The Village of Rantoul Police Department appears to have a prized section of asphalt that may be off limits for pedestrians. 

On November 7^th, 2021, after noticing two individuals walking through a parking lot across the street from the Rantoul Police Department, Officer Rikki McComas got into her police cruiser, drove across the street, parked near the lot exit that the pedestrians were walking toward, got out of her cruiser, and began questioning the rogue walkers.  McComas, who did not identify herself on approach, said the pedestrians looked lost or confused, that the parking lot belonged to the Police Department, and that walking through it was suspicious.

An overhead image of the parking lot is shown below.  The area circled in red (across the street from the Rantoul Police Department) is an area that may have you answering to Rantoul’s finest if you should decide to take a shortcut.  The surrounding area contains several residences, small businesses, and churches.  The ambiguously off-limits parking lot is not marked or fenced in any way, and has four different entrances for vehicles and pedestrians.

Officer McComas could not decipher any particular reason for stopping individuals who may walk through the parking lot.  She did refuse to turn off her body camera, which suggests that she suspected a crime was occurring or about to occur. 

The Illinois Law Enforcement Officer-Worn Body Camera Act indicates that an officer must turn off their body camera upon request unless they suspect that the subject has committed a crime or is about to commit a crime, and the officer “must indicate on the recording the reason for continuing to record despite the request”.  When asked, the most cogent answer the McComas could provide was:

“It was a little suspicious that you were standing here.  There’s all sorts of crimes that you could commit in this parking lot.”

McComas then argued that state law made it illegal for her to turn her body camera off, a claim which is in direct conflict with the plain language of the statute.

McComas sat in her squad car near the entrance of the parking lot until the pedestrians had vacated the area and were out of sight.

Addendum: Questions have been raised about the parking lot being “off limits”, as alluded to in our article.  The article has now been altered now to say “ambiguously off-limits”.  To be clear, Officer McComas did not explicitly say that people could not walk through the parking lot, but she said that doing so was suspicious.  Given that there was a police response (a squad car was dispatched over to the lot), followed by the officer saying that it was suspicious to walk there, certainly gives the impression that pedestrians are not allowed to walk through the lot.  Officer McComas initially asked the pedestrians if they were lost, then immediately followed with comments about how suspicious it was to be walking through the parking lot.   She first said the pedestrians weren’t committing a crime, but then repeated that they were suspicious and could be committing crimes.  Refusing to turn off her body camera indicated that she did suspect a crime.  It should not be construed from this article that Officer McComas did not have a calm demeanor – both McComas and the pedestrians were well-mannered in their interaction.  The question is if stopping and questioning pedestrians for walking through a parking lot, arguing that walking there was suspicious, saying that there are “all sorts of crimes” that they could be committing, refusing to stop video recording the pedestrians, and falsely claiming that it was illegal for her to turn off her body camera, is appropriate conduct.