U.S. Judge Rejects Warrantless Police Gun Searches in Chicago

CHICAGO —  Police cannot conduct warrantless gun searches in public housing projects, a federal judge said Thursday. The decision rebuffed pleas from housing officials and tenants who hoped that the sweeps would quell gang violence.

U.S. District Judge Wayne Anderson’s ruling ended the latest round in an emotional dispute between city officials and civil libertarians, who argue that the courts cannot grant a wholesale waiver of the Constitution’s protection against unreasonable searches.

Violence last summer prompted the Chicago Housing Authority to ask police to conduct the random, door-to-door searches for guns, without obtaining search warrants.

Some tenants also backed the warrantless searches, saying they would prefer the sweeps to random gunfire that made it dangerous to stand near windows or venture outside.

“Mothers put kids in their bathtubs in fear of their lives,” CHA Chairman Vincent Lane said before the hearing.

Lane left the courtroom without comment after Anderson’s ruling, which upheld a ban imposed last month on the searches.

The American Civil Liberties Union sued to halt the searches on behalf of Chicago’s estimated 150,000 public housing tenants.

Gang warfare last month in the huge Robert Taylor Homes project brought new urgency to the debate. Police received more than 300 reports of gunfire in the 28-building, 12,320-tenant complex over a five-day period.

Anderson has permitted police to conduct warrantless searches if specific apartments are pinpointed as sources of gunfire.

ACLU attorney Harvey Grossman said Anderson’s ruling “proves that there is one Constitution.” He argued that because public housing tenants are poor, authorities want to take unconstitutional shortcuts to deal with violence in the projects.

“You would not see weapons searches of apartments on Lake Shore Drive,” one of Chicago’s most affluent areas, Grossman said. “The problem here is the inability to provide everyday law enforcement.”

Under terms of their leases, any public housing tenants caught with guns, registered or unregistered, face eviction.