Traffic Stops of Minorities Not Racially Motivated: POLICE CHIEF

EVERGREEN PARK, IL -- The Evergreen Park police chief denies that his officers are engaged in racially biased traffic stops in response to an investigative report -- “Is White Suburb A Traffic Trap for Minorities” -- that aired earlier this week CBS 2 Chicago. Data submitted to the Illinois Department of Transportation over a four-year period showed a “startling divide” between the number of white and black motorists who are pulled over by police in the predominantly white suburb, according to the TV station. Evergreen Park Police Chief Michael Saunders, who denied a request from CBS 2 for an on-camera interview, called the news report another attempt to “demonize police.”

“Unlike a news reporter, my job is not to sell stories,” Saunders said in an email to Patch. “It is to provide safety in a professional and unbiased manner. I am accountable to this village, its elected officials and the public in general … as well as to the Criminal Justice System.”

A state senate bill co-sponsored by then-Illinois State Senator Barack Obama and signed into law in 2003, requires law enforcement agencies throughout the state to record the ethnicity of motorists to identify possible racial bias. CBS 2 News investigative report Brad Edwards maintained that of the 94,000 traffic stops conducted by Evergreen Park police between 2012 and 2016, 67 percent involved minority drivers. The suburb has a population of 20,000, 74 percent of whom are white.

Similar disparities existed in 2015 (66-percent minority vs. 34-percent white), 2014 (66-percent minority vs. 34-percent white), 2013 (69-percent minority vs 31-white white), and 2012 (69- minority vs. 31-percent white), the TV station said. The investigative news team also watched Evergreen Park police stop 16 motorists the day of their report; 13 drivers were minorities.

In a written statement Saunders provided to the CBS 2 News and shared with Patch, the police chief said his department “adheres to state law and its requirements when reporting the required information on each traffic stop” including recording “the race of each driver stopped.”

The chief also noted that the village is bounded on three sides by Chicago, which Saunders said accounts for much of the traffic passing through Evergreen Park.

“As a result of this great influx of vehicular traffic, a greater degree of traffic violators are discovered and the traffic arrests are sometimes complicated with the discovery of other criminal violations including, but not limited to criminal warrants, transport and possession of narcotics, weapons, shoplifters to name a few.”

The executive director of Northwestern University Center for Public Safety told CBS 2 News that the traffic stop data reported by the Evergreen Park Police Department to IDOT “isn’t necessarily a red flag.”

“The number itself is not an indication that an agency is engaged in bias-based enforcement,” said executive director David Bradford.

The estimated minority driving population through the village is 64 percent, a 3-percent difference of traffic stops involving minority drivers from 2012 to 2016, according to information the police provided to the TV station. Saunders also added that Evergreen Park officers wear body cameras and that there are recording devices in marked patrol cars allowing police “to be honest and transparent in this approach.” The police chief also took to task CBS 2's violent headlines leading into the story about Evergreen Park’s traffic stops.

“We don't wish to make the news, and we certainly don't desire to see headlines of innocent victims' suffering from Criminal Acts without maintaining a great will and effort to reduce or avoid these extremely violent crimes that are initiated by violent criminals," Saunders said.

“We welcome all people into this community without prejudice or biased traffic stops with the sole purpose to uphold the law to protect everyone,” the chief added.