Crime & Law

Vote Looms on ‘Snap Curfew’ Plan as Questions Swirl About How Chicago’s Top Cop Would Use It to Stop Teen Gatherings

As the Chicago City Council prepares to vote Wednesday on a measure that would allow Chicago Police Department officials to declare a “snap curfew,” questions are swirling about how the city’s top cop would use that power to stop large teen gatherings.

Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling told the federal judge overseeing the department’s efforts to comply with a court order requiring the Chicago Police Department to stop routinely violating residents’ constitutional rights on June 10 that he would “never use” the power to enforce a curfew with just 30 minutes notice.

Responding to concerns from police reform advocates that the proposal would harm CPD’s efforts to build trust among young Black and Latino Chicagoans, Snelling said that provision is “not something that I asked for or that I need.”

Instead, Snelling promised to use that power only preemptively, to prevent the gatherings from happening at all. That goal is shared by Mayor Brandon Johnson, who has repeatedly questioned the constitutionality of the proposal.

“It would be used as a deterrent, where if we had that information days prior to implementing a curfew in that location, that we would send out notifications to Child Protective Services, to parents, to everyone,” Snelling told the judge. “If I had to call a snap curfew for a teen takeover where we know there’s going to be violence, it’s — it would be a moot point, because it’s not going to help us at this point. And we’re not going to do it.”

Snelling was not under oath during that hearing, which was scheduled as part of U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer’s efforts to keep tabs on CPD’s efforts to comply with the federal court order known as the consent decree, which requires CPD to change the way it trains, supervises and disciplines officers. His remarks were first reported by the Chicago Sun-Times.

Snelling’s statement injected new uncertainty over the fate of a measure to allow Chicago Police Department officials to preemptively impose a curfew anywhere in the city and begin enforcing it with just 30 minutes notice in an effort to stop large teen gatherings.

Snelling told Pallmeyer he wanted “to be very clear” that he had “never asked for the power to impose a snap curfew.”

“I know you’ve seen that in headlines,” Snelling said. “It is absolutely not true.”

Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd Ward), who authored the measure, said Snelling’s “comments were misunderstood” and said the city’s top cop “remains in support of my ordinance.”

“When he referred to his lack of need for a ‘snap curfew’ he was talking about the immediate declaration of an unannounced curfew with immediate enforcement and no warning,” Hopkins said via text message. “That was never contemplated as part of my curfew ordinance. There’s no such thing as a snap curfew as far as we’re concerned, that is a term concocted by the media.”

The ordinance requires CPD officers to wait 30 minutes before enforcing the curfew. Young people who violate the city’s curfew are not arrested, although multiple violations can lead to legal action.

It will be up to Ald. Jason Ervin (28th Ward) whether to call the measure for a vote at Wednesday’s City Council meeting. Ervin and Ald. Andre Vasquez (40th Ward) joined forces with 15 other alderpeople to use a parliamentary maneuver to block a vote on the measure last month.

The confusion over Snelling’s position on the measure is another reason for his fellow alderpeople to vote against the proposal, Vasquez said.

Nor should the City Council expand CPD’s power to detain young people at a time when large protests of President Donald Trump’s push to deport large numbers of undocumented immigrants have swept the city, Vasquez said.

Trump ordered federal officials on Monday to accelerate those efforts in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. Trump ordered U.S. Marines and National Guard troops to Los Angeles over the objections of California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass after days of protests and unrest.

A CPD spokesperson declined to respond to a request from WTTW News to clarify Snelling’s position on the measure.

Snelling’s remarks to Pallmeyer contradicted what Deputy Chief Jon Hein told the City Council’s Public Safety Committee on April 30, when he was repeatedly pressed to explain why CPD wants to expand its power to declare a curfew and how that power would be different from its existing authority to disperse unlawful gatherings.

“As a good, a great, example — on Monday it came out at 2:30 that [a teen takeover] was happening at 3 o’clock. From those two events, I think we had four gun arrests, two officers who were attacked and beaten,” Hein said. “It’s just another tool to provide safety and security for the kids that are showing up.”

Snelling told reporters on April 28 that he helped Hopkins, who has long pushed for an expanded curfew downtown, to craft a measure that applied to the entire city to stop large teen gatherings.

“What I didn’t want to do is have a situation where there is one particular part of the city where a curfew can be imposed and not everywhere else in the city, because there are other places in the city that that have seen those types of similar gatherings,” Snelling told reporters.

Snelling also expressed concern that a curfew imposed on the fly could sweep up teens out enjoying themselves without creating a nuisance or public safety threat.

“We don’t want to put a parent in a position where they take their kids to a particular location, maybe to a movie, and when that movie lets out, there’s a curfew that has been imposed,” Snelling said. “What we don’t want are people and especially our youth, who are down there just trying to have a good time, getting caught up. We will do this constitutionally.”

The measure gives Snelling the power to unilaterally expand the city’s curfew.

The original version of the ordinance required Snelling and Deputy Mayor for Community Safety Garien Gatewood to have “jointly determined that there’s probable cause to believe that a mass gathering will occur.”

The version of the ordinance set for a vote by the City Council would require Snelling only to “consult” Gatewood.

That change prompted Ervin not just to drop his support for the measure that he had co-sponsored with Hopkins and Ald. Pat Dowell (3rd Ward) but to join the leaders of the City Council’s Progressive Caucus in trying to stop its passage.

After the May 21 City Council meeting, Johnson called the proposal “problematic” but declined to say whether he would veto the measure if it passes, telling reporters it was too early to make that determination.

“This ordinance, actually is the antithesis to what we built over these last couple of years, and what we don’t want is a situation where all of the efforts … to renew and build trust within communities that we don’t lose that,” Johnson said.

It would take 34 votes for the City Council to override a mayoral veto.

Johnson said he opposed giving Snelling the power to implement an expanded curfew.

“To give unilateral authority to one entity, I don’t see that as an effective democratic tool,” Johnson said. “That particular configuration or version of the ordinance was incredibly shortsighted.”

Snelling said on May 23 he agreed with Johnson.

“No one person should have the single authority to do anything,” Snelling said. “Anything that we do, any intel that we have around any gatherings or the possibility of violence, I communicate with the mayor on that all the time. I sit with my leadership team, we talk about these things, we map them out, we map out the plans. And before we implement anything, we talk to the mayor, the mayor’s office, and we constantly talk with Deputy Mayor Garien Gatewood, and we coordinate around these things.”

Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]

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