Chicago’s police superintendent and a top mayoral aide would be empowered to impose three-hour-long snap curfews anywhere in the city under a newly revised curfew ordinance that still raises major constitutional concerns.
With 31 co-sponsors, downtown Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd) plans to push the compromise through the City Council’s Committee on Public Safety he chairs in hopes of preventing large groups of young people summoned by social media from assembling downtown with violent consequences. The gatherings have become known as “teen takeovers.”
The committee vote is expected Wednesday despite Mayor Brandon Johnson’s stiff opposition.
“I’m calling on City Council members not to have knee-jerk reactions,” Johnson said in an interview with WBEZ. “My approach toward leadership is to make sure that we’re thoughtful in all the decisions that we make … to come up with solutions that don’t leave us vulnerable to legal challenges.
“There are still concerns I have about whether or not this, 1) solves anything; 2) that it can stand the test of a legal challenge.”
Sheila Bedi, a clinical law professor at Northwestern University, warned that lawsuits are imminent if the revised proposal passes.
“The city should definitely anticipate litigation being filed over this proposal,” she said. “I’ve heard no amendments that would suggest that any of the constitutional issues have been redressed.”
The latest version makes several major changes:
- Instead of dispersing the power to impose an immediate, or “snap,” curfew to Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling and all 22 of his district commanders, Snelling alone would have that authority, provided there is consent from Garien Gatewood, deputy mayor for community safety, or his designee. Snap curfews could be declared with a 30-minute warning to disperse “mass gatherings” defined as “20 or more people in a public place for the purpose of engaging in or that is likely to result in” criminal conduct or poses an “unreasonable risk to public health safety or welfare.”
- Snap curfews would automatically end after three hours “unless the superintendent and deputy mayor jointly determine that there is probable cause to warrant an extension.”
- The so-called “defenses” section of the ordinance would be beefed up to spell out in greater detail the circumstances under which minors under 18 would have the First Amendment right to assemble without violating the snap curfew. Those exceptions would include teens running an errand for their parents, attending an official school or recreational activity or protest, or going to or from a concert or other ticketed event.
- The evidence required to trigger a snap curfew would be spelled out to include “social media posts, written materials such as flyers, or a history of mass gatherings promoted for a particular place, by a particular promoter, or on a recurring basis.”
The requirement that the mayor’s office sign off on curfew determinations would “hopefully create some checks and balances,” Bedi said.
But Bedi, and groups including the ACLU of Illinois and the National Lawyers Guild, still say the measure demonizes young people and violates the First Amendment right to assemble in a way that could invite costly legal challenges.
“The problem is declaring a curfew in the moment,” said Amanda Yarusso, a civil rights attorney and member of the National Lawyers Guild. “As well as the fact that it’s in anticipation of some sort of, not even criminal activity, but anything that’s likely to ‘present or cause an unreasonable risk to public health, safety and welfare.’ It’s just way too vague and broad and open to interpretation in a way that runs afoul of the Constitution.”
Bedi added the curfew proposal, pushed by proponents as a preventive tool, does not “take into account the psychology of teenagers,” noting research that shows curfews are “ineffective at reducing crime and victimization.”
“The idea that the superintendent’s decision to impose a curfew is then going to get effectively communicated to teenagers and then they’re going to stay home just seems like a really flawed logic model, and it’s impossible to imagine how the snap curfew wouldn’t result in arrests,” Bedi said.
Johnson is equally “unequivocal” in his opposition to curfews, having successfully prevented two out of three teen takeovers a few weekends ago. His office has thwarted teen takeovers by sending out crisis response workers to help intervene in conflicts as they arise, contacting organizers ahead of time and enlisting Chicago Public Schools to do outreach and discourage the takeovers, Gatewood told WBEZ.
The mayor has said that “criminalizing young people” by sweeping them off the streets will “not serve as a deterrent” to so-called teen takeovers and that only investing in young people will do that.
“When these occurrences happen, everybody is willing to sign on to a measure that has proven not to work,” Johnson said. “And the things that do work, no one signs on to. And I shouldn’t say no one, but you get my point that you don’t see that same energy calling for the things that do work versus for the things that have proven not to.”
Hours earlier, Johnson’s deputy mayor for external affairs, Kennedy Bartley, said the mayor had no intention to veto the ordinance because it has “well over” enough votes to pass the City Council and survive a mayoral veto. She added that the mayor needs all the support he can get in what’s expected to be another bruising budget season ahead.
But later, the mayor left the door open to a potential veto.
“As far as any sort of executive actions I’m going to take, I haven’t made any determination, because nothing has happened yet,” he said.
Hopkins said he has 32 co-sponsors for the revised compromise, with two more colleagues leaning that way. That would give him 35 votes, including his own, one more than he needs for a veto-proof majority.
Whether or not he gets that support, Hopkins said it would be a mistake politically for Johnson to provoke “yet another battle with the City Council.
“It would be ShotSpotter all over again,” Hopkins said, referring to the gunshot detection technology contract that Johnson ended, defying a City Council order. “I don’t think that’s good for him, or for us, or for anybody. … It’s better for the executive to yield to the legislative majority than to constantly be drawing battle lines.”
The curfew compromise is co-sponsored by two of Johnson’s most powerful City Council allies: Finance Chair Pat Dowell (3rd) and Budget Chair Jason Ervin (28th).
Ervin was particularly pleased with the decision to strip the curfew declaration power away from the 22 Chicago police district commanders.
“Centralizing it creates a single standard. That way, there’s not the arbitrary nature of the way it could potentially be applied if you’ve got 22 different people using 22 different standards,” Ervin said.
“Even though the rules on paper may be the same, we’re talking about people, and people make different decisions even given the same set of facts.”
Sun-Times and WBEZ reporting on proposals to implement or expand a curfew for minors in downtown Chicago.
