Stories by Matt Masterson

A Cook County judge has scheduled a hearing this summer to determine if an attorney that actor Jussie Smollett has hired will be allowed to represent him following allegations of a possible conflict of interest involving that attorney and the two brothers Smollett allegedly hired to carry out a hoax attack.

The district said the investment will support staffing, training and learning resources for International Baccalaureate, STEM/STEAM, fine and performing arts, and dual language programs at seven elementary schools over the next six years.

While the final decision on a new Chicago Public Schools CEO is ultimately up to Mayor Lori Lightfoot, she said she doesn’t want to make that decision behind closed doors.

An internal investigation by the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office found a “breakdown of communication” and other issues were responsible for the inadvertent mischaracterization of the Adam Toledo shooting in a hearing last month.

The chief administrator of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, the agency which investigates police misconduct, has announced she will be resigning from the organization “with a heavy heart” after three years on the job.

As Chicago Public Schools CEO Janice Jackson prepares to walk away from the district at the end of next month, a local parent organization has begun outlining steps it hopes her eventual replacement will take to improve public education across the city.

Chicago Public Schools CEO Janice Jackson says she will be leaving her post this summer, more than three years after she was tapped to lead the nation’s third-largest school district. Jackson joins “Chicago Tonight” to talk about her decision.

Timothy Nielsen, who is accused of trying to run over a group of friends celebrating a birthday in Logan Square on Saturday, allegedly told a witness, “Watch what I’m going to do,” before he sped his truck toward the victims.

Demond Goudy, 21, one of the men accused of killing of 7-year-old Jaslyn Adams, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder this week in the April 18 shooting.

Samuel Flowers, 18, appeared in court Thursday on multiple felony charges including attempted first-degree murder, armed robbery and aggravated battery to a peace officer following an alleged attack earlier this year.

The video release from the Civilian Office of Police Accountability marks the second time in two weeks the agency has published footage showing a fatal police shooting involving a foot pursuit.

Six public meetings, including one held entirely in Spanish, have been scheduled for the first week in May before CPS officially releases its fiscal year 2022 capital plan later in the summer.

The Chicago Police Department has taken to social media to criticize a “synthetic and manipulated image” that went viral and claimed to show the CPD had expressed support for Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis officer convicted of killing George Floyd.

The man accused of shooting toddler Kayden Swann earlier this month allegedly fired multiple shots at the boy’s car from inside his own vehicle before getting out on foot onto Lake Shore Drive and firing several more rounds in broad daylight.

A year to the day after the City Council unanimously approved his appointment as Chicago police superintendent, David Brown said he remains “determined and committed” to his job despite a turbulent start to his tenure and speculation about his possible departure.

Deandre Binion, 25, has been charged with three counts of attempted murder and one count of aggravated battery stemming from the April 6 shooting on the busy thoroughfare that struck 22-month-old Kayden Swann in the head.

More than a year after the COVID-19 pandemic forced school closures around the city, Chicago Public Schools says it is planning to resume in-person learning full time for students this fall.

Chicago police are seeking information about a black vehicle after someone opened fire on a North Side police station over the weekend. No one was injured in the incident, but the station itself was struck “several times,” police said.

The fourth quarter of the school year has begun for Chicago Public Schools. And on Monday, nearly 26,000 high school students were expected to return to their classrooms to resume in-person learning for the first time in more than a year.

Kayden Swann, the 22-month-old who was shot in the head while traveling in a car near Grant Park earlier this month, is breathing on his own and has been moved out of the intensive care unit, continuing what his doctors have called a “remarkable” recovery.

Martin Molina was held without bail Friday on a charge of first-degree murder in the “extremely vicious” killing of 42-year-old Felipe Villalobos-Calderon, who died after being struck multiple times in the head and neck with a machete.

Police body camera footage released Thursday shows 13-year-old Adam Toledo turn toward a Chicago police officer and put his hands in the air an instant before the officer shoots him. Toledo, a seventh-grader who attended Gary Elementary, died at the scene.

The footage will be released more than two weeks after 13-year-old Adam Toledo was shot in the chest and killed by a Chicago police officer in an alley in the Little Village neighborhood, and two days after the boy’s family reviewed the video.

Chicago Teachers Union President Jesse Sharkey said “adequate progress” hasn’t been made at the bargaining table with CPS after union delegates voted over the weekend to approve Wednesday’s remote-only work action. 

The family of Adam Toledo, the 13-year-old shot and killed by a Chicago police officer last month, viewed body camera footage of the shooting Tuesday evening. But those materials will not be “immediately” released publicly.

Cash Johnson, 26, is facing a first-degree murder charge after he allegedly stabbed a 75-year-old man to death “for no apparent reason” last month in a gangway in the Rogers Park neighborhood.