The Chicago Police Department says it’s making progress on reforming how cops use force and how force is monitored.

That’s according to a report the department released Wednesday about the steps it’s taking to comply with a federal consent decree — a sweeping court order that requires reforms to the use of force, discipline, supervision, training and recruiting.

The consent decree stems from a 2017 lawsuit against the city by the Illinois attorney general’s office in response to the killing of Laquan McDonald, who was shot by Officer Jason Van Dyke in 2014. Van Dyke was fired and sentenced to prison.

The police department’s report doesn’t say how it’s doing in meeting the latest deadlines of the 2019 consent decree.

In an interview, Robert Boik, executive director of the Office of Constitutional Policing and Reform, said the police department went from complying with about 50 reforms in the consent decree in July 2020 to more than 150 by the end of 2020. There are about 800 reforms the department is required to fulfill.

Robert Boik in 2015.Sun-Times file

Boik wouldn’t release performance figures for January through the end of June this year, saying they’ll be in the next independent monitor’s report. But he said “we expect to see an increase in the percentage of compliance and in the number of paragraphs in compliance.”

Boik said other police departments that have been under similar consent decrees have taken a decade or longer to comply with all the required reforms.

He said the Chicago Police Department is “doubling down” this year on reforming the policies on how cops use force. Allegations about excessive force were why the department was placed in a consent decree in the first place, he noted.

“We are proud of the progress we made,” Boik said. “This is a long haul.”

The police department’s latest report, which was filed in federal court Wednesday, says most Chicago cops have received training this year on the current policy on the use of force, on giving medical aid and on how to conduct a vehicle pursuit. Later this year, all cops will get training in how to de-escalate situations to avoid the use of force. A revised use-of-force policy will go into effect next year.

In March, after the independent monitor said police officials should develop a foot-pursuit policy, the department approved an interim policy in June and is working with citizens and rank-and-file cops to draft a permanent one.

The department says it’s also taking steps to better monitor the use of force. For instance, it’s testing a questionnaire for police supervisors about incidents in which people are hospitalized or killed because of the actions of an officer. And it’s reviewing situations in which cops point their weapons, according to the report.

The police department’s 140-page report also touted the expansion of community-policing efforts, including outreach to ministers, transgender people, homeless people and immigrants. There’s a pilot program in which beat cops will pass out business cards so citizens can contact them about problems. Cops will get mandatory training about community policing.

There’s another pilot program that reduces the number of cops that sergeants supervise — and requires a sergeant to monitor the same group of officers every day. It’s being tested in the 4th, 6th and 7th districts on the South Side, according to the report.

Also Wednesday, Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced a pilot program to mediate citizen complaints that normally are investigated by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability or the police department’s Internal Affairs Bureau. The consent decree had called for that, she said in a statement.

“Chicago residents, community leaders and stakeholders have called for an alternative to the traditional complaint investigation, which this pilot program will provide,” Lightfoot said.

Wednesday’s report comes at a time of continuing violence in Chicago against residents and cops alike.

Murders and nonfatal shootings are up this year compared to the same period of 2020 — when violence soared in the city. More cops have been shot at this year, too, including Officer Ella French, who was killed last month.

Contributing: Fran Spielman

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Bears first-year defensive coordinator Sean Desai is looking forward to playing chess Sunday night.

“I’ve got some good practice at chess because I play with my kids,” he said. “So that’s a benefit for me.”

Desai doesn’t give an inch when he plays with his kids — and sometimes loses. Now the degree-of-difficulty gets ramped up exponentially when he matches wits with Sean McVay in the Bears’ season opener against the Rams on Sunday night at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, Calif. Desai has been a part of game day for eight years as a quality control coach and safeties coach. But this first time in the hot seat.

“That’s always a part of the game, right?” said Desai, who will work from the coaches box instead of on the field. “Whether you’re a position coach and you’re helping the coordinator and the play-caller seeing what you’re seeing in the game. Now as a play-caller, you’ve got to continually stay on top of it. And I think that’s a strength of mine. We’re going to test it out on game day, but I think that’s a strength of mine to be able to see the game up top.”

Of the unproven commodities at Halas Hall this offseason, the buildup for Desai has exceeded all of them except for quarterback Justin Fields. Whatever it is he’s selling, his players are buying.

“He’s a wizard,” linebacker Danny Trevathan said.

“This guy is super smart,” safety Tashaun Gipson said. “Sometimes he thinks light years head. So when he first brings an idea to you, you say, ‘Sean, there’s no way that’s gonna work.’ But when he breaks it down to you, you understand his mind and get how he thinks [and] you say, ‘Man, this guy is so smart, that the game of football slows down.’ You say, ‘OK, five minutes ago, no way I would have put that together. But now he makes sense.'”

Trevathan and Gipson are among several key defensive players to provide a glowing endorsement of Desai’s influence on the defense. “I met with him [last] Thursday,” safety Eddie Jackson said, “just to get the playbook breakdown of what we’re running, what’s the game plan [against the Rams]; and just to see his mind of what he’s expecting — how he’s drawing things … it’s pretty cool.”

Like?

“Just how he’s playing guys,” Jackson said. “Letting guys get after it. I’ll just leave it at that.”

But game day will tell the tale — not only in the players’ execution of the game plan, but Desai’s ability to think on his feet, make quick decisions and adjustments and try to stay a step ahead of McVay as a play caller.

“We’ll see,” Bears coach Matt Nagy said. “We’ve all had to have our first time doing it. For Sean, that’s going to be an unknown until we get through this year. But that’s the fun part. That’s the challenge. I believe in Sean. I think he’s going to do a great job.

“Is every game going to be perfect? No, it’s not. But the thing I think is great about Sean is he’s very resilient. He believes in what he’s teaching. He has confidence in himself. He’s not cocky. But he believes in what he’s teaching. That comes from the mentors he leaved from — like Vic [Fangio], Chuck Pagano and several others. That’s real. And he’s going to have to use that and put his own spin on game day when the bullets are flying.”

Desai spent five seasons watching Fangio call plays on game day. He sounded eager to build on that experience more than mimic it.

“You spend a lot of time with the guy, I sure hope some of the stuff that he’s done well, I can incorporate into my own play as we go,” Desai said. “And we’ll do the best we can. But I’m going to play to my strengths as best we can.”

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AUSTIN, Texas — The Texas chapter of the NAACP and a group of students have filed a federal civil rights complaint against the University of Texas for its continued use of school song “The Eyes of Texas,” which has racist elements in its past.

The complaint filed Sept. 3 with the U.S. Department of Education alleges that Black students, athletes, band members, faculty and alumni are being subjected to violations of the Civil Rights Act and a hostile campus environment over the “offensive,” “disrespectful” and “aggressive” use of the song.

The NAACP and the students want the federal government to withhold funding from the university.

Gary Bledsoe, president of the Texas NAACP and a Texas law school graduate, on Wednesday sharply criticized Texas for requiring the Longhorn Band to play the song at athletic events, and expecting athletes to stand and sing it after games.

“It’s like slave owners making slaves buck dance for their entertainment,” Bledsoe said.

The song was played before and after Saturday’s season-opening football win over Louisiana-Lafayette and was given a full-throated sing-along by a crowd of about 80,000. Many Texas players gathered near the band during the song, as has been tradition for decades.

First-year football coach Steve Sarkisian has said the team will sing the song.

The complaint, which includes statements from several anonymous students, alleges those who oppose the song on campus are being harassed and that Black students feel “humiliated” whenever it is played or sung.

A university spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“The Eyes of Texas” was written in 1903 and has a history of performances in minstrel shows with musicians often in blackface. For decades, it has been sung after games and graduation ceremonies, and is a popular sing-along at weddings and even funerals.

Last year, a group of athletes and students called for the school to drop the song amid racial injustice protests after the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.

School President Jay Hartzell, with the full backing of the university’s Board of Regents, said the song will stay and a school research panel determined there was “no racist intent” behind it.

In April, the university announced the school would create a separate band in 2022 for students who don’t want to play “The Eyes of Texas.”

The complaint argues that forcing students who object to the song into a different band is an attempt to create a “separate but equal” alternative that violates constitutional equal protection standards.

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Lake Central High School | Google Maps

Officers responded about 10 a.m. to the school at 11033 W. 93rd Ave. in St. John.

Lake Central High School in northwest Indiana was put on lockdown Wednesday morning after a student thought he heard someone loading a gun in a bathroom, police said.

The lockdown, which drew dozens of officers and a SWAT response, was lifted hours later after a search of the campus at 11033 W. 93rd Ave. in St. John turned up nothing.

“Once the school was safe, obviously we still wanted to double check it to make sure we didn’t miss anything, that nothing was found or they ditched a gun somewhere,” St. John Police Chief Steve Flores said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon. “So obviously we had to go room by room just to make sure.”

Police were dispatched to the school around 9:30 a.m. after a student thought he heard a noise like “what he explained as a gun being racked, like somebody was chambering a bullet into a gun” in the bathroom, Flores said.

The student was in the bathroom with two other students, Flores said. They were each sitting in different stalls and talking to each other when the student heard the noise. He called 911, and the dispatcher gave the call out to officers as an active shooting situation.

When officers are dispatched for an active shooter, “we’re thinking on the way there’s shots being fired and people are getting shot.”

After speaking with the student who made the report, and the two other students who had been in the bathroom, investigators determined there wasn’t a gun “and there was nothing to indicate otherwise.”

“End of the day it turned out fine, everybody was safe, we got everybody out,” the chief said.

Flores said the student who made the report did the right thing by calling 911.

“If they believe that there’s some kind of suspicious incident like that and they hear something, I’d rather be safe than sorry,” he said. “I wish it would have been dispatched a little bit different because, again, we were all going there thinking people were getting shot and that wasn’t the case.

“But absolutely, if kids see something wrong they need to report it,” he added, “whether it’s to us or the school administration immediately.”

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Here is a list of some of Chicago’s least-known residents: Eva Dina Delgado. Lakesia Collins. Frances Ann Hurley. Lindsey LaPointe. Lamont J. Robinson Jr. Cristina H. Pacione-Zayas.

You’ve probably never heard of these people because they don’t work in Chicago; they work in Springfield as members of the Illinois General Assembly.

In Chicago politics, there is no lower form of life than a state legislator. If you’re looking to lie low or hide out from your enemies, run for the legislature. No one will bother to hunt you down in the state capital — an exceedingly dull three-hour drive down Interstate 55.

This month, the Washington Post’s conservative columnist, Henry Olsen, wrote a column titled “Dislike gerrymandering? Then the proposed map from Illinois Democrats should be appalling.”

“Consider state House maps in the Chicago area,” Olsen fulminated. “Democratic map wizards take thin slices of heavily Democratic precincts in the city and string them out, one on top of the other, to drown marginally Republican territory in the suburbs. This slicing is so obscene that election guru Sean Trende dubbed it ‘the baconmander.’ That’s not a tasty dish for disenfranchised GOP voters.”

Baconmandering may leave a bad taste in the mouth of Washington’s Henry Olsen, but I guarantee you most Chicagoans don’t know or care what it tastes like. That’s because most of us couldn’t name our legislators before the new map, and we won’t be able to name them after it’s done.

“I don’t know who my state senator is,” a University of Chicago law professor once told me. “Do you know who your state senator is?”

This was an educated, informed man, whose legal essays have appeared in The New York Times. A mere state senator was beneath his notice.

Chicago is one of the few places where a move from statewide office to local office is considered a promotion. Will Burns left the state House to become 4th Ward alderman. (Then he quit the City Council to become a lobbyist for AirBnB.) Former state Rep. John Fritchey joined the Cook County Board. One reason is the pay. A state representative earns $69,464 a year, plus a $151 per diem when the legislature is in session. The Chicago City Council is about to get a raise to $130,000.

After Barack Obama was elected to the state senate in 1996, he immediately realized he was in the bush leagues and began trying desperately to win an office worthy of his resume, as president of the Harvard Law Review. Obama was so desperate that in 2000 he made an ill-advised run for Congress against Bobby Rush, who beat his ass — the only election Obama has ever lost.

“Barack is a very intelligent man,” a veteran statehouse correspondent told me then. “He hasn’t had a lot of success here, and it could be because he places himself above everybody. He likes people to know he went to Harvard.”

(The correspondent went on to say that he couldn’t believe a man of Obama’s intellect and qualifications would be satisfied to spend his career in Springfield. He was right about that.)

Downstate, legislators have an entirely different profile: they’re local superstars. When I lived in Decatur, state Sen. Penny Severns had to sell her house on Main Street and moved to a more secluded location because people kept showing up in her driveway at odd hours asking for help. After Severns died of cancer in 1998 at age 46, the stretch of Interstate 72 between Decatur and Springfield was named in her honor. So was the Illinois Secretary of State’s Family Literacy Program. Compare that to a memorial to one of her colleagues, the late state Sen. Arthur Berman of Chicago. Berman’s image is painted on a park bench in Berger Park, at Sheridan and Granville. Most people probably have no idea whose face they’re sitting on.

“It’s a better job Downstate,” a legislative aide once told me. “The money goes farther, and you’re more likely to get a bill out of something that happened in your district.”

Chicagoans’ indifference to, and isolation from, state politics may be a reason Springfield is so corrupt, with three former governors sentenced to prison in the last 50 years. A 2013 study by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that the further a capital is located from its state’s major population center, the more likely politicians are to misbehave, since they’re less likely to be scrutinized by voters or journalists.

The study, “Isolated Capital Cities, Accountability and Corruption: Evidence from U.S. States,” found that “states with more isolated capitals are indeed found to display higher levels of corruption,” that “newspapers do tend to give state politics greater coverage when their audience is more concentrated around the capital” and that “individuals who are farther from the state capital are substantially less likely to be informed about state politics.”

The solution is obvious. Springfield may have been a good choice for a state capital in 1839 when Chicago had a population of 4,200 people. Today, it’s too far out of sight and out of mind for most Illinoisans. We need to move our capital, if not to Chicago, at least closer. Maybe to Morris, the seat of Grundy County, which contains the population center of Illinois — the point at which the state would balance if every resident were of equal weight. 

Sorry, Springfield. You’ll always have Lincoln, but we want to keep a closer eye on our legislators.

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