Stories by Matt Masterson

Deandre Binion, 25, has been charged with three counts of attempted murder and one count of aggravated battery stemming from the April 6 shooting on the busy thoroughfare that struck 22-month-old Kayden Swann in the head.

More than a year after the COVID-19 pandemic forced school closures around the city, Chicago Public Schools says it is planning to resume in-person learning full time for students this fall.

Chicago police are seeking information about a black vehicle after someone opened fire on a North Side police station over the weekend. No one was injured in the incident, but the station itself was struck “several times,” police said.

The fourth quarter of the school year has begun for Chicago Public Schools. And on Monday, nearly 26,000 high school students were expected to return to their classrooms to resume in-person learning for the first time in more than a year.

Kayden Swann, the 22-month-old who was shot in the head while traveling in a car near Grant Park earlier this month, is breathing on his own and has been moved out of the intensive care unit, continuing what his doctors have called a “remarkable” recovery.

Martin Molina was held without bail Friday on a charge of first-degree murder in the “extremely vicious” killing of 42-year-old Felipe Villalobos-Calderon, who died after being struck multiple times in the head and neck with a machete.

Police body camera footage released Thursday shows 13-year-old Adam Toledo turn toward a Chicago police officer and put his hands in the air an instant before the officer shoots him. Toledo, a seventh-grader who attended Gary Elementary, died at the scene.

The footage will be released more than two weeks after 13-year-old Adam Toledo was shot in the chest and killed by a Chicago police officer in an alley in the Little Village neighborhood, and two days after the boy’s family reviewed the video.

Chicago Teachers Union President Jesse Sharkey said “adequate progress” hasn’t been made at the bargaining table with CPS after union delegates voted over the weekend to approve Wednesday’s remote-only work action. 

The family of Adam Toledo, the 13-year-old shot and killed by a Chicago police officer last month, viewed body camera footage of the shooting Tuesday evening. But those materials will not be “immediately” released publicly.

Cash Johnson, 26, is facing a first-degree murder charge after he allegedly stabbed a 75-year-old man to death “for no apparent reason” last month in a gangway in the Rogers Park neighborhood.

The Chicago Teachers Union’s House of Delegates on Sunday evening voted to keep high school staffers out of schools beginning Wednesday as the union continues negotiating with CPS over how to safely reopen those schools.

The Illinois Department of Corrections will resume in-person visits at its facilities statewide over the next month, giving prisoners a chance to see their loved ones for the first time in more than a year.

Anton Urbikas has been charged with the murder of his roommate after he allegedly beat the man to death and then attempted to conceal the body for days, using coffee grounds and other items to mask the smell.

Jushawn Brown, 43, was charged Thursday with one count of unlawful use of a weapon following an apparent road rage incident earlier this week that left his grandson, 21-month-old Kayden Swann, critically injured by gunfire from another vehicle.

The Chicago Teachers Union is asking Chicago Public Schools to delay its target reopening date for high schools by one week in order to allow more time to learn about coronavirus variants and current transmission rates.

Police say a 21-month-old child remains hospitalized in critical condition following the shooting Tuesday morning near Grant Park. One person is currently being questioned in relation to the shooting.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot says a new policy on foot pursuits must be put in place for the Chicago Police Department by this summer following the fatal shooting of Adam Toledo, one week after the boy was killed by a police officer in an alley on the Southwest Side.

The Civilian Office of Police Accountability on Thursday said Adam Toledo, 13, was the person shot by a Chicago police officer in the Little Village neighborhood early Monday morning.

Monthly crime data published Thursday by the Chicago Police Department shows there were 42 homicides and 233 shootings recorded in March 2021. Those totals are up 50% and 60%, respectively, when compared to March 2020.

The Chicago Police Department continues to miss more reform deadlines than it makes under a federal consent decree, according to a new report, though the city says it has tripled its overall compliance rate.

Of the 22 exonerations recorded in Illinois last year, the vast majority were drug possession or sale convictions tied to ex-Chicago police Sgt. Ronald Watts, according to a new report.

One man is dead and another is in custody following a police shooting early Monday morning on the city’s Southwest Side.

Chicago police have released surveillance footage of a vehicle that’s being sought in connection with a shooting on the West Side last Friday that left one man dead and a child and woman injured.

Joseph West, 30, was arrested Tuesday afternoon following a standoff with a Chicago police SWAT team at a South Side home. He allegedly admitted that he shot his girlfriend 10 times as she sat in her bed eating McDonald’s.

LaTanya McDade, the second highest-ranking official within Chicago Public Schools, will leave the district at the end of the current school year after being named superintendent of Prince William County Public Schools in Virginia.