A weekend of downtown revelry tied to Mexican Independence Day turned into a nightmare for downtown residents, who fought their way to designated checkpoints only to be turned away by Chicago police officers.
Downtown Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd) said his inbox was flooded with emails from angry residents. Social media and websites like “Next Door” were filled with complaints from residents who followed all ground rules outlined by Chicago police, but still couldn’t reach their homes in Streeterville, River North or the Loop.
After last year’s gridlock, the city promised to do a better job of “screening downtown residents and medical employees trying to get to their jobs at Northwestern and Lurie Children’s Hospital” and to make it easier for those people to “get through the roadblocks and checkpoints,” Hopkins said.
But it didn’t happen. One resident, turned away from a checkpoint on their way home, said they slept in their car.
“It’s hard to get to those checkpoints. … You have to fight your way through congestion and gridlock. And when you get there and show your ID and the police officer simply says, ‘I don’t care who you are. I’m not gonna let you through,’ you can imagine how angry people are,” Hopkins said.
“It happened last year. We complained about it. It happened the year before. We complained about it. And it happened again. We have to fix this. This is completely unacceptable.”
Hopkins said the Chicago Police Department was “supposed to have ranking officers — sergeants or lieutenants” at every designated checkpoint on a list distributed in advance to local residents and employees.
“I don’t know if that happened. I don’t know if they were properly instructed on how to make these judgments on a one-off basis. I was listening to police radio traffic and there was contradictory information about when people should be allowed through and when they shouldn’t. … It was not clearly communicated. … It was a complete failure,” he said.
Asked to comment on Hopkins’ allegations, CPD and the Office of Emergency Management and Communications released a statement that did not address them.
Street closures “were utilized to alleviate traffic congestion and provide safety measures for residents and first responders in the impacted areas,” and that plans for possible closures were announced before the weekend, “as well as access points for entry for those living and working within the closures.”
Downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly was more complimentary.
“We received a handful of complaints from constituents who had difficulty” getting through police checkpoints, he said in an email to the Sun-Times.
“It is also worth mentioning that we received a handful of calls complimenting CPD for their good work this weekend. Given the challenges associated with managing dozens of hundred-plus car caravans across the city and CPD’s limited resources, I think they did an excellent job.”
Reilly said one problem at checkpoints may have been that CPD was relying on officers who don’t usually work downtown events and “are less familiar with protocols,” so some residents “unfortunately” were denied access to their homes.
Hopkins acknowledged some things worked to well too mitigate downtown congestion.
With police helicopters and surveillance cameras monitoring their movements, some car caravans that descended on downtown Chicago were “forced onto the outbound expressway system in the way that they couldn’t turn around” and re-circulate.
“We were able to determine where the large pockets of car caravans were and to effectively close off their options to keep driving randomly through the downtown district, channel them onto the outbound expressway system, then close off the exits,” Hopkins said.
That really helped reduce the number of active car caravans at any given time. It didn’t eliminate it. There were still enough of them to cause chaos and gridlock. But we definitely reduce the number and we reduced the length of time that downtown was under control.”
As for the El Grito Chicago festival in Grant Park, Hopkins said it both helped and hurt.
It reduced the number of caravans, but when the festival ended at 10 p.m., there was a “significant spike” in caravans in the Loop. Festival-goers who “didn’t want to go home” opted instead to “flood the streets,” said Hopkins, chair of the City Council’s Public Safety Committee.
The city must decide whether to continue El Grito as it grapples with finding “a better way to manage this,” he said.
But some problems are “unsolvable,” Hopkins added. There’s only so much to be done, for instance, when 15,000 to 20,000 vehicles converge on downtown — some from the suburbs and collar counties — with the “intention of driving around in random patterns for hours.
“Once those vehicles arrive, you’ve got chaos and gridlock. It’s just inevitable. And that’s what happened,” he said. “And we haven’t figured out a way to stop these caravans from coming downtown.”
Mayor Brandon Johnson deemed the overall approach a success.
Before he took office, “there were a lot of concerns and anxiety around the safety of the celebration. Since I’ve been in office, we have put forth measures to have a safe, vibrant celebration,” he told reporters Monday. “It’s clear we have turned the page from how these celebrations have occurred before.”
Contributing: Tessa Weinberg