Chicago police Supt. Larry Snelling would be empowered to declare a four-hour curfew anywhere in the city with 12 hours notice under a revised crackdown proposed Wednesday that’s tailor-made to avert another mayoral veto.
Downtown Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd) is trying again to strengthen Chicago’s curfew ordinance to stop a repeat of the teen takeover that became violent and culminated in last month’s deadly shooting after Chicago’s annual Christmas tree-lighting ceremony in Millennium Park. A 14-year-old was killed, and eight other teens were wounded in the shooting.
Instead of empowering Snelling to declare “snap curfews” with 30 minutes notice, Hopkins is lengthening the lead time to “not less than 12 hours prior to the start time” of a curfew, and requiring the police to announce a “predetermined expiration time” of no more than four hours from the start of the curfew.
Only then would Chicago police officers be authorized to disperse mass gatherings — of 20 or more people — that Snelling deems “likely to result in substantial harm to the safety” of others, “substantial damage to property” or “substantial injuries.” Those who refuse the dispersal order could be arrested.
Before issuing the 12-hour notice for a temporary curfew at a specific location, Snelling would have to consult Deputy Mayor for Community Safety Garien Gatewood and jointly determine that there is “probable cause to believe that a mass gathering will occur.”
The ordinance states that “data supporting a curfew declaration” could include social media posts, flyers and other written materials or a “history of mass gatherings promoted for a particular place by a particular promoter or on a recurring basis.” Signs would be posted in the designated area whenever possible. Ten minutes notice would be given before arrests are made.
Hopkins said his earlier snap curfew ordinance was vetoed by the mayor “based on concerns about the immediacy of it.”
“We don’t need a snap curfew,” Hopkins said. “We can make a decision based on what the social media chatter is, and we have more than twelve hours notice to plan for and announce it. It was a strategic mistake that I made to insist on having that snap curfew when the superintendent said he wouldn’t need it.”
On the day he vetoed the snap curfew ordinance, Johnson said giving police officers the authority to sweep young people off the streets would invite “costly lawsuits” and endanger efforts to rebuild trust between citizens and police needed to solve violent crime.
“The easy thing to do would be to play into the political theater of safety,” the mayor said then. “The easy thing to do would be to tell people that, if we threaten young people and families with severe repercussions that that somehow would make us safer.”
Hopkins said the new version “solves all of the concerns the mayor had. His justification for the veto is no longer valid.”
“I hope he will not veto it. I don’t think he will,” said Hopkins, who chairs the City Council’s Committee on Public Safety.
Gatewood refused to comment on the new ordinance, saying he hadn’t seen it. The measure was referred to the Rules Committee, where legislation opposed by the mayor is routinely sent in an attempt to bury it.
Word of last month’s violent teen takeover had circulated on social media days before the tree lighting ceremony. Chicago Public Schools warned parents to tell their teens to stay away from the event if they were going to be unsupervised.
The city deployed 700 additional police officers for the ceremony, along with community violence intervention workers, “but clearly what we put in place did not do enough to prevent what we were concerned about from actually manifesting,” Johnson said then.
Hopkins acknowledged that 12 hours notice would give teen takeover organizers time to change the time and place of their gatherings while playing “cat-and-mouse” with police.
“Kids will be kids. This is not perfect. But there’s already some talk about New Year’s Eve. It’s no longer only in the summer months. It’s happening year-round. We have to do everything we can to stop it,” Hopkins said.
“The event that happened after the Christmas tree lighting where the 14-year-old was shot and killed, we started enforcing the curfew at 10 p.m. Police moved in and immediately made 18 curfew apprehensions. That had an immediate effect on the crowd. Had we been able to enforce curfew earlier that day, it could have prevented a fatal shooting.”
Hopkins also joined mayoral ally William Hall (6th) in introducing an ordinance that would mandate that social media companies notified by the city remove notification of “unlawful teen gatherings,” provide the city with a written explanation of why they won’t remove those notices, or face $50,000 fines.
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