We support the plan in concept. It is bold, even radical. But it will have to be done right.

It comes as no surprise that anti-cop activists are up in arms about a controversial plan to build a Boys & Girls Club adjacent to a new police and fire training academy in Garfield Park.

The opposition comes largely from the #NoCopAcademy movement, which remains adamantly opposed to the training academy and would prefer that the city “defund” its police force and spend that money, tens of millions of dollars each year, elsewhere.

The new Boys & Girls Club, in their view, would be nothing but a “slap in the face” to Black youth who deeply mistrust our city’s police force.

“Sugar-coating a plan that is due to fail,” activist and frequent mayoral critic Ja’Mal Green said. “This whole campus should be a youth center where young people can grow and thrive. Instead, it’s a police academy.”

“Police officers don’t make Black children feel safe,” Destiny Harris, a youth organizer for the #NoCopAcademy campaign, said. “How can you expect Black and Brown children to come into this space and feel comfortable?”

Let’s be clear: We get it. Chicago indeed has a long and terrible history of police abuse and misconduct. This has left large segments of Black Chicago deeply, and rightfully, suspicious of the police and convinced that cops patrol their communities to harass and arrest, not to serve and protect.

Chicago must do all in its powers to change that dynamic. Profound reform of the police department is necessary. But “defunding” is not likely what most Chicagoans, including Black Chicagoans, are aiming for, as one national poll after another has shown. A new MacArthur Foundation/Harris Poll on public safety found that 58% of Chicagoans oppose the movement to defund police. National polls have similar findings, including a March USA Today/Ipsos poll that found fewer than one in five Americans — and just 28% of Black Americans — support the defunding movement.

Let’s be clear on this, too: Building a new Boys & Girls Club in close proximity to a police training academy is in itself a radical idea. One policing reform expert we spoke with could not think of another city that has attempted anything similar as part of policing reform.

We support the plan in concept. But to work, it will have to be done right.

Safe and welcomed

Young people must feel safe and welcomed, not under surveillance, when they show up for after-school programs and basketball games. Police cadets must be taught to interact positively with youth and the rest of the surrounding West Side community. Programs to facilitate interaction will be needed.

It will be hard to break down decades-old barriers of mistrust, but we believe Chicago has the capacity to make this proposal work. We see, as well, a powerful opportunity to bring a much-needed resource to a West Side neighborhood that has been starved for such amenities for far too long.

Ask any true expert in the field of big city policing: The best police departments are, in the most positive ways, part of the fabric of their communities.

“I reject the notion that kids and police should be nowhere near each other,” policing expert Lorenzo Boyd of the University of New Haven, told us. “They should be around each other, and this brings them in proximity with one another.”

“I want police to understand the lived experience of the kids in the neighborhood,” Boyd added, explaining that it’s something he stresses in his training sessions with officers around the country. “And the more kids, and adults, get to know officers in a non-law enforcement way, the better. If it works, it can be great.”

Taking to heart 2017 police reform report

The driving force behind our views on this matter are the findings and recommendations of the U.S. Justice Department’s landmark 2017 report on the Chicago Police Department. The report pulled no punches as to the disgraceful state of policing in Chicago, and a federal court-monitored consent decree for reform embraced the report’s specific recommendations.

The Justice Department report concluded that inadequate training, carried out in an outdated and run-down facility, is a huge obstacle to true reform of CPD. State-of-the-art training is essential, but virtually impossible to achieve without better facilities. That is why we have supported construction of the new facility despite criticisms that it is somehow an undeserved “gift” to the police.

The DOJ also concluded that a more cooperative, less adversarial relationship between cops and citizens is essential. Without better relations, effective policing is impossible. Citizens will never feel safe.

We’re optimistic that, so far, the city is on the right track. As Planning and Development Commissioner Maurice Cox told us, the Boys & Girls Club and the city ultimately decided to pursue the idea, keeping in mind Chicago’s fraught history of policing.

“We asked ourselves, could we do something tangible to build a bridge between youth and public safety by pairing them next to each other?” Cox said. “There was a lot of concern about reopening old wounds.”

Young people involved in planning

Getting young people engaged in the planning process was important and essential, Cox told us. “We didn’t want advocates for youth in the room,” he said. “We wanted youth themselves in the room.”

That group of about 30 young people — recruited from schools, other Boys & Girls Clubs, and elsewhere — have been involved in the planning since last November. And from the city’s short list of prospective lead architects, the group selected the winner, Latent Design, a firm founded by Black architect Katharine Darnstadt.

The group of young people also weighed in on the design of the club itself, which is to look out onto a public plaza intended to encourage mingling and interaction among the police, young people and community visitors.

“It’s an important conversation that activists are trying to have,” Cox said. “But once the conversation dies down, we have to think about what we’re going to leave, and whether we’ve shaped and changed things for the better.”

Send letters to [email protected]

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State environmental officials are asking for documents to determine the cause of Monday’s blast and possible toxic releases.

State environmental officials are asking Attorney General Kwame Raoul to potentially bring charges against the company Chemtool after its chemical plant near Rockford exploded earlier this week and continued to burn Tuesday.

Raoul should “pursue legal action and require Chemtool to immediately stop the release” of pollution, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency said.

The legal move was announced as firefighters continued to battle a blaze that began with a Monday morning explosion in the village of Rockton. Dozens of employees escaped just before the blast, residents were evacuated and a large cloud of black smoke was still rising from the site Tuesday as the fire raged.

The state EPA also wants Raul’s office to force the company to turn over records that may determine “the cause of the fire and an estimate of the nature and amount of any emissions of sulfuric acid mist, particulate matter and other air contaminants as a result of the fire.”

Authorities evacuated residents within a one-mile radius and told people as far away as 3 miles from the now-destroyed facility to wear a mask for protection. Federal officials are testing the air.

Trump weakened environmental protections

Also on Tuesday, safety advocacy groups said they are hopeful that a new review being led by the Biden Administration may result in strengthening laws in hopes of preventing the type of disaster like the one in Rockton.

Critics say weak federal oversight exacerbated by relaxed regulation under Donald Trump’s Administration contributes to such accidents.

The Rockton plant makes lubricating greases and industrial fluids but it’s unclear exactly what caused the fire or what’s being emitted, a concern of environmentalists who say government oversight of the chemical industry is too lax.

“You have no idea what’s in the air,” said Jane Williams, a Sierra Club activist in California who tracks chemical disasters nationally. The firefighters at the scene “are completely in the dark to what they are being exposed to, which is so wrong.”

Williams and others hope that a review in Washington that could take years will lead to more preventative measures taken by government and companies. For its part, Lubrizol, the company that owns the plant, says it has operated safely since 2012 after it bought Chemtool. Lubrizol is owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway.

AP

“We’re just really heartbroken by what happened and its impact on the community in particular,” Bill Snyder, vice president of operations for Lubrizol, said at a press conference Tuesday.

The accident follows the start of a review by federal environmental officials to evaluate safeguards at chemical plants. The day Joe Biden took the White House Jan. 20, he signed an executive order to strengthen chemical plant oversight following Trump Administration directives to relax rules. At the urging of the chemicals industry, the EPA under Trump worked to undo safeguards put in place just before he took office. Those rollbacks prompted a lawsuit against the Trump Whitehouse by Illinois and 14 other states as well as legal challenges from national environmental organizations.

Limited oversight

Even if Trump had not acted to scale back regulations, the Rockton plant still had limited oversight. Inspections are conducted by the Illinois EPA but it’s unclear how often and records are not easily publicly accessible. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration inspects facilities when there is a complaint and has done so three times since 2012. In 2013, the company paid one fine of $4,900 after OSHA cited it for failing to make sure dangerous machinery doesn’t start up and potentially injure workers. Another OSHA inspection was opened last month after an unspecified complaint, records show.

More than 30 years ago, jarred by a deadly gas-leak accident that killed thousands in Bhopal, India, Congress passed a law to strengthen the government’s hand in preventing chemical disasters. The Chemical Safety Board was created as part of that law passed in 1990 and the investigative body has been making recommendations for years, advocates say. But tougher rules weren’t put in place until the very end of Barack Obama’s presidency.

The Obama rules drew a rebuke from the American Chemistry Council, the industry trade group that later praised Trump’s rollback of the guidelines.

“Trump reversed all prevention measures,” said Emma Cheuse, a lawyer for the group Earthjustice. “The program right now is weak.”

Brett Chase’s reporting on the environment and public health is made possible by a grant from The Chicago Community Trust.

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Perch season reopening Wednesday on Illinois’ Lake Michigan waters, Illinois’ Free Fishing Days beginning Friday and reports and photos coming from all around Chicago fishing are in this sprawling raw-file Midwest Fishing Report.

Perch season reopens Wednesday, June 16, on the Illinois waters of Lake Michigan, Illinois Free Fishing Days (Friday-Monday, June 18-21) and general summer fishing lead this sprawling raw-file Midwest Fishing Report; also frog season opens today, June 15, in Illinois.

Mike Domanus emailed the photo at the top of his PB walleye and this:

Got this 28 inch walleye on Lake Marie and 31 inch Northern on Spring Lake on the chain o lakes

Summer traffic be damned, the Chain is a special place.

ILLINOIS PERCH

Perch fishing in the Illinois waters of Lake Michigan reopens Wednesday, June 16. I plan to hop around the lakefront, hopefully some will be around.

Park Bait will be opening at 4 a.m., as of tomorrow, June 16, for early anglers. Henry’s Sports and Bait will also be adjusting hours. I will update when I know more.

ILLINOIS FREE FISHING DAYS

Free fishing days are Friday, June 18, to Monday, June 21. No licenses or stamps are required. All other regulations apply.

ILLINOIS FROG SEASON

Illinois’ bullfrog (only) season opens today, June 15, and runs through Oct. 15.

Here is the word from the Illinois Department of Illinois:

FROGS (Bullfrogs Only) Methods of Taking and Capture A sport fishing license is required to harvest bullfrogs. Bullfrogs may be taken by hook and line, gig, pitchfork, spear, bow and arrow, hand, or landing net.

No person shall harvest bullfrogs or any other reptile or amphibian by commercial fishing devices, including, hoop nets, traps or seines or by the use of firearms, air guns or gas guns or during bowfishing tournaments.

All other species of unprotected reptiles and amphibians (excluding common snapping turtles and bullfrogs) may only be taken by hand. This shall not restrict the use of legally taken reptiles or amphibians as bait by sport fishermen.

Any captured reptiles or amphibians which are not to be retained in the possession of the captor shall be immediately released at the site of capture, unless taken with a lethal method (such as bow and arrow, gig, spear, pitchfork) which does not permit “release with no harm”. All such taken common snapping turtles and bullfrogs must be kept and counted in the daily harvest. No culling of such taken species is permitted. No person shall harvest or possess any species of reptile or amphibian listed as endangered or threatened in Illinois (17 Ill. Adm. Code 1010 except as provided by 17 Ill. Adm. Code 1070).

Season Bullfrogs may be taken only between June 15 and October 15, both dates inclusive. 6 7

Daily Harvest and Possession Limits The daily Harvest limit for bullfrogs is 8 with a possession limit of 16. For indigenous amphibian and reptile taxon, which may only be taken by hand, (excluding common snapping turtles and bullfrogs) the possession limit is 8 collectively with no more than 4 per taxa

LAKEFRONT PARKING

Chicago Park District’s parking passes for the fisherman’s parking lots at DuSable and Burnham harbors are on sale at Henry’s Sports and Bait in Bridgeport and Park Bait at Montrose Harbor.

Readers suggest SpotHero app downtown. Otherwise, here are some basics: Foster (free street parking or pay lot); Montrose (now a mix of metered and free street parking); Belmont (pay lots on north and south sides); Diversey (pay lot or street parking); DuSable Harbor (pay lot or fisherman’s lot); Northerly Island/Burnham Harbor (meters, pay lot or fisherman’s lot); 31st/Burnham (meter parking between McCormick Place and 31st Street Harbor); Oakwood/39th (meters); 63rd Street/Casino Pier (pay lot); Steelworkers Park (free street parking at east end of 87th); Cal Park (free parking).

AREA LAKES

Cook County commissioner Kevin Morrison holds a fishing derby Saturday, June 19, at Busse Lake from 9 a.m to noon. Must preregister; click here to register and for more information.

Provided

On Thursday, Sam Oaks emailed the photo above and this:

Hey Dale,

I am a local guy from Chicago, graduated from Mount Carmel High School a couple years ago. I read your fishing reports every morning and I finally think I caught one that can be featured in your report. I am a big fan and love to see and read the fishing section in the Chicago Suntimes on a daily basis. Anyways to get to the thing that really matters, I was up in Wilmington, IL today with my father and caught the biggest bass of my life. It was a great fight and easily the funnest fifteen minutes fishing I ever had before. Thank you for your time and consideration!

Big Suntimes Outdoors Fan,

Sam Oaks

Good to have a former Caravan basketball player reach out. (And be a big outdoors fan.)

He added:

Thanks for the response back! It was at my father’s place at Lakepoint Club Resort on a lake in Wilmington, IL. I used a top water chug bar pop bar to catch it. Thanks again!

Dicky’s Bait Shop in Montgomery reported good largemouth at Jericho Lake on goldfish.

Provided

Rico Cantu emailed the photo above and this:

Fish on Dale, caught on wacky worm.

Rico Cantu

Lockport IL

Pete Lamar emailed:

Hi Dale,

Fishing slowed for me this week, both in terms of numbers and of size. Just some small bluegills and bass on a forest preserve pond.

BRAIDWOOD LAKE

Open daily 6 a.m. to sunset. Click here for the preview.

CHAIN O’LAKES AREA

See Mike Domanus’ PB walleye at the top of this post.

Provided

Brad Janis emailed the photo above and this over the weekend:

Fox chain was on fire today….. water temp as high as 86

I think he meant the fishing was good, but I have been on the Chain when it was hot enough to feel like it was on fire.

Tucker at Triangle Sports and Marine in Antioch said catfish are going, best on stinkbait; flatheads are good, too, some on cutbait; bluegill just starting to get on beds right; largemouth moving from channels to main lake; white bass are running here and there; main lake docks are holding walleye.

NOTE: Check updates on water conditions at foxwaterway.com or (847) 587-8540.

NOTE 2: The Stratton Lock and Dam is open 8 a.m. to midnight through Sept. 30.

CHICAGO RIVER

Steve Palmisano at Henry’s Sports and Bait texted:

Carp and catfish Chicago River.

DELAVAN LAKE, WISCONSIN

Dave Duwe emailed:

Delavan Lake 6/14/21 through 6/21/21

Fishing has been phenomenal. The warm weather has got two definite bites going. The bluegill fishing on the weedline has been awesome. They are 6-8 ft down in 12-14 ft of water. If you find the weedline, the fish are there. The spawning bluegills are also in 5-6 ft of water on hard sand bottom. Make sure you have enough bait.

Walleye fishing has been pretty good. The best success has come on jigs fished in 15 ft of water with leeches. Look for the fish by the Yacht Club, Willow Point, and by Browns Channel. Most of the fish are 16-17 inches. It’s a bummer that the legal limit is 18 inches, but their growing! Last week I tried trolling crank baits and only caught a couple. I prefer deep diving Bandit Walleye minnows or Bandit 300 series crankbaits. White pearl is my favorite color.

Largemouth bass can be caught in a multitude of ways. The slop bite, the deep weedline bite or the shallow Senko bite have all been producing fish. I haven’t been targeting them due to the fact that most of my clients were interested in northern last week. Sunday afternoon I was using the new Arkie U bolt Finesse jig tipped with the Yum finesse worm, green pumpkin and caught a few fish. All were legal. Had a real problem hooking the fish, I had several that got off. The Senko/All Terrain Stik bite is still very good by Lake Lawn Lodge and by the west end. The best depth was 6-7 ft. The finesse jig bite was in 15-18 ft. and the slop bite is 2-3 ft by the boat launch and by the outlet.

Northern Pike has been really good with the consistent weather. I’ve been fluctuating depth from 17-25 ft. Lindy rigged suckers are the only way to go. The best location is by the gray condos, the Yacht Club Point and by Willow Point. The only problem I’ve had is with the warm water and the cold bait shop suckers is keeping the bait alive. I use the 1/0 hook and a ¾ oz Lindy sinker. I fished about 1 ft off bottom.

Crappies are on the weedline in 12-16 ft of water. I’ve been using the mini mites with a 1/32 oz jig and small 3/0 split shot hooked about 6-8 inches above the lure. Most of the fish I’ve been catching are between 6 and 7 inches. You really need to sort to catch a limit of 10 inch fish. There’s no problem catching a crappie every other cast. Remember, if you want to keep crappies, you should bring some ice since with the warm water temperature they are very soft if you put them in the live well.

Good luck and I hope to see you on the water. For guide parties, please call Dave Duwe at 608-883-2050

DOWNSTATE

POWERTON: Hours are 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. through Sept. 30.

EMIQUON: Access permits and liability waivers are again required. They are available Tuesday to Saturday at Dickson Mounts Museum, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

HENNEPIN-HOPPER: Reopens May 15. Open through Sept. 6. Closed Mondays (except Labor Day). Check regulations at http://www.wetlands-initiative.org/dixon-paddling-fishing.

SHELBYVILLE: Check with Ken Wilson of Lithia Guide Service. SOUTHERN ILLINOIS: Check with Jason Johns of Boneyard Fishing.

FOX RIVER

Provided by Dicky’s Bait Shop

Dicky’s Bait Shop in Montgomery emailed the photo above and reported some good catfish and flatheads, including 22-pound flathead in Oswego over the weekend on a goldfish; river remains very low, so most are targeting pools and pockets.

Pete Lamar emailed:

Hi Dale,

Fishing slowed for me this week, both in terms of numbers and of size. . . .

As far as the Fox, it was as low as I’ve ever seen it when I drove over it Friday afternoon (we got a lot of rain on Saturday afternoon, but it was very isolated; I’m not sure how it affected nearby streams and the Fox). I fished a tributary with a good amount of spring flow in the hopes that it would be cooler than the Fox. It was, but it too was very low. Just a few sunfish and small smallmouths were caught. The birding was a little better: an adult bald eagle flew right over me and a kingfisher was patrolling up and down the stream.

GENEVA LAKE, WISCONSIN

Dave Duwe emailed:

Lake Geneva 6/14/21 through 6/21/21

With the warm weather the bass have finished spawning and are starting to move deeper. The only bad thing with the warm weather is the increased boat traffic. You need to fish either early a.m. or late p.m. for the best success.

Largemouth bass are being caught in the spawning areas in 12-15 ft of water. Look for the fish in areas like Trinkes, Williams Bay or Geneva Bay between pier 5 and 22. The best approach has been split shotting either nightcrawlers or split shotting green pumpkin 4 inch lizards, I like Yum or Zoom. All of the fish are post spawn and with the warming water temperatures are starting to move out to the deeper lake basin.

Smallmouth bass have finished spawning and are still cruising the 12-15 ft range. Look for the fish by the Military Academy or by the Elgin Club. Dragging a football head jig with a Chompers Spider grub has been producing most of my action. You want to position the boat in 20 ft of water and cast into about 12-15 and slowly drag the jig to the boat. Nightcrawlers fished on a split shot rig are also catching numerous fish. The only problem is the Rock Bass and Bluegills are eating your bait as fast as you can put it down.

Panfish are unstoppable. They are literally everywhere around the lake. Keep your boat in 12-15 ft and you’ll get bit. Most of the fish are Rock bass with a few perch. The best location has been by Colemans Point, Knollwood and Pier 666.

Bluegills have been biting on the deep weedline in 15-18 ft of water. Most of the large fish are coming off of leaf worms fished straight beneath the boat. Unlike other years the average size has been 9-10 inches. It has again become fun to fish for bluegills on Lake Geneva. Much of my success has been by Elgin Club or Belvidere Park.

Some Lake Trout are being caught in 70-90 ft of water. Most of the success has come off of a silver Dodger and a blue Fly or a chrome and blue flutter spoon. Look for the fish by Covenant Harbor or by the Military Academy.

Good luck and I hope to see you on the water. For guide parties, please call Dave Duwe at 608-883-2050

GREEN LAKE AREA, WISCONSIN

Provided

Guide Mike Norris texted the photo above and emailed this:

Fishing Report 6/14/2021

Mike Norris

Big Green Lake – Both smallmouth bass and rock bass fishing is good on Big Green right now and with improved water clarity, this bite will get better. Try crawlers or leeches on a drop shot rig in 10 -12 feet of water. Ned rigs are also working well.

Little Green Lake – A few still bass spawning along shoreline. Crappie fishing is good on minnows in deeper water. Muskie fishing is also good along weed lines. June is one of the best months for muskies on Little Green.

Fox Lake – The bluegill spawn is in full swing, and the largemouth bass are close by. Both species are being caught by homeowners fishing with shiners from piers. I am currently guiding on Fox Lake and doing well fishing with Senko’s for largemouth bass along rocky shorelines. Walleye fishing is good early and late in the day. Try trolling with spinners and crawlers in 12 -15 feet of water. Northern pike can be caught in 10 to 12 feet of water.

To book a guide trip reach out to me via my Facebook page at mike.norris.7773 or email me through my website at www.comecatchsmallmouth.com

GREEN/STURGEON BAYS, WISCONSIN

Click here for the Wisconsin DNR weekly report.

HEIDECKE LAKE

Provided

Ray Gregory messaged the photo above and this on Sunday:

White spinner bait 20 ft John Vaitkus sr.

South Side [of Heidecke]

Gregory added:

I had a great day, thanks to the guys that passed us a bigger net

Open 6 a.m. (6:30 bank fishing) to sunset. Click here for the promising preview.

LAKE ERIE

Click here for the Ohio DNR Report.

LAKEFRONT

Provided

John Saban emailed the photo above and this on Sunday:

Hey Dale, we had about an hour and a half of a good feeding frenzy. All good sized fish including a 4.8 for me and a 4.5 for my partner Paul Rychlewski. I feel the smallies like the days when the wind and waves stir things up by the breakwalls, it’s tougher to fish but the bite is better.

JS

Provided by Kurt Brown

Kurt Brown emailed the photo above and this last Tuesday:

Hi Dale,

My name is Kurt Brown and a friend of mine caught a monster smallie that I wanted to submit for fish of the week. The fishermen’s name is Matt Dohse and he caught a monster 5 Ibs. 1 oz. small mouth in Belmont harbor tonight on a zman ned rig. Please let me know if that’ll make the cut.

I appreciate your content.

Best regards,

Kurt

Steve Palmisano at Henry’s Sports and Bait texted:

Carp and catfish Chicago River. Perch opening tomorrow. That’s about it

Perch tomorrow, the great hope.

Stacey Greene at Park Bait at Montrose Harbor texted:

Good morning Dale. With perch season opening tomorrow we will be opening now at 4 a.m. and still closing at 8 p.m. 7 days a wee.Fishing report isn’t much other than sheephead being caught mostly on the Horseshoe. Small mouth starting to get active again. There has been some nice perch caught and released while fishing for other fish, hopefully they’ll stick around. Have a good week.

Capt. Bob Poteshman of Confusion Charters said that out of Chicago coho are slow and scattered; there’s a good lakers morning, less active and deeper afternoons; work Dodgers and flies in 90 and deeper. Out of North Point, coho are very good in 120-130 with lots of 20-plus catches (and big coho), near the Wisconsin line (good band from the nuke plant to Kenosha) with the occasion steelhead, king and lake trout.

Lori Ralph at the Salmon Stop in Waukegan texted:

Mainly boat reports, and I have been getting calls about perch, so I know guys will be going.

May there be at least some perch around.

She added:

Boat fishing good, 60 to 90 to 120 feet

Capt. Scott Wolfe emailed:

We had the best fishing of the year out of Waukegan this week. Coho dominated the fishery with limits most trips. We had a few bonus kings a few lakers and lots of steelhead too. The best fishing continues to be 70 to 150 feet with about 100 feet being most consistent. Stubbie dodgers with 3 to 4 inch Aqua and Blue Liz Jimmy Flies on downriggers and divers took 80 percent of the fish with Warrior Lures XL size spoons in Lance’s Two Face, Two Face and Green Dragon Slayer on 5 to 10 color leadcores taking the rest. The biggest variable was trolling speed. Some days very, very slow and others normal to slightly fast. Trollers should change speeds frequently until they find that days pattern.

Harbor fishing was good. I saw several largemouth bass, pike and carp taken. Carp on hair rigs and bass and pike on the good old Johnson’s Silver minnow dressed with a twister tail. Work them through the weeds.

Capt. Scott Wolfe

schooloffishcharters.com
630-341-0550

LaSALLE LAKE

Open daily 6 a.m. to sunset. Click here for the preview of prospects.

MADISON LAKES, WISCONSIN

Click here for the update from D&S Bait.

MAZONIA

Both units are open for fishing.

MENOMINEE RIVER, WISCONSIN

Provided by Mike Mladenik

Guide Mike Mladenik of bigsmallmouthbass.com emailed the photo above and this:

Mid June Fishing Report

The Menominee River is at below average flow levels which makes for good fishing. Smallmouth bass have completed spawning on the Menominee River. Smallmouth are scattered and topwater baits are producing quality fish. PROP Baits are best. The best topwater bite is around any fresh weeds!! It looks like this year will be a banner year for topwater fishing on the Menominee River that will peak in late July and August. We have also had good success with Case Magic Stiks and Wacky Jacks when smallmouth are tight to the bottom. The 1/0 Spearpoint GP Finesse Hook is a must when rigging wacky Style.

MILLE LACS LAKE, MINNESOTA

Provided by McQuoids Inn

Justin Lederer emailed the photo above and this from McQuoids Inn in Isle, Minn.:

Justin Lederer checking in from McQuoids Inn Lake Mille Lacs. The walleye bite has been just as hot as the weather. I have been targeting 28-32 feet of water around the reefs and gravel beds. Leeches are still producing the best under a float set a foot off the bottom. Picking up a few on crawlers. Tried running cranks on lead core to get them down with no success. Live bait is still the best option right now.Smallmouth are in post spawn they have pushed out into the deeper edge of the reefs and off the shoreline. Guys are picking them up in 18-22 feet around the boulders. Plastics are producing well still they should start hitting jerk baits shortly.P.S Dale if there is any way you can publish both ladies it would be very much appreciated have a great week keep up the great work.

NORTHERN WISCONSIN

Ken “Husker” O’Malley emailed the report and photos below:

Hey Dale,

Here is a recap of this past weeks fishing.

Northern Wisconsin-the week plus heat wave finally ended this past Friday. Some of the shallower bays reached 80 degrees. I don’t believe I have seen water temps that high in early June.

Smallmouth are post spawn. Focus on steeper drops along points and the first drop off along spawning flats. Best bait has been the Berkley flatworm on a drop shot.

Provided

Pike are very good early morning in bays with good weed growth. X-raps and Mepps have been the best baits.

Largemouth have been good working a senko wackey rigged along shoreline cover and weed edges.

Here is the nature pic of the week courtesy of Hailey O’Malley.

The best defense against mosquitoes in the Northwoods.

Hailey O’Malley

TTYL

—

Ken “Husker” O’Malley

Husker Outdoors
Waterwerks fishing team

Kurt Justice at Kurt’s Island Sport Shop in Minocqua emailed:

The heat wave has finally broke with cooler temps and less humidity. That’s been a plus for angler comfort. The down side is, especially for Walleye anglers, we have to contend with Mayfly hatches.

Smallmouth Bass: Very Good – Reports of good sized fish coming in, many 4 and 5 pound fish being caught. Ned Rigs, tubes, drop shotting have all been effective. Look for the larger fish to come on the first breaks.

Walleye: Good – Pick your lakes, if you see Mayflies try a different lake. Lakes where Mayflies haven’t been an issue, fishing has been fairly good. Leeches seem to be producing the most fish. Fishing the weed beds, 8-15’ is a good area to target fish right now.

Largemouth Bass: Good – A lot of action being reported, Waxy worms, creature baits and tubes have all been producing. Look for the majority of fish to come on inside weed edges. Top-water action is starting to get better as well, pick your times to throw them though, mid-afternoon to sundown is when it has been best.

Musky: Good – Have been hearing quite a few fish being caught, most fish in the 30” range. Bucktails & swim baits have been producing, while top-water has been productive late in the day.

Northern Pike: Good – French spinners, spinner baits, and chatter baits fished above the weeds has been good as of late.

Crappies: Good – Plastics seem to be producing fairly well as of late. Crappie scrubs, twister tails, tubes worked over weeds in 8-12’ of water has been taking fish.

Bluegills: Good – Spawning is pretty much over, fishing remains good though, pick your bait of choice, leeches, worms, waxies are all working. For a little added fun, try a popper with a fly rod or a casting bubble.

Yellow Perch: Fair – Not many reports again, weed flats in the 10’ range has been getting fish, leeches and pieces of crawlers have been working.

Looks to be some cooler, more stable weather in the coming week, which will be a nice break from the 90 degree temps and strong storms. Remember Smallmouth Bass is still catch and release until June 19^th.

Kurt Justice

Kurt’s Island Sport Shop
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NORTHWEST INDIANA

Provided by Bruce Zolna

Bruce Zolna emailed the photo above and this:

Dale,

Friday, June 11, 2021 we fished from 1:30pm till 6:00pm for our limit of 10 coho of various sizes and 2 big Lakers, returned to Lake Michigan after quick pics.

This was my first Summer 2021 Trip #1 on Autonomous. We fished IN and IL water near MI border out of my slip in Sammie Maletta Marina @ the Ditch.

Capt Ed Landmichl and I targeted and got our limit of coho and 2 incidental big Lakers. One about 24 lbs, one near 18 lbs.

Great first trip on my boat to break in 2 rebuilt inboard Bluewater small-block V-8 Mercruiser Inboards.

Life is good. Good to be back.

Bruce A Zolna

Life does sound good.

Provided

Capt. Rich Sleziak at Slez’s Bait in Lake Station texted the photo above and this:

Fishing on the tri -state area out of burns ditch was good till north winds shut us down.

Orange dodgers and orange or red mini spindoctors with 2 inch flys along with spoons took all the fish.

Bluegills still going good at most lakes and ponds we other crickets and jumbo reds best baits

Catfish at night on triple s catfish bait along the portage river walk

Bizy Dale lots of groups fishing

Busy at fishing is good.

ROOT RIVER, WISCONSIN

Click here for the Wisconsin DNR’s report, usually on Tuesday or Wednesday.

SOUTHWEST MICHIGAN

Phil Schuman at Tackle Haven in Benton Harbor said walleye are being caught in river; steelhead should start soon off the piers; on Lake Michigan, trollers are catching lake trout in 100-150 with a few salmon out in 200-300.

Paddle and Pole hosts the Berrien Springs Fish Ladder Camera.

SHABBONA LAKE

Site hours through Oct. 31 are 6 a.m.-10 p.m. daily

Adam Honiotes at Boondocks Supply said there is a good run on walleye and hybrid stripers. “I would remind people hang on to their poles for those striper hits, we’ll lost five rods,” he said. Most of the hybrids (one to 13 pounds) are coming on chicken liver. Walleye are great, including some keepers, primarily on jigheads with a leech or crawler dragged on the bottom.

He also noted that they are now 100 percent, including the restaurant now open daily.

SOUTHEAST WISCONSIN

Provided

John D’Amico emailed the photo above and this:

I hope you’re doing well. I want to share the great time fishing with the family this weekend in southeast WI. The bass were extremely active and here is one of many that were caught.

Best,

John

SOUTHEAST WISCONSIN LAKEFRONT

Click here for the southern Lake Michigan reports from the Wisconsin DNR.

WISCONSIN RIVER

Provided

Rob Abouchar emailed the photo above and this:

Hi Dale

I hit the wisconsin River in Merrill and it was quite eventful. Driving through the worst hailstorm i ever drove through in Wausau I knew the river would be high and dirty and the fishing might be tough. With Joe “The Grasseater Schatz” we hit the Friday Fish Fry and then the Wisconsin Rodeo that was in town. The Bull riding and Girls barrel racing were highlights in the flooded rodeo ring. On Saturday the water on Alexander was high and quite dirty areas. It took some work to get bites on smallmouth bass but a few were hitting Senkos either wacky rigged or Texas rigged. The pike action picked up in clearer water areas and we caught some esox on Spinnerbaits and bladed jigs with Kalins grub trailer. The next day we decided to get away from the dirty water and heavy pressure at Alexander. I noticed the flowage had a high number of hi performance bass rig guys fishing for Smallmouth. Sunday we headed to 7 Island Lake in Harrison Hills; what I call cottage country. We were able to land some largemouth and Smallmouth on the beautiful lake. We had some great Loon watching activity with a group of 5 Loons, some with brown heads diving and taking flight. & island lake is a beautiful lake known for Muskie but my Senko went untouched by the Esox there. Water temps were around 75 degrees at the river and lake.

On the music front I am looking for gigs for the original reggae band and may be getting close. Sending EPK promo kits to club owners and booking agents is like some kind of frustrating fishing exercise but i’m not quite sure what that is…sooner or later someone is gonna bite!

Tight lines and good Health

Rob

Provided by Rob Abouchar

Why I so enjoy Abouchar’s report: Friday Fish Fry to bull riding to reggae.

WOLF RIVER, WISCONSIN

Guide Bill Stoeger in Fremont texted:

Water temp jumped up to 83 degrees last week. Fishing has slowed down a bit, although the walleye action continues to be good. Mainly deeper water, and crawlers. Some bluegills are being taken. The spawn was short and fast with the heat.

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The attack is the third mass shooting in Chicago in little over a week and came at the end of a burst of violence that saw more than 25 people shot across the city in 10 hours.

One by one, the family of Denice Mathis walked up to the police tape on the block in Englewood and reached out to each other. Some sobbed, others cursed.

Down the street, inside a two-story house with a gray stone front, lay Mathis and the bodies of two women and a man killed in a shooting that seriously wounded four other people early Tuesday.

Mathis, in her early 30s, was a mother of four boys and a girl, and had just taken her children to Six Flags over the weekend.

Also killed was Shermetria Williams, 19 and the mother of a 2-year-old daughter. She was set to graduate from Country Club Hills Trade & Tech Center on Tuesday.

The third woman who died in the attack was identified as Ratanya Aryiel Rogers, 28, who lived in Rogers Park, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s officer.

The fourth fatality was Blake Lee, who lived in the home and did odds jobs in the neighborhood, relatives said. He had recently lost his mother and grandmother.

The attack is the third mass shooting in Chicago in a little over a week and came at the end of a burst of violence that saw more than 25 people shot across the city in 10 hours.

The attack prompted Mayor Lori Lightfoot to say Chicago has joined a “club of cities to which no one wants to belong: Cities with mass shootings.”

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

Lightfoot — as she repeatedly has done — decried lack of federal action aimed at “eliminating opportunity for criminals, for children, to get access to illegal guns so that petty disputes turn into mass shooting events, as we’ve seen over and over and over again.”

The Rev. Donovan Price, who regularly goes to shooting scenes to provide support for gun violence victims and their loved ones, said he’s never seen anything like the last 10 days in the more than five years he’s worked as a street pastor.

“This is the worst ever,” said Price, whose voice quivered at times as he spoke of Tuesday’s tragedy. “It’s worse now than it’s ever been. It’s devastating.”

Chicago police released few details of how the eight people were shot, but said it occurred when an argument broke out inside the home.

Four of the victims were pronounced dead at the scene shortly before 6 a.m., and four others were taken to hospitals, at least two of them in critical condition. A 2-year-old girl in the home at the time was taken to Comer Children’s Hospital for observation. She was not shot.

A witness told police there were two volleys of gunshots inside the home, hours apart.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

The first was around 2 a.m., when the ShotSpotter system alerted police to gunfire near the Morgan address, according to Police Superintendent David Brown. He did not say if police responded to the alert.

The witness heard shots again around 5 a.m., around the time officers arrived to find the victims. Police recovered shell casings inside the house and a large capacity “drum magazine.”

There was no sign of forced entry, Brown said. At least one of the victims lived at the address, a barber who cut hair out of the house.

Brown did not elaborate on the relationships of the victims and the shooter, or what the argument was about.

Brown said the victims taken to hospitals had not yet been interviewed by detectives, and the investigation still was “very preliminary.”

“All we know about this residence is there’s been several calls there for disturbances,” Brown told reporters. “Overall, the block where this residence is located is fairly quiet, not much activity going on that requires a police response.”

As officers worked the scene into the late morning, a crowd of distraught relatives and neighbors gathered along the police tape blocking off Morgan Street.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

Mathis’ family said she was a devoted mother. “She was a good person — a free-spirited person,” said a cousin, Vickie Smith. “She loved her family.”

Mathis lived on the South Side, but the family didn’t know what brought her to the gathering on South Morgan.

A man who said he was Mathis’ brother said his sister had been to the house many times before. “She was a good girl — none of these knuckleheads,” the brother said.

Demetrius Williams said he was at home in Maywood, putting on a shirt and tie for his daughter’s graduation, when he heard she had been killed.

“This is unbelievable — a massacre,” said Williams, struggling to compose his thoughts as officers took down the crime tape around the Englewood house. “Why? Why did this have to happen?”

Williams still held the ticket for his daughter’s graduation. Back home were red roses and balloons that said “Congratulations.”

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

“All she wanted to do was take care of her daughter and be successful in life,” the father said. “She meant the world to me. That was my baby girl.”

Also standing and waiting for answers outside the police tape was Raheem Hall, who grew up in Englewood and always had words of caution for his nephew Blake Lee.

“I told him just to be careful out here. Stay away from the wrong crowd,” Hall said.

Blake lived in the house where the attack occurred. “He was a good guy,” said Hall, who now lives in Indiana. “He did no harm to no one. He was just trying to live his life as an ordinary guy.”

Blake had had a hard life, his uncle said, but he was also enjoying things recently, having traveled to Miami on vacation, his uncle said.

Price, founder and executive director of solutions and Resources|Street Pastors, spent most of the morning on the Morgan block, praying over the victims and their families as well as comforting people who lived in the area.

He said he spoke to a young boy who said his mother was one of the victims who died. “The whole thing is bad. There’s a lot of family,” Price said. “This is a terrible situation and a lasting and damaging situation for the South Side [and] for the city.”

Similar scenes played out through the day at the hospitals where the wounded were taken.

A group of about 10 people waited outside the University of Chicago Hospital, where a woman in her mid-20s was taken after being shot on Morgan.

A 45-year-old man said his daughter remained in surgery as of 12:45 p.m. The man said his daughter worked at Lawrence’s Fish & Shrimp.

After he walked away, several women began to weep. One woman dropped to the ground and buried her face in her hands.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

One person wrapped her arms around another and rubbed their back to comfort them as they stood against a chain-linked fence and faced the emergency room entrance.

“She got shot in the head,” another person sobbed on the phone as they walked away.

Outside Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, relatives said the man who lived in the home, James Tolbert, was “alert and coherent.”

Tolbert operated a barbershop from his home after COVID-19 restrictions closed down the shop where he worked. The 2-year-old girl taken to Comer’s for observation is his daughter, according to Tolbert’s sister, Michelle Tolbert.

Waiting outside the emergency room entrance, Michelle Tolbert said she learned her brother had been shot from a Facebook post and feared the worst.

“There were a lot of people putting up ‘RIP’ posts, so I was worried,” she said.

Hospital staff would not let her up to her brother’s room, but said Tolbert no longer was in critical condition. “They told me he’s awake, he’s responsive.”

Michelle Tolbert said her brother had a jovial “barbershop” personality and had studied to be an EMT before going to barber college.

“He’s a good person,” she said. “He definitely didn’t deserve this.”

The attack is the third mass shooting in Chicago in little over a week, and came just hours after gunfire erupted at a party in the Back of the Yards neighborhood on the South Side, killing a man and wounding two women wounded.

Early Saturday, a woman was killed and nine others wounded near 75th Street and South Prairie Avenue. Kimfier Miles, 29, a mother of three, was out with a group of girlfriends when two men opened fire about 2 a.m. Saturday.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

The weekend before, six men and two women were wounded when someone in a silver car opened fire in a shooting in the 8900 block of South Cottage Grove Avenue in the Burnside neighborhood.

There have been 390 homicides in Cook County so far this year, according to the medical examiner’s office, nearly 300 of them in Chicago. This time last year, the county had recorded 342.

Lightfoot blamed the violence on the lack of national laws that would curb the flow of illegal guns.

“When gun [laws] are so porous that they can come across our borders with such ease, as we see every single day in Chicago, we know that we have to have a multi-jurisdictional, national solution to this horrible plague of gun violence,” she said. “And that starts with eliminating opportunity for criminals, for children to get access to illegal guns so that petty disputes turn into mass shooting events, as we’ve seen over and over and over again—not just this year, but every year.”

Lightfoot bristled when asked how the steady stream of mass shootings might impact her efforts to reopen the city and encourage Chicagoans to come downtown to dine and shop and patronize the stores and restaurants in their own neighborhoods.

She noted that the Englewood shooting happened “inside a single residence” — not out on the street or in a large outdoor gathering.

“The reality is, our city is safe,” the mayor said. “And I stand by that. We have done yeoman’s work over the course of a very difficult year where every major city—New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Atlanta and on and on the list goes—has seen similar surge in violence.”

Pressed about the perception of safety, she said, “What I’m concerned about is the fact that people lost their lives this morning. I’m concerned about the fact that there are people who are dead in an act of violence that makes no sense to me.”

Asked whether she believes Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx is doing a good job prosecuting gun offenders, Lightfoot pointed to what one of the state’s attorney’s top aides said about the Chicago Police Department during a recent webinar for reporters.

“The conclusion of her policy person was that the Chicago Police Department is arresting the wrong people who possess guns. I fundamentally disagree with that,” she said. “We are a city that’s awash in illegal guns. Those illegal guns cause deep pain and injury and death.”

Read More

Inexplicably, Nagy declared Tuesday that there won’t be a quarterback competition between Dalton and Fields. Three months away from the season opener, he is adamant about going with Dalton.

Give up any dream of seeing Justin Fields start at quarterback in the Bears’ season opener. The competition between him and veteran Andy Dalton is officially closed, with coach Matt Nagy determining three months in advance that there’s no way Fields could overtake Dalton.

He could not have been clearer: There is no quarterback competition.

“Yes, correct,” he said as all of Chicago groaned in thudding disappointment.

“We all get excited about Justin Fields,” Nagy continued. “We’d all be lying if we said something different. With that said, we’re excited about Andy Dalton, too.”

That means regardless of Fields’ immense talent and how much progress he could potentially make between now and the Week 1 game at the Rams, Nagy already knows he’s going with a 33-year-old whose career passer rating is just three-tenths of a point better than Mitch Trubisky’s.

Case closed.

Nagy’s rationale was organization’s unwavering commitment to essentially red-shirt Fields for a season as he develops. The goal is for him to take over by the start of 2022, and after watching Chiefs star Patrick Mahomes’ success in a similar plan, Nagy intends to follow it regardless of how Dalton and Fields look in training camp.

The Bears signed Dalton to a one-year, $10 million deal in March only after the Seahawks rejected their aggressive trade offer for Russell Wilson. Part of their recruitment was telling Dalton he was their starter and that they were done pursuing other NFL quarterbacks.

“They told me I was the starter, [and] that was one of the reasons why I wanted to come here,” Dalton said at the time. “That’s the assurance that I’ve gotten.”

It was obvious then that the Bears might still take a quarterback high in the draft, but there was always an understanding that Dalton was first on the depth chart. And, sure enough, Nagy called Dalton immediately after the Bears traded up to draft Fields at No. 11 overall to reassure him that he was still the starter

Nagy stopped short of saying the team guaranteed Dalton that when he signed, but there was at least a handshake agreement.

“There were no promises, but… I specifically told him, ‘You’re our starter,’” Nagy said. “That being said, does that mean that these guys aren’t competing? Absolutely not. They’re competing.”

Just not for the starting job, apparently.

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The Bears tight end walked away from a March accident.

Bears tight end Jimmy Graham was driving down a Miami turnpike in the early morning of March 4 when he saw a police car backing down an offramp. He moved his SUV over two lanes as he reached the top of a hill — only to see a disabled car in the center lane.

Graham, who said he was driving about 90 mph, had about 15 yards to avoid the car. He swerved left and was headed toward a bridge when he decided the only way to slow down in time was to flip his car. He turned hard right, tumbling four times before skidding for 100 yards on his roof, police told him.

When his SUV stopped after scattering sparks and glass, Graham, in his seatbelt, was fine. So was his vizsla, Ginger, who was in the backseat.

“It really felt like a game,” Graham, who was not charged in the single-car accident, said before mandatory minicamp Tuesday. “Everything was really slow. I can remember making every decision. I can actually remember my phone floating up in the air. I could see the time.”

Later, Graham checked the heart monitor on his smartwatch. His heart rate never got above 87.

Why would it? Graham is a stunt pilot in the offseason. In fact, he had his car towed to the airport, which was his early-morning destination, and did flips in the sky.

“I think football and a little bit of flying and all the aerobatics I do kinda trains the body and trains the mind to be calm and focused during those moments,” he said. “So I’m pretty lucky, just extremely blessed. …”

Graham decided around that same time he wanted another year of adrenaline. The 34-year-old thought about retirement. He even had a walk-off moment: as the clock expired in the Bears’ playoff loss at Superdome, his home for his first five seasons, Graham caught a one-handed touchdown pass and walked directly up the player tunnel.

The loss, though, bothered him. As he talked to Bears general manager Ryan Pace and coach Matt Nagy, Graham realized he wanted to play another year. His body still felt healthy.

“I never want to outlive my time,” he said. “I feel like I can still be used and I can still be a weapon and I can still be a leader for this team. And help these young kids to make a run and to share some of my knowledge of what I’ve learned in this league.”

Graham’s 699 career receptions are tops among active tight ends, while his 82 touchdowns trails only Rob Gronkowski. Graham, though, has never reached the Super Bowl; he’s played in only one conference championship game.

“He wants to win the Super Bowl,” Nagy said. “That’s the only thing he cares about. So for him to decide to come back here and continue to play, he’s not doing it for records. He’s not doing it because he just wants to play a little bit more or get one more year in. He’s doing it because he believes we have the ability to be really good. He knows that.

“And he is a valuable, valuable piece of this offense in so many different ways — in the classroom, in practice and on game day — that just is worth every penny.”

In his two seasons with the Packers, Graham averaged 46.5 catches and 541.5 receiving yards. In the first season of a two-year, $16 million deal with the Bears, he had 50 catches for 456 yards. He caught eight touchdowns, though, after totaling only five in two years in Green Bay, and mentored rookie tight end Cole Kmet.

The Bears consider Kmet’s growth during the season a validation of Graham’s influence. Ten years from now, Nagy said, Kmet will consider Graham one of the best things to ever happen to his career.

Graham will be retired and doing airplane flips by then. Just not yet.

“I’ve got a lot of unfinished business,” he said.

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The Chicago Bears were handcuffed this off-season with the moves that they could make as they were already near the salary cap when the off-season began. The Bears operated the off-season  with an addition by subtraction  approach as they would often cut a defensive player to make room for an offensive addition. One candidate that […]

Chicago Bears News: Jimmy Graham considered retirement – Da Windy City – Da Windy City – A Chicago Sports Site – Bears, Bulls, Cubs, White Sox, Blackhawks, Fighting Illini & More

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The attack is the third mass shooting in Chicago in little over a week and came at the end of a burst of violence that saw more than 25 people shot across the city in 10 hours.

One by one, the family of Denice Mathis walked up to the police tape on the block in Englewood and reached out to each other. Some sobbed, others cursed.

Down the street, inside a two-story house with a gray stone front, lay Mathis and the bodies of two women and a man killed in a shooting that seriously wounded four other people early Tuesday.

Mathis, in her early 30s, was a mother of four boys and a girl, and had just taken her children to Six Flags over the weekend.

Another one of those killed was Shermetria Williams, 19 and the mother of a 2-year-old daughter. She was set to graduate from Country Club Hills Trade & Tech Center on Tuesday.

A third woman who died in the attack lived in the home and was the mother of a 2-year-old girl who was there when the shots were fired, relatives said. She was not hit.

The fourth fatality was Blake Lee, who also lived in the home and did odds jobs in the neighborhood, relatives said. He had recently lost his mother and grandmother.

The attack is the third mass shooting in Chicago in a little over a week and came at the end of a burst of violence that saw more than 25 people shot across the city in 10 hours.

The attack prompted Mayor Lori Lightfoot to say Chicago has joined a “club of cities to which no one wants to belong: Cities with mass shootings.”

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

As she repeatedly has done, she decried lack of federal action aimed at “eliminating opportunity for criminals, for children, to get access to illegal guns so that petty disputes turn into mass shooting events, as we’ve seen over and over and over again.”

Chicago police released few details of how the eight people were shot, but said it occurred when an argument broke out inside the home.

Four of the victims were pronounced dead at the scene shortly before 6 a.m., and four others were taken to hospitals, at least two of them in critical condition.

The 2-year-old girl found in the home was taken to Comer Children’s Hospital for observation.

A witness told police there were two volleys of gunshots inside the home, hours apart.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

The first was around 2 a.m., when the ShotSpotter system alerted police to gunfire near the Morgan address, according to Police Superintendent David Brown. He did not say if police responded to the alert.

The witness heard shots again around 5 a.m., around the time officers arrived to find the victims. Police recovered shell casings inside the house and a large capacity “drum magazine.”

There was no sign of forced entry, Brown said. At least one of the victims lived at the address, a barber who cut hair out of the house.

Brown did not elaborate on the relationships of the victims and the shooter, or what the argument was about.

Brown said the victims taken to hospitals had not yet been interviewed by detectives, and the investigation still was “very preliminary.”

“All we know about this residence is there’s been several calls there for disturbances,” Brown told reporters. “Overall, the block where this residence is located is fairly quiet, not much activity going on that requires a police response.”

As officers worked the scene into the late morning, a crowd of distraught relatives and neighbors gathered along the police tape blocking off Morgan Street.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

Mathis’ family said she was a devoted mother. “She was a good person — a free-spirited person,” said a cousin, Vickie Smith. “She loved her family.”

Mathis lived on the South Side, but the family didn’t know what brought her to the gathering on South Morgan.

A man who said he was Mathis’ brother said his sister had been to the house many times before. “She was a good girl — none of these knuckleheads,” the brother said.

Demetrius Williams said he was at home in Maywood, putting on a shirt and tie for his daughter’s graduation, when he heard she had been killed.

“This is unbelievable — a massacre,” said Williams, struggling to compose his thoughts as officers took down the crime tape around the Englewood house. “Why? Why did this have to happen?”

Williams still held the ticket for his daughter’s graduation. Back home were red roses and balloons that said “Congratulations.”

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

“All she wanted to do was take care of her daughter and be successful in life,” the father said. “She meant the world to me. That was my baby girl.”

Also standing and waiting for answers outside the police tape was Raheem Hall, who grew up in Englewood and always had words of caution for his nephew Blake Lee.

“I told him just to be careful out here. Stay away from the wrong crowd,” Hall said.

Blake lived in the house where the attack occurred. “He was a good guy,” said Hall, who now lives in Indiana. “He did no harm to no one. He was just trying to live his life as an ordinary guy.”

Blake had had a hard life, his uncle said, but he was also enjoying things recently, having traveled to Miami on vacation, his uncle said.

Similar scenes played out through the day at the hospitals where the wounded were taken.

A group of about 10 people waited outside the University of Chicago Hospital, where a woman in her mid-20s was taken after being shot on Morgan.

A 45-year-old man said his daughter remained in surgery as of 12:45 p.m. The man said his daughter worked at Lawrence’s Fish & Shrimp.

After he walked away, several women began to weep. One woman dropped to the ground and buried her face in her hands.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

One person wrapped her arms around another and rubbed their back to comfort them as they stood against a chain-linked fence and faced the emergency room entrance.

“She got shot in the head,” another person sobbed on the phone as they walked away.

Outside Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, relatives said the man who lived in the home, James Tolbert, was “alert and coherent.”

Tolbert operated a barbershop from his home after COVID-19 restrictions closed down the shop where he worked. The 2-year-old girl taken to Comer’s for observation is his daughter, according to Tolbert’s sister, Michelle Tolbert.

Waiting outside the emergency room entrance, Michelle Tolbert said she learned her brother had been shot from a Facebook post and feared the worst.

“There were a lot of people putting up ‘RIP’ posts, so I was worried,” she said.

Hospital staff would not let her up to her brother’s room, but said Tolbert no longer was in critical condition. “They told me he’s awake, he’s responsive.”

Michelle Tolbert said her brother had a jovial “barbershop” personality and had studied to be an EMT before going to barber college.

“He’s a good person,” she said. “He definitely didn’t deserve this.”

The attack is the third mass shooting in Chicago in little over a week, and came just hours after gunfire erupted at a party in the Back of the Yards neighborhood on the South Side, killing a man and wounding two women wounded.

Early Saturday, a woman was killed and nine others wounded near 75th Street and South Prairie Avenue. Kimfier Miles, 29, a mother of three, was out with a group of girlfriends when two men opened fire about 2 a.m. Saturday.

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

The weekend before, six men and two women were wounded when someone in a silver car opened fire in a shooting in the 8900 block of South Cottage Grove Avenue in the Burnside neighborhood.

Lightfoot blamed the violence on the lack of national laws that would curb the flow of illegal guns.

“When gun [laws] are so porous that they can come across our borders with such ease, as we see every single day in Chicago, we know that we have to have a multi-jurisdictional, national solution to this horrible plague of gun violence,” she said. “And that starts with eliminating opportunity for criminals, for children to get access to illegal guns so that petty disputes turn into mass shooting events, as we’ve seen over and over and over again—not just this year, but every year.”

Lightfoot bristled when asked how the steady stream of mass shootings might impact her efforts to reopen the city and encourage Chicagoans to come downtown to dine and shop and patronize the stores and restaurants in their own neighborhoods.

She noted that the Englewood shooting happened “inside a single residence” — not out on the street or in a large outdoor gathering.

“The reality is, our city is safe,” the mayor said. “And I stand by that. We have done yeoman’s work over the course of a very difficult year where every major city—New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Washington D.C., Atlanta and on and on the list goes—has seen similar surge in violence.”

Pressed about the perception of safety, she said, “What I’m concerned about is the fact that people lost their lives this morning. I’m concerned about the fact that there are people who are dead in an act of violence that makes no sense to me.”

Asked whether she believes Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx is doing a good job prosecuting gun offenders, Lightfoot pointed to what one of the state’s attorney’s top aides said about the Chicago Police Department during a recent webinar for reporters.

“The conclusion of her policy person was that the Chicago Police Department is arresting the wrong people who possess guns. I fundamentally disagree with that,” she said. “We are a city that’s awash in illegal guns. Those illegal guns cause deep pain and injury and death.”

Read More

One person was listed in serious-to-critical condition and five others in fair-to-serious condition, Chicago fire officials said.

Six people were injured after a porch collapsed Tuesday afternoon in Austin on the West Side.

They were on the back stairs of a building in the first block of South Lavergne Avenue when the porch collapsed, Chicago fire officials said.

One person was transported to an area hospital in serious-to-critical condition, officials said. Five more people were transported in fair-to-serious condition, officials said.

This is a developing story. Check back for details.

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Marvin Flanagan and his cohort apparently planned to rob Miguel Perez on Dec. 21 when they attacked him outside his home in the 2500 block of West Cortez Street, Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Kevin DeBoni said.

A 28-year-old man was ordered held without bail Tuesday for a murder that allegedly took place during a home invasion in Humboldt Park over the winter.

Marvin Flanagan and his cohort apparently planned to rob Miguel Perez on Dec. 21 when they attacked him outside his home in the 2500 block of West Cortez Street, Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Kevin DeBoni said.

Before Perez was gunned down, Flanagan’s brother’s girlfriend allegedly texted Flanagan, saying she was at a party at Perez’s home and that Perez had on chains and jewelry.

When Perez got a phone alert from his surveillance system, he stepped out of his garden apartment to check on the movement in the alley behind his building about 2:30 a.m., DeBoni said. Surveillance cameras from the alley showed Flanagan walking toward the building with a rifle, DeBoni said. Perez was also captured on surveillance cameras looking down the gangway of his building before he is seen raising his arms and falling to the ground, DeBoni said.

Perez didn’t have a gun in his hands when he was shot, but he did pull out a weapon and returned fire afterward, DeBoni said. Flanagan was shot twice during the encounter. After the shooting, he jumped over a fence into the alley and landed on Perez’s BMW, leaving his blood on the car, DeBoni said.

Perez, who was struck in the abdomen and arm, later died at Stroger Hospital.

Three different caliber shell casings were recovered, including a shell casing investigators believe came from Perez’s gun, DeBoni said.

Cook County sheriff’s office

Flanagan’s blood was found in other parts of the alley and inside the stolen Nissan SUV that he rode in before he was dropped off at St. Mary’s Hospital a half hour after the shooting, DeBoni said.

Flanagan’s uncharged co-defendant was allegedly behind the wheel of the SUV when Flanagan got to the hospital. The SUV was recorded by license plate readers traveling in the direction of Perez’s home before the shooting and later away from the direction of the hospital, DeBoni said.

The SUV, which was later found abandoned, sustained damage to its body and a piece of the vehicle was found near the crime scene, where the gunmen had apparently crashed as they sped away, DeBoni said. A “blood soaked” Nissan key fob was also found on Flanagan when he was taken into custody after he was treated for his wounds for an escape warrant in an ongoing 2019 armed habitual criminal case, DeBoni said.

While in jail, Flanagan allegedly discussed Perez’s shooting on a monitored phone line, saying he was struck by “friendly fire” and had initially tried to drive himself to the hospital, but lost consciousness and was moved to the back seat by his partner.

Flanagan also said Perez wasn’t supposed to come out of the house and that Perez’s gun “got real fast off his hip,” DeBoni said.

Flanagan told a caller he “should have just speared [Perez’s] ass as soon as [Perez] came out,” DeBoni said.

Flanagan had also been charged with home invasion in the deadly encounter.

Flanagan is also facing aggravated battery to a peace officer charges related to incidents during his latest jail stint. He also has prior convictions for burglary, armed robbery and unlawful use of a weapon by a felon, DeBoni said.

Flanagan’s assistant public defender argued that there was no evidence to suggest Perez was “ambushed.”

“What we do know is [Perez] fired a number of shots … there is really nothing to address what really happened out there on the street that night,” the defense attorney told Judge Mary Marubio.

Marubio told Flanagan he cannot contact any witnesses while he awaits trial for Perez’s murder, prompting Flanagan to say, “I don’t even know who the witnesses is.”

Flanagan then asked how he could know who not to talk to before he was told to stay silent by his lawyer.

He is expected back in court July 6.

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