Danville Police Chief Yates asserts Black residents only 2x more likely to be pulled over
Based on 2023 IDOT data auto-collected by Danville police and later analyzed by The Mountain-Whisper-Light Statistics and Data Science group, Black residents are five times more likely to be pulled over in Danville for pretextual traffic stops — a point former Alderman Lloyd Randle and the ACLU of Illinois have been talking with residents about for more than a year.
Such pretextual stops occur when an officer on patrol pulls a car over for expired registration stickers or broken tail lights, for example, with an intention or pretext to investigate drivers for more serious crimes, like drunk driving or drug possession, according to the New York University School of Law.
In 2023, Yates said, the data analysis team used the American Community Survey to learn about demographics in Danville, a survey based on the 2020 census, which Yates said are estimates with a large margin of error.
'One of the biggest problems when you change, whether it be benchmark or comparables, is that you get different results,' he said.
Yates gave an example using the 2023 Mountain-Whisper-Light study, which estimated that Danville had a population of 35,999 people, though Yates said the number is closer to 27,000, according to the most recent ACS data.
'But the biggest difference is that the demographic they listed for the city of Danville was 72% white and 20.5% Black,' Yates said. 'The actual demographic is closer to 54.4% white and 33.4% Black, which changes things exponentially.'
Yates said the purpose of the report is for police to see how their numbers change year over year, but he said, 'that's not possible when you have three different methodologies used in a study over a period of four to five years, because it changes things.'
In defense of his police force, Yates argued other local forces had much higher disparities.
'We put in the proper numbers as well as the most recent demographic numbers and it lowered it quite a bit. It brought it down to two-to-one,' Yates said. 'We're still lower than other communities within this region. Well, I looked at their numbers and they should be probably saying, 'Hey, what's going on here, too?' I don't know. That's their business.'
Yates defended his force, as well, alluding to the 'accountability and transparency' they've operated with in the five and a half years he has been chief.
Public image and trust in police
He also spoke about the importance of maintaining a positive image in the eyes of the public.
'We have to maintain that high standard. If not, there is a loss of trust. And then our ability to fulfill our mission, which is improving the quality of life for every one of our citizens, doesn't come to fruition, and we move away from that mission,' Yates said.
'We worked really hard to build a relationship with all the citizens within the City of Danville,' Yates said, before addressing Alderman Ed Butler.
'Mr. Butler, we've come a long way since Antioch Baptist Church in the meeting we had after I don't know how many funerals, and different things that we went on in 2018, but we came ...' Yates said, choking back tears, 'we came a long way, and that's ruining relationships. It's difficult when we have disparity on that.'
It's not about race, but crime
Yates' primary argument was that his department is not biased, but simply doing their jobs where they are told to do so — jobs which, if done well, yield results.
'We pull over for violations. We also use data and intelligence-driven policing for our resource allocations,' he said, later saying he is 'satisfied with where we're at' and 'unapologetic for the decrease in crime rate, in the violence.' Yates did recognize there was an 'uptick in property crime and non-detainable offenses.'
In an interview with the Commercial-News Tuesday, Yates doubled down on his assertion that the traffic stop disparity in Danville happens not because of bias but because 'police go where crime happens.'
'You have twice as many police officers in high crime areas,' he said, before offering a hypothetical scenario.
'Say you've got four zones in the city, A, B, C and D. A has the lowest amount of crime; B has the second least amount of crime; C has third; D has the most crime,' Yates said. 'Where do you put the most officers? When you have more officers you observe more offenses.'
When asked about where police resources are most often allocated in Danville, Yates said 'on the east side and there's some pockets on the west side' — two areas which have historically been majority Black, according to a Census map from 2020.
'If you're white, you're white. If you're Black, you're Black. That's not why you got pulled over. You got pulled over because you either were involved in a crime or there was a violation of Illinois vehicle code,' Yates said.
In response to a question about whether the crimes he said his force were successfully preventing were somehow connected to pretext traffic stops for victimless offenses like an expired registration sticker, Mayor Rickey Williams, Jr. interrupted Chief Yates with his own answer.
'If a person doesn't have an updated registration, they're less likely to have insurance. Then when they hit you or me and then we have to pay our insurance, or we have to pay out of pocket to fix our car because they don't, then people would be angry,' Williams said.
'Black people, or poor people of all kinds on the East End and Black people in particular, asked for additional help. When there are more police officers, then there are going to be more police stops. That's just common sense,' Williams said.
Williams said he doesn't believe in what he says is a 'false narrative' being spread by Lloyd Randle and the ACLU.
'Lloyd Randle has an agenda to make himself relevant. And this is where he finds it. If he didn't have that agenda, then we wouldn't even be having this conversation,' Williams said.
What's next?
Vice Mayor Tricia Teague joined Alderman Jon Cooper in calling for an external, third-party analysis of the data to clear the air.
'Somebody's right, somebody's wrong,' Cooper said. 'If there's a study ... get it over with. Just put this thing to bed. I don't like it being brought up all the time.'
'I do agree that there should be an analysis of the data from an independent third-party so that we don't have to keep having this conversation, because this conversation is going for at least a year or two,' Teague said.
Yates asserted that his primary concern is to have a discussion on 'how we can improve quality life through crime prevention and people feel safe. And that's what everybody wants.'
Randle told the Commercial-News that he agrees with Cooper and Teague as far as what needs to happen next.
'We know that there is a disparity in traffic stops, based on race. Without a formal, independent review of the data, we are never going to get the answers that the community deserves,' Randle said.
As for accusations that he and the ACLU are creating problems where there are none, Randle asserts that the issue isn't going away.
'We're not going anywhere,' Randle said. 'This is a situation that is plaguing African Americans throughout this entire nation, and [Williams] has a responsibility as the mayor to answer the question: based on their percentage of the driving population, are African Americans being stopped, ticketed, fined, harassed, and interrogated more often by law enforcement?'
'The mayor used the race card to, in part, oust the college president, but yet he won't use that part of his ethnicity to get to the bottom line of a basic, fundamental question that's being asked by the African American community,' Randle said.
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