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Chicago Bulls: Observations from win over the Detroit Pistonson May 10, 2021 at 12:00 pm

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Chicago Bulls: Observations from win over the Detroit Pistonson May 10, 2021 at 12:00 pm Read More »

Nez draws from house, hip-hop, and R&B for his invigorating Midnight Music EPLeor Galilon May 10, 2021 at 11:00 am


Chicago artist Nesbitt “Nez” Wesonga broke out in the early 2010s with hip-hop production crew Nez & Rio. By 2014, they’d helped make a bona fide hit album: Schoolboy Q’s Oxymoron features three Nez & Rio tracks, including the triumphant single “Man of the Year.” Q had previously enlisted the duo for 2012’s “Druggys Wit Hoes Again,” which contains flashes of Chicago house—and nearly a decade later, Nez is still finding ways to express his love of house music.…Read More

Nez draws from house, hip-hop, and R&B for his invigorating Midnight Music EPLeor Galilon May 10, 2021 at 11:00 am Read More »

26 shot, 5 fatally, this weekend in ChicagoSun-Times Wireon May 10, 2021 at 11:21 am

At least 26 people were shot, five fatally, since 5 p.m. May 7, 2021.
At least 26 people were shot, five fatally, since 5 p.m. May 7, 2021. | Sun-Times file photo

A 31-year-old man was fatally shot Friday in the first block of North Menard Avenue.

Five people were killed and at least 21 others wounded in shootings across Chicago this weekend, including a 14-year-old boy who was fatally shot Saturday in Humboldt Park.

About 9:30 p.m., he was found in the first block of South Springfield Avenue with a gunshot wound to his abdomen, Chicago police said. The boy was unable to tell officers details of the shooting because of the severity of his injuries.

He was brought to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said. He was identified as Eddie Thigpen of Douglas Park by the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

In the weekend’s latest fatal shooting, a 27-year-old man was killed Sunday morning on the Near West Side.

The man was sitting in a parked vehicle with a male friend about 4:25 a.m. in the 1200 block of West 13th Street when the friend demanded money from him, police said.

The man refused and his friend began firing shots, according to police.

The 27-year-old suffered multiple gunshot wounds throughout his body and was taken in critical condition to Stroger Hospital by another friend who was also sitting in the vehicle, police said.

The man was pronounced dead at the hospital, according to police. The medical examiner’s office hasn’t released his identity.

Two other people were killed in Saturday shootings on the West Side.

About 10 p.m., a 36-year-old man was in the 600 block of North Homan Avenue in East Garfield Park when he was shot multiple times, police said. Witnesses told officers the shooter was someone the man knew.

The man was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. The medical examiner’s office identified him as Robert Hogan, who lived in East Garfield Park.

Less than a half hour later, a 23-year-old man was fatally shot in Lawndale.

The incident happened about 10:25 p.m. in the 2900 block of West Harrison Avenue, police said. The man was shot in the chest and was transported to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

He was identified as Terrance Billops of Lawndale by the medical examiner’s office.

In the weekend’s earliest fatal shooting, a 31-year-old man was killed Friday night in Austin on the West Side.

About 10:15 p.m., the man was standing in a gangway between two buildings in the first block of North Menard Avenue when someone fired shots at him, Chicago police said.

The man suffered multiple gunshot wounds to the body and head and was pronounced dead at the scene, police said.

He was identified as Eujon Eversley of suburban Bellwood, the medical examiner’s office said. An autopsy ruled his death a homicide.

In nonfatal attacks, a 17-year-old boy was wounded in a shooting Saturday.

Just after midnight, the teen boy was dropped off at Norwegian Hospital with a gunshot wound to the leg, police said. He was in good condition.

He would not give details of the incident or the location of the shooting, according to police.

A man was shot early Saturday in West Englewood on the South Side.

The 43-year-old was walking about 1:45 a.m. in the 5600 block of South Hermitage Avenue when he heard shots and felt pain, Chicago police said.

He was struck in the torso and was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center in good condition, police said.

At least 14 other people were shot within city limits from 5 p.m. Friday to 5 a.m. Monday.

Forty-five people were shot, 5 fatally, last weekend in Chicago.

Read more on crime, and track the city’s homicides.

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26 shot, 5 fatally, this weekend in ChicagoSun-Times Wireon May 10, 2021 at 11:21 am Read More »

Man critically hurt in Uptown apartment fireSun-Times Wireon May 10, 2021 at 10:12 am

A man was critically hurt in a fire May 10, 2021 in Uptown.
A man was critically hurt in a fire May 10, 2021 in Uptown. | Sun-Times file photo

A fire broke out in an apartment on the 3rd floor of a senior building about 3:30 a.m. in the 900 block of West Lawrence Avenue, Chicago Fire officials said.

A 65-year-old man was critically hurt in a fire early Monday in Uptown on the North Side.

A fire broke out in an apartment on the 3rd floor of a senior building about 3:30 a.m. in the 900 block of West Lawrence Avenue, Chicago Fire officials said.

A couch was burning and firefighters rescued the man out of the apartment, fire officials said.

He was taken in critcal condition to Illinois Masonic Medical Center, fire officials said.

A Chicago police officer was injured at the scene of the fire but refused medical help, according to fire officials.

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Man critically hurt in Uptown apartment fireSun-Times Wireon May 10, 2021 at 10:12 am Read More »

As Lightfoot ponders a fix, city’s handling of fatal shootings by cops continues to violate state lawFrank Mainon May 10, 2021 at 10:00 am

In this image taken from a bodycam video March 31, a Chicago police officer holds out his weapon while running after Anthony Alvarez, who ended up being fatally shot. The police say Alvarez, 22, brandished a gun while being chased.
In this image taken from a bodycam video March 31, a Chicago police officer holds out his weapon while running after Anthony Alvarez, who ended up being fatally shot. The police say Alvarez, 22, brandished a gun while being chased. | Civilian Office of Police Accountability

The Civilian Office of Police Accountability is violating state law by conducting investigations into whether Chicago cops should be criminally prosecuted for fatal shootings, according to documents and sources. Mayor Lori Lightfoot has been sitting on a consultant’s recommendations to fix the problem since July 2020, records show.

The way the city of Chicago investigates fatal shootings by police officers violates state law and Mayor Lori Lightfoot has been sitting on recommendations to fix that for nearly a year, records reviewed by the Chicago Sun-Times show.

According to the documents, the city isn’t complying with the Illinois Police and Community Relations Act, which governs investigations regarding whether a police officer who has shot someone to death should be charged with a crime.

Under the law, which took effect in 2016, a criminal investigation into a fatal shooting by police has to be done by two investigators from outside the agency that employs the officer involved.

It says one of the investigators doing a criminal investigation of an “officer-involved death” must be a specially trained “lead homicide investigator.” Lead homicide investigators must be sworn officers, according to the state’s law enforcement training board.

In Chicago, the city’s Civilian Office of Police Accountability conducts the administrative investigations into whether an officer violated department rules in a fatal shooting, as well as criminal investigations into whether he or she should be charged with a crime.

The city agency’s investigators have the training to be lead homicide investigators, but they aren’t sworn law enforcement officers, and COPA isn’t a law enforcement agency.

That means its criminal investigations, whose results go to Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx for a decision on whether to prosecute an officer for a fatal shooting, are being conducted illegally, officials say. The state’s attorney’s office declined to comment.

Under a federal consent decree — a court order that took effect in 2019 requiring sweeping reforms in Chicago Police Department practices — the city must “use best efforts” to ensure that a law enforcement agency conducts investigations into “officer-involved deaths.”

Maggie Hickey
Provided photo
Maggie Hickey, who is the independent monitor of the city’s compliance with the police consent decree

Maggie Hickey, the independent monitor of the city’s compliance with the consent decree, agreed to let the city hire the security consulting firm Hillard Heintze to study the matter and offer options on how the city can comply with the law. Hickey declined to comment.

Last July, Hillard Heintze offered Lightfoot’s administration five options, including one in which an Illinois State Police task force — which works with the Cook County sheriff’s and state’s attorney’s offices to conduct such criminal investigations for suburban police departments — also would handle Chicago’s cases. It estimated that would cost $33 million over five years, plus up to $50 million for an office in Chicago for the task force. That option is the “most feasible,” the consultant said.

Another option it gave was to create a city-led task force that would include the state police and other outside law enforcement agencies.

But the consultants said the “best option” would be for the city to get the Illinois Legislature to amend the state law to allow civilian COPA employees to conduct those criminal investigations.

The Hillard Heintze report said the different options could take three months to two years to put in place.

According to the consultants’ report, the number of potential investigations is relatively low. There were 11 fatal shootings by Chicago police officers in 2016, eight in 2017, six in 2018 and five in 2019, according to the report.

An organization called Mapping Police Violence says on a per capita basis, taking into account the city’s population, Chicago was “below the big-city average” for fatal shootings by cops between 2013 and 2019. This year, with three fatal shootings by police, Chicago is fifth nationally among big cities behind San Antonio, Los Angeles, Houston and Phoenix, according to the group.

In 2018, Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke was found guilty of second-degree murder for shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald — who had a knife but was walking away from him — 16 times. Van Dyke, who was fired, was sentenced to almost seven years in prison.

The McDonald killing prompted a federal civil-rights investigation that led to the consent decree.

According to City Hall emails, Lightfoot’s staff repeatedly presented the Hillard Heintze options to Lightfoot last year.

The emails were among a cache of hacked city documents released last month by Distributed Denial of Secrets, a government transparency advocacy group that’s been likened to WikiLeaks.

An unrelated hacker group, believed to be in the former Soviet Union, stole the emails during a series of data breaches that targeted a file-sharing service and also swept up sensitive information from corporations, universities and governments. The emails from Lightfoot’s administration were stolen from Jones Day, a law firm that represents the city and other high-profile clients including former President Donald Trump.

As part of an apparent extortion scheme, the hackers posted the emails on the dark web, a shadowy area of the Internet. That’s where Distributed Denial of Secrets says it found them.

On Sept. 16, according to those emails, one City Hall aide asked another staffer to provide a memo with those recommendations to “put it in [the mayor’s] book again tonight.”

Susan Lee, then-deputy mayor for public safety, noted the memo already had been “submitted at least four times,” according to the emails.

The memo by Lee and deputy corporation counsel Tyeesha Dixon to Lightfoot, dated July 31, had said the mayor was most interested in the option of a city-led task force.

But the Law Department recommended the city hire the state police to do criminal investigations of fatal shootings by officers for the next two or three years until the city could create its own task force, and asked for Lightfoot’s approval by Aug. 4.

Lee left City Hall in October and was replaced last Wednesday by John O’Malley, a former chief deputy U.S. marshal. He’s been a Chicago Police Board member since 2017 when Lightfoot chaired the board, which decides serious disciplinary cases involving Chicago cops.

City Hall sources say Lightfoot sees the issue of complying with the law regarding investigations of police shootings as a priority, but the coronavirus pandemic and the city’s rise in killings and carjackings were more pressing concerns last year. Also, new police Supt. David Brown was trying to get up to speed with the consent decree, the sources say.

Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7 President John Catanzara (center).
Ashlee Rezin Garcia / Sun-Times file
Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7 President John Catanzara, center, says the union has long pushed back against what it calls the city’s unfair and illegal criminal investigations into fatal shootings by police.

“They don’t seem to give a damn,” says John Catanzara, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, of the city’s noncompliance with the law.

Catanzara says the union has been pushing back on COPA’s “illegal” and unfair criminal investigations of police shootings since “long before my arrival in this chair. It is absolutely in violation of state law.”

The fatal police shooting of 22-year-old Anthony Alvarez on March 31 is “a perfect example of COPA getting out above their skis,” Catanzara says. “The department didn’t want to strip that officer. But COPA couldn’t wait to recommend for that officer to be stripped of his police powers. That’s already telling you it’s a biased investigation from the get-go.”

The “most logical solution” to the city’s problem is to have the state police conduct criminal investigations of shootings by Chicago police officers, Catanzara says.

“I hate to put more on their plate, but they are the lead law enforcement agency in the state,” he says. “So it would only make sense that they would be the lead investigators.

“Why is she sitting on it?” Catanzara says of Lightfoot. “Because she has no choice. If she was to turn it over to the state police, she’d be lambasted by at least what’s left of her base because they think that would be surrendering more police reform.”

A city spokesperson offered no response on the issue, and the city has generally declined to comment on any subject arising from the hacked emails.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul sponsored the Police and Community Relations Improvement Act in 2015, when he was a state senator. A spokeswoman for Raoul didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Alexa Van Brunt, director of the MacArthur Justice Center Clinic at the Northwestern University School of Law, said a petition could be filed in state court seeking to force the city to comply with the law.

And Craig Futterman, director of the Civil Rights and Police Accountability Project at the University of Chicago, said the city could also be held in contempt of court for violating the consent decree by not following the police-investigations law.

That would hinge on the monitor issuing a report “that highlights and dramatizes the areas in which the police department and city are out of compliance,” Futterman said. Then the attorney general could file a motion to enforce the decree and hold the city in contempt.

“The consequences are life and death, public safety and also lots and lots of money,” Futterman said, referring to legal payouts for police misconduct.

READ CONSULTANT’S REPORT

READ LIGHTFOOT MEMO

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As Lightfoot ponders a fix, city’s handling of fatal shootings by cops continues to violate state lawFrank Mainon May 10, 2021 at 10:00 am Read More »

‘A very talented guy’: Teen pianist in Chicago gets ready to up his game at JuilliardKyle MacMillan – For the Sun-Timeson May 10, 2021 at 10:30 am

Joshua Mhoon, 17, practices piano last week at his home. He has been accepted to Juilliard and is raising money for his expenses at the famed New York school. | Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times

Joshua Mhoon, a Whitney Young senior, is to study with renowned keyboardist Emanuel Ax.

How exceptional a young classical pianist is Joshua Mhoon? Pretty darn exceptional.

Consider that the senior at the Whitney M. Young Magnet High School in the West Loop applied to seven of the top music schools in the United States, and not only was he accepted at all of them, he received scholarships from each.

“He is a very talented guy,” said James Giles, a professor of piano at Northwestern University who has been his private teacher for three years. “He has a lot of things going for him musically and intellectually. So, he’s able to play at a very high level.”

Mhoon, who will be 18 in July, ultimately picked the famed Juilliard School in New York. He will be a student of Emanuel Ax, who just happens to be a frequent musical partner of cellist Yo-Yo Ma and one of this country’s most respected concert keyboardists.

But there is one hitch. His total expenses for the first year, including tuition, housing and fees, will be $79,000, and his scholarship only covers $42,000 of that. Undeterred, he and his family launched a GoFundMe page that as of Sunday had raised $20,170 toward a goal of $34,000. (He has other scholarships that will cover the remaining difference.)

If all works out, and he is sure it will, he begins school on Aug. 24.


Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times
Urged by his mother to take music lessons at age 8, Joshua Mhoon at first favored the guitar, but “my hands were too small to fit around the neck.”

Mhoon’s success is all the more impressive considering he was mislabeled with learning disabilities during elementary school, but it was more a question of boredom. When he tested and was accepted for middle school at the Quest Academy in Palatine for gifted students, it turned out his IQ was high enough to gain him membership in Mensa International.

Though he had little interest at the time, Mhoon began taking music lessons when he was 8 at the Steckman Studio of Music in Oak Park. “My mom,” he said, “wanted me to take any kind of music lessons just for the benefits mentally, and I really wanted to play guitar because that’s what second-graders thought was cool back then, but when I went in my hands were too small to fit around the neck of a guitar.”

Mhoon didn’t want to play the drums, so he settled on the piano more or less by default, and he quickly showed an aptitude. “I don’t really remember if I immediately liked it, but it was kind of fun to mess around with my fingers,” he said. In elementary school, he had wanted to be variously a sports star, lawyer (after reading James Patterson) or president of the United States. But the turning point came in middle school when he began studying with a tough new teacher, Brenda Huang in Palatine, and came to see the piano as a potential career.

“She was on me,” he said, “and then I realized, ‘You know what, I like this a lot.’ Because she made me a lot better really quickly, and I was impressing myself. So, I decided, shoot, this has been the most enjoyable experience I’ve ever had.”

At that point, he became obsessed with becoming a classical musician. He began listening to it regularly and practicing longer. At the same time, he learned Franz Liszt’s technically tricky concert étude, “Gnomenreigen (Dance of the Gnomes),” which he performed for three years, including an appearance when he was 12 on WFMT-FM (98.7) “Introductions.” (He was featured May 1 on the show a second time.)

He also used it to win admission to the Allianz Junior Music Camp in Vienna. The November 2015 event included a masterclass with famed pianist Lang Lang, whom he met backstage earlier that year after a recital at the Lyric Opera House. He was later chosen as one of 11 pianists in the Lang Lang International Music Foundation’s 2020-22 Young Scholars program.

As part of the application process to Juilliard, Mhoon’s dream school since his early teens, he had to prepare a one-hour performance video. He played selections by J.S. Bach and Beethoven as well as a 12-minute piano transcription of a suite from Stravinsky’s beloved 1910 ballet, “The Firebird.”

“It’s a monster,” he said of the suite. “Right now, it’s impossible for me to get every note right. But I prefer to miss a couple of notes and keep the artistic integrity rather than play like a robot and try to hit every note.”

After two rounds of auditions, which were done virtually because of the coronavirus pandemic, Mhoon was one of just 15 piano students accepted. The big surprise for him was being paired with Ax, who called Giles before the admission decisions were announced.

“He just said that he liked Joshua’s audition,” Giles said, “and if Joshua came to Juilliard he would be very interested in teaching him, which is obviously a great tribute because Manny doesn’t have many students. He’s a very busy concert pianist.”

Unlike some aspiring pianists, Mhoon is not singularly focused on music. One of his surprising interests is the stock market. He has been trading securities for seven years, a pursuit he started after a summer course at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools. “I love it,” he said. “I tend to be lucky, and I hold that luck when I’m investing.”

Mhoon’s favorite touring pianists from past and present are Vladimir Horowitz, Maurizio Pollini, Lang Lang and Yuja Wang. Some day, he hopes his name will rank beside those keyboard stars. “I would love,” he said, “to be THE pianist of my generation.”

Kyle MacMillan is a Chicago freelance writer.

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‘A very talented guy’: Teen pianist in Chicago gets ready to up his game at JuilliardKyle MacMillan – For the Sun-Timeson May 10, 2021 at 10:30 am Read More »

Blackhawks beat Stars after welcoming fans back to United CenterBen Popeon May 10, 2021 at 2:56 am

Alex DeBrincat scored twice in the Blackhawks’ 4-2 win. | Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images

The energy from the limited-capacity ‘‘sellout’’ crowd of 3,820 boosted the Hawks to three first-period goals en route to a 4-2 victory.

Rick Gunville has attended countless Blackhawks games. His family has held season tickets since 1972.

But waiting in line Sunday to be one of the first spectators inside the United Center, he knew he was about to enjoy a one-of-a-kind fan experience.

‘‘It will definitely be unique,’’ Gunville said. ‘‘Obviously, the stadium is not going to be full, but I’m sure there’s a lot of passion with the group of people that are here — longtime fans. It’s going to be nice having the energy back in there. I’m assuming the players will feel that.’’

He wasn’t wrong. The Hawks welcomed a limited-capacity ‘‘sellout’’ crowd of 3,820 back to Madison Street with a rousing 4-2 victory against the Stars, scoring three goals in the first period and protecting that lead the rest of the way.

Alex DeBrincat moved into third place in the NHL with his 30th and 31st goals, with the second all but sealing the victory with 3:12 left. He was around for three years of 21,000-person crowds but was reminded Sunday how it’s ‘‘a lot of fun when they’re in the building.’’

Goalie Kevin Lankinen, however, was not. After dreaming all season about what his first game with a roaring crowd behind his crease would look, sound and feel like, his first-star lap was something out of a fairy tale. He earned it, too, saving 37 of 39 shots in his final start of the season.

‘‘I wanted to soak it all in,’’ Lankinen said. ‘‘Those are the moments you dream of growing up playing hockey as a kid. Especially here in the United Center, you know how loud the fans can be. It’s probably the best place to play a great game. So I really took my time and enjoyed it. It’s going to be a good memory for me going forward.’’

Collin Delia will start in goal in the season finale Monday, so Lankinen officially finished his season 17-14-5 with a .909 save percentage.

‘‘He was excellent,’’ coach Jeremy Colliton said. ‘‘[I’m] really happy that he has that one to leave with. He’s had a very good season and [taken] a big step for him and his development.’’

Including Lankinen, 10 of the 20 players in the Hawks’ lineup were rookies, tying the franchise record set in 1927. Twelve players weren’t in the opening-night lineup just four months ago.

And that group held its own in the third period, showing maturity beyond its years even as the Stars pushed for an equalizer.

‘‘I don’t know how many teams end up playing 10 rookies in a game, and it’s not like it’s the last one, either,’’ Colliton said. ‘‘We’re going to do it again [Monday]. It says a lot about them.’’

As much as the last couple of months have underscored the flaws in the Hawks’ roster, Sunday represented an encouraging glimpse of a brighter future: a new-generation team, headlined by players such as DeBrincat and Brandon Hagel (goal, assist), playing exciting, successful hockey inside a raucous United Center.

Those big-picture thoughts can be saved for the offseason, though. The Hawks’ players and coaches and the few thousand fans making up the first home crowd since March 11, 2020, were content to savor the occasion Sunday.

‘‘I’ve been talking about it for weeks,’’ Gunville said, shortly before heading up to Section 223. ‘‘I just wanted to see one game. And tonight’s the night.’’

‘‘It was such a huge difference, right from the anthem,’’ Colliton said. ‘‘You couldn’t help but smile when you heard the reaction of the crowd. As the home team, you really feed off that energy. We’ve missed that this year.’’

3,820 fans spaced out across the United Center for the Blackhawks’ game Thursday.

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Blackhawks beat Stars after welcoming fans back to United CenterBen Popeon May 10, 2021 at 2:56 am Read More »

Destination place someday, but Bulls playing for the now in latest winJoe Cowleyon May 10, 2021 at 2:57 am


Veteran Garrett Temple feels the new front office has sent a message to the rest of the league with its actions this season, but first things first, as the Bulls are still trying to push for a play-in spot after latest win in Detroit.

The message was sent long before this recent three-game winning streak, capped off by the dismantling of an undermatched Pistons team on Sunday night.

The way veteran Garrett Temple sees it, the Bulls front office sent the message very early on in its new tenure that the goal was to make Chicago a destination place.

An aggressive coaching search, the drafting of Patrick Williams, and then swinging for the fences at the March trade deadline were just a few examples.

The standings might not show it, but winning is now a priority. And Temple feels the league is listening.

“I think AK [executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas] and [general manager] Marc [Eversley] have done a great job, have done a great job showing that they keep things close to the vest, that they understand the business, and deal with a level of privacy that’s refreshing in today’s NBA,’’ Temple said. “Not only do all that, but they have an eye for talent. Getting Pat where they got Pat, and being able to trade and bring an All-Star in [Nikola Vucevic] here, and also being able to get [Daniel] Theis as well, who has shown what he can do in the league, I think people that understand and are free agents and things of that nature, are probably looking at the Bulls front office as a place, a group of people that know what they’re doing for sure.’’

That’s the business of the offseason, however.

Where Temple and his teammates were still focusing was on the business of the next week.

The 108-96 win over the Pistons in Detroit, pulled the Bulls (29-39) to within 2 ½ games of idle Indiana for the 10th and final play-in spot in the Eastern Conference with four games left to play. The problem is those four games.

The Bulls play the Nets twice, Toronto sprinkled in between, and a home finale with Milwaukee. The Pacers are in Cleveland on Monday, then host Philadelphia, Milwaukee, the Lakers and finish in Toronto.

So even with Zach LaVine scoring a game-high 30 points and looking better and better after missing 11 games when he tested positive for the coronavirus, and fellow All-Star Nikola Vucevic remaining a double-double machine – 29 points and 16 rebounds against the Pistons – very little is in their control as the regular season winds down.

That’s the frustration.

“The last [few] games we’ve shown what we can do when we’re fully healthy and guys are playing at levels we can play at,’’ Temple said. “So to see that it makes it even more disappointing. But at the end of the day there’s still a pathway and we’ve got to worry about what we can control and let the chips fall where they may.’’

Those chips fell easily in Detroit, with the Pistons without Jerami Grant, Cory Joseph and Wayne Ellington to name a few, while the Bulls were still without Troy Brown Jr. (ankle) and Theis, who banged up his hip in the win over Boston.

The visiting team wouldn’t need either.

With Coby White also chipping in 21 points, it was the defense that again earned some praise from coach Billy Donovan, holding the opposition under 100 throughout this winning streak, and setting the tone early with Detroit by holding the home team to just 18 points in the first quarter.

“I think kind of playing with each other,’’ Donovan said of the defensive turnaround. “We talk a lot about offense, but then playing together on defense is also important in terms of rotations and terminology. We’ve gotten better.’’

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Destination place someday, but Bulls playing for the now in latest winJoe Cowleyon May 10, 2021 at 2:57 am Read More »

Man kills 6, then self, at Colorado birthday party shootingAssociated Presson May 10, 2021 at 2:24 am

A Colorado Springs Police Department officer lifts up crime tape at the scene where multiple people were shot and killed early Sunday in Colorado Springs, Colo.
A Colorado Springs Police Department officer lifts up crime tape at the scene where multiple people were shot and killed early Sunday in Colorado Springs, Colo. | Jerilee Bennett/AP Photos

A gunman opened fire at a birthday party in Colorado, slaying six adults before killing himself Sunday, police said.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — A gunman opened fire at a birthday party in Colorado, slaying six adults before killing himself Sunday, police said.

The shooting happened just after midnight in a mobile home park on the east side of Colorado Springs, police said.

Officers arrived at a trailer to find six dead adults and a man with serious injuries who died later at a hospital, the Colorado Springs Gazette reported.

The suspected shooter was the boyfriend of a female victim at the party attended by friends, family and children. He walked inside and opened fire before shooting himself, police said.

The birthday party was for one of the people killed, police said.

Neighbor Yenifer Reyes told The Denver Post she woke to the sound of many gunshots.

“I thought it was a thunderstorm,” Reyes said. “Then I started hearing sirens.”

Police brought children out of the trailer and put them into at least one patrol car, she said, adding that the children were “crying hysterically.”

Authorities say the children, who weren’t hurt in the attack, have been placed with relatives.

Police on Sunday hadn’t released the identities of the shooter or victims. Authorities say a motive wasn’t immediately known.

“My heart breaks for the families who have lost someone they love and for the children who have lost their parents,” Colorado Springs Police Chief Vince Niski said in a statement.

It was Colorado’s worst mass shooting since a gunman killed 10 people at a Boulder supermarket March 22.

“The tragic shooting in Colorado Springs is devastating,” Gov. Jared Polis said Sunday, “especially as many of us are spending the day celebrating the women in our lives who have made us the people we are today.”

Colorado Springs, population 465,000, is Colorado’s second-biggest city after Denver.

In 2015, a man shot three people to death at random before dying in a shootout with police in Colorado Springs on Halloween. Less than a month later, a man killed three people, including a police officer, and injured eight others in a shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in the city.

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Man kills 6, then self, at Colorado birthday party shootingAssociated Presson May 10, 2021 at 2:24 am Read More »