Esteban Rodriguez and his wife were startled awake around 5 a.m. Friday with a sound he likened to an “explosion.”
Rodriguez, a candidate for town president of Cicero, said he jumped out of bed, initially believing that someone broke into his home, where his 2-year-old daughter and dog were also sleeping. He said he hurried downstairs carrying his firearm and saw that his front window was shattered from what appeared to be a large rock.
“My heart was racing a million miles an hour, and the moment that the sound occurred, I knew it was something to do with politics,” he said.
Rodriguez said he discovered a couple of hours later that four windows at his campaign office also were broken.
The alleged attack comes just days before early voting opens for Cicero’s Feb. 25 municipal elections, where the town’s policies to protect undocumented residents have become a contentious issue amid President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in the Chicago area.
Rodriguez is running for town president against Larry Dominick, who has held the position for nearly 20 years. Rodriguez and his allies have campaigned on government transparency and establishing “sanctuary city” protections in Cicero, while Dominick’s team has highlighted the town’s “growth” and “prosperity” such as new parks for families under his leadership.
Cicero police are “thoroughly” investigating the incident and will “treat it just like any other crime,” spokesman Ray Hanania told the Tribune. No injuries were reported.
Surveillance footage from Rodriguez’s home shows a man wearing a black jacket with a hood, black pants and white sneakers running up and tossing the rock at the window at 5:09 a.m. He then runs across the street. Rodriguez said he doesn’t have a security camera at his campaign office.
“Without accusing anyone or pointing the finger, that’s how Cicero operates,” Rodriguez said. “It operates out of intimidation, scare tactics and isolating and punishing people that don’t fall in line or are not in agreement with local government. For those people that do announce candidacy or step up, there’s some consequences that occur.”
He said he hopes the police department uses its “full resources” to investigate the vandalism.
Dominick’s Cicero Voters Alliance, however, questioned the validity of Rodriguez’s account in a statement. The group said it may be a “political stunt” by his campaign to “get attention and stir controversy.” The coalition said it is suspicious that the alleged offender didn’t make more of an effort to cover his face or “avoid detection” in the surveillance footage.
“It’s not uncommon for desperate candidates to do desperate things to draw attention to themselves,” the statement said.
Rodriguez said he’s faced other forms of intimidation throughout his run as well, such as harassment and doxxing on social media. He said local officials don’t like the “negative press” from his candidacy, including an op-ed published last month in the Tribune on Cicero’s protections — or lack thereof — for undocumented immigrants.
He argues in the piece that Cicero, where the population is mostly Latino and includes tens of thousands of undocumented immigrants, must become a “sanctuary city” as immigration enforcement under Trump has intensified.
He blames the lack of protection on Dominick, saying his “anti-immigrant stance … has ensured that Cicero remains a place where immigrants lack the basic protections they need.” He said Friday that the town’s current policy is “silly words that amount to nothing.”
Town spokesman Hanania, however, said in a letter to the editor earlier this month that the town has taken a “strong stand” to defend the rights of undocumented residents through a “Safe Space Resolution” passed in 2008. He said the town doesn’t consider citizenship status when providing services, and that the police department doesn’t enforce federal immigration laws.
“The town of Cicero continually strives to ensure the well-being of all residents,” he said. “Cicero serves as a safe space for all residents regardless of citizenship or residency status.”
