Greg Wing
Supervisory Special Agent, FBI
For over three decades, I walked the same streets I grew up on. I started as a Cook County Sheriff’s Police officer, then spent 20 years as an FBI agent, eventually being detailed to the Chicago Police Department to build their first Social Media Exploitation Task Force. I thought I had seen it all—counterterrorism cases, gang investigations, long nights chasing leads—but nothing quite prepared me for the intensity of the Jussie Smollett investigation in early 2019.
We were given the case when it was already national news. The pressure was enormous. Politicians, the media, and the public were watching every move we made. We worked 16-hour days for weeks straight, often with little sleep, while constantly fighting leaks and outside interference. Despite all of that, a small, hand-picked team of 20 detectives and officers solved the case in just 15 days. We proved it was a hoax. For me, that case wasn’t just about catching a lie — it was about protecting the integrity of real victims and showing that Chicago’s police could still deliver the truth, even when the world was watching.
What I remember most, though, isn’t the headlines or the courtroom. It’s the small moments: the quiet conversations in the office at 2 a.m., the dark humor that kept us going, and the pride I felt watching younger detectives step up under enormous pressure. Being a cop, especially in a city like Chicago, means carrying the weight of public expectation while trying to protect people who may never know your name. It means showing up when it’s cold, when it’s dangerous, and when the truth is inconvenient. It’s not glamorous. But it’s necessary.
I’m proud of the work we did on that case, and I’m even prouder of the men and women I served with. They walked into every shift knowing the job could change in an instant — and they did it anyway.
