This Tuesday, WTTW News' Spotlight Politics team previews the DNC and looks back at Chicago's convention history. Plus, Stateville is transferring its prison population, and '44: The Obama Musical.'
Police and Protests
With the Democratic National Convention coming to town next week, Chicago — and its police force — will be in the spotlight. Mayor Brandon Johnson and Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling have repeatedly said the city’s officers are prepared to lawfully police the massive protests expected to erupt around the United Center and downtown under the white-hot media glare the convention is sure to trigger. Let’s back up a bit to 2020 for some context: Two probes found CPD failed to protect constitutional rights during the unrest that followed George Floyd’s murder. So far, Chicago taxpayers have spent at least $6.8 million to defend and settle lawsuits triggered by CPD’s conduct during those protests. At least a dozen more lawsuits are still pending. What will be different this time? Everything, Snelling and Johnson say. CPD won’t be going it alone, and the department has had nearly a year and a half to get ready for the protests. Federal court monitors also required CPD to revamp its policy for handling First Amendment protests to prevent what happened during the summer of 2020 from happening again. We’ve broken down the changes to the department’s mass arrest policy and answered your questions about the laws around policing and protests. -Heather Cherone
Chicago’s Convention History Next week will mark the 27th time Chicago has hosted a national political convention. The first took place in 1860, where an Illinois lawyer named Abraham Lincoln became Republicans’ standard bearer. Speaking of protests, another past event might be on the minds of those watching. The infamous 1968 Democratic Convention descended into violence when Chicago police and Illinois National Guardsmen clashed with thousands of anti-war protesters in Grant Park, with Mayor Daley defending law enforcement. We’ve broken down all of those past conventions and more in our video series WTTW News Explains. -Amanda Vinicky
Stateville Correctional Center is pictured in a file photo. (Andrew Campbell / Capitol News Illinois)
Back in March, Gov. J.B. Pritzker proposed spending $900 million over the next five years to close down Stateville Correctional Center, a maximum-security men’s facility just outside of Joliet.An independent report rated Stateville as outdated, needing costly repairs, and its building conditions as the worst of all
state correctional facilities. In June, a 51-year-old incarcerated man named Michael Broadway died in custody. Illinois prison officials must transfer most people incarcerated at Stateville Correctional Center by Sept. 30, according to a new order from Federal Judge Andrea R. Wood. What this means: The order puts a more concrete timeline to the prison closure process that state officials proposed early this year, closing Stateville and rebuilding the prison on the same Crest Hill property.
- The proposed closure also includes Logan Correctional Center, a women’s facility 30 miles north of Springfield.
- The rebuilds could take about five years.
- The state allocated $900 million for rebuilding the two prisons in the 2025 budget.
Why It Happened: The order comes after civil rights law firm Loevy and Loevy filed a motion for a preliminary injunction seeking to immediately transfer incarcerated people housed at Stateville out of the facility last month. In a message to WTTW News, plaintiff Abdul Malik Muhammad said this move is “great news.”
Moments after a commercial airline soared near O’Hare Airport, a wooden roof for an under-construction four‐story stadium, called the Rosemont Horizon, collapsed on workers. Twenty-six men were at the worksite, of those five died and 15 were injured. Speaking to the New York Times, a concrete worker described the horrific scene. “There were about 18 men working on the roof when a plane came over,” said James Pinkston. “Suddenly, everything began to vibrate. You could hear the roof
cracking and then it started falling in.” While the initial suspect was the plane flying overhead, the real cause of the Rosemont Horizon disaster was actually structural faults. According to an engineering case studies project, shoddy planning and missing bolts caused the unfinished roof to collapse. An investigation by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration revealed the unstable condition of the wood roof frame paired with over 53% of the required
