Christopher Puente, 34, was charged Thursday with one count of predatory criminal sexual assault of a victim younger than 13, and an unrelated misdemeanor charge of criminal trespassing.

“If the Armslist Defendants had acted with reasonable care – instead of callous and willful disregard of human life – Commander Bauer would still be alive,” a federal complaint states.

Leticia Ruiz says the Cook County sheriff failed to protect her son from a reputed gang member who allegedly beat him to death inside the jail earlier this month, and that the “vicious and violent” beating was avoidable.

Chicago recorded nine homicides between 6 p.m. Friday and midnight Sunday, a weekend police said was the deadliest of the year for a city that had seen a recent decline in the number of fatal shootings.

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.

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.

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.

Violence in Chicago sometimes leads to descriptions of the city as a “battleground” or “war zone.” But author Dexter Voisin says those narratives ignore the structural issues behind the violence in many communities.

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.

A woman fatally shot a retired Illinois State Police trooper and wounded another retired state trooper and an off-duty trooper Friday night before turning the gun on herself at a cigar lounge in the Chicago suburbs, police said.

A judge on Thursday agreed to allow a girlfriend of R. Kelly to retrieve her belongings from the singer’s home in Trump Tower, where authorities say she assaulted one of Kelly’s other girlfriends earlier this month.

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.