A woman was killed and a man critically wounded in a shooting June 18, 2021 in Ashburn on the Southwest Side. | Sun-Times file photo
The woman, man and child were driving in a vehicle in the 2800 block of West 79th Street when someone, possibly in a burgundy Dodge Durango, pulled up alongside them and fired several shots, Chicago police said.
A woman was killed and a man critically wounded in a shooting Friday afternoon in Ashburn Park on the Southwest Side. A child riding in their car was not harmed but hospitalized as a precautionary measure.
Just before 3 p.m., the group was traveling in a vehicle in the 2800 block of West 79th Street when someone, possibly in a burgundy Dodge Durango, drove up alongside them and fired several shots, Chicago police said.
The woman, 25, was struck in the head and pronounced dead at the scene, according to police.
The man, 29, suffered gunshot wounds to the back and hand and a graze wound to the head, police said. He was transported to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn in critical condition.
The child, whose age was unknown, was not injured but taken to the same hospital as a precaution, police said.
The group’s vehicle came to a stop after crashing into the median while the shooter fled the scene, police said.
ChicagoBulls rookie small forward, Patrick Williams, 19, was snubbed out of selection for the NBA All-Rookie first team but instead was selected to the All-Rookie second team. Williams, also known as PWill or PDub, had an outstanding rookie season with the Chicago Bulls. The Chicago Bulls saw Patrick William have a fantastic season in 2020-21. […]
Naseer Jaco-Cartman, 9, of Bronzeville, stands with his brother, 5-year-old Akande Grey-Cartman, as they look at “The Obama Portraits,” at the Art Institute of Chicago. | Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times
The paintings of Barack and Michelle Obama will be on display until Aug. 15.
People lined up Friday at the Art Institute under banners that read “From Chicago … to the White House … and back again” to be among the first to see “The Obama Portraits” in the place where Barack and Michelle had their first date 32 years ago.
“I think that they are a really wonderful and drastic departure from the conventional presidential portrait where somebody’s standing in a library or in front of a fireplace,” said Antar Jackson, 38, of Wicker Park. “It’s a commitment to modern society and embracing Black artistry.”
Jackson enjoyed how Michelle’s portrait leaned into the abstract.
“I love it so much because of the color contrast of it instead of doing something that was hyper-realistic,” he said. “You’re soaked in her ambition, love, desire, focus and everything that makes Michelle who she is.”
The portraits of the former president and first lady were painted by Black artists Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald.
Wiley’s 2018 portrait shows the 44th president seated on a chair amid a background of foliage.
Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times“The Obama Portraits” exhibit opened to the public Friday at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Paden Brown, 13, of Beverly, loved the flowers’ significance. “The flowers represent him being from Chicago and his Hawaiian roots,” Paden said. “It’s nice to see the first Black president and first lady painted by Black artists.”
“Obama was the first president I got to vote for,” said Hannah MacCloud, 27, of Minneapolis. “It’s important for young people to see [the Obamas] in those roles and be inspired.”
In her portrait, Michelle posed in a gown of geometric shapes and bold patterns. Her skin and facial features are in grayscale — part of Sherald’s signature.
“Classic, beautiful, elegant — just like her,” said Lashanda McCoy, 26, of Lawndale, as she stood before Michelle Obama’s portrait.
Tayina Deravile, 34, of Fort Lauderdale, said, “My favorite part is seeing [the portraits] in real life. Just breathing in the same space, as weird as that sounds.”
Candice Washington, founder and executive director of Brown Books & Paint Brushes, brought some of her students to see the portraits. Her program educates young children about Black culture through art literacy and civic engagement.
“I like the texture and color,” said one of Washington’s 9-year-old students. “I was surprised by how big it was.”
“I like the linework and inclusion of the geometrical patterns from African American quilt work,” said Christina Greenlaw, 21, of Calumet City.
Chicago is the first stop in a five-city tour organized by the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington. “The Obama Portraits” will travel to the Brooklyn Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, High Museum of Art in Atlanta, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston.
Tickets for the exhibit are sold out through June 27. Tickets for July 1-15 will be available beginning June 24 via the Art Institute’s website, https://www.artic.edu/.
Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times“The Obama Portraits,” featuring Kehinde Wiley’s painting of former President Barack Obama and Amy Sherald’s portrayal of former first lady Michelle Obama, went on public display Friday at the Art Institute of Chicago,
The Committee on Public Safety today refused to consider an eleventh-hour compromise that would give a civilian oversight panel the final say on police policy disputes. | Scott Olson/Getty Images file
Today’s update is a 5-minute read that will brief you on the day’s biggest stories.
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 partly sunny with a high near 90 degrees. Tonight will be mostly cloudy with scattered thunderstorms and a low around 70. Tomorrow will be mostly sunny with a high near 92.
Mayor Lori Lightfoot was spared a bitter political defeat today on the pivotal issue of civilian police oversight by the narrowest of margins.
By a 10-9 vote, the Committee on Public Safety refused to consider an eleventh-hour compromise hammered out without the mayor’s input that would give a civilian oversight panel the final say on police policy disputes.
About an hour before the vote, Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa (35th) predicted that the votes would be there to approve the stronger oversight ordinance over Lightfoot’s strenuous objections after proponents agreed to “split out” a binding referendum that, if passed, would give the civilian panel even broader powers.
But Public Safety Committee Chairman Chris Taliaferro (29th) refused to consider the compromise distributed to aldermen only 30 minutes earlier.
“We’ve waited four years to vote on this matter. … A majority of the City Council is on board,” said a disappointed Ald. Harry Osterman (48th), City Council champion for civilian oversight.
More than 360 Chicago police officers have retired this year — a higher number than in all of 2018, figures from the police pension board show. More are expected to retire in July.
Bruce Iglauer, founder and president of independent Blues record label Alligator Records, says he initially came to Chicago in 1966 as a “blues pilgrim” who wanted to check out the University of Chicago Folk Festival.
Decades later, ahead of Mayor Lori Lightfoot declaring June 18 as “Alligator Records Day” in Chicago, Iglauer is looking back at the nuances of starting an influential record label in a blues mecca.
“I’ve recorded blues artists all over the country, but I started here in Chicago because this is still the home of the blues in this country,” said Iglauer, a Wyoming, Ohio, native who founded Alligator Records in 1971.
Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-TimesLil’ Ed Williams (from left), Billy Branch, Bruce Iglauer and Toronzo Cannon chat in the office of Alligator Records in Edgewater.
Iglauer and Alligator Records won’t rest on their laurels for long. In fact, the label’s legendary roster of blues artists is featured on the Edgewater-based label’s anniversary release, “Alligator Records: 50 Years Of Genuine Houserockin’ Music,” which be available today on LP and three-disc CD set.
Billy Branch, a singer and harmonica player, says Alligator Records emerged in an era when the music and its record companies were abundant. He calls the label “the last man standing.”
“There were quite a few Chicago labels, and Bruce has maintained a catalog of some of the greatest artists that ever lived,” said Branch.
When the Bears announced yesterday that they put in a bid to buy the Arlington International Racecourse property, it was a reminder that the team has been here before. Literally. On the same piece of land.
The Bears are the CHICAGO BEARS, not Arlington Heights Bears. Keep them on the lakefront and put a dome on Soldier Field which should have been done decades ago!
I think it would be great. A domed stadium with plenty of parking and a nice entertainment complex surrounding it. Not to mention, there’s a metra stop right there.
A 16-year-old boy was fatally shot June 17, 2021, in Roseland. | Ashlee Rezin García/Sun-Times file
The boy was found in his bedroom with a gunshot wound to his head, police said.
The death of a 16-year-old boy found fatally shot Thursday in Roseland on the South Side has been ruled a homicide.
Deshon Reed was found in his bedroom with a gunshot wound to his neck about 11:50 a.m. in the first block of West 109th Place, Chicago police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office said.
The teen was pronounced dead at the scene, Chicago fire officials said. Police said the circumstances of the shooting were unclear.
Autopsy results released Friday said Reed died of a gunshot wound to his neck and the death was ruled a homicide, the medical examiner’s office said.
Bears president Ted Phillips (left) and team chairman George McCaskey seem to be using the franchise’s bid for the Arlington International Racecourse property to get a better deal at Soldier Field. | Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images
How many times over the years have they told players that they don’t renegotiate contracts? And how often have they told us history matters to them?
Go, Bears!
No, really.
Go.
If moving from Soldier Field to Arlington Heights will solve all the McCaskeys’ problems, fulfill all their dreams and bring them all the riches they’d ever want (until next time), they should go for it. But the team’s owners should remember that they’re the cause of many of those problems, that their only dream should be a Super Bowl and that they’re not lacking for money by anyone’s standards other than Jeff Bezos’.
There’s more than a little hypocrisy in the Bears’ bid to buy the Arlington International Racecourse property, an implied threat that their unhappiness with Soldier Field might lead to a relocation. How many times over the years have they told players that they don’t renegotiate contracts? Yet now they’re trying to get a better deal out of the City of Chicago, the stadium’s owner. If they don’t, they’re willing to break their lease, which runs through 2033, and move to the suburbs. Suddenly, it’s OK to play hardball.
And who negotiated that lease? That would be Bears president Ted Phillips, who now wants us to believe he can’t stop staring at a 326-acre tract that’s a world away from Chicago.
“It’s our obligation to explore every possible option to ensure we’re doing what’s best for our organization and its future,’’ Phillips said in a statement. “If selected, this step allows us to further evaluate the property and its potential.”
I don’t want to say it’s all a negotiating ploy, and I don’t want to say the Bears lost a lot of money last year because of the pandemic. But I guess I just did.
Something about the team moving its game-day tent to Arlington Heights feels right, though. Nothing against that suburb or any other, but the McCaskeys are the type of people who would love to be able take in a Bears game and then make a short hop to Olive Garden. You can see the allure.
This is about money, the way it always is for sports franchises. So the Bears aren’t alone in their greed. But it needs to be pointed out that the McCaskeys have attempted to build their legacy around the franchise’s grand history. Perhaps you’ve heard: George Halas founded the team in 1920, and after he died, his daughter, Virginia McCaskey, took over. The 98-year-old matriarch is still at it, and assorted McCaskeys, led by team chairman George McCaskey, are hard at work buffing Halas’ fedora.
Isn’t Soldier Field a huge part of that history? How many statues have the Bears erected outside the 97-year-old stadium to honor the most important figures in their annals? The franchise has been playing its games by the lake for 50 years. A lot of memories are crammed into the building, and the McCaskeys would be the first to tell you all about it. Or, for $219.95, they’ll sell you a framed panoramic photo of Soldier Field, available on the team’s website.
The Bears are trying to negotiate for stadium improvements. Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has pointed out, correctly, that the team’s Arlington bid is “clearly a negotiating tactic that the Bears have used before.”
I’m not naïve enough to think that a love of history would ever win out over money for the owner of a professional sports team. But you’d think there would be a hint of shame about a threatened stadium move for a franchise that seems to be more into nostalgia than football. You’d think wrong.
Compared to other NFL stadiums, Soldier Field is lacking. The seating capacity is 61,500, the lowest in the league. The Bears believe the city has stood in the way of more sponsorship deals for the team. But, again, it’s impossible to escape the fact that the Bears signed this deal. They expressed satisfaction with it when they put ink to paper.
They haven’t been in a hurry to placate star wide receiver Allen Robinson, who would like a better deal than the franchise tag he’s under now. Robinson hasn’t threatened to hold out, choosing to remain professional. The McCaskeys, on the other hand, are stamping their feet and threatening to move because the City of Chicago won’t give them what they want. How can they look players in the eye?
If the Bears want to move to Arlington Heights, they should go. It would be one more thing not to like about an increasingly unlikable franchise.
Justin Fields was the No. 11 overall pick in this year’s draft. | AP Photos
A look at seven key issues, from quarterback to a possible stadium relocation.
Minicamp is over, and the Bears will be off until late next month when they open training camp and begin urgent preparations for this season. Until then, here are seven big questions they face:
How did Andy Dalton look this spring? Competent, which is a step up from what the Bears have had at quarterback lately. Dalton looks like he can be the placeholder the team needs until Justin Fields is ready to take over. He’s far from a game-changer, especially at this point in his career, but he can keep things steady. His grasp of the offense and ability to read defenses make him an upgrade over Mitch Trubisky.
What surprised me the most about Justin Fields in practice was … How slowly the Bears are taking it with him. It’s important to develop him properly and give him time, but this is over the top. Coach Matt Nagy has been harping on the way he delivered the play call in the huddle and is going to have him send audio recordings to his position coach as he practices it over the summer. This can’t possibly be as big of a problem as Nagy is making it out to be.
Matt Nagy’s quarterback plan is … Contradictory. So he locks in Dalton as the starter to protect Fields from having to play before he’s ready, but keeps Fields one injury away from the action as the No. 2 quarterback ahead of Nick Foles? If this was solely about preventing Fields from being rushed, he’d be the third quarterback.
The Bears’ defensive starters no-showing OTAs was …. Probably pretty annoying to their new coordinator Sean Desai. But those are voluntary and unnecessary practices, and the players had every right to decline them. Desai will have more than enough time to put his defense in place once training camp starts.
What is the Bears’ biggest concern heading into camp? Their pass rush. The No. 1 reason their defense has slipped from great to good is the decline of their pass rush from third in the NFL in sacks in 2018 to 24th in ’19 and 17th last season. That can’t continue with Khalil Mack, Robert Quinn and Akiem Hicks accounting for $41.3 million in cap space this season. Quinn is the chief concern. He had two sacks after signing a five-year, $70 million deal, he’s 31 and he’s already dealing with a back injury.
Will Allen Robinson get his contract extension by the July 15 deadline? No, and that’ll be an enormous mistake by the Bears. At 27, he’s in the sweet spot of having experience but still being in peak physical shape. The next several seasons will be the best of his career. It’d be incredibly foolish to let that happen in any other uniform.
Lakefront or Arlington Heights? It’s hard to stomach the Bears leaving the city, but they’ll never get a state-of-the-art indoor stadium if they stay. Soldier Field is woefully behind the multi-billion-dollar stadiums that have opened in the last several years, and sitting there for 17-degree games in December is only going to get less appealing as the at-home experience keeps getting better.
The National Hockey League is currently a few games into the Stanley Cup Semi-Final but that hasn’t stopped the rumor mill to start up. The ChicagoBlackhawks are in the middle of it as they are being connected to players like Dougie Hamilton and Seth Jones. There is also a report from The Athletic that […]
Then-Acting ChicagoFire Department Commissioner Annette Nance-Holt speaks during a badge ceremony for paramedic Robert Truevillian at the Robert J. Quinn Fire Academy in the South Loop, Tuesday morning, May 18, 2021. Truevillian, 55, was the third active member of CFD to die of complications from COVID-19 in December 2020. | Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times
Annette Nance-Holt used her confirmation hearing to outline her plan to put her own stamp on a department she described as in “strong” shape, but in need of “some modernization.”
The first woman ever to serve as Chicago’s fire commissioner vowed Friday to diversify a Chicago Fire Department with a long and documented history of discrimination and racial hijinks, in part by holding entrance and promotional exams on a regular basis.
Annette Nance-Holt used her confirmation hearing before the City Council’s Committee on Public Safety to outline her four-point plan to put her own stamp on a department she described as in “strong” shape, but in need of “some modernization.”
Nance-Holt said her “strategic plan to accomplish this” has four primary components: diversifying the Chicago Fire Department; “re-thinking and re-emphasizing” emergency medical services; “enhancing internal and external outreach” to neighborhoods and confronting the “mental health challenges that plague first-responders” in Chicago and across the country.
As the first woman to serve as Chicago’s fire commissioner and one of only a handful of Black commissioners, Nance-Holt said her “highest priority” is “increasing diversity across all divisions and ranks.”
She plans to do that through “vigorous recruitment in communities of color,” outreach to high school students in “under-represented communities” and by scheduling Chicago’s first firefighters entrance exam since 2014 by the end of this year or the first quarter of next year.
That will be followed by periodic entrance and promotional exams to maintain a steady pipeline of minority candidates to diversify all ranks, she said.
“Trying to encourage young people to take this exam. To dream. To do something that some of ‘em are really afraid to do….We have already started working toward going into communities, talking to young people. Trying to get ‘em energized for this next exam,” Nance-Holt told aldermen.
“The only way to increase diversity starts at the beginning. If we don’t bring ‘em in the door, we can’t bring ‘em up through the ranks. The thing is to get ‘em in there right away and get as many in as we can to change this dynamic. However, it is a challenge. It depends on who all shows up to take the exam.”
Nance-Holt said the leadership team she has assembled will be “so diverse,” it’ll be “something that you have never seen.”
“You probably have heard word of it. I’m not gonna tell you what it is. But you’re gonna be truly surprised by what you’re gonna see. And that’s just the first wave of what I’m going to do. And then, we’re gonna try to do more and more things to really show that we’re serious about increasing diversity and inclusion on this job,” she said.
“It’s been over 160 years. I am the first one to look like this to sit before you to run a department that is male-dominated. And so, my commitment is definitely there.”
Ald. Jason Ervin (28th), chairman of the City Council’s Black Caucus, said it is “truly a historic day to to see an African American female rise to the top” of the Chicago Fire Department.
“It does our community proud. It does our members proud. We stand with you in helping to diversify the department, reaching out to young men and women in our communities encouraging them to take the” exam, he said.
“If I had it to do all over again. I would have looked at a fire exam over a police exam. I had a cousin who was a member of the department and he told me it was the best job and the best decision he ever made in life.”
Ald. Sophia King (4th), chairman of the Progressive Caucus, applauded Nance-Holt for having “overcome race and gender hurdles” to rise to the top of the CFD.
“I hope that you will use what you have learned to bring others along with you,” King said.
Nance-Holt is the mother of Blair Holt, the 16-year-old Julian High School honor student who was killed in 2007 trying to shield a friend after a gang member opened fire at a rival gang member on a crowded CTA bus after school.
She has her work cut out for her when it comes to diversifying CFD, considering the department’s history.
In 1973, a federal class-action lawsuit accused the Chicago Fire Department of discriminatory hiring and promotional practices. At the time, only 4% of Chicago’s 5,000 firefighters were Black.
The lawsuit resulted in a four-year freeze on hiring and promotions and a federal consent decree mandating minority hiring. Between 1977 and 1979, the number of Black firefighters increased from 150 to roughly 400.
Under Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Chicago resolved a bitter legal battle the mayor inherited from former Mayor Richard M. Daley, stemming from the city’s discriminatory handling of a 1995 firefighters entrance exam.
The city agreed to hire 111 bypassed African American firefighters and borrow the $78.4 million needed to compensate nearly 6,000 African Americans who never got that chance.
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22667968/merlin_98403094.jpg)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22667958/merlin_98403160.jpg)
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22667807/merlin_98183492.jpeg)
