Day Laborers Say They Are Being Beaten, Harassed Outside Home Depot By Off-Duty Cops

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Five recently arrived migrants say criminal trespassing enforcement at a Southwest Side Home Depot has escalated to alleged physical assaults by security personnel, including multiple off-duty Chicago Police officers.

The allegations are at the heart of a federal lawsuit filed Tuesday, which names two Chicago police officers, two Home Depot employees, and other unnamed security personnel and police officers, in addition to the city and Home Depot, as defendants. In the course of its six-month investigation into the treatment of migrant laborers, City Bureau learned of the pending suit.

The five migrants were choked, thrown around, punched, slapped and otherwise struck after they were handcuffed and brought into a security room at the Home Depot, the lawsuit alleges. The incidents took place between October and May, involving Venezuelan and Colombian migrants between 26-45 years old. Each individual plaintiff endured xenophobic and racial insults while detained by off-duty CPD officers and Home Depot security, the lawsuit states. 

“These abuses, while horrifying, are not new,” the lawsuit states.

Four of the five either were not charged, or had criminal trespassing charges later dismissed in court, according to the lawsuit. The fifth man has a court hearing scheduled for later this month.

In the federal lawsuit, filed Tuesday by Raise the Floor Alliance and the People’s Law Office, Latino Union of Chicago joined with the five migrants in alleging off-duty Chicago police violated the migrants’ constitutional rights against excessive force, unlawful search and seizure and detention; and accusing officers and Home Depot employees of conspiring to deprive them of those rights, false arrest and malicious prosecution based on the migrants’ country of origin.

The lawsuit also accuses the Chicago Police Department and Home Depot of working together to interfere with the day laborers’ right to seek work, with the city allegedly signing off on Home Depot recruiting additional off-duty Chicago police officers beginning in October, when a greater number of Venezuelans began showing up at The Home Depot at 4555 S. Western Blvd., it states.

In response to the allegations first detailed to City Bureau in the spring, both Home Depot and the Civilian Office of Police Accountability launched investigations. As of July 24, the COPA investigation was still in progress, according to a spokesperson.

Mayor Brandon Johnson’s office pledged in April that every allegation of police misconduct would be “thoroughly investigated” and misconduct would be “swiftly addressed and adjudicated.”

In April, Home Depot said its internal investigation found no evidence the allegation against its security personnel took place on company property. The company enforces a non-solicitation policy, it said in an email.

“This is a complex community issue, and we cooperate with local law enforcement officials in addressing trespassing issues on our property,” a Home Depot spokesperson said in an April 24 statement.

Luis, a 29-year-old day laborer, had been frequenting the Home Depot parking lot since arriving in Chicago just over a year ago, hoping to earn enough cash to pay for rent and eventually open his own small business. 

In a 26-second video clip obtained by City Bureau and recorded by a fellow day laborer, Luis is seen on the ground before two men pull him up by his arms, place him in handcuffs, and walk him toward the Home Depot building. One of them wears a dark-colored vest bearing a “POLICE” patch on the back and an embroidered star on the front. This vest, known as an overshirt carrier, is in line with uniform specifications laid out in CPD directives. 

Luis, who requested his last name be withheld because he feared retaliation for speaking publicly about the alleged assault, told City Bureau he did not see the trespassing signs and received no verbal warning before he was dragged into a security room and allegedly beaten by an off-duty police officer working security at the hardware big box chain Jan. 10.

“When I was in the room, he hit me on the ribs and the chest like four or five times,” Luis said in Spanish. “They grabbed me like I was a doll. He threw me, and I flew, saying, ‘Oh God, what’s going on?’”

When arresting officers arrived at the scene, the off-duty officer told them he had given Luis prior verbal warning earlier in the day before Luis returned and was detained, according to the arrest report. Luis denies he received that prior warning, but he was still arrested and charged with criminal trespassing.

Trespassing arrests are a risk migrant day laborers increasingly face in Chicago as they maneuver the challenge of obtaining legal work authorization — a process that typically takes at least six months and can take more than a year. 

In the interim, many look for work in Home Depot parking lots — and are often the target of trespassing arrests as they do so, deterring them from scraping out a living with daily gigs in construction, demolition or other physical labor. 

But as more than a dozen day laborers say they’ve been verbally harassed or physically assaulted, labor advocates are taking legal action.

“Seeking happy [and] healthy lives should be something that anybody [who] resides in the city should be able to do. Unfortunately, a lot of those things … are criminalized,” said Miguel Alvelo Rivera, executive director of Latino Union of Chicago, a community-based worker center that organizes day laborers and household workers. “In situations like this, we see the seeking of work as a crime, surviving as a crime — because of who is trying to do it.”

Off-duty allegations

In the second alleged incident detailed in Tuesday’s lawsuit, Alfonzo Gabriel Arias, 26, was asked to leave the Home Depot parking lot Dec. 27 and complied, his lawyers said. 

After moving to the public sidewalk, Arias was approached by three men, including off-duty police officer Eric Gaytan, the lawsuit alleges. The two others also wore vests marked “POLICE,” according to the complaint.

One man threw Arias to the ground before he was handcuffed and “forcibly dragged” into the store and taken to a room, according to the lawsuit. While still handcuffed, he was shoved into a bench; struck in the face, ribs and stomach; and choked as the men laughed and threatened to have him deported, the complaint states.

At one point, one of the men told the man choking Arias to stop or “he would kill Mr. Arias,” according to the lawsuit.

Gaytan’s badge number corresponds with two past Bureau of Internal Affairs cases and one Civilian Office of Police Accountability complaint. The complaints involve an arrest without providing Miranda Rights to a complainant, and failing to properly investigate an incident, according to a COPA response to a Freedom of Information Act request. One complaint is still under investigation; two have been closed, according to COPA documents.  

Along with Luis, several migrants point to off-duty officer Angel Martinez as being one of the main aggressors in the physical assaults at the Home Depot, they told City Bureau. 

“I’ve met other people who were assaulted by the same person who assaulted me,” Luis said in Spanish to City Bureau. 

Martinez is also listed as the complainant on Luis’ arrest report. The federal lawsuit only directly connects Martinez by name to Luis’ arrest.

In additional videos and screenshots recorded in December and May, along with the one showing Luis’ arrest, Martinez wore a dark-colored vest sporting an embroidered star and his name patch while working at the store. Characteristics of the vest are consistent with CPD directives regulating embroidered patches. City Bureau reporters also spoke to Martinez in person at The Home Depot and observed him wearing his CPD badge number. 

That badge number corresponds to 13 Bureau of Internal Affairs and COPA complaints against Martinez, according to CPD and COPA documents obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request.

Five of the complaints are still under investigation, including the Jan. 10 incident involving Luis at the Southwest Side Home Depot. Two of the 13 complaints against Martinez were sustained — resulting in additional training and a reprimand in 2019. 

Martinez was a defendant in a federal civil lawsuit concerning false arrest and seizure, and malicious prosecution. The lawsuit was ultimately settled and dismissed in May 2023.  

Martinez declined to comment in person and through Chicago police media affairs. 

‘Selective enforcement’

Public records show trespassing arrests have increased significantly at The Home Depot at 4555 S. Western Blvd. The uptick came after trespassing signs were posted some time after November 2022, according to an analysis of Google Street View images. This coincides with the arrival of the first bus carrying migrants from the Texas border to Chicago, on Aug. 31, 2022, according to the city.  

For someone to be found guilty of criminal trespassing in Illinois, they must first be warned that their presence is forbidden, either verbally or in writing, which can include a “no trespassing” sign posted at the property’s main entrance. 

If they remain on the property or return, they can be charged with trespassing, a misdemeanor that can carry a punishment of up to six months in prison and a fine of up to $1,500. 

At the Western Boulevard location, the signs, posted in English and Spanish, are small and located approximately 12 feet above the ground on every light pole in the parking lot, with at least one near the entrance and several along the gate framing the parking lot.

As more than 45,000 migrants arrived via Texas buses and airplanes to Chicago over the past two years, conflicts with police are turning violent and feel discriminatory toward the largely Venezuelan population of recent arrivals, according to City Bureau interviews with more than a dozen day laborers.

The accusations of mistreatment known to City Bureau stem from the Western Boulevard Home Depot, which is located near the borders of the New City, Back of the Yards, and Brighton Park neighborhoods.

Criminal trespassing enforcement has skyrocketed there since August 2023, according to a City Bureau analysis of Chicago Police Department data. From 2002 to 2022, a total 31 arrests took place there, averaging 1.4 arrests per year. In 2023, 24 arrests took place, all within the last five months of the year — over 16 times the previous 20-year average. The rate of arrests continued to outpace previous years in the first few months of 2024, according to CPD data.

Of those arrested for trespassing at the Home Depot site from Aug. 18, 2023, to March 25, 85% were Venezuelan, although the country of origin was unknown for seven of the 34 arrests.

Four of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit are Venezuelan. The fifth, Betuel Castro Camacho, is Colombian, but was told he “was lying and that he was Venezuelan” while three security personnel allegedly assaulted him inside a room on the western side of the Home Depot, the lawsuit states.

“The selective enforcement of criminal trespassing laws against migrants when they are seeking work as day laborers is a means of criminalizing a person’s status for simply being a migrant,” said Kathleen Arnold, director of DePaul University’s refugee and forced migration graduate program.

“It’s a misunderstanding of why they are in Home Depot parking lots in the first place,” she said. “These individuals seek work, which is a life-sustaining function, not criminal activity.”

Arnold said she believes this amounts to discrimination based on perceived nationality, because the police statistics indicate significant selective enforcement of trespassing based on country of origin. 

“That amounts to racism, because you’re assuming that because they’re from Venezuela, they must be committing a crime,” she said.

‘A very specific kind of racist interest’

Five additional recently arrived migrants told City Bureau they have been verbally harassed by Home Depot security personnel and what appear to be off-duty officers wearing body armor vests labeled “POLICE.” Off-duty officers are sometimes contracted by third-party companies to work as security personnel at The Home Depot, a practice allowed within the CPD guidelines for secondary employment. 

In a March 27 video obtained by City Bureau, security personnel shout in English and Spanish as they approach a group of mostly Venezuelan day laborers standing on the sidewalk adjacent to the hardware store’s parking lot — public property beyond the store’s property line.

“F— off, get out of here,” they jeer. “Get the f— out. I don’t care that you are recording.” They call the day laborers pendejos, Spanish for “idiots.” 

Alexander, who recorded the video and requested his last name be withheld out of fear of being targeted by law and immigration enforcement, has been frequenting the Home Depot hiring site since late 2023. While migrants from other countries — Mexico, Colombia, Honduras and Ecuador — cluster in other parts of the parking lot, he said he believes the security personnel are specifically targeting Venezuelans. 

The latest incidents follow a long-standing pattern of using trespassing charges or other means to target migrant workers in the Chicago area. 

In 2003, then-Ald. Margaret Laurino (39th) forced day laborers to vacate a defunct CTA bus station in Albany Park. When the station was ultimately demolished, local advocates accused Laurino of race-based motivation for the teardown and subsequent displacement of the mostly Latino workers.

A few years later, Home Depot officials in west suburban Cicero called police on day laborers, which, according to a 2005 Chicago Tribune report, kicked off a chain of 55 arrests for misdemeanor trespassing. 

In 2007, the Chicago Committee For The Right to Work filed a federal lawsuit against Chicago police, the city and a business owner on the grounds of false arrests, wrongful detention and imprisonment, and a violation of First Amendment rights after three men were arrested for trespassing on a manufacturing company’s site, which day laborers frequented. 

The civil lawsuit was ultimately dismissed in court. 

Trespassing enforcement used against migrants follows a pattern in the United States, said Kevin Herrera, legal director at Raise the Floor Alliance, a Chicago-based workers rights organization and law office. 

He said enforcement is typically on “private property with poor signage, where people reasonably believe that places like a Home Depot parking lot are open to the public because customers come and go as they please.” The rules are selectively enforced, “which reflects a very specific kind of racist and xenophobic interest,” he added.

Certain day laborers, such as older Mexican workers, are seemingly unaffected by the harassment from Home Depot security personnel, migrants and advocates said.

“Then rules are selectively enforced for arbitrary reasons, usually centered around which people are deemed acceptable and which people are not,” Herrera said.  

Worker rights advocates say the latest incidents underscore a wave of escalation in both the targeting of migrants looking for work, and in the violent response by sworn police officers hired as security personnel, a form of secondary employment commonly known as “moonlighting.”

A 2017 joint investigation by the Chicago Reporter and CBS-2 into moonlighting found that out of the nation’s 50 largest municipal and county law enforcement agencies, CPD had the weakest oversight on officers’ secondary employment statutes. The report found that CPD was the only one of the 50 departments that does not require its officers to get permission to work a second job.

Instead, CPD asks officers to disclose secondary employment to supervisors on an honor system, and will only investigate incidents once a formal complaint is made, according to a 2014 Board of Ethics document. The ruling also notes that CPD prohibits outside employment where “a use of official police authority is a condition of secondary employment.” 

A U.S. Department of Justice investigation into CPD in 2017 found “a significant amount of alleged officer misconduct involves officers working secondary employment.” A 2017 report by Chicago’s Office of the Inspector General also found potential risk for officer burnout and legal exposure. 

CPD’s lack of secondary employment oversight contributed to the abuses of day laborers by off-duty police officers at the Western Boulevard Home Depot store, said Raise the Floor’s Herrera. 

“It’s really a travesty that it has taken getting to a place like we’re at now for the city to take material steps to limit what off-duty police officers can do when working in private employment,” Herrera said.

Off-duty officers working second jobs still need to follow the CPD rules of conduct, which say officers must identify themselves by name, rank and star number upon request; avoid unnecessary verbal and physical confrontation with anyone, excessive use of force, and physical or verbal maltreatment of any citizen. 

It is also against state law for off-duty officers working security to imply they are an employee of a government entity such as CPD; to wear a badge, identification card or police emblem; or wear uniforms with the words, “police,” “sheriff,” “highway patrol,” “trooper,” or “law enforcement” while on the job.

City-backed solutions

As for the larger question of how day laborers can safely solicit employment in private business with strict solicitation policies like at the Home Depot parking lots, the city can do more, said Alvelo Rivera, executive director of Latino Union of Chicago. 

“We believe that there is not only potential, but a need for the city to respond to the situation,” he said. 

There are no city-supported hiring centers for day laborers in Chicago. However, Alvelo Rivera points to a city-funded job center in Pasadena, California, and a city-run day labor center in Plano, Texas, as examples of city-supported options. 

In 2000, the Instituto de Educación Popular del Sur de California and the National Day Labor Organizing Network established the Pasadena Community Job Center with the support of a $140,000 city grant to help day laborers find employment.

The center “is one of the top worker centers in the country,” said Nik Theodore, professor of Urban Planning and Policy at the University of Illinois at Chicago. “They are the model for what these organizations can be.” 

Plano’s Day Labor Center opened in 1994 as a safe place for workers and contractors to connect after issues stemming from day laborers seeking employment in front of private businesses arose in the 1980s and ’90s, according to The Dallas Morning News.

This fall, Dallas and Workforce Solutions Greater Dallas, a quasi-governmental and nonprofit organization, will follow suit and launch a $432,000 pilot program for day laborers to connect directly with contractors at two mobile centers, The Dallas Morning News reported in October. 

‘I came here to work, nothing else’

After the alleged Jan. 10 beating inside the Home Depot security room, Luis was charged with criminal trespass. Luis said he was photographed and forced to sign a pretrial form, despite the form being written in English, which he cannot read.

Luis initially appeared in court Jan. 31. Worried the arrest would negatively affect his 2025 asylum hearing, Luis completed 25 hours of community service at St. Rita of Cascia Parish in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. Luis returned to court April 10. At that hearing, the charges were dismissed, according to the lawsuit.

He continues to visit the Home Depot site looking for work, despite knowing the risk of a second arrest, he said.

“I came here to work,” he said, “nothing else.” 

When he came to Chicago in May 2023, fleeing economic hardship in Venezuela, Luis hoped he’d be able to eventually open his own business. But the trauma of his violent arrest and the difficulties finding steady employment without a work permit has left him feeling hopeless and depressed, he said. 

“I’m trying to do everything the right way,” he said.

But first, he has to see if Chicago — the Welcoming City he hopes to call home — will give him the chance.

Looking for more information about migrant labor rights? Check out this Know Your Rights guide, published in collaboration with Latino Union of Chicago.

Sebastián Hidalgo is a photojournalist and investigative reporter in Chicago, covering the intersection of low-wage labor and policing. Send tips to tipsforsebastian@gmail.com.