A group of migrant day laborers have sued Home Depot, the Chicago Police Department, and the city of Chicago in federal court, alleging ethnically motivated harassment and assault by police officers working secondary employment as security at the store.
The federal lawsuit filed Tuesday morning outlines a pattern of alleged violence and detentions targeting day laborers from Venezuela outside a Home Depot store in New City. Represented by attorneys from Raise The Floor Alliance and The People’s Law Office, the plaintiffs claim that off-duty Chicago police officers and Home Depot employees violated their civil rights and are seeking monetary damages.
In a news conference Tuesday morning outside the Dirksen Federal Building, migrant workers held a sign that read ‘We demand work and dignity’ all while others described the alleged abuse.
“I was beaten, mistreated and humiliated for the simple fact of being an immigrant and wanting to progress in life and help my family,” said Willian Alberto Gimenez Gonzalez of Venezuela. “And I believe that just as it happened to me, it has happened to other colleagues.”
The parking lot of the hardware store has long attracted workers seeking short-term employment from construction companies and homeowners, according to the lawsuit. However, the plaintiffs allege that the Home Depot at 4555 S. Western Blvd. stepped up its security only after the arrival of an influx of Venezuelan migrants in the fall of 2023, hiring CPD officers looking for secondary employment.
The Chicago Police Department declined to comment on ongoing litigation. The city of Chicago’s Law Department did not respond to requests for comment.
On Wednesday, Home Depot released a statement that it is investigating the allegations.
“We take allegations of violence very seriously and are investigating this issue,” the statement said. “We believe in respecting all people, and we don’t tolerate violence or discrimination.”
The five day laborer plaintiffs, four of whom are Venezuelan, detail in the lawsuit allegations of harassment, assault and detention.
They allege that they were confronted by off-duty officers wearing vests marked “POLICE” while looking for work near the western entrance to the Home Depot parking lot.
“This lawsuit reflects a disturbing history of CPD abuses that have coalesced into one scheme,” said Jamitra Fulleord, an attorney for Raise the Floor Alliance.
The lawsuit states that day laborers of non-Venezuelan origin gather to seek similar employment at the southern parking lot entrance along 47th Street. However, security personnel “have placed a specific and excessive attention on harassing, moving and detaining day laborers perceived to be Venezuelan seeking work near the Western Boulevard entrance to the parking lot.”
The plaintiffs claim to have been handcuffed, often after being pushed or knocked to the ground, and brought into a private backroom inside the Home Depot building, where the day laborers allege that off-duty CPD officers struck and choked them, and in the majority of cases, berated them with ethnically motivated insults.
Betuel Castro Camacho, a Colombian plaintiff, claims that when he told the security officers his ethnicity, they said that he was “lying” and that he must actually be Venezuelan. He also alleges that officers struck him in the abdomen four times and cracked his phone.
The lawsuit alleges the abuse occurred between October 2023 and May 2024. Two Home Depot employees and two CPD officers are listed by name as defendants for their involvement in the allegedly unlawful detentions.
Castro Camacho alleges that personnel approached him one afternoon in May, handcuffed him, beat him and verbally insulted him with the security guards telling him that “this country was better without Venezuelans.”
Four of the five plaintiffs, including Castro Camacho, were charged with misdemeanors for criminal trespass, with on-duty Chicago officers arriving to the Home Depot back room to formally arrest them. Three claim that they were told to sign documents in English that they could not read, and allege that they agreed to do so under fear of further violence or legal consequences.
Out of the workers charged for criminal trespass, all but one have had their case formally dismissed by a court. The remaining plaintiff is awaiting a hearing on Aug. 14.
The Home Depot in southwest Chicago listed in the suit was the target of a similar series of allegations in 2008, when the Chicago Day Laborer Committee sued the city of Chicago, Home Depot, and individual CPD officers for allegedly unlawful arrests.
“The harms experienced by Plaintiffs at the hands of the Chicago Police Department and Home Depot, are a continuation of a long history of CPD abuses of day laborers, Black and Latino communities, migrants. and other persons of color,” the lawsuit reads.
Plaintiffs are asking for the courts to issue an order requiring CPD to reform its policies on secondary employment for off-duty officers.
“Because of the harassment, physical and emotional abuse, and displacement experienced by day laborers, we demand that the city of Chicago ends its practice of allowing its officers to moonlight as security and use its force against community members,” said Fulleord.
CPD often does not require officers to disclose the specifics of their “moonlighting,” or secondary employment. In 2017, a Chicago Reporter and CBS 2 investigation found that out of the 50 largest local and county law enforcement agencies in the nation, Chicago has one of the most lenient moonlighting policies for officers.
While working security at businesses such as Home Depot, off-duty officers may carry weapons and handcuffs, as mentioned in the lawsuit. The plaintiffs argue that the city and the Police Department must tighten their monitoring of off-duty officers to prevent excessive force incidents such as the ones they detail in their allegations.
