Crime & Law
Reform Groups Say CPD’s New Plan to Stop and Search Chicagoans Violates Constitution, Consent Decree
Chicago Police Department headquarters. (Michael Izquierdo / WTTW News)
New rules designed to limit when Chicago police officers can stop and search Chicagoans violate the U.S. Constitution by allowing officers to stop and frisk people based on their race or ethnicity, a coalition of reform groups told the federal judge overseeing efforts to reform the Chicago Police Department.
The coalition of police reform groups behind the consent decree — the federal court order requiring the CPD to change the way it trains, supervises and disciplines officers — told U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer that they would give CPD officials until April 26 to revise the policy before asking her to intervene and force changes to the policy.
The proposed policy “impermissibly allows officers to use race, ethnicity, and other protected characteristics when making decisions on whether to stop, frisk or search people, in violation of federal and state law” and the consent decree, the coalition led by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois told Pallmeyer, court records show.
A CPD spokesperson declined to comment on the coalition’s objection to the policy, citing the ongoing litigation over the consent decree.
The Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment prohibits officers from exercising their police powers on the basis of race, ethnicity or other protected characteristics, except when they have a specific description of a person, coalition officials said. In addition, the Illinois Civil Rights Act “forbids government actions that ‘subject a person to discrimination … on the grounds of that person’s race, color, national origin or gender,’” according to the filing from the coalition.
Black Chicagoans were nine times more likely to be stopped by Chicago police officers than White Chicagoans in 2018 and 2019, even though officers were 29% more likely to find drugs or weapons if they searched someone who is White, according to a report from the monitors.
In addition, Latino Chicagoans were three times more likely to be stopped by a police officer than White Chicagoans, according to the report, which examined approximately 300,000 stops and searches by Chicago police officers during the two years before the COVID-19 pandemic upended policing in Chicago and across the nation and triggered a surge in crime.
Nearly two years ago, hundreds of Chicagoans told the team overseeing court-ordered reforms of the Chicago Police Department that CPD officers routinely abused their authority to stop and search people, causing many to fear officers and making it impossible for officials to rebuild trust in the department.
In October 2023, the monitors sounded the alarm over the policy and urged CPD leaders to craft new rules governing stops and searches to ensure that officers “respect the rights of all Chicagoans.” The monitors also recommended additional training for officers on how to treat everyone with dignity, as well as increased efforts to discipline “officers who behave unethically, repeatedly violate community members’ rights, behave aggressively, and generate repeated complaints.”
Shortly before he was replaced by Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling, then-Interim Supt. Fred Waller told the monitors that no changes were needed to ensure that officers conduct “investigatory stops that are consistent with constitutional principles and community expectations.”
Waller, who retired from CPD in 2020, returned to the department to serve as the deputy director of the superintendent’s office, earning a pension of more than $151,000 per year and an annual salary of $193,476, records show.
Despite Waller’s dismissal of the need for new rules, city officials agreed in June 2023 to expand the consent decree to include when officers can stop and search Chicagoans on foot, which are officially known as investigatory stops. That policy was finalized on Dec. 31, but has yet to go into effect.
If an officer has a reasonable suspicion that a person is engaged in criminal activity, they cannot only question that person but also conduct what’s officially known as a protective pat-down but more often referred to as a stop-and-frisk. Officers are only permitted to conduct pat-down searches if they suspect criminal activity, while a search is more intrusive than a pat-down and requires probable cause or consent.
The draft policy prohibits officers from conducting investigatory stops or protective pat-downs “based solely on a person’s race, ethnicity, color, national origin, religion, disability, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, immigration status, homeless status, marital status, parental status, military discharge status, financial status, or lawful source of income, without any other specific and articulable facts that the person is, has, or is about to be engaged in criminal activity.”
“The phrase ‘based solely on’ permits CPD to make unconstitutional stops and frisks that are motivated – even in part – by a person’s race or ethnicity,” according to a letter from the coalition to the city. “The ‘solely’ modifier must be deleted.”
The policy also “paradoxically suggests that race and other protected characteristics are grounds to investigate someone, as long as the officer can also articulate other additional suspicious facts,” according to the coalition’s letter. “Race, ethnicity, disability and other protected characteristics are never grounds for suspicion unless they are part of a specific description of a specific individual. Following this direction will cause officers to violate the law and the consent decree.”
In addition, the coalition objects to the proposed policy because it would allow CPD officers to “search people based on the odor of raw cannabis/marijuana,” even though that is prohibited by the terms of the federal court order that will mark its sixth anniversary next month.
In December, the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that the scent of raw cannabis is enough for a police officer to search a vehicle, even though marijuana is legal in the state.
The draft policy references that ruling, “as an ‘exception’ permitting officers to stop or search a vehicle based on the odor of raw cannabis,” according to the letter from the coalition.
However, “the city agreed unambiguously in (the consent decree) that the odor of cannabis alone, whether burnt or raw, shall not be a basis for an investigatory stop or search by police,” according to the coalition’s letter.
Although police brass agreed to expand a federal court order requiring CPD to change the way it trains, supervises and disciplines officers to include traffic stops, that agreement has yet to be finalized, as officials determine what power the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability, the city’s new police oversight board, should have over the hot-button issue.
The city is also facing a class-action lawsuit over CPD’s use of traffic stops. In that suit, the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois claims CPD unlawfully stops Black and Latino drivers disproportionately because of their race.
A CPD spokesperson 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.
CPD has fully met just 9% of the consent decree requirements, according to the most recent report by the monitors.
In June 2024, objections from the coalition prompted CPD to revise a policy designed to allow mass arrests in advance of the Democratic National Convention, officials said.
CPD’s original policy violated the First Amendment, according to the coalition.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone| (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
