Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling on Monday defended his department's response to a protest that erupted in Brighton Park over the weekend, after federal agents shot a woman accused of ramming her vehicle into their car.

"The narrative is out there that CPD was not on scene, CPD did not show up. Let me just put all of that to rest," Snelling said. "Were they told to stand down? Our officers were not told to stand down. Our officers were out there throughout the entire event."

Around 10:30 a.m. Saturday, CPD received a call about a person shot near 39th and Kedzie. Responding officers found a woman who had been shot. She told police she had been shot by federal agents, and officers took her to the hospital for treatment.

The U.S. Department of Justice has said the woman, 30-year-old Marimar Martinez, rammed into federal agents, who fired five shots at her before she got away. She has since been charged with assaulting, impeding, and interfering with the work of federal agents.

About two hours after that shooting, a large group of protesters gathered at the scene of the shooting, and Snelling said federal agents called for police to assist due to the large crowd at 39th and Kedzie.

Although he said he could not provide specific numbers, Snelling said multiple officers were pulled from other assignments at the time to respond to the scene.

About 30 minutes later, as additional CPD officers were responding to the scene, officers already on site saw a group of protesters begin moving barricades, and federal agents began deploying tear gas.

"When we show up to a scene, and a crowd gathers, CPD is going to step out there," Snelling said. "We're going to make sure that we bring some type of calm or resolution to whatever's going on at that scene. We will be there."

In police dispatch recordings during those protests, a female voice could be heard saying, "If you guys could start heading there as quick as you can, and then just hold tight for instructions."

A short time later, a male voice is heard saying, "Per the chief of patrol, clear everybody out. We're not responding over there."

A third voice is later heard saying, "We're going to clear out as soon as we can, squad, we're blocked in over here. So we're going to do the best we can to get out of here as soon as we can."

Snelling said the department is looking into the circumstances around that exchange, but said officers were already on the scene at that time, with more on the way.

"Our officers were deployed all over the city, so to get enough people there so that everyone felt safe, it took time to do that," he said. "This is something that we're going to be talking to our officers about. This is something that we're going to be talking to our leadership so that that message trickles down. If there are exigent circumstances, work now and then talk about your response later.

Snelling denied reports spreading on social media that the CPD's chief of patrol sent an internal message directing officers not to respond to a call for assistance from federal agents.

"That is absolutely not true. There is no internal message," Snelling said. "Theres a lot of heat out there around the Chief of Patrol, and I'm going to make this clear: the Chief of Patrol would never tell someone to stand down when any fellow law enforcement agent is in trouble or in need of help."

The superintendent also denied any suggestion that officers were told to stand down from responding to the scene of the protest.

"Our officers were out there throughout the entire event. I would never tell our officers to stand down, because if our officers were in trouble, and we needed help from other officers, I would expect those officers to step in and help us, and it's the same thing that we do on our side. When someone is in trouble, we're going to step in," he said.

Noting Chicago police officers and federal agents have different rules of engagement when dealing with large crowds, Snelling said he was able to coordinate with federal officials to prevent Saturday's protest from erupting into a "full-blow riot" by making sure CPD was handling crowd control as federal authorities investigated the shooting.

Snelling said, while at that point the FBI had taken over the investigation into the shooting, CPD had a responsibility to help preserve the crime scene to ensure a proper investigation.

"If that evidence isn't preserved, a proper and a well-informed investigation cannot be done if we don't preserve the crime scene. If we allow people to breach that area, and contaminate the crime scene, it hurts the investigation. We have a duty to do so," he said. "When a crime is being committed, CPD is going to show up, and it doesn't matter if there are ICE agents there. We have a duty to investigate and protect our city."

The superintendent said 27 officers who were at the scene of the protest were affected by the tear gas deployed by federal agents, because they had been brought in from other assignments, and did not have the equipment to protect themselves from chemical agents.

Snelling said, after the scene of the protest had cleared, he spoke to someone in federal leadership who was "extremely concerned" that police officers had been affected by the tear gas.

"We are going to have further conversations about it," Snelling said. "He was also appreciative of the fact that we came in, stepped in, and he was the first to say that this could have turned into a full-blown riot and it didn't."