One person was placed in custody Thursday night after shots were fired at two officers sitting in an unmarked squad car in West Englewood.
The officers were sitting in a vehicle in the 6300 block of South Damen Avenue about 9:30 p.m. when a male fired shots at them from a passing gray Chrysler, Chicago police said.
The shots struck the officer’s car door and shattered the glass of a CTA bus shelter, according to police. No officers were shot or injured in the incident.
The grey Chrysler was seen driving south on Damen when two males got out, leaving on foot, police said.
One was taken into custody and brought to Area One headquarters, according to police. Officers were still searching for the second male, police said.
The vehicle was recovered with a handgun in the 7300 block of South Winchester Avenue, police said.
No officers returned fire during the incident, according to police.
The teen was in his vehicle at a stoplight in the 4400 block of West Augusta Boulevard when someone in a black Ford Fusion fired shots, Chicago police said.
Fifty-six percent of teens report spending more time talking with their parents during COVID than before, and 68% say their families have drawn closer. | kaliantye – stock.adobe.com
Families that had been hyperscheduled dervishes found time for togetherness. They cooked and ate dinner together. They talked.
As of this week, more than 40% of Americans have received at least one dose of the COVID vaccine and 26% are fully vaccinated. Though it wasn’t planned this way, more normal human life is returning just as the redbuds, azaleas, magnolias and tulips are performing their gorgeous annual affirmation of renewal. Fears of catastrophic depression, widespread shortages and massive civil unrest are receding.
Hundreds of thousands of American families and millions worldwide are bereaved, and nearly everyone has experienced some form of disruption, pain or trauma during the past year. But not everything changed for the worse.
A recent Pew poll found that among adults whose jobs can be conveniently performed online, 54% would like to continue working from home after the pandemic is over. Another 33% said they’d like to do so part time. If employers agree, then that could mark a dramatic change in many areas of American life — less road congestion, reduced demand for office space and reduced greenhouse gas emissions from cars and buses. That also means less income for real estate landlords, bus drivers, restaurants, dry cleaners, delivery services and other businesses that serve office workers. There will be many dislocations and adjustments.
To be sure, most employees (62%) don’t have the luxury of working from home. The more education you’ve acquired, the more likely it is that your job is mostly a matter of pixels. Eighty-three percent of those with a high school diploma or less cannot do their jobs from home, compared with only 32% of those with a graduate degree.
Still, the percentage of former office workers who may opt for home now could be significant, and may well improve their life satisfaction. Katy Clark, a researcher at the University of Michigan, told The Washington Post that she would frequently leave home before dawn in the morning to ensure that she got a parking spot. If she didn’t, then she might have to circle the lot for an hour and then work late and miss taking her teenagers to hockey practice. Christopher Thomas, an office manager at Portland State University, related that before the pandemic, he had seen his 3-year-old daughter only briefly on weekdays. It meant that their relationship was a bit distant. But in the past year, his wife got a job, and they’ve split the childcare. Now, he says, “I’m like her favorite person.”
The post-COVID world will not eliminate the office, but it does seem likely that many employees will have more choices about where and how they work.
There was worry early in 2020 about the mental health effects of the pandemic, and while there was evidence of high stress, particularly among those at highest risk of infection, the predicted spike in suicides doesn’t seem to have materialized. In fact, a couple of surveys have suggested that suicide rates, including youth suicides, may have declined somewhat in 2020 compared with 2019.
These numbers are preliminary. It can take up to a year to compile data. But if the early indications of reduced suicides are correct, a nation that loses nearly 50,000 people annually this way is going to want to figure out what went right. It may be that the extra money the government provided reduced feelings of despair. Or it’s possible that greater availability of online counseling meant that more desperate people got help. Or perhaps being together with family members, loved ones or even mere roommates improved people’s mental health.
The Institute for Family Studies reports that teenagers got more sleep, felt closer to their parents and had a more positive outlook on life in 2020 than in 2018. Fifty-six percent of teens reported spending more time talking with their parents during COVID than before, and 68% said their families had drawn closer.
Though couples reported more stress in 2020, they also discovered new strengths. A majority (51%) of couples reported that the pandemic “deepened my commitment to my marriage” and 58% said the hardship had “made me appreciate my partner more.” The share of married people who described their marriages as “in trouble” dropped from 40% in 2019 to 29% in 2020.
Marriages declined — who wants to have a wedding with no guests? — but so did divorces. It’s possible that people were postponing divorce for practical reasons rather than rediscovering love — but when you combine the data on suicide, relationship improvement and happier teens, you do begin to get a picture. Families that had been hyperscheduled dervishes found time for togetherness. They cooked and ate dinner together. They talked. They walked in the neighborhood or rode their bikes. They looked up from their screens at one another.
Of course, this image is far from universal. Some families are dysfunctional nightmares that do lasting damage to their members. But most aren’t. Most are sources of solace and strength, and if the pandemic is opening new possibilities for balancing family and work, and if it’s a reminder of the importance of nurturing our most intimate relationships, we will have found a glittering silver lining.
Mona Charen is policy editor of The Bulwark and host of the “Beg to Differ” podcast. Her most recent book is “Sex Matters: How Modern Feminism Lost Touch with Science, Love, and Common Sense.”
Jeff Arnett, the master distiller at the Jack Daniel Distillery in Lynchburg, Tennessee, drills a hole in a barrel of whiskey in one of the aging houses at the distillery in 2009. | AP
Company Distilling will first open a 4,000-square-foot (3,712-square-meter) tasting room and restaurant in Townsend, Tennessee.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The former top distiller at Jack Daniel’s announced earlier this week that he and several partners are opening a new whiskey distillery near the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee.
Company Distilling will first open a 4,000-square-foot (3,712-square-meter) tasting room and restaurant in Townsend, Tennessee, former Jack Daniel’s master distiller Jeff Arnett and his partners said. A 20,000-square-foot (1,858-square-meter) main distillery in Alcoa and a tasting room in Thompson Station, closer to Nashville, will follow next year.
Arnett is teaming up with former Tennessee Distillers Guild President Kris Tatum; construction businessman Corey Clayton; founder of H. Clark Distillery Heath Clark, and Clayton Homes CEO Kevin Clayton. The initiative is expected to include a $20 million investment and provide 50 to 60 jobs.
Company Distilling’s locations will be geared toward the outdoors. The 31-acre (13-hectare) main distillery location in Alcoa will include a tasting room, restaurant, brewery, retail store, a live music venue, cornhole, pickle ball courts, bonfire pits and open access to greenway trails, according to the news release.
The Townsend location will be along the Little River with the Townsend Greenway in the front of the 13.5-acre (5-hectare) property, offering access to cycling, running and nearby mountain biking and hiking trails.
“I would like to say this is the first distillery in this county but you all know it’s not,” joked Blount County Mayor Ed Mitchell. “I would like to say this is the first distillery where they asked the mayor to speak at. Things are really changing.”
The distillery will make straight bourbon whiskey finished with maple wood “to produce a sip like no other,” Arnett said in a statement.
In late 2020, Jack Daniel’s announced Arnett’s departure after a nearly 20-year stint with the powerhouse whiskey maker, including 12 years in which he led production.
At an event in Alcoa to announce the new venture, Arnett stressed the pride he felt in the work he accomplished during his time at Jack Daniel’s, but said he was excited about “doing something different” as well.
“I just felt like it was time to move on,” he said.
A suspect in the weekend murder of a 7-year-old girl at a West Side McDonald’s was chased by police on the Eisenhower Expressway Thursday afternoon and shot while he allegedly tried to carjack someone, police said.
Police shot the man multiple times after he crashed a vehicle and then tried to carjack a family on inbound I-290 near Mannheim Road, Police Supt. David Brown told reporters.
Brown said the man was wanted in the murder of Jaslyn Adams, who was shot Sunday afternoon inside a car with her father in Homan Square.
Shortly after 4 p.m., Chicago police officers were performing surveillance of the suspect in a western suburb and attempted to stop the suspect’s vehicle on I-290 near Mannheim Road, Brown said. That’s when the suspect crashed on the shoulder of the highway and attempted to carjack a vehicle containing a family.
The officers then shot the suspect multiple times, Brown said. “We don’t know if the offender shot back. We can’t confirm that at this point,” he said.
Two guns allegedly belonging to the suspect were recovered at the scene.
Brown said the suspect was taken to a hospital for treatment. Police spokesman Tom Ahern said the man was expected to survive.
“There were other people involved” in the incident, Brown said, but no one else was taken into custody.
Brown said the shooting is being investigated by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, which probes all shootings involving city police officers.
Chicago Police on Sunday evening investigate a shooting scene where a 7-year-old girl was shot to death and her father was seriously wounded while in their car at a McDonald’s in the Homan Square neighborhood.Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times
Jaslyn was killed Sunday after two people exited a car and opened fire at the McDonald’s drive-thru, at 3200 W. Roosevelt Road. The girl, who has three siblings, was shot repeatedly and taken by police to Stroger Hospital, where she was pronounced dead, police said.
Her father, Jontae Adams, was treated for a gunshot wound to his torso.
“That’s my baby I just lost,” Adams told reporters Wednesday. “I got shot. My baby got shot six times… I want my daughter’s killers locked up.”
Police said the shooting was gang-related and was believed to be related to another shooting less than three hours later that wounded two people at a Popeyes in Humboldt Park.
“My 7-year-old daughter ‘Pinky’ was an absolute blessing. I will forever love her and continue the legacy she has left behind,” Jaslyn’s mother, Lanesha Walker, wrote in an online fundraiser.
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx has placed veteran prosecutor Jim Murphy on administrative leave after having “failed to fully present the facts” during a bond hearing when he didn’t specifically state that Toledo was unarmed at the moment a Chicago police officer shot him. | Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times file photo
“My name is on the door. … I don’t believe in pushing blame or the buck,” State’s Attorney Kim Foxx told the Sun-Times. “The public was relying on information that our office presented to the court and the media relied upon that wasn’t fully accurate. I own that.”
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx acknowledged Thursday she did not know — and should have known — what one of her top deputies was going to say in court about the fatal police shooting of 13-year-old Adam Toledo.
“My name is on the door. Anything that happens that comes from the state’s attorney’s office, I am responsible for. I don’t believe in pushing blame or the buck,” Foxx told the Sun-Times.
“In this instance, the public was relying on information that our office presented to the court and the media relied upon that wasn’t fully accurate. I own that.”
Foxx has placed veteran prosecutor Jim Murphy on administrative leave because, according to a statement from her office, Murphy “failed to fully present the facts” during a bond hearing when he didn’t specifically state Toledo was unarmed at the moment a Chicago police officer shot him.
During an April 10 bond hearing describing allegations against 21-year-old Ruben Roman — who was arrested at the scene of Adam’s shooting in Little Village — Murphy told a judge Toledo had a gun in his right hand a moment before he was shot.
“The officer tells [Adam] to drop it as [Adam] turns towards the officer. [Adam] has a gun in his right hand,” Murphy said in court. “The officer fires one shot at [Adam], striking him in the chest. The gun that [Adam] was holding landed against the fence a few feet away.”
Murphy’s statement matches a portion of what the video of the fatal March 29 shooting shows, but it did not specifically note Adam dropped the weapon and had his hands in the air less than a second before he was shot by the officer.
On Thursday, Foxx acknowledged she did not see the statement of facts Murphy read aloud in court — and that she should have seen it.
“We do bond proffers daily, many times a day. They don’t rise up to me. One of the things that we are looking at in this particular case, because it’s a heater case, is why it had not been sent up to me,” she said.
Foxx was asked why she didn’t demand to see Murphy’s statement and whether she would put herself on leave for failing to do so.
She would say only that the internal investigation she has ordered would make certain there are “mechanisms and protocols in place so that people are properly notified in cases like this.”
“What I said is I didn’t know. … And how that happened is something that is critically important to our organization,” she said.
“I’m not disagreeing with the significance of the case. And I’m not disagreeing that those types of proffers are things that would be expected to be elevated. … Something was amiss here. And we’re taking responsibility by getting to the heart of what that is so that it doesn’t happen again.”
Foxx acknowledged Murphy’s punishment — and the possibility his supervisors may be similarly held accountable — has impacted morale in the state’s attorney’s office.
“Morale in our office has been very difficult. This is someone who is well-respected and regarded both internally [and] externally by judges and defense attorneys and has a reputation that has been incredibly strong,” she said.
“But I have a responsibility … to make sure that we’re as transparent as we need to be and take responsibility” for mistakes.
Having said that, Foxx categorically denied Murphy was being thrown under the bus to minimize the political heat Foxx is getting from Hispanic community leaders for the false narrative her office waited five days to correct.
“This isn’t about political cover. This is about the expectation of law enforcement to be forthright and transparent. There is no sacrificial lamb here. This is about making sure that we get it right, and when we don’t get it right, owning it doing what we need to do to make sure that it doesn’t happen again.”
Video released by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability last week appeared to show Toledo with both hands in the air after tossing the gun he was carrying behind a fence a split second before he was shot in the chest.
Foxx refused to characterize the video as her office continues its investigation to determine whether to file criminal charges against the officer, but she said she won’t be influenced by what happened to her predecessor, Anita Alvarez.
Alvarez was swept out of office by Foxx after waiting a year — until the day the Laquan McDonald shooting video was released by a judge’s order — to file murder charges against then-Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke, who shot McDonald 16 times. Van Dyke was convicted of second-degree murder and aggravated battery.
“My pressure is that we have a 13-year-old boy who was killed and the expectation from people in our community … who want to be able to see answers and resolution to this,” she said.
“It is not a pressure related to previous elections. It’s a pressure to the severity of the incident that brought us to this point.”
Our hero Cole Young (Lewis Tan, right) takes on the mighty, four-armed Goro in “Mortal Kombat.” | New Line Cinema
When the warriors aren’t torturing one another in gruesome ways, they’re explaining the complicated rules of the showdowns.
“Lineage? I’m an orphan from the South Side of Chicago!” – The new hero in “Mortal Kombat,” learning his bloodlines make him the new hero in “Mortal Kombat.”
As the gory and glossy but often boring reboot of “Mortal Kombat” plays out with fights and exposition, fights and exposition, exposition and more fights, rinse and repeat, one can almost hear the studio executives discussing how to make a movie to satisfy the hardcore fans as well as the newbies.
“Let’s make this one more violent and more serious than the 1990s ‘Mortal Kombat’ movies and include plenty of callbacks and Easter Eggs and inside references for the gamers who love the franchise!”
“Sounds great, but — and hear me out now — let’s also introduce a brand-new character and make him an MMA fighter who knows nothing about the world of ‘Mortal Kombat,’ so when characters explain things to him, they’re explaining everything to the audience as well!”
“Ka-ching!”
Maybe.
Based on the monumentally successful video game franchise and essentially wiping clean the events of the 1995 “Mortal Kombat” movie and the 1997 sequel, this blood-spattered, hard-R fantasy adventure is a fresh start in what is clearly intended to be a new series of films. (The ending even spells out certain details about the next adventure.) It’s a good-looking film with impressive special effects and some darkly funny kill scenes, but story lines and dialogue that might work in a participatory video game experience often come across as ridiculous and convoluted when we’re just sitting back and soaking it in. Nor does it help matters that the aforementioned new character, a former MMA champion named Cole Young (Lewis Tan), who has yet to realize he’s the latest in a very long line of noble warriors, is earnest and drab and not nearly as interesting as just about every supporting character around him.
After a beautifully filmed and quite effective table-setting prologue set in 17th century Japan, we pick up the story in present day, where the evil warriors of Outworld have been doing battle with the good guys and gals from Earthrealm (aka Earth) in the Mortal Kombat tournaments for centuries. As the rules have it — and there are LOTS of rules to learn along the way — if you win 10 straight tournaments, you earn the right to invade and conquer the opposing realm. Outworld has won nine tournaments in a row, but even so, the evil, soul-stealing, hiss-worthy villain sorcerer/warlock Shang Tsung (Chin Han) has commanded his Outworld warriors to track down and assassinate all the best remaining Earthrealm fighters so their roster will be depleted even before there’s another tournament (and you thought college football sometimes has a corruption problem).
Meanwhile, former MMA champion Cole Young is making $200 per battle to get the daylights knocked out of him in low-rent gyms, much to the consternation of his loving wife Allison (Laura Brents) and their daughter Emily (Matilda Kimber), who is actually the corner “man” for Cole’s fights and THAT seems to be a bad twist on Take Your Daughter to Work Day. After an unsettling visit from the ice-manipulating warrior Sub-Zero (Joe Taslim), who tries to take out Cole because of a certain birthmark Cole is sporting, it’s game on.
New Line CinemaSub-Zero (Joe Taslim, right) gives Jax (Mehcad Brooks) a demo of his ice-manipulating powers.
Cole (along with those unfamiliar with the video game) is introduced to former Special Officer Jackson “Jax” Briggs (Mehcad Brooks); Jax’s military partner Sonya Blade (Jessica McNamee), who runs her operation out of a ramshackle house in Gary, Indiana, and the wisecracking and cynical Kano (Josh Lawson), who makes pop-culture references (calling a shirtless fighter “Magic Mike”) and isn’t nearly as entertaining as he thinks he is. This bunch is transported to an ancient temple in order to receive training from Liu Kang (Ludi Lin), who can shoot fire from his hands, and Kung Lao (Max Huang), who uses his sharp metal hat as a deadly Frisbee flying disc weapon. (Take that, Cap!) I’d say this group is a decided underdog against the Outworld bunch, whose ranks include a winged beast, a four-armed colossus and a bloodthirsty maniac with the scariest rows of teeth this side of “Alien.” Not to mention Sub-Zero and his icy ways.
New Line CinemaLiu Kang (Ludi Lin) gets the good guys fired up to fight the Outworld warriors.
Director Simon McQuoid keeps the accelerator floored in the fight sequences, as characters are stabbed, gouged, choked, kicked, punched, mutilated, eviscerated, sliced in half, burned alive and on and on it goes. This is an unapologetically violent video-game-turned-movie, filled with gore and also brimming with flat dialogue, whether it’s big-picture speechifying or mostly lame attempts at snappy, action-movie banter. One might reasonably surmise longtime fans of “Mortal Kombat” would have a better time playing the latest version of the game than watching this origins story.
Texas Rangers starter Dane Dunning pitches against the Tampa Bay Rays during the first inning of a baseball game Monday, April 12, 2021, in St. Petersburg, Fla. (AP Photo/Steve Nesius) | AP Photos
Traded by White Sox in the offseason, Dunning enters game with 0.60 ERA over his first three starts
There’s no way to avoid feeling jilted.
Yoan Moncada talked about it in Boston, reflecting on when the Red Sox traded him and Michael Kopech to the White Sox for Chris Sale. Eloy Jimenez had no bigger thrill than hitting a home run at Wrigley Field against the team that traded him.
“It’s always good to prove to the team that traded you that they made a mistake,” Moncada said.
The Red Sox weren’t kicking Moncada and Kopech to the curb, they were trying to win a World Series by putting Sale in their starting rotation, and they did.
It still has the look of a good trade for both teams. The Red Sox got their rings and the White Sox got a potential All-Star third baseman for years to come and a pitcher with a sky-high ceiling.
The White Sox’ same rebuild mission brought them right-handers Lucas Giolito, Reynaldo Lopez and Dane Dunning from the Nationals for Adam Eaton in a proven player for prospects trade. The Nats got their World Series title and the Sox got an ace and an All-Star in Giolito, a big arm in Lopez who made 81 starts before falling on trying times, and a former first-round pick in Dunning.
Dunning, who was traded to the Rangers this past offseason for Lance Lynn in a move the Sox hopes brings them a World Series, will take a 14-inning scoreless streak into his start against the Sox Friday at Guaranteed Rate Field (7:10 p.m., NBCSCH, 1000-AM).
Time will tell who won that trade. Lynn is a workhorse Cy Young vote getter with one year on his contract, and Dunning’s future has never looked brighter.
Had Lynn not strained his trapezius in his previous start and gone on the injured list, he very well might be facing Dunning Friday.
Dunning, who said he “is really looking forward” to facing the Sox, is 1-0 with a 0.60 ERA, 16 strikeouts and two walks in his first three starts covering 15 innings with his new team. So bring them on.
“Obviously, I wasn’t planning on getting traded,” Dunning said. “Then things happen. Being able to compete, though, and hopefully show them that the Rangers made a really great decision on getting me is a goal of mine. It’s a big goal of mine.”
In the deciding Game 3 of the Wild Card series against the A’s last season, the Sox didn’t trust Dylan Cease enough to start him knowing his control proplems leading to October were getting out of hand.
So they turned to Dunning, who was 2-0 with a 3.97 ERA in seven starts. But the Sox didn’t trust him enough to finish the first inning and turned it into a bullpen game that turned into a nine-walk fiasco.
Since then Cease made adjustments in the offseason under the watch of new pitching coach Ethan Katz and was very good in spring training, culminating with an 11-strikeout, no walks performance in the Sox’ final Cactus League game. But he hasn’t maintained that level of command in the regular season, pitching 4 2/3 innings in all three of his starts, walking nine batters but posting a respectable 3.86 ERA, allowing three, one and two earned runs
Cease, whose stuff is superior to Dunning’s but not his command, undoubtedly wants to show the Sox they made the right choice in dealing Dunning away and not him.
“It feels a little bit middle of the road right now,” Cease said of his body of 2021 work. “I definitely haven’t had what I would consider a dominant start by any means, so that’s what we’re always looking to have. It’s been OK. I expect more out of myself for sure.”
RANGERS AT SOX
Friday: Dane Dunning (0-1, 0.60) vs. Dylan Cease (0-0, 3.86), 7:10 p.m., NBCSCH, 1000-AM
Chicago Police Supt. David Brown answers reporters’ questions during a news conference at CPD headquarters Thursday. | Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times
Brown, speaking to reporters after one year on the job, said his goal is to “change the culture” of the department. He also spoke about how people living criminal lifestyles bring violence upon their families.
Chicago Police Supt. David Brown said Thursday his predecessor’s crime-fighting strategy didn’t work and defended his own decision to create roving citywide teams of cops, saying they’ve reduced violence — even though the perception is that murders and shootings are out of control.
Brown, who rarely gives news conferences, marked his first year in office by addressing reporters at Chicago Police Department headquarters, where he also tried to put to rest the recent chatter that he was about to be fired by Mayor Lori Lightfoot.
“Let me start with rumors and gossip. I haven’t dealt with those since junior high school and I don’t plan on doing it now,” Brown said. “I think this city has a great mayor — I believe Mayor Lightfoot is one of the best mayors in the country — and I support her wholeheartedly and I am going to work my fingers to the bone for her.”
Brown also discussed the death of 7-year-old Jaslyn Adams, calls for civilian oversight of the police department and its efforts to comply with the 2019 federal consent decree requiring police reforms.
Rumors that Brown might be resigning were driven in part by his lack of visibility after some recent high-profile incidents. While he said the resignation rumors didn’t warrant a response, he said criticism of his not holding more news conferences was fair.
“I am not the kind of leader that chases the camera and says look at me,” Brown said. “I’d much rather be criticized for doing the work, the hard work, and not the PR.”
Also fueling those rumors: rampant Chicago violence over the past year, including a surge in carjackings and a more than 50% increase in murders in 2020 compared with 2019. According to the department’s own crime statistics this year through March 28, killings were up 33% compared to the same period of 2020, and shooting incidents were up 39%.
Interim Supt. Charlie Beck — Brown’s predecessor — had enacted a sweeping department reorganization, focusing on putting cops in districts. Brown said he reorganized again at the end of July 2020, creating large units that can be mobilized across the city to fight crime.
“I just try not to do stuff that doesn’t work. That structure wasn’t working.”
Brown acknowledged the perception that his reorganization increased violence.
“The facts are, the old structure wasn’t working in the new landscape of global pandemic and a social justice movement around race. That’s the facts.”
Brown said he’s committed to reforms based on the requirements of the consent decree, saying, “the ultimate goal is changing the culture of the police department.”
He also took another shot at his predecessors: “I walked in the door a year ago and, just to be quite frank with you, the department wasn’t taking the consent decree very seriously. … We had to dig ourselves out of a hole.”
Still, the department is meeting only slightly more than half of the 72 deadlines being assessed by an independent monitor of the consent decree, Brown acknowledged.
Beck, a former Los Angeles police chief, couldn’t be immediately be reached for comment on Brown’s criticism of his crime-fighting strategy in Chicago. He was acting superintendent from November 2019 until April 2020, when Brown was appointed permanent superintendent.
Brown also spoke about the death of Jaslyn — holding her father responsible, in part, for having her in a car with him when she was shot to death Sunday at a McDonald’s drive-thru on the West Side.
“This is about a young African American male … deciding to live the life of crime, getting in conflict with others who have decided to live a life of crime and putting your precious babies in the car with you, and this has happened time after time after time — and it’s beyond enough,” Brown said, adding that police believe the father was “targeted” by the shooter.
“But,” Brown added, “all of this is colored in race, poverty, social justice, investment on the West and South Sides — this despair we feel when we are in impoverished conditions.”
Demands for civilian oversight over the police department have grown in the wake of the police shooting of 13-year-old Adam Toledo and 22-year-old Anthony Alvarez — so much so that topic sparked an argument during a City Council meeting Wednesday.
Brown said he wouldn’t comment on the ongoing fight for civilian oversight since he promised the mayor when he was hired that he would stay out of politics. He said he doesn’t want to “tip the scale” one way or another.
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