Oak Park and River Forest High School students came to school Monday Sept. 29 to learn that Paul Ivery, a food service worker who often makes paninis in the North Cafeteria, had been arrested and detained for allegedly assaulting a U.S. Border Patrol agent.
Ivery, who is also a former OPRF student, was arrested Sept. 27 while protesting outside of the Broadview Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility. He was charged Sept. 29 with felony assault of a federal officer.
Ivery has an intellectual disability and has “always been in special ed,” according to Michelle Mascaro, a neighbor and family friend who owns the Happy Apple Pie Shop, which employs people with disabilities.
On Oct. 1, U.S. Magistrate Judge Gabriel Fuentes ruled to temporarily release Ivery from custody while he waits for his trial. His bond was set at $10,000 according to an Oct. 1 story in Block Club Chicago.
The decision came after a hearing in which Fuentes read letters from OPRF junior Nolan Krueger and Oak Park Village President Vicki Scaman advocating for Ivery’s release. About 50 people showed up in court to support Ivery, Mascaro said.
Krueger’s letter offered a student’s perspective on Ivery. “I see Paul every day during lunch and I often interact with him when I come in to order my food,” Krueger wrote. “He is a kind person and not a criminal.”
Krueger said he was inspired to write a letter on Ivery’s behalf after seeing social media posts about his arrest. “I saw the picture of him being surrounded by officers on social media and Snapchat,” he said in an interview. “It was just, like, crazy. I’ve interacted with Paul before.”
He hoped the letter would convince the judge that Ivery poses no threat to his school or community. “I just wanted it to be something that the judge saw, that maybe influenced his decision a bit in a little way,” he said.
“It’s crazy to think that it was my letter and the village president’s letter that were read aloud,” he added.
Ivery will next be in court Oct. 10 for a pretrial hearing.
According to the criminal complaint, Ivery allegedly yelled, “I’ll (expletive) kill you right now” and “do something.” When an agent attempted to detain him, he pulled the agent’s helmet down, briefly exposing the agent to pepper spray.
The complaint also notes that Ivery waived his Miranda rights.
On Tuesday, Sept. 30, students voiced their concerns about Ivery’s situation in interviews conducted by the Trapeze in the North Cafeteria.
“I remember he was always there and one day, he just wasn’t there anymore,” said senior Zee Johnson-Shackelford.
“I knew Paul Ivery only as the guy who scooped the orange chicken, and made my day just a little brighter. He was very kind. He was a very kind soul,” said junior Nolan Maddox.
“He was always very polite and very cheerful, and I was really worried when he wasn’t there for a couple of days, and then I saw through social media there were videos of him being detained … and it was very jarring and violent and a very unpleasant thing to see,” said senior Saffron Kim.
District 200 Superintendent Gregory Johnson also provided the Trapeze a statement about Ivery, which read, in part, “During his time here, he has been a valued member of our school community, and we look forward to being able to put this matter behind us.”
Ivery went to Washington Irving Elementary School, Gwendolyn Brooks Middle School and OPRF, according to Mascaro, who has known Ivery since her child attended Irving with Ivery.
Ivery is “a really kind hearted and eager person,” she said. “Because of his disability, he more or less sees the world in black and white…He likes rules, he likes to follow rules and since he was a little kid he always wanted to be a police officer. He really likes the police and likes the sense of order and calmness that he feels the police can bring.”
Moscato added, “He’s a person with a lot of integrity. He takes his job seriously, he takes any of his commitments seriously, he volunteers in various different places, he’s always up for helping people. That’s who he is, that’s how this all happened, because he felt he could do something to help somebody.”
Protests have taken place regularly at the Broadview ICE facility since President Donald Trump announced Operation Midway Blitz Sept. 8 to “target the criminal illegal aliens who flocked to Chicago and Illinois because they knew Governor Pritzker and his sanctuary policies would protect them and allow them to roam free on American streets.”
Those protests escalated Oct. 3, with “many, many” people protesting and attending a prayer vigil at the Broadview ICE facility, according to Oak Park resident Margaret Rudnik, who is a Mercy associate, an affiliate of the Mercy Sisters of America.
For Krueger, the protests in Broadview hit close to home. “It’s not something I can blame on some other far away place,” he said. “It’s a personal issue now, it’s here in Oak Park and people are affected by it.”
The experience of speaking up for Ivery inspired Krueger. “I think the next step is really understanding activism,” he said. “I did not expect my letter to have such an impact. Even doing something by yourself can make such a huge impact like that. People need to understand that and don’t think it takes a million people to change someone’s life or change the future.”
