[in person] 19th Police District Council - Uptown/North Center/Lake View

Criminal Justice

Wednesday, July 3, 2024
8:00 a.m. — 10:00 a.m. CDT

1224 W Wilson Ave, Chicago, Illinois 60640 Chicago, IL 60640 (Directions)

Emerald City Coffee

This is an in-person assignment and will include an additional hour of pay. PLEASE DOUBLE CHECK the meeting details on the day of your assignment, as dates and locations sometimes change.

Pre-Research Resources

City Bureau: “Can the Neighbors We Elect to Police District Councils Redefine Public Safety?”
City Bureau” “Chicago’s New Police District Councils, 4 Months In”
Find My Beat and District: Interactive map of police district boundaries
Chicago Reader/Block Club Chicago: Information about the candidates who ran for this council in the municipal elections
The TRiiBE: “ECPS coalition wins a wide majority of Chicago’s new Police District Council seats”

Reporting

Edited and summarized by the Chicago - IL Documenters Team

Note-taking by Jess Schwalb

Non-police mental health crisis response, Policing at the Pride Parade

View notes

Live reporting by Madeleine Davison

Non-police mental health crisis response, Policing at the Pride Parade

Madeleine Davison @davison_mad

Hi everyone, today I will be live-tweeting Chicago's 19th Police District Council for #CHIdocumenters
@CHIdocumenters

08:11 AM Jul 3, 2024 CDT

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Maurillo Garcia, Jenny Schaffer, and Sam Schoenburg lead the 19th Police District.

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The councilors discuss arrests made the weekend of Pride.

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Schaffer notes that according to unofficial numbers, 53 total arrests were made in the 19th district from 2pm to 5am in the whole district on Saturday-Sunday. Unofficially, there was reportedly one mass arrest with 9 people arrested and 6 charged, allegedly for jumping on cars.

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The councilors discuss proposals to move the Pride parade but note that Northalsted is home to a large LGBTQ community and moving the parade does not make sense.

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Garcia says on Northalsted during the weekend of Pride, there were large numbers of cops in cars and on foot, policing the mostly young people of color out partying during the weekend. "This feels analogous to more cops equals more safety, which we know isn't always true."

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Schoenburg says there does need to be a sense of order. Maurillo says the heavy policing during Pride feels racially motivated. "I hate the only time there are police officers on foot and we can interact with them is in a riot-style standoff," Maurillo says.

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Schafer discusses the concept of "hot spot policing" -- the idea of focusing on particular areas where crimes are thought to be more likely to occur.

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Councilors discuss next steps on the Pride Parade: Schafer would like to have a meeting on hot spot policing to go over the research on its effectiveness. Schafer also advocates for taking feedback on the Pride Parade and getting accurate data on arrests.

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Councilors note that while they were not in on the CPD's plans around preventing a possible mass shooting, after the shooting two years ago at a 4th of July parade in Highland Park, IL, this is a concern for any large public gathering like the Pride Parade.

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Schoenburg says the council's general impression was that there was a "massive wall of officers" not interacting with the community during the night of Pride weekend.

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The council's July 31st meeting will include discussion of using funds for software and other supplies. The District Council has $5,000 allocated for allowable expenditures.

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Charles Isaacs, Assistant Director of the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability, joined the meeting

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Councilors note that the $5,000 budget does not roll over into the next calendar year.

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Schaffer says the council's July 24th meeting will discuss the history of race and policing. Schaffer hopes to educate people and also give them time to reflect and discuss in small groups.

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Romeo Jackson, a scholar and organizer focused on social justice, facilitated a previous council meeting focused on race and policing and is scheduled to facilitate the meeting on July 24 as well.

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Schaffer discuss an upcoming meeting with discussion about the Pretrial Fairness Act on July 31 at 6:30pm -- there will be speakers from different community organizations and opportunities for the public and councilors to ask questions.

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The councilors plan to have representatives of the ACLU, the State's Attorney's Office, and a domestic violence advocacy organization speak about the Pretrial Fairness Act on July 31.

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When the Pretrial Fairness Act went into effect in September 2023, Illinois became the first state in the U.S. to abolish cash bail -- the practice of holding people in jail or prison before their trial unless they can pay a fee (post bail) to be released.

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Read more about the Pretrial Fairness Act here:

pretrialfairness.org

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More information about the Pretrial Fairness Act's implementation in 2023:

blockclubchicago.org/2023/09/18/ill…

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Councilors discuss their use of the organizational software Notion to help streamline their meetings, operations and communication with each other and with constituents.

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Recent coverage of the aftermath of the Highland Park shooting, in which seven people were killed and dozens injured:

wbez.org/criminal-justi…

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Schaffer discusses an upcoming meeting with the Chicago Office of Emergency Management and Communications (OEMC) -- the purpose being to reroute emergency calls to mobile crisis response centers like Thresholds.

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Garcia says many calls to 911 "should not be taken by CPD" and should instead be re-routed to other responders.

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Garcia: how can we refine the OEMC call codes so we can better define when mental health crisis response would be a better response than CPD. How do things get coded as a mental health issue? Current data collection is unclear, Garcia says.

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Block Club Chicago reported that most 911 calls in Chicago in 2022 were not urgent safety issues

blockclubchicago.org/2024/04/01/mos…

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Garcia says 4 out of 324 codes in the OEMC code book are focused on mental health and raises concerns about data collection related to mental health calls.

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Isaacs -- CCPSA wants to ask what types of issues and 911 calls could be shifted away from CPD to other resources.

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Garcia: The 19th district had the 2nd highest number of mental health calls in the entire city. There are nonprofits that can deal with mental health crises rather than CPD. We want to use data to inform what our district needs in terms of emergency response.

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Schaffer: There's an idea of a general safety officer who goes out to a call to see what the need is. How can we expand so police are part of the response system but not the whole system.

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Garcia: When people call OEMC, there are very few options for the dispatcher to choose from. We want to expand those options.

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Garcia: There is a discrepancy between the coding and what we're hearing about mental health calls in our district. Only a small percentage of 911 calls in our district are actually coded as mental health-related.

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Garcia: People might not want to call 911 for a mental health crisis because of fear of violence -- this leads to data discrepancies. Police can only take people to jail or a hospital. There are not enough options for a variety of different situations.

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A recent City Council vote mandates an independent study on how police are spending their time. The 19th district council just received its first quarterly report.

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More information on the council vote:

chicago.suntimes.com/2024/2/5/24062…

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Isaacs: I want to start talking with CCPSA about setting community engagement goals for district councils.

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Isaacs: What are advantages the 19th district happens to have that have set this district council up for success?

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Garcia: We have lots of resources and there are not a ton of high-urgency public safety issues here so we have time to work on long-term planning. We are extremely privileged in that sense.

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Schaffer: A lot of our constituents have 9-5 jobs and are able to attend our meetings. We also have more people to pull from than some other districts.

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Schoenburg: We sign up lots of people on our email list, and over 1,100 people opened our most recent newsletter. We gather lots of data and information at every meeting that we host or attend. We have good relationships with alderpeople and get engagement from them.

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The meeting adjourns at 9:46 am. Read more about the Chicago district councils here:

chicagoreader.com/2023-police-di…

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Attachments

Meeting details

By India Daniels 11/28/2023

Agency Information

Chicago Police District Councils

See meeting notes for details

www.chicago.gov

See Documenters reporting

Each of the 22 District Councils is made up of three people elected by residents of the police district in regular municipal elections every four years, though anyone can participate in District Council work, and the more people who participate, the more effective the District Councils can be. The first District Council elections occurred in February 2023. Just as Chicagoans vote for a mayor and a local ward Alderperson, they also vote for up to three people to serve on the District Council.

The District Councils have several key roles:

Building stronger connections between the police and the community at the district level, where the community is a true partner in making the neighborhood safer. They can work with the police to address problems and set priorities.
Collaborating in the development and implementation of community policing initiatives.
Holding monthly public meetings, where residents can work on local initiatives rooted in community concerns and priorities. They can also raise and work to address concerns about policing in the district, and increase accountability.
Working with the community to get input on police department policies and practices. Working to develop and expand restorative justice and similar programs in the police district.
Ensuring that the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability gets input from the community, so that the Commission’s work will be based on what people in neighborhoods across the city are concerned about.
Nominating members of the Community Commission. Anyone who serves on the Community Commission must first have the support of elected District Council members.

(Source: Municipal Code of Chicago, 2-80-070(a) and (e))

For a map of police districts, visit https://www.chicagocityscape.com/maps/index.php#/?places_type=chipolicedistrict.