A police officer turned lawmaker tries to lead on reform
Kelsey Landis at BND:
“If I were you, I would turn your hat around.”
That’s what a white police officer told state Sen. Christopher Belt, who was wearing his baseball cap backwards when he was pulled over for driving 5 mph below the speed limit early one morning two years ago in a predominately white metro-east town, which he declined to name.
Belt, who is Black, was in the car with his teenage son. As the officer approached, the Democrat from Cahokia told his son everything was going to be OK, and they put their hands on the dashboard. They asked permission to reach for their drivers licenses.
“It was all, ‘Yes sir, no sir, can I get you my license sir?’ just to be told to turn your hat around,” Belt said.
It’s exactly what Black parents fear: their child profiled, pulled over on false pretense for a police encounter ending in death. Fortunately, Belt’s encounter did not end in violence.
“All my friends have similar stories,” he said.
Belt, 47, now the chairman of the Illinois Senate Black Caucus, says those are the types of interactions he hopes to address with police reforms in the fall veto session.
The Legislative Black Caucus — a bicameral group of state senators and representatives — summer agenda includes brainstorming for reform as civil unrest continues nationwide following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Some have called for defunding police departments, or reallocating money in their budgets in favor of social services.
Among their ideas, “defunding the police” is not one of them, said Belt, who served as a law enforcement officer for 18 years before getting into politics. He worked for 16 years at the St. Clair County Probation Department and then for the state Department of Juvenile Justice from 2013 to 2015.
“This is not an affront on the police. ... What they do day in and day out, they’re real-life superheroes,” Belt said. “But by the same token, the law has to be applied evenly and equally to everyone.”
The state’s police union, however, is prepared for “anti-police” legislation, according to a statement to members from Chris Southwood, president of the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police, and its labor council executive director, Shawn Roselieb.
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POLICE REFORM MEASURES
Belt and other caucus members plan to propose as legislation in the fall veto session this November and December.
“We do know of course it’s going to have to be a statewide response,” said state Rep. LaToya Greenwood, D-East St. Louis, “and also something that focuses on holding bad police officers accountable.”
The ideas include:
Licensing for police officers
A ban on no-knock warrants
Special prosecutors to police misconduct cases to eliminate potential local bias
Mandatory body cameras for police statewide
More implicit bias training
”Duty to intervene” legislation
These steps represent a good start, said Thomas Trice, a retired law enforcement officer who now teaches courses for police officers in training.
Illinois is already “ahead of the curve,” he noted. Chokeholds and other tactics to restrict air flow were removed “from all Illinois police officer training,” according to the police union.
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POLICY DEBATE BREWS
The last time Illinois lawmakers passed a sweeping police reform bill was in 2015. The law established guidelines for body cameras, ended stop-and-frisk policies and eliminated chokehold training.
The union plans to work with legislators in their next police reform efforts, said Tamara Cummings, general counsel for the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police Labor Council.
“The Illinois FOP Labor Council has been made aware of these issues that are being raised across the State. We look forward to working with the legislature and all interested parties, as we did on the 2015 Illinois Police Reform Law, to discuss these concerns and to work on legislation that will make communities safer for everyone,” Cummings wrote in an email.
But the statement from the union and council to its members suggested a different message.
“Anti-police legislation will be introduced, very few will acknowledge your good works, and fewer still will stand with you in solidarity,” Southwood and Roselieb wrote. “Courage takes many forms, and I urge you to note which of our leaders dares to stand and be counted with those who wear a badge.”