CBS Chicago just aired a tough watch: licensed Black gun owners pulled over, upfront about their firearms, cards in hand then booked on felonies when a database didn’t show their credentials.
The report, by investigator Dorothy Tucker, walks through two cases and a bigger pattern question that should bother every lawful gun owner in Illinois.
It starts with entrepreneur Lewis McWilliams, stopped on West 79th for a missing front plate. He immediately disclosed his firearm and handed over his credentials.
Per the segment, “This is Lewis’s card and it’s valid. That’s what he handed the officers.”
Yet on the squad-car audio, an officer says, “Concealed carry. It didn’t pop up.” Police recommended two felony charges.
McWilliams: “This has been very traumatic for me. I feel like my rights was violated.”
He spent 24 hours in jail—“It was just deplorable. There were roaches falling from the ceiling.”—missed a make-or-break business meeting, and fought for months to get the case tossed.
Here’s the kicker. CBS asked Illinois State Police what to do when a driver presents a valid card but the LEADS database doesn’t show it.
The answer they received: “The officers should not take any law enforcement action as it relates to a potential FOID CCL violation.”
Yet prosecutors still initially approved the charges. Former Cook County prosecutor Irv Miller was direct: “He never should have been charged… He showed them a valid CCL card. Not only did they see it, they actually took possession of it and inventoried it.”
The report then follows Lucy Washington, stopped for a turn-signal issue. She disclosed her firearm and CCL status, but her renewal hadn’t populated in the system. She tried to show the renewal email.
“It says if you applied for renewal, you’re eligible to possess a license,” per the report.
Officers repeated, “It’s not in our system, Lucy. It’s not in our system.” She was arrested on a felony that was later dismissed and expunged.
But the damage lingered: “If you search a property that is in my name, my mug shot shows up next to it. It’s embarrassing, you know? How do I explain to someone like, oh, no, I was innocent.”
Phil Smith, president of the National African American Gun Association (NAAGA), connected the dots to lived experience: “Outrage anger, frustration. Not again… another Black person being stopped illegally, being arrested illegally when they’ve had all their stuff together.”
He added, “If you look at other communities, they have firearms all over the place and it’s okay. They go to Macy’s, they go to Walmart, they go shoot and hunt and it’s okay.”
A Few Takeaways for Illinois Carriers:
- You need both a FOID and a CCL to have a handgun with you in the car, and Illinois carriers know that. But database latency (LEADS not showing your status) is apparently real—and, per the state response CBS says it received, shouldn’t trigger enforcement action for FOID/CCL violations when you’ve presented valid proof.
- Even when charges are dismissed, the time, money, mug shots, impounds, and expungements don’t just vanish for the citizen who did everything right.
CBS says Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling declined an interview; the State’s Attorney’s Office and Illinois State Police also declined to be interviewed. McWilliams and Washington are still waiting to get their legally purchased guns back from CPD.
All of this raises the question, if the state’s own guidance says “should not take any law enforcement action” in that situation, why are lawful gun owners ending up in cuffs?
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