Stories by Heather Cherone

Chicago taxpayers have paid $2.7 million for a system designed to alert officials about which officers have been the subject of repeated police misconduct allegations. It is not scheduled to launch until June 2027.

In all, taxpayers have paid more than $986,000 to defend and resolve lawsuits alleging misconduct by members of the tactical team during traffic stops, according to records obtained by WTTW News.

“Chicagoans have been absolutely clear: They do not want data centers expanding across our city without strong protection for their communities, their utility bills, their air, water and their quality of life,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said.

Chicago police officers detained the same teen four times in less than 30 minutes in what investigators ruled was a botched raid.

Officials with Bally’s Corp. have been warning the Chicago City Council for months that its move to green-light video gaming would kneecap the city’s permanent casino, scheduled to open in River West early next year.

Giannoulias, 50, who is running for a second term as secretary of state in November, will simultaneously enter the contest to be Chicago’s 58th mayor.

That missed deadline comes as CPD officials acknowledged, again, that the number of times officers used force against members of the public “continues to trend upward,” according to the report.

Chicago taxpayers have already paid $3.4 million to defend the lawsuit that accuses the CPD of making more than 1.5 million traffic stops between 2016 and 2023 based on dubious evidence of minor violations that took direct aim at Black and Latino Chicagoans but spared White Chicagoans, records show.

Gun policy group the Brady Campaign has urged elected officials to use their procurement power to force gun companies to change how they do business, since cities and states spend millions of dollars to equip police officers.

“By administratively closing hundreds of cases COPA may have alleviated its own burden, but it also created a vacuum of accountability within the police oversight system it is mandated to uphold,” according to the analysis released by the Office of the Inspector General.

“For Black Chicago in particular, it kind of felt a way that government was able to turn on resources in a moment’s notice that our communities have been starved for decades,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said. “And I tried desperately to live in my values, even though it cost me politically. It did. It did cost me.”

Candidates will hit the street to gather thousands of autographs from registered voters a month earlier than aspiring candidates did four years ago, the last time all 50 alderpeople, the mayor, city clerk and city treasurer faced voters.

Fred Waller is expected to serve as CPD’s interim superintendent through the end of the year, as the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability searches for a permanent leader.

The ACLU of Illinois sued the city three years ago on behalf of five Chicagoans, calling the Chicago Police Department's use of traffic stops the latest chapter in CPD's “long and sordid history” of racist discrimination.

The question — posed by Mayor Brandon Johnson — will fill the final spot on the November ballot, ending a proxy fight between the mayor and his increasingly emboldened opponents on the Chicago City Council, even though the results will only carry symbolic weight.

The mayor’s proposal drew swift and vehement opposition from landlords and business groups, with whom he has long been at loggerheads.

If the board’s decision stands, Patty García will have a much smoother path to replacing U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García, her former boss, in Congress.

The policy was updated nearly four months after Mayor Brandon Johnson told reporters existing CPD policy complied with an executive order he promised Chicagoans would lay “the groundwork to prosecute Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents for criminal misconduct.”

CPD spent approximately $700,000 more on overtime during the first six months of 2026 than it did during the same period in 2025, according to a database published by Inspector General David Glockner.

An analysis is ongoing to determine when — and how much — Chicago can afford to send to its pension funds in addition to the $2.85 billion that state law requires the city to contribute this year, officials said.

U.S. District Chief Judge Virginia Kendall signed an order on July 27 giving U.S. Magistrate Judge Beth Jantz the authority to craft a “global settlement” of 17 cases which accuse the officers of violating drivers’ civil rights between 2023 and 2024.

The fight over which questions will appear on November’s ballot erupted into a proxy fight between the mayor and his increasingly emboldened opponents on the City Council, even though the results will only carry symbolic weight.

The eight officers obtained loans worth approximately $283,000 after making “materially false statements in their applications for forgiveness of the loans,” according to the report.

Another member of CPD was fired after showing other employees of the police department photos of the teen dressed in the Nazi uniform while at work, creating “an offensive work environment,” according to the inspector general’s report.

It will be up to Chicago's next top cop to complete the hundreds of tasks laid out by the nearly seven-and-a-half-year-old court order while making sure the changes stick — and put an end to the decades of scandals, misconduct and brutality that have defined CPD and cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

Finance Committee Chair Ald. Pat Dowell (3rd Ward) said she was calling off the vote amid “ongoing discussions” with Stonepeak Partners about new information.