Chicago police and ACLU agree to stop-and-frisk safeguards

CHICAGO — The Chicago Police Department and American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois announced Friday that they’ve come to an agreement on monitoring how officers go about conducting street stops of citizens in the nation’s third-largest city.

The deal follows fierce criticism of Chicago police disproportionately targeting minorities for questioning and searches under the controversial "stop and frisk" practice.

Under the agreement, police will track all street stops and protective pat-downs — not just those that don’t result in an arrest, as they have in the past.

In addition, the city and ACLU have agreed to name an independent consultant, former U.S. magistrate Arlander Keys, who will issue public reports twice a year that detail how the department conducts street stops and recommend policy changes.

The police department also agreed to bolster training of officers to ensure that officers don’t use race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation when deciding to stop and frisk, and to conduct pat-downs only when reasonably suspicious that a person is armed and dangerous.

The agreement goes into effect immediately...

USA TODAY