A long-awaited street-gang trial set to begin later this summer is suddenly down to one defendant: Labar “Bro Man” Spann, a reputed boss of the murderous Four Corner Hustlers.

Court officials have for years been planning a months-long racketeering trial for Spann, Tremayne “Trigga” Thompson and Juhwun Foster. But Thompson and Foster suddenly pleaded guilty Thursday to their roles in the West Side gang.

Spann still intends to go to trial, according to court records and comments from lawyers.

The trial is set for Sept. 13 and comes as Chicago again struggles with street violence, a scenario reminiscent of the federal racketeering trial of the Hobos “super gang” five years ago.

A sweeping 2017 indictment tied the Four Corner Hustlers to six killings between 2000 and 2003. Prosecutors later tied the gang to three additional 2012 murders. A separate trial for other defendants in the case had been planned for 2019, but it was scuttled by a series of last-minute guilty pleas.

Spann, Thompson and Foster had been set to go on trial in September 2020, but the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic prompted court officials to put it off for another year.

They wound up planning what might have been the most logistically challenging trial of the new era.

The trial had been set to take place in the Dirksen Federal Building’s 25th-floor ceremonial courtroom — its largest — with jurors in the gallery and one lawyer at each defense table to allow for social distancing, U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin told lawyers in March.

He said that was the “only way we’re going to do it” and added, “we’ve done measurements.” It’s unclear yet how the new developments in the case will change those plans.

Spann, Thompson and Foster also potentially faced the death penalty at one point, but prosecutors took that off the table in April 2020.

Spann is accused in all six murders listed in the racketeering indictment, including the killing of Rudy “Kato” Rangel, who was a leader of the Latin Kings when he was fatally shot inside a barbershop in June 2003. Spann previously had been acquitted in state court in connection with the killing.

Thompson and Foster on Thursday each pleaded guilty to a racketeering conspiracy and admitted their roles in, among other crimes, the April 2003 murders of George King and Willie Woods.

King’s murder followed a drug dispute with another crew that involved the shooting of Spann and the now-deceased Jasper Davidson, records and courtroom testimony show. Spann then allegedly ordered the Four Corner Hustlers to kill anyone working for the other crew so he could take over the drug territory.

On April 8, 2003, Thompson and Foster collected two firearms from a Four Corner Hustlers stash house and drove to the 3800 block of Jackson Boulevard, records show. They hopped out of the car, walked to the 3800 block of Adams and fatally shot King, who sold drugs there.

Meanwhile, someone hired Spann to kill Woods amid a drug dispute involving a member of the Traveling Vice Lords. On April 16, 2003, Thompson and Foster fatally shot Woods in the 1500 block of South Karlov on Spann’s orders, records show.

Thompson’s plea agreement calls for him to be sentenced to between 35 and 45 years in prison, though Durkin could give him credit for time he served in state custody. If Durkin declines to go along with those terms, Thompson may withdraw from the plea deal.

Foster reached a similar agreement, though his deal calls for him to be sentenced to between 30 and 40 years in prison.

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Vaccinated teachers and students don’t need to wear masks inside Illinois school buildings this fall, state officials announced Friday after the Centers for Disease and Prevention relaxed its COVID-19 guidelines for schools.

Chicago schools and health officials, meanwhile, said they were still reviewing their plans for the fall but were “encouraged by [the] flexibility” of the new recommendations, leaving the door open to a lax masking policy when Chicago Public Schools buildings reopen for full-time in-person learning in late August. Federal and state officials left room for each school district to set its own standards.

Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, said the updated federal guidelines represent the latest available scientific information for keeping students and staff safe.

“The CDC is right: vaccination is the best preventive strategy. As school board members, parents, teachers and superintendents plan for a return to in-person learning in the fall, we strongly encourage those who are not vaccinated to continue to mask,” Ezike said in a statement.

State Supt. of Education Carmen Ayala, who has mandated a return to classrooms next school year, said she is “fully confident in the safety of in-person learning this fall.”

The Chicago Teachers Union, which this week laid out its proposal for the fall return that included an 80% student vaccination goal, said the updated guidance “triggers more questions than answers.”

“Our Black and Brown school communities lie in neighborhoods that have struggled to access vaccinations, at the same time that those neighborhoods have been disproportionately hammered by COVID,” union leadership wrote in a statement.

“While we support the goal of returning every student safely to in-person learning this fall, we are concerned that the vast majority of our students, both under 12 and those 12 and up eligible for shots, remain unvaccinated and vulnerable to catching and transmitting COVID-19, even as the Delta variant continues to spread.”

CPS does not have data on how many of its students are vaccinated, but officials plan to ask students’ status when they return to schools late next month.

The changes come amid a national vaccination campaign in which children as young as 12 are eligible to get shots, as well as a general decline in COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths. But youth inoculations have lagged, and it isn’t clear when vaccines will be available for younger children. Families with siblings of different ages have particularly struggled to plan.

“We’re at a new point in the pandemic that we’re all really excited about,” and so it’s time to update the guidance, said Erin Sauber-Schatz, who leads the CDC task force that prepares recommendations designed to keep Americans safe from COVID-19.

The nation’s top public health agency is not advising schools to require shots for teachers and vaccine-eligible kids. And it’s not offering guidance on how teachers can know which students are vaccinated or how parents will know which teachers are immunized.

That’s probably going to make for some challenging school environments, said Elizabeth Stuart, a John Hopkins University public health professor who has children in elementary and middle schools.

“It would be a very weird dynamic, socially, to have some kids wearing masks and some not. And tracking that? Teachers shouldn’t need to be keeping track of which kids should have masks on,” she said.

In Chicago, the district plans to launch running vaccination sites for students and their families next week.

Though the city still has its lowest COVID-19 rates and casualties since widespread testing became available last year, infections have been rising the past couple weeks as new vaccinations wane. And the district has a tough task this summer reconnecting with the 75% of CPS students who didn’t return to in-person learning in the spring.

Another potential headache: Schools should continue to space kids — and their desks — 3 feet apart in classrooms, the CDC says. But the agency emphasized that spacing should not be an obstacle to getting kids back in schools. And it said distancing is not required among fully vaccinated students or staff.

CPS kept its 6-foot spacing requirement when federal and state officials lowered their guidance to 3 feet last school year, but in an email to parents this week the district appeared open to a change. At many cramped CPS schools it might be impossible to fully reopen with farther social distancing requirements.

All of this may prove hard to implement, and that’s why CDC is advising schools to make decisions that make the most sense, Sauber-Schatz said.

The biggest questions will be at middle schools where some students are eligible for shots and others aren’t. If sorting vaccinated and unvaccinated students proves too burdensome, administrators might choose to just keep a masking policy in place for everyone.

“The guidance is really written to allow flexibility at the local level,” Sauber-Schatz said.

Indeed, in some of the nation’s largest school districts, widespread mask-wearing is expected to continue this fall. In Detroit’s public schools, everyone will be required to wear a mask unless everyone in the classroom has been vaccinated. Philadelphia will require all public school students and staff to wear masks inside buildings, even if they have been vaccinated. But masks won’t be mandated in Houston schools.

What about requiring COVID-19 vaccination as a condition of school attendance? That’s commonly done across the country to prevent spread of measles and other diseases.

The CDC has repeatedly praised such requirements, but the agency on Friday didn’t recommend that measure because it is considered a state and local policy decision, CDC officials said.

Chicago’s Board of Education recently approved a measure that would allow CPS officials to require eligible students get a COVID-19 shot like other mandatory vaccinations, but the district has not yet implemented that mandate.

Early in the pandemic, health officials worried schools might become coronavirus cauldrons that spark community outbreaks. But studies have shown that schools often see less transmission than the surrounding community when certain prevention measures are followed.

The new guidance is the latest revision to advice the CDC began making to schools last year.

In March, the CDC stopped recommending that children and their desks be spaced 6 feet apart, shrinking the distance to 3 feet, and dropped its call for use of plastic shields.

In May, the agency said Americans in general don’t have to be as cautious about masks and distancing outdoors, and that fully vaccinated people don’t need masks in most situations. That change was incorporated into updated guidance for summer camps — and now, schools.

The new schools guidance says:

o No one at schools needs to wear masks at recess or in most other outdoor situations. However, unvaccinated people are advised to wear masks if they are in a crowd for an extended period of time, like in the stands at a football game.

o Ventilation and handwashing continue to be important. Students and staff also should stay home when they are sick.

o Testing remains an important way to prevent outbreaks. But the CDC also says people who are fully vaccinated do not need to participate in such screening.

o Separating students into smaller groups, or cohorts, continues to be a good way to help reduce spread of the virus. But the CDC discouraged putting vaccinated and unvaccinated kids in separate groups, saying schools shouldn’t stigmatize any group or perpetuate academic, racial or other tracking.

Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, called the new CDC guidance “an important roadmap for reducing the risk of COVID-19 in schools.”

She added: “Schools should be consistently and rigorously employing all the recommended mitigation strategies, including requiring masks in all settings where there are unvaccinated individuals present, and ensuring adequate ventilation, handwashing, and cleaning.”

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona pledged to work with schools to help them get kids back into classrooms.

“We know that in-person learning offers vital opportunities for all students to develop healthy, nurturing relationships with educators and peers, and that students receive essential supports in school for their social and emotional wellbeing, mental health, and academic success,” he said in a statement.

Nader Issa is a Sun-Times staff reporter. Mike Stobbe and Collin Binkley are reporters for the Associated Press.

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A suspect who had escaped electronic monitoring was shot and killed in a standoff with Chicago police, federal marshals and sheriff’s deputies Friday morning — an incident Police Supt. David Brown used to further his criticism of the courts.

The suspect – facing more than a dozen counts of aggravated sexual assault — was in a black Jeep when he was confronted by federal marshals and Cook County sheriff’s deputies around 9:40 a.m. in the 100 block of South Kilpatrick Avenue, in West Garfield Park, Brown told reporters.

They approached the Jeep and ordered the man out but he refused, Brown said. They then called for help from Chicago police.

The suspect displayed a gun and three police officers and a marshal opened fire, Brown said. The man was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, police said.

No officers were shot, but five police officers were taken to hospitals for evaluation, he said. Brown did not elaborate.

A handgun was recovered at the scene, police said. Brown said it was unclear if the man had fired shots at the officers, though officers at the scene can be heard on the police radio saying shots were fired at them.

As the confrontation unfolded, a sheriff’s officer radioed that there was a man with a gun inside a Jeep. A police dispatcher directed officers to the scene and warned them to “take cover.”

Soon afterwards, someone radiod, “Shots fired at police.” Minutes later, the dispatcher was told, “The offender is down.”

The suspect was wanted on 15 counts of aggravated sex assault with a firearm, and had violated his electronic home monitoring by cutting off the bracelet, Brown said. A warrant for his arrest was filed on Dec. 4, he said.

Brown used the incident to repeat once again his claim that the Cook County courts system is fueling gun violence by releasing on electronic monitoring people charged with violent crimes.

“If this debate that we’re having saves one life, then all the criticism is worth it,” said Brown, who has been accused by the county’s chief judge and prosecutor of mischaracterizing the monitoring program and using isolated cases to blame it for rising violence.

“I’ve mentioned that 7-year-old Jaslyn Adams was killed by someone on electronic monitoring,” Brown said, referring to a shooting at a McDonald’s drive-thru earlier this year. “We are advocates for the victims.”

The U.S. Marshals Service was leading the investigation into Friday morning’s shooting. The Civilian Office of Police Accountability was investigating the three Chicago officers’ use of force.

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Vaccinated teachers and students don’t need to wear masks inside Illinois school buildings this fall, state officials announced Friday after the Centers for Disease and Prevention relaxed its COVID-19 guidelines for schools.

Chicago schools and health officials, meanwhile, said they were still reviewing their plans for the fall but were “encouraged by [the] flexibility” of the new recommendations, leaving the door open to a lax masking policy when Chicago Public Schools buildings reopen for full-time in-person learning in late August. Federal and state officials left room for each school district to set its own standards.

Dr. Ngozi Ezike, director of the Illinois Department of Public Health, said the updated federal guidelines represent the latest available scientific information for keeping students and staff safe.

“The CDC is right: vaccination is the best preventive strategy. As school board members, parents, teachers and superintendents plan for a return to in-person learning in the fall, we strongly encourage those who are not vaccinated to continue to mask,” Ezike said in a statement.

State Supt. of Education Carmen Ayala, who has mandated a return to classrooms next school year, said she is “fully confident in the safety of in-person learning this fall.”

The changes come amid a national vaccination campaign in which children as young as 12 are eligible to get shots, as well as a general decline in COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths. It isn’t clear, however, when vaccines will be available for younger children.

“We’re at a new point in the pandemic that we’re all really excited about,” and so it’s time to update the guidance, said Erin Sauber-Schatz, who leads the CDC task force that prepares recommendations designed to keep Americans safe from COVID-19.

The nation’s top public health agency is not advising schools to require shots for teachers and vaccine-eligible kids. And it’s not offering guidance on how teachers can know which students are vaccinated or how parents will know which teachers are immunized.

That’s probably going to make for some challenging school environments, said Elizabeth Stuart, a John Hopkins University public health professor who has children in elementary and middle schools.

“It would be a very weird dynamic, socially, to have some kids wearing masks and some not. And tracking that? Teachers shouldn’t need to be keeping track of which kids should have masks on,” she said.

In Chicago, CPS said it would ask for students’ vaccination statuses next month, and the district plans to launch running vaccination sites for students and their families next week.

Though the city still has its lowest COVID-19 rates and casualties since widespread testing became available last year, infections have been rising the past couple weeks as new vaccinations wane.

Another potential headache: Schools should continue to space kids — and their desks — 3 feet apart in classrooms, the CDC says. But the agency emphasized that spacing should not be an obstacle to getting kids back in schools. And it said distancing is not required among fully vaccinated students or staff.

All of this may prove hard to implement, and that’s why CDC is advising schools to make decisions that make the most sense, Sauber-Schatz said.

The biggest questions will be at middle schools where some students are eligible for shots and others aren’t. If sorting vaccinated and unvaccinated students proves too burdensome, administrators might choose to just keep a masking policy in place for everyone.

“The guidance is really written to allow flexibility at the local level,” Sauber-Schatz said.

Indeed, in some of the nation’s largest school districts, widespread mask-wearing is expected to continue this fall. In Detroit’s public schools, everyone will be required to wear a mask unless everyone in the classroom has been vaccinated. Philadelphia will require all public school students and staff to wear masks inside buildings, even if they have been vaccinated. But masks won’t be mandated in Houston schools.

What about requiring COVID-19 vaccination as a condition of school attendance? That’s commonly done across the country to prevent spread of measles and other diseases.

The CDC has repeatedly praised such requirements, but the agency on Friday didn’t recommend that measure because it is considered a state and local policy decision, CDC officials said.

Chicago’s Board of Education recently approved a measure that would allow CPS officials to require eligible students get a COVID-19 shot like other mandatory vaccinations, but the district has not yet implemented that mandate.

Early in the pandemic, health officials worried schools might become coronavirus cauldrons that spark community outbreaks. But studies have shown that schools often see less transmission than the surrounding community when certain prevention measures are followed.

The new guidance is the latest revision to advice the CDC began making to schools last year.

In March, the CDC stopped recommending that children and their desks be spaced 6 feet apart, shrinking the distance to 3 feet, and dropped its call for use of plastic shields.

In May, the agency said Americans in general don’t have to be as cautious about masks and distancing outdoors, and that fully vaccinated people don’t need masks in most situations. That change was incorporated into updated guidance for summer camps — and now, schools.

The new schools guidance says:

o No one at schools needs to wear masks at recess or in most other outdoor situations. However, unvaccinated people are advised to wear masks if they are in a crowd for an extended period of time, like in the stands at a football game.

o Ventilation and handwashing continue to be important. Students and staff also should stay home when they are sick.

o Testing remains an important way to prevent outbreaks. But the CDC also says people who are fully vaccinated do not need to participate in such screening.

o Separating students into smaller groups, or cohorts, continues to be a good way to help reduce spread of the virus. But the CDC discouraged putting vaccinated and unvaccinated kids in separate groups, saying schools shouldn’t stigmatize any group or perpetuate academic, racial or other tracking.

Becky Pringle, president of the National Education Association, called the new CDC guidance “an important roadmap for reducing the risk of COVID-19 in schools.”

She added: “Schools should be consistently and rigorously employing all the recommended mitigation strategies, including requiring masks in all settings where there are unvaccinated individuals present, and ensuring adequate ventilation, handwashing, and cleaning.”

U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona pledged to work with schools to help them get kids back into classrooms.

“We know that in-person learning offers vital opportunities for all students to develop healthy, nurturing relationships with educators and peers, and that students receive essential supports in school for their social and emotional wellbeing, mental health, and academic success,” he said in a statement.

Nader Issa is a Sun-Times staff reporter. Mike Stobbe and Collin Binkley are reporters for the Associated Press.

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Improving coronavirus numbers have made more summer events possible. Here’s the latest updates on this year’s changing entertainment landscape.

By

John Silver

Updated

Jul 9, 2021, 12:54pm CDT

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A South Side alderman says the Wentworth Gardens development has become a “war zone,” and she wants the security firm in charge to be replaced immediately.

“People should not have to live in fear like that,” Ald. Pat Dowell (3rd) said Friday, during an online news conference.

Dowell’s demand comes a day after two men were shot, one fatally, at the Chicago Housing Authority development, which is just south of Guaranteed Rate Field.

The victims were in front of a residence about 2:15 p.m. in the 3900 block of South Princeton Avenue when a vehicle pulled up and someone inside opened gunfire, police said.

Deandre Abrams, 26, was struck in the face and taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead, according to police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

The other man, 35, was shot in a leg and taken to the same hospital in good condition, police said.

Dowell said the shooting was the fourth homicide at Wentworth Gardens this year. In the same time span, Dowell said, residents have made 449 calls to 911, with reports of “shots fired.”

“The residents are living in a war zone; that is unacceptable. We do not live in a war zone. … Enough is enough,” Dowell said.

She said AGB Innovative Security Systems has failed the residents of Wentworth Gardens.

“We needed AGB to be far more active than they were, to break up illegal gatherings on the property, to address the illegally parked cars, … to stop people from selling parking spaces to people who are attending the White Sox games,” Dowell said, noting that AGB’s contract runs through November 2021.

“We need action now — today,” she said.

A representative from AGB could not be reached for comment.

Karen Vaughan, a spokeswoman for CHA, said the agency is “working on the procurement process now for when the contract expires.”

“Thursday’s shooting is a tragedy, and CHA stands with residents in the Wentworth Gardens community as it recovers from this violence,” Vaughan said in a statement. “CHA is cooperating fully with the Chicago Police Department in its investigation of this incident. CHA is working with our partners in law enforcement and the community to ensure the safety of all our residents.”

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Is there a world record for the fastest time to go from mattering to not mattering? The Cubs have done it in a blink, and although the Guinness people might want something more accurate, something involving fractions of a second, what I can I say? By the time we had blinked once, a formerly competitive, interesting baseball team had relocated to a town called Nobody Cares.

The Cubs recently went through an 11-game losing streak. That’s not just one white flag being waved. That’s the equivalent of all the flags outside the United Nations headquarters turning white and flapping in the wind. Then the Cubs won a game – yay! That was followed by another loss – oh, you again — and all the talk about gaining some “momentum” heading into the All-Star break changed back into muttering.

Weren’t we just discussing how cool it was to have two good baseball teams in town?

Wasn’t the public conversation all about how Cubs ownership was going to have to fortify the roster before the trade deadline?

To paraphrase “Young Frankenstein” (and to connect with all my young readers out there), didn’t that hump used to be on the other side?

And here we are, looking for other diversions. Oh, sure, people will still go to Wrigley Field, because it’s beautiful, because it’s summer and because it beats working. Cubs fans tramp to Wrigley instinctively, in the same way no one has to tell them to get dressed in the morning.

But to say that this season has meaning anymore, well, no. The same, possibly, for next season. That’s what the last two weeks have done. Amazing, when you think of it. And I know you’re trying not to think of it.

It’s not hard to believe that, even with Kris Bryant, Anthony Rizzo and Javy Baez still around, it has gotten to this point. The World Series title came in 2016, and five years is a lifetime in sports. The strange part of what’s happening now is the abruptness of it. Two weeks and then poof! We had seen the Cubs’ house for what it was, a structure that was showing lots of wear and tear. It still had some nice features, but it was clear that real work needed to be done.

Then an EF-5 tornado came through, there was no more wear and tear, and no work to be done. Also, no house.

That’s what the losing streak looked like.

And now? If you asked me what the Cubs should do about Rizzo, Bryant and Baez, I’d respond with, “Any good movies playing in the theaters?” Keep them. Trade them. I don’t care.

Maybe this is how chairman Tom Ricketts wins in the end. If you hold to the “Major League” view of things, then the Cubs’ not winning and not mattering is exactly what ownership wants at present. The family can get rid of some expensive players and cut costs. You’d have to be really cynical to believe that. Not me. Not cynical at all. No, sir.

Team president Jed Hoyer knows how much darkness and despair the word “rebuild” carries in these parts, which is why he took pains the other day to say that whatever the Cubs might do going forward, it most certainly won’t be a rebuild. He knows the franchise can’t push that button twice. It can’t unload everybody and put the fan base through profound losing and sky-high ticket prices. The Cubs did it for at least three years before an appearance in the 2015 National Championship Series finally saw the return of the sun. And then the 2016 title.

“We’re in a different situation now than we were in 2012,” Hoyer said. “And so, the decisions we’re making, the process we’re going through are completely different. So I think that label (rebuild) is certainly something to be avoided.”

He did imply that the losing streak has changed how the team will conduct business heading into the July 30 trade deadline.

“You have to keep one eye on the future and think about what moves you could potentially make that could help build the next year, the next great Cubs team,” he said.

Two weeks ago, he wanted to get married. Now, he’s talking divorce. One blink, and it’s all over.

Pardon me for not giving a whit about any of it. The Cubs have been tap dancing around the possibility of darkness for a while. Now they’ve gone all in, right into the abyss.

For those of you who still really care, here’s a flashlight. For the rest of us, there are still plenty of fun things to do in the sunlight.

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Humboldt Park claims a distinction that no other urban neighborhood shares: It is believed to be home to the oldest surviving outdoor community murals in the nation.

The three murals date to 1971, during the early years of the Chicago-born contemporary or community mural movement, which had been launched in 1967 with the creation of the “Wall of Respect” in Bronzeville by a group of Black artists and activists. The movement soon spread across the country.

As they mark their 50th anniversary, these classic Humboldt Park / West Town street murals resist being labeled aging relics from a bygone activist era. Though they largely depict events and issues that were current at the time, the murals remain relevant, reflecting the hopes and struggles, heritage and resistance, of the Puerto Rican community — and of the community at large.

“For me, what was interesting about the murals was their social messages,” says Jose Lopez, executive director of the Puerto Rican Cultural Center. “They speak to issues that impacted directly on the community, like housing, police brutality — all the issues that we continue to address today.”

Each of these “people’s art” landmarks has been restored at least twice over the decades, according to artists and organizers, a sign of how meaningful they are to their neighborhoods. They also show how outdoor murals can act as markers of public memory.

“My belief is the three murals done that summer are the oldest community murals surviving in the country, not just the city,” John Pitman Weber says.

As co-founder of the Chicago Mural Group coalition in 1971, he worked with grassroots organizations and led neighborhood residents working on two of the murals: “Breaking the Chains” at Rockwell and LeMoyne streets and “Together We Overcome” at Division Street and Hoyne Avenue. This is actually West Town, in an area that was predominantly Puerto Rican at the time.

The other mural is “The Crucifixion of Don Pedro Albizu Campos,” painted by the Puerto Rican Art Association — Jose Bermudez, Mario Galan and Hector Rosario — at North and Artesian avenues. This mural shows persecuted 1950s Nationalist Party figures on crosses and advocates for island independence.

Yet mural expert Eduardo Arocho says the wall has “transcended its original meaning to represent Humboldt Park.”

Arocho has led neighborhood and mural tours for over 20 years. As a former longtime director of the Division Street Business Development Association, he also helped commission newer murals and street pieces along the Paseo Boricua, the six-block stretch of Division Street between Western and Sacramento avenues that includes the monumental steel Puerto Rican flags.

“Murals are the best way to tell the story of our community,” says Arocho, who recently launched his own Paseo Boricua Tour Company. “A lot of our experiences are not in books.”

The artworks were created as part of the same Chicago Mural Group summer program, with the help of federal funding and local organizations as sponsors. The murals’ content was discussed through a series of “open community meetings,” says Weber, then an art professor at Elmhurst College, who is one of the nation’s most influential muralists.

Weber and a racially mixed group of youths worked at the flashpoint of tension when they painted “Together We Overcome” on the side of a Puerto Rican-owned business along a once-derelict stretch of Division Street. The mural chronicled Black, Latino and white gang conflicts in the area, reflecting larger racial divisions. The scene is resolved by a unity march and a brotherhood clasp of Black and Brown hands.

Provided

Three years later, in 1974, Weber added images of a coffin. That’s a reference to Association House youth worker Orlando Quintana, who was shot and killed nearby by an off-duty cop the previous year, sparking anti-police brutality marches.

In 2004, Weber and a team repainted the faded mural and added references urging affordable housing in a now-gentrified area. The building’s new owners and neighbors welcomed it, he says, though it’s now obscured by a garden.

Why restore decades-old street murals in changing, or changed, city neighborhoods?

“Oh, why don’t we burn down an art museum? Why keep a record of human history or human culture at all?” Weber replies. “That wall is a vestige of the history of the area. And the question is: Is it an advantage to erase history so that every place is the same? Knowing where you are is part of the question of knowing who you are and what stories you are part of.”

“Breaking the Chains,” created on an apartment building, is another street survivor. Weber led its residents, many of whom were members of sponsor Latin American Defense Organization, a social justice group, along with local youths, in designing and painting the wall.

The work shows racially mixed hands “breaking the chains” of injustice, poverty, racism, slum housing and other negative forces, which are listed on the wall, in order to create a positive, progressive future, symbolized by children carrying roses. A woman crying from the window of a burning building refers to the arson-for-profit fires that ravaged the neighborhood in the 1970s.

Weber and a team restored the mural in 2013, a redo funded by the Latin United Community Housing Association, which owns the building, and the Chicago Public Art Group, earlier known as the Chicago Mural Group. (Disclosure: As a neighborhood volunteer, this reporter worked for about a day on each of Weber’s mural rehabs.)

Community groups donated funds to Mario Galan and Puerto Rican Art Association members to create “The Crucifixion of Don Pedro Albizu Campos,” which has since become one of the most iconic symbols of Boricua Chicago.

“It has a lot of imagery of the independence movement and all the people that sacrificed themselves for that cause, which is still an issue,” Arocho says.

But the mural didn’t survive without a drawn-out struggle. Beginning in 2001, activists campaigned to save the mural from being blocked by the construction of a condominium on the adjacent lot. The protests stopped walls from being built three times, according to news reports. Finally, developers were forced to remove bricks after a land swap arranged by the city.

By 2011, the mural had been restored, and the lot had become a garden.

“Beyond all hope, we were successful,” notes Arocho, “Nobody would say that was possible.”

According to Arocho, there are plans to restore the mural and renew the garden again by September.

That’s when the community will celebrate the three murals’ 50th anniversaries.

Click on the map below for a selection of Chicago-area murals

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LITTLE FALLS, N.J. — Sitting in the dugout at tiny Yogi Berra Stadium as he prepared to play for the Frontier League’s Sussex County Miners, Todd Frazier recalled reading a quote from former Yankees teammate Masahiro Tanaka vowing Japan’s baseball team will win an Olympic gold medal.

“I didn’t know Masa talks like that,” the 35-year-old third baseman said. “You play for your country, you see some inner beast in people that you’ve never seen before. The quietest of people come out and roar like lions. The loudest of people come out and are like gazelles. And you just see the craziest thing.”

Frazier has experience playing Japan. Back when he was 12 years old in 1998, he went 4 for 4 and pitched two-hit ball over the final two innings as his Toms River East American team beat Kashima 12-9 in the final to win the Little League World Series.

Now near the end of his playing days, the two-time All-Star is the emotional force on the 24-man American roster headed to Yokohama for the six-nation Olympic tournament starting July 28 that also includes the Dominican Republic, Israel, host Japan, Mexico and South Korea.

Released by Pittsburgh in May after going 3 for 35 this season, the Toddfather helped the U.S. qualify for the Olympics on its second try, going 4 for 4 with a home run and two RBIs in the berth-earning 4-2 win over Venezuela on June 5 at Port St. Lucie, Florida.

When the U.S. team gathered for that tournament, Frazier was given an additional task by former big leaguer Ernie Young, the U.S. hitting coach.

“He said, ‘Fraiz, you know what to do. Get these guys going for every game,'” Frazier explained. “So I would bring them all together, give a little pep talk and get them fired up, kind of like we’re playing in a Super Bowl because it was Game 7 every game.”

The U.S. roster includes baseball senior citizens such as Frazier and pitchers Scott Kazmir, Edwin Jackson and David Robertson, and a handful of top prospects as Tampa Bay pitchers Joe Ryan and Shane Baz. Major League Baseball does not release anyone on 40-man rosters for the Olympics, and general managers often discourage eligible players in their farm systems.

U.S. manager Mike Scioscia, who led the Angels for 19 seasons, says Frazier brings “a relaxed focus” that filters through to the rest of his roster.

“I’ve been seeing Todd from an opposing dugout for a long time. His attitude and his commitment is second to none,” Scioscia said. “He loves this game of baseball. He loves competing, and he loves putting on the USA jersey. So there’s no doubt that his leadership was huge.”

Frazier has a .241 average with 218 homers and 640 RBIs during parts of 11 seasons with Cincinnati (2011-15), the White Sox (2016-17), the New York Yankees (2017) and Mets (2018-20), Texas (2020) and Pittsburgh (2020). He won the 2015 All-Star Home Run Derby and reached the playoffs three times but never the World Series.

He also was on the U.S. collegiate national team for the 2006 World University Baseball Championship in Havana with David Price, Jake Arrieta and Sean Doolittle and on the 2010 U.S. team for Pan American Games qualifying, joined by Mike Trout, Eric Hosmer, Mike Moustakas, Danny Duffy and Chris Archer, a group managed by Young.

“It’s just so exciting playing for your country because you’re not only representing yourself, your country, you’re representing the people that fought for your country, too,” Frazier said. “That’s how extreme it is. You want to play good for them. And when you think like that before games and you go out and play for others, good things usually happen.”

Olympic baseball is far from the high-tech life of the major leagues, where analytics departments parse spray charts, spin rates and scouting reports that some players fixate on and others ignore at their peril. When Frazier reported to the U.S., it was like a trip back in time.

“Basically, we had nothing. We had no video. We had no analytical process. It’s here’s your bat. Bring your own stuff. This is your jersey,” he said. “We got food for you. Now go out and play. Yeah, that’s what I love — everything about it.”

As recently as two years ago, Frazier had 21 homers and 67 RBIs. He hopes to regain that form.

“Making the big play, making that big hit at the end of the game, I think that’s what drives me to be the best possible player I can be,” he said. “And knowing that I still can do it, I think that fulfills me. I want to show my kids who their dad is.”

His 7-year-old son, Blake, is the short right fielder on an 8-and-under all-star team preparing for a July 10 opener. He gets home coaching.

“He had a practice this morning. He didn’t run out a ball. So after the practice, I said, `Listen, you ever see dad not run out a ball?’ He was like, `No, not really,'” Todd recalled. “I said. No, not `really.’ The answer is `No.’ And I’m like, you want to make it to the big leagues? ‘Yeah, I want to be like you.’ I said, well, you got to run out a ball.”

“Not being mean or anything, but just teaching him the ropes.” Frazier said.

Frazier’s fun is infectious for the U.S. and for his family, too. His wife, the former Jacquelyn Verdon, was a gymnast when they met at Rutgers in a class called public speaking for athletes.

“She got an A. I got a B, and I was pretty upset, because I thought I did a better job,” he said with a smile.

Their 5-year-old daughter, Kylie, is a gymnast and 2-year-old son Grant may play football.

“He’s the maniac,” Frazier said, chuckling.

With Blake and Kylie Kimberly that morning, practice began at home, not his wife’s ideal way to start her day.

“She complained about him swinging the bat at 8:30 this morning in the kitchen,” Frazier related. “I said Jackie, come on, let the kid swing. It’s baseball. I used to do it. She goes, `This is the weirdest thing in the world. Why didn’t you go outside?’

“I said because, first, it’s raining. And second, the bat’s right there. That’s what we do. We visualize. We do whatever. Baseball players are crazy. And she just looks at me like befuddled and said, ‘We never did this in gymnastics.’ I’m like, your daughter’s over there in the family room flipping all over the couches. I said, let’s go. We started laughing.”

Home time became a benefit of getting released.

“I get to see these things now, which is great,” he said. “Do I miss baseball in the major leagues? Of course, but I’ve come to grips with it.”

Frazier has 9 years, 93 days of major league service and needs 79 days more to fully vest in the pension plan. After he’s done playing, perhaps a career in broadcasting is ahead.

“I’m going to try and get on the team by the end of the year here,” he said. “If not, I’m going to try in spring training one more time and hopefully I’ll fight my way to get one more one more year and it’ll be great.”

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Three Chicago cops and a federal marshal opened fire while serving an arrest warrant in West Garfield Park Friday morning, seriously wounding a man who is facing more than a dozen counts of aggravated sex assault and had cut off his electronic monitoring bracelet.

The suspect, 33, was in a black Jeep when he was confronted by federal marshals and Cook County sheriff’s deputies around 9:40 a.m. in the 100 block of South Kilpatrick Avenue, Chicago Police Supt. David Brown told reporters.

They approached the Jeep and ordered the man to get out, but he refused, Brown said. They then called for help from Chicago police.

The suspect displayed a gun and three police officers and a marshal opened fire, Brown said. The man was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where fire officials said he was in grave condition. His name was not released.

A handgun was recovered at the scene, police said. Brown said it was unclear if the man had fired shots at the officers.

No officers were shot, but five police officers were taken to hospitals for evaluation, he said. Brown did not elaborate.

The suspect was wanted on 15 counts of aggravated sex assault with a firearm, and had violated his electronic home monitoring by cutting off the bracelet, Brown said. A warrant for his arrest was filed on Dec. 4, he said.

Brown used the incident to repeat once again his claim that the Cook County courts system is fueling gun violence by releasing on electronic monitoring people charged with violent crimes.

“If this debate that we’re having saves one life, then all the criticism is worth it,” said Brown, who has been accused by the county’s chief judge and prosecutor for mischaracterizing the monitoring program.

“I’ve mentioned that 7-year-old Jaslyn Adams was killed by someone on electronic monitoring,” Brown said, referring to a shooting at a McDonald’s drive-thru earlier this year. “We are advocates for the victims.”

The U.S. Marshals Service was leading the investigation into Friday morning’s shooting. The Civilian Office of Police Accountability was investigating the three Chicago officers’ use of force.

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