Powell v. Illinois
| Decision Date | 30 September 2019 |
| Docket Number | Case No. 18 CV 6675 |
| Parties | DEMETRIA POWELL, as guardian ad litem and on behalf of her son D.P; TANYA REESE, as guardian ad litem and on behalf of her son M.R.; and TYWANNA PATRICK, as guardian ad litem and on behalf of her granddaughter J.C., as well as on behalf of a class of similarly situated children, Plaintiffs, v. THE STATE OF ILLINOIS; THE ILLINOIS DEPARTMENT OF STATE POLICE; BRUCE RAUNER, Governor of the State of Illinois; and LEO P. SCHMITZ, Director of the Illinois Department of State Police, Defendants. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
It is common knowledge that, as the plaintiffs in this proposed class action allege, gun violence has ravaged the City of Chicago for decades and that the violence is concentrated in predominately African-American neighborhoods. See Compl. ¶ 1, ECF No. 1; Ezell v. City of Chicago, 651 F.3d 684, 715 (7th Cir. 2011) (). The three named plaintiffs bring claims against the State of Illinois, the Illinois State Police ("State Police"), Illinois' governor, and the head of the State Police on behalf of three children who grew up in a high-crime, predominately African-American neighborhood on Chicago's west side. Plaintiffs' claims arise under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 ("ADA"), as amended, 42 U.S.C. § 12131 et seq., and the Illinois Civil Rights Act ("ICRA"), 740 ILCS 23/5. The complaint attributes each child's Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder ("PTSD") diagnosis, as well as other disabilities affecting the child's ability to succeed at home and at school, primarily to daily exposure to gun violence and its effects. See Compl. ¶¶ 3-6, ECF No. 1. As a reasonable accommodation under the ADA, plaintiffs seek injunctive and declaratory relief. They want the court to require defendants to pass regulations, primarily focusing on gun shops, which they contend would appreciably stem the tide of gun violence in Chicago. See id. ¶ 28.
Defendants move to dismiss the complaint under Federal Rules of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) and 12(b)(6). They argue that plaintiffs do not have standing under Article III of the Constitution. They also argue that the complaint fails to state a claim for which relief can be granted. For the following reasons, the court denies the motion except as to two plaintiffs who lack standing because they have moved out of the City of Chicago.
Because defendants attack the sufficiency of the complaint, the court must accept its allegations as true and draw all reasonable inferences from its well-pleaded facts in the light most favorable to plaintiffs. See Manistee Apts., LLC v. City of Chicago, 844 F.3d 630, 633 (7th Cir. 2016) (); Berger v. Nat'l Collegiate Athletic Ass'n, 843 F.3d 285, 289 (7th Cir. 2016) (). The complaint here begins by citing statistics and reports concerning gun violence in Chicago and then recounts facts particular to each child. The complaint attributes its statistics to scholarly articles, data, and reports issued by the Chicago Police Department, the University of Chicago Crime Lab, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives.1 See Compl. ¶¶ 16-20 & n.1. Chicago has no licensed gun shops. Compl. ¶ 19.
Chicago has more gun-related homicides than any other major U.S. city. Compl. ¶ 16. Ninety percent of the murders in Chicago between January 1, 2015, and June 30, 2018, were by gunshot. Id. "Nearly 20 percent of homicide victims in Chicago are teenagers or younger." Id.
This gun violence most dramatically afflicts the African-American community in Chicago, and particularly the neighborhoods of Austin, Englewood, West Englewood, New City and Grand Crossing ("the communities of concentrated gun violence"). In 2015-2016, according to the University of Chicago Crime Lab, eighty (80)% of Chicago homicide victims were African-American, though African-Americans comprise only about one-third of the city's population. Eighty (80)% of homicide victims continue to be African-American when one looks only at killings during the first seven months of 2018. African-American men aged fifteen (15) to thirty-four (34) made up more than one-half of the city's homicide victims during this same period, while accounting for just four (4) percent of the city's population. Despite having only nine (9)% of Chicago's population, the African-American neighborhoods of Austin, Englewood, West Englewood, New City and Grand Crossing, accounted for almost one-third of homicides in 2016, and this pattern has continued. The national homicide rate is about 5 per 100,000 persons across the whole country. In the Austin neighborhood of Chicago, in 2016, the homicide rate was 87.3 per 100,000 persons, according to the University of Chicago Crime Lab. In Englewood, the homicide rate was 179.5 per 100,000 persons; in West Englewood, it was 105 per 100,000 persons; in New City, it was 98.6 per 100,000 persons and in Grand Crossing it was 103.5 per 100,000. These five neighborhoods have the most death by gun violence of any neighborhoods in Chicago. They are African-American neighborhoods. Five of the next six deadliest neighborhoods are also African-American. By comparison, the white Chicago neighborhoods of Lincoln Park, North Center, Edison Park, Forest Glen, North Park, Hegewisch, Beverly and Mount Greenwood had no homicides in 2015 or 2016, and the white neighborhoods of Lake View, Lincoln Square, Jefferson Park, Calumet Heights, Edgewater, Montclare, O'Hare, Dunning, and Norwood Park had two or fewer murders during this two-year period, with a zero or negligible homicide rate. This disparate impact of gun violence has continued through to the present day.
Compl. ¶ 17.
Most people who live in the communities of concentrated gun violence "hear gun fire most nights, while in their homes or walking the streets." Compl. ¶ 18.
How many guns are in Chicago is unknown. Compl. ¶ 18. The complaint cites statistics regarding Chicago "crime guns." Compl. ¶¶ 18, 19. Given the sources cited, the court infers that plaintiffs use this phrase as defined in the City of Chicago's gun trace report, which compiled statistics on guns recovered in 2013-2016. The report defined a "crime gun" as a gun "possessed, used, or suspected to have been used in furtherance of a crime." United States v. Rocha, 2019 WL 4384465, at *6 (N.D. Ill. Sept. 11, 2019) ().
Since 2011 Chicago police have recovered about 7,000 "crime guns" from Chicago's streets—a rate six times the per capita rate of New York City. Compl. ¶ 18. This does not count guns recovered in turn-in and buy-back programs. Id. According to statistics compiled by the Chicago Police Department, "[f]orty percent of the guns being used in gun-related crime in Chicago are purchased at gun stores in Illinois, most in suburbs nearby Chicago." Compl. ¶¶ 2, 19 (). Seven gun shops sell "most of these weapons." Compl. ¶¶ 2, 19. The majority of these guns are used in connection with Chicago crimes within one to three years of purchase. See Compl. ¶ 19 (). Several gun dealers report that from 2013-16 more than 1,200 guns were lost or stolen.2 Id.¶ 20. "This includes [gun losses from] burglaries and robberies, which are increasing at an alarming rate." Id.
On how exposure to gun violence affects children, plaintiffs allege:
It is well-established among physicians, trauma specialists and educators, as well as in the scientific, peer-reviewed literature, that when a child, particularly a young child, is exposed to gun violence, there is a dramatic and lasting impairment of the child's basic life activities. This includes deficits in the child's ability to care for himself or herself, the child's sleep, reading abilities, learning capacity, concentration, thinking and communication. . . . . Many studies have found that children directly or indirectly exposed to community violence, most often gun violence, develop acute or post-traumatic stress disorder, including disrupted sleep, anxiety and fear, as well as reduced awareness and difficulty with concentration, thinking and memory, all of which impair cognitive functioning . . . . In Chicago, there have been many studies linking exposure to gun violence directly to deficits in academic performance by African-American children.
Compl. ¶ 31, 32, 34 (); see also Compl. ¶¶ 35-36 (). Based on these studies and the named plaintiffs' experiences, plaintiffs allege they are disabled within the meaning of the ADA. See Compl. ¶¶ 44, 50, 55.
Each named plaintiff sues as a guardian ad litem of a minor child. See Compl. ¶¶ 4-6. Each African-American child lives or lived in Chicago's Austin neighborhood. Id. Each child has been diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Id. Each child alleges that exposure to gun violence on a daily basis contributed substantially to the diagnosis as well as related problems at home and at school. See id. In the following summary, ages and places of residence are stated as of the date on which the complaint was filed.
Plaintiff Demetria Powell sues on behalf of her eight-year-old son, D.P. Compl. ¶ 4. Powell, D.P., and D.P.'s two-year-old sister live in Austin. Compl. ¶¶ 4, 37. Most nights theyhear gun shots on the block where they live. Compl. ¶ 4. During the first half of 2018, four...
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