Civil liberties advocates take issue with Chicago Police mass arrest plans for Democratic Convention
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Chicago Police have been preparing for the Democratic National Convention this summer - and the huge number of protesters coming with it.
New policies, including one that allows mass arrests of protesters, have caught the eye of First Amendment advocates - and of the protesters themselves.
Chicago Police are calling the practice "coordinated multiple arrest incidents," or CMAs. They are to be used when multiple arrests happen at the same time and normal processing cannot happen.
But protesters and civil liberty advocates said it is the policy itself that cannot happen.
Groups concerned over how Chicago Police handled - or mishandled - unrest in the days after George Floyd's death at the hands of police in Minneapolis are taking issue with a special order from the CPD dealing with "response to crowds, protests, and civil disturbances."
The Democratic National Convention is coming to Chicago in just four months and thousands of protesters are expected for it.
In this a federal court filing last month, the American Civil Liberties Union and a coalition of protesters zeroes in on "serious deficiencies in the mass arrest policy" - a policy they say "eviscerates protections required by the First Amendment."
"CPD doesn't need any more slack in their leash," said Joe Iosbaker of the Coalition to March on DNC. "They need a tighter leash."
Iosbaker said he was in the heat of things back in 2020 in the days after George Floyd's death - a police response the city's own inspector general summed up by saying, "CPD was unprepared to deal with this volume of arrests."
"This is not a thing of the distant past," Iosbaker said.
The city and the CPD have two weeks to respond to the coalition's calls for revisiting the policies. If an agreeable middle ground can't be found, a federal judge will weigh in and ultimately decide.
The coalition of protesters said the urgency of this matter cannot be overstated.
CBS 2 reached out to the CPD for comment on these efforts. There had not been a response as of late Monday.
The coalition of protesters and the ACLU are also asking to attend and observe the training for the police policies that end up on the books ahead of the August convention.
