Statement on Court Ruling Granting Class Certification in Chicago Traffic Stop Case

On Monday, July 27th, a federal district court in Chicago granted class certification in Wilkins v. City of Chicago, a case seeking an end to the Chicago Police Department’s discriminatory mass traffic stop program. In the ruling, the court found that the Plaintiffs “put forth a substantial amount of evidence demonstrating that CPD disproportionately stops Black and Latino drivers relative to white drivers” and that this disparity results from a uniform CPD policy. That policy includes flooding Black and Latino neighborhoods with pretextual traffic stops, establishing quotas to increase traffic stop numbers, and disproportionately stopping minority drivers in white neighborhoods. In response to the decision, Alexandra Block, Director of the Criminal Legal System and Policing Project at the ACLU of Illinois, issued the following statement:

We are grateful to the court for certifying a class of Black and Latino drivers in the City of Chicago who have been or will be stopped and harassed as part of the Chicago Police Department's mass traffic stop program. We look forward to continuing our work to eliminate the discriminatory mass traffic stop program that has impacted hundreds of thousands of Chicago motorists over the past ten years.