A Chicago man says his rights were violated after being stopped for a routine traffic stop.
Charles Law, 52, said the officer pulled him over for speeding.
The officer asked if he had a valid driver’s license, and when Law told him he did, the officer told him to hand over his ID.
Law said the man’s hands were cuffed behind his back and he could not open his door.
“I don’t feel safe, I don’t want to live in this city,” Law said.
“We’re living in a city where we are being targeted.
The police have to go out there and do their job.
That’s the way the law is.”
Law said he has been driving his family’s home in the North Shore for more than 20 years.
He said he does not believe the officer had reason to believe he was under the influence of drugs or alcohol, but he did not say if the officer knew he was a convicted felon.
“If they had to do a drug test, he would have a problem,” Law, a retired firefighter, said.
Law’s attorney, Michael H. Siegel, said his client’s rights were breached by the officer.
“The officer made a mistake,” he said.
The Chicago Tribune reported the incident on Tuesday.
In its article, the Tribune reported that a federal civil rights lawsuit was filed against the city of Chicago and the department’s civil rights division.
The suit alleges that the department is “violating the rights of its own citizens” by using a stop-and-frisk policy that violates the Constitution.
The city of 6,500 officers is among the largest in the country, but it is also the largest employer in Chicago.
The Tribune report noted that officers can issue citations for “driving while black,” but they cannot make them a felony, a misdemeanor or a violation of civil rights laws.
It also reported that the city has filed no lawsuit over the stop.
In 2015, an Associated Press-GfK poll found that more than 80 percent of Chicagoans said stop- and-frisks were justified.
But many Chicagoans believe stop-ands-friday practices have resulted in too many innocent people being arrested, according to the AP-GFK poll.
“They don’t do enough to protect the people they’re supposed to protect,” said Joseph Gafni, a spokesman for the Chicago Police Department.
The department’s chief, Eddie Johnson, has repeatedly said the department doesn’t use stop-fests.
But the AP report said that in its first three years, Chicago police stopped about 17,500 people for stops that violated the constitutional rights of people of color.
The U.S. Justice Department has been investigating whether Chicago’s stop-n-frill policy violated the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and other laws.
A federal judge in May 2016 ruled that the stop-frills policy violated Americans’ constitutional rights to due process, due process of law and equal protection.
The case is now pending in federal court in Chicago, but the city said it would appeal.