Crime & Law
Judge Won’t Allow Chicagoans Who Sued CPD for Targeting Black, Latino Drivers to Intervene in Consent Decree Court Case
Chicago Police Department Headquarters, 3510 S. Michigan Ave. (Michael Izquierdo / WTTW News)
Five Chicagoans who accused the Chicago Police Department of targeting Black and Latino drivers with a massive campaign of traffic stops will not be allowed to intervene in the federal effort to require CPD to change the way it trains, supervises and disciplines officers, a federal judge ruled.
U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer ruled that there is no need for the plaintiffs, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, to become an official part of the consent decree case even as negotiations continue over whether and how the court order should be expanded to include traffic stops as well as what role the city’s new police oversight board should play.
Eric Wilkins, a community organizer who lives in Roseland, is the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit that accuses CPD officers of making more than 1.5 million traffic stops between 2016 and 2023 based on dubious evidence of minor violations that took direct aim at Black and Latino Chicagoans but spared White Chicagoans.
Pallmeyer said she would convene hearings before expanding the consent decree to include traffic stops.
“The Wilkins Plaintiffs, like all other members of the public, remain entitled to appear at these hearings, present their views, and advocate for policies that will protect their rights,” Pallmeyer wrote in an order issued Monday and signed on Dec. 19. “Moreover, standards that are or will be imposed as a result of the consent decree are a floor, not a ceiling. To the extent the provisions of the consent decree do not afford the relief that the Wilkins Plaintiffs seek, they are entitled to continue to seek that relief in the Wilkins case itself or elsewhere.”
Alexandra Block, director of the Criminal Legal System and Policing Project at the ACLU of Illinois, said she was disappointed with Pallmeyer’s decision.
“It only fuels our commitment to address and restrain CPD’s use of pretextual traffic stops in a racially discriminatory way,” Block said in a statement. “We will continue that fight through our lawsuit.”
CPD Supt. Larry Snelling and the independent monitoring team charged with enforcing the consent decree had reached an agreement more than seven months ago to expand the court order and allow Pallmeyer to oversee the department’s use of traffic stops. That accord came two months after four officers fired 96 bullets in 41 seconds during a West Side traffic stop on March 21, killing 26-year-old Dexter Reed. Reed shot and wounded an officer before officers opened fire.
But the proposal to expand the consent decree for the fourth time to include traffic stops ran into a brick wall of opposition from progressive alderpeople and a coalition of police reform groups.
In October, the monitoring team called for the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability to be given some power over the CPD’s traffic stop policy.
U.S. District Court Judge Mary M. Rowland, who is presiding over the lawsuit brought by Wilkins and the other plaintiffs, ruled there is enough evidence that the city intentionally discriminated against Black and Latino drivers because of their race, and that the mass traffic stop program unlawfully burdens Black and Latino drivers disproportionately, for the lawsuit to proceed, court records show.
However, Rowland has not yet certified the lawsuit as a class action, which would allow other Chicagoans to petition the court for damages, court records show.
Three of the plaintiffs who sued the city alongside Wilkins have been stopped repeatedly since they filed the lawsuit in July 2023, court records show.
Chicago police made more than 537,000 traffic stops in 2023, and the majority were based on dubious evidence of minor violations that took direct aim at Black and Latino Chicagoans but spared White Chicagoans, according to a report from Impact for Equity, a nonprofit advocacy and research organization that has helped lead the push to reform the Chicago Police Department.
Since 2015, Black Chicagoans were six times more likely to be stopped by police while driving than White Chicagoans. Latino drivers were twice as likely to be stopped than White drivers, according to the report.
More than 51% of all drivers stopped by police officers in 2023 were Black, and nearly 31% of drivers pulled over by Chicago police officers were Latino. By comparison, just 13.6% of drivers stopped by Chicago police were White, according to the report.
The population of Chicago is 31.4% White, 29.9% Latino, 28.7% Black and 6.9% Asian, according to the 2020 U.S. census.
At the time of the report’s release, a spokesperson for the Chicago Police Department told WTTW News in a statement that traffic stops are “not conducted based on race or any other protected class” and all officers must undergo training designed to combat implicit bias.
“Fair and constitutional policing is the foundation of the Chicago Police Department’s efforts to strengthen public safety and trust across the city,” the CPD statement said. “Officers only conduct traffic stops when they have probable cause or reasonable articulable suspicion that a crime, including but not limited to traffic violations, has been committed, is being committed or is about to be committed.”
Approximately 73% of the traffic stops made by Chicago police officers in 2023 were prompted by improper license registration or a broken headlight, taillight or license plate light. Just 27.4% of all stops were prompted by a moving violation, including speeding and failure to stop at stop signs, according to the report.
Just 2.2% of those stops led to an arrest, and a gun was recovered in 0.5% of stops, according to the report. Approximately 4.4% of stops led to a citation, according to the report.
The lawsuit brought by Wilkins asks Rowland to ban CPD from making stops designed to find evidence of other crimes, prohibit officers from pulling over drivers because of improper registration issues or broken equipment, like a single nonfunctioning taillight, and have an independent legal basis before requesting a driver’s consent to search their car.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
