For many residents, this saturation of patrols and aggressive policing became a form of neighborhood terror. Officers in this unit logged a high number of complaints. In one 2001 incident, Public Housing South officers raided a basketball game in the Stateway Gardens housing project, terrorizing the crowd and players, as later described in a federal class action lawsuit. The city ultimately settled the lawsuit for a half-million dollars. “The police methodically subjected nearly all of the people present – from babies and young children with their mothers watching the games to basketball players in full uniform – to invasive, warrantless searches of their bodies and personal effects,” said Craig Futterman, a University of Chicago attorney representing the plaintiffs, in a statement.

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