Frisk for Guns at Housing Projects, Panel Urges

In a dramatic response to concerns about crime, an Administration task force will propose to President Clinton more aggressive frisking of people suspected of carrying weapons in and around public housing projects, officials said Tuesday.

The call for police to stop and frisk more people in streets and other common areas is a central element of an Administration plan to increase security in public housing projects. The review was prompted by a federal district court decision last week barring the Chicago Housing Authority from conducting warrantless searches for guns and drugs in the city’s crime-ridden public housing projects.

Officials expect to present the plan to Clinton today. If the President is satisfied with the recommendations, he may announce the new policy as soon as Thursday, Administration officials said.

These new measures, though, may provoke almost as much controversy as the program they are intended to replace. Officials at the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, which brought the suit that barred the warrantless sweeps in Chicago, suggested Tuesday night that a policy of intensified frisking might prompt another lawsuit.

Attempts to expand the use of frisking “would raise grave concerns among civil libertarians,” said Harvey Grossman, legal director for the Illinois ACLU.

In last week’s decision, U.S. District Court Judge Wayne R. Anderson ruled that warrantless searches conducted without “probable cause” violate the Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable search and seizure. Within hours, Clinton ordered Atty. Gen. Janet Reno and Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry G. Cisneros “to develop promptly a search policy for public housing that is both constitutionally permissible and effective.”

But officials at HUD and the Justice Department have concluded that the Chicago Housing Authority policy of sweeping buildings without warrants cannot be restructured in a manner that will pass constitutional muster.

Officials said they believe that Anderson’s decision leaves room for housing authorities to pursue other forms of searches in common areas, vacant apartments and apartments where residents have consented. In addition, Administration officials believe that the decision could allow police to sweep more limited sections of a building after a crime--for instance, if they see a shot being fired from a window but cannot identify the specific apartment.

Beyond the searches, the two departments will urge a major effort to renovate and find occupants for vacant apartments, which are often used by drug dealers. They will also encourage the targeting of funds from pending crime legislation for recreational and social programs for housing project residents, particularly teen-agers, and call for aid to help housing authority police in Chicago acquire more metal detectors and hire more officers. But officials cautioned that the Administration still has not found the money to augment the police force.

The most controversial idea in the package being prepared for the President will be the call for greater use of frisking of individuals suspected of carrying weapons. In contrast to the warrantless searches, officials stressed, the frisking policy would be applied only in common areas of the projects, not in residents’ homes.

“The courts have been very strict in interpreting searches of the home but more lenient in allowing frisking for reasonable suspicion” in public areas, one senior Administration official said.

Times staff writer Ronald J. Ostrow contributed to this story.