chicagotribune--2020-06-20--Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is under pressure to change the police union contract to win reforms. H

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is under pressure to change the police union contract to win reforms. Here’s why that’s tougher than it sounds.

Van Dyke said McDonald advanced on him and waved the knife as the officer backpedaled , and his colleagues backed @ @ @ @ @ as a dangerous aggressor .
But the video showed McDonald was moving away from Van @ @ @ @ @ and then continued firing as the teen lay nearly motionless on the street .
A @ @ @ @ @ Dyke of second-degree murder .
Three other officers were tried and acquitted of conspiring to @ @ @ @ @ year , the Police Board fired four cops in the alleged cover-up .

Lori Lightfoot, when she was the president of the Chicago Police Board in 2016, speaks with reporters following an announcement of the board's approval of three candidates for consideration as Chicago's next superintendent of police. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)
Four years ago, private citizen Lori Lightfoot led a task force that urged the city of Chicago to rewrite police union contracts to eliminate provisions that make it harder to discipline officers.
Now, Mayor Lightfoot is under increasing pressure to make those changes a reality herself as protests triggered by George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis cops have renewed calls to eliminate some police protections here.
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At issue are clauses that allow officers to delay giving statements after shooting people, prevent the city from rewarding cops who blow the whistle on misconduct, and discourage people from filing complaints by generally requiring them to give their names.
Lightfoot faces a greater challenge in winning the changes than she did in recommending them, however.
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Chicago Fraternal Order of Police leaders vow not to give up disciplinary protections they won over the decades. The union’s president told the Tribune he hopes to expand officers’ rights.
History also gives reason to doubt a quick resolution — city negotiations with the FOP almost always take years and end up going before an arbitrator. Meanwhile, any hope that Lightfoot and FOP leaders might reach a deal on their own could be complicated by their hostility toward one another.
Lori Lightfoot talks on April 14, 2016, about recommendations for reforming Chicago Police Department. Now Chicago's mayor, Lightfoot was the Chicago Police Board's president and a member of a police reform task force in 2016. (Michael Tercha / Chicago Tribune)
Lightfoot’s administration can get a better contract if it has the political will to insist on change, said Sheila Bedi, a Northwestern University law professor who represents activist groups.
“Anybody who cares about justice and race and policing in the city of Chicago is going to be paying very close attention to the contract negotiations,” she said.
Union President John Catanzara accused city leaders of being ever more willing to unfairly go after cops.
“All we are doing is protecting our members’ rights,” he said. “(The city is) coming after us from all angles like never before.”
Lightfoot ran for mayor touting her police reformer credentials, pointing to experience leading then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s reform task force, as well as heading the Chicago Police Board and a city police disciplinary agency. But during recent protests over police abuse of African Americans, she’s drawn criticism from activists who want more elemental changes than she has so far embraced, such as cutting the police budget.
Lightfoot spokesman Patrick Mullane said the city would fight for changes to the FOP contract, though he declined to say whether City Hall would trade wins in some areas for concessions in others.
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Police unions need to “work with the city as a partner — not a roadblock — on accountability and transparency reforms,” he said.
Fraternal Order of Police Chicago Lodge 7 President John Catanzara Jr. on Thursday, June 18, 2020, in Chicago. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)
Police protections
The union protections are one element of a sluggish, Byzantine police disciplinary system long criticized for shoddy investigations and light punishments.
The provisions largely went unnoticed before the November 2015 release of video of white Officer Jason Van Dyke shooting black teenager Laquan McDonald 16 times more than a year earlier. The footage spurred street protests and calls for greater accountability for police.
The crisis gave rise to a 2016 city task force report and the 2017 U.S. Department of Justice report that criticized the union contracts. Last year, a federal judge enacted a consent decree, a broad court order requiring changes to training, supervision and discipline. The decree, however, states that it doesn’t override existing union contracts but calls on the city to make its “best efforts” to win changes.
Chicago has several officer unions, but the FOP has been front and center in the reform debate. The union represents a wide majority of the city’s 13,000 officers, including the patrol cops who have frequently been involved in controversial shootings and other uses of force. The pushback against the contractual changes is just one battlefront for a union that generally opposes reform and repeatedly has defended members credibly accused of serious misconduct.
The last FOP contract expired three years ago under Emanuel, and the process of negotiating a new one drags on under Lightfoot. The old deal that remains in force still contains numerous disciplinary provisions.
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Among them is a rule that gives cops who shoot people 24 hours before speaking to disciplinary investigators. Police argue it’s only fair to allow cops time to process a traumatic event.
Reform advocates counter that delaying interviews gives cops time to match up their accounts. They pointed to the McDonald shooting as evidence that police will give similar details that clash with video footage.
Van Dyke said McDonald advanced on him and waved the knife as the officer backpedaled, and his colleagues backed the account of the teen as a dangerous aggressor. But the video showed McDonald was moving away from Van Dyke before the officer shot and then continued firing as the teen lay nearly motionless on the street. A Cook County jury convicted Van Dyke of second-degree murder. Three other officers were tried and acquitted of conspiring to justify the shooting. Last year, the Police Board fired four cops in the alleged cover-up.
Former Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke, center, at his sentencing hearing at the Leighton Criminal Court Building in 2019. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)
In a similar vein, another rule allows officers to amend their statements after viewing video of an incident, though the wording of the provision is murky. Reform groups summed up their argument against this protection in a 2019 paper.
“This provision, in effect, allows officers to lie as long as they have not reviewed the video or audio recordings, by giving them a consequence-free opportunity to change their statements after being confronted with contrary evidence,” said the Coalition for Police Contracts Accountability, a Chicago-based group of activist organizations and lawyers.
FOP officials say police uses of force often unfold quickly under chaotic, traumatizing circumstances, and the union has defended cops who made statements contradicted by video.
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In addition, the police contract holds that complaints made against officers generally must be backed by signed statements, and cops must be told the names of the people complaining about them.
Police union officials argue that allowing anonymous complaints would lead to false accusations. The lack of an affidavit, however, has prevented the investigation of thousands of allegations over the years.
The bar to anonymous complaints, however, goes beyond the city contract. State law also calls for allegations against officers to come with a signed affidavit.
Another provision at issue centers on whistleblowing. The contract says cops cannot be “promised a reward” for giving information to disciplinary investigators. Reform advocates say that could dissuade potential whistleblowers from coming forward. They note that CPD officers often are accused of observing a “code of silence” and enforcing consequences on cops who call out egregious misconduct.
Karen Sheley, an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, said the disciplinary provisions make it harder to hold cops responsible for misconduct.
“If we’re going to have reform … officers have to be held accountable,” she said. “That accountability can’t happen until the union contract is fundamentally reformed.”
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Around the country, unions have won disciplinary concessions from city governments more focused on money than technical disciplinary matters, said Samuel Walker, a professor emeritus at the University of Nebraska Omaha who has studied police union deals. He said elected officials are now seeing it’s tougher to pull something out of a contract than it is to put it in.
“Getting something out of a contract is a pretty steep mountain. We’re really stuck in a very difficult situation here,” he said.
An illustration of that difficulty can be seen in a nearly decadelong legal battle over how long the city can keep police disciplinary records.
On Thursday, the Illinois Supreme Court delivered a win to reform advocates by negating a provision of the FOP contract that calls for the destruction of such records after five years. Lightfoot praised the ruling while Catanzara said he “couldn’t be more disappointed.”
Lengthy, arduous process
Chicago is considered the birthplace of the labor movement, but police here didn’t unionize until relatively recently. Mayor Richard J. Daley “used to tell us police, ‘Don’t worry about a contract while I’m alive, but after, when I’m gone, you better get a contract.’ So we did,” John Dineen, the first Chicago FOP president, recalled in 2016.
At his home in Park Ridge in 2016, John Dineen looks at a scrapbook his wife made of his early years as the first president of the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police. (Abel Uribe / Chicago Tribune)
The first Mayor Daley died in December 1976, and police signed the first contract in 1981. Former officials from both sides of the bargaining table have acknowledged that police protections were added to contracts as city officials focused on the financial bottom line.
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Even before disciplinary protections arose as a major issue, the negotiation process often has been arduous.
Police are legally barred from striking, but if negotiations stall they can turn to arbitration, a process in which a neutral third party hears both sides on specific issues in dispute and makes rulings.
Three of the last four FOP contracts have gone to arbitration. In 2010, for example, an arbitrator’s ruling resolved a host of issues ranging from wages to promotions to officers’ physical fitness.
This time around, the FOP called for arbitration in December. In that month’s union newsletter, then-President Kevin Graham complained about the city’s position on disciplinary provisions, among other things, as he alleged that City Hall was “trying to throw us under the bus.”
At the time, Lightfoot said she didn’t think the union had met the requirements for arbitration. Where things stand now is unclear. Mullane, Lightfoot’s spokesman, did not answer a Tribune question about the city’s current position on arbitration.
Catanzara, elected union president in May, said the arbitration demand remains on the table but in the meantime he wants to keep negotiating. He said no bargaining sessions had been scheduled as of this week, but he hoped to make progress after July 4.
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In addition to holding the line on disciplinary protections, Catanzara said he’d like to modify the requirement that all cops live in the city and add a provision that would spell out the process for stripping cops of their police powers.
Catanzara has extensive personal experience with the disciplinary system, as the subject of at least 35 complaints and several suspensions. The brass have twice tried and failed to fire him. He’s currently stripped of his police powers amid an investigation into allegations he filed a false or misleading police report accusing then-Superintendent Eddie Johnson of breaking the law by allowing anti-violence marchers onto the Dan Ryan Expressway.
dhinkel@chicagotribune.com


chicagotribune--2020-06-21--On the ground in Wisconsin: Trump’s team goes door-to-door while Democrats stay virtual amid the cor

On the ground in Wisconsin: Trump’s team goes door-to-door while Democrats stay virtual amid the coronavirus

“ It is just nonnegotiable for us that we ’ re going to keep our volunteers and our voters in @ @ @ @ @ if health experts think that a particular tactic could actively spread coronavirus , we ’ @ @ @ @ @ do it , ” Wikler said of the party ’ s decision so far not @ @ @ @ @ open campaign offices and commence door-to-door canvassing .
“ There are lots of seniors who @ @ @ @ @ there are lots of doors of people who might be immunocompromised , and you don @ @ @ @ @ get there .
We ’ re not going to risk becoming a public health menace @ @

Trump campaign signs are displayed June 13, 2020, outside the Waukesha County Republican Party offices in Waukesha, Wisconsin, where volunteers gathered for the presidential campaign's first weekend of door-to-door canvassing since the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic. (Bill Ruthhart/Bill Ruthhart)
WAUKESHA, Wis. — Craig Black likes to refer to himself as a “born-again Republican,” a man who was “liberal for a long time” but finally saw the political light a few years back.
He converted in time to become a fervent supporter of President Donald Trump, a devotion that included celebrating the reelection-seeking Republican’s 74th birthday recently by knocking on doors for the Trump campaign in suburban Milwaukee.
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“This is a crucial election. It’s about our freedoms and our liberties, and that’s why I’m volunteering any spare time I get,” said Black, a 73-year-old pharmacy driver and retired nurse who shrugged off any concerns about campaigning amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. “I don’t like all of Trump’s tweets. He can be very rough, but the bottom line is he loves this country and wants what’s best for this country. I don’t think the Democrats do.”
Black’s morning of door knocking represents a new phase of campaigning in critical 2020 swing states, as Trump and Republicans have fully embraced a return to in-person, grassroots organizing while the presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his campaign have not, citing health risks to campaign staffers, volunteers and voters.
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Whether the campaigning takes place on front porches and in living rooms or in Google Hangouts and on Zoom chats, the Republican and Democratic parties in the key Midwestern swing states of Wisconsin and Michigan can point to a far more organized, better funded and larger campaign ground game operations than they had four years ago. That means the work to engage and identify potential supporters has started earlier and on a larger scale than four years ago, officials with both parties said.
For Republicans, the pace of getting back out on the campaign trail amid the pandemic has been set by the candidate himself.
President Donald Trump arrives on stage June 20, 2020, to speak at a campaign rally at the BOK Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. (Evan Vucci/AP)
Trump held a highly anticipated rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday night that drew far less than the arena’s 19,000-seat capacity, despite the campaign touting that it had received more than 1 million RSVPs for the event. Instead, almost all of the arena’s upper deck remained empty, plenty of space remained on the floor and an outdoor overflow event in the parking lot where Trump and Vice President Mike Pence were scheduled to speak was canceled.
The little more than 6,000 people who did attend were asked to sign a waiver that absolves Trump’s campaign of any legal responsibility should they fall ill. The rally, which did not allow for social distancing and featured few people wearing face coverings, ran counter to the public guidance from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that urges against such gatherings.
The event was held against the wishes of local public health officials and came as some states and cities in the South and West — Tulsa included — are experiencing new highs in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations. Not long before the president took the stage, the Trump campaign announced that six staff members helping set up for the Tulsa rally had tested positive for the coronavirus.
“I just want to thank all of you. You are warriors,” Trump said to his supporters at the beginning of a 100-minute speech Saturday night, before casting blame on news coverage for raising health concerns about the rally. “I’ve been watching the fake news for weeks now and everything is negative. ‘Don’t go. Don’t come. Don’t do anything. I’ve never seen anything like it. You are warriors. Thank you.”
Trump’s push to resume in-person campaign operations comes as the latest polls show him trailing — in some cases badly — in all of the key battleground states, including Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Florida, North Carolina and Arizona. Recent surveys also show him in tight races in states that were expected to be safe territory for Trump, including Iowa, Ohio and Texas.
Whether it is knocking on doors in Waukesha or packing thousands into a campaign rally in Oklahoma, Trump’s return to campaigning as normal is needlessly endangering the health and lives of Americans, said Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chairman Ben Wikler.
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“It is just nonnegotiable for us that we’re going to keep our volunteers and our voters in our community safe, and if health experts think that a particular tactic could actively spread coronavirus, we’re just not going to do it,” Wikler said of the party’s decision so far not to hold in-person events, open campaign offices and commence door-to-door canvassing. “There are lots of seniors who are active party members and there are lots of doors of people who might be immunocompromised, and you don’t know when you get there. We’re not going to risk becoming a public health menace.”
Trump has waved such concerns away, urging a return to normalcy even though the pandemic continues with no immediate treatment or vaccine on the horizon. In a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, Trump called testing for the virus “overrated” and suggested that some Americans wore masks to signal their disapproval of him and not to prevent the spread of the disease, even though the White House’s own health experts and the CDC have recommended the practice.
GOP officials and Trump have insisted it is time to get on with the business of getting the president reelected while portraying Biden and Democrats as overly cautious and in favor of draconian policies that are hurting the bottom lines of the nation’s businesses and costing people their jobs.
Mark Jefferson, chairman of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, said he would welcome Trump holding a rally in the state, though he said the location would matter as he doubts local Democratic officials in Milwaukee and Madison would be accommodating. He said the Democrats have “really overdone it with their rhetoric” on the pandemic and are not giving people credit for being able to take basic precautions.
The state party’s field workers and organizers work in partnership with Trump Victory, the Republican National Committee’s arm of the Trump campaign. Asked if Wisconsin workers are required to wear masks or practice social distancing in campaign offices and at events, Jefferson said it is up to the individual.
“We’ve heard the 6-foot rule now for weeks and weeks and weeks. Some people choose to use a mask, some people prefer not to use a mask. Fair enough. You have to make your own decisions as to whether you want to spend less time in the office if people aren’t wearing masks. Those are individual choices,” Jefferson said. “When you’re out knocking doors and you keep a safe distance from the person at the door, we just don’t see a problem, and we’re finding most of the voters don’t either.”
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Door-to-door
A little more than a week ago, the Trump campaign officially relaunched its in-person, grassroots events as part of a “national weekend of action” in celebration of the president’s birthday.
Trump Victory coordinated hundreds of events across the country, including MAGA (Make America Great Again) meetups at homes and businesses, “leadership initiative training” to teach volunteers how to mobilize their friends and neighbors, door-to-door canvassing operations and phone banking. Some of the training and meetups remained virtual.
MASSIVE Weekend of Action for POTUS birthday!
✅Over 3M volunteer phone calls
✅266K door knocks
✅8,900 vols activated
✅572 vol training sessions (3,300 attendees)
✅427 MAGA Meet-ups
✅44 new offices opened
Army for Trump is fired up and Sleepy Joe can’t match it! — Brad Parscale (@parscale) June 15, 2020
No state in the nation had more Trump campaign events planned for that weekend than Wisconsin, where 66 were scheduled, according to a Tribune analysis on Trump Victory’s publicized gatherings. Of those 66 events, 28 remained virtual while 38 were to be held in person, including 13 door-to-door canvasses in larger cities such as Green Bay and Eau Claire and smaller towns including Sturgeon Bay and Chippewa Falls.
State and national party officials say overall the weekend was a major success. But on that Saturday in the GOP suburban stronghold of Waukesha, west of Milwaukee, the turnout was light.
Fewer than a dozen people showed up to knock on doors. None of the volunteers or campaign workers in the small, strip mall office wore masks or practiced social distancing. “Most of us have been around each other a lot anyway,” a field organizer explained.
Visitors to the office are greeted by a cardboard cutout of Trump and tables with campaign merchandise spread out, from T-shirts and buttons to the popular “Trump 2020! Keep America Great” flags. Outside, signs in the windows and placed in the grass by a nearby highway read, “Trump Pence Keep America Great!” and “OPEN WISCONSIN NOW.”
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The latter sign is outdated.
Wisconsin has been without any statewide COVID-19 restrictions for more than a month, since Republican legislative leaders challenged Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ stay-at-home order before the Wisconsin Supreme Court, whose conservative majority tossed it out.
Black, the 73-year-old retired nurse who knocked on doors, said he believed Democrats had greatly exaggerated the dangers of COVID-19 and said he’s heard from a lot of his neighbors in nearby New Berlin who are upset with Evers over his stay-at-home order. Black said that he brings up the issue while knocking on doors, but that the most important issue to him remains gun rights.
Black said he used to be a Democrat but grew increasingly disenchanted as the party became more “radical,” and said his work as a nurse in Milwaukee showed him up close how the party had failed the city’s schools and neighborhoods.
“Trump turned the economy around. He fights against the liberal media, and it’s just a media jihad against him,” Black said. “He will not back down.”
Before Black left the campaign office, he asked party organizers whether he should wear a mask while knocking on doors. It’s recommended, he was told, but not required.
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Alana, a 15-year-old who lives in nearby Brookfield and has previously volunteered for Republican campaigns, said she was excited to go canvass because it’s easier to persuade people in person than calling or texting from a cellphone.
“There’s something about looking somebody in the eyes and showing them I’m here to help my country,” she said, noting that “border security” is the most important issue to her. “I’m not just someone behind the screen, I’m a human being that’s coming to tell you what I think is right.”
On the other side of the small, windowless conference room in the office, Josh Parr helped develop the walking lists for the canvassers. The 27-year-old, who recently ran unsuccessfully for state representative, used the Campaign Sidekick app to pull lists of 60 to 80 voters for each volunteer. The canvassers then use the mobile app, which pulls information from Trump Victory’s vast data reservoir, to log their efforts in the field as they visit each home on the list.
“Right now, we’re trying to target swing voters,” Parr explained. “We’re looking for either Democrats who could go Trump or conservatives who were a ‘never Trumper.’”
Jefferson, the executive director of the Wisconsin GOP, said people in the state have gotten more comfortable getting out in public and that early canvassing efforts have gone well.
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“The response has been encouraging. We haven’t run into much resistance,” he said. “The suburban areas were very good, and the rural communities really were no problem at all. People are really eager to get out and talk to people.”
Democrats are ‘just not there yet'
It has been a different story so far in Michigan, where Trump Victory’s event list for the same weekend of action showed just a single virtual leadership event planned in Kalamazoo.
Trump Victory, the Trump campaign and the Michigan GOP declined or did not respond to repeated requests to interview campaign officials in the state. The campaign planned a more robust mix of in-person and virtual events in other swing states, including 49 in Pennsylvania, 27 in Arizona and 26 in North Carolina.
Michigan was among the nation’s hardest-hit states by COVID-19, with more than 66,000 cases and more than 6,000 deaths as the Detroit region endured particularly high caseloads. Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, whom Republicans have attacked for instituting some of the nation’s strictest restrictions and a gradual reopening of the state, just recently allowed for the reopening of many businesses such as barbershops and nail salons.
Lavora Barnes, the Michigan Democratic Party chairwoman, said she has been very impressed with how quickly the party’s organizers and volunteers switched to all-virtual organizing with phone calls, text messages, virtual house parties and more. Barnes said the party has just started contemplating what a return to in-person organizing could look like.
“We are having deep conversations inside the party here on if and how we will canvass and whether or not voters are ready for us to show up at their doors in masks and gloves and socially distancing on their porches,” Barnes said. “We’ve got a couple of local groups who are excited to get started and are ready for us to test it out, but I’m just not there yet.”
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Barnes said the party will continue to follow public health guidelines and Whitmer’s lead. She said she couldn’t envision a scenario in which Democrats would hold an event in Michigan like Trump’s weekend rally in Tulsa.
Democrats don’t appear to have developed bench marks or thresholds for when the party would be comfortable resuming in-person canvassing or events. Biden gradually has started appearing in public more often, including an event Wednesday in Darby, Pennsylvania. where he gave a speech criticizing Trump’s handling of the pandemic before a select group of 20 people seated in chairs with 6-foot white circles marked around them to ensure social distancing.
Former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee, speaks June 17, 2020, in Darby, Pennsylvania. (Erin Schaff/The New York Times)
Still, the Biden campaign has not offered any protocols for when and how in-person campaigning might resume. Wikler, the Wisconsin Democratic Party chairman, said his party had not decided under what conditions canvassing might be acceptable.
“Just because you can doesn’t mean you should,” Wikler said, in a nod to the fact that the state has no public health restrictions because of the Republican lawsuit. “If we do it, it will be in a very careful and more intentional way than the GOP’s damn the torpedoes approach to the coronavirus.”
In Michigan, Barnes said the party is paying leases on campaign offices it still isn’t using because of the virus. She didn’t offer any overall guidelines, but said when the party does move back to in-person campaign work it will be slowly, “community by community” to find out Michiganders’ comfort levels.
In the meantime, the party will continue its virtual outreach, but Barnes acknowledged there is no substitute for the real thing.
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“There is nothing better than that face-to-face conversation, where you can talk about the issues, answer their questions and provide them with information about why it’s important to vote for Democrats,” she said. “Being face-to-face with that voter, there’s nothing like it.”
bruthhart@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @BillRuthhart


chicagotribune--2020-06-21--Three-year-old fatally shot in Austin

Three-year-old fatally shot in Austin

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Police look at bullet holes on an SUV wherein a 3-year-old boy was fatally shot while riding in the vehicle with his father, outside West Suburban Medical Center on June 20, 2020, in Oak Park. The boy was struck in the 5600 block of West Huron Street in Chicago's Austin neighborhood, and his father drove to the hospital, where the boy was pronounced dead. (John J. Kim/Chicago Tribune)


chicagotribune--2020-06-21--City’s ‘collective heart breaks’ after 3-year-old boy fatally shot in what Chicago Mayor Lori Lightf

City’s ‘collective heart breaks’ after 3-year-old boy fatally shot in what Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfood calls a ‘heinous, unconscionable act of cowardice’

That corner has a lot of crashes because there isn ’ t a light and it takes a while for @ @ @ @ @ from Huron , Anderson said .
A neighbor on the corner had to put poles @ @ @ @ @ home because of the amount of cars that came into her yard .

Rosemary Sobol, Paige Fry, Jeremy Gorner

Myesha James, center, the mother of 3-year-old Mekhi James, hugs Charles Morrison, Mekhi's father, during a vigil for their son in the Austin neighborhood on June 22, 2020, in Chicago. (Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune)
Neighbors congregated on a corner in the 600 block of North Central Avenue on Sunday afternoon to denounce the weekend’s overnight violence, including the shooting death of 3-year-old Mekhi James.
“A line was crossed,” said the Rev. Ira Acree of Greater St. John Bible Church. “This is a horrific Father’s Day. This 3-year-old baby lost his life. ... I could not pastor this community and not say something.”
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Joined by other faith and community leaders, neighbors filled the sidewalk to remember and mourn the children killed. A driver passed by the corner of the street and yelled in support of the city to “put the guns down!”
Acree referenced recent George Floyd protests against police brutality and voiced concerns about the safety of black youth in Chicago.
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“We say black lives matter, but we’re here to say black baby lives matter more,” he said.
Religious leaders, supporters and members of the community gather June 21, 2020, in the 600 block of North Central Avenue to denounce the weekend's overnight violence, including the death of 3-year-old Mekhi James. (Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune)
At a Sunday news conference on the weekend violence, Chicago police Superintendent David Brown said at least 61 people had been shot in the city through Sunday, and as of Sunday morning, eight young people had been shot, four fatally. Brown, along with Chief of Detectives Brendan Deenihan, urged anyone with information on any of the cases to come forward.
“Good men throughout this city should be celebrating with their families on a beautiful day, but instead, a number of Chicagoans will be spending Father’s Day grieving the loss of their children,” Brown said.
Brown repeatedly called for keeping violent offenders in jail longer and revamping the home monitoring program.
“I put myself in that house, holding that little girl as she struggles to breathe,” Brown said. “I put myself in that hospital, clutching a baby with a bullet hole. Tears are a natural reaction to these tragic stories of violence. But we need to do more than just cry. Let’s keep violent offenders in jail longer. And let’s revamp the home monitoring program. It’s not working.”
Brown said he was thinking of residents in the affected communities.
“Bullets don’t just tear apart the things they strike,” Brown said. “Bullets also tear apart families. Bullets destroy neighborhoods, and they ruin any sense of safety in a community.”
Mekhi was riding in the back seat of a vehicle with his father, 27, who police say was the intended target, when they were shot about 6:30 p.m. in the 600 block of North Central Avenue in the South Austin neighborhood.
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Two hours later, three teens were shot, including a 13-year-old girl who died, about five blocks from where Mekhi’s shooting happened. Two teenage boys were also killed Saturday in the South Chicago neighborhood.
Acree said his church will set a $2,500 reward for any information that could lead to the arrest of the person who shot Mekhi. Additional rewards are being established, according to community organizers.
Nicole Weekly, of Austin, stood on a patch of grass near the crowded sidewalk and listened as community leaders spoke. Weekly, who said she lives on the same block where the shooting occurred, said she heard gunshots about 6 p.m. Saturday and rushed to her window. She saw a blue vehicle zoom by.
“What is happening with our kids?” she said, holding her palms together. “Our babies can’t be getting killed. What kind of future do we have if our babies are getting killed?”
The father suffered a graze wound to his abdomen and refused medical treatment, while Mekhi suffered a gunshot wound to the back and was pronounced dead at West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park, police said.
The child’s father is “known to police” and “appears to be the intended target of the shooting,” police said.
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Our city's collective heart breaks to hear the unfathomable news of a 3-year-old boy who was shot and killed tonight on Chicago's West Side. There are simply no words to describe such a heinous, unconscionable act of cowardice to shoot at a toddler. — Mayor Lori Lightfoot (@chicagosmayor) June 21, 2020
Longtime community activist Andrew Holmes also held a media briefing following the toddler’s death Saturday.
The community needs to “take care of home base” because multiple children have been shot recently in Chicago, including a 5-year-old boy on Thursday and a 9-year-old girl on Wednesday.
“This baby had a family,” Holmes said of Mekhi. “What I’m asking, come on out here and protest on this West Side. Shut this West Side down until we find out who discharged that weapon and took the life of this baby.”
Holmes said he spoke to one of Mekhi’s family members, who said the child’s mother is “totally upset.”
“She loved her baby,” Holmes said.
Police tape sits in the grass on the 600 block of North Central Avenue on June 21, 2020, near the scene where 3-year-old Mekhi James was shot and killed the previous day. (Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune)
John Anderson, who lives near the site of Mekhi’s shooting, heard six or seven gunshots while inside his home, he said. When he went outside, he didn’t see anyone or anything.
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Police arrived and walked around looking for something, Anderson said. They didn’t seem to know where to look first.
Then, more police came to the area and told him that a 3-year-old had been shot, he said. Shell casings were found on Huron east of Central.
The violence in the area typically stays several blocks north and south of where the shooting took place, said Anderson, 57.
“It’s a real quiet neighborhood,” he said. “It’s a mixed community.”
Also Sunday, Deenihan said police planned to release a video of the suspect in Saturday’s fatal shooting of two teens in the 7900 block of South Luella Avenue.
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Shortly after 5 p.m., two teenagers, identified as Charles Riley, 16, and Jasean Francis, 17, by the medical examiners office, were shot in an alley, police said. The 17-year-old was shot in the back, chest and left hand, and was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. The 16-year-old was shot in the back and left flank, and was also taken to U. of C. Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.
The boys were with their friend and had just gone to the mall, Deenihan said Sunday.
“They don’t ever go out into the neighborhood because it’s so dangerous,” he said. “They asked their mom, can we just go down to the store — it couldn’t have been more than a half a block away — can we just go down to the store to buy some candy? And that’s what they did.”
The boys had almost reached their gangway to return home when someone ran up and shot them “for no reason at all,” Deenihan said.
“These kids are not criminals, they’re not gang members, they have nothing to do with the ongoing disputes out there and they just get gunned down for no reason at all,” he said.
Shortly after Mekhi’s killing, there were at least two separate multiple-victim shootings just blocks away.
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About 8:35 p.m., three teens were shot in the 1000 block of North Leclaire Avenue, not far from where Mekhi was shot. One of the victims was sitting on a porch when he saw a red laser pointed at him before multiple gunshots sounded, police said.
A 13-year-old girl, identified as Amaria J. Jones by the medical examiner’s office, was inside the residence when she suffered a gunshot wound to the neck. She was taken to Stroger Hospital in critical condition and later pronounced dead, police said.
“This individual was inside the residence, and once again you had a coward basically come through the gangway and shoot at a bunch of people on the porch,” Deenihan said. “There’s an ongoing, once again an ongoing gang dispute in the neighborhood, shooting at a large group on the porch, the bullet goes through the window, striking her in the neck and causing her death.”
A 15-year-old boy was shot in the lower back and a 16-year-old boy was shot in the left leg, police said. They were taken in good condition to Mount Sinai Hospital.
Check back for updates.


chicagotribune--2020-06-22--Neighbors outraged as toddler, 3 teens killed in weekend violence: ‘This is a horrific Father’s Day.

Neighbors outraged as toddler, 3 teens killed in weekend violence: ‘This is a horrific Father’s Day. This 3-year-old baby lost his life.’

Shortly after 5 p.m. , two teenagers , identified as Charles Riley , 16 , and Jasean Francis , 17 @ @ @ @ @ office , were shot in an alley , police said .
The 17-year-old was shot @ @ @ @ @ and left hand , and was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center , @ @ @ @ @ .
The 16-year-old was shot in the back and left flank , and was also @ @ @ @ @ Medical Center , where he was pronounced dead .

Rosemary Sobol, Paige Fry, Jeremy Gorner, Jessica Villagomez, Morgan Greene


chicagotribune--2020-06-21--Chicago musicians march in support of Black Lives Matter

“ There ’ s generations coming up after us , and I ’ m honored to be a representation for @ @ @ @ @ up in the city of Chicago that want to be a DJ , ” said @ @ @ @ @ .
“ But if I ’ m the only one , I ’ m not @ @ @ @ @ needs to be more black people booked , period .
”

Chicago musicians gathered Sunday in Lincoln Park to march in support of Black Lives Matter and call attention to racial inequity within the city’s music scene.
The morning protest kicked off around 10:30 a.m. with speeches and performances from local artists DJ Ca$h Era, Wyatt Waddell, Matt Muse and Roy Kinsey. All four artists discussed the challenges of booking shows at some of Chicago’s biggest venues located solely on the city’s North Side.
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“There’s generations coming up after us, and I’m honored to be a representation for young queer black women growing up in the city of Chicago that want to be a DJ,” said DJ Ca$h Era. “But if I’m the only one, I’m not reaching many people. There needs to be more black people booked, period.”
DJ Ca$h Era also called out white artists in Chicago who profit off playing black music yet have been silent in the Black Lives Matter movement.
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“I cannot tell you how many white DJs that are consistently booked (who) have not been doing the work, have not been coming forth and saying, ‘Yes, I make my money playing black music, black lives do matter.‘”
Before the march began, organizers shared their list of demands, calling on the city to get Chicago police out of schools and defund the police.
The group left from the six-way intersection of Fullerton Avenue, Lincoln Avenue and Halsted Street, walking south toward Armitage Avenue. As they marched, organizers chanted, “The city cares more about this neighborhood than black lives.”
Eventually, the marchers made their way to Wicker Park, where the group took a seat in front of the patio of Big Star restaurant. Leaders asked marchers to make as much noise as possible to get the attention of those sitting outside for brunch.
Muse, a rapper, addressed the crowd again, calling on the white folks in attendance to continue to educate themselves, and support and follow black artists.
Kris Powell, a Chicago resident, was one of more than 100 people participating in Sunday’s march.
“I’m not a musician, but being a black person, music always has been a source for black people to voice their opinions, their experiences,” Powell said.


chicagotribune--2020-06-21--Coronavirus in Illinois updates: Officials report 658 new known COVID-19 cases and 23 additional dea

Coronavirus in Illinois updates: Officials report 658 new known COVID-19 cases and 23 additional deaths

“ When the pandemic was getting going , we here at 23andMe were beginning to think through what could we @ @ @ @ @ help and contribute to the science and understanding of this disease , ” he said @ @ @ @ @ have a very large cohort of people who have had their genomes genotyped , we @ @ @ @ @ be able to make an impact on the question of why do some people get @ @ @ @ @ a COVID infection whereas other people may have not even noticed that they had an @ @ @ @ @ given our expertise in genetics , we wanted to ask the question to what extent @ @ @ @ @ those outcomes .
”

We have lifted the paywall on this story. To support essential reporting, please consider becoming a subscriber .
The Fulton Market area of Chicago is no longer the ghost town it was during the depths of the COVID-19 virus pandemic shutdown. As restrictions on restaurants are eased, a worker takes a woman's temperature before she can enter Federales restaurant on Morgan Street on July 1, 2020. (Terrence Antonio James / Chicago Tribune)
Illinois health officials announced 658 new cases of COVID-19 and 23 additional deaths on Sunday, bringing the total number of known cases to 136,762 and the death toll to 6,647 statewide since the start of the pandemic.
Fifteen of the deaths took place in Cook County. Officials also reported 23,816 new tests in the last 24 hours.
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On Monday, Chicago’s Lakefront Trail and the 606 Bloomingdale Trail will reopen, with restrictions. Here’s everything you need to know.
Meanwhile, Chicago restaurants can open for limited indoor seating with the rest of the state starting June 26, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Friday, a surprise announcement that will have people dining indoors a week earlier than expected.
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Restaurants, bars and breweries all can open, but with restrictions, as has been the case with outdoor dining. The move will align with Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s moving the state into phase four of his reopening plan.
[ When can Illinois move to phase 4? Here's where each region stands. ]
[ How will Illinois reopen? Three charts breaking down Pritzker’s plan ]
[ COVID-19 cases in Illinois by ZIP code: Search for your neighborhood ]
[ As the coronavirus spreads, the Tribune is tracking Illinois cases here ]
Here’s what’s happening this weekend with COVID-19 in the Chicago area and Illinois:
Officials report 658 new known COVID-19 cases and 23 additional deaths
On Sunday, the state announced 658 new confirmed cases of COVID-19, along with 23 additional deaths. Illinois added 23,816 new test results.
Sunday also marked the first time all four of the state’s regions have a positivity rate less than 5%. The northeast region, which includes Chicago and the suburbs, has had the highest rate among the regions since the state began tracking, and that rate has declined from 23.11% on May 1 to 4.97% Sunday.
The positivity rate is calculated by taking the number of confirmed cases and dividing it by the number of tests performed. The resulting percentage, watched over time, gives a good idea of the direction of the outbreak.
From May 1 to Sunday, Illinois’ southern region declined from 11.89% to 3.43%, the north-central region from 9.66% to 3.01% and the central region from 6.13% to 1.25%. All four regions are far below the 20% benchmark in positivity rate that is necessary to move on to phase four of the plan to reopen. — Jonathon Berlin
Park Ridge’s Pickwick Theatre plans for July reopening, owner hopes state will modify crowd size rules
After COVID-19 forced movie screens to go dark in March, the Pickwick Theatre in Park Ridge went from selling tickets to the latest blockbusters to selling boxes of popcorn at the curb out front.
And while the popcorn sales have done well, they’re not enough to sustain the business, admits Dino Vlahakis, whose family owns the historic theater.
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While movie theaters are permitted to open under phase four of Gov. J.B. Prizker’s Restore Illinois plan, current restrictions on crowd size and a lack of new movies being releasing could impact theater business.
With the governor indicating that the state is set to enter phase four on June 26, Vlahakis said he hopes to reopen the Pickwick’s main theater on July 11. The film to be shown will be the one that receives the most votes in an online survey currently taking place. The choices are “Back to the Future,” “Wizard of Oz” and “Trolls World Tour.”
The challenge right now, he said, is the 50-person limit on crowd size that is part of phase four.
“My main theater seats 900 people. Fifty doesn’t even pay the bills,” Vlahakis said. Read more here. —Jennifer Johnson
While many talk of a second coronavirus wave, experts say we’re still in the first
What’s all this talk about a “second wave” of U.S. coronavirus cases?
In The Wall Street Journal last week, Vice President Mike Pence wrote in a piece headlined “There Isn’t a Coronavirus ‘Second Wave’” that the nation is winning the fight against the virus.
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Many public health experts, however, suggest it's no time to celebrate. About 120,000 Americans have died from the new virus and daily counts of new cases in the U.S. are the highest they've been in more than a month, driven by alarming recent increases in the South and West.
But there is at least one point of agreement: “Second wave” is probably the wrong term to describe what’s happening.
“When you have 20,000-plus infections per day, how can you talk about a second wave?” said Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health. “We’re in the first wave. Let’s get out of the first wave before you have a second wave.” Read more here. —Associated Press
Trump’s team goes door-to-door while Democrats stay virtual amid the coronavirus
Craig Black likes to refer to himself as a “born-again Republican,” a man who was “liberal for a long time” but finally saw the political light a few years back.
He converted in time to become a fervent supporter of President Donald Trump, a devotion that included celebrating the reelection-seeking Republican’s 74th birthday recently by knocking on doors for the Trump campaign in suburban Milwaukee.
Black’s morning of door knocking represents a new phase of campaigning in critical 2020 swing states, as Trump and Republicans have fully embraced a return to in-person, grassroots organizing while the presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his campaign have not, citing health risks to campaign staffers, volunteers and voters.
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Whether the campaigning takes place on front porches and in living rooms or in Google Hangouts and on Zoom chats, the Republican and Democratic parties in the key Midwestern swing states of Wisconsin and Michigan can point to far more organized, better funded and larger campaign ground game operations than they had four years ago. That means the work to engage and identify potential supporters has started earlier and on a larger scale than four years ago, officials with both parties said.
For Republicans, the pace of getting back out on the campaign trail amid the pandemic has been set by the candidate himself. Trump held a highly anticipated rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on Saturday night that drew far less than the arena’s 19,000-seat capacity, despite the campaign touting that it had received more than 1 million RSVPs for the event. Instead, almost all of the arena’s upper deck remained empty, plenty of space remained on the floor and an outdoor overflow event in the parking lot where Trump and Vice President Mike Pence were scheduled to speak was canceled.
Whether it is knocking on doors in Waukesha or packing thousands into a campaign rally in Oklahoma, Trump’s return to campaigning as normal is needlessly endangering the health and lives of Americans, said Democratic Party of Wisconsin Chairman Ben Wikler. Read more here. —Bill Ruthhart
Saturday, June 20
2:30 p.m. (updated 4:07 p.m.): 634 new known COVID-19 cases, 45 additional deaths
The state announced 634 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 45 deaths Saturday.
Among the 45 who died, 24 were older than 80.
That coronavirus is more deadly for the elderly and those with underlying conditions has been widely written about, and the tragic impact of the disease on the elderly is evident in Illinois data.
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As of Saturday, 45% of those who died from COVID-19 in Illinois were older than 80, while those in their 40s and younger made up slightly more than 5%.
However, people older than 80 make up a smaller share of those tested for coronavirus and those who have confirmed cases — 8% of those tested (when the age is known) and 7% of confirmed cases.
Illinois announced 25,965 tests Saturday, bringing the state to a total of 1,336,968. —Chicago Tribune staff
1:54 p.m.: After protests, Trump’s Tulsa rally is biggest indoor event since COVID-19 shutdowns. What could it mean for spread?
Tens of thousands of people from many states are converging on Tulsa for an indoor rally for President Donald Trump and surrounding events Saturday, raising concerns that the gatherings could help fuel nascent spikes of coronavirus cases in many places.
State and city health department officials were already bracing for a possible surge in COVID-19 cases from large outdoor demonstrations against police brutality held across the country. Now the Trump rally — at an arena that can hold 19,000 people and is expected to be at capacity — is shaping up to be the first indoor event of such a massive scale since the coronavirus pandemic took hold and many states issued stay-at-home orders.
The map of the outbreak in the U.S., and elsewhere, has become a patchwork, with infections falling in some areas and surging in others. In New York, Gov. Andrew Cuomo did not hold a coronavirus briefing for the first time in months Saturday — a sign of progress in the state that was home to the epicenter of the outbreak.
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Other states and cities that took steps to reopen earlier are seeing increases, including Tulsa where health department officials said two large indoor gatherings recently contributed to a spike in new cases. They declined to name the events or say how big they were, but Tulsa has seen the largest increase in cases in Oklahoma in recent days. Several bordering states, including Arkansas, have also seen spikes in community spread of the virus in recent weeks.
That is worrying some experts as Tulsa prepares again for Trump’s large indoor gathering.
Read more here. —Associated Press
8 a.m.: Want to help with COVID-19 research? Those who tested positive can share their genetic makeup with DNA testing sites like 23andMe and Ancestry.com.
DNA testing companies like Ancestry.com and 23andMe are using their expertise in the fight against COVID-19. Ancestry.com’s study is available only to its members, but 23andMe is asking past and present COVID-19 patients (customers or not) to take part in a study that will contribute to ongoing research on the new coronavirus.
23andMe asked existing customers in April if they would allow their DNA sample to be used for research aimed at determining if there are genetic factors affecting immune response to the virus. Then the company opened the study to include non-23andMe customers who had been hospitalized with COVID-19.
According to Adam Auton, principal scientist at 23andMe and lead researcher on the study, the testing company is hoping research will offer insight into differences in risk among individuals, and help academic and scientific communities in their efforts to treat the illness.
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“When the pandemic was getting going, we here at 23andMe were beginning to think through what could we do to really try and help and contribute to the science and understanding of this disease,” he said. “Given that we have a very large cohort of people who have had their genomes genotyped, we really felt that we might be able to make an impact on the question of why do some people get very, very sick with a COVID infection whereas other people may have not even noticed that they had an infection at all? And given our expertise in genetics, we wanted to ask the question to what extent genetics plays a role in those outcomes.”
Read more here. —Darcel Rockett


chicagotribune--2020-06-21--Shooting at North Riverside Park Mall leaves man wounded

A man in his 20s suffered a gunshot wound and was taken to Loyola University Medical Center , Garcia said @ @ @ @ @ when police arrived , but no further updates on his condition were available .

A man was shot Sunday afternoon at North Riverside Park Mall in the western suburb, officials said.
About 12:25 p.m., the town’s Police Department responded to a report of a shooting on the south end of the mall’s lower level, anchored by J.C. Penney, according to a statement from police Chief Carlos Garcia.
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A man in his 20s suffered a gunshot wound and was taken to Loyola University Medical Center, Garcia said. The man was conscious when police arrived, but no further updates on his condition were available.
No other victims or injuries were reported, according to police.
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The mall was closed after the shooting and an investigation was pending, Garcia said. No one was in custody.
Earlier this month, police released a video of a fatal shooting at the mall.
Check back for updates.


chicagotribune--2020-06-21--Tracking Illinois coronavirus: 6,647 deaths, 136,762 confirmed cases, 1.36 million tests, 4.97% posi

Tracking Illinois coronavirus: 6,647 deaths, 136,762 confirmed cases, 1.36 million tests, 4.97% positivity rate for northeast region

Sunday also marked the first time all four of the state ’ s regions have a positivity rate less than @ @ @ @ @ region , which includes Chicago and the suburbs , has had the highest rate among @ @ @ @ @ began tracking , and that rate has declined from 23.11 % on May 1 to @ @ @ @

Johns Hopkins University & Medicine tracked coronavirus cases, deaths and test totals from Jan. 22, 2020 through March 10, 2023, but is no longer providing this data. These charts will no longer be updated.
Check the Illinois Department of Public Health for the most up-to-date data for Illinois.
[ Remembering the lives of those in Illinois who died from coronavirus ]
Can’t see these charts? Go here.


chicagotribune--2020-06-21--Watch live: Chicago police Superintendent David Brown speaks

Chicago police Superintendent David Brown holds a news briefing scheduled for 3:15 p.m. after a weekend of violence that left @ @ @ @ @ 13-year-old girl dead .
Get the latest here .

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chicagotribune--2020-06-21--Charges upgraded to first-degree murder for Naperville man accused of fatally kicking his wife

“ The autopsy conducted by the DuPage County Coroner ’ s Office concluded Hongyan Yang died as a result of @ @ @ @ @ ’ s Attorney Robert Berlin said in the release .
“ With a cause of @ @ @ @ @ demands that the charges against Mr. Wang support the allegations that he is responsible for @ @ @

Alan Wang, of Naperville, was charged this week with first-degree murder after an autopsy determined his wife, whom he allegedly kicked multiple times on March 7, died as a result of internal bleeding, prosecutors said. (DuPage County Jail)
A Naperville man accused of kicking his wife to death has had his charges upgraded to first-degree murder by the DuPage County State’s Attorney’s Office.
Alan Wang, 56, was initially charged with aggravated domestic battery in connection with the death of Hongyan Yang, 35, who was discovered not to be breathing March 8 in the 1103 N. Mill St. home the couple shared and was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital.
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A police investigation determined Wang had been fighting with his wife the night before and had kicked her multiple times, a state’s attorney’s office news release said.
“The autopsy conducted by the DuPage County Coroner’s Office concluded Hongyan Yang died as a result of internal bleeding,” State’s Attorney Robert Berlin said in the release. “With a cause of death now known, justice demands that the charges against Mr. Wang support the allegations that he is responsible for her death. "
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Wang is being held in the DuPage County jail in lieu of $850,000 bail. His next scheduled court appearance is scheduled is July 20.


chicagotribune--2020-06-21--Lake Forest High School withdraws honors for teacher accused of sexual misconduct

Miller graduated from LFHS in 1962 and started working at the high school in 1966 .
He was inducted into @ @ @ @ @ in 2007 and the theatre was named after him at the end of the 2001-02 @ @ @ @ @ LFHS spokeswoman Melissa Oakley .

The Lake Forest High School board removed the name of a former teacher from its theater and its alumni wall of fame Friday after a yearlong police investigation found allegations of sexual misconduct to be credible.
At a special meeting held virtually Friday, the District 115 school board voted unanimously for the changes and asked members of the public to come forward if they are aware of any inappropriate conduct that involved former theater teacher David Miller.
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Miller did not return messages requesting comment. He has not worked at the school since 2009, officials said.
A student who graduated in 1988 spoke during the Friday meeting and said Miller targeted him as a member of the stage crew, a student activity.
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“He groomed me and built my trust telling me I was a special friend,” the former student said. Pioneer Press typically does not identify victims of sexual abuse.
The former student said Miller gave him hugs and open-mouthed kisses at the school.
After discussing the incident last summer with John Bollman, a victim’s rights advocate who also is a Lake Forest High School graduate, the former student said he reported Miller to school officials.
District 115 superintendent Michael Simeck said the situation was referred to the Lake Forest Police Department and the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services.
Police Chief Karl Walldorf said police concluded a yearlong investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct made by two former students.
“We found both victims credible and approached the Lake County State’s Attorney’s office for charges but due to the statute of limitations on these specific charges we were unable to secure an arrest for Mr. Miller,” Walldorf said.
State’s Attorney’s spokesman Lee Filas confirmed Lake Forest police turned over the case to the office, but they could not proceed with the case due to the statute of limitations.
Walldorf said there was a separate investigation into Miller more than a decade ago, but charges were not filed.
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“The family of the victim declined to pursue charges in that case,” Walldorf said.
Simeck there was a review of more than 200 pages of recently released text messages that were exchanges between Miller and former students.
“I found them horrifying to read,” Simeck said, adding that he found the account to be credible and similar to the accounts in the text messages.
Miller graduated from LFHS in 1962 and started working at the high school in 1966. He was inducted into the Alumni Hall of Fame in 2007 and the theatre was named after him at the end of the 2001-02 school year, according to LFHS spokeswoman Melissa Oakley.
The school district sent out a letter to the community after the meeting and asked anyone with concerns about past or present inappropriate behavior to contact the school at hrinfo@lfschools.net or reach out to local authorities.
“During this investigation, we learned that additional past students had lodged similar allegations with law enforcement. Additionally, the District received more detailed revelations regarding Mr. Miller’s 2009 separation from employment for similar conduct and ban from campus by the prior District administration,” the letter stated.
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Bollman, the victim’s rights advocate, called for an independent third party to examine other claims.
School board president David Lane expressed his gratitude to the former students for coming forward.
“This type of sharing and this type of courage that prevents other people from having to go through that you went through,” Lane said.
Simeck said the district is in the process of bringing in outside representation.
“We are going to be taking a step by step approach to this matter and be looking for our outside expert to provide further guidance on our approach,” Simeck wrote in an e-mail after the meeting.
Daniel Dorfman is a freelance reporter for the Pioneer Press.


chicagotribune--2020-06-22--Group wants Edwardsville to remove statue of namesake Ninian Edwards, Illinois’ third governor, beca

Group wants Edwardsville to remove statue of namesake Ninian Edwards, Illinois’ third governor, because he was a slave owner

“ This is just one way we can help the civil rights movement that is happening all over the nation @ @ @ @ @ he said .
“ This is really a multiracial movement for equality .
”

EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. — Residents of a southwestern Illinois community want a statue of the state’s third governor removed from a public plaza, arguing that he owned slaves and used his power to protect the practice.
Nearly 500 people have joined a Facebook group that supports petitioning the city of Edwardsville to tear down a Ninian Edwards statue and also rename a plaza with his moniker, according to The Edwardsville Intelligencer.
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“Edwards’ legacy is one of causing misery and pain to thousands of Black Americans,” the group said. “Publicly honoring Edwards, as the city currently does, honors his harmful, racist beliefs and actions.”
Edwards, who died in 1833, is also the namesake of Edwardsville, but residents aren’t pushing to rename the community of about 24,000 people roughly 25 miles from St. Louis.
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Lifelong Edwardsville resident Kirk Schlueter started the effort after researching Edwards' history.
“This is just one way we can help the civil rights movement that is happening all over the nation and the world,” he said. “This is really a multiracial movement for equality.”
Confederate monuments and other statues have been removed in the wake of George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis. Demonstrations sparked by his killing have called for an end to police brutality and racism around the world.
Edwardsville officials said they would consider the request.
A portrait of former Illinois Gov. Ninian Edwards in the Hall of Governors at the State Capitol in Springfield. (Steve Warmowski)
“City officials are receiving emails over the statue and we will have conversations regarding their thoughts,” Mayor Hal Patton said. “This is a slippery slope, taking down history, but Ninian was on the horrific side of history.”
Among other political offices, Edwards served as the first governor of the Illinois Territory, becoming the third governor after statehood in the early 1800s, according to the National Governors Association.
The Facebook group cites instances where Edwards did not free slaves who worked on his Kentucky plantation. He also used a veto during his territorial governorship to kill an 1817 bill abolishing the state’s “indentured servitude” system, which many historians say was a defacto form of slavery.
But not everyone agrees with the group's position.
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Local historian Cindy Reinhardt thinks the statue should remain.
“My personal opinion is that there are people who don’t like the looks of that statue and so, they’re just making an excuse for it,” she told the newspaper. “We can’t assess history through the lens of modern sensibility.”


chicagotribune--2020-06-22--Daywatch: Where Chicago stands on police chokeholds, swing state campaigning amid COVID-19 and poten

Daywatch: Where Chicago stands on police chokeholds, swing state campaigning amid COVID-19 and potential gridlock on city streets

Lightfoot told the Tribune she still wants chokeholds banned “ in their entirety ” but did not say when that @ @ @ @ @ directed a task force to review the department ’ s use of force following the @ @ @ @ @ who died after a Minneapolis police officer placed a knee on his neck for about @ @ @ @ @ meantime , new Chicago police Superintendent David Brown said he wanted officers to undergo “ @ @ @ @ @ , ” which raised the question of just what the current training regimen is and @ @ @ @ @

Want Daywatch delivered to your inbox? Sign up here. | Get the top Tribune stories of the day on your smart speaker | Here’s how to get the most out of your Tribune subscription | Got something to say? Join the conversation on our Facebook page
Good morning, Chicago. Here’s the coronavirus news and other top stories you need to know to start your day.
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Mia Wright, center, and her cousin Tnika Tate and Mia's mother, Kim Woods, background, on June 3, 2020. Wright says a Chicago police officer had pulled her from a car by her hair and placed a knee on her neck last month. (Brian Cassella / Chicago Tribune)
When she was running for mayor, Lori Lightfoot left no doubt what she thought of Chicago police using chokeholds on suspects, saying they should be prohibited from use. But nearly a year into her term, the Chicago Police Department toughened restrictions on the use of potentially lethal neck holds but did not completely ban them, with a February directive regarding them as deadly force to be used as a last resort, as chokeholds have been for years.
Lightfoot told the Tribune she still wants chokeholds banned “in their entirety” but did not say when that would be. She has directed a task force to review the department’s use of force following the death of George Floyd, who died after a Minneapolis police officer placed a knee on his neck for about eight minutes. In the meantime, new Chicago police Superintendent David Brown said he wanted officers to undergo “mandatory training on positional asphyxiation,” which raised the question of just what the current training regimen is and what it should be.
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Trump campaign signs are displayed June 13, 2020, outside the Waukesha County Republican Party offices in Waukesha, Wisconsin, where volunteers gathered for the presidential campaign's first weekend of door-to-door canvassing since the emergence of the coronavirus pandemic. (Bill Ruthhart/Bill Ruthhart)
A new phase of campaigning is emerging in critical 2020 swing states. As Trump and Republicans have fully embraced a return to in-person, grassroots organizing while the presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden and his campaign have not, citing health risks to campaign staffers, volunteers and voters.
A viturally LaSalle Street, looking south from Grand Avenue, as many employees work from home on April 9, 2020. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)
Downtown Chicago’s economy is unlikely to roar back from the coronavirus pandemic without the accompanying rumble of elevated trains and other public transit packed with office workers. As the city restarts its economic engine in and around the Loop, city leaders, employers and business groups face the challenge of restoring confidence in the area’s public transportation network.
Standing outside his looted Roseland Pharmacy on June 12, 2020, longtime pharmacy owner Howard Bolling discusses his years as a pharmacist. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)
In 1973, Howard Bolling secured a $55,000 loan and took a big chance. The young pharmacist had worked at Walgreens for years but was ready to go out on his own. Friends told him he was crazy for wanting to open a Black-owned business in the then majority-white neighborhood of Roseland. He became a mainstay for the next 47 years.
But his store was broken into on May 31 as looting followed peaceful protests that day over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Most of his medications were wiped out, along with much of his other inventory. He’s working to rebuild, bolstered by donations from the community.
A couple begins to climb the wooden steps that lead to the top of Monks Mound, the center of power in ancient Cahokia. (Jay Jones / for the Chicago Tribune)
The towering earthen mound oddly soars amid the flat-as-a-pancake river bottoms that surround it. From the mound’s summit, reached by a pulse-raising climb, downtown St. Louis — with its iconic arch along the Mighty Mississippi — is easily spotted. But roughly 700 years before the current metropolis was first settled, the earthen rise was at the heart of one of the greatest cities of its time in all of the Americas. It was called Cahokia.


chicagotribune--2020-06-22--81-year-old pharmacist whose business was decimated by recent looting vows to continue serving Rosel

81-year-old pharmacist whose business was decimated by recent looting vows to continue serving Roseland — as he has for nearly half a century

On May 31 , he got an alert from his alarm company that the store was broken into .
He @ @ @ @ @ four people running away from the store .
A window was smashed , and nearly @ @ @ @ @ were gone .
Much of his over-the-counter merchandise was also stolen , leaving his store @ @ @ @ @ even a week after the looting .

Standing outside his looted Roseland Pharmacy on June 12, 2020, longtime pharmacy owner Howard Bolling discusses his years as a pharmacist. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)
In 1973, Howard Bolling secured a $55,000 loan and took a big chance.
The young pharmacist had worked at Walgreens for years but was ready to go out on his own. A mentor helped him get the loan and find a pharmacy corner shop at 11254 S. Michigan Ave. that the owners wanted to sell.
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Friends told him he was crazy for wanting to open a Black-owned business in the then majority-white neighborhood of Roseland. In fact, the owners were looking to leave because the neighborhood was beginning to change.
“You’re Black. You can’t go past 95th Street,” people told Bolling.
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Though fearful that he wouldn’t be able to pay back his loan, Bolling took the plunge and opened his own pharmacy.
He became a Roseland mainstay for the next 47 years.
Empty shelves surround longtime pharmacy owner Howard Bolling on June 12, 2020, after the recent looting of his pharmacy in Roseland. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)
In recent years, the corner store owned by the 81-year-old Bolling has become both a dying breed of locally owned neighborhood pharmacies and a community fixture that provides a crucial need for residents with few pharmacies in walking distance.
But those residents are now struggling to meet that need after Bolling’s store was broken into on May 31 as looting followed peaceful protests that day over the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Most of his medications were wiped out, along with much of his other inventory.
The pharmacist is working to rebuild, bolstered by donations from the community.
Meanwhile, residents of Roseland, who say their neighborhood was already subject of years of neglect by the city, must go outside their community to get basic medication as the community rebuilds.
“It was a huge blow,” said Ald Anthony Beale, 9th.
A pharmacy of his own
As a teenager growing up in Harlem, New York, Bolling had a bicycle but needed a job. So a local druggist hired him to bike around the neighborhood making deliveries.
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Bolling admired the pharmacist’s white jacket that he wore while working. He looked sleek and professional to the young teen.
“Geez, that looks so cool,” Bolling said he told the pharmacist. “How can I do it?”
The pharmacist had attended Howard University, a historically Black university in Washington, D.C. He got an application for Bolling, who was attending Brooklyn Technical High School, an elite public school in New York. A few weeks later, Bolling learned he was accepted to Howard.
Howard Bolling's "museum" of his old-time flasks, containers, and supplies at his Roseland Pharmacy. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)
Even now, he can see his mother’s face when she learned he would go to college.
“It was almost like she hit the mega lotto,” Bolling said. “She was so proud.”
He worked to save up enough tuition for the first year, and then later won scholarship money.
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Bolling graduated with a degree in pharmacy science, and met a recruiter who offered him a job in Chicago as a pharmacist at Walgreens, a company he had never heard of in a city he had never been to.
But he got on a bus, and 22 hours later, he was in Chicago.
Bolling spent years working at Walgreens stores on the South Side, with an interim period working for the Rush hospital system, before he felt compelled to open his own pharmacy.
“I’ve got to do something for myself,” he recalled thinking.
He sought out a mentor, who supplied drugs to pharmacies. The mentor helped him through the process of obtaining a loan, and found the Roseland location that would eventually become Roseland Pharmacy. At the time it was a corner store called Pullman Pharmacy.
Bolling built up his business over the years and witnessed white flight as Roseland became a majority Black neighborhood.
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His shop retains an old-fashioned look, with green shelves and a glass counter under a window with “Prescriptions” in black lettering. The tools he used in his early days as a pharmacist are on display: a mortar, pestle and glass jars that used to hold ointments.
He has stayed on the corner of Michigan Avenue and 112th Street, serving his regular customers, even as corporate businesses around him came and went.
‘They have to go way outside community to get prescription drugs'
Now in his 80s, Bolling had been thinking about giving the business three more years before retiring, until the looting last month threw his plans into disarray.
On May 31, he got an alert from his alarm company that the store was broken into. He arrived and saw three or four people running away from the store. A window was smashed, and nearly all of his prescription drugs were gone. Much of his over-the-counter merchandise was also stolen, leaving his store’s green shelves empty even a week after the looting.
Bolling estimates it will cost him about $20,000 to $25,000 to get up and running, and he said his insurance policy does not cover much of it.
Standing in a back room where he kept his medicines and other supplies, longtime pharmacy owner Howard Bolling discusses the recent looting June 12, 2020. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)
His computer was gone, paralyzing his ability to recover his business until he could replace it.
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“I’ll never forget it,” he said of seeing his store turned upside down.
Roseland Pharmacy was one of many neighborhood stores that were looted that night, including the two nearest Walgreens stores, at 115th and Halsted streets and 103rd Street and Michigan Avenue.
After the looting, Jada Campbell, a 22-year-old University of Illinois graduate who grew up in Roseland, was calling pharmacy after pharmacy, trying to find a place that could fill prescriptions for her grandparents, but could not find a store nearby that wasn’t affected by the looting.
She spoke to Bolling, who told her he was wiped out. She finally found a pharmacy about 30 minutes away that could provide the medications she needed.
“We ended up having to go outside the community,” she said.
The ordeal sparked an idea for Campbell. She wanted to help a Black-owned business that was harmed during the looting, so she started a GoFundMe fundraiser for Bolling that has raised more than $18,000 so far.
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Bolling has started slowly rebuilding his inventory and has been able to fill a small amount of prescriptions. But he has not fully reopened.
The two nearest Walgreens stores have also not opened after the looting, leaving residents, some without vehicles, to struggle to acquire much-needed medication. A Walgreens spokeswoman said the store at 833 W. 115th St. is expected to reopen early this week. The store at 10300 S. Michigan is expected to reopen its drive-thru pharmacy this week.
“We’re talking about people who rely on prescription drugs to live,” said Beale, the area’s alderman. They have to go way outside the community to get prescription drugs.”
Beale said the community has started to rebuild after the looting, but many were unsure what would be covered by insurance, and have few resources to rely on. Some, like Bolling, have relied on sites like GoFundMe, he said.
The area was already strapped for resources, residents say.
As one of just a few independent, full-service pharmacies left in the area, Bolling’s pharmacy has been relied on heavily by residents after a Walgreens store at 111th and Michigan closed in 2015, community members say. The other two nearest Walgreens stores are more than a mile away.
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“The area is definitely a desert for a number of different vital needs that our neighbors have,” said Marsha Eaglin, an advisory member of the Far South Chicago Coalition. “We were already practically an empty shell in Roseland when it comes to resources.”
She condemns the looting, but when she sees the disparities Roseland faces compared with the city’s majority-white neighborhoods, she understands the pain people are feeling right now.
“I personally believe that looting is selfish, but I understand why they made the moves they made,” she said. “I understand when you don’t feel your voices are heard.”
But Eaglin and Bolling feel hope for Roseland’s future. Eaglin’s group recently secured grant money to begin projects to address inequities and bring in economic investment.
With the money from the GoFundMe effort, Bolling plans to reopen and do some much-needed renovations on his store.
“What’s the future for Roseland?” Bolling said. “It only has one place to go but up.”
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mabuckley@chicagotribune.com


chicagotribune--2020-06-22--Column: By supporting Confederate monuments, Donald Trump sides with racists

These Confederate monuments have served as prolific messengers , blatantly spewing white supremacy in a way many who cling to @ @ @ @ @ South might not be comfortable doing publicly .
It was more effective to allow the @ @ @ @ @ image of Lee sitting on his horse say what needed to be said .

George Floyd's image is projected on the Robert E. Lee monument as people gather around it June 18, 2020, in Richmond, Virginia. (Tasos Katopodis / Getty Images)
If there was doubt about where the president stands on the issue of racism in America, he made it clear during his campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Donald Trump is on the side of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson.
His heroes are the Confederate leaders who split America in two in order to maintain the institution of slavery. Why else would he describe statues erected across the South after the Civil War as “our beautiful monuments”?
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Statues of Lee, who led the Confederate army, the slain soldiers he commanded and others have stood in public squares across America for more than a century in many cases. These are not merely honorable relics of a bygone era. They are symbols of defiance.
Many were erected during the Jim Crow era as a symbol of the Confederacy’s prevailing dominance in the South, despite having lost the war. America has been complicit in promoting that message of superiority by refusing to take them down.
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Trump accused protesters who recently toppled them to the ground in several cities of “trying to vandalize our history, desecrate our monuments.” He spoke of these people as if they are trespassers in a country where they do not belong.
The demonstrators who climbed atop those racist figures and dismantled them are not “thugs” or an “unhinged left-wing mob” as Trump contends. They are truth-seekers, who are calling America out for its hypocrisy.
Whenever African Americans in Richmond, Virginia, walked past the massive monument to Davis, the president of the Confederacy, they were reminded of how deeply rooted their city — the final capital of the Confederacy — was in the preservation of slavery.
Anyone who clings to these monuments today as part of their heritage must recognize that their birthright is racist. No one can defend these Confederate statues without also embracing the racism they represent.
Trump did not ascend to the White House on a platform of racially unifying the nation. If anything, it was the opposite. He does not have the moral fortitude to bring people of opposing views together. Even if he were capable, he would not.
It is in his best interest to choose sides and force us to do the same. Time and time again, he has chosen to stand with those who cling to the past rather that those who are striving for change.
Trump knows that white supremacy is a core value within his base. Without the racists, he would not have been elected and certainly cannot win again. Trump supporter David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, often reminds us of that.
So Trump strokes their ego with a side wink, reassuring them that no matter how much he boasts about having done more for African Americans in three years than any other president, his heart is really with them.
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When he rallies supporters the way he did on Saturday, everyone understands the underlying message.
These Confederate monuments have served as prolific messengers, blatantly spewing white supremacy in a way many who cling to the values of the Old South might not be comfortable doing publicly. It was more effective to allow the 60-foot-tall monument with a bronze image of Lee sitting on his horse say what needed to be said.
At the same time, they could attempt to trick America into believing that these statues were distinguished historical relics rather than the hurtful symbols they are.
By tearing them down in Washington, D.C., Virginia, North Carolina and other places, demonstrators did what city and state officials would not do. After decades of calls to remove them, several Southern states passed laws that made it difficult, if not illegal, to take them down. Some states now are reconsidering those laws.
But Trump has not wavered.
In defending the monuments Saturday, he stoked racial tensions at a time when much of the country is focused on coming together. He did not say George Floyd’s name in his speech, nor did he mention the word “healing.”
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In the past, even staunch conservatives such as Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina have taken Trump to task over his divisive rhetoric.
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Three years ago, when neo-Nazis clashed with protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia, killing a woman in the crowd, Trump initially refused to condemn the white supremacists who held the rally at the site of Lee’s statue. He responded by blaming “both sides” for inciting violence and said there were “very fine people” on both sides.
At the time, Graham said the manner in which Trump handled the Charlottesville tragedy had garnered the president praise from “some of the most racist and hate-filled individuals and groups in our country.”
The Republican lawmaker pleaded, “For the sake of our nation, as our president, please fix this.”
Trump would not fix it for our nation then, and he will not fix it for us now. Once again, he has chosen to stand with racists.
And like Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson, he will land on the wrong side of history.
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dglanton@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @dahleeng