Brian Ramson, one of the district councilors for the Chicago Police Department’s Harrison District on the West Side, moved to Chicago in 2013. Since then, he said, he’s been pulled over by police roughly 50 times — about four of those coming after he was sworn in less than two years ago.
A search of Cook County court records suggests Ramson — a physicist at Fermilab who is Black — has never been issued a ticket, let alone arrested.
And he may not be alone. Law enforcement officials are quick to note the thousands of guns recovered by Chicago police officers during traffic stops each year, but civil rights activists and residents of predominantly Black and Latino communities have long called the Police Department’s traffic stops pretextual — using possible minor violations as a means to try to uncover more serious criminal activity…