Most stops that Chicago police officers made during the first half of 2016 appeared to be by the book, said a long-awaited report released Friday by retired federal magistrate judge Arlander Keys, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Keys found what he termed a “good stop rate” of about 90 percent of the stops that he and his researchers reviewed. “This good stop rate, in isolation, certainly represents an excellent start by the [Chicago Police Department] to documenting investigatory stops,” Keys wrote. He noted that blacks and Hispanics are more likely than whites to be subjected to “bad stops,” in which officers failed to articulate a legal reason for stopping someone. Minorities also are more likely to be patted down by officers, he found.
Keys’ 400-plus-page report was the result of an agreement between the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois and former police Superintendent Garry McCarthy reached in August 2015 after the American Civil Liberties Union criticized the Chicago Police Department for disproportionately stopping minorities and failing to list lawful reasons for stops on the “contact cards” they’re supposed to fill out. Under the agreement, the police agreed to broaden the information officers put on contact cards — such as whether someone was frisked, searched or arrested.