Chicago’s city council voted to give its police chief the green light to enforce temporary curfews for minors in a bid to curb violence that has typically ramped up during the summer months, prompting Mayor Brandon Johnson to vow to block the measure.
The council approved a proposal Wednesday to allow Police Superintendent Larry Snelling to enact three-hour curfews with just 30 minutes of notice. Under the measure, which would take effect in 10 days unless it’s vetoed, a so-called snap curfew can be enacted when gatherings 20 or more minors are thought to present a threat to public safety.
The third-largest US city has struggled to manage mass gatherings of teenagers in recent years, many of which have taken place near Millennium Park and the Magnificent Mile, Chicago’s luxury shopping district. In March, a tourist from Connecticut was accidentally shot when a 15-year-old opened fire after his group of teenagers was kicked out of a movie theater downtown, according to a local news report.
Johnson called the measure a “knee-jerk reactionary ordinance” and said there isn’t any empirical evidence that curfews will reduce violence. He pledged to veto the bill, which passed with 27 votes in favor and 22 against.
The proposal was sponsored by Brian Hopkins, the councilman whose district covers much of the wealthy Gold Coast and Streeterville neighborhoods.
“This curfew ordinance is a better alternative to arresting teenagers,” Hopkins said at Wednesday’s meeting. “The police can arrest them, but let’s give them something better so that they don’t have to. Let the teenagers be safely returned to their families when a parent or guardian comes and gets them. That is much better than having to arrest them for doing the things that are in fact criminal acts. These are criminal acts, not innocent high jinks.”
The American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois opposed the measure, saying in a letter that it “does not comport with legal standards for arrest and prosecution.” The Chicago chapter of the National Lawyers Guild was also against it, saying it “has the serious potential to violate people’s due process rights to have notice of what conduct is prohibited or illegal.”
