Woman calls police on congressional candidate Mike Simmons as he canvassed in apartment building

State senator and current congressional candidate Mike Simmons was reported to Chicago police while canvassing for votes in the North Side Buena Park neighborhood Friday.

In a video, Simmons is in the stairwell of an apartment building while a woman speaks on the phone. Simmons asks if she’s on the phone with the police, but she doesn’t respond and continues speaking on the phone.

“I’m not going to argue,” Simmons says in the video. “I’m gonna let you know that it is against the law to call the police on an elected official who’s knocking doors, I know because I passed the law in 2021. So if you’d like me to leave the building, I would leave the building, but I am so disappointed in how you chose to handle the situation at a time when police have been known to get into deadly altercations with people of color. I would expect more from my neighbors.”

Simmons had explained that he was canvassing in his campaign for Congress and that he served the building’s residents as their current state senator, according to a news release. Police responded to the scene and Simmons spoke to them.

“The woman seemed not to believe Simmons and ultimately asked for everyone’s documentation,” the release said. “She then called the police and ignored all attempts at a conversation by Simmons and the volunteers with him — all people of color. After Simmons left the building on his own, Chicago Police did report to the scene a few minutes later and Simmons spoke to them about the incident.”

Simmons sponsored a bill categorizing police calls on Black people as a hate crime when there is no active threat.

“This incident is a disappointing reminder of the biases and barriers that work against Black people in America at every turn,” he said in the release.

He’s currently campaigning in a crowded field to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Jan Schakowsky torepresent the state’s 9th Congressional District.

He is the first Black state senator to represent the 7th District, which includes parts of the North Side, including Rogers Park, Uptown and Lincoln Square, and he’s the first openly gay member of the state Senate.

Chicago police didn’t confirm the report.

No arrests were made.