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1/ In my latest investigation, we did a deep dive into the city’s crime-related seizure cases. We found that the program generated more than a half-billion dollars in debt due to policy missteps and even computer errors. https://www.wbez.org/stories/chicago-police-impounded-250000-vehicles-since-2010-heres-why-city-halls-rethinking-that/a085f94b-4a87-437b-837a-d5b4501a9168
2/ @chicagosmayor has a reform package (that will be in committee today) that would address many of these issues including capping storage fees, and eliminating offenses such as playing music too loud.. or littering
3/ Yes, Chicago impounds cars for littering, and the impound cases are enforced in mostly Black neighborhoods.
4/ I’ve encountered so many people that had outrageously high collections. For 2 years, I’ve tried to dig into this part of it after a mother sent me her son’s collection documents, where he owed the city nearly $10,000 for a weed arrest.
5/ Some of these issues were first raised by @cjciaramella of the @reason magazine in 2018, where he followed the case of one mechanic who had been trying for months to get his car and his tools back from one of these seizures. https://reason.com/2018/04/25/chicago-debt-impound-cars-innocent/
6/ Utilizing data from the police, and the departments of Streets & Sanitation, Finance, and Administrative Hearings, @WBEZ found that roughly 1,600 people owed fines greater than $10,000, and more than 32,000 people owed fines greater than $5,000.
7/ I was trying to find out why these cases owed so much money. I found one case with fines over $100,000. After back-and-forth with the city for months, I found a few culprits. The first was a 2011 push to increase fines to $1,000 under Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s first budget.
8/ The second was in September of 2014, officials seeking to offset the impound costs, raised storage fee caps, which used to be $610. Overnight, storage fees shot up to the thousands. I cannot explain the shock of seeing a number jump by sorting a spreadsheet by date.
9/ the raising of the caps exacerbated pre-existing problems with the whole system. Officials indicated that due to either computer or human error, many vehicles didn’t have release dates, causing fees to balloon to tens of thousands. In some cases, even after the car was sold.
10/ There were many responsible for the program going off the rails, including alderman, who for decades used the impound program to toss ever more reasons for the police to seize a vehicle. Even when the city decriminalized weed in 2012, police continued to make car arrests.
11/ The policy that had the most devastating effect was a 2010 ordinance to automatically impound for driving on a suspended license. While touted as a safety measure, it did not take into account the those with ticket debt…
12/ For those of you have been following, then Mayor Emanuel had raised a slew of parking tickets fines, implemented speed and red-light cameras, which caused license suspensions (and bankruptcies) to explode. https://www.propublica.org/series/driven-into-debt
13/ The policies had the effect of literally creating the conditions to label people criminals. Overpoliced neighborhoods were soaked in tickets, their licenses suspended, and then those trying to drive still were arrested.
14/ Suspensions were such a big problem that @GovPritzker signed legislation this year to reinstate licenses if the cause was parking tickets. About 75,000 got them back, with 55,000 in Chicago alone. https://www.wbez.org/stories/illinois-governor-pritzker-signs-law-ending-license-suspensions-for-parking-tickets/5da945db-08a0-4690-9a04-8f5f2f9c5904
15/ @chicagosmayor did a similar reform before that and revamped payment plans and debt forgiveness programs https://www.wbez.org/stories/chicago-launches-ticket-debt-forgiveness-website-new-payment-plans/413a5b2a-dc63-443c-ba4b-00b19e6c660d
16/ But the debt from vehicle seizure cases weren’t addressed until now. The city has now halted collection on all VIP cases until a full-scale review can re-assess overcharges in fines.
17/ A big finding was that CPD would be initiate these seizures for a municipal violation, while not bothering to process them for criminal charges since @SAKimFoxx said most of the suspensions stemmed from ticket debt. I FOIA’d citations for driving on a suspended license...
18/ One thing to note is that police are not required to take demographic data on municipal violations, only arrests, stop and frisks, or records on the state’s traffic study, which ACLU said showed an massive hike in vehicle stops as stop&frisks dropped. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/breaking/ct-met-chicago-police-traffic-stops-20190111-story.html
19/ But if you happen to have FOIA’d both the IL traffic study database and citations for driving on a suspended license (I did), then you can figure out some glimpse into who is getting arrested for it. About 65-70% were Black, a quarter Hispanic
20/ The 2017 DOJ report said that cops in specialized units were told to make car stops to stop drive-by shootings, but didn’t discuss whether or not the tactic was effective or damaging https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6987477-Chicago-Police-Department-Findings.html
21/ The city uses administrative hearings, which are not criminal courts, but a lawyer hired by the city to handle parking tickets, is also deciding whether someone was liable in a narcotics or license suspension arrest.
22/ Another troubling find with the Administrative Hearings for vehicle impounds: 50% of all cases were found automatically liable for failure to request a hearing. Another 40% were found not liable, and only 10% were liable when they actually got a hearing.
23/ It’s easy for some to think of this as just a towing thing, but it’s not. These cases were initiated by police who stopped vehicles in increasing scope recently. The audit controls are nearly non-existent from policing, to hearings, to the billing.
24/ While it’s easy for some to see this is for-profit misdemeanor system. It’s worth noting that these policies encourage increased, aggressive style policing, of which the Supt. Brown has indicated revising with specialized units.
25/ While writing, @ANatapoff's interview kept ringing in my ears: “Eric Garner was arrested for a misdemeanor. George Floyd was arrested for a misdemeanor. Philando Castile was stopped for a traffic offense.”
"All of these incidents begin with the state's ability to stop people for minor conduct in which many people might engage.”
