In a landmark agreement between the Chicago Police Department ( CPD ), the City of Chicago, and the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois ( ACLU ), there will be an independent evaluation of the practices and procedures, and increased transparency and public disclosure regarding Chicago police investigatory stops. “That includes officers” names and badge numbers, the race, ethnicity and gender of the person stopped, the reason for the stop, the location, date and time of the stop and other details.
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The agreement announced today goes into effect immediately. He sued police over the search, claiming the department’s stop and frisk policy is unconstitutional.
The lawsuit comes after the release of a report that found racial disparities in the frequency with which Boston police officers searched and frisked minorities. Dean Angelo, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, said that documenting more stops will keep officers off the streets, not a smart move with all the gun violence in Chicago. When police officers make a stop, they must have a reasonable suspicion that a subject committed or is about to commit a crime and be able to articulate it under the U.S. Supreme Court ruling Terry v. Ohio. “If not for the pending stop and frisk class action lawsuit filed against the City of Chicago and Chicago Police Department, this announcement from the ACLU and CPD would not have occurred”.
But the ACLU said Chicago police, who conducted about 250,000 stop-and-frisks that did not lead to an arrest last summer, appeared to be acting unlawfully.
In a telephone interview, police Superintendent Garry McCarthy hailed the agreement as groundbreaking, considering civil libertarians and law enforcement are often on opposing sides.
The city and police department still face a lawsuit on the issue.
“This agreement incorporates the bulk of those recommendations, and reflects the types of agreements that have been reached in other communities only after a long, protracted period of investigation and litigation”, said Harvey Grossman, legal director for the ACLU, in a statement. More than 40 more plaintiffs have joined the suit since it was first filed. “I certainly think that it does add a lot of credibility to the lawsuit”, said Antonio Romanucci. At the time, sources within the department told the newspaper that district commanders felt the pressure to have their officers make street stops – and fill out the contact cards – or risk incurring McCarthy’s wrath in front of peers at weekly meetings on CompStat, the department’s data-driven strategy that uses crime statistics and street intelligence to hold police brass accountable for the neighborhoods they oversee.
That information will be given to the ACLU and Keys, who will oversee the agreement’s implementation.
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The agreement also calls for heightened training of officers, designed to ensure that investigatory stops in Chicago are conducted only where there is reasonable suspicion of criminal activity and that protective pat downs are performed only when legally justified. Stop-and-frisk reform ultimately came to NYC, but only after liberal-minded de Blasio was elected and dropped that appeal.
