Gold Medalist Shani Davis sues city of Chicago

Andrew Seligman

CHICAGO — Olympic gold medal speedskater Shani Davis is one of four plaintiffs suing the city of Chicago and former police superintendent Terry Hillard, claiming they were stopped and searched for illegal weapons because of their skin color.

Davis, Quincy Joyner and Damien Joyner filed a lawsuit on March 24, 2003. A fourth plaintiff, Damane Grier, was added to the lawsuit a few months later. All four are from Chicago and are black.

Harvey Grossman, the director of American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, said an inordinate number of blacks and Latinos are stopped on the street and searched for illegal weapons, and the organization wants police to document stops.

“We’ve been receiving complaints about this for years and years,” he said. “Why did you stop this person? State the reasonable suspicion you had. ... And we also want that data to be stored, so you can see what an officer is doing over time.”

Monique Bond, the Chicago police director of news affairs, would not comment on a pending case, but said, “As far as racial profiling, the Chicago Police Department has a zero tolerance for that.”

Davis became the first black athlete to capture an individual gold medal in Winter Olympics history when he won the 1,000 meters at the Turin Games. But he has been embroiled in a war of words with fellow American skater Chad Hedrick over Davis’ decision not to skate in the team pursuit event.

Davis took the silver medal in the 1,500 meters Tuesday, with Hedrick earning a bronze.

According to the lawsuit, Davis was searched in March 2001 while walking along West Howard Street near his home on Chicago’s far north side. He stood spread eagle against a wall while an officer searched his pants and pockets with a flashlight, pulling Davis’ underwear away from his body. Two years earlier, while on his way to a video arcade with friends, he was searched near the elevated train stop on West Belmont Avenue on the north side.

The Joyners also were stopped near the Belmont train station in January 2002. Grier was stopped in a public housing development while on his way to his mother’s place in March 2003.

In each instance, there was no “warrant, probable cause, reasonable suspicion, consent, or any other lawful basis” for the search, and no illegal weapons were found, according to the lawsuit.

“Belmont and Howard street are places where a lot of kids get stopped,” Grossman said. “Those are racially mixed neighborhoods, so you can actually find racial data that is significant. The stops in those neighborhoods is disproportionately black and brown.”

Grossman expects the case to be tried this year.

“Generally, you’ve been stopped by a policeman if you’re 16 years old and black in Chicago,” Grossman said. (Associated Press)