The new FBI Special Agent in Charge has set his agenda for the Chicago office, NBC 5’s Charlie Wojciechowski reports.
A tiny frame hangs over the desk of Chicago’s newest FBI Special Agent in Charge. It contains the patrolman’s ID that Robert Wheeler’s father carried when he was on the force in Covington, Ga. back in 1970.
“My dad was a very quiet example of how to be a good man,” said Wheeler, whose new office overlooks the city from the Bureau’s headquarters on the Near West Side.
Wheeler, who goes by the name “Wes,” will oversee about 1,000 agents and staffers in the FBI’s fourth largest division after New York, Los Angles and Washington, D.C.
His goal is to keep building on the work of his predecessor, Emmerson Buie, who retired in Aug. 2022.
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“The number one thing is keeping an eye on what we are doing and look for ways to do it better,” the soft-spoken Southerner said. “We are very thankful for the work that's taken place here before or a long period of time and we're going to keep doing it,” he said.
Wes Wheeler has been an FBI agent for more than two decades. He started in the Sherman, Texas branch of the Dallas office. Wheeler has served on the protection detail for the U.S. attorney general. He also deployed to Kabul, Afghanistan, for several months in late 2009 to work kidnapping matters as a member of the Major Crimes Task Force.
Most recently served as the chief of staff to the executive assistant director of the Criminal, Cyber, Response, and Services Branch at FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C.
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Cyber threats, he said, will be among the threats his agents will face here in Chicago. “There's a lot of capability that Chicago has, there's a lot of resources that we can unlock,” Wheeler said.
The FBI in Chicago will continue to pursue public corruption and violent crimes, but Wheeler said preventing terrorist attacks will remain on the front burner. “That threat endures,” Wheeler said. “It has not gone away and it will not go away. And we're not ever going to take our eye off that ball.”
When it comes to violent crime, Wheeler said the FBI’s resources can help Chicago Police and other area departments by bringing to bear high technology and sophisticated techniques often only available at the national level. “We have good experience and a good history of bringing that type of capability to the fight,” Wheeler said. He points to the FBI’s national crime lab as an example of the kinds of capabilities his division can offer to local law enforcement.
“I worry a lot about being the absolute best partner we can be in the environment that we're in with our partners that share the responsibility with us,” Wheeler said. “What I think is a great thing about working here is Chicago as a major city, gives you a ton of opportunity to do that to do all those things,” he said. “We just have a lot of opportunity to do good work.”
