Daily Herald opinion: Elgin police, policy makers have duty to assure public that laws are enforced fairly

This editorial is the consensus opinion of the Daily Herald Editorial Board

Elgin Police Chief Ana Lalley makes a valid case for continuing to allow police stops for non-moving violations such as expired registrations or damaged safety equipment, despite evidence showing that nonwhite drivers are stopped many times more often for such issues than whites.

What she and others who support the stops haven't addressed well is what police or policymakers should do to ensure neither bias nor the appearance of it is apparent in the manner with which they are conducted.

In a story last weekend, our Jim Fuller described Lalley's defense of the stops. She was responding to a proposal to ban them being considered by the city's community task force on policing, whose key objective is strengthening the relationship between law enforcement and populations who feel disaffected by and suspicious of police.

Lalley acknowledges numbers from two studies have shown nonwhites are stopped between 1.6 times and 7.8 times more frequently than whites for minor infractions.

But she also emphasizes the value of the stops. A vehicle with a broken headlamp or taillight is a safety risk, and a driver may not even be aware of it. But police also find stops for minor traffic issues frequently lead to more serious issues. The driver of a vehicle operating with no lights may be drunk, Lalley noted. And police have recovered more than 40 illegal firearms during such stops.

So, the practical value of the stops cannot be disputed even beyond the philosophical issue that laws should be respected if they're constructive — and changed if they're not.

What is much less clear is why stops for non-moving violations involve nonwhite drivers so much more frequently than white drivers. A knee-jerk response would be nonwhites commit these infractions more frequently, but such a notion is by itself no more reasonable than a reflexive assumption that police are deliberately profiling nonwhites.

Obviously, the key missing factor in the discussion is data. Elgin's Center for Policing Equity is behind schedule in a review of five years' worth of traffic reports that is supposed to be provided to the task force. Hopefully, it can be completed soon and provide context and reason to explain its findings so the task force and community can have a good basis on which to base policy.

It would be premature and potentially damaging to adopt any policy without a careful review of the data, but it also will only further damage police credibility and community relations simply to maintain the status quo.

Police have a responsibility to reassure the public that they are enforcing laws fairly and without bias, a duty that is especially reinforced in circumstances where the public is already skeptical.