The civilian panel that oversees the Chicago Police Department is pressing ahead with plans to limit the kinds of traffic stops officers can make, even though its own polling found most Chicagoans do not want restrictions.
The Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability (CCPSA), which develops CPD policies, is weighing proposals to scale back “pretextual stops,” when officers pull drivers over for minor infractions as a way to investigate more serious crimes. The U.S. Supreme Court has said for decades that such stops are legal, but commissioners have made clear they want to curb their use in Chicago.
Whatever CCPSA decides, the rules will not touch other agencies patrolling city streets. Cook County sheriff’s officers, for example, are still pulling over cars in Chicago, and those stops keep leading to guns and felony charges.
On September 14, deputies stopped a man in River North for driving with an expired registration. They ended up arresting the driver, 40-year-old Terrell Washington, who served a 16-year sentence for murder in 2004. Why? Because, according to the sheriff’s office, he had a loaded handgun in the car. Judge Antara Rivera ordered him detained.
Five days later, deputies stopped a Chevrolet Impala with expired tags in the 1700 block of South State. The driver, Jason Harden, allegedly had a loaded gun in the car, too, but Judge Rivanda Doss Beal denied prosecutors’ request to keep him locked up. Harden was released pending trial.
For now, CPD is still conducting traffic stops and they have been fruitful, too.
On September 20, officers spotted a car parked in a fire lane in the 3700 block of South Wells Street. When they tried to pull the driver over, he sped off, running red lights. Out of safety concerns, cops called off the chase, but tracked him through the city’s surveillance camera network until the car returned to the same block. Officers arrested 39-year-old Walter Diggs as he walked away from the vehicle. They found a handgun with a machine gun conversion device and a drum magazine inside the car, prosecutors said.
According to Illinois Department of Corrections records, Diggs is on parole for a stolen vehicle case and has prior convictions for burglary and possessing yet another stolen car. Judge Shauna Boliker ordered him detained on charges that include possessing a machine gun and aggravated fleeing.
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