Chicago city council votes, 27-22, for snap curfew despite youth disapproval, Mayor Johnson to veto
Chicago IL – Youth and community organizers packed the main chambers and the overflow room of City Hall on Wednesday morning, June 18 to speak out against the snap curfew ordinance which would allow the police superintendent to call a curfew with a 30-minute notice before enforcement. Any minors outside after the curfew would be taken into custody and their families forced to pick them up from the police station with the possibility of a $500 fine.
“Curfews don’t create safety. They create opportunities for criminalization, for injustice, for surveillance and trauma, especially for youth like me,” Reynia Jackson, a youth organizer with Good Kids Mad City (GKMC) said at a press conference before the meeting.
The ordinance was sponsored by 2nd Ward Alderman Brian Hopkins in response to the occasional mass gatherings of young Black people downtown, hyperbolically referred to as “teen takeovers” in corporate media.
“This ordinance reminds me of sundown towns, saying Black children can’t be around at certain times. It comes from fear mongering about mass gatherings at a time when the people are protesting in historic numbers,” said Frank Chapman, field organizer of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR).
Chapman went on, “We know from past experience with CPD that it would be used to terrorize Black and brown communities like the Jim Crow legislation it is.”
Half of the public comments spoke against the racist motives of the ordinance and called for the city to invest in the development of youth rather than wasting money on repressing them.
“We don't need a snap curfew. We don't need a $300 million slush fund for CPD. We need proven public safety solutions that work,” Itohan Osaigbovo, a member of CAARPR said during the public comments. Osaigbovo and other public commenters raised the Peace Book, an ordinance initiated by GKMC to provide resources for community programs, as an actual solution to violence at youth gatherings and in the city in general.
Many alderpersons speaking for the snap curfew ordinance referred to it as a “tool” which the police could use for public safety.
“We have to fight for tools like the Peace Book,” said 46th Ward Alderwoman Angela Clay highlighting the hypocrisy of alderpersons like Hopkins, Raymond Lopez and Monique Scott, who are pushing for the curfew but have not supported the Peace Book. During her comments on the ordinance, Clay read letters from high school students who felt targeted by the ordinance as Black children.
28th Ward Alderman Jason Ervin spoke about how the curfew ordinance would give the police even more power to segregate the city. “We don’t need more powers for the police. We need more power for the people!”
After more than an hour of debate, the city council passed the ordinance by a vote of 27-22, seven votes short of a veto-proof majority.
“I will veto this ordinance because it is counterproductive to the progress we have made reducing crime and violence in our city,” Mayor Brandon Johnson stated in a press conference after the meeting. He continued, “it’s unfortunate the number of crime bills that have overwhelmingly led to the criminalization and incarceration of poor people, particularly people of color. It’s important now more than ever that we do not repeat the sins of the past.”