Chicago City Council members are negotiating on a plan to respond to ‘teen takeovers’

It’s Memorial Day weekend in Chicago. Dozens of teenagers are planning to descend upon 31st Street Beach in a possible “teen trend” takeover. How should the city of Chicago respond?

That was one prompt at a first-of-its-kind meeting last week that brought together Chicagoans with vastly different views on how to respond to so-called “teen trends,” or mass gatherings of teens that have sometimes turned chaotic or violent.

It was held by the mayor’s office with Chicago's Police, Fire and Health Departments, council members including Ald. Brian Hopkins, (2nd), and violence-prevention community organizations.

Participants said they were given a map of the beach and broke off into groups to discuss what they would do to try to keep the gatherings from getting out of hand. Responses ran the gamut.

“On one extreme, you had people talking about cutting off the parking lots, shutting down buses,” recalled participant Kofi Ademola, with GoodKids MadCity. “Completely trying to prevent young people from even getting access to the beach.

“And then on the other side,” the city could prepare the beach for an impromptu block party, carnival or mini-concert, even handing out gift bags and assigning youth peacekeepers to watch over their peers in case there’s a need to de-escalate a fight, Ademola said.

It was the first time Ademola participated in such a broad, city-led conversation with differing viewpoints about how to address teen trends.

The conversation comes amid another debate about whether stricter curfew laws can help prevent these gatherings from spiraling out of control. And more than 30 City Council members — enough to pass an ordinance — have indicated they think a stricter curfew is the right move.

They’ve signed on to a controversial proposal from Hopkins that would give Chicago police the power to institute an immediate curfew when they suspect a mass gathering could turn disorderly.

But despite its already broad support in the council, Hopkins is negotiating his curfew proposal with the mayor’s office. That’s in part because he has been impressed with the city’s non-police intervention work to prevent teen takeovers from happening, he said.

That work includes sending out crisis response workers to help intervene in conflicts as they arise, contacting organizers ahead of time and enlisting Chicago Public Schools to do outreach and discourage teen trends, said Deputy Mayor for Public Safety Garien Gatewood.

After a separate meeting last week between Hopkins and co-sponsors Alds. Jason Ervin, (28th), and Pat Dowell, (3rd), there will likely be a substitute ordinance on the issue to consider, both Ervin and Gatewood told WBEZ.

But the mayor’s office isn’t interested in a substitute with any revised curfew component, Gatewood said.

“We’re not interested in a change in curfew. What we’re interested in is keeping people safe and stopping trends from turning violent or from happening,” Gatewood said.

The mayor’s office does not have a working definition or a way of characterizing a “teen takeover,” Gatewood said. But they are typically when a large gathering of teens is promoted on social media by a flyer advertising a “trend.”

Hopkins’ proposal would define such an event as “a gathering of 20 or more people in a public place for the purpose of engaging in, or is likely to result in, criminal conduct, including reckless conduct … disorderly conduct … or that otherwise presents or causes, or is likely to present or cause an unreasonable risk to public health, safety, or welfare.”

In that case, a district commander or the police superintendent could institute an immediate curfew. It is unclear how police would define the geographical area where the curfew applies.

Civil rights attorneys who spoke to WBEZ said the proposal as it stands is rife with potential constitutional rights violations.

“This proposal is shockingly unconstitutional and so divorced from what we know actually helps reduce incidents of young people engaging in any kind of unlawful conduct,” said Sheila Bedi, a clinical law professor at Northwestern University. “It would expose the city to significant legal liability were this to actually be enacted.”

Bedi and others said part of the issue is the proposal would require police officers to try to anticipate whether a gathering is “likely to result in” criminal activity, without any clearly defined criteria — leaving the door open to racial bias and profiling.

“Basically, what it allows is once something like this has been declared, now a police officer has a basis to go up to any teenager and stop them, talk to them, potentially arrest them,” said Amanda Yarusso, a member of the National Lawyers Guild who represents clients arrested during protests.

“It's hard enough to know what to do and to stand up for your rights in that kind of an encounter as an adult but let alone as a teenager,” Yarusso said.

Constitutional questions aside, opponents argue CPD already has a plethora of tools at its disposal to handle crowds, such as dispersal orders or laws against disorderly conduct.

“This feels like if the police are a hammer and the ability to enforce sort of potential criminal penalties is a nail, we're sort of looking at a situation where there's already 15 nails lined up on the board, and we're saying we need to add a 16th one,” said Sharlyn Grace, a senior policy adviser for the Cook County public defender. “That doesn't really seem like an honest assessment of either the causes or the solutions to anything happening right now.”

Hopkins did not respond to a request for an interview about the constitutional concerns around his proposal.

Ervin and other proponents of the ordinance said allowing CPD to anticipate whether an event will turn violent — and then issuing a curfew — is meant to be a preventive tool, to disperse crowds before they get out of hand.

But he acknowledged the original proposal — which he signed on to — presented constitutional concerns.

“No one wants to criminalize young people, while at the same time, we want to try to maintain order,” Ervin said. “We ultimately will strike a balance between the two.”

Mariah Woelfel covers city government and politics for WBEZ.