Driving while on the phone.

Being pulled over without lights or sirens.

Getting searched for incorrectly turning down a one-way.

These are just some of the situations drivers have been pulled over for within Campustown, on and near the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus. 

Interviews with several undergraduate drivers and complaint forms revealed interactions with university police vary and unveiled drivers’ beliefs and attitudes following the interaction. Several said they had no issues with officer conduct, while other drivers alleged profiling and poor behavior.

In over 29,000 traffic stops in the past 10 years, state data shows Black and Asian drivers are stopped at rates greater than their representation in the Champaign County population. Yet the University of Illinois Police Department said it has no specific initiatives to identify potential bias outside of existing policies and training, although it reports on the race and ethnicity of drivers stopped.

Once stopped, Black drivers are consistently more ticketed than any other race reported. In 2022, Black drivers were twice as likely as white drivers to receive a citation as opposed to a written warning. In 2023, more than 35% of Black drivers were cited compared with just 20% of white drivers.

Two University of Illinois Police Department officials acknowledged the disparities in an interview with CU-CitizenAccess.org last fall. Captain Jason Bradley described traffic stops as discretionary based on the circumstances of each stop and Lieutenant Nathaniel Park said the department has “constant monitoring” of the department’s bodycam footage to identify and address issues. 

In a statement sent to The Investigative Project on Race and Equity, University Police Chief Matt Ballinger said the department is committed to creating a safe campus. 

The project is a non-profit organization that aims to quantify issues through the lens of equity on race. Its team is collaborating with WBEZ on an investigation into traffic stops and racial disparities across Illinois, particularly on college campuses.

“The Division of Public Safety is committed to providing a safe place where our students, faculty and staff can excel academically and professionally,” Ballinger said. “This commitment is codified in community-based values and the integration of the pillars of the 21st Century Policing model.”

The policing model was developed in 2015 under a presidential order and is centered on six core pillars, including building trust, training and education.

Within the integrated campus community, drivers often travel across Campustown through Champaign and Urbana, so drivers stopped are not limited to students. University police also serve a large off-campus portion of Champaign under a mutual agreement with the city, which Ballinger said is reflected in the data reported to the state. 

Student drivers reported mixed experiences, some alleged misconduct

Complaints filed by drivers against the police department and driver interviews allege officer misconduct or bias in some incidents. Some students reported no issues, while one complaint by a driver said they hoped the officers’ conduct was an “isolated incident.”

“I just don’t honestly feel safe driving on campus anymore,” a driver said in a 2017 handwritten complaint submitted to university police. 

Several students and other drivers have raised concerns over policing practices on campus, with some filing complaints against university police. Four complaints about traffic stops, documented in official complaint forms beginning in 2017 and obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests, alleged instances of profiling, excessive stops and failure to properly handle medical emergencies.

When University of Illinois senior Madisyn Jeffries found a parking spot near Bousfield Hall on campus, she said she parked her car and exited her vehicle. 

Jeffries, a Black woman, said she was then greeted with an “aggressive tone” and ordered to get back in her car by a university police officer.

“I didn’t even know he was pulling me over because he didn’t turn on his lights until after I parked my car,” she said in an interview with CU-CitizenAccess last fall. 

Jeffries said the officer pulled her over for not making a complete stop at a stop sign when turning onto Stadium Drive to park her car. The stop resulted in a written warning because this was her first time being pulled over, she said. 

She described the officer as rude and said the entire situation was confusing and overly drawn out.

Carter Evans, a white man and senior at the university, said he had a vastly different experience. 

Evans said he was pulled over twice by university police. In an interview last fall, he described both interactions as professional and justified.

The first traffic stop was due to driving in a designated bus-only area at the intersection of Wright Street and Chalmers Street. The second stop was because he used a cell phone while driving.

“I wasn’t afraid or concerned about receiving unfair treatment,” Evans said.

The handwritten complaint from 2017 details a driver stopped in a yellow Camaro designed like Bumblebee from the Transformers franchise being surrounded by squad cars, officers and a police dog for turning the wrong way down a one-way road. The complainant’s name, race, sex and other details were redacted.

The driver said the stop, which lasted about an hour, looked like a “major drug bust” and felt the officers did not have probable cause to search them and their car. 

The officers repeatedly asked the driver if he had any “firearms, ammunition, drugs, naming every drug in the book.” A sheriff’s officer arrived with a K9, walked around the car, and said the dog “tipped off” the car, which the driver questioned. 

“He didn’t bark, jump or anything,” the driver said. 

Another officer then asked them to step out to be searched. The driver asked about probable cause, but received no answers and complied. Only lip balm was found on the driver, they said. 

“3-4 police officers searched my car top to bottom,” the driver said. “After 2-3 officers gave up, the sheriff was persistent on finding something … After the search was over and nothing was found, the sheriff proceeded to call me a liar. She stated she hates when people are dishonest.”

The driver ended up with a ticket for driving on a suspended license, which they said was due to an alleged DMV mistake.

“I felt like I was harassed, my 4th amendment rights weren’t protected and profiling played a part in this incident,” the driver said. “My character was shattered as people took pictures and uploaded them to social media. I am now dealing with issues at work from this incident.”

Another person complained about officer conduct during a stop while on their way to the emergency room for a potential stroke. Two officers stopped the complainant’s mother, who was driving them to the ER, on University Avenue after allegedly driving in the bicycle lane on First Street. 

Carle Foundation Hospital is roughly 1.2 miles from the intersection of the two streets, but the complaint did not say the exact location of the stop.

The complainant said they told the officers about the medical emergency, but were not let go or given an escort. Later, they said one officer became defensive because they “hadn’t told her” about the potential stroke. 

“When people are in crisis, they usually are not as articulate as they would be otherwise. It’s unrealistic to expect that people should be, and police officers should know that,” the complainant said. “Becoming defensive with us that I didn’t initially tell her that I could have been having a stroke is at the least unprofessional, and at the worst, dangerously time-consuming in a situation like that.”

After calling the nurse back, the complainant said the officer “abruptly walked away, mumbling we were free to go.” They said it was unprofessional and confusing enough to cause serious consequences:

“What if we, or someone else in a similar situation, had not understood what they were supposed to do, and then had done the wrong thing? Could someone have died if they had stayed for an extra few minutes, not understanding that they could proceed? Or could they have gotten a more serious violation if they had left, not understanding that they were supposed to have stayed?”

The complainant repeatedly questioned how a less privileged individual might have been treated in the same situation and criticized the officers’ handling of a medical emergency.

In another complaint, a driver, whose name, gender and race were redacted,  complained about being searched during a traffic stop after leaving Campus Pantry one night in August 2020. They were pulled over for not having their lights on. 

After collecting their information, the officers returned and initiated a vehicle search with a police dog and searched the driver. 

“I got pulled out of the car and searched for no reason,” the complainant said. “Instead of giving the traffic ticket they illegally searched and seized us. They had no warrant or probable cause.”

Officers undergo thousands of hours of training

The Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board sets training mandates for all certified police officers, which cover topics like cultural competency, civil rights, human rights and procedural justice. 

Police Chief Ballinger said the department’s officers receive “comprehensive training that exceeds the minimum hours required” by the board. 

As of March, the department has 53 officers, nine sergeants, nine security guards, five lieutenants and three captains, among other roles in the department. Nearly 90% of the whole department is white.

The department’s policy manual gives insight into the federal and state mandated training requirements. While some areas require annual training, others, such as civil rights and cultural competency, happen every three years. 

Overall, university police officers underwent 13,972 hours of training across 224 different topic areas in the 2022-23 school year — averaging out to 191 hours of training per officer in the department every year. Yet not every officer actually completes that number.

Records shared by university police in an interview with CU-CitizenAccess last fall show the number of training hours each officer under the topic mandates set by the standards board during the 2023-24 school year.

These regular training topics can include recognizing bias, de-escalation techniques and proper use of force. A list of training courses officers took is on the department’s website.

Overall, records shared show officers did 1,963 hours of procedural justice, 1,433 hours of civil rights training, 796 hours of human rights and 275 hours of cultural competency training.  

University police have acknowledged systemic inequalities and stated that race alone is not ever a reason for someone to be pulled over. Spotlighting and addressing these issues is framed as a community effort.

“As of today we are much busier as an agency than we were in 2014. Our calls for service are higher,” Police Captain Bradley said. “Our responsibilities with the Campustown, with our bar growth, with the multi-family type of residential units we’ve seen gone up in the past 10 years has really increased our call loads.”

The Illinois SAFE-T Act passed in 2021. It included reform for policing and aimed to address systemic issues in law enforcement, including traffic stops.

The policy established new training requirements for all law enforcement officers and mandated body cameras to be worn by officers, updated pretrial detention procedures, required transparency with policing practices and included a plan to reduce racial disparities.

A hope of the SAFE-T Act was to improve relationships and trust between law enforcement and the communities they patrol by reducing police interactions that lead to unnecessary punishment.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) says understanding one’s rights during a traffic stop can help ensure fair and safe interactions and allow individuals to navigate encounters with law enforcement more confidently.

Maia McDonald, Investigative Project on Race and Equity, contributed to this article.

Jordan Butler, for CU-CitizenAccess.org, also contributed to this article.