Crime & Law
Top Cop Defends Proposal That Would Allow Officers to Make Traffic Stops to Find Evidence of Unrelated Crimes
Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling addresses the news media on Monday, April 28, 2025, at a meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors. (Heather Cherone / WTTW News)
Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling on Monday defended a proposed policy that would allow officers to continue making traffic stops based on minor registration or equipment violations that are designed to find evidence of “unrelated” crimes.
If police officers are prevented from stopping drivers for improper or expired registration plates or stickers and headlight, taillight and license plate light offenses, Chicago’s streets will become more “dangerous for everyone who are driving,” Snelling said at an unrelated news conference alongside Mayor Brandon Johnson.
However, a majority of the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability said in a letter published Friday that the stops “do more harm than good and should therefore be prohibited, with some exceptions.”
The commission, known as the CCPSA, has the authority to approve new CPD policies.
“We’re still working with CCPSA on this, but what I will not allow is that I will not allow a policy or a change in policy or the law that’s going to put our officers in danger,” Snelling said. “Or put our citizens in danger.”
The proposed policy defines a pretextual traffic stop as “a Traffic Stop where an officer uses Reasonable Articulable Suspicion or Probable Cause for a Traffic Stop to conduct the stop with the explicit intention to investigate another crime that is unrelated to the traffic law violation (including a parking violation) or vehicle equipment or license compliance violation.”
Snelling said Monday that the department’s policy “does not say pretextual.”
A screenshot of a portion of the Chicago Police Department's proposed policy on traffic stops. (Chicago Police Department)
However, the proposed policy “acknowledges” that what the department calls “Pretextual Traffic Stops can be perceived by some members of the community as negative, biased or unlawful. Therefore, any such use of lawful Pretextual Traffic Stops as a law enforcement or crime prevention strategy must strike a balance between identifying those engaged in criminal conduct and the community’s sense of fairness.”
Officers who stop drivers for improper or expired registration plates or stickers and headlight, taillight and license plate offenses “must strike a balance between promoting public safety and building and maintaining community trust,” the draft policy says.
“We have to be very careful about going outside of the law and making our policies so restrictive that our officers can’t make stops that are going to keep the public safe,” Snelling said.
Johnson declined Monday to say whether he agreed with Snelling, and believed Chicago police officers should continue making pretextual stops, or whether he agreed with the majority of CCPSA commissioners and thought the stops should be banned in most cases.
“We have to make sure we are restoring confidence and trust in our communities,” Johnson said. “We know there has been usage of stops that have had a disparate impact on Black and Brown communities, right? There’s no secret there. The ultimate goal is to create constitutional policing that ensures trust that keeps everyone safe. We’re going to continue to work to ensure that the policy reflects my values for the city of Chicago.”
CPD officials reported officers made 295,846 traffic stops in 2025 to the Illinois Department of Transportation, which is required by state law to track all stops made by police officers throughout the state.
CPD made an additional 210,622 traffic stops that were not documented, making it impossible to know whether drivers’ constitutional rights were protected during those stops.
More than 44% of all drivers stopped by police officers in 2024 were Black, and nearly 35% of drivers pulled over by Chicago police officers were Latino. By comparison, just 14.8% of drivers stopped by Chicago police were White, according to a report from a coalition of groups that want CPD to stop making pretextual traffic stops.
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.
Black drivers were more likely to be searched during a traffic stop and Black drivers represented more than 56% of people arrested by CPD after a traffic stop, 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.
Traffic stops have long been a flashpoint in the half-dozen serious efforts to reform the Chicago Police Department, since they put officers in close contact with Chicagoans, often under tense circumstances.
“Our officers, multiple officers, have been murdered during traffic stops,” Snelling said Monday. “Our officers have to be safe when they’re making these stops.”
Officer Enrique Martinez was killed during a traffic stop in November, and Officer Ella French was killed during a traffic stop in August 2021.
During a March 2024 traffic stop, four officers fired 96 shots in 41 seconds at Dexter Reed, hitting him 13 times, shortly after he shot and wounded an officer, according to a preliminary investigation by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, known as COPA. Reed had been stopped on suspicion for failing to wear a seat belt.
The city is facing a class-action lawsuit that accuses CPD of targeting Black and Latino drivers with a massive campaign of traffic stops in the latest chapter of the city’s “long and sordid history” of racist discrimination.
Three of the named plaintiffs in that case have been stopped repeatedly since they filed the lawsuit in July 2023, court records show.
Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]
