A Black woman wants law enforcement in Caseyville, Illinois, to do better after her encounter with police left her feeling harassed and targeted because of her race.
As reported by Belleville News-Democrat, Tanya Fox, 40, described her January encounter with the police during a Caseyville Village Board meeting Wednesday night, where she called for accountability and the end of pretextual police stops. She claims Caseyville police officers pulled her over after following her from a hotel that they said was in a “high drug area.”
“You picked me out,” Fox told the board members Wednesday, accusing the officers of roughing her up physically by twisting her arm and fingers while she was being handcuffed. The woman claims the officers touched her inappropriately while searching her clothing for narcotics.
Speaking to BND about the incident, Fox said her family was living at the hotel temporarily after being displaced from their home in Belleville. She was leaving the hotel for work the morning she was pulled over by police on Saturday, Jan. 8.
One officer is heard on dashcam saying, “It’s not harassment because … that hotel is high with drug traffic. You go that early in the morning, okay? Your ID returns out Alton. You’re from Belleville. And then you leave after you went there. The car was off, then the car was on.”
A second officer said, “What he was trying to explain to you is it’s a high drug area, okay? You’re in and out. You don’t return out of there, okay? And we already know —”
“I’m not a drug addict,” Fox interjected.
A third officer, a sergeant, said, “It’s not harassment. It’s doing police work. … If we find out you don’t have anything to do with drugs, then we’ll let you go.”
The officers didn’t find any drugs on the woman or inside her vehicle.
According to BND, in the official police report, the there is no mention of drugs or the hotel.
Village officials stand by the officers’ actions and deny Fox was touched inappropriately or that excessive force was used during the stop.
Caseyville Police Chief Tom Coppotelli did acknowledge, however, that the officers received “verbal counseling” for making inappropriate statements during the stop and when Fox appeared at the police station to pick up a complaint form, according to the report.
In the dashcam video, the officers inform Fox that they pulled her over because she didn’t come to a complete stop before turning right near the hotel. She acknowledged in the video that her registration was expired.
“Just because every last one of y’all don’t know what it is to be racially profiled because you’re not Black, that does not mean you do not consider — and not only consider, hold to the utmost regard — what Tanya Fox went through,” Belleville-area activist JD Dixon said Wednesday to the board of all white males.
Coppotelli noted at the board meeting that the state police investigator who reviewed the Fox case is a Black man who sided with the officers’ handling of the Fox case.
“I had the Illinois State Police Public Integrity Unit review this case, and they said that it’s perfect, there’s nothing wrong with this case, there’s no sign of racial profiling or anything that our officers did wrong,” Coppotelli said. “I also want to tell you that I don’t find any evidence of racial profiling, and our officers acted with professional conduct, they acted with compassion, and I stand by their decision on that traffic stop that day.”
Meanwhile, Fox, Dixon and the American Civil Liberties Union are calling for a statewide end of pretextual police stops, when “breaking a traffic law becomes the pretext for law enforcement to look for evidence of criminal activity, such as drug possession,” according to BND.
“There’s the old adage that just because you can do something, doesn’t mean that you should,” said Ed Yohnka, director of communications and public policy for the ACLU of Illinois.
“One of the ways you actually combat crime is to investigate crime, not simply to investigate someone’s presence in a particular area,” he added. “… If somebody robs a bank, you don’t stop everybody that pulls into the bank for the next week. You investigate the crime.”
Caseyville Mayor G.W. Scott Sr. reportedly made clear after the board meeting that no further action against the officers will be taken.
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