A panel of local officials took its first crack Thursday at trying to hold federal immigration agents accountable for the deluge of alleged abuses that have unfolded across the Chicago area under the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation campaign.The newly formed Illinois Accountability Co mmission heard from witnesses who described in painstaking detail just a handful of the violent interactions with Department of Homeland Security authorities that residents have documented in cellphone videos over the past few months.Former U.S. District Chief Judge Rubén Castillo, who chairs the commission convened by Gov. JB Pritzker, acknowledged they face a tall order in sifting through a sea of troubling social media videos, let alone prompting any discipline against federal officers who have overstepped constitutional bounds.But “the one thing that we cannot do is to accept this,” he said.“The images are shocking, impossible to look away from,” Castillo told dozens in attendance for the weekday morning meeting inside an auditorium at Arturo Velasquez Institute on the Southwest Side. “But most importantly, it's going to be impossible to forget, and we will not forget.”“This cannot be the new normal, and I think that certain people in Washington D.C. want to accept this as the new normal, and our commission will go about documenting every single thing that has happened and that unfortunately will happen,” Castillo said.The eight-member panel’s first meeting focused on chemical agents like pepper spray that have been deployed by federal agents, often in apparent violation of a federal judge’s order against doing so without issuing proper warnings.A commission attorney questioned Little Village pastor Matt DeMateo, a community rapid responder who helped a family after an agent shot pepper spray into their vehicle last month in Little Village while driving by from the opposite direction near a Sam’s Club in Cicero. A 1-year-old girl was sprayed.“They had done nothing wrong. They were not protesting, they were not chasing ICE vehicles. They were simply shopping,” DeMateo said. “And although it should not matter… every person in that car was an American citizen.” Matt DeMateo, who testified during the Illinois Accountability Commission’s first hearing, speaks beside Dr. Rohini J. Haar, who is an expert at less lethal and crowd control weapons, at Arturo Velasquez Institute at Richard J. Daley College in the Lower West Side Thursday. Pat Nabong/Sun-Times Commissioners also heard testimony from Dr. Rohini Haar of Physicians for Human Rights, who zeroed in on an Oct. 31 video taken in Evanston of an agent who used pepper spray “without any real threat present.”“He’s also spraying this poor gentleman in the face, which can cause significant eye trauma and is completely unnecessary,” she said.DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin dismissed the commission as an effort “to smear law enforcement who are simply enforcing the rule of law and are putting their lives on the line to remove violent criminals from Illinois because JB Pritzker refuses to do his job.”McLaughlin said that as they've faced hostile crowds, “our law enforcement show incredible restraint and professionalism in exhausting all options before any kind of non-lethal force is used.”More than 2,800 arrests were made in Trump’s so-called Operation Midway Blitz from September through early mid-October. Few of those taken into custody have criminal records.The operation slowed down last month, but the face of it, U.S. Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino, returned to Chicago this week, and sources have told the Sun-Times an even larger influx of federal agents could flood the region come spring.Another 20 public commenters shared their accounts of federal infractions with the commission, some of them criticizing the Pritzker administration for deploying the Illinois State Police to quell protests outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in west suburban Broadview.“We need our sanctuary ordinances maintained,” said Jessica Darrow, describing herself as a concerned citizen of Illinois. “We need state police to stop aiding Bovino by running cover for ICE.”Castillo later said state and Chicago police “cannot be part of the problem. We will look at that issue in a very serious fashion, just like we will look at ICE.”The commission, which doesn’t have subpoena or prosecutorial power, will issue a status report by Jan. 31 and a final report by April 30, under Pritzker’s executive order.Commissioners could end up recommending state legislation or referring cases for prosecution, though “we know that some of those recommendations may fall on deaf ears,” Castillo conceded.“But there are some very fine thinkers on this commission… who will think of ways to get around that, and we don't expect to be waiting years,” he said. “We ask for your patience.”The commission will open a portal to accept public inquiries next month. In the meantime, information can be submitted at (855) 435‑7693. ...read more read less