Ex-Riverside Chief Opposes Oak Park Effort To Limit So-Called 'Pretextual' Stops

This is a July 28 letter from former Riverside Police Chief Tom Wetzel to Oak Park officials:

I am writing as a Fellow of Law Enforcement at Awake Illinois to strongly oppose the Village's effort to limit so-called "pretextual" traffic stops, as well as the events surrounding the July 14 board meeting. The precedent your Board is about to establish will not stay limited to your village – it will be closely watched by every municipality in Illinois considering similar measures, which is why I felt compelled to reach out.

There is no legal concept of a "potential" or improper traffic stop when an officer has legal grounds to make one. The U.S. Supreme Court clarified this in Whren v. United States (1996), ruling that a traffic stop is lawful so long as an officer has probable cause to believe a traffic violation has occurred, regardless of the officer's underlying motive. What some now call "pretextual" stops is, in reality, routine, court-approved investigative police work – a tool officers use daily to intercept illegal weapons, drugs, and wanted individuals before more serious crimes happen.

I recognize that this proposal comes after the tragic death of Christian Wallace on May 31. I do not take that loss lightly and understand the community's grief. However, the released footage clearly tells a different story: Wallace was lawfully stopped for a traffic violation, and during a pat-down, he was found to be carrying a concealed handgun with a defaced serial number – a well-known sign of a stolen or illegally trafficked firearm – and a roughly 70-second struggle for the weapon followed before the officer, who was seriously injured and required medical leave, fired. This was not reckless policing. It was an officer trying to survive an encounter he could not have foreseen when he initiated a stop for a minor moving violation. If this is being used as a reason to ban proactive stops across the village, the Board is taking the wrong lesson from it.

I was also deeply troubled by the Board's decision to adjourn the July 14 meeting so that the Village President and trustees could join a walkout and a moment of silence in support of a narrative that, to many observers, appears to show sympathy for the individual involved rather than for the officer who was injured while doing his job. Whatever the intention, the optics were clear, and they conveyed a message to your police department about where this Board's loyalties lie.

If Oak Park proceeds and becomes the first Illinois municipality to officially ban these stops, I believe the consequences will be severe and long-lasting.

Morale within the department will decline immediately. Officers who already feel unsupported will experience it even more.

Recruitment will become more difficult in a state that, in my professional opinion, is already the hardest place to be a police officer, due to how unfriendly our state legislature has been toward law enforcement.

Retention will decrease. Few officers will want to pursue a career in a village where its elected leaders walked out of their chambers rather than participate in a discussion supporting one of their own.

Crime will increase as a direct and predictable result of officers losing a legitimate, court-approved tool for proactive policing.

You are elected officials whose primary responsibility is public safety. I understand the pressure you face from activists and Cook County officials who, in various ways, have used the threat of blocking the new police station or targeting department leadership as leverage. However, I ask you to consider who bears the cost when this policy fails: not the activists, not the county officials, but the residents you serve and the officers you are elected to support.

I urge the Board to rescind its consideration of this ordinance and instead reaffirm support for the Oak Park Police Department and the men and women who serve there.