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1
HOUSE RESOLUTION

 
2    WHEREAS, In the past year, the nation's attention has
3turned to police practices because of high profile killings,
4including Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, Tamir Rice in
5Ohio, and Eric Garner in New York; and
 
6    WHEREAS, Concerns about policing extend beyond the use of
7force and into the everyday interactions of police with
8community members; and
 
9    WHEREAS, In African-American and Latino communities,
10everyday interactions with police often result in a "stop and
11frisk"; and
 
12    WHEREAS, Under the United States Supreme Court decision in
13Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968), an officer is allowed to stop
14a person if the officer has reasonable suspicion that the
15person has been, is, or is about to be engaged in criminal
16activity; once a person is stopped, if an officer has
17reasonable suspicion that the person is dangerous and has a
18weapon, the officer may frisk the person including ordering him
19or her to put his or her hands on a wall or car, and allowing
20the officer to frisk the person's body to determine if a weapon
21is being carried; and
 

 

 

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1    WHEREAS, This experience is often invasive, humiliating,
2and disturbing; and
 
3    WHEREAS, Many police departments have failed to adequately
4train, supervise, and monitor law enforcement in minority
5communities for decades, resulting in a failure to ensure that
6officers' use of stop and frisk is lawful; and
 
7    WHEREAS, A report by the American Civil Liberties Union of
8Chicago found that the Chicago Police Department has a current
9practice of unlawfully using stop and frisk: "Although officers
10are required to write down the reason for stops, in nearly half
11of the stops we reviewed, officers either gave an unlawful
12reason for the stop or failed to provide enough information to
13justify the stop."; and
 
14    WHEREAS, The report states that "stop and frisk" in Chicago
15is disproportionately concentrated in the African-American
16community comprising 72% of all stops, even though
17African-Americans constitute just 32% of the city's population
18and in majority white police districts, minorities were stopped
19disproportionately to the number of minority people living in
20those districts; and this failure to properly record data makes
21it impossible for police supervisors, or the public, to
22identify bad practices and make policy changes to address them;
23the abuse of stop and frisk is a violation of individual

 

 

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1rights, but it also poisons police and community relations; and
 
2    WHEREAS, In Chicago, there were more than 250,000 stops
3that did not lead to an arrest; Chicagoans were stopped more
4than 4 times as often as New Yorkers at the height of New York
5City's stop and frisk practice; and
 
6    WHEREAS, Chicago refuses to keep adequate data about its
7officers' stops; officers do not identify stops that result in
8an arrest or ordinance violation, and they do not keep any data
9on when they frisk someone; therefore, be it
 
10    RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE
11NINETY-NINTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that
12the House urges the General Assembly to pass legislation that
13adopts the recommendations of the American Civil Liberties
14Union of Chicago as follows:
15        (1) require police departments to collect data on each
16    frisk, record the frisk, the reason for the frisk (which
17    must be separate from the reasons for the stop), and the
18    results of the search such as whether there was a weapon or
19    other contraband and if so, what type and make the data
20    public;
21        (2) expand and make permanent the Illinois Traffic Stop
22    Statistical Study Act;
23        (3) require police departments to collect data on all

 

 

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1    stops and make the data public;
2        (4) require police officers to receive regular
3    training on the legal requirements for stop and frisk and
4    how to record them properly; and
5        (5) require that police officers provide civilians
6    with a receipt at the end of pedestrian stops, traffic
7    stops, and consensual encounters stating the officer's
8    name, the time and place of the encounter, and the reason
9    for the encounter.