Chicago Police Are Wrongly Arresting Black Legal Gun Owners, Lawsuit Claims

A federal judge says there is evidence Chicago police have engaged in a widespread pattern of discrimination against legal gun owners who are black, and will allow a lawsuit on the matter to proceed.Lucy Washington sued the Chicago Police Department over her 2023 arrest during a traffic stop, which began when she was pulled over for failing to use a turn signal. Ms. Washington informed the officers she was carrying a legal weapon, held an Illinois state firearm identification card, and an expired conceal carry license.While the license was expired, Ms. Washington had a license renewal application under review. State law considers a permit still valid as long as the permit holder has submitted renewal paperwork.Police arrested Ms. Washington anyway on felony weapons charges. Her gun was seized, her vehicle was towed, and she was booked into the Cook County Jail. Her lawsuit says officers concealed the fact her renewal was pending to receive credit for a “felony firearm arrest and recovery.” Officers do not receive cash bonuses or extra pay for gun arrests, but they can help in career advancement because of their impact on performance metrics.Prosecutors later dismissed the felony charge against Ms. Washington. But she said the arrest damaged her reputation, and she lost clients from her realtor career after her mugshot was distributed to local media.Ms. Washington sued the city and the two police officers in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division. Chief Judge Virginia Kendall, in May 2025, initially granted a request from the city to dismiss her suit, saying Ms. Washington didn’t have enough proof to substantiate claims of widespread abuse. The judge did allow her to refile the suit after additional discovery, however. So Ms. Washington filed an amended complaint in April, listing 35 additional allegations involving other legal gun owners. The suit further charged that the Illinois Department of Transportation found black drivers in Chicago were 3.84 times more likely to be stopped than white drivers in 2022, 3.75 times more likely in 2023, and 4.11 times more likely in 2024.The amended suit also contained four cases of police stopping a black driver, conducting a search, seizing firearms, and arresting the driver despite the driver verifying their right to carry the firearm.The city argued the examples were too few to show a widespread pattern of abuse. Judge Kendall disagreed, calling Ms. Washington’s allegations “well-pleaded.”“Washington’s allegations-when viewed as a whole-tell a plausible story of a widespread practice where City officers target Black drivers who possess firearms, pull them over, and then initiate unconstitutional seizures and arrests,” Judge Kendall wrote in her order to deny the city’s request to throw out the case. The decision allowed the suit to continue to trial.“It’s nothing short of mind-boggling to think that there may be more instances of individuals who have successfully navigated every bureaucratic hoop and hurdle that Illinois and Chicago have placed in the way of ordinary citizens lawfully exercising their Second Amendment rights only to face arrest, prosecution, the stigma of felony charges, and loss of their time, money and property because the government system isn’t working as it is supposed to,” the NRA said in a statement, in support of Ms. Washington.The city’s law department declined to comment to local media, citing the pending litigation.

Chicago Police Are Wrongly Arresting Black Legal Gun Owners, Lawsuit Claims

Chicago Police Are Wrongly Arresting Black Legal Gun Owners, Lawsuit Claims

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