performative event.”
The court watched 17 minutes of body camera footage depicting Border Patrol’s interactions with the protesters on Oct. 3, including the moments preceding Sheridan’s arrest. Bovino was not wearing a body camera during the protest, so the footage entered into evidence came from Agent Jason Epperson, a border patrol officer from Erie, PA stationed in Chicagoland to take part in “Operation Midway Blitz.”
Epperson’s body camera footage does not depict the alleged shoving match between Bovino and Sheridan.
Sheridan appeared onscreen about 16 minutes into the video wearing a crop top, mask and white helmet. He comes into view on the video after law enforcement had already cleared protestors onto a grassy area to one side of the road leading into the ICE facility.
Bovino is heard in the footage telling Sheridan and other protestors to “move back or you’re under arrest.” The video shows Epperson putting two hands on Sheridan before moving to arrest another protester.
The next time Sheridan appears onscreen he is on the ground with Bovino on top of him, arresting him.
Horwitz said the lack of body camera footage from Bovino leaves the government short of proving that it had probable cause for Sheridan’s arrest.
“Customs and Border Patrol have plenty of body worn cameras to go around, but Chief Bovino was not wearing one,” he said. “The level of proof that the government has shown the court is lacking.”
After the protest, Epperson told Homeland Security Supervisory Investigator Jennifer Finerty that he’d seen Sheridan shove Bovino and that he thought he’d seen Sheridan take a swing at the Border Patrol Chief from his peripheral vision, said Finerty, the only law enforcement officer to testify during the hearing.
Finerty was the lead investigator in the case. She was on scene at the protest Oct. 3 but did not witness the incident, she said.
Bovino told Finerty that Sheridan had shoved him, but not that he’d tried to hit him, she told the court. The Border Patrol chief also told Finerty that he’d injured his groin during “the events of the day,” singling out his interaction with Sheridan as a cause for the injury.
Bovino needed an MRI and was ordered to take two weeks of bed rest to heal the injury, Finerty said. Bovino has continued his regular television and other media appearances since Oct. 3.
Horwitz brought up an investigation by journalists at the California news agency CalMatters that found that Bovino had “misrepresented very basic facts” of a January immigration raid while arguing that the court should not accept criminal charges where his words and the words of an agent that reports to him make up most of the supporting evidence.
“You did not take into account his deceitful statements to the media?” Horwitz asked Finerty.
Hogan later dismissed Horwitz’ argument and CalMatters’ reporting as “internet stuff.”
“You don’t need to make misleading arguments if you have a strong case,” Hogan said.
The court also watched a brief YouTube video taken by an internet streamer from hours earlier that morning. It showed Sheridan being shoved by several Cook County Sheriff’s deputies from one side of the road to the other while in what Horwitz described as a “standing fetal position.”
Hogan said that the YouTube video outlined a pattern of Sheridan being disruptive to law enforcement at the protest.
“He is clearly engaged in resistance at that point,” Hogan said. “It’s just passive.”
Horwitz argued that the YouTube footage showed that Sheridan was there to express himself peacefully.
“Nowhere in that video do you see him doing anything other than trying to keep his balance,” Horwitz said.
McShain will rule on if the case will proceed at 12:45 p.m. Friday, Oct. 10.
