Officer Charles Harris II faces a suspension of 29 days for failing to activate his body-worn camera as required and failing to notify his supervisors that he had fired his gun, records show.

Chicago taxpayers have paid $2.7 million for a system designed to alert officials about which officers have been the subject of repeated police misconduct allegations. It is not scheduled to launch until June 2027.

In all, taxpayers have paid more than $986,000 to defend and resolve lawsuits alleging misconduct by members of the tactical team during traffic stops, according to records obtained by WTTW News.

Chicago police officers detained the same teen four times in less than 30 minutes in what investigators ruled was a botched raid.

In an interview with WTTW News, Mayor Brandon Johnson laid out the qualities he’s looking for in Chicago’s next top cop and stressed that there’s no need to delay that selection process until after the upcoming mayoral election in February.

There were 37 homicides in the city last month, the lowest total for any such month dating back to at least 1970. That total is down 18% compared to July 2025.

That missed deadline comes as CPD officials acknowledged, again, that the number of times officers used force against members of the public “continues to trend upward,” according to the report.

Chicago taxpayers have already paid $3.4 million to defend the lawsuit that accuses the CPD of making more than 1.5 million traffic stops between 2016 and 2023 based on dubious evidence of minor violations that took direct aim at Black and Latino Chicagoans but spared White Chicagoans, records show.

“By administratively closing hundreds of cases COPA may have alleviated its own burden, but it also created a vacuum of accountability within the police oversight system it is mandated to uphold,” according to the analysis released by the Office of the Inspector General.

Fred Waller is expected to serve as CPD’s interim superintendent through the end of the year, as the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability searches for a permanent leader.

The CPD on Thursday announced that its Forensic Services Division is now an accredited laboratory by the American National Standards Institute’s National Accreditation Board, the result of what the department said has been a multi-year effort.

The ACLU of Illinois sued the city three years ago on behalf of five Chicagoans, calling the Chicago Police Department's use of traffic stops the latest chapter in CPD's “long and sordid history” of racist discrimination.

More Chicagoans believe violent crime has increased in the city, according to a new poll, even as the numbers of shootings and homicides throughout 2026 are essentially the same as last year, which ended with the fewest recorded killings in 60 years.

The policy was updated nearly four months after Mayor Brandon Johnson told reporters existing CPD policy complied with an executive order he promised Chicagoans would lay “the groundwork to prosecute Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol agents for criminal misconduct.”

CPD spent approximately $700,000 more on overtime during the first six months of 2026 than it did during the same period in 2025, according to a database published by Inspector General David Glockner.

Chicago Supt. Larry Snelling’s retirement began Wednesday after a nearly three-year tenure leading the nation’s second largest police department. He leaves behind a city that’s seen significant declines in violent crime but has not completed federally mandated reforms.