What’s New

Yes, there are marvelous athletes at the Olympic games, but how would they fare walking from the LaSalle Street Metra Station to the Merchandise Mart on a January day in Chicago?

I’m talking rush hour. Ice on the streets. Ice falling from skyscrapers. Bikers traveling 30 mph on sidewalks. Cabdrivers turning on red.

Could Olympians jump over a panhandler on a street corner while avoiding contact with a businesswoman dragging a piece of carry-on luggage behind her like a semitrailer?

And could they hold their ground in front of a mob waiting for the “walk” light at a street corner to change without being shoved in front of a CTA bus splashing through three inches of slush?

There are no gold medals for such achievements, although before COVID you could see people performing such feats on most city streets five days a week, 52 weeks a year.

Throw in the tourists from out-of-town ogling at some piece of Chicago architecture and it would be like a track star forced to weave around statues during a meet.

I do not minimize the talents of Simone Biles. She is a marvel. Superhuman. An artist. Tough as they come.

But is there any event at the Olympic Games that could compare to a 10-year-old walking to and from school every day in Chicago as bullets whiz by his head?

And then there is the Mad Max event of driving the expressway system.

It used to be life and death trying to avoid the motorists cutting in and out of bumper-to- bumper traffic at 80 mph. But the difficulty level wasn’t considered great enough, especially for suburbanites who had it way too easy.

So random gunfire was added to the event.

At any moment on I-57, I-55, or Lake Shore Drive, someone could pull up next to your car and unleash a spray of bullets. Stay in your lane buddy. Maintain the proper distance between you and the car in front of you. Don’t hit any of the road repair workers or the police officers recovering shell casings up ahead. That’s an event fit for athletic gods.

Do you really want to talk to me how difficult it is living in the Olympic Village this year?

We have seen ordinary folks in lockdown for weeks in hospitals while they were denied contact with family and friends. Some were placed on ventilators not knowing if they would ever be released.

Did they get any awards if they came out alive? Sure. They got to breathe. To hug their grandchildren. To see the sun one more time.

It takes terrific mental courage to be an Olympian. Discipline. Commitment.

Well, I got to tell you that the average nurse, doctor, or paramedic working during the pandemic gets a perfect 10 from me every time. And after a hard day saving lives, they must go home and hear relatives complain that they were asked to wear masks at the grocery store or urged to get a vaccination shot by the governor. That takes mental toughness.

As I watch the Olympic skateboarders soar through the air, spin, somersault and somehow return safely to their boards at speeds of close to 100 mph, I will also be thinking of the 70- and 80-year-olds I saw at Walmart last year.

There was one package of toilet paper left on an empty shelf when from opposite directions an elderly man on a walker and a woman pushing a shopping cart came whooshing down the aisle and leaping through the air simultaneously to squeeze the Charmin.

I swear the old fellow left the tennis balls on his walker spinning and returned before they could stop.

It is with that background that I will sit on my couch and watch these 2021 Olympic athletes. My standards are higher than ever before.

Email:[email protected]

Read More

It was the last meeting of our two-year journey as the Chicago Community, Media & Research Partnership — a task force of researchers, community groups and journalists discoursing best practices for disseminating research that can reduce health inequities.

Candace Henley, founder and executive director of the Blue Hat Foundation, a group promoting colorectal cancer awareness, stunned us at the start of the meeting.

Her 27-year-old nephew, Joseph Barbee, fell victim to Chicago’s 2021 gun violence bloodbath 2 ¹/₂ hours earlier, killed in the middle of the street, at mid-afternoon, in the Auburn Gresham community, one of the deadliest in the city.

He was riding a Divvy bicycle in the 7700 block of South Seeley Avenue at 2:40 p.m. on July 15 when a gunman approached on foot and shot him in the head, Chicago police said.

It was Henley who got the phone call with the gut-wrenching wails of a mother who had just lost her son.

Henley was angry. At her family’s loss. At unfathomable gun violence that has claimed at least 404 lives in 2,273 shootings this year, according to statistics compiled by the Chicago Sun-Times.

More than anything, though, she was angry that no one, not one soul out there when the shooting happened, would tell police what they saw.

“Joseph’s sister was inside the house and heard gunshots, looked out the window and saw him on the ground. When she called my sister, she said paramedics were working on him, but he wasn’t moving. We high-tailed it to Christ Hospital,” said Henley.

The father of two sons, ages 1 and 5, was pronounced dead by the time the sisters got there.

“My nephew was a loving soul. He was not perfect, and his mom will tell you that. She’s not one of those parents. But society has dehumanized our children in this violence,” she said.

“Joseph was loved. He was somebody’s child, somebody’s brother, somebody’s nephew.

“We still don’t know why this happened. The police haven’t told us much, but a neighborhood gossips. We’ve heard all kinds of stories, yet no one has told police that they saw anything. Let me say to any mother, ‘If you think this can’t happen to you, think again.’ “

It brought back memories of the murder of her own father, Joseph Barbee, for whom her nephew was named. Henley was 19 when her father was beaten to death in a street robbery on the West Side where she grew up.

A 19-year survivor of colon cancer, Henley has made it her life’s work to battle racial and socioeconomic health inequities characteristic of that disease and so many others.

Provided

Long recognized as a public health crisis, gun violence poses greater risk of mortality for low-income communities of color — fueled by the same structural racism that helped COVID-19 wreak disparate death and infection rates upon South and West side communities held hostage to gangs and guns.

African Americans make up 82% of Chicago’s gun deaths; Hispanics, 12%; nine of every 10 killed are male.

“Joseph was very talented. My father was a wonderful artist, and my nephew was talented the same way. He could really draw. He was highly intelligent, especially in math. He could calculate numbers off the top of his head. A brilliant life that didn’t have a chance, because he didn’t have resources,” said Henley.

“The economic downfall perpetrated on our communities, the removal of community centers, arts and sports programs that were available when we were kids — when they removed those things, they got exactly what they knew they were going to get: chaos.

“You now have all these kids with all this talent and energy and nowhere to take it but the streets. And the streets will welcome them any day. This is not rocket science,” she lamented.

Provided

We spent a huge portion of that task force meeting reflecting on similar impacts of gun violence and COVID-19 on disadvantaged communities, and the need to ensure research with potential to reduce inequities gets to those communities via trusted communicators.

On Monday, when I checked in on her, Henley and her family were just returning from the morgue and the mournful task of identifying her nephew’s body. It was a difficult day.

“They showed her the original photos. So we saw the trauma he endured,” said Henley.

“We now begin funeral arrangements, and the wait for police to complete their investigation, hoping someone will come forward to share who did this,” Henley said.

“I’m angry, not just because gun violence has hit home, but because it’s another shooting in our community where no one saw or says anything. I’m sick of watching the news and seeing members of the community mad at the police, the mayor and everybody else.

“What are you doing? You can’t have it both ways,” she said. “If you want the violence to stop, We have to do our part. If you don’t step up and say what’s happening in the community, how can they help change it? We live here. They don’t. Tell what you know.”

Read More

The show begins before you enter the theater lobby on the 14th floor of the Cambria Hotel, before the costumed attendants greet you just past the revolving door at the northeast corner of Randolph and Dearborn and usher you into the elevator, before you step off or out of your preferred mode of transport and into the entropic eddies that are the awkward traffic of humans and cars learning to move en masse again, where some shop and some shout and some gawp agape across the street from–yes–street performers on trumpets outside the Macy’s. Check the mirror before you go out, because the show begins with you, and this is the last time you’ll ever not be at the first show to open in the Chicago Loop since early 2020. Will lipstick survive a bus ride under a mask? I have done the research, and the answer is yes.

The state of the lobby is an amuse-bouche of the glitz and kitsch that await you this evening: chandeliers drip with blinding prisms, reproductions and imitations of Postimpressionist art blare. You can sit on a sequined slice of the moon and have your photo taken–a few writers in compliance with the suggested “festive” attire (for research purposes only) might not have been too cool for it this one time. We’re going back to the theater, and we’re breaking out our best beads.

If you didn’t bring your own tiara, you can buy one. If you need a beverage immediately, you can buy one of those, too (if you’re on a budget yet must imbibe, pack a flask. You didn’t hear that here). The immaculate restrooms operate with the same efficiency as the elevators: you may have to wait a minute but the line keeps moving. In the meantime, behold the novelty of other faces, three-dimensional and strange, or your own among them, in the myriad mirrors on the wall.

Once inside the tent, the lights are red, and the tables are close. Everything is shining–the art deco glass, the mirrors, the disco ball (why not?). Everyone gets their own little dish of hummus and olives. The salt is centering.

When the action begins, your eye will wander. Dancer Mickael Bajazet has you from the moment he strikes up the band–every impish expression compels with sweetness. But before you get too comfortable, a bit of slapstick starts up between a custodian (Oliver Parkinson) and a maid (Cassie Cutler). Take note: they are unusually lean and muscular. This is called foreshadowing.

“I missed the look of you–the smell of you–the group spooning,” croons The Caesar (Frank Ferrante), your host with a little too much of the most. The Caesar’s hair gleams. The Caesar perspires profusely. The Caesar is quick with improvised lines and quicker to demand applause. The Caesar commands hapless audience members to the stage. Introverts who have not already perished from general overstimulation will wither forthwith.

But regardless of your perspective on compulsory audience participation, humiliation brings your fellow theatergoer into full relief–and who are we here for, if not each other? (On this day, Matt, who manages gyms. Alexa, actually a real person. Patrick, who sells rope. James, an engineer. James, a data analyst. Joyce, who graduated from Farragut High School in 1951. Whatever mnemonic devices The Caesar is using, they stick.) “We are here!” he shouts–and in the colored light of the specials, you can actually see what we’ve been thinking about all these months–fine droplets streaming through the air, the toxic haze we all exhale. Like it or not, tonight’s the night we find out if our vaccines really work.

The introduction of a bedazzled mummy case sets the tone for the rest of the night, Vegas in the midwest, with a relationship to authenticity like the Caesar salad has to the Roman Republic–tasty if you don’t think about it as anything beyond a pop culture legend of a love triangle with a sexy queen. For she is here with us, Cleopatra (Storm Marrero), with a big voice and a costume to match (designed by Zane Pihlstrom), often in duet with Cunio–together they are fearless, unstoppable, glittering like a planetarium.

Cleopatra and Caesar need their Mark Antony, here played by clown and codirector Joe De Paul who can only be described as inhabiting a zone between disarming and perturbing, an ordinary guy off the street until he isn’t.

The greatest treats of the evening are also its greatest feats–dance and acrobatics by Duo 19 (Parkinson and Cutler), Bajazet and Vita Radionova, and Lea Hinz–performed at such close range, you can see every supple muscle quiver and track the calculations of coordination. Impossible distillations of physics, ingenuity, and craft keep bodies hovering between flight and fall–exquisite illustrations of trust in humans and human invention, radiant, perilous, tilting extravagantly on the edge of folly, mastery of this moment. (Between the acts, these same performers bring you plates. They pepper your food. They pour your water. It’s not new but still needed: a reminder of the life of service that many artists lead.)

Yet perhaps the greatest pleasures of the program refer to the sense of togetherness we can experience beyond the boundaries of the theater–the energy of others, a slow dance, a kiss on the cheek. Life is theater, theater is life. We are here. v

Read More

Former Chicago police-officer-turned-alderman Anthony Napolitano has long accused State’s Attorney Kim Foxx of being soft on crime and functioning “more like a defense attorney” than a prosecutor of violent crime.

At Wednesday’s City Council meeting, Napolitano plans to introduce what he calls the “Chicago Criminal Accountability Ordinance.”

It would take a series of crimes normally prosecuted by the state’s attorney’s office and divert them to city hearing officers who process administrative notices of violation.

The crimes range from “looting and mob actions,” vandalism, possession of etching materials, paint and other markers used for graffiti to unlawful possession of a firearm and firearms ammunition and offenses committed in “public transportation safety zones” or near schools, parks and playgrounds.

City hearing officers would be empowered to impose fines up to $30,000 for those offenses; all money would be earmarked for Chicago’s skyrocketing pension obligations. Violators could also be forced to serve up to six months in Cook County Jail.

Napolitano has served the city as both a police officer and a firefighter. His far Northwest Side ward is home to scores of Chicago Police officers who are constantly sending him videos and photos of the “lawlessness” on Chicago streets.

“Destroying property. Looting stores. … It’s happening every weekend. The wildings downtown right now where you have a mob of about 30 kids standing around beating people up on the corners, taking phones and purses in broad daylight,” Napolitano said.

“Every week, there’s another police vehicle or fire vehicle or city vehicle being destroyed by wildings…We’ve got four-wheelers and motorcycle on sidewalks on Michigan Avenue riding around. If you drive down the Kennedy Expressway, the entire city is covered in graffiti. I’ve never seen anything this bad before. … We’re a lawless city right now.”

Napolitano said the cops he represents are so demoralized by the “revolving door” at the state’s attorney’s office, they’re saying, “Why lock anybody up? They’re out on the street the next day or in a couple of hours.”

“If our state’s attorney is not going to stand up and be the defender of the people because she’s a defense attorney, we’re gonna take matters into our own hands. It’s not gonna go in front of her, where she just tosses everything, puts people on ankle monitors and puts everybody back on the street,” Napolitano said.

Foxx reacted angrily to the oft-repeated suggestion that she is soft on crime. So much so that she accused Napolitano of the fanning the flames of racial tension in Chicago.

“Phrases like ‘wilding’ are dog whistles that perpetuate racist attitudes and behavior in our criminal justice system. To be honest, I am not surprised by his language or motivation — as this is the same elected official who protested alongside the FOP and QAnon at my office nearly two years ago,” Foxx said in a prepared statement.

“My office has worked hard to establish trust and legitimacy with our Black and Brown communities. Right now, I will continue to use our resources to tackle violent crime and prioritize the safety of every Cook County resident.”

The Foxx statement continued: “As State’s Attorney I am focused on violent crime. Meanwhile, the alderman is focusing on low-level offenses. If the alderman was truly serious about addressing crime, he would follow the data from our most recent study. None of the policies he is recommending support this data.”

Accompanying Foxx’s statement was a fact sheet asserting that Foxx has “secured over 2,700 more convictions related to violent felony offenses than her predecessor,” Anita Alvarez, did “in the last three years of her tenure.”

“These violent and most serious offenses include cases of gun violence, homicide, sex crimes, aggravated battery, violence against police officers, robbery, domestic battery and kidnapping,” the fact sheets states.

“These cases represent 28 percent of the cases prosecuted by the Cook County State’s attorney’s office. The conviction rate on these cases has increased by 81 to 83 percent under the Foxx administration.”

It’s not the first time that Foxx has been accused of going too easy on criminals wreaking havoc on Chicago streets.

Last summer, Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown accused Cook County prosecutors of being soft on looters who were arrested after the death of George Floyd in late May and early June, setting the stage for a second round of destruction in early August.

Foxx accused the mayor and Brown of “over-simplifying” the issue, adding, “The notion that people believe that they are somehow empowered because people were not prosecuted is simply not true.”

Read More

A man is charged in connection with a fatal shooting Sunday in Austin on the West Side.

Antonio Cole, 23, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of 30-year-old Roland Hill, Chicago police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office said.

Hill was on a motorcycle about 1 p.m. when he stopped at an intersection in the 4900 block of West Chicago Avenue and a vehicle pulled up alongside, police said.

Someone inside the vehicle fired shots, striking Hill in the buttocks and abdomen, police said. He was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 1:34 p.m.

Cole, of Austin, was arrested less than 30 minutes after the shooting in the 200 block of North Laramie Avenue, police said.

He is expected to appear in court Wednesday.

Read More

Chicago rapper Herbert Wright III, better known as G Herbo, has become the kind of public figure whose smallest social media movement is fodder for the content mill. When Herb’s girlfriend, Taina Williams, recently blocked him on Instagram, the nonevent inspired blog posts at Complex, HotNewHipHop, and Bossip. Thankfully, whatever strains and pressures come with this level of celebrity don’t seem to have impacted Herb’s music. On his latest album, 25 (Machine Entertainment Group/Republic), he’s still doing what launched him to fame in the first place: dispensing vivid, complex verses about growing up in a neighborhood beset by gun violence that also express deep empathy for survivors, victims, and bystanders. His lived experience gives him the perspective to do that with a great deal more care than outsiders who use Chicago shooting statistics to defend the status quo while neglecting neighborhoods in need. (He addresses the harm done to communities of color by inequities in tangible resources on “Demands.”) One of Herb’s gifts is his ability to open up a world in just a few seconds. I’ve been thinking a lot about two solemn lines from an interlude on “Cold World”: “I ain’t know the world was cold when saw a murder at nine / Still thought I was fine, no wonder I play with cap guns all the time.” He reflects on his own trauma gingerly while implying his gratitude for the support network he’s built to provide a better life for his children. And he does it with his love for Chicago on his sleeve: you can hear it not just in the brazen drill beats that power much of his music but also in the hiccuping percussion on “Cold World,” which anyone who’s felt the bass rattle their rib cage at a footwork battle knows intimately. v

Read More

MILWAUKEE — High atop the outside of Fiserv Forum — way above even a leaping Giannis Antetokounmpo’s reach — blares the Bucks’ postseason motto.

“HISTORY IN THE MAKING” it reads, a sign and a situation that’s now impossible to ignore.

And yet, that’s exactly what the Bucks are trying to do.

They can indeed make history Tuesday night as Milwaukee’s first NBA champion since 1971. But the Bucks have to resist thinking about what happens if they beat the Phoenix Suns in Game 6.

“It’s hard, because you work so hard to be in that moment, which is tomorrow,” Antetokounmpo said Monday. “It’s hard not to get ahead of yourself. But this is the time that you’ve got to be the most disciplined.”

The Bucks have won the last three games to set up a potential party 50 years in the making.

Around 17,000 fans are expected inside the arena and the Bucks announced Monday that the Deer District has been expanded to allow up to 65,000 fans to stand shoulder-to-shoulder outside. Barricades line the sidewalks around the arena and restaurants within walking distance were contemplating how to get employees into and back home from work through the anticipated crowds.

It’s a scene that couldn’t have happened for much of this season that has been played during the coronavirus pandemic. The Bucks only began permitting a limited number of fans at games in February, nearly two months after the season began. Even when postseason play started in May, capacity was capped at 9,100, a little above 50%.

Whatever the number is Tuesday, it will sound a whole lot louder if the Bucks are lifting the Larry O’Brien Trophy.

“But we got to focus, we got to do our job,” Antetokounmpo said. “Then they can do their job celebrating at the end. But we got to do our job first.”

The Suns are excited, too.

That’s how Chris Paul said they feel, despite blowing a 2-0 lead and facing elimination for the first time in this postseason.

“Something that Coach and everybody has been saying: If you went to the beginning of the season and said we had a chance to be where we are right now, would you take it? Absolutely,” Paul said.

“And we get a chance to determine the outcome. It’s not like the game is going to be simulated or somebody else’s got to play. We get a chance. We control our own destiny. So I think that’s the exciting part about it.”

If the Suns do win Tuesday, they would bring the series back to Phoenix for Game 7 on Thursday.

To do so, they will have to call upon the fight they showed in Game 5, when they gave themselves a chance to win in the closing seconds after the Bucks had pounded them for 79 points in the second and third quarters to open a double-digit lead.

The comeback fell short when Jrue Holiday stripped Devin Booker and fired an alley-oop pass to Antetokounmpo, but coach Monty Williams saw a resilience that will be needed now more than ever.

“For us to be able to cut it to one point, you know that was the thing that stuck out to me and gives our staff and team a lot of confidence as we go into this Game 6,” Williams said.

Booker has scored 40 points in two straight games, something Antetokounmpo earlier in the series and only five other players have done in the NBA Finals. Yet as good as he’s been, the star guard said he has to be even better in Game 6.

“We all know what’s at stake and what’s on the line,” Booker said. “Everybody is going to have to give a little bit more because what we have done hasn’t been enough.”

Just two years ago, the Bucks had the league’s best record and were two wins away from their first NBA Finals since 1974 before losing a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference finals against Toronto.

That disappointment helped build a Bucks team that doesn’t waver when it’s down. Milwaukee was behind 2-0 to Brooklyn in the second round and is now a victory away from overcoming that deficit again.

The Bucks ended all three series in this postseason on the road. Now they have the chance for the biggest one of all in their building, knowing that won’t make it any easier than their other clinchers.

“It is funny, you want to treat it the same as any other game, but at the same time, it is what it is. It’s a close-out game of the finals,” center Brook Lopez said. “But I definitely think we can take from our other experiences in the playoffs.

“And one thing, you know, if you look all of them, obviously we know that the other team is just not going to roll over and stop playing. They are going to fight till the last second. We have be ready to come out at our best.”

Read More

The Chicago Police Department was unprepared to handle the mass protests, unrest, violence and looting that followed the murder of George Floyd last summer, according to a new report released Tuesday morning.

The report was put together by Maggie Hickey, a former federal prosecutor who’s in charge of overseeing court-ordered reforms to the Chicago Police Department.

The report details how officers rushed to stores and spent their own money to buy zip ties used in mass arrest situations, while other officers rushed to rent vehicles that would allow for proper transportation of cops to areas of potential unrest.

The 464-page report, compiled after numerous interviews with both police and protesters, isn’t even the first report to rip the city’s response to the George Floyd protests.

In February, Joe Ferguson, the city’s inspector general released a highly critical report on the city’s ill-prepared response. CPD also conducted its own “after action” report that laid out failures and how to improve.

Tuesday’s report adds to those.

Among its other findings is that for many officers who were deployed, it wasn’t clear who was in charge or what exactly they should be doing.

One communication failure left a police vehicle on a bridge that was being raised to stem the flow of looters and protesters downtown.

“Even if the city and the CPD had predicted the level of protests and unrest after the death of George Floyd on May 25, 2020, the city and the CPD did not have the policies, reporting practices, training, equipment, community engagement, or inter-agency coordination required to respond timely and efficiently,” the report states.

The city, Hickey noted, hadn’t dedicated sufficient resources toward responding to protests and potential unrest since it hosted the NATO summit in 2012.

The report states: “Some CPD leadership told us that they were sent to a location downtown, but there was no one there to provide further instruction when they arrived. In response, some supervisors and officers who responded downtown pushed crowds in various directions, and unsuccessfully, chased people who were looting from store to store. Others said that, without direction, they directed officers with them to not engage with crowds to avoid risking injuries to people in the crowd and themselves. As a result, they had their teams pull away from conflicts.”

“Many city and CPD personnel told us that, once they received word of what was occurring downtown, they rushed to work and many officers self-deployed.”

The city’s standard approach of planning and preparing for large protests was inadequate for responding to quickly evolving mass protests that were often fueled by social media. As a result, the city was left “to improvise,” the report states.

Problems deploying the right number of properly equipped officers to the correct locations followed.

“Many officers were deployed without their equipment, including radios, body-worn cameras, or protective gear and also without provisions for their basic needs, such as transportation or access to rest periods, restrooms, food or water,” the report states.

The report said another consequence of being unprepared was the use of excessive force by officers.

“Some officers engaged in various levels of misconduct and excessive force, many instances of which are still under investigation,” it stated.

The report also detailed the response of community members who said they faced excessive force.

“We heard from many community members who expressed new fears, frustrations, confusion, pain, and anger regarding their experiences with officers during protests,” the report states.

“We heard from community members who participated in protests — some for the first time — who said that officers were verbally abusive toward them; pushed and shoved them; tackled them to the ground; pushed them down stairs; pulled their hair; struck them with batons, fists, or other nearby objects; hit them after they were ‘kettled’ with nowhere to go or after being handcuffed; and sprayed them with pepper spray without reason.”

The report hammers home the need for the city to implement reforms laid out in the consent decree, according to Nusrat Choudhury, legal director for the ACLU of Illinois.

“This includes desperately needed changes to ensure police accountability, respect for community members, unbiased policing, and a dramatic reduction in police use of force against people,” he said.

The city has been criticized for its slow pace of cementing consent decree reforms.

Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29th), the former Chicago police officer now chairing the City Council’s Committee on Public Safety, said Tuesday that the monitor’s report covers the same ground already plowed by Ferguson in February.

Taliaferro said CPD already has “learned from its mistakes” and claimed “a lot of right things were done as well” during the two devastating rounds of looting that spread from downtown, River North and Lincoln Park into South and West side commercial strips.

“We certainly could have had much more hysteria, much more looting and much more harm than we did. So there had to be some things that were done right as well. But no one is going to highlight those because it doesn’t sell,” Taliaferro said.

“I’m really tired of it. … Look at how people are perceiving Chicago. That’s because you guys keep throwing this stuff in their throats. … Why isn’t anybody highlighting what we’re doing good as a city? I’m waiting for that. I’ve been waiting for that for years. To keep printing the same thing over and over and over again about the negative in this city — it just dogs people out. It just dogs this city and makes this city look like crap — and it’s not.”

Ferguson’s scathing 124-page report described mistakes at the highest levels of CPD that “failed the public” as well as rank-and-file police officers “left to high-stakes improvisation without adequate supervision or guidance.”

His report also concluded the mayor’s decision to raise the Chicago River bridges and stop CTA trains from entering downtown to keep out looters may have backfired by trapping protesters there.

Ferguson further accused Mayor Lori Lightfoot of rejecting Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s early offer to call out the National Guard to assist overwhelmed and exhausted Chicago police officers. Lightfoot denied the charge as “completely untrue.”

The mayor has said she waited until very late on Saturday, May 30, after widespread looting in the downtown area to request the Guard. “I’m a kid who grew up in Ohio down the road from Kent State. My earliest memories are very seared by the then-Ohio governor calling in the National Guard to Kent State, and the result was four students dead.”

Lightfoot responded to the inspector general’s report with a claim that CPD has learned from its mistakes.

Taliaferro’s response to the monitor’s report was pretty much the same.

“We have a very smart superintendent. I’m quite sure that he didn’t look at the inspector general’s report and throw it in the trash. He and his command staff are smart enough to look at what needed to be changed and where they fell short,” the chairman said.

Northwestern law professor Sheila Bedi, who was part of a group that urged Hickey to create the report, said Tuesday its findings bolster her belief that the police department needs to change — and quick.

“We’re asking the department to do far too much, and the report lays bare the department doesn’t have the training, supervision and planning to respond to crises, whether they arise from First Amendment expression or people living in mental health crises,” Bedi said.

“And the report’s findings can be extrapolated out to the department at large. It’s inherently violent in a deeply racialized way and therefore ill equipped to respond to the needs of Chicago’s communities,” she said.

The report also acknowledged the police department faced unprecedented challenges in dealing with the protests, unrest and the pandemic at the same time.

“This report is not a blanket disapproval or approval of the city’s and the CPD’s responses to recent protests and unrest,” the report released Tuesday states.

“We believe that the city and the CPD can and must make immediate, deliberate, and transparent efforts — in compliance with the consent decree — to better protect and serve and to be accountable to Chicago’s communities.”

Read More

In 2014, Chicago pedicab owners accused the City Council of “discriminating” against pedicabs and warned aldermen they would be forced out of business by the draconian regulations.

Now downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) wants to put the brakes on pedicabs yet again — this time by banning them from the River North entertainment district during prime hours and by prohibiting pedicabs from using amplified sound during all hours of the day and night.

In an email to the Sun-Times, Reilly noted there is already a pedicab “prohibition zone” on Michigan Avenue and State Street.

At the behest of the commander of the Chicago Police Department’s 18th District, Reilly plans to introduce a new ordinance at Wednesday’s Council meeting that would prohibit pedicabs from operating from 6 p.m. to 9 a.m. in the area from Michigan Avenue west to Wells Street, and from Ohio Street south to the Chicago River.

“There are an increasing number of incidents involving pedicabs congesting narrow (and busy) two-way streets illegally staging in traffic lanes and lay-by lanes. This is making it difficult for Fire, EMS and Police to respond to call for service in a timely manner,” Reilly wrote.

“In addition to the unsafe traffic conditions they are creating, they are also negatively impacting quality of life and public safety.”

Arguing that “most” pedicabs are now equipped with “amplified music systems and light shows,” Reilly also wants to prohibit amplified sound during specified hours.

“The Police and local business owners complain pedicab drivers are being paid to provide curbside DJ service to illegal curbside parties on sidewalks in the entertainment district. This is resulting in disorderly behavior and fights in the streets. This places local hospitality security staff at serious risk & creates mayhem in River North. The loud music is also generating constituent complaints in select areas,” Reilly wrote.

“When the Police, local hospitality businesses and my constituents all asked for help with this problem, I was more than happy to oblige.”

Attached to Reilly’s email was a photo of a downtown pedicab set on fire outside what appears to be a downtown high-rise.

“Word has it the sound system shorted,” the alderman wrote.

Provided

The 2014 pedicab ordinance capped the number of pedicabs at 200, permanently banned them from Michigan Avenue and State Street and kept them out of the Loop during rush hours.

Pedicabs also were: required to post fares and meet rigid safety standards, including passenger seat belts; provide proof of workers compensation insurance; and face impoundment if they violated city rules.

The roughly 400 people trying to eke out a living by driving pedicabs accused the Council of going too far and making it virtually impossible for them to survive.

“Not allowing me . . . to operate without restrictions would only kill my business. … I would basically be forced to sell my cabs and start another business if I cannot operate on these two iconic streets [Michigan and State]. This is where the tourists are. This is where the Chicagoan locals are. [About] 300,000 people walk up and down this street,” said Antonio Bustamante, owner of Kickback Pedicabs said then.

The first few months of the city crackdown proved the doomsayers right.

The city had issued licenses for just 15 pedicab vehicles, with 65 more pending completion of the application process, including proof of insurance. As for the separate city license for pedicab drivers, only 44 people had applied.

At the time, T.C. O’Rourke, a board member of the Chicago Pedicab Association, said there was only one explanation for the trickle of applications: the decision to ban pedicabs from Michigan and State between Congress Parkway and Oak Street and also to ban them from the Loop during rush hours.

“The impact of the downtown street bans has really been felt. It’s really cut into business,” O’Rourke said. “People are unwilling to take on that expense and that risk. Many people have just quit doing this work. Others have moved away to less overbearing regulatory environments.”

Two years later, then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel moved to close a legal loophole that Chicago pedicab operators were “exploiting” to get around rigid city regulations.

At Emanuel’s behest, aldermen amended the municipal code governing pedicab licenses to state: “A person engages in the occupation of a pedicab chauffeur by seeking or accepting a fee, an economic benefit of a donation or gratuity or any form of compensation [goods or services] for providing transportation to passengers in a pedicab.”

“I’ve seen pedicab operators near the United Center with signs that encourage ‘tips or donations’ – so they may be using that as a way to circumvent licensing requirements,” Reilly said then.

“Clarifying the definition of ‘operator’ will close a loophole that’s being exploited by some operators and will ultimately help the city ensure pedicab operators are complying with existing licensing, insurance and safety regulations that are intended to protect their customers.”

Read More

Archdiocese of Chicago schools plan to return to “near-normal, pre-pandemic operations” when students, teachers and staff return for the school year.

School Masses, athletics, music programs and field trips will be restored for students, the archdiocese announced Tuesday. Masks will not be not mandated for vaccinated students, teachers and staff under the ease COVID-19 restrictions.

“These safety guidelines will be reassessed, as necessary, during the academic year to ensure safe operations,” Justin Lombardo, chief human resources officer and chair of the Archdiocesan COVID-19 Task Force, said in the announcement. “And, for the sake of everyone’s health and our collective ability to fully overcome the COVID-19 virus, we will continue to encourage vaccinations for faculty, staff and students over the age of 12.”

Proof of vaccination for eligible students will be encouraged come fall to aid contact tracing and determine if quarantine is necessary. Vaccinated students will not be required to quarantine if they come into close contact with a person who tests positive for COVID-19.

Remaining safety protocols for the 2021-2022 academic year require that students with COVID-19 symptoms stay home and classrooms maintain 3 feet of indoor physical distance when possible. This is in compliance with recent CDC guidance.

Safety guidelines for unvaccinated individuals will be released by early August.

The Archdiocese of Chicago serves about 45,000 students in 162 Catholic schools.

Read More