Justice Is the Boulder We Push
Community Renewal Society (CRS) and our member congregation, Urban Village Church, Wicker-Park, co-hosted a virtual gathering on October 23 titled Stop Stopping Us: A CRS Teach-In to End Pretextual Traffic Stops. This online meeting led by CRS Organizing and Policy Associate Brian Young Jr. set out to educate our network on the battle to end pretextual traffic stops in Chicago and empower folks to mobilize because, as asserted before, when we fight, we win.
There is only so much we can feel together while being separated by the electric screen; however, we uplift the urgency of passing legislation that mandates police accountability at our chest with the knowledge that reform would save the lives of loved ones and protect Black and Brown communities harmed by this unjust policing practice. What we would like to say is: We will not wait. Justice is a boulder on a hill that moves by the collective push of the people.
City-Wide Campaign to End Pretextual Traffic Stops
The movement to end pretextual stops emerged organically from a Chicago community long exhausted by police brutality and state-sanctioned violence. This past spring, it felt as if a rock the size of an anvil was dropped on our back, weighing down an already heavy history of injustice. We were outraged, heartbroken, and disgusted by the gut-wrenching video of a young Black man gunned down in his car — 96 shots fired at him by planned clothes officers from the Chicago Police Department, known as tact teams or, more commonly, “The Jump Out Boys.” This tragedy has only strengthened our resolve to put an end to pretextual traffic stops and protect our communities from further harm.
After the senseless killing of Dexter Reed, Chicagoans hit the streets with devastation and determination. As a steering committee partner of the Free2Move (F2M) Coalition, CRS made advancing the F2M Coalition’s 3-point policy platform our duty. For months, we canvassed and tabled in the districts most impacted by pretextual traffic stops, and by speaking to our Beloved Community, were given front-line testimonies:
“They pull me over [routinely] for no reason,” protested a Latino man in the 25th district as he spoke to us about his wrongful arrest while pointing down at his ankle monitor.
“They [police] don’t care about taking us out,” testified a Black mother in the 10th district as she spoke with indignation about her son being pulled over. “What happened to the child [Dexter Reed] could’ve been any of our children.”
The chilling statements above are just a couple of the voices who desire an end to pretextual traffic stops. Their messages are elevated in the following comment by a community member with an ankle monitor: “Something needs to be done. I’m glad someone is out here trying to get rid of it [pretextual traffic stops].”
Where is the campaign today?
As a result of collecting over 2,400 petition signatures from the masses, CRS and the F2M Coalition won a public hearing with the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability (CCPSA), a group democratically created by the people shown through the historic Empowering Communities for Public Safety ordinance passed in 2021.
1. We know the Chicago community wants and needs an end to pretextual traffic stops.
2. We know that we have to push this boulder.
The process to legislate an end to pretextual traffic stops continues with enforcement of the 2019 Consent Decree. CRS and our coalition partners have to continue to push the CCPSA, Office of the Illinois Attorney General, and City of Chicago Law Department. We must demand, through our action and rhetoric, that pretextual traffic stops are abolished by way of the 3-point policy platform suggested by the F2M Coalition. CRS urges our member congregations and you to get involved in the campaign to end pretextual traffic stops and be agents of change.
Join us in this critical work by signing up to both attend and give written or verbal testimony on pretextual traffic stops at the next monthly meeting of the CCPSA on October 30 at 6:30 PM CT. CRS will be there to support you! If you cannot attend in-person at Kennedy-King College, please register to participate via Zoom.
Justice Is the Boulder We Push
During our teach-in, CRS explained the necessity of police accountability legislation and answered questions from those who tuned in to learn about the dangers of pretextual traffic stops. And it is here that we, as people of faith and goodwill, should remember the boulder. Does anyone remember the lofty task of Sisyphus? The eternal damnation on his person? Through our activism and power, we flip this. If the boulder is justice and we should push it up the hill, we do it together, or not at all. Sisyphus, being eternally damned for a futile mission, was alone. Even after our online meetings, advocacy in the streets of Chicago, presence at CCPSA public hearings, and success garnering petition signatures, the boulder we push up the hill will be a challenge. But be it as we are called to stand in the midst with unity amongst each other, our task is the antithesis of Sisyphus — we make justice through our collective action.
Let us reassert our opposition to Sisyphean individuality. Together, we raise our struggle to what it truly is: righteous. Let us end pretextual traffic stops.