Stories by Heather Cherone

Mayor Brandon Johnson’s decision not to veto the budget he called “morally bankrupt” immediately averts what could have been the city most severe fiscal crisis in more than 40 years.

Officer Elmer Carrillo Jr. is the first CPD officer to be terminated for failing a drug test since Illinois legalized the recreational use of marijuana, and is the first to be fired by the Police Board in nearly a year and a half amid a protracted legal battle, records show.

“We may not have the majority of the City Council but we do have the people,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said just before the the Chicago City Council voted to approve a budget he fiercely opposed.

Mayor Brandon Johnson stopped short Friday of promising to veto that spending plan but said he has “serious and significant concerns about the plan, which he and the city’s top financial officials contend would leave the city with a deficit of more than $163 million.

While Mayor Brandon Johnson weighed what could be the biggest decision of his time as mayor, the Civic Federation said the proposed "budget does not move Chicago appreciably toward long-term fiscal stability."

“The McCaskey family should focus on hosting a playoff game in a stadium that actually exists not distract by pontificating about hosting a Super Bowl in one that doesn’t,” State Rep. Kam Buckner said.

Mayor Brandon Johnson called the plan speculative, infeasible and immoral, but has yet to announce whether he would veto the plan. It would take 34 votes to override that rejection.

A federal jury determined Chicago police officers did not violate the civil rights of the Chicago man they shot during a February 2020 incident in the Grand Red Line CTA station, records show.

Mayor Brandon Johnson immediately rejected the proposal to increase the city’s debt collection efforts as a tax “on everyday Chicagoans” that would target “poor and working” people.

CPD’s inaccurate and incomplete disciplinary histories makes it impossible to trust that police officers are being held responsible for misconduct, Inspector General Deborah Witzburg said.

The Civilian Office of Police Accountability determined that three tactical team officers assigned to patrol the Near North (18th) Police District improperly searched Limorris Bell and his car on Sept. 1, 2024.

There are just 15 days left before the deadline to avoid an unprecedented shutdown of Chicago city government.

Illinois is now the 12th state to allow doctor-assisted suicide.

In the latest case to be settled, the Chicago City Council agreed Wednesday to pay $15.4 million to Robert Smith Jr., who spent 33 years in prison after being wrongfully convicted of the 1987 double murder of his wife’s mother and grandmother.

Over the objections of the mayor, the Chicago City Council agreed to meet Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Dec. 23 in an attempt to hammer out a deal over the $16.6 billion spending plan.

The measure is the third attempt by Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd Ward) to expand the Chicago Police Department’s power in an attempt to deter teens from gathering in large numbers.

CPD officers have shot 22 people, killing nine, since the start of the year, records show. In 2024, CPD officers shot 12 people, killing six, records show.

The current proposal would impose a $33 per employee tax on companies with 500 or more employees to generate $82 million to fund violence prevention and youth employment programs.

“We have to revisit our promotion policy,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said. “We don’t want these types of archaic approaches to set us back. So, it is something that we are looking into.”

Mayor Brandon Johnson said he was open to new ideas and continuing negotiations but said he would not allow the city’s budget to be balanced “on the backs of working people.”

CPD officers have now shot 21 people, killing eight, since the start of the year, records show. In 2024, CPD officers shot 12 people, killing six, records show.

Of 439 positions in the Chicago Police Department charged with implementing the consent decree, 179 positions were empty at the beginning of December, according to a Freedom of Information Act request filed by WTTW News.

Since the shooting, Chicago taxpayers have paid $591,500 to resolve four lawsuits that allege the officer, who was promoted in June 2025, violated the rights of other Chicagoans, according to an analysis of city data by WTTW News.

The latest back-and-forth between the mayor’s office and Mayor Brandon Johnson’s critics leaves no clear path to a deal with just 26 days left before the deadline to avoid an unprecedented shutdown of city government.

Nathan Griffin, 24, is now the latest person to have been charged during what the federal government called “Operation Midway Blitz” in a blaze of publicity only to have prosecutors quietly dismiss the case.

The License and Consumer Protection Committee voted 10-6 to send the measure to the full City Council, where it faces an uncertain fate and the opposition of Mayor Brandon Johnson.