Stories by Heather Cherone

In the latest case to be settled, the City Council voted 28-16 to pay $875,000 to 21 people who each say they were brutalized by Chicago police officers during the 2020 protests.

“The city’s finances are, needless to say, in an extremely precarious place, and we can ill-afford mistakes which run well into the eight figures,” Inspector General Deborah Witzburg said

“The final purchase price was far too high, much more than they initially received for the sale, and higher than most reasonable assumptions would support,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said.

The Chicago Police Department must work faster to complete internal affairs investigations, Supt. Larry Snelling told a federal judge.

“ICE has not made any city that they’ve gotten into safer,” U.S. Sen Tammy Duckworth said.  “In fact, in every city they’ve gone into, they’ve created chaos.”

“I continue to believe that people cannot both work for the government and defraud the government,” Inspector General Deborah Witzburg said.

“Any student of CPD’s modern history can recognize that there have been these groups of officers that have contributed more than their fair share of harm and misconduct,” Inspector General Deborah Witzburg told WTTW News Wednesday.

The City Council’s Finance Committee endorsed the $135 million project from Golub & Co to transform 16 floors of the 44-story tower at 30 N. LaSalle St. into 349 homes, including 105 units set aside for low- and moderate-income Chicagoans.

U.S. District Judge William Orrick issued an injunction Aug. 22 that prevents the Trump administration from blocking funding for some of the nation’s largest cities, including Chicago, Los Angeles, Denver, Boston and Baltimore.

The proposed non-binding ballot question violates Illinois’ election law, which requires advisory questions to “be confined to one topic and should not contain alternative or bifurcated questions,” the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners unanimously ruled.

So far, Chicago taxpayers have paid approximately $11.9 million to settle and defend lawsuits sparked by the conduct of CPD officers during protests that swept the city in 2020 and erupted into unrest, according to court records.

The City Council’s Finance Committee on Wednesday is set to consider the proposed settlement, which calls for taxpayers to pay $20 million and the city’s insurance company to pay $2 million. A final vote of the City Council could come Jan. 21.

The Civilian Office of Police Accountability determined police were not justified in stopping the man’s car and should not have searched him or his car after handcuffing him in Chicago’s River North neighborhood on March 18, 2024.

Chicago police officers have faced pointed questions from residents and elected officials for more than six months about their actions during a series of increasingly aggressive immigration enforcement actions ordered by President Donald Trump.

Mayor Brandon Johnson warned again on Wednesday that the Chicago City Council may have to make emergency cuts if revenue baked into the city’s 2026 spending plan fails to materialize.

A final vote on the proposal by the full City Council could come as soon as Jan. 21.

Catherine “Cat” Sharp said she was ending her bid to represent Cook County’s 12th District on the Board of Commissioners in order to “focus on winning the legal battle against the Trump administration.”

“I think New Year’s Eve was a testament that we did not need an additional tool in order to ensure that our young people were where they need to be and that our parents and adults who are part of these young peoples’ lives — that they are also held accountable for their whereabouts,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said.

The city of Chicago spent $250.8 million on overtime for members of the Chicago Police Department during 2025 — 151% more than the Chicago City Council set aside for police overtime as part of the city’s annual budget, according to records published by the city’s watchdog.

The proposals, set for a vote at the 10 a.m. Wednesday meeting of the Public Safety Committee, were prompted by the killing of 14-year-old Armani Floyd on Nov. 21 during a large gathering downtown after the city’s annual Christmas tree lighting. Eight others were injured in a separate shooting just blocks away.

The report published by the Chicago Police Department acknowledges that the number of times officers used force against members of the public “continues to trend upward.”

Chicagoans will get a small break on their grocery bills but be forced to pony up to cover a host of tax and fee hikes that a deeply divided Chicago City Council approved to fill a massive budget shortfall over the objections of Mayor Brandon Johnson.

Previous winners include “Mrs. O’Leary’s Plow,” “Casimir Plowaski” and “Snower Wacker.”

The festivities will take place along the Chicago Riverwalk at Wacker Drive from Wells Street to Lake Street, with a main stage located at Wacker and Franklin, officials said.

Supporters of the gunshot detection system said it helped officers save lives when shootings were not reported to emergency services. ShotSpotter was never used to dispatch paramedics.

The city budget, which will take effect Jan. 1, will double CPD’s overtime budget from $100 million to $200 million, the first increase since 2020, when the budget for police overtime went from $95 million to $100 million, records show.