CHICAGO (WLS) — The ABC 7 I-Team is investigating a group of Chicago police officers accused in lawsuits and public complaints of unlawfully stopping and searching drivers along the Mag Mile.

The historic Mag Mile boasts high-end retailers, a must-see for shopping tourists.

But for some Chicagoans who talked to the I-Team, the Mag Mile triggers memories of traumatic encounters with officers.

It comes at a time when Chicago police are reviewing a controversial policing tactic at the center of the stops and searches, and its value in keeping the city safe.

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For Desmen Northington, he said it started one night in September 2024 when he picked up an order from Zara on the Mag Mile, parking in a 15-minute loading zone along Superior Street without his hazard lights on.

As he was about to pull out, Chicago police officers approached his car, asking for his license.

But before Northington said he could get his license out, the stop escalated.

“Get out of the car,” one of the officers told Northington. “Come on out or we’ll rip you out.”

Northington said before he could realize what was happening, officers were opening his driver’s side door and putting him in handcuffs.

“I was so scared,” Northington said. “I had my phone in my hand and I was trying to say, ‘Hey, Siri, call Dad.'”

Northington said he was handcuffed and moved to the curb, while officers searched his vehicle. According to an investigatory stop report of the incident, no illegal contraband was found.

Officers eventually allowed Northington to leave without any charge or citation, but he said the experience off the Mag Mile was overwhelming.

Critics call these “pretextual stops” or a traffic stop that allows officers to investigate a crime unrelated to the original alleged traffic law violation.

Police stopped Northington because he failed to turn on his hazard lights in that loading zone.

But in their investigatory stop report, officers said they had “probable cause” to search him and his vehicle because Northington’s actions were “indicative of engaging in violent behavior.”

“I felt like I was profiled,” Northington said. “I’m young, I’m African-American.”

Northington has now sued the city of Chicago over what happened that night.

“From the very beginning, you could tell this guy was just like anyone else,” said Northington’s attorney Jordan Marsh. “Sitting in his car, you know, not doing anything that would provoke any sense of danger.”

The city’s law department and Chicago police would not comment given the pending litigation.

In court filings, the city and the officers involved denied any wrongdoing.

“Dude, we do this about 100 times a night,” one of the officers told Northington the night of his stop and search. “You think you’re the only one?”

The ABC7 I-Team found three of the officers involved with Northington’s stop-and-search have separately been named in a total of six other lawsuits since 2019.

ABC7 is not naming the officers because they haven’t been charged with a crime.

Those lawsuits have resulted in more than $100,000 in settlements, and discipline imposed on some officers.

Disciplined not for the stops themselves – the stops are allowed under Chicago police policy — but for the officers’ conduct during those stops.

Like one Chicago police stop in 2021.

Two of the officers in Northington’s stop pulled over two parents with their children in the car off of the Mag Mile for idling in a “no parking” zone.

When the driver questioned why officers were asking for his license and registration, the officers opened his driver’s side door and demanded he exit the vehicle.

When officers searched the car, they found no weapons or illegal contraband.

The father was arrested for “reckless conduct” after “pushing an officer during [the] stop,” according to court records, but those charges were later dismissed.

The driver sued Chicago police and in court filings, the officers denied wrongdoing but the city paid $100,000 to settle the case. One of the officers was suspended for a month for “use of profanity,” according to Chicago police Bureau of Internal Affairs records reviewed by the I-Team.

University of Illinois Chicago Law Professor Hugh Mundy viewed the footage from Northington’s stop, as well as one other stop, and said he believes the officers’ actions are unconstitutional.

“I think the police are acting on a hunch and then justifying it based on what might be discovered after a search,” Mundy said. “The Fourth Amendment protects everyone from unlawful searches and seizures, and searches are presumptively unlawful when there’s not a warrant involved.”

Mundy continued, “To identify individuals based on something like hazard lights… simply does not do justice to the Fourth Amendment.”

The ABC7 I-Team analyzed Chicago police data from stops conducted by the three Mag Mile officers who pulled over Northington and are named in his lawsuit.

Since 2022, out of nearly 800 investigatory stops, 84% of drivers pulled over were Black, 25% of all drivers were arrested, and officers reported finding a firearm in 13% of the 800 stops, though it’s not clear how many weapons were improperly stored or illegally owned.

Guns were found in just 5% of investigatory stops citywide since 2022.

“When people are stopped without a reasonable suspicion or probable cause, the city does not become safer,” Mundy said. “The city becomes more fractured.”

Another law professor who reviewed the footage from the Mag Mile stops, but did not want to go on camera, told the I-Team both drivers’ “verbal and nonverbal behaviors were the catalyst for escalation” in these traffic stops.

Measures like handcuffing a driver during a search, he said, are in place to protect both the driver and officer while searches are conducted.

In the past 10 years, the I-Team found two Chicago officers were killed in the line of duty during traffic stops.

The city’s Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability has proposed new restrictions on when officers can search vehicles.

Some council members worry it would “enable criminals.”

Superintendent Larry Snelling has said the department’s traffic stop policy is currently under review, but he stressed there have to be limits to any reform.

“We have to be very careful about going outside of the law and making our policies so restrictive that our officers can’t make stops that are going to keep the public safe,” Supt. Snelling said at an April 28 news conference.

Northington, the son of a school district police chief, said he’s always had positive experiences with law enforcement until this night.

Northington said, “If every person that they pull over is treated the way that I was, I can only imagine the fear and trauma that people that society would have against police officers.”