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Where we are today
Thank you to all our neighbors who signed our petition! bit.ly/lakeview4everyone
After several rounds of public comments, petitions, FOIAs, and advocacy with the 19 Police District Council, CPD, CCPSA and 44th ward office, we finally got an update at the August 19th PDC meeting that our request has been submitted to the 19th PD commander’s office and will be discussed at the next meeting. Predictably, there have been no updates from our 44th Ward Alderman Lawson, who keeps hiding behind CPD and changing his story.
Now, we are expanding our advocacy for alternative response in Chicago to include all interactions with children in and out of school.
How we got here
Here is a brief re-cap of actions that we’ve taken since launching our petition on May 18, 2026, when we requested community dialogue about post-Pride safety, in order to address over-policing that we’ve observed during prior years. Not surprisingly, we haven’t received any response, and we submitted our petition as part of the public comment time during the June and July 19th Police District Council meetings.
Following the chaotic post-Pride debacle in Lakeview, which we documented here, we submitted a letter on July 15th, 2026, requesting a formal public debriefing with the CPD 19th District Commander Jessani, 44th Ward Alderman Bennett Lawson, and all other relevant stakeholders involved in public safety planning and law enforcement operations for Pride-related events on June 28, 2026, with the goal to facilitate a public conversation about the rationale for actions taken, what worked, what did not, and what recommendations should be made for next year. Once again, no response from anyone.
On July 22, 2026, 44th Ward Alderman Lawson hosted a “public safety townhall” where he contradicted his earlier public statements on post-Pride being the result of extensive planning and collaboration with many stakeholders, stating that “it was all CPD”. When asked why he doesn’t join 19PDC meetings to work with the community on these issues, he stated “It is not my meeting”.
In July, we submitted FOIA requests to find out how many officers were deployed, how planning decisions were made, and how much it cost to occupy our Lakeview neighborhood on June 28th after the parade ended between 2:00pm and 2:00am the following day. Our FOIA’s were denied. We re-submitted them separately in August to narrow the scope of each FOIA request.
Since we haven’t received ANY response from any of the stakeholders, we appealed to CCPSA on July 30th, via public comment to request CCPSA’s support with obtaining a written response to our Petition from the 19th Police District Commander Amin Jessani, as well as to providing us with clear answers to our questions. And, we requested CCPSA support with our efforts to include Post-Pride safety in the Alternative Response framework for the City of Chicago. Based on our experiences observing the unnecessary and unproductive interactions between police and children who visited our neighborhood during and after the annual Pride parade, it’s clear that this fits within the definition of a non-violent situation that is being treated with both gross over-policing and extreme prejudice.
Finally, during the August 26 19th PDC meeting, we requested our district councilors’ support to expand the advocacy for the alternative response to include all interactions with children in and out of school via public comment.
What is Alternative Response
Right now alternative response is defined as pairing emergency calls with the most appropriate responders, where specialists are sent to non-violent situations to improve community outcomes, and to allow police to focus on tasks best suited to their training and skills.
There are two current initiatives that fall under that umbrella:
Treatment Not Trauma / CARE for mental health crisis response
Parking alternative response, which is a draft ordinance pending in front of the city council.
Both of these stipulate that trained specialists are better equipped to respond to mental health emergencies and low-risk parking calls, respectively.
By the same logic, police officers are NOT best suited based on their training and skills to be around children in or out of school buildings. It has been culturally and historically normalized, but it is not normal to have armed officers around children. Providing services and support systems such as community schools for long term support, and including conflict resolution and violence prevention as an emergency response is a worthwhile effort. Now is the right time to turn the tables on the snap curfew/teen trends over-policing propaganda to require qualified alternative response to all situations involving minor children and students.
What’s next
Don’t miss the September 19th Police District Council meeting (Wednesday, September 30, Lincoln Park Presbyterian) to hear an answer from the CPD and join our advocacy efforts for safe and inclusive Lakeview for EVERYONE.