CHICAGO — A federal grand jury has indicted six protesters, including two political candidates, for allegedly forcibly impeding an ICE agent while he was driving into the Broadview ICE facility in Chicago’s western suburbs last month.

Charged were congressional candidate and digital creator Katherine “Kat” Abughazaleh, Cook County Board candidate Catherine “Cat” Sharp, 45th ward Democratic committeeman Michael Rabbit, and Oak Park trustee Brian Straw, along with two others.

The 11-page indictment made public Wednesday alleged the group “banged aggressively” on the side and back windows, hood, and other parts of the agent’s vehicle, then “crowded together in the front and side of the Government Vehicle and pushed against the vehicle to hinder and impede its movement.”

The protesters also scratched the body of the vehicle and etched the word “PIG” into it, broke one of the vehicle’s side mirrors and broke a rear windshield wiper, according to the indictment.

Abughazaleh denounced the charges in a statement on social media.

“This political prosecution is an attack on all of our First Amendment rights,” she said. “I’m not backing down, and we’re going to win.”

She did not immediately reply to a Tribune request for comment. Her lawyer, Joshua Herman, could not immediately be reached on Wednesday.

Sharp’s attorney, Molly Armour, released a statement calling the charges “ludicrous.”

“We are confident that a jury will see them for exactly what they are: an effort by the Trump administration to frighten people out of participating in protest and exercising their First Amendment rights,” she said.

Straw, meanwhile, released a statement through his attorneys, Damon Cheronis and Christopher Parente, blasting the charges as “baseless” and saying he will “continue to stand with and protect our immigrant neighbors.”

“I joined the protests at the Broadview ICE detention facility because of what is happening to our immigrant neighbors: children zip-tied and shoved into vans, mothers pulled from cars on the way to school, neighbors afraid to go to church or work,” Straw’s statement read. “The Trump Justice Department’s decision to seemingly hand-pick public officials like me for standing up against these inhumane policies will not deter me from fulfilling my oath of office.”

All six defendants are being allowed to self-surrender and will have initial court appearances before a magistrate judge on Nov. 5, court records show.

The case has been assigned to U.S. District Judge April Perry — the same judge whose temporary restraining order barring the National Guard from being fully deployed in Illinois encompassed many of the incidents that have occurred in Broadview since “Operation Midway Blitz” began.

Abughazaleh — also known around the internet as “Kat Abu” — has made a name for herself nationally with TikTok videos and on podcasts by blasting veteran Democrats for not doing enough to combat President Donald Trump. She is running to replace U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky in the 9th Congressional District.

She has been a frequent participant in protests at the Broadview ICE facility and has made her presence there a key component of her campaign in the crowded field. Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, another candidate for the 9th congressional seat, has also attended the protests. He was not charged.

A video of the incident described in the indictment has been widely circulated online. It shows the immigration agent’s black SUV rolling slowly through a crowd of people as they chant, “up, up with liberation, down, down with deportation!” and other slogans. Abughazaleh is briefly visible wearing a white T-shirt and chanting near the vehicle’s left passenger door, among others, trying to block its movement.

Other protesters were seen banging on the hood and windows of the SUV and slowly backing up as it moved down Harvard Street toward the processing center amid cries of “shame!” The sounds of whistles and thrown plush toys that lodged on the vehicle’s windshield and hood could also be heard and seen.

As the vehicle made it into the parking lot, the sound of pepper spray balls being shot by federal agents could be heard on the video, and the protesters scattered as they exploded around them.

Meanwhile, in another video from a different protest last month, Abughazaleh could be seen being picked up and thrown to the ground by federal agents.

After the video was widely circulated online, Abughazaleh sent out a fundraising email titled “I was assaulted by ICE again.” Fox News host Laura Ingraham shared a clip of the scene and opined, “Good work” about the officers involved.

It was the second week in a row that Abughazaleh had documented an agent shoving her as she participated in demonstrations. Abughazaleh told the Tribune days later that she was sore and that her finger had turned purple at one point after she fell, but that she had mostly healed.

Fundraising off participation in the protests shows supporters that candidates are willing to show up at a time when “people are really sick of their leaders not doing anything,” Abughazaleh told the Tribune last month. “And, unfortunately, I think being at that facility and protesting is the bare minimum, but we don’t get that from a lot of leaders across the country.”

“I promise that there are easier ways for any politician to get attention,” she added, than waking up at 3 a.m. for an early protest and “getting repeatedly assaulted and tear-gassed.”

Abughazaleh has said the behavior by agents at the protests has continued to escalate each week, including the “sheer force in how they threw me to the ground.”

At one early morning demonstration, she could be seen chanting among protesters walking back and forth across Harvard Street, sporting two french braids and black Hoka sneakers.

She has remained in the mix as Illinois State Police and the Cook County Sheriff’s office have become more involved in law enforcement around the building and posted on social media that she had been “hit in the face with a baton” following an Oct. 17 protest that led to 11 arrests.

“This week has been atrocious, the fact that they were content to run us over, tear gas us, shot us with pepper balls,” she said at one protest. “But what we are dealing with is not as bad as what the people in that building that are being trapped in there are dealing with.”

In her video on Wednesday, Abughazaleh urged supporters to contribute to her campaign.

“We now have legal fees on top of our campaign expenses,” she wrote.

As of last week, state and local police had arrested about 70 people in connection with demonstrations outside the Broadview processing center, which has been a flash point of protests since “Operation Midway Blitz” began in early September. Those arrested began appearing in Cook County Court for hearings last week.

The majority of the initial charges have been for resisting arrest, misdemeanors that, at least on paper, could mean a short stint in custody. At least three cases have been filed as low-level felonies. At least four arrests were listed for battery or battery to a police officer. Other charges include disorderly conduct and disobeying a police officer.

The protests have attracted intense media attention and put the tiny suburb of Broadview into a national spotlight as demonstrators tried to physically block federal vehicles, on one occasion jamming a skateboard into the wheel well of one car, and occasionally throwing things at agents.

Agents have deployed copious amounts of chemical crowd controls while attempting to clear a path for cars to get through, chased people through traffic and into private backyards, fired less-lethal munitions and used the approach to the processing center on Harvard Street for an apparent publicity stunt.

Local officials have responded by establishing a “unified command” to contain the protests, shutting down traffic on 25th Avenue on Friday mornings and erecting blocks’ worth of concrete barricades to keep crowds off the roads around the building.

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