Stories by Matt Masterson

State Sen. Rob Martwick says the bill would grant students up to five excused absences from class to let them “take care of their mental health, just like they would be with a broken bone or the flu.”

Officers in Chicago’s largest police union will have a choice in their leadership next month as the organization enters its third straight year without a contract, a department overhaul and an impending decision on a new superintendent.

The arrest came in large part, police said, due to surveillance footage captured by the CTA and witnesses who identified the suspect in photo arrays.

Chicago Public Schools has opened an investigation into Judith Gibbs after a video shared with students allegedly shows her grabbing a student’s face inside the school.

CPS Inspector General Nicholas Schuler said allegations that he made sexist or racist comments are “totally baseless.” But he admitted that he was a “frequently impatient boss” who drove his employees “sometimes excessively hard.”

The victim is in “very serious” condition after he was shot once as he rode a Blue Line train in what police believe may have been a targeted robbery attempt.

Nicholas Schuler submitted his resignation Monday, just days after a report by the Chicago Sun-Times detailed allegations of a “toxic workplace” inside his office.

Chicago saw a notable uptick in shootings and homicides in the first month of 2020, but police say that overall, violent crime incidents in Chicago actually decreased in comparison to January 2019.

A massive restructuring plan for the Chicago Police Department aims to streamline operations and put the department in a better position to comply with the federal consent decree.

Attorneys for the former “Empire” actor subpoenaed Chicago’s inspector general, requesting documents tied to an October 2019 incident in which the city’s top cop was found asleep behind the wheel of his car. 

Wednesday marks one year since Jussie Smollett reported to police he’d been the victim of a bigoted attack near his Streeterville home. The case continues to make regular headlines, particularly as Cook County’s state’s attorney seeks re-election. We review the case.

On Jan. 29, 2019, Jussie Smollett reported to Chicago police that he’d been the victim of a racist and homophobic attack. We review the turning points in the case.

The Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation found that while overall prostitution-related arrests in Chicago fell by half between 2013 and 2017, the arrest of sellers of sex made up an increasingly large percentage of that total.

“Please know that we are taking this situation seriously, and we remain committed to providing your children with a safe, positive learning environment where they can reach their full potential,” the school’s principal wrote in a letter Thursday.

Chicago police say surveillance photos released earlier this month helped detectives identify the offender.

In separate incidents, two Chicago women say multiple Chicago police officers fabricated evidence in order to unlawfully search their homes and make arrests for drug violations that were later dismissed.

The woman says she was 24 years old and working for R. Kelly when the R&B singer allegedly tried to make her perform oral sex on him in 2003.

Chicago Public Schools is proposing a new agreement with a South Side nonprofit to help monitor attendance at nine high schools through home visits and other services in an effort to ward off truancy.

Citizen complaints of sexual misconduct lodged against Chicago police officers are handled by the department’s own Bureau of Internal Affairs. Why a group of Chicago lawyers and legal analysts say that should change.

The incidents each involved a group of men approaching a lone woman and threatening them, sometimes at gunpoint, according to police.

Sheila O’Brien, who successfully petitioned for a special prosecutor to take over the Jussie Smollett investigation, is now seeking to bar the Cook County state’s attorney from using taxpayer dollars to pay for her own outside counsel.

A Chicago man from the South Side is facing felony criminal charges after he allegedly carjacked a Porsche and another vehicle that had two children in it on the Near North Side.

Jury selection in the trial of 46-year-old Shomari Legghette will begin Feb. 27, just over two years since Chicago Police Cmdr. Paul Bauer was fatally shot in a downtown stairwell.

As the city continues its work to bring down the homicide rate following a 2016 spike, Chicago’s interim police superintendent believes one thing is absolutely necessary: winning back the public’s trust.

Federal prosecutors say the 16-year sentence given last year to Adel Daoud, who attempted to detonate what he thought was a bomb outside a downtown bar, is “substantively unreasonable” and failed to account for Daoud’s “commitment to violence.”

Timothy Dorsey, 52, pleaded guilty last year to running a multistate sex trafficking ring and was implicated in the 2015 murder of one of his former prostitutes. This week, he was sentenced to a decade in prison.