What’s New

Olczyk will join Kenny Albert as the network’s top team when it begins its seven-year deal with the 2021-22 season.

Blackhawks analyst Eddie Olczyk will be the lead NHL game analyst for Turner Sports when TNT begins its seven-year broadcast deal next season, according to an industry source. Olczyk will join Kenny Albert as Turner’s top team.

Olczyk, who agreed in principle to a five-year deal, has been NBC’s lead game analyst since 2006, when he took over for John Davidson. Albert and Olczyk are expected to call the Stanley Cup Finals for NBC this season, the network’s last with broadcast rights.

Turner outbid NBC for the NHL last month, buying the league’s secondary package for a reported $225 million per year. ESPN bought the primary package in March for a reported $400 million annually.

NBC/Comcast has aired NHL games since 2005, when they were shown on Outdoor Life Network. That became Versus, which became NBC Sports Network, which will shutter at the end of the year. NBC/Comcast will turn USA Network into an entertainment/sports channel.

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There’s plenty to see and do in Chicago in the week ahead, online and in-person.

A day well-lived

Gravitas Ventures

After spending years in Hollywood, musician-actor-writer Jer Sklar returned to Chicago to attend film school at DePaul University. His master film thesis, “Tom of Your Life,” debuted on DVD last fall and will now have a six-day run May 7-13 at the Music Box Theatre (3733 N. Southport). Sklar stars in the story of a baby who inexplicably ages four years each hour. Sun-Times film critic Richard Roeper called the film “lovely and brilliant and poignant” adding that he loved “the skillful storytelling and the universally excellent performances.” Others in the film include Baize Buzan, James Sharpe, Paul Tigue and the legendary Mike Nussbaum. The filmmakers and cast will attend the May 8 evening screening beginning with a free pre-show event at 5:45 p.m., which includes music by Sklar’s band The Blackstrap Molasses and a Q&A. Tickets: $11. Visit musicboxtheatre.com.

Zac is back

Diego Pemia

While it looks like a return to live concerts may be on the horizon, virtual events are still the way to go. The latest to take part is Grammy Award-winning Zac Brown Band. The event, livestreamed at 8 p.m. May 8, will feature the musicians revisiting some of their greatest hits from the past two decades. There’s also an encore event with the band answering fan-submitted questions. Tickets: $19.99, VIP packages also are available. Visit sessonslive.com/zacbrownband.

A Greek master

© Yannis Tsarouchis Foundation

Wrightwood 659 presents a new exhibit, “Yannis Tsarouchis: Dancing in Real Life,” the first U.S. retrospective devoted to the work of the artist widely regarded as one of the greatest Greek painters of the 20^th century. Featured are some 200 works, including paintings and works on paper that span the arc of the artist’s career. Tsarouchis (1910-1989) is known for his male portraits and nudes but theater also was a source of inspiration. He designed the set and costumes for Maria Callas’ 1958 performance as Medea at the Dallas Civic Opera as well as the set designs for Samuel Beckett’s plays staged in Paris and Thessaloniki, Greece. The exhibit runs May 7-July 31. Tickets: $15 available online only. Visit wrightwood659.org.

Happy Mother’s Day

Arturo Mandalay

Jarrott Productions presents the world premiere of “A Portrait of My Mother,” written and performed by Carlo Lorenzo Garcia, in which he tells the story of his mother’s journey into motherhood. Streams at 7 p.m. May 9. Tickets: $5. Visit jarrottproductions.com. … Grammy Award-winning jazz artist Kurt Elling performs “A Toast to Mom” ($75) from May 7-9 live at City Winery, 1200 W. Randolph. There’s also a livestream of the show at 5 p.m. May 9 ($20). Visit citywinery/chicago.com/. … The storytelling collective 2nd Story’s Mother’s Day show is “We Are All Our Selves: Stories of Taking Charge and Taking Care,” featuring new stories from Ana P. Martin Sagredo, Betsey Manzoni and Kimberlee Soo. Streams at 6 p.m. May 9. Tickets: pay-what-you-can. Visit 2ndstory.com. … The Neo-Futurists present a Mother’s Day benefit for Chicago Birthworks Collective featuring “The Egg Wrench: 30 Egg Plays in 60 Egg Minutes.” Livestreams at 3 p.m. May 9. Tickets: $18. Visit neofuturists.org.

Anniversary music

Getty Images

The Music Institute of Chicago celebrates 90 years with a virtual gala at 6 p.m. May 10. Highlights include the presentation of the Dushkin Award to Maestro Zubin Mehta, the Cultural Visionary Award for Chicago to Linda Theis Gantz and Wilbur “Bill” Gantz and the Colburn Award for Teaching Excellence to Nina Wallenberg and Daniel Wallenberg. The evening also features a recorded performance by Music Institute alumna and past Dushkin awardee violinist Rachel Barton Pine, along with recorded messages from additional past Dushkin awardees, including jazz artist Wynton Marsalis and violinists Joshua Bell, Midori, Pinchas Zukerman and others. Admission is free; donations appreciated. Visit musicinst.org/anniversary-gala.

No talking

File photo

The Silent Film Society of Chicago screens three classic films from the early days of cinema: Harold Lloyd in “Safety Last!” (May 12), Buster Keaton in “The Navigator” (May 19) and Charlie Chaplin in “Shoulder Arms” (May 26). All start times are 7:30 p.m. at the Pickwick Theater, 5 S. Prospect, Park Ridge. Tickets: $10. Visit silentfilmchicago.com/events/.

Virtual stage

Oak Park Festival Theatre stages a virtual production of Matt Barbot’s “The Venetians,” a work that brings together various characters from several of Shakespeare’s plays to address contemporary issues. Directed by Eddie Torres, the play streams May 8-16. Tickets: $25. Visit oakparkfestival.com. … A Red Orchid Theatre’s audio version of Exal Iraheta’s “Last Hermanos,” a drama that finds two Latinx men on the run who confront the conflict over one’s desire for revolution and the other’s need to return to normalcy, is available to May 16. Tickets: $15. Visit aredorchidtheatre.org/lh-info/. … From May 6-June 19, Metropolis Performing Arts Centre (111 W. Campbell, Arlington Heights) presents an outdoor staging of Howard Ashman and Alan Menken’s “Little Shop of Horrors.” Tickets: $35, $40. Visit metropolisarts.com.

Mary Houlihan is a Chicago freelance writer.

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An Associated Press investigation found Christopher Bauer was suspended without pay and stripped of his security clearance in the FBI’s New Orleans office in late 2018 — effectively fired — amid allegations that included a co-worker’s claim that he raped her at knifepoint.

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — An Alabama state trooper arrested last week on charges he raped an 11-year-old girl had been kicked out of the FBI amid a string of sexual misconduct allegations but was hired by the state agency with the apparent help of a fake bureau letter that scrubbed his record clean.

An Associated Press investigation found Christopher Bauer was suspended without pay and stripped of his security clearance in the FBI’s New Orleans office in late 2018 — effectively fired — amid allegations that included a co-worker’s claim that he raped her at knifepoint.

But Alabama authorities either overlooked or were unaware of that history. The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, the state police, told AP that it conducted a “full and thorough” investigation into Bauer’s background when he applied to be a trooper in 2019 and that “no derogatory comments were uncovered by former employers.”

Bauer indicated on his application that he was still employed by the FBI and had never been dismissed or forced to resign because of disciplinary action. And the state’s law enforcement credentialing commission provided AP a copy of a letter — purportedly from FBI headquarters — that makes no mention of Bauer’s ouster, confirms his decade of “creditable service” and deems him “eligible for rehire.”

“The letter is not legitimate,” the FBI said in a statement to the AP on Wednesday. Bureau officials would not say who they believe forged the letter.

Bauer, 41, was arrested last week in Montgomery on charges including sodomy and sexual abuse of a child under 12. The AP is withholding some details of the allegations to protect the girl’s identity.

AP

Bauer remained jailed Wednesday on $105,000 bail, and court records do not list an attorney who could comment on his behalf. An attorney who represented Bauer in challenging his ouster from the FBI did not respond to requests for comment.

The FBI declined to say whether it was asked for any information about Bauer’s suitability to be hired by the state police.

Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey’s office referred questions on the matter to the state police, which did not respond to repeated queries about the details of Bauer’s hiring.

“You have to ask yourself why an agent from the FBI would want to leave after 10 years,” said Lou Reiter, a policing consultant and former deputy chief with the Los Angeles Police Department. “They obviously didn’t do any kind of due diligence with their background check.”

“There have to be phone calls,” added Michael Avery, a retired professor at Suffolk University’s Law School and an expert on police misconduct.

Bauer resigned from the state police following his arrest, citing “personal reasons.”

Bauer is the latest — and perhaps most extreme — example yet of an FBI agent accused of sexual misconduct moving on. An AP investigation last year found a pattern of FBI supervisors avoiding discipline — and retiring with full benefits — even after claims of sexual misconduct against them were substantiated.

“Nobody wants to take responsibility,” the former co-worker who accused Bauer of rape told the AP, which does not typically identify those who say they are the victims of sex crimes. “I didn’t want this to happen to anybody else.”

An Air Force veteran, Bauer was a member of the Montgomery police force before joining the FBI in 2009, working a number of high-profile cases in the New Orleans field office. He has disputed the sexual misconduct claims made by his FBI co-worker, telling colleagues the acts were consensual.

FBI brass considered the misconduct case to be “egregious,” according to a former senior law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the matter. Internal investigators interviewed several female FBI employees about their dealings with Bauer and believed the truth to be “somewhere in the middle” of what Bauer and the co-worker claimed, the former official said. The internal inquiry found Bauer violated FBI policy, including by having sex in an FBI vehicle.

“He flat-out needed to lose his job, and he really should have been charged criminally,” said the former official, who wasn’t authorized to discuss personnel matters and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Bauer’s co-worker told AP that Louisiana authorities had been pursuing criminal charges in St. Tammany Parish, north of New Orleans, but she didn’t believe she had enough evidence to go forward.

The allegations also played out in a restraining order obtained by the co-worker that names Bauer and had been in the public record in Louisiana for a year when Alabama hired him as a trooper. In it, the woman accuses the lawman of choking her, adding she was “scared for my life.”

Bauer was ordered to surrender his “firearms, weapons, swords and knives” as part of the case.

“I couldn’t see any more and felt my legs go out from under me,” the woman wrote in her application for the order. “He told me many times if I went to war with him I would lose. He told me many times he would destroy me.”

The woman told AP that Bauer sexually assaulted her so frequently her hair began to fall out.

“It was a year of torture,” she said. “He quite literally would keep me awake for days. I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t sleep, and in six months I went from 150 pounds to 92 pounds. I was physically dying from what he was doing to me.”

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Mustian reported from New York. Associated Press writer Eric Tucker contributed to this report from Washington.

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Luis Robert’s torn hip flexor will take three to four months, if not longer, for a full recovery but it’s an injury that shouldn’t affect him after it heals properly.

CINCINNATI — Luis Robert’s torn hip flexor will take three to four months, if not longer, for a full recovery but it’s an injury that shouldn’t affect him after it heals properly.

“Without knowing the exact particulars [of the tear] more often than not he’s going to get back to playing at or near the same level” said Brian Schulz, a sports medicine specialist and orthopedic surgeon with the Cedars-Sinai Kerlan-Jobe Institute and a team physician for the Los Angeles Angels.

It was puzzling to some that Robert could tear a muscle running a straight line to first base with no contact. Several factors may have played into it, Schulz said.

“These athletes are so long and so fit,” Schulz said, “and he’s going from 0 to 100 almost immediately and the forces that are going through at the time, if his muscles aren’t warmed up or maybe he was just a little tight that day from the workload he had the previous day, who knows? Those forces are so great that sometimes the muscle can’t provide the support that it needs to.”

Sox assistant general manager and director of player development Chris Getz said there was no indication of “something that was nagging” Robert that would have led to the injury. The Sox are examining the injury from all angles, he said.

“With any injury, we do a deep dive and then analyze, was there something that perhaps caused this,” Getz said. “In Luis’ case, we are talking about one of the more explosive players in baseball and probably all of sports.”

Schulz said patience in Robert’s recovery process will be key. There is no way to speed up the healing process.

“It takes that long for these tissues to heal,” Schulz said. “Especially with a muscle injury, if you push too early you run the risk of going right back to where you started.”

The recovery time will be the same whether Robert has surgery or not. A decision on that is expected this week, general manager Rick Hahn said.

Achy Eaton

Adam Eaton got through a full first month without getting achy legs but he’s now dealing with a sore knee, which got him the afternoon off Wednesday. Manager Tony La Russa said Eaton also has a tight hamstring.

“I’m old, I’m old,” Eaton, 32, joked. “But I’m OK, it’s all part of the grind.”

Eaton is second on the Sox with 16 runs scored and 18 RBI but is hitless in his last 19 at-bats, dropping his average from .268 to .211.

“Sometimes when I’m banged up I play better, so maybe turn it into a positive,” he said.

“It’s a good day for him to rest and then rest [Thursday, an off day],” La Russa said. “Need to keep him fresh because he’s very important.”

Leury Garcia started in right field with Billy Hamilton in center.

Votto fractures thumb

The Reds’ Joey Votto fractured his thumb when he was hit by a Dallas Keuchel changeup in the fourth inning. Votto was replaced at first base by Kyle Farmer in the sixth inning.

Votto, who has been hit 61 times in his career, is not expected to need surgery but could miss up to a month.

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One hundred years ago, a group of British explorers and their porters set out on the first reconnaissance mission to Everest. The world hasn’t been the same since.Read More

The Chicago History Museum is hosting “Vivian Maier: In Color,” an exhibit of 65 of the Chicagoan’s color images, the majority of which have not been shown before, and excerpts from some of her 8mm films.

Few artist profiles have skyrocketed more quickly than that of Vivian Maier, who went from an unknown at the time of her death in 2009 to one of this country’s most respected 20^th-century street photographers.

The latest boost to her now-international reputation will come May 8 when the Chicago History Museum opens “Vivian Maier: In Color.” She is best known for her black-and-white photos, but this exhibition showcases 65 of the Chicagoan’s color images, the majority of which have not been shown before, and excerpts from some of her 8mm films.

“I think there is still a lot of character to this work,” said the museum’s guest curator Frances Dorenbaum, “but it has a slightly different tone, perhaps a little softer, a little subtler.”

The bulk of the show’s Chicago images are drawn from a group of nearly 1,800 color slides, negatives and transparencies from the 1950s-1970s that were donated to the museum in December 2020 by Chicago-based artist and art collector Jeffrey Goldstein.

“It’s a perfect for the History Museum in terms of something that might draw people into the building, get people thinking about Chicago and maybe even thinking about how they might capture the city if given the opportunity,” said John Russick, the museum’s senior vice president.

Gift of Jeffrey Goldstein/© The Estate of Vivian Maier

The gift became possible following the January 2020 resolution of a 5½-year court case between Goldstein, one of the three principal collectors who have owned and promulgated her work, and Maier’s estate, overseen by the state public administrator’s office for Cook County.

“I have a long family history with Chicago,” Goldstein said. “I have an affinity for museums, and I like John Russick. I love the idea of art reaching young people, and if I had to pick one work for Vivian Maier’s legacy, it’s inspiration.”

Maier (1926-2009), an American of French and Austro-Hungarian descent, learned photography while living in France in 1949 and pursued it avidly into the late 1990s, producing more than 100,000 images, many of them with a German-made, medium-format Rolleiflex camera.

Gift of Jeffrey Goldstein/©The Estate of Vivian Maier

In 1956, she moved to Highland Park to serve as a nanny for the Gensburg family, a job she held through the 1970s. During this time and her later work with other families, she devotedly took to the streets of Chicago, often capturing images of inauspicious, everyday people, and made other photos on trips in this country and abroad.

Some time around the turn of the century, she placed her camera equipment, photographs — many undeveloped — and other belongings in storage. These items were sold at auction in 2007 to cover past-due rent, and her hidden photographic legacy began to come light as several buyers began promulgating her work.

A selection of mostly black-and-white images were shown at the Chicago Cultural Center in early 2011, creating a sensation among both photography connoisseurs and the general public. “That was really the lightning-bolt moment,” Russick said.

She has gone on to be featured in more than 40 exhibitions worldwide, including “Vivian Maier’s Chicago” at the Chicago History Museum from 2012 through 2017, and showcased in a 2013 Academy Award-nominated documentary, “Finding Vivian Maier.”

Gift of Jeffrey Goldstein/©The Estate of Vivian Maier

In early 2010, Goldstein acquired a portion of Maier’s photographic holdings from one of the original buyers, Randy Prow, and added more later. (He has since sold all his black-and-white negatives.) “Vivian Maier: In Color,” also includes loans from Ron Slattery and John Aloof.

The History Museum received a grant from the New York-based Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation for the cataloguing, preservation and online dissemination of the Maier holdings acquired from Goldstein.

All the prints on view from the museum collection are new digital scans from the original slides or transparencies. “For most of them,” Dorenbaum said, “prints didn’t exist. And for the ones that did, the length of the show is such that it would likely damage any original color prints if we kept them out the whole time.”

A major challenge was dealing with the inevitable degradation of color in the vintage images. The museum staff had to make decisions about how far to go in correcting and adjusting for these changes in the digital prints.

“We tried our best,” Dorenbaum said, “to do the most minimal adjustments to the digitized files so you could at least recognize the items or objects in the photograph as they might be presented in natural light. It was really tricky, for sure.”

Rather than dwell on Maier’s life, which has been investigated elsewhere, Dorenbaum chose to focus on the aesthetics of the images themselves. The show is organized thematically according to the photographer’s points of view – her different compositional or framing strategies. Its seven sections carry such titles as “Looking Up,” “Looking from Afar” and “Looking from Behind.”

In some cases, it is possible see how Maier used a similar approach to quite different subjects, as in a group of three photographs alternately depicting firefighters, flowers and a downtown Chicago landscape.

As excited as History Museum officials are about presenting parts of their new Maier holding for the first time, they are also hoping it might spur future donations of works by the photographer. “Growing this collection,” Russick said, “would be an appealing opportunity for us, absolutely.”

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Garrett Rolfe was fired last June, a day after he shot the Black man in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant. The Atlanta Civil Service Board on Wednesday released its decision on Rolfe’s appeal of his firing.

ATLANTA — The firing of the former Atlanta police officer who’s charged with murder in the shooting death of Rayshard Brooks was reversed after a review panel found the city failed to follow its own procedures for disciplinary actions.

Garrett Rolfe was fired last June, a day after he shot the Black man in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant. The Atlanta Civil Service Board on Wednesday released its decision on Rolfe’s appeal of his firing.

“Due to the City’s failure to comply with several provisions of the Code and the information received during witnesses’ testimony, the Board concludes the Appellant was not afforded his right to due process,” the board said in its decision. “Therefore, the Board grants the Appeal of Garrett Rolfe and revokes his dismissal as an employee of the APD.”

Rolfe will remain on administrative leave until the criminal charges against him are resolved, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said.

Atlanta police spokeswoman Chata Spikes said she could not comment on whether he would receive back pay or would be paid while on administrative leave.

Brooks’ killing last June 12 happened amid weeks of sometimes violent protests across the U.S. after a Black man, George Floyd, was killed by a white Minneapolis officer on May 25. The night after Brooks died, the Wendy’s restaurant where he was shot was set on fire. Protesters have denounced racial inequality and called for the dismantling of police departments or the reallocation of their funding to social services.

Atlanta police Sgt. William Dean had testified that the firing seemed rushed, and Rolfe was not given sufficient time to respond, according to the decision.

Dean also said that during his tenure in the police department’s internal affairs unit, he was not aware of any such termination of an officer for an alleged firearms violation without the department first conducting an investigation, the decision states.

“He further stated that the hurried dismissal may have been due in part, to a press conference that was on the horizon,” it says.

Lance LoRusso, an attorney for Rolfe, applauded the board’s decision, saying his client now has the opportunity to explain what happened that night.

“We are very pleased at this action and consider it the first step in the total vindication of Officer Garrett Rolfe,” LoRusso said in an emailed statement.

Relatives of Brooks were disappointed and confused by the decision, said one of their lawyers, L. Chris Stewart.

“We find it mindboggling that our elected officials and the former chief weren’t aware of the proper procedures for firing an officer,” Stewart said during a Wednesday news conference.

“The city of Atlanta cannot be the alleged blueprint for civil rights for other cities and not actually fulfill that promise,” he added.

The Rev. James Woodall, president of the Georgia NAACP, said the decision to reinstate Rolfe “is not only a testament to a sustained commitment of enacting violence upon human lives but the lack of leadership and vision we currently have that will prevent further injustices from happening that leave our community grieving and begging for mercy.”

Police responded to complaints that Brooks had fallen asleep in his car in the drive-thru lane of a Wendy’s restaurant. Police body camera video shows the 27-year-old man struggling with two white officers after they told him he’d had too much to drink to be driving and tried to arrest him. Brooks grabbed a Taser from one of the officers and fled, firing it at Rolfe as he ran. An autopsy found that Brooks was shot twice in the back.

Brooks assaulted both officers, and Rolfe was entitled, as an officer and a citizen, to respond to that assault with deadly force, LoRusso said.

Bottoms said the day after the shooting that she did not believe it was a justified use of deadly force. She called for Rolfe’s immediate firing and announced that she had accepted the resignation of then-Police Chief Erika Shields.

“Given the volatile state of our city and nation last summer, the decision to terminate this officer, after he fatally shot Mr. Brooks in the back, was the right thing to do,” she said in a statement Wednesday. “Had immediate action not been taken, I firmly believe that the public safety crisis we experienced during that time would have been significantly worse.”

Bottoms said it’s important to note that the Civil Service Board did not determine whether Rolfe violated police department policies and that the department would determine whether additional investigation is needed.

Police Chief Rodney Bryant, who became interim chief after Shields’ departure and this week was named to the role permanently by Bottoms, said in an interview with The Associated Press that it’s not unusual for officers to appeal disciplinary action and that he respected the board’s decision.

Less than a week after the shooting, then-Fulton County District Attorney Paul Howard held a news conference to announce charges against the two officers. Rolfe faces charges including murder. The other officer, Devin Brosnan, was charged with aggravated assault and violating his oath. Lawyers for both officers have said their clients acted appropriately. Both are free on bond.

The officers haven’t been indicted yet.

Howard’s successor, Fani Willis, who became district attorney in January, has asked Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr to reassign the case, saying actions by Howard made it inappropriate for her office to continue handling the case. Carr has refused, saying the potential problems she cited were specific to Howard, so the responsibility for the case remained with her office.

Fulton County Superior Court Judge Christopher Brasher last month asked Willis to provide evidence showing why she should not be involved by this past Monday so that he can make a decision on the matter.

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