Stories by Heather Cherone

Even as the financial toll of decades of police misconduct is likely to grow in the coming months, Chicago exhausted its annual budget of $82.2 million months ago and had spent nearly triple that amount by July 31, according to WTTW News’ analysis.

“We do not want to see tanks in our streets,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said. “We do not want to see families ripped apart. We do not want grandmothers thrown into the back of unmarked vans. We don’t want to see homeless Chicagoans harassed or disappeared by federal agents.”

“Chicagoans deserve the truth about the fiscal conditions of our city,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said. “Our economy does remain resilient, but fiscal discipline is certainly required in this moment.”

Anthony Driver, Jr. is one of at least seven candidates who are running to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Danny Davis, who has represented Illinois’ 7th Congressional District since 1997.

If Trump federalizes the National Guard or sends additional ICE agents to Chicago, all Chicago Police officers will be required to wear their uniforms and will not be dispatched to immigration enforcement operations, Supt. Larry Snelling said Thursday.

Had the settlement been even one dollar more, it would have required Chicago City Council approval under city rules. Instead, it was authorized by Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson Lowry.

Gov. JB Pritzker vowed Monday to stop President Donald Trump from deploying the National Guard to Chicago, dismissing Trump’s latest pledge to combat crime as cover for an unconstitutional federal overreach.

U.S. District Judge William Orrick issued an injunction late Friday to that will prevent the Trump administration from blocking funding for some of the nation’s largest cities, including Chicago, Los Angeles, Denver, Boston and Baltimore.

Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke announced Wednesday that her office will not charge any of the five officers who shot and killed Dexter Reed during a March 2024 traffic stop after he shot and  wounded an officer.

Chicago taxpayers have already paid $1.46 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, according to records obtained by WTTW News.

After touting Chicago's significant and sustained drop in crime, Mayor Brandon Johnson accused the president of “spreading misinformation.”

U.S. District Judge William Orrick agreed to allow Chicago and 33 other cities and counties, including Los Angeles, Denver, Boston and Baltimore, to join the lawsuit that claimed the Trump administration was unlawfully trying to force local officials to help federal immigration agents conduct deportation efforts.

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.