HYDE PARK — A Barack Obama presidential library on the South Side could dramatically expand where the University of Chicago police patrol in the neighborhood.
The Campaign for Equitable Policing will host a community forum at 6 p.m. Wednesday at the Reynolds Club, 5706 S. University Ave., on how the presidential library could change the neighborhood’s private police force.
The 100-officer university police force currently patrols an area bounded by 39th and 64th streets, Cottage Grove Avenue and Lake Michigan, excluding Jackson Park.
The forum will partially address the possibility that the university police’s jurisdiction could expand to include Jackson or Washington parks if either is chosen as the for the library. The University of Chicago is recommending both sites for the library.
The forum will also address pending state legislation that could impose new levels of transparency on all university police forces in the state.
At a similar forum in October, residents and students complained that they felt the university police singled out young black men.
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