U.S. Border Patrol agents went onto the O’Plaine campus of Warren Township High School and into the Gurnee school Thursday morning following two men after a high-speed chase through Waukegan and Gurnee.
The agents were chasing the suspects in a vehicle when it stopped near the school, according to a news release from the Gurnee Police Department. One of the men entered the building and was arrested by the agents. The other man was arrested outside on the campus.
Daniel Woestman, the superintendent of Warren Township High School District 121, said in an email to the community that the agents and the unknown individual entered the school through a door normally open at that time.
“Federal personnel followed one of the adults into the O’Plaine campus building through a door that was being used appropriately by students and staff who were entering the building as part of their daily routine,” he said.
Woestman said the altercation between the agents and the men occurred in front of students and staff. Support is available for students who “may need assistance processing the incident,” he said.
Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, which oversees the Border Patrol, said in an email that the two men arrested were Josafat Garcia-Roa and Samuel Suarez-Cuevas.
McLaughlin said Garcia-Roa and Suarez-Cuevas were previously deported from the United States for a variety of offenses, including drug charges. This was a targeted operation to find them, she said. The chase started on Dugdale Road in Waukegan.
“Garcia-Roa, the driver, initially pulled over but then fled at high speed once he realized it was Border Patrol agents,” McLaughlin said. “During an approximately 10-minute chase, Garcia-Roa hit multiple vehicles.”
After the men were taken from the school by the Border Patrol, they were placed in a white SUV, according to a video posted on social media. The officers were masked. As people approached them, an officer took out a pepper spray canister and pointed it at those in the crowd.
Gurnee police first learned of the situation earlier in the morning after hearing about the high-speed chase, according to the news release. Federal agents told police the men were previously deported for felony offenses, police said.
Dulce Ortiz, the executive director of Mano a Mano Family Services and a Waukegan Township trustee, said the chase started in Waukegan based on reports from the organization’s rapid response team, which was dispatched.
At around 8:21 a.m., the vehicle was traveling west at a high rate of speed on Grand Avenue when it lost a tire near the intersection of First Street, according to the news release. The vehicle continued west before turning left onto O’Plaine Road.
Parking near the school, Garcia-Roa and Suarez-Cuevas ran toward the building, according to the release. Suarez-Cuevas went inside and was immediately detained by the Border Patrol agents. Garcia-Roa was taken into custody outside the school.
Though Gurnee police did not participate in the arrests — they are prohibited from doing so by the Illinois Trust Act — the department’s school resource officer was there, the release said. The officer worked with school officials “to secure the campus and ensure” the safety of everyone, it said.
Ortiz said members of the rapid response team tried to enter the vehicle the men were driving. They hoped to find some identifying information so they could contact family members of the suspects to let them know the men were arrested, but were rebuffed by the federal agents, she said.
“They were driving recklessly,” Ortiz said, referring to both vehicles. “They were putting community members at risk.”
McLaughlin speculated the suspects went to the school to avoid arrest because it is an area considered off-limits in Illinois. They do not normally go to schools for operations, but this was an exception, she said.
“Border Patrol does not conduct enforcements near schools but will not allow criminal illegal aliens to put the public in harm’s way,” McLaughlin said.
