Competing studies of Elgin police bias leads to confusion about what to do next

The 2018 killing of a Black woman in a standoff with Elgin police sparked calls for reforms that have now spanned nearly five years. But the pursuit of those reforms has become clouded with dueling data and a police chief at odds with her own officers.

A recently completed outside study pointed to problematic data city officials said they have known for years: Black people in Elgin are subjected to the use of force by police 11.5 times as often as whites. Black and Latino drivers were up to four times as likely to be searched by police.

What the free study by the Center for Policing Equity did not show, city officials said, were the whys and hows of that racial disparity. That fueled a $10,000 quest for a different study, using different methods, that pointed away from racism as a possible cause.

The result are a murky sea of statistics city officials must wade through to figure out what comes next and concerns that police went shopping for "alternative facts."

A Daily Herald review of a year's worth of emails, memos of understanding and interviews shows that finding a path forward will be complicated by the police department's efforts to get ahead of a public-relations nightmare. In an interview, Elgin Police Chief Ana Lalley expressed frustration with the first study and the process.

"I already knew there would be X number of people we arrested who were Black, X number of people who were white," Lalley said. "We already knew about the pedestrian stops. We already knew the vehicle stops. But there's all these questions I have to answer to the community. I have to answer to the city council. I have to answer to the officers. And I can't get the answers to the questions that I know are going to be asked of me."

Seeking answers

Elgin officials sought a review of the city's policing in the aftermath of the killing of Decynthia Clements during a March 2018 standoff on the Addams Tollway.

When an Elgin police officer shot Clements three times, it fueled a community outcry. Later that year, city officials reached out to the Center for Policing Equity, a nonprofit that analyzes law enforcement data to look for evidence of racial bias.

What followed were a series of delays, especially as departments across the country turned to the center in the wake of George Floyd's death in 2020. As months and years rolled on, tensions between the center and Elgin police rose, according to emails and interviews.

Throughout the process, including the months just before the final report, Elgin police officials repeatedly questioned the type of analysis the center was doing and how the findings would be characterized.

The disconnect was so robust that police abandoned the center's work in favor of finding an outlet to do a study that officials believed would have more value. But so far, there has been less action than police, city council members and residents had hoped to see.

Emails show at least four attempts by the center to address the police department's concerns. Each time the department responded with more questions.

Elgin police officials disagreed with the center's use of the city's demographics to test for possible racial bias in police stops or the use of force. That approach centers around the idea that - while controlling for factors such as poverty and crime rates - the percentage of police encounters with any race should be in proportion to how many people of that race live in the community.

Police officials tried to persuade the center to limit that analysis to a much smaller pool - only the people police suspected of committing a crime.

Officials from the center declined to make that change. They cited 17 scientific studies indicating overall demographics are a better measure. Two of the studies referenced are co-authored by Phillip Atiba Goff, the CEO and co-founder of the center.

Another point of tension is how the findings of the study would be characterized to the public.

In particular, Elgin police worried about a portion of the center's report that attributes 44% of the disparity in the police encounters to poverty, crime and how many Black people live in the city. The remaining 56%, the study says, are because of "other" factors, including department practices and behavior.

In a May 2022 letter, police officials asked the center to change that language so the police department isn't specifically named as part of the "other" factors. Officials from the center declined.

At that point, Lalley stopped meeting with officials from the center and started seeking another study.

In an interview, Lalley said she sought a new study because she had questions about how useful the center's study would be.

"It wasn't that I didn't like the report," Lalley said. "The report couldn't provide me with the robust perspective I wanted to understand in order to make policy changes. Why voluntarily put yourself through some criticism if you don't want the hard answers?"

Specifically, Lalley wanted to drill down into that 56% of "other" factors that include the police department to find out what she should be doing to address the disparity.

A numbers game

The second part of the center's work with Elgin was supposed to use the analysis to explore the possible policy changes. The partnership never got to that point.

The center communicated to Lalley in May 2022 that it believed it had more than answered her questions and concerns and would move forward with a presentation to the city.

By then, Lalley had already begun working with Northern Illinois University on another study of policing data.

But from the beginning, the NIU study became a different measure that could not ever be an apples-to-apples comparison with the center's work. For one, the NIU study looks at the police department's "crime response" incidents as the sample to see what's happening with the use of force. The center's study uses the demographics of Elgin's total population.

The center's work asks: If I'm an Elgin resident, what is the likelihood I'm going to be stopped by the police if I'm a white person, Black person or Latino person, and how likely am I to experience some use of force?

In contrast, the NIU study asks: If I'm stopped by the police, how likely is it that I'm of a certain race, and what level of force may I experience?

Lalley said the police department did not influence NIU's study. However, NIU's investigation of the department's use of force - the one that uses only crime response data - is what the department tried, unsuccessfully, to push the center to do in its study.

For Lalley, the center's work showing Black Elgin residents are 11.5 times more likely than white residents to be subjected to the use of force fails to "acknowledge that when force encounters occur, the police department is responding to something."

"It's implied that you are just an everyday person walking down the street, and an officer is going to jump out of their car and use force," Lalley said. "Does that even make sense? We really wanted them to explain it to us, and they never did."

To some Elgin residents, it might make a lot of sense.

Residents on the city's task on policing spent more than a year lamenting and dissecting incidents where either they or someone they knew felt they'd been stopped by police just because they were Black. There are also numerous, hotly debated police encounters across the country involving Black people minding their own business who were mistaken for suspects, including the killing of Tamir Rice by police.

While the center's study indicates race was a major factor in the past, the NIU study indicates race is not a significant factor in the department's use of force. Instead, the NIU study points to the day of the week, gender, alcohol use, being armed and officer experience as significant factors.

"The things from NIU's report, those are things we can control," Lalley said. "Officer experience, where we police, officer training. Those are things we can do something about."

The conflicting studies, however, have opened Elgin to criticism that paying for a different study that eliminates racial bias as a factor in the department's policing is an attempt to undermine the truth.

"When you go out and get another agency to give a whole other analysis over something we've asked this very credible organization to do, it doesn't look good," city council member Tish Powell said when the data was presented. "There was a better way to handle all of this, because you know what this looks like to me? This looks like 'alternative facts.' I don't need alternative facts. I need real data from somebody who knows what they're doing. I'm disappointed on a whole lot of levels."

The center has not opined on the NIU study other than to express concerns that things such as a smaller and different sample size compared against a larger number of variables is a classic sign of "overfitting," meaning there's a danger of trying to create too many alternate explanations about what is occurring.

NIU did not appear before the city council to answer any questions about its study. Police officials answered the questions instead.

There could be points of agreement in some of what both studies indicate. In the center's presentation to the city council in late October, Goff pointed to a downward trend in the use of force and vehicle stops in recent years as stats suggest Elgin police are making changes that may address some disparities.

"This looks like a trend, and that is good news," Goff said of the overall vehicle stops. "Very likely folks with the Elgin PD are at least partially responsible for that good news."

Lalley attributed those trends to reforms the department has put in place since 2018. Body cameras, anti-bias training, de-escalation training, a mental health crisis response team and ongoing discussions with the community have all changed the way the city's police force operates, for the better, she said.

As it stands, city council members have expressed frustration about the dueling reports that, at least for some, require a do-over. Various officials have called for the center to do a full presentation on its findings. They also want someone from NIU, rather than the police department, to answer questions about that study.

Reality of perception

That frustration goes beyond the city council. Two members of the community task force on policing came forward at a recent city council meeting to express anger and concerns about sabotage.

The task force worked for more than a year to develop recommendations about how to improve the relationship between the police department and minority communities. Though the center's work and the NIU study overlapped with the task force's work, the task force never had access to the findings or discussions behind those studies.

Danise Habun, a member of the task force, voiced her anger about that to the city council.

"This was a slap in the face to each and every task force member," Habun said. "You have betrayed the trust of our task force members. You have cast a shadow on the professionalism and wonderful services and programs of the police department. You've certainly betrayed the trust of our Black and brown community members. Ultimately, you have broken this trust with the Elgin community at large."

Task force member Ismael Cordova went a step further in suggesting the city council should be replaced if meaningful changes don't occur.

"We knew these biases were real," he told the city council. "We knew they were present. I am so sick and tired of this political game that seems to be transpiring in front of us. It is embarrassing. We want things done. If you can't do it, then step aside and allow someone else to do so."

Two weeks after the conflicting studies came to light, the patrol staff of the police department cast a vote of no confidence in Lalley. City management has dismissed the vote as a union contract negotiation strategy.