As part of our
about demographic changes in central Illinois with
, we are looking at the relationship between the police departments and black communities in Urbana and Champaign.
We
about submitting Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, requests to the departments in each city for five years worth of arrest data.
We received and analyzed that data, finding major disparities in the arrests of black people.
On Tuesday we traveled to Champaign to get behind the numbers and talk with people in the black community about their experiences with the police department.
We talked with people in the Garden Hills neighborhood and met with others at the
Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center
.
We were aware of high-profile events involving black teens in recent years in Champaign like the
fatal shooting in October 2009
of unarmed 15-year-old Kiwane Carrington, the pepper spraying in June 2011 of then-19-year-old Brandon Ward after he was stopped for jaywalking and
the arrest in October 2011 of 18-year-old Calvin Miller
after a car chase.
Here is the video of the Ward arrest:
But we did not realize until we spoke with people in Champaign the level of intimidation that many said exists in the community.
Many of the people we met did not want to be quoted for fear of reprisals.
They and those who did speak on the record described an environment of repeated and ongoing aggression and continual surveillance of black residents by members of the police department.
They talked about constantly being stopped for driving violations when they had committed no infraction.
They spoke about officers interacting in a menacing manner that they said conveyed the threat of arrest, or even violence.
Several young black men with whom we spoke said they move away run when they see a police officer because they want to avoid what they see as an unnecessary conflict.
And people who had moved from Chicago said they felt were targeted because of their home city.
Earlier this year we traveled to Beardstown, Illinois to talk with residents of that town five years after a massive immigration raid at the Cargill plant led to the arrest of dozens of undocumented workers and the separation of at least that many families.
Half a decade later,
among the people with whom we spoke.
This perhaps was not surprising, given that a number of them were undocumented, and, as such, have no legal right to be in the country.
Many of the black residents of Champaign we met were either born and raised there or Chicago transplants.
A number of the people we spoke with said they consider many of the police officers committed to serving the community.
But others made the point that the larger community, including the police, pays a high cost for the city’s current policing practices.
Rather than working with the police to solve crimes, they withhold information.
Rather than complying with an arrest instruction, they are more likely to resist it.
Some people expressed optimism that the appointment of
as police chief would lead to an improvement in community-police relations and a decrease in the level of fear many black residents experience. A Champaign native, Cobb is black.
Others were less convinced, saying they’ve not yet seen a difference since he began his tenure earlier this year and aren’t holding out much hope for change.
We’ve reached out to Cobb twice and have yet to hear back from him.
We also called the Illinois Fraternal Order of Police to express our interest in having police voices in the story.
Spokesman Pat Camden told me to call the Champaign department.
We look forward to the conversation with Chief Cobb.
In the meantime, though, we are interested in hearing your thoughts about the state of community-police relations in Champaign’s black community.
