Red-Light Ticket Protesters Say Police Trying to 'Bully' Them

Citizens to Abolish Red Light Cameras will protest the city’s controversial ticketing cameras near various high-profile events on the North Side and the South Side this month.

But the group’s most recent protest, at 119th and Halsted, seemed to irk at least one Chicago Police sergeant, prompting the protesters to accuse the Police Department of political intimidation.

Having demonstrated without incident for two years at various Chicago intersections, the protesters believe the recent publicity generated by theChicago Tribune’s exposé of red-light-camera ticket spikes has put the city on the defensive.

Scott Davis, a member of Citizens to Abolish Red Light Cameras, told DNAInfo Chicago that 25 to 30 protesters stood at the four corners of 119th and Halsted on July 26 with signs and passed out fliers.

The Chicago Tribune identified that corner as one with inexplicable and undeserved sudden ticket spikes.

» Check Your Ticket: Were you undeservedly ticketed? Check your ticket on the Tribune’s database

Ninety minutes into the protest, three police squad cars rolled up and a police sergeant gathered all of the protesters onto one corner and began lecturing them.

Sgt. Herbert Brown Jr. called the signs — some of which identified various aldermen, including Carrie Austin, Howard Brookins and Anthony Beale — as “slanderous.”

“Because all of these slanderous signs — you understand what I’m saying,” Brown can be heard saying on the video. “That’s not what we’re about. This sign about Beales [sic], this sign about the mayor. You have to have a permit to do this.”

At one point, the sergeant takes out his handcuffs and says he’s ready to take a protester to the station. Brown tells the group he doesn’t want them blocking traffic, but the group says it never entered the street or impeded the flow of cars.

“We’ve been demonstrating for two and a half years, and we’ve never had these problems with the police before,” Davis said, adding that police were attempting to “bully” and “politically intimidate” them.

In a review of several years of data, thousands of drivers were fined during wild ticketing spikes “in which some cameras that normally tagged just a few drivers a day suddenly and temporarily issued up to 56 tickets per day,” reported the Tribune.

The city cannot explain the spikes.

City officials continue to avoid questions about the red-light camera revelations, but on Friday the mayor expanded the number of ticketed drivers eligible to have their citations reviewed to 16,000 drivers, the Tribune reported in a follow-up story on Aug. 3.

» Want to Know More? Read about the Inspector General’s probe of the city’s red-light camera program on DNAInfo Chicago