Mayor Lori Lightfoot will try again Thursday to salvage her stalled plan to use civil lawsuits to seize what she calls the “blood money” of Chicago’s most violent street gangs.
The City Council’s Committee on Public Safety is scheduled to meet at 2 p.m. Thursday to consider the revised ordinance that got a frosty reception from alderpersons last month.
“Most people don’t want their item to move forward unless they have some sense of certainty that the item will pass,” said Public Safety Committee Chairman Chris Taliaferro (29th), reiterating what he said before last week’s vote to salvage the mayor’s appointment of Andrea Kersten to run the Civilian Office of Police Accountability.
Taliaferro noted the major concern is that the ordinance will have a “trickle-down effect” and “only harm those committing crimes on a smaller scale, which will have an impact on their families.”
“I share those concerns. But I want to hear more debate on the subject — especially from the Mayor’s Office of Public Safety — to make sure those concerns can be as diminished as possible,” the chairman said.
Lightfoot has sharpened the language of the proposal — to target gang leaders and their organizations, instead of rank-and-file members — amid concern that gang associates and their innocent grandmothers may be caught up in the web of seizures.
Those facing the loss of property also would have to be notified by mail of the case filed against them and empowered to protect their property from seizure by convincing a judge they were in the dark.
“An owner or person possessing a lien on the property may establish as a defense. … that the owner or lienholder had no knowledge that the property was used for or acquired through street gang-related activity,” the revised ordinance states.
“If a family member of the owner of a vehicle … makes a showing that the vehicle is the only source of transportation and the court determines that the financial hardship to the family member … would outweigh the benefit to the city from the forfeiture, the vehicle may be forfeited to the family member … This ... shall apply only to one forfeiture per vehicle.”
The Chicago Police Department’s deputy director of prosecutorial strategies told aldermen the changes would make the mayor’s plan less “aggressive” and “more empathetic.”
But the argument didn’t fly with progressive committee members — in part, because the substitute ordinance still includes no specific definition of a gang leader. Nor does it spell out what evidence the city would use to make that determination.
Ald. Maria Hadden (49th) on Tuesday shared her biggest concern.
“This isn’t a policy that will make Chicagoans safer,” she said. Instead, it could end up costing far more than the value of the assets seized, after taking into account the cost of judgments against the city, as well as the hours city employees spend on cases.
“It doesn’t seem to be effective in either creating deterrents for people committing crimes or recouping any funds to the public,” Hadden said, pointing to the state statute on asset seizure.
“This could cause undue harm for existing residents. It’s not gonna increase our safety. And on the financial level, which was a bigger concern, it’s gonna cost us a lot more.”
In revving up for what appears to be a mayoral campaign against Lightfoot, former U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan has argued most of the troubled young men his violence prevention program, Chicago CRED, works with “don’t have assets” and are “barely, barely, barely making it.” Some are homeless. Others live in cars.
“It’s important that we spend time on things that can actually make a difference and not spend time on things that don’t make a difference,” he said.
“If you end up taking assets from a grandmother, it just doesn’t make sense.”
On Tuesday, Taliaferro fired back.
“As a police officer, I’ve seen them driving Mercedes Benzes and living in houses that are more than $400,000 or $500,000. A lot of these gang members ride around in cars and live in houses that are much better than what Arne Duncan is living in and what Arne Duncan is driving,” Taliaferro said.
“I’d like to know his inside source to actually be able to say that with some certainty. You can’t just make a blanket statement like that and not have any factual basis for it. I would never do that. And I don’t think Arne Duncan should unless he’s seen those accounts.”
