After law enforcement deployed chemical ammunition, including pepper spray, and arrested a Northwestern student at a Saturday protest, local activist organization Evanston Fight for Black Lives issued a statement Monday condemning police violence and the tactics used by Evanston Police Department and Illinois crowd control.

The group, which said it has not yet been in contact with organizers from NU Community Not Cops, shares a similar goal: police abolition. Organizers from EFBL wrote in the release that the violence enacted by law enforcement and the actions of protesters were held to “different standards.”

“When EPD and NUPD used violence against protesters last night, they upheld the systems that Northwestern Community Not Cops sought to abolish — the marginalization of Black Evanston residents by the policing system,” organizers wrote. “The resistance of protesters at the march was in response to centuries of anti-Black violence. When communities are oppressed by state violence, the natural impulse is to resist.”

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Evanston Police Chief Demitrous  Cook spoke in support at a Nov. 2 City meeting of his decision to bring in outside assistance to help quell a demonstration in downtown Evanston on Halloween Night, Oct. 31, in which officers had to use pepper spray to subdue some protesters.

Responding to questions at the Human Services Committee meeting, Chief Cook said police turned to the Northern Illinois Police Alarm System (NIPAS) mobile unit for help at the scene, because they needed additional manpower.

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The Evanston Police Department has phased out its stop and frisk policy, Evanston Police Cmdr. Brian Henry said, but police accountability advocates said EPD’s data shows racial disparities in pat downs.

In 2013, former police chief Richard Eddington announced the expansion of stop-and-frisk tactics to address gun violence, the Daily reported. Henry said the practice is no longer used under chief Demitrous Cook, who was sworn in January 2019.

However, Evanston police officers can conduct “investigative stops,” according to the city website, which means officers can stop someone if they have reasonable suspicion a person “is commiting, is about to commit or has committed a crime.”

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VANSTON, IL — One of the dozens of men whose images, birthdays and addresses were publicly posted to a personal social media account of Evanston Police Chief Demitrous Cook filed a federal civil rights lawsuit Sunday against the city, the police department and the chief, in both his personal and official capacity.

Kevin Logan’s personal information was annotated with handwritten notes saying, “Pending” and “HIV” in screenshots of the chief’s since-deleted post. Notes next to other booking photographs included “DOA [dead on arrival]” and “In custody.”

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In an effort to increase police transparency, the Evanston Police Department recently launched a police dashboard program that displays data on police activity and categorizes incidents by race. However, demographic categorizations of people marked as “Hispanic” coming into contact with police are causing concerns with the accuracy of the data.

The data range from pat downs, which are categorized by race, to use of force, categorized by type. Evanston police Cmdr. Ryan Glew said the objective of the dashboard program is to create a level of transparency for the police department’s “day-in and day-out activities.”

“We want the community to trust what we say,” Glew said. “We want to give ourselves credibility in the community.”

A May 27 statement from the Citizens’ Network of Protection — a group dedicated to police reform and civilian oversight — echoed these concerns. The statement claimed the demographic data is incorrect and the organization is hoping to receive the correct numbers for black, white, Hispanic, Asian and other non-white arrests, citations and street stops.

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Evanston police quietly maintained an unreleased internal policy regarding the use of drones, according to a document obtained by Lucy Parsons Labs.

The document [PDF], entitled “Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) Operations” and dated July 25, 2018, lays out departmental guidelines for the use of drones. It is included in the department’s standard policy manual.

The Evanston Police Department’s policy was created without public knowledge or debate in a community that was an early leader in preventing the rush to drones by law enforcement.

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Emails obtained by Lucy Parsons Labs reveal that Geofeedia touted social media surveillance of middle and high school students by its suburban Chicago police customers in an effort to sell their services to Evanston police.

Geofeedia provides law enforcement with tools to monitor social media use by mapping location and other data. It has received funding from the investment arm of the CIA, In-Q-Tel.

The company became infamous after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) published a report in 2016 on the use of their products by police to monitor demonstrations against police violence.

Geofeedia’s courting of the Evanston Police Department (EPD) goes back to 2013, and as emails show, the company developed a relationship with police at a time when the sale of surveillance technology to law enforcement became ubiquitous.

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As incident after incident has shown, the issues of racial bias and excessive force that pervade police departments across the country also affect Evanston police — most recently illustrated in the detainment of 60-year-old black Evanston man Gregory Hall. Hall was injured after Evanston police misidentified him as an armed robbery suspect as he was leaving the Evanston Public Library south branch.

As many Evanston community members continue to describe their distrust of local police, the Evanston Police Department has tried to ease these tensions.  The Citizen Police Complaint Assessment Committee met for the first time in October to discuss reforming EPD’s complaint process and has been working on the matter since.  And most recently, this has taken form in the utilization of body cameras.

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