CHICAGO, Sept. 23, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Lead Attorney
on Stop and Frisk Class Action Lawsuit, Antonio Romanucci of Romanucci & Blandin,
cites Donald Trump's comments on
increasing the practice of Stop and Frisk – especially in
Chicago - as uninformed and
potentially dangerous toward mending police and African American
relations in the city.
"Mr. Trump is speaking out on a topic for which he is not only
out-of-touch, but also uninformed on the basic civil liberties of
each and every American," said Romanucci. "His rhetoric on this
subject is offensive to the hard work of reform the ACLU and the
Chicago Police Department have
undertaken," he added. "The efforts to reform this policy and
ensure that stops on Chicago streets meet constitutional and legal
standards, could be jeopardized by Trump's brazen comments."
The complaint filed by Romanucci and Blandin in April of 2015
asserts that the CPD's widespread constitutional abuses have
flourished as a result of, and are directly caused by, policies and
practices devised, implemented, and enforced by the City. These
entities have: (a) failed to properly screen, train, and supervise
CPD officers, (b) inadequately monitored CPD officers and their
stop and frisk practices, (c) failed to sufficiently discipline CPD
officers who engage in constitutional abuses, and (d) encouraged,
sanctioned and failed to rectify the CPD's unconstitutional
practices.
This class action lawsuit to stop the pervasive practice of
unconstitutional stop and frisks in the City of Chicago follows a landmark federal
class action lawsuit filed in 2008 against the City of New York and NYPD (Floyd, et al. v.
City of New York). In August
2013, a federal judge found the NYPD liable for a pattern
and practice of racial profiling and unconstitutional stops and
frisks.
Based on information made publicly available by the CPD, and
recently publicized by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of
Illinois, hundreds of thousands of
people are stopped or stopped and frisked each year by the CPD
without reasonable, articulable suspicion of criminal conduct. In
their March 2015 report investigating the CPD's stop and frisk
practices, the ACLU of Illinois
found:
- In 2012 and 2013, half of the written and recorded 250 stops in
the CPD's records did not provide legally sufficient reasons to
establish reasonable suspicions for stop and frisk.
- During a four-month period of May through August 2014, African-American Chicagoans were
subjected to 72 percent of all stops (though this demographic
constitutes just 32 percent of the city's population).
- From May through August 2014,
more than 250,000 stops—primarily of African-Americans—did not lead
to an arrest; Chicagoans were stopped at a substantially higher
rate than New Yorkers in 2011, which was the peak of NYC's stop and
frisk regime.
- In 2014, there were 93.6 stops in Chicago per 1000 people (between
May-August 2014). By contrast, in
2011, at the height of New York
City's stop and frisk practice, there were 22.9 stops per
1,000 people.
The ACLU report also identified a historical pattern of the
CPD's stop and frisk practice during Terry stops (a brief
detention of a person by police on reasonable suspicion of
involvement in criminal activity but short of probable cause to
arrest). According to the report, in the early 1980s, more than
100,000 residents were stopped and frisked and arrested. However,
these cases almost never resulted in convictions due to arresting
officers not attending court hearings to defend arrests. In the
1990s, a 'gang loitering ordinance' led to more than 40,000 stops
and frisks and arrests during an 18-month period. An ACLU lawsuit
filed on behalf of Olympic gold medalist Shani Davis in the early 2000s, after being
subjected to an unwarranted stop and frisk conducted by the CPD,
resulted in official policy changes by the CPD. However, these
changes have proven futile or insufficient in stopping the practice
of unlawful stops and frisks of minorities protected under Title VI
of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
The plaintiffs seek compensatory damages and judgments against
the City of Chicago and the
Chicago Police Department (CPD),
in addition to an immediate injunction of stop and frisk practices
or a consent decree mandating policy change. The lawsuit is class
action No: 1:15-cv-03467.
Those interested in learning more about the federal case can
call: 1-800-458-9636; email: badstop@rblaw.net; or visit:
www.badstop.org
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SOURCE Romanucci & Blandin, LLC