Moon Alert

After 3:30 a.m. Chicago time, there are no restrictions to shopping or important decisions. The moon is in Virgo.

Aries (March 21-April 19)

Today you want to have fun! Enjoy playful activities with kids, sports events, social outings, long lunches, mini vacations and anything to do with the arts. Romance will flourish, and this is the perfect day for a date. You might also make plans for a vacation.

Taurus (April 20-May 20)

This is a lovely day to entertain at home and enjoy the company of family and friends. You might also want to explore redecorating or doing something to make your home more beautiful. Real estate negotiations will go well because people will be cooperative.

Gemini (May 21-June 20)

You will enjoy schmoozing with others, especially siblings, relatives and neighbors. This is a lovely day to meet new people and make new contacts. You are in such a positive mood, you will see the beauty of your daily surroundings with fresh, appreciative eyes. A fun day!

Cancer (June 21-July 22)

This is an excellent day for business and commerce. Look for ways to boost your income. Explore financial negotiations, which will favor you. In fact, keep your pockets open because gifts and goodies can come your way. If shopping, you will buy beautiful things for yourself and loved ones.

Leo (July 23-Aug. 22)

This is a powerful day for you because the moon, Venus and Mars are all in Leo. People will be attracted to you! Meanwhile, you can ask the universe for a favor because things will likely turn out your way. (You’ll charm everyone you meet!) Today you run the meeting.

Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)

Solitude in beautiful surroundings will appeal to you today. Although this is a popular time for you and you’ve been involved with younger people, today you need a breather, which is why you need a quiet place to regroup and pull your act together. Pamper yourself.

Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)

Great day to schmooze with others! You will enjoy hanging out with friends or interacting with clubs, groups and associations. Interactions with artistic people will please you. You might also be in competition with a group? Good day to share your goals for the future with someone.

Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)

People are impressed with you, especially bosses, parents, teachers and the police. You look good to them, and you’re willing to take charge in a diplomatic way. Because you are high visibility, people are talking about you today. Fortunately, they’re saying good things.

Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 21)

Do something different today because you want adventure and stimulation! If you can travel, that would be perfect. If you can’t travel, go somewhere you haven’t been before. You will also love to hear new ideas and learn new things. Romance with someone “different” might begin.

Capricorn (Dec. 22-Jan. 19)

This is an excellent day to negotiate anything to do with shared property, insurance disputes and inheritances because you’ll come out smelling like a rose. People will defer to you even if there is a dispute. Meanwhile, enjoy the discovery of a new place.

Aquarius (Jan. 20-Feb. 18)

Relations with close friends and partners are warm and rewarding today. Nevertheless, ideally, you must cooperate and be prepared to go more than halfway. If you do this, everything will be smooth and pleasing.

Pisces (Feb. 19-March 20)

Although this has been a playful week for you, today you’re keen to work hard and get things done. This you will do with diplomacy and charm, which is why others will help you. Nevertheless, you might have to work on behalf of someone else today.

If Your Birthday Is Today

Chef/humanitarian Jose Andres (1969) shares your birthday. You are hard-working, disciplined, focused and have a strong sense of duty. And yet, you can be rebellious. You also have an oddball sense of humor. This year you are the truth seeker. You want to understand the wisdom, which is why you will welcome more solitude and quiet time into your life. This is definitely a year of learning and teaching.

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Officers responded to reports of shots fired about 10:40 p.m. in the 6000 block of South Racine Avenue and found the 35-year-old with multiple gunshot wounds in the street, police said.

By

Sun-Times Wire

Jul 12, 2021, 11:41pm CDT

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DENVER — It should have been one of the White Sox’ big guns. Lance Lynn or Carlos Rodon would’ve fit the bill of American League All-Star starting pitcher quite well.

One supposes a pretty solid case could have been made for the Yankees’ Gerrit Cole or the Rangers’ Kyle Gibson.

But Shohei Ohtani? The Angels’ two-way rock star who’s here both as a hitter and as a pitcher — insert obligatory pause to appreciate this amazing feat — even though his numbers on the mound pale by comparison with those of the other starters on the AL roster?

As Lynn told the Sun-Times heading into the All-Star break, for AL manager Kevin Cash to give the ball to Ohtani first wouldn’t be the ”best [choice] among the players.”

”There are quite a few people who’ve had better first halves, for sure,” Lynn said.

Or, as Rodon put it Monday: ”If we’re going to go off who’s the best pitcher, I think the most deserving would be Lance, probably. And I wish it was.”

But this is where we need to pause again because both pitchers understand why the Shohei Show must go on. It’s not just that the baseball world is in awe of the first player to be selected as both a position player (designated hitter, in Ohtani’s case) and a pitcher. It’s not just Major League Baseball trying to capitalize on a player’s off-the-charts popularity. It’s that Ohtani actually needs to pull off doing it all at Coors Field — from the Home Run Derby on Monday to double duty Tuesday — and that’s no joke.

It’s a lot, and Cash — after multiple consultations with Angels manager Joe Maddon — came to the decision that he wasn’t going to ask Ohtani to do something he never had done before. Starting on the mound and taking his turns at bat in the same game, he has done. For the All-Star Game, MLB has tweaked its rules and will allow Ohtani to remain in the game at DH after he pitches.

”I felt like I threw my name in the hat to have that opportunity,” Lynn said Monday. ”But with what [Ohtani] is doing and what he’s capable of, and you look at how the game is going to flow, it would’ve been tough for him to go get loose down in the bullpen and then come out somewhere in the middle of the game.”

Exactly.

Oh, but also?

”This is what the fans want to see,” Cash said. ”Personally, it’s what I want to see.”

Yes, it might be what everyone not named Lynn, Rodon or Joe Sox Fan wants to see.

”I think it’s great for the game,” Rodon said. ”He’s a joy to watch. A great, great hitter, and it’s unbelievable that he can do it on the mound, too. . . .

”If you look at it from MLB’s aspect, it’s best that Ohtani starts now. Do I agree with it? Maybe not. I would like, obviously, my teammate to start the game, but I understand what they’re trying to do. And it’s not like he’s not still a great pitcher.”

Wait a minute, what’s with Rodon siding with Lynn’s candidacy over his own? Some of us have looked at their numbers a good dozen times and still can’t figure out who had a better first half. And only one of them — not Lynn — put a no-hitter into the mix.

To Rodon, it’s Lynn’s age — at 34, six years older than his rotation mate — that should break a tie.

”I think he’s just scared of me,” Lynn said. ”I think he just wants it to be known that he rooted for me.”

Now that’s funny.

”But, no,” Lynn said, ”we both had great first halves, and we’ve both been pulling for each other.”

This time, they’ll pull for each other from the bullpen.

Read More

DENVER — Pack a suitcase and go. Like, immediately.

That’s all any major leaguer who is traded in-season can do. That’s all Kris Bryant will get to do if he’s dealt by the Cubs before the July 30 trade deadline. And that won’t sit well with a sentimental superstar who deserves, if nothing else, time for proper goodbyes.

“I would be lying if I said I didn’t think about that,” he said. “I’ve thought about it just because of the rumors that are out there.”

Rumors? They’re more than rumors. The below-.500 Cubs have some heavy-hitter pending free agents in their lineup, and Bryant, 29, is the biggest name in the bunch. He sat in full uniform Monday at a media event on a promenade across the street from Coors Field and faced hardly any questions about the fourth All-Star Game appearance he’ll make Tuesday. Instead, he baked in 90-degree heat and addressed the end that likely is coming.

Chances are, during those 45 minutes, Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer spoke with at least one potential trade partner about the former MVP. That’s just cold, hard reality.

“I don’t know what will happen,” Bryant said. “If it does happen, whatever team I do go to is going to get a guy that’s going to go out there and give it all he’s got, play wherever they need me to play, be a good person and good teammate and [just] play baseball. That’s all I can do.”

What he won’t be able to do is meet such a weighty moment with fitting goodbyes to teammates, to fans, to Wrigley Field, to Chicago — the place where he says he “grew up.”

“I look at pictures from 2015 to now and I’m like, ‘Man, I’m such a different person,’ ” he said. “And I’m proud of the person I’ve become wearing this uniform.”

The person he has always been isn’t the pack-up-and-scram type. The abruptness of an in-season trade just isn’t his speed or style. Goodbye? That might be the biggest, hardest word of them all. So why wait?

Bryant isn’t.

“Whenever my time is done playing for the Cubs, whether I retire here or not, I certainly hope to go out with just representing who I am, just a good person, and with class, keeping my head high,” he said. “And realizing whether it’s one World Series or four or five more, whatever we did here was special. When I’m done playing this game, I can look back on however long I spent in this uniform and be very proud of it.”

When Bryant was a rookie in 2015 and making a splash so big he’d win Rookie of the Year, veterans would tell him things would only get easier from there. And they did in 2016, when he was MVP and the Cubs busted all their ghosts. Bryant was arguably even better in 2017, but we would all agree his ascent as a hitter hasn’t continued in the time since.

What ramped up instead was criticism — mostly by fans of the team — of his physical toughness, his mental toughness, his performance in the clutch. Nobody picks nits quite like spoiled fans on social media.

“It really doesn’t get easier,” he said. “Because you have a good year, you have a couple of good years, then there’s expectations. You win a World Series, then there’s more expectations and you keep [trying to] climb that mountaintop. And it’s not going to get easier. You just find better ways to handle the expectations, and I think that’s where I’m at.”

The Bryant of a few years back was stung by criticism and had a hard time getting un-stung. By the end of the abbreviated 2020 campaign — a miserable one for Bryant — he was done with all that. As he famously put it after the playoff loss to the Marlins, “I don’t give a [expletive].”

If being hurt by criticism is at one end of the scale and not giving a blank is at the other, Bryant figures he isn’t even on the scale anymore.

“I’m just at a different point of life where I feel I’m a little more mature and things don’t get to me as much,” he said.

Instead, he is lightening his own load. Appreciating his accomplishments rather than beating himself up. Looking forward to his future while savoring all the Cubs moments he has left.

“At the end of the day,” he said, “if you get traded, you get traded. If you don’t, I’m with an unbelievable organization still, a city and team that has meant so much to me, so I’m in a good spot. And I’m playing baseball for a living and having a great time doing it. I’m at the All-Star Game right now for a fourth time. If you told me this when I was getting drafted — if you told me I’d make it one time — I would’ve been unbelievably proud.”

He might not have believed the end of his Cubs journey would be staring him in the face, too.

If there’s one thing he’d like everyone to know before it’s too late, what is it?

A pause. A wave of sentiment. A glance down at his jersey.

“Any time I put the pinstripes on,” he said, “it’s a huge honor for me.”

Read More

DENVER — White Sox pitcher Carlos Rodon watched Angels megastar Shohei Ohtani stroll past Monday on a promenade near Coors Field, shook his head and let out a little laugh.

“He’s built like a Greek god,” Rodon said.

That was one of the tamer compliments paid to Ohtani — major league home-run leader and American League starting pitcher — on All-Star media day.

Babe Ruth comparisons, anyone? There were a lot of those flying around. The Babe knew his way around a pitcher’s mound, too, you know.

“He’s a legendary figure,” Ohtani said through a translator. “It’s a huge honor to be compared to somebody like that. All I can do is try my best.”

Ohtani isn’t the only rock-star player here, but he owned all the buzz heading into Monday’s Home Run Derby. Never has a player been selected to an All-Star roster as both a position player and a pitcher. But letting it fly in the Derby, too? The size of the undertaking — all season long, really — is what impresses his peers most.

“The demands that are on your body to be a pitcher are intense, to say the least, and I can definitely speak to that,” said National League starter Max Scherzer. “So to be able to shoulder those workloads and also be able to hit as well, that’s just absolutely incredible.”

It probably worked out for the best for Ohtani that — despite leaving the yard 28 times — he was knocked off by the Nationals’ Juan Soto in an epic first-round bout that ended in a three-pitch “swing-off.” Ohtani has a second half of the season to contend with, after all.

The Mets’ Pete Alonso won the event with his 23rd homer of the final round against the Orioles’ Trey Mancini.

“I’m expecting to be pretty fatigued and exhausted after these two days,” Ohtani said, “but there are a lot of people who want to watch it and I want to make those guys happy.”

No brains, no problem

The Nationals’ Scherzer will make his fourth All-Star start, joining Hall-of-Famers Don Drysdale, Lefty Gomez and Robin Roberts (five apiece) and Jim Palmer and Randy Johnson (four each) as the only pitchers with at least that many.

“On every level for me, [picking him] was a no-brainer,” NL manager Dave Roberts said.

Contreras flap, continued

Cubs All-Stars Kris Bryant and Craig Kimbrel responded to catcher Willson Contreras‘ harsh words Saturday about the team’s effort and focus levels heading into the break.

“He wasn’t pointing fingers at anybody,” Kimbrel said. “I think it was just frustration at how we’re playing as a team.”

Bryant’s reaction was a bit more defensive.

“I just know that any time I wake up in the morning, baseball’s on my mind, the game’s on my mind, the pitcher’s on my mind, my approach is on my mind,” he said. “I never go into a game not ready to play. So I take this very seriously.”

Game Hen

How much does Sox closer Liam Hendriks like to punch the clock and get a game shift in? Enough so that he got in AL manager Kevin Cash‘s ear in hopes of making sure he gets an inning.

“I just want the phone to ring and hear my name called,” he said. “Whatever inning, whatever role, whatever, I just want to play.

“It’s part and parcel [of] that old-school mentality. I don’t want to take days off. If you start taking days off, you get complacent. And if you get complacent, that’ll be the end of you.”

Read More

ESPN personality Stephen A. Smith has issued an apology and admitted he “screwed up” with his comments earlier in the day about Japanese baseball star Shohei Ohtani and his impact on the popularity of Major League Baseball.

“As an African-American, keenly aware of the damage stereotyping has done to many in this country, it should have elevated my sensitivities even more,” Smith wrote in a statement posted to social media.

“Based on my words, I failed in that regard and it’s on me and me alone! Ohtani is one of the brightest stars in all of sports. He is making a difference, as it pertains to inclusiveness and leadership. I should have embraced that in my comments. Instead, I screwed up.”

On ESPN’s “First Take” program Monday morning, Smith said that baseball’s home run leader not speaking English presents a problem for MLB from a marketing standpoint.

“I don’t think it helps that the No. 1 face is a dude that needs an interpreter so you can understand what the hell he’s saying,” he said.

After a storm of criticism, Smith tried to clarify his remarks in a two-minute video, saying he was trying to make a larger point about an issue that all sports face.

“In the United States, all I was saying is that, when you’re a superstar, if you could speak the English language, guess what, that’s going to make it that much easier (and) less challenging to promote the sport,” Smith said.

However, he didn’t specifically apologize to Ohtani or the Asian community in the video.

And that apparently led to the formal, written apology he issued later in the day.

“In this day and age, with all the violence being perpetrated against the Asian-American community my comments — albeit unintentional — were clearly insensitive and regrettable,” Smith wrote.

If there was any question about whether or not the issue could then be considered closed, Smith made sure of it in his closing words — promising to address his comments “more extensively” on Tuesday morning’s edition of “First Take.”

Read more at usatoday.com

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Public Affairs with Jeff Berkowitz

• About Me

Watch Berkowitz & Martin on (1) Pritzker’s Green New Deal, (2) Exploding crime in Chicago & America and (3) GOP GOV Candidates, Cable & Web

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By Jeff Berkowitz,
today at 8:17 pm

The Chicago edition of Public Affairs airs on Cable Ch 21 (CAN TV):

–Tonight, 8:30 pm & midnight

–Tomorrow night, 9:04 pm  

You can also watch the program 24/7 by clicking here.

Abstract: We review the Pritzker IL Green Energy bill and why many in both industry and labor are against it. And, why the costs can hurt consumers and business and why relying on wind and solar for electricity means we probably won’t have an “always on” grid.

We also look at the shocking, stupendous surge in violent crime, especially in Chicago, and what is NOT being done to stop it.

And finally, a look at three of the four “Announced GOP candidates for IL Governor” and what they said (including video bites) in the last few weeks about jobs, taxes, crime, critical race theory and sex education in schools.

***********************

Jeff Berkowitz and Terry Martin in a commentary episode of “Public Affairs” discuss the hot public policy issues of IL energy legislation, exploding violent crime and the GOP GOV primary candidates.     

Are there any thoughtful analytics by the IL legislature to support the  Green New Deal energy plans of the Governor and how he will take IL from 7% of IL renewable  electricity to 40% in nine years, or less?

Appears not. IL government, as usual, hasn’t done its homework.

Is Senate President Don Harmon at war with fellow Chicago Dems Gov. Pritzker and Speaker Welch over how best to move toward their Brave New World of Green Energy in IL?

Martin and Berkowitz discuss the July 1 presser at which business and unions discussed their concerns about the Governor’s energy plans causing much higher energy costs that will drive jobs and population out of IL- even faster than currently.

As Martin says, those constituent segments of business and labor have looked at the future and they see very scary blackouts.  Have business and labor communicated their concerns to the Dems, who are the main supporters of Pritzker’s plans to phase out, lickety split, coal, natural gas and nuclear energy production.

What responses are they getting?

All of the above is discussed by Berkowitz and Martin.

**********

Crime data from Chicago’s last two July 4^th weekends and recent crime data from around the country show Chicago violent crime is an outlier. Does that shame Chicago’s and IL’s office holders, primarily Dems,  who are failing to perform around the State. That includes prosecutors, judges, state legislators, mayors and the Governor?  

Governor Pritzker brags constantly about his “Criminal justice reform.” But, did that reform result in a reduction in homicides and shootings on the July 4^th Weekend in Chicago, relative to last year? Has he made any segment of society safer in his two and one half years in office?

How about the Black caucuses in the IL Senate and House? Are they taking victory laps on the crime ridden, mostly black south and west sides of Chicago?    

Are car jackings, rapes and armed robberies down in Chicago? In other inner cities in IL? 

Of course not, all of these crime metrics in all of those areas are getting worse under the Governor’s and his Democratic Party’s programs and policies. He never looks at outcomes, only goals and inputs.

Further, Chicago Chief of Police David Brown says the public does not have a strong advocate for victims in the Courts of Cook County. But, says Brown, the defendants in the Criminal Courts have a strong advocate on their behalf in the name of the Public Defender- and the Chief of Police seems to be saying the Cook County’s States Attorney  also often advocates for the criminal defendants.  

Chief Brown doesn’t blame, by name, State’s Attorney Foxx for not being a strong advocate for the victims she was elected to speak for.  But Brown implicitly blames Chief Judge Evans for sending dangerous criminal defendants back on the street shortly after they are arrested (with EZ or no bail being set by Evans’ judges & often agreed to by Foxx’s Assistant States Attorneys.

So, Browns seem to have Evans and Foxx in mind when he says our courts are not making our citizens safer.

Finally, did the Black Lives Matter leaders ever protest the 50% increase in homicides in Chicago in 2020, which primarily resulted from black-on-black violence on the south and west sides of Chicago? If not, why not?

Does the Governor ever discuss these issues when he talks about criminal justice reform? Or any other time? If not, why not?

Are the GOP GOV Primary candidates addressing the above issues vigorously, frequently and with specifics. If not, why not? If they don’t do so, look for new candidates to enter the Gov Race in August, or so.      

That’s how competition, the Patron Saint of the Consumer, works as Dan Proft, 560 AM Radio (WIND) morning drive host, is wont to say.

*******   

This week’s show with Berkowitz and Martin also airs:

• In Aurora, this Wed, Saturday and Monday, 6 pm, Cable Ch 10
• In Rockford, this Thursday, 8:30 pm, Cable Ch 17
• In Chicago, this Saturday, 9:04 am, Cable Ch 21
• In Chicago, this Sunday, 8: 34 am, Cable Ch 19

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Tags:
Closing coal production in IL, closing down Natiural gas production in IL, COMED energy production in IL, Gary Rabine, GOP 2022 GOV Primary, Gov. Pritzker, IL solar energy production, IL Speaker Chris Welch, Jeff Berkowitz, Max Solomon, Nuclear energy production, Paul Schimpf, Pritzker's Green New Deal, Production of electricity in IL by nukes, Public Affairs TV show, Public Affairs with Jeff Berkowitz, Relative cost of different methods of electricity production in IL, Senate President Don Harman, Senator Darren Bailey, Solar production, Surging violent crime in American inner cities, Surging violent crime in Chicago, Sustainable energy production, Terry Martin, Wind energy production

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  • Watch Berkowitz & Martin on (1) Pritzker’s Green New Deal, (2) Exploding crime in Chicago & America and (3) GOP GOV Candidates, Cable & Web

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OK, I’m just going to say it: Get your damn shots, people!

I’m speaking to all able-bodied, qualifying Americans who don’t have pre-existing health conditions, transportation issues or any other valid reason for not getting the widely available — free — COVID-19 vaccine.

Pointedly, however, I’m speaking to those deluded anti-vaccine Cubs players and all the other elite athletes who won’t get shots.

I’ve had it with the we-don’t-want-to-hurt-anyone’s-feelings-or-shame-anyone-into-doing-something-they’re-not-comfortable-with approach. I’ve had it with the bribery to get citizens to do the right thing. Giving gift certificates, hunting licenses, lottery tickets and amusement-park rides to people just so they reluctantly will acknowledge they live among fellow humans who need each other to exist — it’s unseemly, vile and immoral.

The Tokyo Olympics, already delayed a year because of the pandemic, will have no foreign spectators. Once at a smolder, COVID now is raging in Japan.

The viral fire might happen again here, too. The Delta variant is now the dominant strain, and it’s more contagious than the original.

Public-health directors tell us people who haven’t been vaccinated make up nearly all recent COVID hospitalizations and deaths.

Do those head-in-the-sand Cubs realize this viral scourge, which has killed more than 600,000 Americans and 4 million people worldwide, is what is called a pandemic? Any recollection of that word from high school science, fellows?

Viruses mutate slightly each time they move to a new host, and a mutation occasionally will lead to a more viable, more dangerous strain. And the way that virus can live on is to have ready hosts available, so that it has a place to go and replicate. Otherwise, the virus dies out.

If everyone in our country got a vaccine, COVID would all but disappear. It’s that simple.

Yet there are the Cubs, who have been asked by Major League Baseball to get 85% of the team vaccinated for relaxed mask and gathering protocols and for the betterment of society. As patriots.

But nope. Not even close. Most major-league teams have crossed the threshold. Not our Cubs.

A bunch are fine doing nothing. Hey, nobody’s got COVID around them!

Terrific.

Do they realize the only reason they’re fine is because more than 100 million of their fellow citizens have stepped up and gotten their shots? Those Cubs deniers thrive on others’ courage, sacrifice and duty.

Polio, a terrible disease, has been eradicated in America since 1979 because children must get four vaccine doses before entering school, no questions asked. There are many other diseases we mandate vaccines for.

No, the COVID vaccines aren’t perfect, but they’re the best defense we’ve got.

True, COVID vaccines don’t have approval from the Food and Drug Administration. The reason for that is the approval process takes years. But the vaccine has been approved for emergency use — and this is an emergency, remember?

”As a global citizen, it’s the best way I can help make the pandemic end sooner,” U.S. Olympic climber Kyra Condie said about getting the vaccine.

Then there’s U.S. swimmer Michael Andrew, 22, a likely medal winner, who won’t get the vaccine.

Why?

His family is very religious, he has said, and ”kind of, I wouldn’t say a conspiracy-theory type of family, but we’re definitely on the side where we look for what other methods are there.”

Andrew didn’t go away to college. His mother, Tina, explained to ESPN awhile back: ”Michael doesn’t need to be inundated with sex and drugs and ideas from liberal professors.”

Swell.

Another U.S. Olympian who won’t get vaccinated is veteran archer Brady Ellison, 32. He rather would take the risk of getting COVID for a second time, he said, ”than the risk of a vaccine.”

For various reasons, no authorities are mandating that athletes get vaccinated. Not even in the military. If I had the power, I would mandate it. Get a shot or get out. Wouldn’t matter whom you were.

Private companies can make rules like that. A hospital chain in Texas fired everyone who wouldn’t get vaccinated. Completely legal.

One painful irony is that America has more vaccine than it needs, while much of the rest of the world is begging for doses. To be an American and thumb one’s nose at such bounty is simply wrong.

Olympians will be tested for COVID daily. Deniers such as Andrew and Ellison will be watched extra closely. But there’s no guarantee in Tokyo or anywhere about anything regarding this virus.

Viruses are cagey. They can be beaten, but their best chance for winning is human ignorance, superstition and selfishness.

Athlete deniers are unpatriotic cowards. Did somebody need to say that? I think so. And I just did.

Read More

Chicago drill rapper Londre Sylvester was killed in a hail of bullets as he walked out of Cook County Jail over the weekend, a day after his fiance had posted his bail.

Sylvester, 31, who performed as KTS Dre and Kutthroat Dreko, was standing with a 60-year-old woman in the 2700 block of South California Avenue when a car pulled up around 8:50 p.m. Saturday and two gunmen fired off dozens of shots.

Court records indicate Sylvester’s fianace had put up $5,000 on Friday to secure his release on charges of violating a previous bond in a 2020 gun case.

It was not clear why Sylvester did not walk out of the jail until the next day, or how the gunmen knew he would be leaving then. The Cook County sheriff’s office deferred comment to the Chicago Police Department, which declined to release any more details of the attack.

Police reports identified Sylvester as a member of the Lakeside faction of the Gangster Disciples, and mugshots show he had the words “Kill To Survive” tattooed on his neck beneath what appeared to be a gun sight.

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Sylvester was struck in the face and chest and taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said. The woman, 60, was struck in the knee and taken to Stroger Hospital, where she was listed in good condition.

Another woman, 35, was standing nearby and was grazed by a bullet to her face, police said. She was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital and was also listed in good condition.

Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times

Dozens of yellow, numbered evidence markers — typically used to denote the location of shell casings– stood massed on South California Avenue as police combed the street in a light rain Saturday. A bloody shirt lay on the sidewalk that led to the exit where prisoners are released from the sprawling jail complex.

A woman who had gone to the jail to visit a detainee Saturday said she heard what she thought were fireworks going off as she talked with another visitor at the entrance to a parking lot a block south.

“We were talking from car to car and I looked at her and said, ‘Those sounded really close,” she told the Sun-Times. “Moments later, I heard two pops in front of the visiting area, then more in a cadence that couldn’t be anything but gunshots.”

The woman, who asked that her name not be used, said they ducked inside their cars and waited for the shots to end.

“When the shooting stopped, a Cook Country [sheriff’s officer] said to me, ‘Young lady, I think you better move your car,’ and at first I laughed it off because I didn’t believe him, but he was serious and told me those were gunshots.

“I can’t stop thinking to myself that had I not stopped to talk to my friend, I could have been in that area when they were shooting,” she said. “I was supposed to be over there.”

Court records indicate Sylvester had been jailed in June for violating conditions of his bond in the 2020 gun case, but had been living under house arrest since last December with a GPS monitoring device.

A judge had granted him four hours each Thursday to leave the house to run errands, but sheriff’s officials claimed he’d violated those conditions by visiting “various locations in Chicago and Wisconsin” on June 11.

Sylvester’s public defender called for a bond hearing, claiming Sylvester was arrested June 11 “after running errands during the allotted time on the allotted day of the week.” Judge Lawrence Flood set bond at $50,000, requiring a deposit of $5,000.

The gun case stemmed from an April 2020 arrest when someone reported Sylvester carrying a gun in his car in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood. Officers spotted Sylvester behind the wheel of a white Jaguar sedan, parked beside a pump at gas station in the 8200 block of South Halsted, according to a police report.

When they approached the car, officers saw that Sylvester, who was on parole for a 2015 gun conviction, had a 9mm Glock pistol in his lap.

One of the officers tried to grab the gun from Sylvester as Sylvester put the car in gear, the report states. Two officers struggled with Sylvester and wrestled him out of the car.

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PHILADELPHIA — As Brett Roman Williams stood at the Philadelphia medical examiner’s office staring at a photo of his older brother’s face, a familiar feeling welled in his chest.

Williams’ father was shot and killed in 1996, when Williams was 11, and the ebb and flow of grief had washed over him for 20 years.

But, in 2016, when his brother was shot to death, Williams reached out to a grief counselor to help him cope.

Now, Williams serves on the board for the organization where he once sought solace. He’s trying to provide that same kind of support to others. But the demand is far outpacing the supply of counselors because of rising violence.

With more than 270 homicides in Philadelphia the first half of 2021, the city has been outpacing the number of killings in 2020, when 499 people were killed, mostly shot to death gunfire — the highest homicide numbers in more than two decades. The number of people wounded in shootings also has soared the past 18 months.

Williams is chairman of the board for the Anti-Violence Partnership of Philadelphia, which provides counseling to people affected by violence. He said there were 174 people on the waitlist at the end of June, compared with about 30 people a year ago.

“Hurt people, hurt people,” Williams said. “And this is a pivotal moment in Philly, because there are a lot of people hurting in this city right now.”

Natasha McGlynn, the organization’s executive director, said the agency has provided counseling since September to 425 teenagers who were shot or who have lost family or friends. She said counselors are seeing layers of trauma and revictimization as gun violence increases.

Crime has been rising nationwide after it plummeted in the early months of the pandemic, with many cities seeing the type of double-digit increase in gun violence that’s plaguing Philadelphia. The Biden administration has sent strike forces to Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., to help take down gun networks.

Biden has encouraged states to use COVID-19 relief money to hire police or additional counselors. Philadelphia is among the cities joining a federal effort to expand and enhance community violence interruption programs. Williams’ group and others that provide counseling to victims are applying for grants to hire more counselors.

Lynn Linde, chief knowledge and learning officer for the American Counseling Association, said there already was a shortage of mental health professionals, especially in rural areas, when the coronavirus pandemic hit. Add the economic, emotional and other losses from the pandemic and lockdown, and now waves of gun violence across the country, and, Linde said, most mental health professionals are stretched to their limit.

“I don’t know anyone who has openings,” she said. “And there are a lot of mental health professionals who are working extra hours and just burning out.”

For the counselors at places such as Philadelphia’s AVP, who treat only people experiencing trauma and loss from violence, the rise in violent crime is the reason they are stretched thin.

There were more than 1,800 people in Philadelphia shot and wounded last year. The city already has reported close to 900 gunshot victims in 2021 — 150 more than the same time in 2020.

Adam Garber, executive director of CeaseFirePA, a statewide nonprofit group, said people are aware of the killings but less often the other effects of the violence: the lifelong injuries, the trauma, the fear that forces parents to keep their children indoors.

“We are missing all the damage underneath that is permanently altering the lives of so many people,” Garber said.

Elinore Kaufman, assistant professor of surgery at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and the Presbyterian Medical Center of Philadelphia, said there are two times to three times more gunshot survivors than fatalities at her trauma center. The number of survivors has increased as trauma treatment has improved.

“The goal is to help people to survive, and we’re very good at that part,” Kaufman said. “We get people through that most acute time. We are not as good at helping people get back to a full and complete life.”

She said the hospital is working on a program to provide patients with a peer mentor to help them connect to programs that offer help including counseling, applying for victims’ assistance or finding education and a new career if their injuries prevent them from returning to their jobs.

Latrice Felix’s son Alan Womack, Jr. chose to live in an upscale suburb of Philadelphia, spending most of his time at the gym or with family, in part to avoid the violence he saw in the city.

But Womack, 28, was killed on Feb. 28, 2020, during a fight outside of his gym. Felix signed up for counseling at AVP shortly after her son’s death but was on the waitlist for about six months before someone had an opening.

Womack played Division II basketball at Fisher College in Boston and often trained people at the gym. He would FaceTime his mother sometimes 10 times a day and come home to steal her “good bananas” or make sure she was doing OK.

Womack worked with young people who had been involved in the criminal justice system, trying to steer them to better choices.

More than 1,300 people came to his funeral, including a friend from college who told Felix that Womack had let him sleep in his dorm room when he was struggling and use his meal plan card so he wouldn’t go hungry.

Felix has had a hard time with her son’s death. She doesn’t accept the police determination that the man who shot him was acting in self defense, but there were no cameras in the parking lot.

“I didn’t want to die,” she said of how she felt after her son’s death. “But I didn’t want to live, either.”

While she waited for counseling, she shared her grief with friends and discovered that she knew 20 people who had lost their children to gun violence in and around Philadelphia in 2020. She’s working to raise money to start a “grief cafe” where people who have lost someone can come and talk about their loved ones and where they can talk to a therapist.

“People think you bury your child, and life goes on,” Felix said. “But they don’t see how sometimes you can’t get up out of bed, how you start crying when you’re driving down the street for nothing.

“I want to normalize counseling, especially for the African American community.”

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