A woman called police on State Sen. Mike Simmons while he was canvassing voters in Uptown on Feb. 20, an encounter the congressional candidate said reflects the kinds of bias his campaign has sought to address.
Simmons was door-knocking with his campaign manager and volunteers inside a residential building in Buena Park when a resident questioned the group, asked for documentation and called the police after Simmons introduced himself as the neighborhood’s state senator and a candidate for Congress, he said.
Simmons left the building before officers arrived and later spoke with police about the call, he said.
“I said, ‘Look, as a state senator and a candidate for Congress, we’re out here trying to reach our voters,’” Simmons told Windy City Times. “‘I am so disappointed that you would choose to call the police at a time when interactions between law enforcement and Black people all too often end up with another Black person dead.’”
A video of the incident was shared with local journalist Brandon Pope.
The incident echoes the circumstances behind a 2021 law Simmons sponsored that makes it a hate crime to call police on a person of color without an active threat to public safety.
The legislation was prompted by national cases in which Black people were reported to law enforcement during routine activities, including one in which someone called the police on Oregon State Rep. Janelle Bynum while she was canvassing for re-election in 2018.
Simmons said the moment raised concerns about safety for his family, staff and volunteers.
“The first people I thought about were my family, my loved ones, my staff and my volunteers,” Simmons said. “I don’t want them to have to worry about something happening to me while exercising my constitutional rights to hold office and be a candidate.”
The first Black person to represent Chicago’s Far North Side in the Illinois Senate, Simmons said the experience is part of the lived reality he has centered in his campaign for the 9th Congressional District seat, which has focused on affordability, civil rights and what he described as erosion of human rights.
“When someone calls the police on a sitting Black state senator, that lived experience is part of the bevy of experiences that I’ve talked about on this campaign,” Simmons said. “I think it uniquely qualifies me to serve as the congressperson from the 9th District.”