Lawyers for the city argue in a legal filing that Dexter Reed was pulled over for having illegally tinted windows before he was killed in a shootout with Chicago cops, contradicting the initial explanation given to police oversight officials.
The lawyers’ explanation for the deadly traffic stop was detailed in a court filing last week urging a federal judge to toss out key portions of a lawsuit filed by Reed’s mother after the March 21 gunfight in Humboldt Park.
Andrea Kersten, chief administrator of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, previously wrote an explosive memo informing Police Supt. Larry Snelling that COPA was told Reed was stopped because he wasn’t wearing a seat belt.
“COPA is uncertain how the officers could have seen this seat belt violation given their location relative to [Reed’s] vehicle and the dark tints on [Reed’s] windows,” Kersten wrote on April 1. “This evidence raises serious questions about the validity of the traffic stop that led to the officers’ encounter with [Reed].”
Kersten’s concerns were included in the lawsuit filed by Reed’s mother, Nicole Banks, which names the city and the five officers involved in the stop, including the cop Reed allegedly wounded when he opened fire. The four other officers fired back nearly 100 rounds, striking Reed 13 times.
Kersten’s deputy, Ephraim Eaddy, declined to comment on the pending lawsuit. He said COPA officials “continue to stand by the statements made previously and supporting materials released publicly by our agency in the ongoing investigations.”
The discrepancy between the initial narrative provided to COPA and the city's latest court filing raised alarms for Banks' attorney.
"The fact that there's a factual dispute about why CPD officers pulled over Dexter Reed is a perfect example of why this motion to dismiss is a complete waste of taxpayer dollars and will only prolong justice for the family of Dexter Reed," attorney Sheila Bedi said.
Reed’s sister, Porscha Banks, said the court filing marks a disheartening change in tone from Mayor Brandon Johnson’s initial response to the shooting. At the time, Johnson said he was “personally devastated to see yet another young Black man lose his life during an interaction with the police.”
"The words the mayor said when he spoke on Dexter’s death feel like lies now," Porscha Banks said. "They are trying to deny my family justice after those officers did so much wrong to my brother. To ask the court to dismiss our case after how those officers did my brother — I’m outraged, heartbroken and it feels so wrong."
Johnson’s office and the city's Law Department didn’t respond to requests for comment. The city is represented in the case by Taft Stettinius & Hollister LLP, a downtown law firm.
Nicole Banks' lawsuit alleges the “unlawful, pretextual stop” targeting her son was the result of a quota-based traffic stop program that disproportionately targets minorities and rarely leads to the recovery of drugs and guns.
On Friday, the city’s outside attorneys pushed Judge Jeffrey Cummings — a former civil rights lawyer — to dismiss a range of counts in the suit, including claims the department had engaged in a “pattern and practice” of conducting such stops and engaging in excessive force.
The lawyers argued the stop targeting Reed was constitutional because his tinted windows violated state law. “An officer’s subjective reason for conducting a traffic stop — even if based on race — does not violate the Fourth Amendment," the lawyers said.
Their filing also rebuffs allegations that officers in the Reed case violated the Illinois Civil Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The lawyers argued that officers had no way of knowing that Reed suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, as his mother has claimed in her lawsuit. They noted that Reed’s mother fails to describe how the condition “was substantially limiting or to describe, however briefly, the severity of his PTSD.”
Police records indicate that Reed was in the throes of a mental health crisis when he attacked an uncle in August 2021, leading the uncle to shoot him. Amid a series of lawsuits Reed filed after that shooting, Reed acknowledged that he suffered from PTSD and schizophrenia.
His mother claimed in her lawsuit that Reed “demonstrated symptoms from PTSD” when he failed to follow orders during the traffic stop. But the city’s lawyers pushed back on what they described as a “spurious claim” that a “reasonable officer” would have known there was a “strong likelihood” Reed had PTSD.
“There is noting reasonable about this expectation, which is wholly unsupported by the allegations,” they said.
