Chicago’s FBI field office will get its first African American leader next month, when Emmerson Buie Jr. is set to take over as special agent in charge, according to a source.
The 27-year veteran of the FBI is headed to Chicago from El Paso, the source said. The FBI has previously identified Buie as a Chicago native.
Buie began his career with the FBI in 1992, starting out in Colorado Springs and working out of the FBI’s Denver Division. In 1999 he was assigned to the Weapons of Mass Destruction Unit at FBI headquarters, and he spent about three years in that role.
Buie also spent time with the FBI in Illinois. He has worked as the senior supervisory resident agent in Fairview Heights, working out of the Springfield division.
He has also served as the assistant legal attache in London, as well as the acting deputy legal attache there. Buie spent four years in the U.S. Army and served as an infantry officer in Desert Storm.
Chicago’s new FBI chief arrives amid what appear to be multiple public corruption investigations targeting some of the city and state’s most high-profile politicians.
Though records show investigators have been laying the groundwork for years, it wasn’t until the FBI in November raided the City Hall office of Ald. Ed M. Burke (14th) that the issue roared back into the headlines and upended the mayor’s race.
Since then, Burke has been hit with a 59-page racketeering indictment. Former Ald. Danny Solis (25th) has been outed as a cooperator who recorded Burke. Ald. Carrie Austin (34th) has landed in the crosshairs of a federal grand jury. State Sen. Thomas Cullerton also found himself under indictment. And associates of Illinois House Speaker Mike Madigan have been circled by the feds.
Jeffrey Sallet, Chicago’s outgoing FBI chief, declined in an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times last month to discuss the ongoing investigations. However, he told a reporter, “I don’t lose sleep about the corruption.”
“The people that are corrupt public officials, I assure you, are losing sleep about us. And I think that’s more evident now.”
During his tenure, Sallet also turned his attention in Chicago to mass acts of violence. After last year’s mass shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida, Sallet said the Chicago FBI rolled out a new squad made up of roughly 17 agencies and 34 people. He said it “addresses, on a daily basis, all the mass-acts-of-violence complaints we get in the entire Northern District of Illinois.”
Buie will replace Sallet, who spent nearly two years leading Chicago’s field office. Sallet arrived in 2017 from New Orleans and took over for Michael J. Anderson, who also spent a little less than two years in the job.
