Stories by Matt Masterson

Chief Judge Timothy Evans issued an order allowing nearly all domestic violence proceedings to go forward by videoconference or teleconference, saying it’s being done “in order to better serve victims” in these cases.

Jamel Danzy will be released from jail following his arrest on a federal charge earlier this week. The 29-year-old Indiana man allegedly acted as a straw purchaser to buy the firearm used to kill Chicago police Officer Ella French.

The 21-year-old Chicago man who allegedly shot and killed Officer Ella French during a traffic stop Saturday has been ordered held without bail and remains hospitalized with a gunshot wound to the chest. His brother, who has also been charged, was held without bail during a separate hearing.

Emonte Morgan, 21, and his brother Eric Morgan, 22, each face criminal charges stemming from the Saturday night shooting in West Englewood that left one police officer dead and another in critical condition.

Jamel Danzy, 29, of Hammond, Indiana, was arrested Sunday and has been charged with conspiracy to violate federal firearm laws.

There were more than 45 separate shooting incidents over the weekend, according to police, including two mass shootings and the killing of Chicago police Officer Ella French on Saturday night.

Melvina Bogard has been charged with aggravated battery and official misconduct, according to the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, more than 17 months after the shooting of Ariel Roman inside the Grand Red Line station.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot said a new information and resource hub will bring city resources together under one roof so they can more readily address and prevent violent crime. Chicago has seen more than 2,000 shootings and 450 homicides so far this year.

With classes for students in pre-K through 12th grade set to resume across Illinois in the coming weeks, Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Wednesday announced a mask mandate for all students and staff at public and private schools.

Ten people from the city and suburbs face the potential of decades behind bars after they allegedly used counterfeit U.S. Postal Service money orders to fraudulently obtain hundreds of thousands of dollars from area banks.

Chicago police Officer Karol Chwiesiuk, who was charged for his alleged role in the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, may lose his job, his attorneys claim, because he’s been forced to turn over his firearm owner identification card as part of the conditions for his release from jail.

Fifty-one people were shot in 38 separate shooting incidents over the weekend. Chicago also closed out the month of July with 105 homicides, marking the second consecutive July in which the city has surpassed 100 killings.

In a 10-page ruling, Judge James Linn ordered that Jussie Smollett may continue using attorney Nenye Uche to represent him in the actor’s disorderly conduct case, despite a push from Special Prosecutor Dan Webb to have Uche removed.

Anthony Lorenzi was held without bail Friday following his arrest earlier this month in San Diego. He has since been extradited back to Cook County on a charge of first-degree murder in the killing of 24-year-old Gyovanny Arzuaga.

It’s official: The Chicago Board of Education will transition from being an appointed body to an elected one — over the objections of Mayor Lori Lightfoot. 

As the massive four-day music festival gets underway in Grant Park, event organizers announced the launch of a fund that will support arts education over the next five years for more than 100,000 students within Chicago Public Schools.

Speaking Wednesday at his first Board of Education meeting since he was appointed as interim Chicago Public Schools CEO, Jose Torres said the district’s “true north” goal before reopening schools must be to make sure at-risk students are prepared to return to CPS.

A Cook County judge has appointed Lawrence Oliver to serve as special prosecutor in the case of Jackie Wilson, who wrongfully spent decades behind bars for a double murder he didn’t commit.

Federal authorities on Tuesday announced that Jose Valdovinos had been arrested earlier this week after a federal grand jury returned an indictment charging him with maliciously damaging and destroying a building in June 2020.

There were 52 separate shooting incidents between Friday evening and Sunday night, according to data from the Chicago Police Department. That includes a police shooting Sunday in the Kenwood community that left one person wounded.

Chicago Public Schools students and staff must continue wearing masks inside facilities and maintain 3 feet of social distancing where possible when in-person learning resumes at the end of August.

Eight people who had been around a party bus were shot on the North Side late Wednesday, marking the third shooting in Chicago with at least five victims in just a six-hour span, according to the Chicago Police Department.

Devontay Anderson allegedly used an AK-47 style weapon to fire more than two dozen shots into a car carrying a 7-year-old girl at a West Side McDonald’s in April, and then fled the state to avoid arrest.

During a sentencing hearing Tuesday, family members of the slain teen made clear they feel the man who served as the getaway driver was just as responsible as the man who fired the fatal shots in 2013.

Two months after federal authorities posted a $10,000 reward for his arrest, the second man accused of fatally shooting 7-year-old Jaslyn Adams as she sat in a McDonald’s drive-thru on the West Side has been found.

The city and Chicago Police Department did not have the “policies, reporting practices, training, equipment, data analysis, community engagement, or inter-agency coordination required to respond effectively” to widespread protests and unrest last summer, according to a new report.