Stories by Heather Cherone

Of 439 positions in the Chicago Police Department charged with implementing the consent decree, 207 positions, or 47%, were empty seven months into 2025, according to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by WTTW News. CPD officials failed to account for another 226 positions.

Walter Burnett, who represented parts of the West Side and the West Loop for 30 years on the Chicago City Council, retired July 31.

The ruling, which is likely to be appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court, endorses the effort backed by the city’s largest police union to upend the system used for 60 years to punish officers.

Police beats that had ShotSpotter sensors saw an approximately 17.8% decrease in violent crime and a 37.5% decrease in homicides during the first six months of 2025, as compared with the first six months of 2024, according to the analysis of Chicago crime data by Rob Vargas, a sociology professor at the University of Chicago.

Burnett represented parts of the West Side and the West Loop for 30 years on the Chicago City Council. He retired July 31.

A city analysis warned the bill “would increase the city’s pension liabilities by more than $11 billion” in the two funds that pay pensions to retired police officers and firefighters.

There promises to be nothing boring about the Illinois race to replace U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, who will retire in 2027 after 30 years in office.

Ald. Walter Burnett’s resignation from the City Council will be official on Thursday, according to a letter he sent to Mayor Brandon Johnson on July 17.

“It’s on the table,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said Tuesday at a City Hall news conference. “Everything has to be on the table. Everything has to be on the table.”

There is no sign Chicago Police Board President Kyle Cooper's pleas will break a legal stalemate that has lasted more than 16 months, keeping the system Chicago officials used for 60 years to hold officers accused of the most egregious misconduct in a deep freeze.

Forcing Chicago and Illinois law enforcement officials to help federal agents conduct deportation operations is unconstitutional, U.S. District Judge Lindsay Jenkins ruled.

“I will not be proposing a property tax increase in my budget,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said Thursday. “I’m going to continue to work hard to find progressive revenue so that we can continue to make critical investments in transforming our city.”

None of the alderpeople at the sparsely attended committee hearing pressed CPD officials about why the department had fully complied with just 16% of the court order known as the consent decree by the end of 2024, five years after it took effect.

The new database launched after WTTW News reported the city spent $510.9 million on employee overtime in 2024 — 1.5% less than in 2023, with more than half of the total amount used to compensate Chicago Police Department officers for working extra hours.

Seventy-nine of the 92 cases brought as part of the pilot program have resulted in an indictment by a grand jury or a finding of probable cause by a judge, allowing a trial to proceed, according to data provided to WTTW News from the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office.

“There are some recommendations that are coming through,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said. “In due time, we’re going to release some of those recommendations.”

The amount of taxpayer funds spent on overtime by all city departments, including CPD, dropped in 2024 for the first time since 2021, when the COVID-19 pandemic upended the city’s operations.

Despite the study's findings, members of the City Council’s Subcommittee on Revenue, facing a likely deficit of nearly $1.2 billion in the city’s 2026 spending plan, were not ready to fold and walk away from the table.

“Leading this office is not a sprint or a marathon,” Inspector General Deborah Witzburg told WTTW News. “It is a relay race, and it’s time to pass the baton.”

In spite of that apparent progress, more people were unhoused in Chicago in January 2025 than at any point since officials began conducting this annual survey in 2005, city officials said.

The failure of at least 34 members of the Chicago City Council to vote to reject Mayor Brandon Johnson’s action means the first mayoral veto in 19 years will stand.

The City Council’s Zoning Committee voted 13-7 to send the proposal to the full City Council for a final vote, where Alds. Marty Quinn (13th Ward) and Greg Mitchell (7th Ward) used a parliamentary procedure to block a vote until the City Council’s next meeting.

Less than seven months into the year, Chicago taxpayers have spent at least $224.5 million to resolve nearly two and a half dozen lawsuits, exceeding the city’s budget to resolve lawsuits alleging police misconduct by more than $142 million, records show.

Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza’s decision not to seek a fourth term as the state’s chief fiscal control officer is likely to set off an intense race for a coveted statewide office and signals the start of the 2027 mayoral election cycle, even though the election is 587 days away.

The City Council is set to take a final vote Wednesday on Sterling Bay’s $350 million plan to build two towers of more than 15 stories near the Chicago River.

If approved by the City Council on Wednesday, the measure would weaken the decades-old tradition known as aldermanic prerogative that gives a City Council member the final authority over housing developments in their own wards.