Roll Call: Proposed traffic stop policy change is Foxx’s ‘parting shot’

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx recently proposed a new policy change for her office related to what she described as “nonpublic safety traffic stops,” a term that does not accurately reflect the reality and purpose of enforcing traffic safety.

It is no secret that I have been a longtime critic of Foxx’s policies and procedures. However, I am not a critic of this individual personally. Yet Foxx is, without a doubt, the most anti-police and policing state’s attorney in the nation. I do not say that lightly. Plenty of facts back it up.

What we are talking about today is her proposed policy on traffic stops. She is proposing to direct her assistant state’s attorneys to reject guns, drugs and other contraband that would be recovered from what she describes as solely retrieved from a selective routine traffic stop by police. Frankly, this is just a bunch of garbage.

When Foxx said they are exclusively the product of nonpublic safety stops, what does that mean? Every single traffic stop has a public safety outcome. She would argue the proposed policy would undercut the dramatic rise in traffic stops that are disproportionately targeting people of color and rarely lead to arrest.

False.

I can tell you with certainty that traffic stops lead to arrests. More important, they lead to reduced traffic crashes, increased safety presence of traffic enforcement in residential neighborhoods and expressways, and, in some cases, specialized enforcement.

One of the top complaints police chiefs receive from their residents is they would like increased traffic enforcement in neighborhoods and other areas where they feel a need for the public safety that traffic enforcement can provide, including in central business districts.

I have long believed that traffic enforcement is a crime deterrent. When you put fully marked squad cars out in areas, not only does traffic slow down and officers provide traffic safety enforcement, but it alerts all individuals that the police are in the area.

The more people see police officers making traffic stops in your area, the more potential criminals see that the area is being focused on and that police are serious about enforcing the laws. No criminal wants to conduct their criminal activities in places they know the police are operating. Thus traffic enforcement is, in fact, a traffic criminal deterrent.

Suppose this proposal were put into place. In that case, you would remove one of the essential tools police officers have in their toolbox to answer residents’ concerns, reduce traffic injuries and fatalities and legitimately recover contraband from vehicles when the stops are made.

I cannot tell you the number of times when I was police chief in Riverside that officers made traffic stops and recovered weapons, drugs and alcohol. They found people wanted on felony warrants and arrested highly intoxicated individuals for DUI.

Additionally, it was routine that officers ran across individuals who had a suspended or revoked driver’s license and most of the time they were for serious offenses such as a conviction or multiple convictions for DUI.

I have long believed that to eliminate the statutes on the books, you must go to Springfield and lobby our state legislators. Foxx’s office must change the policy through a back door, away from the appropriate procedure of law. Every proposal in her draft violates the Illinois Vehicle Code. She cites minor violations such as registration, turn signal, headlight and equipment-type violations, which are still against Illinois law under the Illinois Vehicle Code.

If you want to change it, get the law changed. Also, any policy and procedural changes she makes in the Chicago area also affects Cook County. So this is not just a Chicago issue. If this policy goes into effect, it will impact every law enforcement agency in Cook County.

This is, without a doubt, Foxx’s parting shot. She has been on record for a long time as anti-police, anti-policing and a “defund the police” prosecutor. She no longer tries to disguise it. If this proposal were to pass, it would change law enforcement forever. Police officers would no longer proactively make traffic stops, do what they are trained for, observe suspicious activity and suspicious people and lawfully recover contraband inside vehicles.

With these proposed changes, police officers’ morale will tank, officers will leave and future police officers will not enter the profession, which already is a problem. Such changes will remove a tool taught to officers at basic training on the first day of the academy. It would be like removing Novocaine from a dentist. They could not do their job efficiently and effectively. The same applies to law enforcement.

Every police chief, superintendent, chief’s organization and union leader in Cook County should fight this proposal. Do you want your police force to sit around the police station or an empty parking lot and do nothing more than wait for their next radio call to answer? And do no proactive policing or traffic enforcement? I think not.

If that is what you want, then Kim Foxx is your person. It is sure not what I want.

• Tom Weitzel was chief of the Riverside Police Department. Follow him @chiefweitzel.