A pair of police stations at the center of ongoing sexual misconduct investigations involving officers and migrants staying there temporarily have begun being reused as temporary shelters this week.
Dozens of migrants were brought to the Ogden and Town Hall police district stations, which the city had stopped using as temporary shelters after the Chicago Police Department and the Civilian Office of Police Accountability announced their investigations.
In a July update, COPA said it hadn’t identified any victims of sexual misconduct by Chicago police officers, but investigations continue.
The city aimed to preclude “any kind of complications” by bringing only single men to the West Side Ogden district and families to the North Side Town Hall district, said Juan-Antonio Montesinos, a prominent member of the large volunteer force caring for migrants at police stations.
“If you put the right controls in place, and if it’s done properly, then hopefully there is no risk for those allegations to be reproduced,” he said.
Not only single men were there, according to a source at the Ogden district, who said migrants were first moved back Sunday, but many show up without being directed by the city, they said.
The city did not immediately respond to requests for comment on whether it had a plan to ensure that the Ogden district remained a temporary shelter for only single men, given the investigation.
Many migrants at the stations came from overcrowded police stations around the city, Montesinos said. That includes the Central district, which fills up because of its proximity to Union Station, and the Near West district.
The move to resume using the stations as temporary shelters was first reported by Block Club Chicago Thursday morning and comes as Chicago’s migrant crisis is expected to intensify.
Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration didn’t answer direct questions about his administrations’ plan to get migrants out of police stations and other temporary shelters, but in a statement, he said the administration was committed to putting migrants on a “path to resettlement and self-sufficiency.”
More than 13,000 immigrants have arrived in the city since Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and others began busing them to Chicago and other cities last year.
Around 6,500 are spread among the city’s 15 shelters, but 1,500 were waiting at Chicago police stations and airports for room at those shelters Thursday morning, according to the Office of Emergency Management and Communications. Another three buses were expected to arrive Thursday, each carrying around 50 people.
Reusing the two stations was necessary “because of the rising numbers and lack of space,” according to a written statement from OEMC spokesperson Mary May.
“The City of Chicago is focused on the safety of all Chicagoans, including our new neighbors,” May said. “We are committed to working with CPD to ensure there are protocols in place to keep new arrivals at police stations safe while they wait for more adequate shelter.”
There are about 30 migrants now staying at the Ogden station and 30 staying at the Town Hall station.
Using police stations as a way station for migrants has been in practice since at least the start of the year, according to reporting by the Sun-Times.
Since then, the number of migrants waiting for shelter space has grown, doubling in the last month.
The Ogden station, at 3315 W. Ogden Ave. in North Lawndale, and Town Hall station, at 850 W. Addison St., in Lake View, have remained empty during that time, even as some police district stations became home to about 100 people, many sleeping outside because there wasn’t room inside.
Ogden closed first, after COPA was made aware of allegations July 6 accusing an officer there of “sexual contact with an unidentified, underage female migrant,” said COPA’s chief administrator Andrea Kersten.
During the Ogden investigation, Kersten said other complaints involving immigrants were lodged, including another unsubstantiated claim of unidentified officers from the Town Hall District, “engaging in sexual misconduct” with an immigrant.
Contributing: Tom Schuba and Elvia Malagón
Michael Loria is a staff reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times via Report for America, a not-for-profit journalism program that aims to bolster the paper’s coverage of communities on the South Side and West Side.
