The national manhunt for the third suspect in April’s violent murder of 7-year-old Jaslyn Adams came to an end Monday in Chicago, federal authorities have confirmed.
Devontay Anderson, 22, was arrested here “without incident,” according to FBI Special Agent Shelley Gryz. Anderson’s arrest came nearly three months after he was charged with Jaslyn’s first-degree murder, records show.
The FBI had offered a reward of as much as $25,000 for information leading to Anderson’s arrest and conviction. But Tuesday, authorities offered little detail about the circumstances surrounding his capture.
Neither the Chicago Police Department nor the Cook County State’s Attorney’s office would immediately comment on Anderson’s arrest, which was first disclosed in a court filing by a federal prosecutor.
The document asked the judge to dismiss the federal unlawful flight case. Finnegan granted the request a short time later.
Devontay AndersonFBI
Two other men, Demond Goudy and Marion Lewis, have also been charged in connection with Jaslyn’s death. Prosecutors have said Lewis was the getaway driver in the shooting but did not fire any of the shots. Both are being held without bail.
A six-page federal complaint filed in April against Anderson said authorities had potentially tracked him to Florida using GPS “ping notifications” from a Facebook account. It also described the aftermath of Jaslyn’s fatal April 18 shooting as discovered by police.
It said officers arrived at a McDonald’s in the 3200 block of West Roosevelt Road and found a 2003 Infiniti sedan “riddled with bullets” in the drive-thru lane. Jaslyn and her father, Jontae Adams, had been in the Infiniti about 4:20 p.m. when two gunmen got out of an Audi and fired into the Infiniti, authorities have said. Jaslyn was killed and her father was wounded.
The complaint also described surveillance video viewed by CPD. It said the Audi had three occupants when it pulled behind the Infiniti.
“Two adult males then exited the Audi,” the complaint said. “One male, later identified by CPD as Anderson, exited the rear passenger side of the Audi brandishing a Draco AK-47 pistol. The other male exited the Audi from the front passenger seat brandishing a Glock pistol. Both men opened fire on the Infiniti, firing dozens of rounds before re-entering the Audi and leaving the scene.”
The federal complaint says Chicago police identified Jaslyn’s father as a known gang member and began to scour social media accounts of rival gang members. It said they discovered an Instagram Live video which linked Anderson to the murder.
A separate public Facebook page connected to Anderson contained corroborating photos, the complaint said.
Twenty-five major league pitchers were in double digits in saves entering play Tuesday. Twenty-four of them only wish they were having as great a season as Craig Kimbrel.
The Cubs closer ranked first among the 25 in WHIP (0.65), strikeouts per nine innings (15.5) and ERA (0.53; no one else was under 1.38) and was second in WAR (2.1 to 2.3) to the Brewers’ Josh Hader.
Why do we all keep talking about pending free agents Kris Bryant, Javy Baez and Anthony Rizzo again? Kimbrel, an eight-time All-Star who’s only 33 and — the real key here — comes with a team option for 2022, is the Cubs player likely to fetch the biggest return in a pre-deadline trade.
With the Red Sox or the A’s?
With the Phillies or the Giants?
With someone else?
Let’s just go with a blanket “yes.”
“The rumors are there, especially being a reliever,” Kimbrel said at the All-Star gathering in Denver. “I’ve been part of a lot of rumors over the years that I’d be traded and all that kind of stuff. I’ve been traded when there weren’t any rumors. So you never know. Just got to be ready for it, show up every day and pitch for the team you’re pitching for.”
“Pitch for the team you’re pitching for”? That’s about as dispassionate-sounding as it gets. Might as well say, “It’s the name on the back of the jersey, not the front.”
But that’s no knock on Kimbrel, who has played for three teams — the Braves, Padres and Red Sox — that have moved on from him despite his elite ability and credentials. This is the man with the ninth-most saves (369) of all time, and it’s not unreasonable to see the top five within his reach by the end of next season. By all the numbers, he is on a Hall of Fame track.
He might as well already be retired, though, as seldom as the Cubs are using him. Who would’ve imagined as Kimbrel put a bow on a combined no-hitter June 24 against the Dodgers that he’d get into only four games — and only one in a save situation — over the next four weeks?
Clearly, the Cubs can lose without his help.
Kimbrel has to be gone.
“It is what it is,” he said. “My job stays the same. I just show up, get ready to pitch every single day and, hopefully, I get a chance to close it out or keep the game tied.
“It’s not my decision. … If a trade comes, it comes. If it doesn’t, let’s win a lot of ballgames and get to the playoffs.”
Playoffs? Are we talking about the same Cubs?
In Denver, I asked him directly: Would you rather stay with the Cubs or be dealt to a team with which you might win your second World Series ring?
“I don’t think the team that I’m on can’t win,” he said. “I think we can still win. We went on a bad roll, but I don’t think that we don’t have what it takes.”
I don’t think he really meant it.
It would take a lot of nerve to take the ninth inning away from this guy.Photo by Jonathan Daniel/Getty Images
JUST SAYIN’
But, wait, Kimbrel to the White Sox?
The Sox need bullpen help, but this isn’t it. Unless you want to be the one to tell Liam Hendriks he’s got the eighth inning now.
o I can’t be the only one who watched Sox manager Tony La Russa hug Gavin Sheets after the rookie’s walk-off homer Monday and thought: That old sonofagun is going to make a few fans out there like him yet.
o Look, let’s just make an agreement: You don’t wake me to watch Wednesday’s 3:30 a.m. live Olympic telecast of the U.S. women’s soccer team’s match against Sweden, and I won’t wake you.
On tape at 7:30 a.m. or again at 5 p.m. is A-OK.
o With seven-footer Kofi Cockburn finally revealing his intention to return to Illinois, good luck finding an Illini fan who hasn’t moved the team right to top of the Big Ten list for next season.
Purdue, Ohio State and Michigan are going to be every bit as dangerous heading in, though. And the Illini have to prove they can function at a high level without engine Ayo Dosunmu — one of the hardest workers the league has seen in a long time — and with a rebuilt coaching staff. First-world problems, though.
o A college football player I know informed me Tuesday that he is now officially a “Barstool Athlete.” Just another part of the new name-image-and-likeness landscape in college sports. Digital-media company Barstool Sports is taking athletes in revenue and non-revenue sports — at all levels — by the thousands.
Did I mention this particular kid is a Division III freshman?
NIL advances: generally good. Barstool: generally hard to feel good about.
Ed “Edmar” Marszewski cofounder of the counterculture zine Lumpen
Wicker Park was known for having one of the highest concentrations of artists in the city. Lots of people who lived there in the ’90s, mostly musicians, had to move out due to high rent. But you still had a lot of independent art spaces, like the notorious Lubinski Furniture building, with four floors of artist-run space and a theater on top run by James Bond. You’d walk around and pick up various fliers people made at CopyMax on Milwaukee.
Liz Mason clerk at Quimby’s Bookstore
I started at Quimby’s in May of 2001. I got the job because I sold my zine here, and I always joke that I harassed the store until they hired me. I remember the bike shop, Rapid Transit, was across the street. They had that overhanging bike out front with a wheel that would spin. You round the corner on Milwaukee Avenue and you’d see the Double Door and Myopic Books.
Cecil Baldwin aspiring actor
I’d just graduated from Bradley University and had moved to Chicago to start working in the theater and got a job at the Daily Grind, which was this coffee shop at the corner of Milwaukee, Damen, and North in the Flat Iron Building. There was a drag queen artist who lived there. She was a doorman for one of the dance clubs around the corner on the weekends.
Justyna Frank cofounder of Rapid Transit Cycle Shop
Part of the gentrification was that Wicker Park gained a sort of celebrity status via various things, like [the 2000 movie] High Fidelity. But the change steamrolled everything. You can’t just destroy what was there without making some people sad, angry, and disenchanted. I remember when the homegrown coffee shops were starting to close and people were saying, “Oh, Starbucks is coming in. What’s next, the Gap?” That was kind of like the worst curse that you could imagine.
Local architect Suhail Butt was tasked with designing the interior of the house for the Chicago cast — or, as he puts it, “elevating the theater of what this could be.” Photography: (Cast) Courtesy Bunim-Murray Productions; (Bar) Suhail Design Studio
Nato Thompson artist
By that time, people figured Wicker Park was already gentrified, but it had a lot further to go. It was the early years of the battles against gentrification in U.S. cities, and I don’t mean to be silly, but it seemed like a battle you could win at the time.
Frank cofounder of Rapid Transit Cycle Shop
Until 2001, 2002, we were kicking hookers off our doorstep literally every Saturday morning, and we had people freebasing under our fire escape in the back of the building. So it wasn’t all warm and fuzzy.
Jose Lopez executive director of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center
The gentrification in Wicker Park really began in the mid-1970s. The white artists moving into the community helped raise the rents. It used to be West Town, but that had a bad reputation — that was a “Puerto Rican community.” So then it starts to be called Wicker Park.
Thompson artist
You know how artists are always telling you neighborhoods are over when they’re really fun? Everyone’s like, “Wicker Park’s over.” But I was like, “OK, guys, but we’re always in Wicker Park, for the record.”
II. “They were looking for a safe bet”
After an exhaustive search in various parts of the city, the team at Bunim/Murray Productions, which produced The Real World for MTV, settled on a spot in Wicker Park that happened to be the former site of Urbus Orbis, the beloved coffeehouse that had closed four years earlier.
Kenny Hull Real World director
We had just completed Real World: New Orleans the season before, and because New Orleans is such an artistic community — interesting, gritty, and beautiful — the visuals were amazing. We wanted to keep that going, and we didn’t want to be in some skyscraper or in some brownstone in Lincoln Park. We found the sweet spot right at that intersection of North Avenue [and Winchester Avenue].
Peter Wilson Real World line producer
We had looked at probably 100 different locations. At one point, we looked at R. Kelly’s old house.
Jon Murray cocreator of The Real World and cofounder of Bunim/Murray Productions
The show had always featured the vitality and excitement of living in a city neighborhood. To some extent, The Real World helped create a desire for young people to live in cities, to get out of small towns, to go to a place where there was more diversity, where they could invent themselves and not feel the pressure of their parents. Wicker Park had all of that.
Anthony Dominici Real World producer
There are seven cast members in the show, and the city is the eighth cast member, right? It’s the landscape, it’s the backdrop that everything is set against.
Rich Moskal director of the Chicago Film Office
They wanted a Chicago look and feel. MTV wasn’t looking to be edgy. They may have said they were looking for something cool and hip, but ultimately, they were looking for a safe bet.
Edward McClelland (then known as Ted Kleine), writer for the Chicago Reader
There were fancy restaurants with valet parking just a step away from the Real World house. They weren’t going to do this in Humboldt Park in 2000, you know?
III. “I had to build something in two months that should have taken six”
Hull Real World director
The build-out is pretty extensive. You have an architect come on. We customize the entire interior. Our goal is to make it unique and different from the previous houses, but also on brand with MTV — what young people would want, kind of a dream house.
Suhail Butt interior designer and architect
The producers of the show had dinner at MOD [a celebrated restaurant in Wicker Park] and asked who designed that space. So they contacted me [about creating the Real World house]. Why wouldn’t I want to do it? I met the producers, who said they were meeting with another Chicago designer. The one they really wanted was Nate Berkus, before he became Oprah’s interior designer for the masses. I remember the last interview we had, he showed up in his Mercedes-Benz, I showed up in my old pickup truck.
Wilson Real World line producer
Suhail was an incredibly talented artist and designed an incredibly unusual space, filled with incredible artwork. The elevator that came up through the bathroom let you see through the aquarium. He had walls that not only curved but were slanted and translucent, so when the builders came, they were confounded.
Butt interior designer and architect
I ended up getting the job because I could build everything, source everything. I was local and down the street and had all these resources available. I wasn’t interested in designing an interior space, I was interested in designing for a television show, elevating the theater of what this could be. When I designed the bathrooms, the producers said, “Can you get two showerheads in there?” “Well, yeah, why?” You knew they were planning on these kids showing up in this new place, seeing a shower with two showerheads and there’s going to be sexual activity.
Wilson Real World line producer
The night before we started filming, Suhail had been up for like two nights straight working, and he was about to kill us. The chairs at the counter were a little too high, you couldn’t fit your leg underneath, so he had to reweld like 10 chairs. I felt horrible for him.
Left: Roughly 300 people protested outside the Real World house on July 21, 2001. Right: Activists created a phony MTV flier to draw people to a previous demonstration.Photography: Courtesy of Josh MacPhee
Butt interior designer and architect
I had to build something in two months that should have taken six months. The project was two floors, 2,000 square feet each — 5,000 square feet total if you count the control room. I had to have furniture, lighting, artwork. And they had no money. They just kept saying, “You’re going to be a big shot.” Wallpaper, furniture, art — I tapped everybody I knew who was edgy and looking to do something cool. I told people there’s no budget, but there’s an opportunity to be associated with Real World.
Wilson Real World line producer
We had that elevator we had to get a temporary permit for. We had a hot tub on the third floor that we had a temporary permit for. We had to get a blanket permit for filming, which was unusual. But the city conformed to our request.
Moskal director of the Chicago Film Office
In terms of a reality show shooting its entire season in Chicago, that was new for us. What we learned in a hurry was that any production, regardless of size, with cast and crew all living under one roof for an extended stay, raises issues that other productions don’t. Zoning codes, building permit concerns, and, what was particularly true in this case, what the community thinks of their new neighbors.
As the set was being built, producers started approaching local businesses to let them know they would be filming in the neighborhood and to ask for permission to shoot in their shops.
Hull Real World director
We’d go down and knock on the doors and explain what we’re doing with a big smile and a “Welcome to our world, we’re coming into yours.” We had a love-hate relationship for a while because people were cautious and wary of us.
Wilson Real World line producer
We said a little bit about what we were filming. We didn’t directly say “Real World,” but we weren’t entirely secretive, so they could probably put the pieces together. We got one or two noes, but for the most part people were pretty open to having the film crew in their business.
Baldwin aspiring actor
Our bosses at Daily Grind came to us and said, “Hey, you perhaps have noticed that they’re setting up. We are one of the few Wicker Park–Bucktown neighborhood businesses that have given them permission to film in our shop. So if you want a job here, here’s a piece of paper saying, yes, you agree to have your likeness presented on MTV.” And I was like, “Sure, why not?”
IV. “The cherry on top of how shitty the neighborhood was becoming”
As July 11 — the first day of primary filming — approached, the producers geared up for the logistics of a 24/7 show, with shifts of camera operators following the cast throughout the house and the city. But the Real World crew quickly realized this season would present new challenges.
Wilson Real World line producer
Before we bring the cast in the house, before the clock starts running, we do a rehearsal the night before. We do it with a stand-in cast. We work out the bugs, and we walk them through as if they’re being introduced to this location for the first time. After the dress rehearsal was completed, there was a murder in the neighborhood, and the bodies were dumped in front of the building. So that night, we couldn’t go out the front door, and it was all cordoned off. It was a crime scene for a day and a half or something.
Bill Savage writer and professor of English at Northwestern University
Do you remember how people found out [the filming] was going on? Two people were shot in the Burger King parking lot on Milwaukee and Wood, which is now a Walgreens. And the police who responded were doing private security for the Real World cast. People were like, “Wait, The Real World is filming here?”
The incident happened just after midnight on July 10. Two men were shot in a car outside that Burger King, which was three blocks from the Real World house. A third passenger drove them to the police officers who were blocking traffic for exterior filming. The two men later died.
Marszewski cofounder of the counterculture zine Lumpen
Rents are going up, now The Real World is here. I remember there was a lot of discussion in the air about them filming here, because it was right down the street from [the Lumpen office]. MTV was still relevant. With this program amplifying the neighborhood, you created a moment of possible oversaturation. The Real World was pretty much the cherry on top of how shitty the neighborhood was becoming, when the entire place is commodified. And it’s when people were fed up. A few of us who were pissed off about it, we started the Free the Real World 7 committee. We’d hang out in a coffee shop, Earwax, Myopic, or Quimby’s, talk about what we were doing, write these ridiculous texts, hang fliers, and print full-page advertorials in the magazine.
Wilson Real World line producer
Mancow, the radio guy, he mobilized some of his fans to come down and protest MTV and our being there. They had attached a white-noise box to a parking meter right in front of the building. And the building was cordoned off after this murder scene investigation was going on, and we couldn’t get rid of the white-noise box because they wouldn’t let us in the area. It was an obnoxious little thing to deal with. You could beat it up as much as you wanted, that thing wouldn’t stop. We had it there for two nights, and then we cut the thing and threw it in the trash.
Erich “Mancow” Muller shock jock at Q101
I started hearing reports about what a rude group of entitled punks they were. The cast treated locals like garbage, like extras in their life stories. While they’re filming in bars, my listeners are being pushed off to the side. It pissed me off, so I said, “Screw ’em, let’s start messing with them.” We called it Fake World on the air, and I said, “Come on, guys, let’s fight back.” I think we started the ball rolling.
Theo Gantt III Real World cast member
I didn’t know a lot about Chicago. I remember hearing about Cabrini-Green from the movie Candyman growing up, right? So Wicker Park, I had no idea. That was an interesting first couple of nights after we moved in, because they didn’t really like us too much.
Marszewski cofounder of the counterculture zine Lumpen
Stores were boycotting. They wouldn’t allow the Real World or Viacom [MTV’s parent company] team to come in and shoot. They’d say “No MTV” in windows on shops up and down Milwaukee.
Mason clerk at Quimby’s Bookstore
It was the mark of coolness whether you said yes or no to filming. Of course we [at Quimby’s] said no.
Mancow shock jock at Q101
MTV sent me some Real World swag, mugs and T-shirts and that kind of thing. I remember throwing them out on air.
During one demonstration, artist and activist Josh MacPhee threw red paint at the front door of the cast’s house. Much of it had been removed by the next day. Photography: (Door) Stephen J. Carrera/ap; (Paint) Courtesy of Josh MacPhee
V. “It was a beautiful chaos”
The filming attracted a coalition of artists and activists who took to the streets in a series of performance protests.
Josh MacPhee artist
Thirty years in, the development train wasn’t getting turned around. None of us had any illusions around that. But because of the public contentiousness around that struggle, there was all this mythic lore from the past, of young Puerto Rican kids jumping across rooftops and throwing bricks down on developers’ cars when they were showing buildings. There was a mythos around the resistance.
Thompson artist
The Department of Space and Land Reclamation [a weekend of anticapitalism protest stunts in Chicago that April] had been this poetic and political project. We were two years past the anti-WTO protests in Seattle. And that moment, called the alter-globalization movement, was very much where we were coming out of — that protest culture.
MacPhee artist
In France, a group of these activists influenced by anarchism and Marxism and art theory occupied a TV station during a reality TV show and became part of the show and used it as a platform to try and dismantle the imagery being projected. There was also a group from the UK trying to free the cast of Big Brother.
Marszewski cofounder of the counterculture zine Lumpen
Making a protest a spectacle in its own right was part of the vibe at the time. There was lots of creativity, like the Tute Bianche in Italy, who would dress up in inflatable outfits and bounce off the police.
MacPhee artist
I remember at a DSLR meeting that someone came in and said their friend was DJ’ing an opening party for the show. And within a week, we rushed out a flier that said “Real World opening party July 14. We want you to be there.” It was printed on a color copier, which at the time looked slick and not homemade, even though it totally was. We added on that 10 people will get chosen to be extras on the show. The goal was to bring out as many people as possible, directly in front of the shooting location of the show, and create an embodied spectacle that would be far more compelling than what was being prepared for TV.
MTV producers commemorated the incident with a T-shirt they gave cast members when production wrapped. Photography: Theo Gantt III
Marszewski cofounder of the counterculture zine Lumpen
It wasn’t like, “We’re protesting The Real World this week.” It was like, “Holy shit, we saw a flier, that’s hilarious.” Dozens of people walked up to the rear door of the Real World house with fliers asking to get in.
MacPhee artist
The first protest we staged [on July 14], we took over the entire block, and the police just left us alone. Maybe a couple people got arrested. People lit fireworks, these militant anarcho-punks from Pilsen came up, it was a bricolage of all these communities coming together. It was a beautiful chaos.
Marszewski cofounder of the counterculture zine Lumpen
There’s a video of me on the first weekend issuing forth political demands: “Take the Blue Line home. Leave your equipment for us so we can make something real with it. We want to take over the means of production.”
Gantt Real World cast member
The biggest thing, man, was them throwing paint on the door. I was just like, “Why did you throw paint?” I would have got it if you tagged it or something. But it was just a random splatter of paint on the door.
MacPhee artist
I threw the paint on the door. The police had penned us in, as sort of a safety valve to let off steam, and a couple of us thought we should up the ante to see what would happen. Someone had brought this cabinet and put it in the middle of the street, and inside of it were a few gallons of paint. So I rushed to the house and threw it at the door. And then the bouncers — MTV security — started beating me up, and then 20 people jumped on them and pulled me out and dragged me away. I was pretty bruised up.
Thompson artist
There were a lot of people who came just for a party. Summer’s the time these things happen, you know what I mean? People are out of school. It’s like, “What are we going to do tonight? That Real World thing seems to be fun.” The first night was just a kind of experiment, and it worked. People enjoyed it. Everyone came away the first night feeling really like a victory had happened.
VI. “We didn’t choose to be in this place”
Scattered demonstrations continued to spring up in front of the cast’s house.
MacPhee artist
We only organized the first protest. Many of the other ones were self-organized. People just wanted to hang out.
Marszewski cofounder of the counterculture zine Lumpen
I was there frequently with megaphones talking shit.
Wilson Real World line producer
They were writing graffiti on our door: “EMPTV,” like it’s a soulless corporate thing messing with our neighborhood.
Aneesa Ferreira Real World cast member
We had bricks thrown at us, people screaming at us the first week. Wow. Our neighbors really hate us.
Wilson Real World line producer
After that brick came through the window, we put chicken wire on the other windows on the ground floor, where the offices and film crew worked, because someone could have gotten hit pretty bad.
Ferreira Real World cast member
They would just shout shit for, like, forever. We’d be in the Jacuzzi. And then you’d just hear it. When are you guys going to stop? Don’t you have anything else to do? Anything?
Marszewski cofounder of the counterculture zine Lumpen
A lot of people would bum-rush the cameras. They would scream at the actors, who were really pissy about it, really angry at the people making fun of them. They’d say we were just jealous, envious we weren’t on the show. It was pretty funny. It’s a shame we didn’t have social media at the time.
Ferreira Real World cast member
We didn’t choose to be in this place. We agreed to be on the show, but we didn’t ask for all of these other things that came with it. We had jobs, but they didn’t pay us a lot. I wish [the protesters] would’ve known. We were also kind of struggling.
Hull Real World director
We had a CPD officer with every crew that left the house. That was new. We didn’t have to do that in any other city before. It was a little more tense, but we couldn’t stop either.
Gantt Real World cast member
I actually never felt like any of the people out there really wanted to harm us, I really didn’t. Maybe that was me being naive, 19 years old, and just excited to be in a new city, but I never felt scared.
Ferreira Real World cast member
It didn’t alter my ability to get to know the neighborhood. I went out on my own all the time. I went across the street to the Local Grind every day. I went to Subterranean. I went to Red Dog. That’s where I met Veronica [her girlfriend during the season].
Dominici Real World producer
As a punk rock kid, I got the ethos of where they’re coming from. Like, “Hey, you’re messing up our neighborhood.” But wait, there’s a Starbucks a block from us. We can’t really be gentrifying a place with a Starbucks in 2001.
McClelland (then known as Ted Kleine), writer for the Chicago Reader
They seemed like a lot of college-educated people playing anarchist in the city. I think they just wanted what the people on MTV wanted: They wanted attention for themselves. It was almost like one faction of young gentrifiers accusing another faction of young gentrifiers of being more responsible.
VII. “A wonderfully stupid, brilliant thing to take on”
Protests hit a fever pitch on July 21 with a demonstration organized by a coalition of various groups. Some 300 clamoring protesters would spill across North Avenue to the front of the house.
Thompson artist
We started getting some news coverage in July, and that really encouraged a kind of energy. I think it became a flash point for people, seeing this as an entertaining but also on-camera way to demonstrate their irritation with what was happening in the neighborhood.
Mason clerk at Quimby’s Bookstore
I remember protesters had somehow blocked off traffic. It almost had the same spirit of Critical Mass, the bike ride thing that would happen on Fridays.
Thompson artist
I was writing with chalk on the ground, “What is real?” Simultaneously, the cast was just losing their minds constantly, occasionally opening the door and yelling something frantic. They kept feeding the beast, and everyone was laughing. But it was kind of going from fun to intense. There were plenty of people there when the cops showed up who were not backing down.
Mason clerk at Quimby’s Bookstore
I remember someone in the building, they must have been a cast member, standing at the window, clearly trying to shout something back. Of course, nobody could hear him. The window was closed, and who’s going to listen? Someone on the street — I thought this was hilarious — someone goes, “We’re going to be here every night!” Of course, they weren’t there every night. The hilarity of it was just, “Really? You’re going to keep this going?”
Thompson artist
We didn’t anticipate the cast having so little personality. They really played into it wonderfully. They were so confused and baffled and hurt, which made it all the more fun. Edmar was screaming, “We are here to deprogram you from your unreality! We have a safe house we will take you to” — or something to that effect.
Marszewski cofounder of the counterculture zine Lumpen
At one point, we tried to “levitate” the building, like the Pentagon in ’67. We clasped hands and encircled the building. There were hundreds of people there.
Hull Real World director
They made a human chain around the house. I think they got tired of doing it.
Savage writer and professor of English at Northwestern University
I went down there with my bicycle. I’m not going to protest, I didn’t give a shit, but to check it out. The DJs with the speakers, the fist shakers, were all on North Avenue. I took the alley, parallel to North, and there’s nobody. The cast and crew that [the demonstrators] think they’re blockading in the building are going out the back doors. My instinct was, This was a display, not strategically thought out.
Thompson artist
I think the cops got the call to just shut it down. And then they leave it to this gang tactical unit. So they grabbed anybody doing anything interesting and arrested them. I was one of the first ones. I was just in shock. They had military-like dudes there. And that’s what kind of freaked me out. I got put in jail, which was fine. It was eight of us. And we were called the Real World 8. It was only overnight. But nothing like a night in jail with some friends to feel like you’re real radicals, you know?
Eric Oswald Chicago police officer (from arrest records of various protesters)
Arrestee knowingly and intentionally obstructed traffic flow after being given previous verbal commands to disperse, in addition to shouting phrases to show displeasure with the complainant’s television show, and doing such actions in such a manner as to alarm and disturb Mr. [Peter] Wilson, thereby breaching the peace.
Thompson artist
My friends all thought it was a waste of time. There was real work happening in neighborhoods, and this was a stupid thing to take on. No, it was a wonderfully stupid, brilliant thing to take on. And it became more clear that it was brilliant because the city’s reaction was so insane and overblown that we clearly touched a nerve.
Marszewski cofounder of the counterculture zine Lumpen
[The demonstrations] definitely died down by the end of summer. It is weird: Who protests a TV show, right?
VIII. “I hope they don’t have a problem with me having to go to trial against MTV”
The arrested protesters — there were 17 in total — faced misdemeanor charges such as disorderly conduct and obstructing a police officer.
Melinda Power defense attorney at West Town Law Office
I’d heard about the show, but I never watched it. I didn’t pay too much attention until the people who got arrested contacted me.
Thompson artist
I had gotten a job as an assistant curator at Mass MoCA [Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art] right after the summer. And I had to fly back for my trial. I’m thinking, I hope they don’t have a problem with me having to go to trial against MTV.
Power defense attorney at West Town Law Office
They wanted to fight the case. Similar to a lot, but not all, protest cases, they weren’t going to face serious consequences, and didn’t have any substantial records. I figured the cases would get thrown out. To the extent there was a clever legal maneuver, it was to say we wanted to go to trial. I think the city simply didn’t want to go to trial. We went to court several times pretrial to talk to the city’s attorneys, and they basically were like, “We don’t want publicity here. Let’s get it over with.”
The charges were dismissed on May 29, 2002. Only one defendant, Ian Helmrich, who claimed the police threw him headfirst against a plexiglass display case and a door, saw his case go to trial. He was found not guilty. In July 2003, 10 of those who had been arrested collectively sued the City of Chicago, Viacom, and MTV, as well as producers Dominici and Wilson, claiming they had acted “both individually, jointly, and in conspiracy” to cause “false arrest, pretrial detention, and malicious prosecution.”
Power defense attorney at West Town Law Office
During the civil suit, my clients were kind of goofy, nice, easygoing, and they had conferences with this formal federal judge. Some of the defendants spoke from the heart about why they did what they did. Unfortunately, one guy said, “Oh, I didn’t have anything to do, so I just went down there.” But the judge actually thought it was pretty funny. And the truth is, in a weird way, that helped the judge see these are not bad people. He said, “Well, I think you guys should get this amount of money.” The case was settled, giving them $50,000 total to split. I think somehow Viacom and MTV conveyed to the city that they didn’t want to go ahead with the case. They thought it would create bad publicity.
Thompson artist
I think everybody at Bunim/Murray was like, “There’s nothing to gain here by continuing with this trial. Fifty thousand dollars to make this go away? No problem.”
IX. “All those people who were mad at us then, look at it now”
The show finished shooting in early November and began airing in January. It made no mention of the protests. The finale, which aired July 9, 2002, just shy of a year after filming started, drew an audience of 5.5 million, the most viewed installment of any season up to that point.
Murray cocreator of The Real World and cofounder of Bunim/Murray Productions
The protests were a local issue. If there had been someone in the cast who got caught up in it, then, yes, we would have shown it.
Hull Real World director
It wasn’t something that we wanted to put forward, honestly. It wasn’t what we were there to show. I think we didn’t want to come off like we were doing anything wrong. When 9/11 happened, we had a whole episode about that because it really affected their lives.
Gantt Real World cast member
They created a shirt for us all. I still have it in my closet. It’s a picture of our front door with the paint they threw.
Dominici Real World producer
The shirt said “We Had a Riot.”
Marszewski cofounder of the counterculture zine Lumpen
It’s kind of great that it happened in our neighborhood, that we were media-savvy enough to understand what it meant and were against this media colonization, corporatization, and surveillance of our lives.
Thompson artist
After 9/11, suddenly it was war on protest culture. It was like the ice age of the Patriot Act came swooping in. A really different mood swept through the country that really put a chill on the activist culture, and the fear of terrorism just ripped through the paradigm around the conversation of gentrification or neoliberalism and everything else.
Butt interior designer and architect
Ultimately, I don’t think I got anything out of it. The producers asked, “Are you interested in working in Las Vegas? That’s the next season.” “Fuck no, I’m not working with you guys anymore.” Funny enough, the lighting designer for the show was hired by Donald Trump for his new show, The Apprentice. He asked me to come to New York and talk to the producers, but I didn’t get the job, which was probably good in hindsight.
Ferreira Real World cast member
I had friends who lived in Chicago. So I went back to Wicker Park a couple years ago, and, I mean, that area is so different. They just built everything up around there. So all those people who were mad at us then, look at it now.
Moskal director of the Chicago Film Office
Whether The Real World did anything to enhance the reputation of Wicker Park, I doubt it. I never felt anything shot in Chicago was out to fully capture Chicago as it truly was. Like they were going to get the real Wicker Park? Man, I don’t even know if Wicker Park knows what the real Wicker Park is.
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A man wanted for months in connection with the fatal April shooting of 7-year-old Jaslyn Adams has been arrested by the FBI, federal prosecutors disclosed today.
Devontay Anderson has been wanted since late April when he was charged with first-degree murder in Cook County Circuit Court, records show. Last month, the FBI announced a $25,000 reward for information leading to his arrest and conviction.
Meanwhile, the feds separately charged Anderson with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution. In a two-page document filed late this morning, Special Assistant U.S. Attorney M. David Habich disclosed the FBI arrested Anderson yesterday in Chicago.
No further details about Anderson’s arrest were contained in the document, which asked a judge to dismiss the federal unlawful flight charge against him. The FBI did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A spokeswoman for Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx told the Sun-Times in an email, “We have no information to provide.”
A complaint filed earlier in the federal case described the Chicago police response to the April 18 shooting at a McDonald’s in the 3200 block of West Roosevelt Road. It said officers found a 2003 Infiniti sedan “riddled with bullets in the drive-thru lane of the restaurant.”
Jaslyn and her father, Jontae Adams, were in the Infiniti about 4:20 p.m. when two gunmen got out of an Audi and fired into the Infiniti, authorities have said. Jaslyn was killed and her father was wounded.
As a youth intervention specialist and football coach in Chicago Public Schools, Anthony Dotson has heard some hard-luck stories.
But he also can tell a few of his own.
Dotson, who became Chicago Academy’s head coach this spring after two seasons as an assistant, grew up in Bronzeville and played on Troy McAllister’s first team at Phillips as a senior.
He was good enough on the field to earn scholarship offers from Eastern Kentucky and Division II Truman State, but struggled off the field to take advantage of those opportunities.
Chicago Academy coach Anthony Dotson instructs QB Earnest Davis on how to pass to his receivers during football practice in Chicago, Thursday, July 15, 2021.Kevin Tanaka/For the Sun-Times
After bouncing between schools, Dotson earned a bachelor’s in sports management from Livingstone College in 2015.
Back in Chicago again, Dotson landed a job at a fitness club. But it didn’t work out and for two months in 2017, he said, he was homeless and sleeping in his car.
But finally, his luck turned when he was hired as a security officer in CPS. Five months later, he was promoted to youth intervention specialist. That means working with kids to make sure small problems don’t become big ones.
At Chicago Academy, Dotson intends to end the revolving door of coaches and to build a successful program.
“My everyday motivation,” he said, “is to be a better partner, father, son, friend, mentor and coach.”
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Reply to this email (please include your first name and where you live) and we might feature your answer in the next Afternoon Edition.
Yesterday, we asked you: How interested are you in this year’s Summer Olympics? Here’s what some of you said…
“Not much. I wish the best for them and hope they can stay safe and virus free, but my attention is elsewhere.” — Carmie Daugird Callobre
“Very interested! The athletes deserve our support.” — Mary L. Fleming
“They never should have opened this year. Too many sick people.” — Mable Banks Green
“I always look forward to watching the Olympics. I’m excited they brought back softball this year. I hope all the athletes stay healthy amid the coronavirus still spreading. They all have trained so hard to make it to the Olympics and wish them all the best!” — Carrie Taylor Carlson
“Zero interest. Haven’t enjoyed the Olympics since they went all professional. The amateurs were more fun to watch.” — Dee Sanders
“Very! However, it really won’t be the same as other Olympic Games. COVID has made this clear.” — Susie Rich Novak
“I really think it should be canceled for the health of the athletes’ families and everybody around them.” — Edgar Valencia
“Less than zero.” — Jo Ann Cornale Burns
“Interested. Feel bad for the athletes who trained so long and put their life on hold to try again. Also, I feel bad for Japan and the immense amount of money they are losing on these Olympics without spectators. Sad all the way around. Go U.S.A.” — Carol Wortel
“I’m more interested in what COVID is going to do there. It really concerns me.” — Flo Vitale Valley
“Interested it beats watching Maury or some Oprah show for two weeks.” — Vickie Scotti
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It was the last meeting of our two-year journey as the Chicago Community, Media & Research Partnership — a task force of researchers, community groups and journalists discoursing best practices for disseminating research that can reduce health inequities.
Candace Henley, founder and executive director of the Blue Hat Foundation, a group promoting colorectal cancer awareness, stunned us at the start of the meeting.
Her 27-year-old nephew, Joseph Barbee, fell victim to Chicago’s 2021 gun violence bloodbath 2 1/2 hours earlier, killed in the middle of the street, at mid-afternoon, in the Auburn Gresham community, one of the deadliest in the city.
It was Henley who got the phone call with the gut-wrenching wails of a mother who had just lost her son.
Henley was angry. At her family’s loss. At unfathomable gun violence that has claimed at least 404 lives in 2,273 shootings this year, according to statistics compiled by the Chicago Sun-Times.
More than anything, though, she was angry that no one, not one soul out there when the shooting happened, would tell police what they saw.
“Joseph’s sister was inside the house and heard gunshots, looked out the window and saw him on the ground. When she called my sister, she said paramedics were working on him, but he wasn’t moving. We high-tailed it to Christ Hospital,” said Henley.
The father of two sons, ages 1 and 5, was pronounced dead by the time the sisters got there.
Candace Henley, founder and executive director of the Blue Hat FoundationProvided
“My nephew was a loving soul. He was not perfect, and his mom will tell you that. She’s not one of those parents. But society has dehumanized our children in this violence,” she said.
“Joseph was loved. He was somebody’s child, somebody’s brother, somebody’s nephew.
“We still don’t know why this happened. The police haven’t told us much, but a neighborhood gossips. We’ve heard all kinds of stories, yet no one has told police that they saw anything. Let me say to any mother, ‘If you think this can’t happen to you, think again.’ “
It brought back memories of the murder of her own father, Joseph Barbee, for whom her nephew was named. Henley was 19 when her father was beaten to death in a street robbery on the West Side where she grew up.
A 19-year survivor of colon cancer, Henley has made it her life’s work to battle racial and socioeconomic health inequities characteristic of that disease and so many others.
“Joseph was somebody’s child, somebody’s brother, somebody’s nephew,” said Candace Henley of her nephew Joseph Barbee (far right). From left, his stepfather, James Tucker; mother, Nicole Barbee Tucker; grandmother Kathy Barbee Morris; sister Zoraya Logan; and aunt Sharon Porter.Provided
Long recognized as a public health crisis, gun violence poses greater risk of mortality for low-income communities of color — fueled by the same structural racism that helped COVID-19 wreak disparate death and infection rates upon South and West side communities held hostage to gangs and guns.
African Americans make up 82% of Chicago’s gun deaths; Hispanics, 12%; nine of every 10 killed are male.
“Joseph was very talented. My father was a wonderful artist, and my nephew was talented the same way. He could really draw. He was highly intelligent, especially in math. He could calculate numbers off the top of his head. A brilliant life that didn’t have a chance, because he didn’t have resources,” said Henley.
“The economic downfall perpetrated on our communities, the removal of community centers, arts and sports programs that were available when we were kids — when they removed those things, they got exactly what they knew they were going to get: chaos.
“You now have all these kids with all this talent and energy and nowhere to take it but the streets. And the streets will welcome them any day. This is not rocket science,” she lamented.
Joseph Barbee, 27, was killed July 15. The father of two is seen here with his son Javari and sister Zoraya Logan.Provided
We spent a huge portion of that task force meeting reflecting on similar impacts of gun violence and COVID-19 on disadvantaged communities, and the need to ensure research with potential to reduce inequities gets to those communities via trusted communicators.
On Monday, when I checked in on her, Henley and her family were just returning from the morgue and the mournful task of identifying her nephew’s body. It was a difficult day.
“They showed her the original photos. So we saw the trauma he endured,” said Henley.
“We now begin funeral arrangements, and the wait for police to complete their investigation, hoping someone will come forward to share who did this,” Henley said.
“I’m angry, not just because gun violence has hit home, but because it’s another shooting in our community where no one saw or says anything. I’m sick of watching the news and seeing members of the community mad at the police, the mayor and everybody else.
“What are you doing? You can’t have it both ways,” she said. “If you want the violence to stop, We have to do our part. If you don’t step up and say what’s happening in the community, how can they help change it? We live here. They don’t. Tell what you know.”
Yes, there are marvelous athletes at the Olympic games, but how would they fare walking from the LaSalle Street Metra Station to the Merchandise Mart on a January day in Chicago?
I’m talking rush hour. Ice on the streets. Ice falling from skyscrapers. Bikers traveling 30 mph on sidewalks. Cabdrivers turning on red.
Could Olympians jump over a panhandler on a street corner while avoiding contact with a businesswoman dragging a piece of carry-on luggage behind her like a semitrailer?
And could they hold their ground in front of a mob waiting for the “walk” light at a street corner to change without being shoved in front of a CTA bus splashing through three inches of slush?
There are no gold medals for such achievements, although before COVID you could see people performing such feats on most city streets five days a week, 52 weeks a year.
Throw in the tourists from out-of-town ogling at some piece of Chicago architecture and it would be like a track star forced to weave around statues during a meet.
I do not minimize the talents of Simone Biles. She is a marvel. Superhuman. An artist. Tough as they come.
But is there any event at the Olympic Games that could compare to a 10-year-old walking to and from school every day in Chicago as bullets whiz by his head?
And then there is the Mad Max event of driving the expressway system.
It used to be life and death trying to avoid the motorists cutting in and out of bumper-to- bumper traffic at 80 mph. But the difficulty level wasn’t considered great enough, especially for suburbanites who had it way too easy.
So random gunfire was added to the event.
At any moment on I-57, I-55, or Lake Shore Drive, someone could pull up next to your car and unleash a spray of bullets. Stay in your lane buddy. Maintain the proper distance between you and the car in front of you. Don’t hit any of the road repair workers or the police officers recovering shell casings up ahead. That’s an event fit for athletic gods.
Do you really want to talk to me how difficult it is living in the Olympic Village this year?
We have seen ordinary folks in lockdown for weeks in hospitals while they were denied contact with family and friends. Some were placed on ventilators not knowing if they would ever be released.
Did they get any awards if they came out alive? Sure. They got to breathe. To hug their grandchildren. To see the sun one more time.
It takes terrific mental courage to be an Olympian. Discipline. Commitment.
Well, I got to tell you that the average nurse, doctor, or paramedic working during the pandemic gets a perfect 10 from me every time. And after a hard day saving lives, they must go home and hear relatives complain that they were asked to wear masks at the grocery store or urged to get a vaccination shot by the governor. That takes mental toughness.
A weekly overview of opinions, analysis and commentary on issues affecting Chicago, Illinois and our nation by outside contributors, Sun-Times readers and the CST Editorial Board.
As I watch the Olympic skateboarders soar through the air, spin, somersault and somehow return safely to their boards at speeds of close to 100 mph, I will also be thinking of the 70- and 80-year-olds I saw at Walmart last year.
There was one package of toilet paper left on an empty shelf when from opposite directions an elderly man on a walker and a woman pushing a shopping cart came whooshing down the aisle and leaping through the air simultaneously to squeeze the Charmin.
I swear the old fellow left the tennis balls on his walker spinning and returned before they could stop.
It is with that background that I will sit on my couch and watch these 2021 Olympic athletes. My standards are higher than ever before.
The show begins before you enter the theater lobby on the 14th floor of the Cambria Hotel, before the costumed attendants greet you just past the revolving door at the northeast corner of Randolph and Dearborn and usher you into the elevator, before you step off or out of your preferred mode of transport and into the entropic eddies that are the awkward traffic of humans and cars learning to move en masse again, where some shop and some shout and some gawp agape across the street from–yes–street performers on trumpets outside the Macy’s. Check the mirror before you go out, because the show begins with you, and this is the last time you’ll ever not be at the first show to open in the Chicago Loop since early 2020. Will lipstick survive a bus ride under a mask? I have done the research, and the answer is yes.
The state of the lobby is an amuse-bouche of the glitz and kitsch that await you this evening: chandeliers drip with blinding prisms, reproductions and imitations of Postimpressionist art blare. You can sit on a sequined slice of the moon and have your photo taken–a few writers in compliance with the suggested “festive” attire (for research purposes only) might not have been too cool for it this one time. We’re going back to the theater, and we’re breaking out our best beads.
If you didn’t bring your own tiara, you can buy one. If you need a beverage immediately, you can buy one of those, too (if you’re on a budget yet must imbibe, pack a flask. You didn’t hear that here). The immaculate restrooms operate with the same efficiency as the elevators: you may have to wait a minute but the line keeps moving. In the meantime, behold the novelty of other faces, three-dimensional and strange, or your own among them, in the myriad mirrors on the wall.
Once inside the tent, the lights are red, and the tables are close. Everything is shining–the art deco glass, the mirrors, the disco ball (why not?). Everyone gets their own little dish of hummus and olives. The salt is centering.
When the action begins, your eye will wander. Dancer Mickael Bajazet has you from the moment he strikes up the band–every impish expression compels with sweetness. But before you get too comfortable, a bit of slapstick starts up between a custodian (Oliver Parkinson) and a maid (Cassie Cutler). Take note: they are unusually lean and muscular. This is called foreshadowing.
“I missed the look of you–the smell of you–the group spooning,” croons The Caesar (Frank Ferrante), your host with a little too much of the most. The Caesar’s hair gleams. The Caesar perspires profusely. The Caesar is quick with improvised lines and quicker to demand applause. The Caesar commands hapless audience members to the stage. Introverts who have not already perished from general overstimulation will wither forthwith.
But regardless of your perspective on compulsory audience participation, humiliation brings your fellow theatergoer into full relief–and who are we here for, if not each other? (On this day, Matt, who manages gyms. Alexa, actually a real person. Patrick, who sells rope. James, an engineer. James, a data analyst. Joyce, who graduated from Farragut High School in 1951. Whatever mnemonic devices The Caesar is using, they stick.) “We are here!” he shouts–and in the colored light of the specials, you can actually see what we’ve been thinking about all these months–fine droplets streaming through the air, the toxic haze we all exhale. Like it or not, tonight’s the night we find out if our vaccines really work.
The introduction of a bedazzled mummy case sets the tone for the rest of the night, Vegas in the midwest, with a relationship to authenticity like the Caesar salad has to the Roman Republic–tasty if you don’t think about it as anything beyond a pop culture legend of a love triangle with a sexy queen. For she is here with us, Cleopatra (Storm Marrero), with a big voice and a costume to match (designed by Zane Pihlstrom), often in duet with Cunio–together they are fearless, unstoppable, glittering like a planetarium.
Cleopatra and Caesar need their Mark Antony, here played by clown and codirector Joe De Paul who can only be described as inhabiting a zone between disarming and perturbing, an ordinary guy off the street until he isn’t.
The greatest treats of the evening are also its greatest feats–dance and acrobatics by Duo 19 (Parkinson and Cutler), Bajazet and Vita Radionova, and Lea Hinz–performed at such close range, you can see every supple muscle quiver and track the calculations of coordination. Impossible distillations of physics, ingenuity, and craft keep bodies hovering between flight and fall–exquisite illustrations of trust in humans and human invention, radiant, perilous, tilting extravagantly on the edge of folly, mastery of this moment. (Between the acts, these same performers bring you plates. They pepper your food. They pour your water. It’s not new but still needed: a reminder of the life of service that many artists lead.)
Yet perhaps the greatest pleasures of the program refer to the sense of togetherness we can experience beyond the boundaries of the theater–the energy of others, a slow dance, a kiss on the cheek. Life is theater, theater is life. We are here. v
Former Chicago police-officer-turned-alderman Anthony Napolitano has long accused State’s Attorney Kim Foxx of being soft on crime and functioning “more like a defense attorney” than a prosecutor of violent crime.
At Wednesday’s City Council meeting, Napolitano plans to introduce what he calls the “Chicago Criminal Accountability Ordinance.”
It would take a series of crimes normally prosecuted by the state’s attorney’s office and divert them to city hearing officers who process administrative notices of violation.
The crimes range from “looting and mob actions,” vandalism, possession of etching materials, paint and other markers used for graffiti to unlawful possession of a firearm and firearms ammunition and offenses committed in “public transportation safety zones” or near schools, parks and playgrounds.
City hearing officers would be empowered to impose fines up to $30,000 for those offenses; all money would be earmarked for Chicago’s skyrocketing pension obligations. Violators could also be forced to serve up to six months in Cook County Jail.
Napolitano has served the city as both a police officer and a firefighter. His far Northwest Side ward is home to scores of Chicago Police officers who are constantly sending him videos and photos of the “lawlessness” on Chicago streets.
“Destroying property. Looting stores. … It’s happening every weekend. The wildings downtown right now where you have a mob of about 30 kids standing around beating people up on the corners, taking phones and purses in broad daylight,” Napolitano said.
“Every week, there’s another police vehicle or fire vehicle or city vehicle being destroyed by wildings…We’ve got four-wheelers and motorcycle on sidewalks on Michigan Avenue riding around. If you drive down the Kennedy Expressway, the entire city is covered in graffiti. I’ve never seen anything this bad before. … We’re a lawless city right now.”
Napolitano said the cops he represents are so demoralized by the “revolving door” at the state’s attorney’s office, they’re saying, “Why lock anybody up? They’re out on the street the next day or in a couple of hours.”
“If our state’s attorney is not going to stand up and be the defender of the people because she’s a defense attorney, we’re gonna take matters into our own hands. It’s not gonna go in front of her, where she just tosses everything, puts people on ankle monitors and puts everybody back on the street,” Napolitano said.
Foxx reacted angrily to the oft-repeated suggestion that she is soft on crime. So much so that she accused Napolitano of the fanning the flames of racial tension in Chicago.
“Phrases like ‘wilding’ are dog whistles that perpetuate racist attitudes and behavior in our criminal justice system. To be honest, I am not surprised by his language or motivation — as this is the same elected official who protested alongside the FOP and QAnon at my office nearly two years ago,” Foxx said in a prepared statement.
“My office has worked hard to establish trust and legitimacy with our Black and Brown communities. Right now, I will continue to use our resources to tackle violent crime and prioritize the safety of every Cook County resident.”
The Foxx statement continued: “As State’s Attorney I am focused on violent crime. Meanwhile, the alderman is focusing on low-level offenses. If the alderman was truly serious about addressing crime, he would follow the data from our most recent study. None of the policies he is recommending support this data.”
Accompanying Foxx’s statement was a fact sheet asserting that Foxx has “secured over 2,700 more convictions related to violent felony offenses than her predecessor,” Anita Alvarez, did “in the last three years of her tenure.”
“These violent and most serious offenses include cases of gun violence, homicide, sex crimes, aggravated battery, violence against police officers, robbery, domestic battery and kidnapping,” the fact sheets states.
“These cases represent 28 percent of the cases prosecuted by the Cook County State’s attorney’s office. The conviction rate on these cases has increased by 81 to 83 percent under the Foxx administration.”
It’s not the first time that Foxx has been accused of going too easy on criminals wreaking havoc on Chicago streets.
Last summer, Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown accused Cook County prosecutors of being soft on looters who were arrested after the death of George Floyd in late May and early June, setting the stage for a second round of destruction in early August.
Foxx accused the mayor and Brown of “over-simplifying” the issue, adding, “The notion that people believe that they are somehow empowered because people were not prosecuted is simply not true.”
A man is charged in connection with a fatal shooting Sunday in Austin on the West Side.
Antonio Cole, 23, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of 30-year-old Roland Hill, Chicago police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office said.
Hill was on a motorcycle about 1 p.m. when he stopped at an intersection in the 4900 block of West Chicago Avenue and a vehicle pulled up alongside, police said.
Someone inside the vehicle fired shots, striking Hill in the buttocks and abdomen, police said. He was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 1:34 p.m.
Cole, of Austin, was arrested less than 30 minutes after the shooting in the 200 block of North Laramie Avenue, police said.
Chicago rapper Herbert Wright III, better known as G Herbo, has become the kind of public figure whose smallest social media movement is fodder for the content mill. When Herb’s girlfriend, Taina Williams, recently blocked him on Instagram, the nonevent inspired blog posts at Complex, HotNewHipHop, and Bossip. Thankfully, whatever strains and pressures come with this level of celebrity don’t seem to have impacted Herb’s music. On his latest album, 25 (Machine Entertainment Group/Republic), he’s still doing what launched him to fame in the first place: dispensing vivid, complex verses about growing up in a neighborhood beset by gun violence that also express deep empathy for survivors, victims, and bystanders. His lived experience gives him the perspective to do that with a great deal more care than outsiders who use Chicago shooting statistics to defend the status quo while neglecting neighborhoods in need. (He addresses the harm done to communities of color by inequities in tangible resources on “Demands.”) One of Herb’s gifts is his ability to open up a world in just a few seconds. I’ve been thinking a lot about two solemn lines from an interlude on “Cold World”: “I ain’t know the world was cold when saw a murder at nine / Still thought I was fine, no wonder I play with cap guns all the time.” He reflects on his own trauma gingerly while implying his gratitude for the support network he’s built to provide a better life for his children. And he does it with his love for Chicago on his sleeve: you can hear it not just in the brazen drill beats that power much of his music but also in the hiccuping percussion on “Cold World,” which anyone who’s felt the bass rattle their rib cage at a footwork battle knows intimately. v
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