CHICAGO (WLS) — Officers on a Chicago Police Department tactical team are facing a new lawsuit this week over a traffic stop turned search that the driver claims was unlawful and racist.
For years, the ABC7 I-Team has been reporting on a controversial CPD tactic that critics call “pretextual traffic stops,” or stops for minor traffic violations turning into drivers handcuffed and vehicles searched, moments after pulling them over.
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It’s a police practice that city leaders have vowed to overhaul.
“I was just terrified,” said Limorris Bell, the plaintiff and driver behind the latest lawsuit. “Honestly, I didn’t know what was gonna happen next.”
Bell said he had no clue why Chicago police were pulling him over on Sept. 1, 2024, while he was driving to pick up his date in the Gold Coast.
According to police-worn body camera footage obtained and reviewed by the I-Team, officers said they pulled Bell over for not wearing his seat belt, or using his turn signal, points that Bell denies was the case.
But in less than a minute of pulling Bell over, he was placed in handcuffs and officers began searching his vehicle, despite Bell clearly stating in the video he did not consent to it.
“I had real bad anxiety so, I was shaken up, real bad,” Bell said. “It was like they was using my anxiety as guilt.”
After searching his car and finding nothing illegal, Bell was free to leave with no citation or charge.
“I just felt violated like, you know, like I just, like, I don’t have any freedom,” Bell told the I-Team. “I felt violated and scared. To this day, I’m scared of the police, you know, because I feel like they just so unpredictable.”
Bell filed a lawsuit against the city of Chicago and the three officers who pulled him over this week.
Bell’s civil rights attorney Joel Flaxman said his client’s experience with Chicago police is not isolated, but part of a pattern.
“It’s impossible to dispute that the reason they pulled Limorris [Bell] over is because he’s a Black man in a fancy car that they think is used by people with guns,” Flaxman said. “And if he were a white man in a different car, he wouldn’t have been stopped.”
The I-Team has previously reported on this 18th District tactical team of officers who have faced dozens of complaints and multiple lawsuits over traffic stops turned searches along the Mag Mile.
Chicago police would not comment on the pending litigation, or this specific stop.
In a statement, a CPD spokesperson said, “The Chicago Police Department has been working to ensure traffic stops are used effectively for public safety… Superintendent Snelling has been clear about his commitment to implementing a new traffic stop policy that is rooted in constitutional policing.”
In addition to updating their policy, Chicago police Superintendent Snelling has also voiced his support for adding traffic stops as an item monitored by a court-ordered consent decree.
Just this week, the ACLU filed a petition to expand a class-action lawsuit it currently has filed against the city to include all drivers of color who have been pulled over and searched by police since 2021, calling the tactic an “intentional… racist mass traffic stop program.”
Bell believes better training and stricter policies on when officers can stop and search drivers will help build trust in the community.
“The police need better training on things they can and can’t do during a traffic stop,” Bell said. “I feel like they go out there and just do whatever they want to do, like they’re above the law. And they have to understand that they have to follow the law as well.”
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