Stories by Heather Cherone

The 223-page report memorializes the work of 11 subcommittees that began meeting in mid-April, and dovetails with much of progressive agenda laid out by Johnson and echoes his call for new investment on Chicago’s South and West sides. 

In all, Chicago owes $35.4 billion to its four employee pension funds representing police officers, firefighters, municipal employees and laborers, according to the 2022 Certified Annual Financial Report. 

“Like everything I inherited, I’m a teacher, I will assess and grade it," Mayor Brandon Johnson said, promising an “open process where other folks get a chance to weigh in.”

The last time Chicago saw nearly 9 inches of rain was Aug. 13-14, 1987, according to the National Weather Service. On average, the city gets 3.7 inches of rain during all of July, according to the National Weather Service.

The number of people shot in Chicago dropped more than 10% in the first six months of this year, as compared with the same period last year, according to police data. The number of shootings is down 6.4%, according to police data.

The lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois accuses the Chicago Police Department of making more than 1 million traffic stops between 2016 and 2022 based on dubious evidence of minor violations that took direct aim at Black and Latino Chicagoans but spared White Chicagoans.

The number of homes searched by Chicago Police officers dropped nearly 90% since 2019, the same year a botched raid left social worker Anjanette Young handcuffed while naked and pleading for help, according to new data.

The seventh semiannual report from the team led by attorney Maggie Hickey urges police brass and city leaders to “urgently address” staffing shortages, a lack of supervision for officers and poor data collection, analysis and management.

The agency’s substantial backlog — made up of cases more than 18 months old — is compromising COPA’s ability to investigate more recent complaints alleging significant misconduct by Chicago Police officers, Chief Administrator Andrea Kersten said.

Two months after Chicago officials declared a renewed surge of migrants had created a “humanitarian crisis,” 650 men, women and children are still being forced to sleep on the floor of police stations across the city, officials said Wednesday.

Interim Chicago Police Supt. Fred Waller said additional patrols will be added downtown, on CTA trains and buses and near Navy Pier, which will host a fireworks show at 9 p.m. Saturday.

It will be up to Garien Gatewood, the city’s new deputy mayor for community safety, to make good on Mayor Brandon Johnson’s promise to take a new approach to the surge of crime and violence that took hold in Chicago. 

Chicago Police Department leaders offered no “legitimate rationale” for the racial disparity to the independent monitoring team charged with enforcing court-ordered reforms.

That expected surplus will more than offset a projected budget gap of $82.6 million during the 2024 fiscal year, more evidence that Cook County’s finances remain on “sturdy” financial footing in the wake of the acute phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, officials said.

Mayor Brandon Johnson’s mayoral campaign platform called for an end to the tipped minimum wage, noting that those who rely on tips to earn a living wage are more likely to be Black and Latina women.

In all, the payments approved Wednesday are equivalent to 11% of the city’s annual $82 million budget to cover the cost of police misconduct lawsuits.

Chicago officials will use a $6.8 million grant from the Mellon Foundation to build eight new public monuments, including a monument to the more than 100 Black men who were tortured by Chicago Police officers trained by Jon Burge, a disgraced Chicago police commander.

The working group formed by Mayor Brandon Johnson to tackle Chicago’s acutely underfunded pensions is set to meet for the first time this week to confront one of the major fiscal challenges facing Chicago’s new leader.

Chicago Police Sgt. Michael Vitellaro, who was stripped of his police powers after being charged, still faces discipline as a result of a probe of the incident by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, which was completed in March.

Former Ald. Ed Burke will start receiving pension payments of $8,027 per month in August, and they will continue for the rest of his life, according to records obtained by WTTW News from the Municipal Employees’ Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago.

It is not clear exactly when Bally’s will be able to open a temporary casino in the century-old Shriner’s temple at 600 N. Wabash Ave., with its distinctive domed ceilings and stained-glass windows. A Chicago landmark since 2001, the temple was most recently home to a Bloomingdale’s furniture store.

City leaders and NASCAR officials said they were confident the race would avoid all of the possible potholes and showcase Chicago in all of its summertime glory for a national audience.

Arthur Brown spent 29 years in prison after being convicted of killing two people by setting fire to a South Side store in 1988. He was released in 2017 after a judge overturned his conviction, prompting Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx to drop the charges against him.

The failure likely sent hundreds of thousands of tons of concrete, wood, brick, metal and glass into landfills that could have been reused or recycled, according to the audit by the city’s watchdog.

The Chicago Board of Ethics determined all of the violations of the city’s Ethics Ordinance were minor in nature, which will mean the candidates will be admonished in condfidential letters from the board — but not fined.

Sharell Brown, 26, was shot and killed during a confrontation with police officers who stopped him in Lawndale. Brown was shot four times in the head and twice in his right arm, according to the investigation of the shooting by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, known as COPA.