Police beats that had ShotSpotter sensors saw an approximately 17.8% decrease in violent crime and a 37.5% decrease in homicides during the first six months of 2025, as compared with the first six months of 2024, according to the analysis of Chicago crime data by Rob Vargas, a sociology professor at the University of Chicago.
Chicago police, along with the U.S. Marshal’s Service and the Great Lakes Regional Fugitive Task Force, announced the child was found with their mother after they had gone missing in 2018.
There is no sign Chicago Police Board President Kyle Cooper's pleas will break a legal stalemate that has lasted more than 16 months, keeping the system Chicago officials used for 60 years to hold officers accused of the most egregious misconduct in a deep freeze.
Chicago is seeing a historic drop in violent crime in the first half of the year. According to the Chicago Police Department, homicides and shootings are both down more than 30% in the first six months of the year compared to 2024.
None of the alderpeople at the sparsely attended committee hearing pressed CPD officials about why the department had fully complied with just 16% of the court order known as the consent decree by the end of 2024, five years after it took effect.
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The new database launched after WTTW News reported the city spent $510.9 million on employee overtime in 2024 — 1.5% less than in 2023, with more than half of the total amount used to compensate Chicago Police Department officers for working extra hours.
“There are some recommendations that are coming through,” Mayor Brandon Johnson said. “In due time, we’re going to release some of those recommendations.”
Seventy-nine of the 92 cases brought as part of the pilot program have resulted in an indictment by a grand jury or a finding of probable cause by a judge, allowing a trial to proceed, according to data provided to WTTW News from the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office.
Johnson on Tuesday signed an executive order calling for a “full-force of government approach” to tackling the pervasive smoking problem on city trains and buses.
The amount of taxpayer funds spent on overtime by all city departments, including CPD, dropped in 2024 for the first time since 2021, when the COVID-19 pandemic upended the city’s operations.
The failure of at least 34 members of the Chicago City Council to vote to reject Mayor Brandon Johnson’s action means the first mayoral veto in 19 years will stand.
Less than seven months into the year, Chicago taxpayers have spent at least $224.5 million to resolve nearly two and a half dozen lawsuits, exceeding the city’s budget to resolve lawsuits alleging police misconduct by more than $142 million, records show.
According to data from the city and Chicago Police Department, total violent crime is down at least 22% thus far in 2025, while there have been 90 fewer homicides and more than 400 fewer shootings compared to last year.
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In all, Chicago taxpayers have spent more than $120.3 million since January 2019 to resolve 31 lawsuits filed by Chicagoans injured during police pursuits, according to an analysis of city data by WTTW News.
For more than four decades, Jackie Wilson has said he was tortured into confessing to two Chicago Police officers by disgraced former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge.
If approved, it would be the eighth lawsuit filed by Chicagoans who said they were the victims of Guevara’s misconduct to be resolved at a cost of more than $95 million to Chicago taxpayers.
 

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