What’s New

Read More

Read More

Read More

Read More

Read More

Read More

A 47-year-old man died after he crashed into a median and his vehicle caught on fire Sunday morning in Back of the Yards on the South Side.

Just before 11 a.m., the man was driving a Suburu at a high rate of speed in the 5200 block of South Ashland Avenue when he lost control of the vehicle and crashed into a median and a tree, Chicago police said.

The Suburu ended up in the northbound lanes and struck a Chevy Silverado, police said.

Officers then responded to a call of the Suburu on fire, according to police.

The 47-year-old driver was transported to the University of Chicago Medical Center where he was later pronounced dead. The Cook County medical examiner’s office has not yet identified the man.

The 31-year-old driver of the Chevy refused medical attention at the scene.

Read More

Family members gathered outside Chicago police headquarters over the weekend to remember Crystal Crockett — a nursing student and loving new mother to twin girls who was fatally shot earlier this month in Bronzeville.

Crockett, 21, moved to the city from Downers Grove just a few years ago to look after her grandmother and begin attending nursing school at Malcolm X College.

“She loved taking care of people,” said her sister Nivea Crockett. “She just loved her job.”

She began dating Elijah Clippard, 31, about a year ago and became pregnant with twin girls who were born in March, about 24 weeks before their due date, family members said.

Crockett was thrilled to be a parent and was a natural “super mom,” her sister said. Every day she visited the babies at the Rush University Medical Center NICU, where the babies will remain until they are able to breathe and eat on their own, family members said.

“They are tiny but they are mighty,” her sister said.

The evening of June 14, Clippard and Crockett were seen on surveillance video at the hospital visiting their child, Cook County prosecutors said.

At 6:15 a.m. the next day, Clippard is seen on surveillance video driving a car with Crockett in the passenger seat, prosecutors said. He parked the car in an empty lot behind an apartment complex and got out while holding a firearm in his right hand, appearing “seemingly agitated,” prosecutors said.

He looked around “as if to make sure no one is there” and allegedly fired at Crockett multiple times.

“My daughter did not deserve this,” Crockett’s mother Kylia Robinson said.

“Crystal wouldn’t hurt a fly,” her sister added.

Crockett told her family that she was afraid of Clippard, and her sister advised her to leave him.

“She could never tell him no, anytime she would tell him no, it would be a problem for her,” Nivea Crockett said. “She told him no I guess that day.”

Crockett’s older brother Creston Robinson said he now wishes his sister had stayed in the suburbs.

“Crystal did not deserve this, Crystal was a beautiful person, ” her brother said. “Crystal was very introverted, she was very respectful. She did what she had to do for her babies, she was an outstanding citizen.”

Police arrested Clippard Wednesday in the Eden Green housing development on the Far South Side, where he lived. Clippard was ordered held without bail Thursday and is expected back in court July 14.

The young babies will now have to grow up without either parent, advocate Andrew Holmes said Sunday.

“He (the shooter) not only took the mother’s life, but you also took the life away from her two precious kids,” Holmes said.

Read More

Hair salons, clothing stores and restaurants line Madison Street in West Garfield Park, the community’s main commercial corridor. But between those businesses are scattered empty lots, where grass and weeds grow through gravel and cracked concrete.

One of those empty lots will soon be a new outdoor roller rink and community plaza.

Some in the community are excited about the project. But it’s the area’s other trade that has some concerned. The Garfield Park Chamber of Commerce and Cook County Black Chamber started petitions, trying unsuccessfully to block the city’s plans for what the groups called “a drug infested, crime ridden area.”

The Madison Street-Pulaski Road intersection is an open-air drug market, where drug deals go down in broad daylight, residents and officials say. And last Tuesday, about three blocks from the site of the project, the community saw five people hurt in the city’s second mass shooting of the day.

Earlier this month, the mayor’s office said West Garfield Park is within the top five communities experiencing narcotics sales and opioid addiction and ranks seventh out of the top 15 neighborhoods experiencing gun violence.

The community plaza and roller rink are intended to offer some relief.

“Bringing positive traffic to the area cannot hurt in any way,” said Ald. Jason Ervin (28th). “What it also would do is put the onus on the community and also Chicago Police Department to provide a safer environment for people that wish to come participate in activities at the park facility.”

The lot has been vacant since 2002, according to the Chicago Park District. The idea for a roller rink grew out of conversations with residents, who expressed “a shared desire for spaces for intergenerational activities.”

Residents also said a rink would be particularly significant, given that roller skating has a history in the Black community. During the Civil Rights movement, roller rinks were areas of desegregation protests. Many rinks also served as a starting place for Black musicians.

Jackie Winston, 58, said when she was growing up in the neighborhood, children had bowling alleys, movie theaters and roller rinks to spend their time at. She said bringing back positive activity spaces is key to making the community safer.

“We don’t have any recreational things for kids after school. We need positive things,” said Winston.

Chicago Park District

The Park District selected All-Bry Construction Company to build a temporary structure, planned to open July 23. All-Bry also will build a permanent structure with lighting, furniture, a stage and outdoor activity spaces; construction on that will begin this fall, with plans to open next June.

The temporary project is estimated to cost $1.5 million; the money will come from the state’s Cannabis Regulation Fund. There is no cost estimate for next year’s permanent structure yet, said Ervin.

La Shone Kelly, director of housing at the Garfield Park Community Council, also is on the board of the Garfield Park Wellness Collective.

While agreeing that some activities occurring along the corridor are not “conducive” to family life, “the new center will be a good way to get kids somewhere safe to play.”

On a sunny Wednesday, just days after the groundbreaking ceremony, Allena Johnson and her mother Charone Talley were walking down Madison Street, shopping bags in hand.

When they heard about the rink, they were shocked: neither knew the city was building the rink.

“I’d be there every day!” said Allena, 14.

Ald. Walter Burnett (27th) said the space would become a gathering place for the entire West Side.

“We had a roller rink on the West side some years ago and the only thing everyone always asked for was another roller rink,” Burnett said. “I’m so happy to see that we figured out a way of making it happen.”

It is happening against the wishes of the Garfield Park Chamber of Commerce and Cook County Black Chamber, said Siri Hibbler, CEO and founder of both business groups.

The groups’ online “Save Our Children in Garfield Park” petition, posted in April, had 63 signatures as of Monday. They also are seeking signatures door-to-door, Hibbler said.

“The opposition with us and the business owners in that area and also with the parents is the fact that you put (the outdoor roller rink) right here on the street, where you know you haven’t stopped the crime,” said Hibbler. “Kids would have no protection; bullets have no eyes.”

Residents have acknowledged the dangers an outdoor rink poses but said it offers a distraction from crime and violence — all that’s needed is proper security.

“The young people don’t have nothing to do,” said 74-year-old resident Gregory Lunt. “Give these kids something to do and it will be a much better neighborhood.”

Cheyanne M. Daniels is a staff reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times via Report for America, a not-for-profit journalism program that aims to bolster the paper’s coverage of communities on the South and West sides.

Read More

Good afternoon. Here’s the latest news you need to know in Chicago. It’s about a 5-minute read that will brief you on today’s biggest stories.

This afternoon will be mostly cloudy with scattered showers and thunderstorms along with a high near 79 degrees. Similar conditions will continue much of the week with a low around 69 tonight and a high near 83 tomorrow.

Top story

After two mass shootings within hours Sunday night, Lightfoot decries ‘street justice’

Two mass shootings within two hours of each other over the weekend stemmed from gang conflict and retaliatory shootings, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said today, decrying “street justice” driven by a “thirst for revenge.”

“Both incidents appear to be internal gang conflicts. Retaliatory shootings for past incidents,” the mayor said, noting that Chicago police detectives who worked through the night “have some promising leads.”

About a third of the 78 people shot between Friday evening and this morning were wounded in just four attacks, including the two mentioned by the mayor. Four were shot in each of the other two.

Lightfoot said yet another summer weekend marred by mass shootings is “both heartbreaking and frustrating.”

Heartbreaking for those killed and wounded and the people who loved them, she said, and equally heartbreaking for the wounds inflicted “psychologically” on those left “traumatized” by gun violence in their gang-infested neighborhoods.

“What’s also frustrating and heartbreaking is that, for some in our community, their thirst for revenge has no sense of decency. They don’t want to let the criminal justice system play itself out,” the mayor said.

“They want to engage in street justice, which is tragic and terrible because, invariably what happens — like we’ve seen so many times with way too many children in our city across this year — when they aim, they don’t get the target. They get the children and the innocent bystanders who have a right to live in our city without fear of being felled by gun violence.”

Read our full story here.

More news you need

1. The mass shootings cited by Lightfoot were part of a violent weekend in which seven people were killed and 71 others wounded across Chicago. Almost halfway through 2021, shootings in the city are up 13% compared to last year and 34% compared to 2019.
2. The Chicago cop who shot and killed Anthony Alvarez during a foot chase earlier this year in Portage Park has been stripped of his police powers. The move had been recommended by a civilian oversight board nearly three months ago.
3. A Calumet City man who allegedly shot his girlfriend and the mother of his young son “execution style” last week on the South Side was ordered held without bail today. Karim Hunter, 27, is charged with first-degree murder.
4. Will a new Chicago postmaster lead to improved mail delivery? There’s cautious optimism in the city after Eddie Morgan Jr., a former postmaster in Kansas City, took over the gig earlier this month.
5. Mayor Lightfoot and community groups pledged today to build 250 homes in North Lawndale to improve the community and help families build wealth. The program involves selling city-owned parcels for $1 each to groups that say they have stitched together private and public funds to support the construction.
6. A K-Town turnaround could be in the works as firms such as The Will Group invest millions into the West Side neighborhood that’s often been associated with violence and poverty. One of the efforts is being called K-Town Business Centre in an attempt to embrace the community and recast its image.

A bright one

Ex-Bears QB Erik Kramer back from the brink

(Content Warning // suicide attempt)

Former Bears quarterback Erik Kramer checked into the Good Nite Inn in Calabasas, California, on Aug. 18, 2015. He brought the SIG Sauer 9mm handgun he had purchased specifically for the occasion.

Kramer had spent weeks planning his death. He got his finances in order so his son Dillon would be comfortable. He never had fired a handgun before, so he took it to the range to practice.

During a five-year span, Kramer divorced, struggled to connect with Dillon (who decided to live with his mom) and split with his girlfriend. And then death took those closest to him, one by one.

”People aren’t coming,” he thought. ”They’re going.”

Photo courtesy Anna Dergan

When the officers and paramedics arrived at the Good Nite Inn, Chris Germann, a longtime friend, was patched through to Kramer’s hotel room, which he had checked into under his own name. The phone rang. Germann figured he was too late.

”I’ll be damned if he didn’t answer,” Germann said. ”He was moaning.”

Kramer had shot himself. The bullet traveled from under his chin through his tongue and sinus cavity and out the top of his head.

But Kramer was alive.

After his suicide attempt, myriad trials and other challenges, Kramer now says he’s “the most grateful guy walking the planet.” Read Patrick Finley’s full story on how Kramer rebuilt his life with the help of friends and family.

From the press box

Your daily question ?

How has the pandemic changed how you plan for your future?

Email us (please include your first name and where you live) and we might include your answer in the next Afternoon Edition.

Reply to this email (please include your first name and where you live) and we might feature your answer in the next Afternoon Edition.

On Friday, we asked you: Who’s the biggest celebrity you’ve spotted in Chicago? Tell us where and when you saw them. Here’s what some of you said…

“Tom Hanks when I worked at Northwestern and John Cusack while he was filming High Fidelity on Southport.” — Joe Simonetti

“Michael Jordan, as he trained for baseball at IIT. Best facility to do so because it was a private school and there was no media access. He was a stand up guy.” — Tara Lykowski

“Paul Newman and Robert Redford in 1972. They were filming The Sting at Union Station and requested a tour of the Mercantile Exchange. I worked on the floor while in college and got to shake both their hands.” — Tom Bailey

“I was on the elevator alone with Barack Obama in the Federal building at 230 S. Dearborn when he was a Senator. I saw Oprah Winfrey in a store in Michigan Avenue. I saw Mel Gibson while he was filming a movie in downtown Chicago. I saw R. Kelley when he was Robert Kelley at open mic night at the Cotton Club.” — Kimberly Rogers

“Bono. He stood next to me at The Rolling Stones concert at the Aragon Ballroom just before he went on stage. September 2002.” –Ann Lutterbach

“Maybe not the biggest celebrity but me and Mr. T crossed paths three times in four days. Day 1, he cut me off on LSD. Day 2, he literally bumped into me coming out of the Schubert Theater (Dreamgirls). Two days later he was ten feet from me at a Blackhawks game. Never saw him before, never again.” — Douglas Michel

“Walter Payton in the Arlington Heights Jewel back in the early 80s. He was checking out in front of me.” — Peggy Middleton Sellards

Thanks for reading the Chicago Afternoon Edition. Got a story you think we missed? Email us here.

Sign up here to get the Afternoon Edition in your inbox every day.

Read More