A 9-year-old boy was hurt in a shooting June 8, 2021, in Back of the Yards. | Sun-Times file photo
The boy suffered a graze wound to the head and was listed in good condition, Chicago police said.
A 9-year-old boy was hurt in a shooting Tuesday night in Back of the Yards on the South Side.
About 7 p.m., the boy was near the front of a home in the 5400 block of South Morgan Street when he was struck by gunfire, coming from an unknown direction, according to Chicago police.
He suffered a graze wound to the head and a family member brought him to Comer Children’s Hospital where he was listed in good condition, police said.
No one is in custody.
This is a developing story. Check back for details.
A 17-year-old boy was charged with wounding another teenager in a shooting June 1, 2021, in the Lincoln Park neighborhood. | Sun-Times file photo
The evening of June 1, the boy allegedly shot into a crowd of people in Oz Park on the North Side.
A 17-year-old boy has been charged with shooting into a crowd of people last week in Oz Park and wounding one teenager.
About 7:30 p.m. June 1, the boy allegedly fired shots into a group in the park in the 2000 block of North Burling Street, Chicago police said.
Another 17-year-old boy, who was in the crowd, suffered a graze wound, according to police.
The shooter was found nearby in the 900 block of West Armitage Avenue and taken into custody, police said. A Smith & Wesson handgun was also recovered, according to police.
The boy faces one felony count each of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon, possession of a firearm and aggravated discharge of a firearm, police said.
During the meeting, residents told Ald. Michele Smith (43rd) and 18th District police officers they’ve had concerns for years and complained of groups of minors drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana in the park.
The Chicago Police Department made a pledge to add more foot patrols and surveillance cameras in the area.
The Chicago Justice Project released a 20-year study portraying the committee as anemic over the last 20 years in hopes of pressuring the committee to approve four stalled police accountability ordinances.
The Chicago Justice Project on Tuesday turned up the heat on the City Council to approve four stalled police accountability ordinances by portraying its Committee on Public Safety as anemic over the last 20 years.
Between 2000 and 2020, the Police Committee-turned-Committee on Public Safety held 186 meetings and considered 489 agenda items, according to a Justice Project review. Of the agenda items considered, 80% were unrelated to police oversight. Only 15% had anything to do with the Chicago Police Department, the study showed.
Less than 5% of committee action related to the alphabet soup of police accountability agencies: CPD’s now-defunct Office of Professional Standards, the Independent Police Review Authority and its replacement, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability.
Instead of flexing its legislative muscle to rein in CPD and strengthen police accountability, the committee has spent much of its time donating used police and fire equipment and “rubber-stamping” mayoral appointees, the study showed.
Tracy Siska, executive director of the Justice Project, said the 20-year record is a clarion call for aldermen to “do their jobs.”
“We have experienced misconduct and abuse for decades in Chicago with no end. The Laquan McDonald murder didn’t happen in 1980. It happened in 2014. Anthony Alvarez just happened. There’s a long line of misconduct and abuse for a hundred years that the City Council has turned their back on and shirked their responsibility for,” Siska said.
“Don’t ask the Police Department to make changes. Demand them. They’re the legislators. They set the rules. It’s time to start doing it … and restrain policing for things they don’t want to happen.”
Siska is specifically demanding approval of four stalled ordinances:
• A plan for civilian police oversight endorsed by the Council’s Black, Hispanic and Progressive caucuses. It would ask Chicago voters in the 2022 primary to approve a binding referendum empowering an 11-member civilian police oversight commission to hire and fire the police superintendent, negotiate police contracts and set CPD’s budget. Mayor Lori Lightfoot has introduced her own plan that retains those powers for the mayor.
• Creating a “robust” database of misconduct complaints filed against Chicago Police officers, not the limited database dating no further back than 2000, as Lightfoot has offered.
• A “Police Settlement Transparency Accountability” ordinance giving aldermen the facts before they’re asking to sign off on settlements tied to allegations of police misconduct and mandate that the Committee on Public Safety meet monthly to consider those settlements and twice a year to focus on police accountability.
The Anjanette Young ordinance “limiting how and when they can do no-knock or knock-warrants and who they can point guns at” is a perfect place to start, Siska said.
“No one is advocating that the City Council tell them how many police to have assigned to what districts. … This is saying the citizens of Chicago and their representatives want policing to be restrained in this way,” he said.
Public Safety Committee Chairman Chris Taliaferro (29th), a former CPD officer, bristled at the suggestion he presides over a do-nothing committee.
“We are not an oversight body. We’re a legislative body. Yes, we create ordinances that affect our police department and fire department. But we should not be looked at as one of oversight. Rather, one of legislation,” the chairman said.
“I don’t think you should ever cave in to any type of political pressure to get something done. When you get something done, it should be thought out, negotiated and then passed. For their assessment to be ‘you rush ordinances and you rush legislation to vote,’ I think, is a poor assessment by them.”
Taliaferro said he has scheduled a June 18 meeting to allow aldermen to choose between Lightfoot’s watered-down version of civilian police oversight and a stronger version endorsed by the Council’s three most powerful caucuses.
He wouldn’t guess which way that vote would go.
Asked why he has yet to schedule the hearing he promised on the Anjanette Young ordinance, Taliaferro argued the legislation championed by African-American women in the Council goes too far.
“It’s asking to do something we have not done in the past. That is, codify police procedures. We’ve never done that. There are no police procedures that are a part of our city ordinances,” he said.
“The correct process to do that is … through changing police policies and procedures in their general orders.”
The parade’s postponed till October, but you can still celebrate Pride outdoors and online this month.
Last year, Pride events were mostly limited to online celebrations. But with half of the adults in the state now fully vaccinated, this year looks different, even though the parade won’t happen till October.…Read More
Video stills allegedly depicting Christian Kulas of Kenilworth at the Jan. 6 U.S. Capitol breach. | U.S. District Court records
Christian Kulas is at least the ninth person from Illinois to be charged in the Capitol breach, and the third from Cook County. Hundreds have been charged nationwide, and authorities have gathered a staggering amount of evidence.
Federal prosecutors have charged a man from a tony North Shore suburb who allegedly wore a Burberry coat and laughed as he participated in the breach of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
Christian Kulas, 24, was arrested at 6:12 a.m. Tuesday and later participated in a remote hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Gabriel Fuentes. He is charged with unlawful entry of a restricted building and disorderly conduct on U.S. Capitol grounds, both misdemeanors.
Fuentes ordered Kulas released under the supervision of his mother to live at the family’s home in the 200 block of Sheridan Road in Kenilworth. Authorities also executed a search warrant at the residence Tuesday morning, said Joseph Fitzpatrick, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney John Lausch’s office.
The home, on the shore of Lake Michigan, sold for $4.5 million last year, according to the real estate website RedFin.
Anthony Vazquez/Sun-TimesThe home where Christian Kulas, 24, will be under the supervision of his mother in the 200 block of Sheridan Road in Kenilworth, Illinois, Tuesday, June 8, 2021. Christian Kulas was arrested at 6:12 a.m. Tuesday and was charged with unlawful entry of a restricted building and disorderly conduct on U.S. Capitol grounds.
The charges against Kulas have been filed in federal court in Washington, D.C. Kulas is now at least the ninth individual from Illinois to be charged in connection with the Capitol breach, and he is third from Cook County to be charged.
Hundreds of people have been charged nationwide in connection with the breach, and a staggering amount of evidence has been collected. Prosecutors have said it will likely amount to the largest criminal investigation in U.S. history.
Like in several cases stemming from the Capitol breach, court records show a tipster led the FBI to Kulas. That person handed over Instagram video clips depicting then-President Donald Trump’s rally on Jan. 6. A second clip then showed a large crowd of people walking toward the Capitol chanting, “block the steal.”
A third clip showed people scaling the Capitol’s exterior wall, court records show. And a fourth clip showed a crowd of people walking up the steps of the building.
During that fourth clip, the feds say the camera panned around to show the face of the person apparently operating the camera.
“The individual depicted in the video is laughing,” an FBI special agent wrote.
The person, later identified as Kulas, wore a dark baseball hat that read, “Keep America Great” in bright orange letters. The person was also wearing a dark coat with Burberry print.
In a fifth clip, a male voice can be heard saying, “Storming the Capitol,” according to court records.
Additional footage also put Kulas inside the building, court records show.
The person who handed over the Instagram video to the FBI also said Kulas lived around Winnetka or Lake Forest. That person also identified a former classmate of Kulas’, who viewed the videos and “was highly confident that the individual depicted in the videos wearing the Burberry coat was Kulas,” according to the feds.
The Instagram account in which the videos were foundfeatured a profile photo of someone who appeared to be Kulas, and it identified the user as a “yogi,” “spiritual catalyst” and “alchemist.”
Meanwhile, court records show someone tried to ask Kulas’ mother on social media whether the person in the video was her son.
The answer, from an account apparently connected to Kulas’ mother, replied, “yes.”
On June 2, he was driving on the expressway about 7:40 p.m. at 33rd Street when someone fired shots from another vehicle, striking him in the head, Illinois State Police said.
Hogan was taken to the hospital in critical condition at the time, officials said.
Autopsy results released Tuesday found he died of complication from his gunshot wound, the medical examiner’s office said. He lived in Atlanta, Georgia.
When California legislators enacted the country’s first ban on military-style rifles in 1989, they gave no weight to the fundamental right of armed self-defense guaranteed by the Second Amendment — a right the U.S. Supreme Court did not explicitly acknowledge until nearly two decades later.
But as U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez observed in his ruling against California’s “assault weapon” ban last Friday, it should now be clear that the outright prohibition of such firearms cannot pass constitutional muster.
In-depth political coverage, sports analysis, entertainment reviews and cultural commentary.
California’s Assault Weapons Control Act, which is similar to laws enforced by a handful of other states, originally applied to a list of more than 50 specific brands and models. In 1999 the law was amended to cover any semi-automatic, centerfire rifle that accepts a detachable magazine and has any of these features: a pistol grip that “protrudes conspicuously beneath the action of the weapon,” a forward pistol grip, a thumbhole stock, a folding or telescoping stock, a flash suppressor or a grenade/flare launcher.
The rifles prohibited by the California law are among the most popular firearms sold in the United States. Nearly 20 million have been manufactured or imported during the last three decades.
As far as Benitez is concerned, that should be the end of the matter. In the landmark 2008 case that overturned the District of Columbia’s handgun ban, the Supreme Court held that the Second Amendment protects the right to own weapons “in common use” for “lawful purposes like self-defense” — a test that the rifles covered by California’s law clearly satisfy.
Although handguns are used to commit crimes far more often than “assault weapons,” the Court rejected the notion that a blanket ban on an entire category of firearms could be justified by the danger they pose in the hands of criminals. It also rejected the idea that such a ban could pass muster because it allowed people to use other kinds of firearms for self-defense.
California nevertheless deployed both of those arguments in defense of the AWCA. Benitez, like the Supreme Court, was unpersuaded.
Benitez concluded that the AWCA cannot survive even under the “intermediate scrutiny” test that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit (which includes California) tends to apply in gun control cases. That test requires a “reasonable fit” between an “important government interest” (in this case, prevention of gun violence) and the means chosen to further that interest.
In terms of destructive power, a rifle with the features on California’s list is indistinguishable from the same rifle without them. It fires the same ammunition at the same rate with the same muzzle velocity.
California argued that some of the prohibited features help “maintain accuracy in rapid-fire scenarios,” making a rifle especially suitable for mass shootings. A video submitted as evidence in this case cast doubt on that claim, showing that an AR-15 without any of those features fired with “approximately the same speed and accuracy” as an AR-15 with all of them.
Assuming that California has succeeded in making rifles less accurate, that is hardly an improvement. Accuracy is especially important when a law-abiding gun owner uses a rifle in self-defense, a scenario that Benitez illustrated with several real-life examples.
Similarly, California has arbitrarily banned the adjustable stock that makes it easier for someone of small stature to use a rifle; the pistol grip that “gives a homeowner a secure hold with one hand while the other hand holds a telephone or spare magazine”; and the flash suppressor that “prevents the night-time home defender from being blinded by her own muzzle flash.”
Despite all these decrees, Benitez noted, the AWCA has not had an observable effect on the frequency of mass shootings involving “assault weapons,” meaning “California’s experiment has been a failure.”
The impact of the federal “assault weapon” ban that expired in 2004 was similarly unimpressive. President Joe Biden nevertheless wants to try this experiment again. The question is whether the Supreme Court will let him.
Jacob Sullum is a senior editor at Reason magazine.
With about 100 games to go this season, have the Cubs really abandoned the idea of blowing things up and starting over?
That’s what some national baseball columnists are writing, the narrative being that this group of players — led by the resurgent Kris Bryant — has too good a shot to win a division title for general manager Jed Hoyer to start aggressively shopping Bryant, Javy Baez, Anthony Rizzo and others before the July 30 trade deadline.
But we believe what we want to believe, don’t we?
The Cubs wrap up a rough West Coast swing Wednesday — against Padres starter Yu Darvish — and will return to Wrigley Field having been replaced by the Brewers as the hottest team in the National League. The Cubs’ subpar rotation — their fatal flaw? — keeps taking on leaks, the latest being a blister that derailed Adbert Alzolay in Monday’s start. It’s now a four-team race in the NL Central, the struggling Cardinals and surging Reds also very much in it, and first place might not be any likelier a destination for the Cubs than fourth.
So just know that the white flag waving in the distance isn’t necessarily one of those adorable ones with a bold, blue “W” in the middle of it. It might be one of those sad, pathetic ones that simply means surrender.
The end could be near.
Or did it arrive already? Because it sure seemed to me that Hoyer and the salary-dumping Cubs were capitulating in December when they traded Darvish, who had three years and $62 million remaining on his contract, to San Diego. What a great deal that wasn’t, folks. The Cubs included Darvish’s catcher, Victor Caratini, and got back veteran starter Zach Davies along with four prospects who all were ranked, according to MLB Pipeline, outside the Padres’ top 10.
Maybe infielder Reginald Preciado and/or outfielder Owen Caissie — teenagers ranked 10th and 11th among Cubs prospects — will blow up down the line. Maybe Darvish, 34, will break down. But here’s what we know: Darvish is better than ever, and Davies isn’t coming close to plugging that hole.
The Padres are 11-1 in Darvish’s starts as the 2020 Cy Young runner-up continues down the elite path he has lived on since the 2019 All-Star break. Eighteen earned runs is all Darvish has allowed over those 12 starts. His only loss came in April — against the Dodgers and Clayton Kershaw — when the defending World Series champs touched him for a single run in seven innings.
In 13 post-break starts in 2019, Darvish was 4-4 with a 2.76 ERA and an 0.81 WHIP. In 12 starts last year, the numbers were 8-3, 2.01 and 0.96. This year: 6-1, 2.25 and 0.93. It’s just who he is — confident, consistent and on the short list of the best starters in the game.
Entering Tuesday’s start, Davies was lasting about an inning and a half less per outing than Darvish. But we won’t get into the rest of his run-of-the-mill numbers, because it wouldn’t even be fair. Comparing him with Darvish is like comparing David Bote and Nico Hoerner with Bryant and Baez. Or a sad surrender flag with a bold “W” one.
Will La Russa get to 3,000 wins?Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images
JUST SAYIN’
Tony La Russa — the real Mr. 3,000?
With all due respect to hit machine Nick Madrigal (come on, those gag T-shirts at spring training didn’t create themselves), La Russa actually is close enough to a 3,000 milestone that we can at least start entertaining the possibility he’ll get there. After moving into second on the all-time list Sunday with his 2,764th managerial victory, might La Russa — believed to be on a three-year deal with the White Sox — join Connie Mack in the 3,000s someday?
If he were to pick up another 150 or so the rest of this season and all next season, he’d have a real shot at it in 2023.
Admit it: You love contemplating two more whole years for La Russa on the South Side.
o Seldom mentioned: Mack, who managed the Philadelphia Athletics for half a century, lost more games (3,948) than he won (3,731). His winning percentage of .486 was a far cry from La Russa’s .536.
Even La Russa’s terrific winning percentage trails those of the next four on the wins list — John McGraw (.586), Bobby Cox (.556), Joe Torre (.538) and Sparky Anderson (.545) — as well as 20 others among the 65 managers with at least 1,000 wins. Sixteen of the 65 had losing records.
o First the Yermin Mercedes story, now the Patrick Wisdom story?
And how long until the next raker we’ve never heard of gets here?
o OK, it’s settled: Giannis Antetokounmpo is never winning a title in Milwaukee.
I know it. You know it. Even your Cousin Earl up in Wauwatosa knows it, and he’s usually the last one to pick up on anything.
o Speaking of Wisconsin, all Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers did Tuesday was blow off the first day of mandatory minicamp. Who’s left on the depth chart, anyway, after Jordan Love and Jake from State Farm?
A man was fatally shot Tuesday in Wentworth Gardens.
He was near the sidewalk about 1 p.m. in the 3800 block of South Wells Street when a vehicle approached and someone inside opened fire, Chicago police said.
The 27-year-old was struck in the head and taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, police said. He hasn’t been identified.
No arrests have been made. Area One detectives are investigating.
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