Oak Park village staff, the Citizens Police Oversight Committee, Pivot Consulting Group and the Oak Park Police Department will work together to draft and review new policy within 60 days restricting the use of pretextual traffic stops after a unanimous vote by the village board on July 21.
Trustee Derek Eder, seconded by Trustee Chibuike Enyia, motioned to consider this proposal following the death of Christian Wallace in May. Wallace was shot and killed by Oak Park police during a struggle after he was pulled over for failing to signal a lane change. Video footage of the incident was released in June and a state police investigation is still on-going.
“The leading cause of car crashes and roadway deaths are speeding and drunk driving, not broken taillights or expired registration stickers,” said Eder. “When police spend time pulling over people for minor violations, they have less time to focus on reckless driving and other behaviors that actually put lives at risk.”
Eder stressed that traffic safety is “extremely important” and this policy is not to stop police from regulating dangerous traffic violations.
Pretextual traffic stops, the use minor infractions such as broken taillights or outdated registration to investigate other possible crimes, can create an “opportunity for bias-based contacts” according to a 2022 consultant’s report on local policing commissioned by the village government.
The 273-page review of Oak Park police staffing and operations was conducted by consulting firm BerryDunn. It provided comprehensive data and recommendations across many policing issues.
The report found that searches of Black drivers, when no arrest was made, were disproportionately higher, 76.72%, than the overall percent of traffic stops involving Black drivers, 49.82%. Additional findings showed if the rate of arrests were proportional to overall traffic stops there should have only been 242 arrests of Black drivers, but there were 416.
More recent data on traffic stops released by the village of Oak Park reported 569 stops in 2025. About 74% of the people stopped were Black despite Oak Park’s Black population being only 18% of residents.
The proposed policy change aligns with BerryDunn’s recommendation to restrict the use of pretextual stops and “clarify that expanding the scope of the initial stop is not allowed,” unless facts prompt further questions.
The Citizens Police Oversight Committee, with support from Pivot, will provide community feedback on the Police Department Draft Policy which OPPD can use to update the proposal. A related item is expected to be on the agenda of the next board meeting on July 28, village government wrote in an email.
Oak Park would be the first municipality in Illinois to adopt a policy of this nature, although some cities and states across the country have already done so according to the Vera Institute of Justice.
Village Manager Kevin Jackson said at the meeting there is already a preliminary draft of the policy ready for further review.
“I think this is an opportunity for us to do some things that we should have done already,” said Trustee Jenna Leving Jacobson.
Leving Jacobson also encouraged the board to make sure they are robust and intentional in developing these solutions to address disparities that take place after the stop because “this isn’t the end of the problems that we can eliminate much earlier on.”
One Oak Park resident, Tristan Rogers, came to the meeting to speak in favor of the policy change during public comment.
“Pretextual stops disproportionately target Black and Brown drivers, and too often turn violent, even deadly. Restricting those stops is the single most concrete step we can take to ensure we never lose another community member to a police encounter over a routine traffic violation,” Rogers said.
He also criticized other community members attending the meeting to speak on zoning issues, a topic also on the meeting agenda.
“I hope everyone can see the discriminatory connection between the types of homes we permit on our streets and the ways in which police interact with our Black and Brown neighbors,” Rogers said.
Enyia shared his appreciation to other board members as this is an issue they have talked about for a long time and have had support from Oak Park police to look at. He said now having a date for this policy is “the truest form of knowing that changes is coming.”