An Aug. 8 forum questioned Chicago Police Department's use of "stop and frisk" tactics, wherein officers detain individuals they suspect of criminal activity and search them for weapons.
Some elected officials and policy advocates have called for an aggressive expansion of stop and frisk in order to quell the number of murders in the city. Such an explicit policy has been in place in New York City, but on Aug. 12 it was ruled unconstitutional by a federal judge.
Even without an official policy in Chicago, however, participants in the discussion, held at the Arts Incubator, 301 E. Garfield Blvd., described police actions that left them feeling both bullied and annoyed by the prospect of being randomly stopped by CPD officers. They maintained that Chicagoans of color are largely detained and searched on the basis of their race, not reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing.
Aisha Truss-Miller of Affinity Community Services described two occasions when she was stopped and frisked by CPD. The first occurred on the North Side, when she and a white friend were walking to Target and took a shortcut near a CHA facility. A police officer, suspecting a drug deal, demanded to see lease papers. When they could offer no proof as to why they were there, they were detained for several hours. Truss had to appear in court twice in order to be cleared of any wrongdoing.
Truss-Miller's second stop took place on the South Side, on her birthday. A man in a passing car stopped her to ask for directions. Then, suddenly, "The police swarmed down on me like I was making a bomb in the middle of the street."
She was dressed to go out, so the officer insinuated that she was a sex worker. He repeatedly asked her, "You know what you look like?" She was let go after he found a U-Pass CTA card, indicating that she was a college student.
Karen Sheley of ACLU of Illinois said that police officers usually have higher "hits"—finding evidence of wrongdoing—when white suspects, with whom they are likely to be more diligent, are stopped. When persons of color are stopped, the rate of successful hits drops down to 12 percent.
ACLU used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain arrest records and try to redact an estimate of how many stops led to arrests in Chicago, Sheley added. "It's hard to analyze how often it is done—because no separate records exists, we can't tell how well it works."
Not finding anything on your person is no guarantee of an apology or even respectful treatment from the officer, said Jasmine Davis of First Defense Legal Aid. Oftentimes they will just get more agitated.
"If you're a police officer, and if you don't find anything, it should be the highlight of your day," said Davis.
Andrea Ritchie, a New York City attorney and organizer, described how excessive stops there led to protests and pushback from the community. Andy Thayer of Gay Liberation Network said that Chicagoans so often are incapable of effectively building coalitions to challenge the police because, "In this town, people are afraid to take on City Hall."
"That may be true, but I would encourage you look beyond that—remember, we have a billionaire mayor," said Ritchie. "It's about the strength of a coalition. It's not an incorrupt system in New York."
Davis found the police tactics analogous to those of gangs. "Guys standing out on streets will stop you and do what they call 'checking' you—they ask who you are and where you're from too."
Stop and frisk, she said, adds to fear and suspicion that many people of color have of the police. "It just separates the police from the community."
Truss-Miller said that "quality of life" policing—the current justification for stop and frisk—is a new incarnation of laws that have already been determined to be unjust. "In the 1980s, we had 'disorderly conduct,' then in the 1990s, we had 'gang ordinances'—this is the same thing."
