Stories by Joel Ortiz

Remel Terry is now president of the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability. Terry has been a member of the commission, better known as the CCPSA, since it was launched in 2022.

Police district councils work in each of the city’s 22 police districts, hearing out residents’ public safety concerns and advocating for accountability in the Chicago Police Department. The first members were elected in 2023, giving everyday people more of a say in how policing is done.

Mohamedou Ould Slahi testified he was treated well at the U.S. detention camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, until then-CPD Detective Richard Zuley took command of the investigation into his ties to al-Qaida and the torture began.

Chicagoans have been going gaga over a pair of snowy owls that have settled in at Montrose beach. Maybe a little too gaga.

The Cook County Sheriff’s Office announced that Martinez Duncan died after a fire broke out in the jail’s residential treatment unit last Thursday.

The consent decree is a binding court order granting a federal judge oversight of the police department. WTTW News Explains how that works in practice.

The rulings from U.S. District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie amount to a stunning rebuke of the Trump administration’s efforts to target Trump’s political opponents. It also highlights its legal maneuvering to hastily install a loyalist prosecutor willing to file the cases.

However, U.S. District Court Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer ruled that officers must have their cameras on if a deputy chief asks them to answer additional questions about the shooting.

A fundraiser has been launched for a 14-year-old boy who was killed in a downtown shooting Friday night in the same area where seven other teens were wounded in a mass shooting.

A Wisconsin woman who admitted to nearly stabbing a classmate to death at age 12 to please the online horror character Slender Man has been found in Illinois after she cut off an electronic monitoring device.

U.S. District Court Judge Sara Ellis used a blistering 233-page ruling to painstakingly detail how agents falsely asserted in court and in official reports that they had been confronted with unrelenting and life-threatening violence every time they attempted to carry out President Donald Trump’s mass deportation effort.

Mayor Brandon Johnson’s $16.6 billion budget proposal faces a major setback. And Dexter Reed’s family is asking a judge to reinstate a lawsuit against the city.

The commission is tasked with producing a public record of alleged abuses perpetrated by federal agents during “Operation Midway Blitz.” It will also examine the impact of such conduct on Illinois residents and communities.

Nearly six decades after becoming a lawyer, former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan has been disbarred following his convictions on federal corruption charges earlier this year.

Instead of approving the full $314 million requested by Nicor and $129 million requested by Ameren, the ICC cut 47% and 43% from the requests, respectively.

The arctic visitors have drawn bird watchers from surrounding states.

A pregnant Chicago woman was discharged from an Indiana hospital while in labor. Her contractions were just a minute apart, and she gave birth in a car eight minutes later.

The Felony Review Bypass Pilot Program was “an unqualified success,” Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke said.

Circuit Court Judge Adrienne Davis is weighing whether to overturn the conviction of Anthony Garrett in connection with the murder of 7-year-old Dantrell Davis, who was shot and killed by a sniper at Cabrini-Green in 1992 as he and his mother walked to school.

Meet Patty Garcia, who’s running for Congress in a political move sparking controversy. And the Trump administration moves to dismantle the Department of Education.

Since he took office, President Donald Trump has called for the dismantling of the Education Department, saying it has been overrun by liberal thinking. In July the U.S. Supreme Court upheld mass layoffs that halved the department’s staff.

Patty Garcia, 40, is likely to be the only Democrat on the March ballot, but could face a serious challenge during next November’s general election.

These two recent cases are bringing renewed attention to the treatment of Black pregnant women and igniting conversations around medical racism.

Texts from the Border Patrol agent who fired at Martinez revealed he apparently bragged about the shooting to others, stating in one message that he’d “fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys.”

Just 43 days after Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle introduced the spending plan that closed a $102.6 million gap in its general fund and a $108.8 million gap in its health fund, it sailed to final approval with little drama.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey Cummings had ordered the release of as many as 615 people based on a 2022 consent decree outlining how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement can make so-called warrantless arrests.