Chicago’s 15th Police District Councilman Deondre’ Rutues demonstrated finely tuned multitasking talents as he picked up his daughter from school while speaking with the Austin Weekly News on a busy Friday afternoon earlier this month.
“I’m very family oriented, ” Rutues said after exiting an Uber to get his daughter. Along with his focused family values, Rutues describes himself as a strong, God-centered Black man deeply rooted in Blackness. Integrity, authenticity, and respect for others are also principles that govern his life.
His work as a community engagement specialist for New York University’s Policing Project and also community engagement work for the police district council. Rutues is busy helping to make communities better.
Although it’s not necessarily the mantra he lives by, he said he agrees with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s quote: “The time is always right to do what is right.”
“Before I got into the work I do now, I did a lot of research on the people who came before me and how it was important for them to lead and then for a person like myself to pick up the mantle.”
Rutues said he feels community engagement work is of the highest level of importance.
With that kind of mindset, you have to wonder whether people like Rutues are cut from a different cloth than everyone else.
“It’s an interesting question,” replied Rutues, who has a doctorate in psychology. “I will say, yes and no. We all have an amount of time in which we’re going to be here on earth and then within that time we’re given opportunities to do things that are above us or we could do things that are below us and that depends on which direction you choose to live your life.”
His decision to spend part of his life giving back to the community stems from his own personal experience.
“I was adopted and it was not traditional,” he explained. “It was that my mom needed help and one of the individuals she was dating at the time–his mother–decided she wanted to help my mom and that’s what she did, and the community took care of me. So, I’ve really decided in my adulthood, to give back.”
It was 2012 when social justice activism sparked for Rutues. He was among others who took the streets in protest following the death of Trayvon Martin, a teenager who was profiled, shot and killed by a white man working as a neighborhood watchman in an apartment complex. Martin was on his way home from a convenience store.
For African Americans, racial profiling can occur anytime while carrying out daily activities, walking, shopping, and while driving.
According to the Chicago Urban League’s State of Black Chicago Report, 2023, the Chicago Police Department reported 106,950 investigatory stops (involuntary contact with police) between January 1, 2021 and June 30, 2022. Black men and women were disproportionately represented in those stops.
Driving while Black
Asked how he navigates the city streets as a Black man, Rutues, who grew up on Chicago’s West Side, admitted the difficulties of navigating the city as a Black man, adding that he’s been stopped by Chicago Police officers “a lot of times.”
“I mean there were negative instances growing up that if I kept down that path, I wouldn’t be who I am and what I’m currently doing,” he explained. “When I consider my Blackness as a man, I’m a proud Black man. I walk in this skin every day and I know the difficulties of being a Black man. I’m not going to do anything to discredit my name. When I approach people or the police, I lead with respect.”
When it comes to policing and public safety, Rutues studied social psychology to understand stereotyping and prejudices and how all of those things come about.
As a psychologist, Rutues understands the mental makeup of humans, something that helps when connecting with people.
“I’m not a therapist or a clinical psychologist; I’m a business psychologist,” he said. “I apply psychological principles to the business environment to improve processes and efficiencies and along those lines it’s also developing people.”
Improving processes and efficiencies also applies to the Chicago Police Department, which came by way of a federally mandated consent decree, an effort to bring reforms in police training and policies.
Police reform
Where do things stand with the consent decree and what role does the Police District Council play in making sure reforms are met?
“As a city, we are definitely not hitting all of the marks on the consent decree, so it’s a work in progress,” Rutues said. “As a district council, we influence the understanding of the consent decree through the community at large and then we also influence the community commissioners and their ability to make sure the consent decree progress is actually reached.
Community commissioners are the ones who actually set the goals for the police superintendent.
“It’s helpful that they are the ones that will say, ‘Okay, if this superintendent doesn’t really enforce these practices as designed by the consent decree, we can then vote nonconfidence for that person and that person will go before the city council for a vote as to what they need to do.’ We’re definitely behind where we need to be with the consent decree.”
Rutues said he has faith that police reform is something that can be achieved in Chicago. He holds that belief due to the work he’s done in that area.
“I’m employed by the New York University School of Law and the Policing Project was something that was developed so that we could focus on what they call ‘Frontend Accountability and Democratic Policing,’” Rutues explained. “That means giving community members more say in the way they’re policed in their community. So, while the Policing Project focused on policing technologies and policing legislation, community policing is a large part of it.”
Reform for the Policing Project, which Rutues has been part of since 2018, means reorienting the way police officers behave in communities.
“I’ve seen officers be successful in terms of developing relationships with the community while also being problem solvers that we need,” Rutues said. “We want them to be involved with the community in actually creating realistic partnerships where the community’s voice is elevated, versus the police telling us what’s good for us in our community.”
The Policing Project, the umbrella project of the Chicago Neighborhood Policing Initiative, is in effect in several Chicago districts.
While focusing on police reforms is a major part of creating better communities, Rutues also is working to improve the West Side economically and civically by working with organizations such as Black Workers Matter and West Side Rising.
His stance on reparations for African Americans, he’s for it.
“Everybody else received reparations except for those that powered the economic engine that is America,” he said. “This country is great because our ancestors bled for it to be. We deserve respect, commendation and equal opportunity to enjoy the fruits of their labor…reparations are necessary.”
In his downtime, Rutues enjoys taking part in spoken word poetry, reading and immersing himself in the things his daughter is engaged in such as swimming.
He’s been traveling a bit more recently and enjoys taking in the various architecture designs during his travels.
Musically, he’s an R&B fan and listens only to Hip Hop that has a positive message.
He’s an independent voter with basketball as a favorite sport.