Lucy Washington, a Black real estate agent in Chicago, told the officers who pulled her over in December 2023 that she had a valid concealed carry license and a legal gun in her car. They arrested her anyway. A federal judge has now ruled that her lawsuit can go forward on the claim that what happened to her is a Chicago police practice, not a one-off mistake.
Chief Judge Virginia Kendall of the Northern District of Illinois denied the city’s motion to dismiss on Nov. 5. “Washington’s allegations, when viewed as a whole, tell a plausible story of a widespread practice where City officers target Black drivers who possess firearms, pull them over, and then initiate unconstitutional seizures and arrests,” she wrote. The city can now be held liable as an institution if Washington proves it.
The judge had gone the other way before. In May 2025 she dismissed the suit, finding Washington had not offered enough to show a wider pattern, according to the New York Sun. Washington came back in April with an amended complaint listing 35 additional allegations involving other legal gun owners.
Washington’s account: officers said the state database showed her license had expired. The arrest was based on that. Courts later determined the license was valid, and her case was dismissed, as CBS News Chicago has reported.
Hers is not the only case. CBS News Chicago found at least four Black gun owners in the Chicago area who were charged with felonies despite valid licenses, including Louis McWilliams of Tinley Park, in April 2024. Every one of those charges was eventually dropped. The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office told the station that “initial evidence at the time supported approval of felony charges” that were dropped when more information became available.
Nobody can say how many people this has happened to, because neither the Chicago Police Department nor the state’s attorney’s office tracks wrongful gun charges against licensed owners. That is the first failure. A department that does not count its mistakes cannot be said to be fixing them.
The stop data points in one direction. CBS News Chicago reported that Black drivers in Chicago are pulled over at four times the rate of white drivers. A felony arrest can cost a licensed gun owner a job, a license and a record that keeps surfacing long after a prosecutor drops the case. For Black drivers who own a gun for protection, the stop is the risk.
The police department and the city’s Law Department declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.
Chicago has spent years promising to reform how its officers stop Black drivers. This ruling says a court can now ask whether those stops are still how Black licensed gun owners end up in a cell. The city should start by counting every case, and by telling officers that a valid license is a valid license.
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