chicagotribune--2020-08-13--Why Englewood residents told outside protesters to leave days after police shooting. ‘This is proppe

Why Englewood residents told outside protesters to leave days after police shooting. ‘This is propped up. They’re throwing a party.’

“ It took a while for some of them to see where we were coming from , but I guess @ @ @ @ @ the message that we wasn ’ t happy .
And there will be nobody speaking @ @ @ @ @ be nobody protesting in Englewood , ” he said .
“ If you ’ re @ @ @ @ @ people on 56th Street want to come over and protest the police , they can @ @ @ @ @ one from the North Side or Indiana or any place other than Englewood can come @ @ @ @ @ ”

Warning: Video contains graphic language. Residents call for protesters to leave the neighborhood before a rally outside the CPD 7th District station on Aug. 11, 2020. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune) (Chicago Tribune)
Before the chanting began, there was a lot of yelling.
A planned protest outside the Englewood police station Tuesday evening over a recent police-involved shooting devolved into shouting matches among demonstrators, with threats and insults hurled back and forth, after a group of older residents derided the event as “a party” and demanded that outsiders leave.
Advertisement
Eventually tempers cooled somewhat after several small confrontations, and people started talking. In the end, a much smaller group of demonstrators marched through Englewood while a large number of protesters headed home.
The event was billed as a car caravan to the South Side police station and a protest march in the neighborhood, organized by groups including Black Lives Matter Chicago, Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation and Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression.
Advertisement
Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 10 Activists argue with residents after several community members asked protesters to leave the neighborhood during a rally. (Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune)
It was in response to the recent shooting of Latrell Allen, who was wounded by police Sunday afternoon after he allegedly pulled a gun and fired at officers near Moran Park. The cadre of organizations support initiatives to defund police departments, remove officers from public schools and increase social services, among many other aims.
Prosecutors say officers were answering a call about a man with a gun when they shot Allen near his home. A crowd of angry residents turned on police, injuring a few officers, after rumors spread that cops had fatally shot a child and that a cellphone containing evidence had been confiscated.
On Tuesday, about 10 minutes before the 6 p.m. event was to begin at 63rd Street and Loomis Boulevard, a small group of Englewood men, some of them residents of the neighborhood for decades, began to loudly deride the demonstration and demanded the group go home.
Things got heated.
“Get the (expletive) out of here!” one man yelled at the demonstrators.
The men are aligned with various Englewood groups that often work with police to ease tensions. They consider themselves community elders and said they didn’t appreciate a protest in their neighborhood during such a tense time. Some of them say they helped calm things after objects were thrown at officers on Aberdeen Street on Sunday.
“They (protest organizers) didn’t let the community know,” said Duane Kidd. “They didn’t put flyers on the door. They got the streets shut down. What about the elders that have to get up and down 63rd Street? Now they got to take the side routes.
“Coming into our community for just one day and then run out,” Kidd said. “Everyday. If they got something to say about the police, we got to deal with it tomorrow. The community. Not them. They’ll be somewhere sipping sangria.”
Advertisement
Darryl Smith, an Englewood resident, speaks through a megaphone while arguing with protesters after asking them to leave the neighborhood during a rally outside the Chicago Police Department's 7th District on Aug. 11, 2020. (Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune)
Darryl Smith, president of the Englewood Political Task Force, described how such protests upset the balance of the neighborhood.
“When they leave, the police are going to be pulling us over. The police are going to be pulling our kids out of cars for no reason. Because the police are bitter now. You come and shut down 63rd Street, all this extra manpower, they’re mad,” he said.
“So now these (television news) cameras are going to leave, those people are gonna leave and our kids are on the street playing,” Smith said. “And they’re going to get pulled over and thrown on the ground and harassed for no reason.”
But the anger from the older men wasn’t just because of the protest, they said. It was the inconvenience it posed to working-class residents and the threat to the fragile peace in a troubled neighborhood they say has been unfairly linked to downtown looting the day after the police-involved shooting.
“This is propped up. They’re throwing a party,” said Kidd, 42.
Some of the neighborhood men got in the faces of the young protesters, and more than once it looked like a fight would break out. There were competing bullhorns, point-counterpoint screaming sessions and some shoving that called officers standing by to action.
Advertisement
The tense dust-up was a rare public sign of discord amid the demonstrations and marches that have become the norm in Chicago’s neighborhoods since the death of George Floyd as he was being arrested in Minneapolis in late May.
But soon people from both sides started talking under the setting sun and peacefully discussing their views.
“It’s not about who’s really coming into Englewood. It’s about what happens when they leave Englewood. When you come to Englewood, who are you contacting to make sure everyone is on the same page?” said activist Joseph Williams.
“We don’t want to continue to have our communities left to destruction because people are coming into our communities to be supported by us, but they don’t represent us and now they’re bringing us problems,” he continued. “So we ask for the respect of reaching out to the community.”
Tonight we didn’t participate in the rally/protest because aggressive agitators were being disruptive & tried to provoke us into a violent confrontation. We live in #Englewood & we welcome @CAARPRNow @BLMChi @SOULInChicago & others working to #DefundCPD & make our hoods safe! pic.twitter.com/5UUHq7DQDV — GoodKidsMadCity (@GKMC18) August 12, 2020
Smith, Williams and several others had helped calm emotions after Sunday’s shooting by dispelling rumors that riled the crowd. Their relationship with police allowed them to negotiate the release of one man at the scene without charges.
“So it’s a give and take,” Smith said. “If you give the community what they want, the police get what they want. It was a happy resolve, that’s why I don’t understand why they say the looting stemmed from that.”
Advertisement
Englewood police Cmdr. Larry Snelling, who was on hand for Tuesday’s demonstration, praised the men, saying they helped soothe angry citizens convinced police had killed a teenager that day.
“From the very beginning, people kept saying (Latrell Allen) was 15 years old. He was shot 15 times. Then there was, ‘He’s dead.’ All of those things were total and complete lies,” Snelling said. “These guys were over there. They helped out with that crowd. They were very good and I appreciate it.”
Eventually, activists began peeling off from the larger group Tuesday evening. Longtime activist Andy Thayer left the protest, saying he understood where the residents were coming from and didn’t want to threaten their safety.
A much smaller crowd of young people marched south on Loomis, under the watchful eye of police. A tweet from GoodKidsMadCity, among the organizers, included a video of several young activists explaining their group didn’t participate “because aggressive agitators were being disruptive & tried to provoke us into a violent confrontation.”
“Unfortunately, we were met by some angry community members who didn’t want us to organize in the community,” youth coordinator Miracle Boyd said in the video.
A group of protesters talk after area residents told them to leave from the Chicago police 7th District station on Aug. 11, 2020. Area residents expressed anger that activists who do not live in the neighborhood converged to protest the police department. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)
Smith welcomed the end of the protest.
Advertisement
“It took a while for some of them to see where we were coming from, but I guess one of the organizers got the message that we wasn’t happy. And there will be nobody speaking for Englewood and there will be nobody protesting in Englewood,” he said. “If you’re from Englewood, if the people on 56th Street want to come over and protest the police, they can do it. But no one from the North Side or Indiana or any place other than Englewood can come here and do that.”
Snelling said he was glad cooler heads prevailed, but added that he hoped the standoff taught a lesson to the younger protesters about community connections they have to make.
“These guys right here come out when a community member is hurt, when someone is robbed, whenever someone does violence to another person, they are always out here,” he said. “And they’re not getting paid for this, they’re doing this because they’re invested in their community.
“I think it just upsets them when they have a group of people who just walked into their community, with misinformation, and decide what the problem is in their community.”
wlee@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @MidNoirCowboy


chicagotribune--2020-08-13--Prosecutors offer no motive for SUV driver accused of striking woman and her daughter, then circling

Prosecutors offer no motive for SUV driver accused of striking woman and her daughter, then circling back and hitting mother again, killing her

The bystander was able to pull the daughter clear , but the mother was struck again and dragged down the @ @ @ @ @ the scene .
The SUV driver sped off , crashing into barricades as he eluded @ @ @ @ @ arrested later in the night when he went to police and claimed the Explorer had @ @ @

Paige Fry, Rosemary Sobol, Megan Crepeau

Police work the scene where a woman was killed after being struck by a vehicle on Hubbard Street late Aug. 10, 2020, in Chicago. The driver fled the scene. (Armando L. Sanchez/Chicago Tribune)
Zoraleigh Ryan was just steps away from safety.
She didn’t like walking down Hubbard Street with her daughter late Monday night, so she decided to duck into a hotel and call for a ride. They were crossing Hubbard, about to enter the Courtyard Marriott, when they heard the screech of tires and saw a silver Ford Explorer racing straight for them.
Advertisement
Ryan was hit first, then her 20-year-old daughter. The SUV stopped and the driver got out, standing about 10 feet away as a bystander rushed to tend to the women. Then he got back into the SUV, circled the block and came at them again, according to police and prosecutors.
The bystander was able to pull the daughter clear, but the mother was struck again and dragged down the block. She died at the scene. The SUV driver sped off, crashing into barricades as he eluded police, but he was arrested later in the night when he went to police and claimed the Explorer had been carjacked.
Advertisement
Edgar Roman, 25, appeared in court Wednesday charged with first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder. While Roman finally admitted to police that he hit the women, prosecutors gave no motive for the brutal attack as he was ordered held on $2 million bond.
Edgar Roman (Chicago Police Department)
Ryan, 55, and her daughter had just finished their dinner at Chicago Cut Steakhouse about 10:15 p.m. Monday and began walking back to their hotel, prosecutors said. They wanted to stop at a 7-Eleven on the way, but it was closed because of looting damage. They decided to head for the Marriott and call for an Uber ride.
Roman was on State Street nearby, prosecutors said. As the women crossed Hubbard, he took off, made a U-turn and hit Ryan and her daughter, prosecutors said. Ryan was tossed against the curb, but was talking and able to tell her daughter and a bystander where she was injured.
Roman drove a few car lengths away and stopped. The daughter told the bystander to get a picture of Roman’s license plate number, but as he walked toward the SUV, Roman jumped into his car, sped down Hubbard and came back, engine revving as he headed for the women again, prosecutors said.
Roman ran over Ryan, dragging her body as the car accelerated over pylons on State Street, prosecutors said. The SUV dragged Ryan for about half a block, then ran over her again, prosecutors said. The daughter and bystander ran up to Ryan and held her head, but she “was no longer breathing.”
Roman apparently went around the block and drove north on State Street yet again — close enough for a witness to make eye contact with him, prosecutors said. He drove off and returned yet another time, at which point police were arriving and the witness pointed out Roman’s SUV.
Police saw the Explorer “driving erratically” on Grand Avenue not long afterward. They tried to pull it over, but Roman drove through a construction barricade, then got stuck trying to drive through a second barricade, prosecutors said.
The SUV hit the barricades so hard, the front hood fell off, according to police.
Advertisement
Officers got out of their car with weapons drawn, but Roman made a three-point turn and escaped, prosecutors said. About 11:20 p.m., Roman entered the Albany Park District Station and told police he had been carjacked, prosecutors said. The SUV was found, “heavily damaged,” not far away.
Roman was arrested and told police he was carjacked by two armed men who forced him to drive around at gunpoint, prosecutors said. He ultimately admitted that he hit the two women. The entire incident was caught on police cameras and surveillance video from buildings on Hubbard Street, prosecutors said.
Advertisement
Ryan was pronounced dead on the scene. Her daughter was treated at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and released. Both are from Chandler, Arizona, though Ryan apparently has ties to the Chicago area, according to her Facebook page.
Ryan’s granddaughter told a television station in Phoenix that her grandmother was “just so sweet, doesn’t hurt anyone. She always makes sure everyone’s good before herself.”
“A decent enough human who felt bad when he hit her would have gone back and got out the car. ‘Oh my gosh, are you OK?’ No, but he hit her again to make sure that she was dead,” Angelina Adams told KPNX. “She didn’t deserve it. ... Now my only grandma is gone.”
Preliminary info: Officers trying to find a silver Ford Explorer that hit a woman at State/Hubbard #ChicagoScanner pic.twitter.com/GXDobxiHg8 — Paige Fry (@paigexfry) August 11, 2020
pfry@chicagotribune.com
rsobol@chicagotribune.com
Advertisement
mcrepeau@chicagotribune.com


chicagotribune--2020-08-13--Daywatch: Pritzker warns of stricter COVID-19 measures, why Englewood residents told protesters to l

Daywatch: Pritzker warns of stricter COVID-19 measures, why Englewood residents told protesters to leave and how outdoor dining may look when summer ends

Many Black Chicagoans have had negative experiences when seeking medical care : times a doctor didn ’ t believe them @ @ @ @ @ didn ’ t fully explain their options .
When racial bias occurs in medicine , @ @ @ @ @ for patients , and may be one factor leading to worse health outcomes for Black @ @ @ @ @ rates of deaths from COVID-19 , experts say .

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.
Advertisement
Dr. M.S. Kapadia, from Prism Heath Lab in Chicago, talks to a client at a drive-thru COVID-19 testing on Aug. 6, 2020. (Jose M. Osorio / Chicago Tribune)
With coronavirus trends in most of Illinois moving in the wrong direction, Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Wednesday again warned that the state might reimpose stricter measures to slow the spread of the highly contagious disease.
Pritzker repeated a plea for local officials to “impose greater mitigations on a targeted basis to bring down the number of infections or the positivity rate.”
Advertisement
Corbett Wilkinson climbs on a downed tree in Rogers Park after a powerful storm tore through the area Monday evening in the West Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)
The National Weather Service on Wednesday said the agency confirmed five more tornadoes spawned by a derecho storm system Monday, bringing the total number of tornadoes during the destructive storms to 11.
The weather service had confirmed six tornadoes on Tuesday, but Wednesday, forecasters said there were five others during the storm, which left hundreds of thousands without power across northern Illinois and northwest Indiana.
A protester yells for people to calm down Aug. 11, 2020, as a skirmish breaks out between people protesting the police and area residents who did not want nonresidents in their neighborhood. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)
A planned protest outside the Englewood police station Tuesday evening over a recent police-involved shooting devolved into shouting matches among demonstrators, with threats and insults hurled back and forth, after a group of older residents derided the event as “a party” and demanded that outsiders leave.
Onna Ford, a nurse practitioner at Chicago Family Health Center, on July 22, 2020. Ford has personally experienced how racism can seep into health care. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune)
Many Black Chicagoans have had negative experiences when seeking medical care: times a doctor didn’t believe them, dismissed their concerns or didn’t fully explain their options. When racial bias occurs in medicine, it can have devastating consequences for patients, and may be one factor leading to worse health outcomes for Black people, such as higher rates of deaths from COVID-19, experts say.
Corey Drake and Veronica Coria sit in the outdoor dining area at The Loyalist on June 25, 2020, in Chicago. (John J. Kim / Chicago Tribune)
As the end of Chicago’s patio season approaches, restaurant leaders are urging local officials to take a cue from Northern European cities and Colorado ski towns to encourage outdoor seating even as the weather turns cold.


chicagotribune--2020-08-13--Want to vote by mail in Illinois? Here’s how.

Even if you choose to vote in person , there are ways to stay safe .
The CDC recommends reducing @ @ @ @ @ and using voting methods to minimize direct contact with other people .
If you do @ @ @ @ @ , the CDC recommends going to your polling place at off-peak times , when the @ @ @ @ @

Election Day is scheduled for Nov. 3, but many Illinois residents already have requested mail-in ballots, an option state officials encourage for all registered voters this year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
By early October, Illinois election authorities had received more than 378,000 returned mail-in ballots of the more than 2 million applications, indicating the state likely will break its record for voting by mail set two years ago, when 430,000 votes, or 9.3%, of the total ballots were cast by mail.
Advertisement
[ Map: Where to securely drop off your mail-in ballot in Chicago and the suburbs ]
Here’s what you need to know about voting by mail in the general election:
Applying for a mail-in ballot
If you plan to vote by mail, you have to apply first. Voters can download the application for a vote-by-mail ballot.
Advertisement
The form may be completed online or printed and mailed to your county clerk’s office. Under a state law passed in May, some 5 million Illinois residents who have voted since November 2018, as well as anyone who registered for the first time or updated their registrations since March 18, are receiving applications in the mail.
If you apply online, you’ll need either your driver’s license, state identification number or Social Security number. You’ll also have to include an email address and address where the ballot should be mailed. If you mail a paper application, you’ll need to sign the form.
The earliest that applicants can receive their mail-in ballot is Sept. 24. Voters can track their application and ballot in numerous ways through their local election office. In Chicago, they will receive emails confirming their applications and can track their ballot through the U.S. Postal Service.
By early October, the Chicago Board of Elections said it had received more than 484,000 applications for mail-in ballots this year. That’s more than four times the board’s all-time record of about 118,000, for this year’s primary election.
[ About three-quarters of American voters can cast ballots by mail this November, despite President Trump’s objections ]
What’s on the ballot?
Candidates for president and vice president of the United States, candidates for U.S. senator and U.S. representative, candidates for state senator and state representative, as well as county state’s attorneys and county court clerks, and judicial candidates. The state board of elections has a rundown of all candidates who have filed.
The ballot also will include a proposal on whether to allow varying income-tax rates based on income levels, retention of judges and, in Chicago only, three referendums on expanding internet service, creating a plan for sustainability and the regulation of assault weapons.
Ballots should be completed in black or blue ink to be most legible, election officials said.
Mailing in your ballot
Once you’ve filled out your ballot, you can return it through the U.S. Postal Service or licensed couriers, or bring it to the election board that has jurisdiction over your area, such as the Chicago Board of Elections or the Cook County clerk.
Advertisement
Voters will be able to drop off their ballots at various locations in Illinois starting in mid-October. In Cook County, drop boxes will be at every early voting site. Chicago locations will be listed in September.
Before mailing their ballot, voters must seal and sign their postage-paid return envelope wherever indicated. Ballots must be received within 14 days after Election Day. Any ballot postmarked after Election Day, Nov. 3, will not be counted.
Voters should receive an email confirming the ballot was received by the election board, and another when the vote officially has been counted. There are no takebacks; once a mail ballot has been received by the election board, it can’t be retrieved or withdrawn.
What if I decide to vote in person after receiving a mail-in ballot?
You’re allowed to vote in person only if you haven’t yet cast your ballot by mail. If you decide you’d rather vote in person, you’ll need to bring your mail-in ballot to an early voting site or your election precinct polling place and surrender it to an election judge. The election judge should then give you a standard ballot, which you can fill out to vote in person.
Keep in mind it’s illegal to vote more than once in an election, so only choose one method. In Illinois, knowingly voting more than once or attempting to do so is a class 3 felony.
What dates do I need to know for voting early?
Registered voters may cast a ballot before Election Day without having to provide a reason for wanting to vote early. For mail-in ballots, you can drop it in the mail as early as Sept. 24. Early voting at the local election authority or designated early polling places also begins Sept. 24. Early voting by those methods ends Nov. 2.
Advertisement
Are mail-in ballots a COVID-19 health risk?
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization have indicated that there is currently no evidence that COVID-19 is being spread through the mail.
Scientists generally agree that the main way COVID-19 spreads is through the tiny droplets that are sprayed into the air with each cough or sneeze. Still, the Postal Service has undertaken several protective measures for its employees in the Chicago district and around Illinois.
Even if you choose to vote in person, there are ways to stay safe. The CDC recommends reducing crowd size at polling stations and using voting methods to minimize direct contact with other people. If you do choose to vote in person, the CDC recommends going to your polling place at off-peak times, when the crowds might be lighter.
How will COVID-19 affect mail-in voting?
Chicago election officials don’t anticipate the Nov. 3 election date changing because of COVID-19. Even so, they said nearly everything has been affected by the pandemic, including poll worker recruitment, employee training and vote-by-mail services.
The Chicago Board of Elections urged all registered voters to vote by mail as early as possible this year to reduce in-person traffic and to prevent delays.
If voters are admitted to a hospital, nursing home or rehabilitation center 14 days or fewer before Election Day, they can have their ballot delivered directly to them. They’ll just need to sign a legal affidavit with their doctor, then arrange to have it sent to the clerk’s office to receive their ballot (which someone can then return for them before 7 p.m. on Election Day).
Advertisement
Is mail-in voting more susceptible to fraud?
Nationally, efforts to expand mail-in voting because of the coronavirus pandemic have become a focus of partisan debate, with Republicans led by President Donald Trump opposing voting by mail, based in part on unsubstantiated claims that it leads to fraud. Numerous investigations have found no evidence that voting by mail results in increased voter fraud.
For more on the 2020 elections, check the Tribune’s Elections Page.
Editor’s note: Earlier versions of this story incorrectly referred to “online voting” beginning Sept. 24. There is no online voting in Illinois.


chicagotribune--2020-08-13--Optimistic that Rogers Park shoreline projects will withstand winter, Chicago Park District to look

Optimistic that Rogers Park shoreline projects will withstand winter, Chicago Park District to look at other spots that need protection

“ The Rogers Park beaches , we were losing them quickly and they were starting to threaten the roadways , @ @ @ @ @ the Park District ’ s director of planning and construction .
“ We can ’ @ @ @ @ @ the storms will be , but we ’ re fairly optimistic that those ( protections @ @ @ @ @ through the winter season .
I think where we ’ re really focusing our attention @ @ @ @ @ other areas up and down the lakefront that maybe didn ’ t have quite as @ @ @ @ @ Park beaches , but still had some concerns .
”

Funding for shoreline protections and improvements to eroding harbors were among the issues brought before the Chicago Park District board Wednesday during the district’s first full meeting in months.
The Park District voted to enter into an agreement with the city to pay for protection measures that have already been completed, including the large stones put in place earlier this year at Howard Beach, Rogers Beach and Juneway Beach in the Rogers Park neighborhood. The beaches suffered severe damage after a January storm ripped apart the city’s northern lakefront.
Advertisement
The Park District will partially fund the work, putting in $1.3 million, and the city will contribute $1.5 million. The January storm, with waves nearing 20 feet, caused $37 million in damage in Chicago and Cook County.
“The Rogers Park beaches, we were losing them quickly and they were starting to threaten the roadways,” said Heather Gleason, the Park District’s director of planning and construction. “We can’t really predict how strong the storms will be, but we’re fairly optimistic that those (protections) are going to hold through the winter season. I think where we’re really focusing our attention now are some of the other areas up and down the lakefront that maybe didn’t have quite as much erosion as those Rogers Park beaches, but still had some concerns.”
Advertisement
The Army Corps of Engineers is involved with other work in the Morgan Shoal stretch on the South Side. There are also efforts focused on areas including 12th Street Beach and Jackson Park Outer Harbor, Gleason said. The Chicago Department of Transportation, a frequent collaborator on shoreline protection, is assisting at Ashe Beach Park, off East 74th Street, where there are also erosion challenges.
Gleason said one significant assist in tackling shoreline damage are repairs to the Lakefront Trail made possible by billionaire Ken Griffin, who gave nearly $5 million. The trail recently opened back up at Oak Street after repairs were completed.
“We’re still dealing with high lake levels, but we’re trying to triage here and get as much done as we can,” Gleason said.
Additionally, the Park District voted on an ordinance as part of the process to issue $4 million in bonds for harbor financing and improvements.
Funds will go toward improving harbor facilities and marinas, which have also faced challenges due to near-record lake levels and erosion. A significant portion will go toward a breakwall at Jackson Harbor, said Steve Lux, the Park District’s chief financial officer. The district plans to issue the bonds in the fall, Lux said.
“We need to protect the harbor from wave activity and also sand buildup that’s been occurring for many years,” Lux said.
Louise McCurry, of the Jackson Park Advisory Council, said beyond the boaters, many parkgoers enjoy the harbors, and fixes are key when marinas are up against climate change, storms and rising lake levels.
“I want to make a big, big plea to say we fix them now, we fix them right, or we pay a lot more later,” McCurry said. “Global warming isn’t going to stop.”
Advertisement
mgreene@chicagotribune.com


chicagotribune--2020-08-13--‘Nine times out of 10, I was completely brushed off’: Black Chicagoans confront bias in health care,

‘Nine times out of 10, I was completely brushed off’: Black Chicagoans confront bias in health care, hope for change

“ I think that health care has realized that the impact that COVID has had on Black and brown communities @ @ @ @ @ long years of compounding health care disparities , structural issues , policies that are basically @ @ @ @ @ in our organizations , are a reality , ” said Brenda Battle , vice president @ @ @ @ @ ’ s Urban Health Initiative and its chief diversity , inclusion and equity officer .
@ @ @ @ @ that we have contributed to these realities and we have to do our part in @ @ @ @

Onna Ford has had enough experiences in her life — both as a nurse practitioner and a patient — to know how racism can seep into health care.
Years ago, Ford gave birth to a daughter who had a heart defect and would die seven days later. Ford was at the hospital when a relative of hers, a physician, visited. The hospital’s medical staff was glad to see the doctor, she recalled — a person who they felt could help Ford understand the baby girl’s medical situation.
Advertisement
They hadn’t realized Ford was a nurse. They just assumed she would have a hard time comprehending.
When she was younger, Ford also suffered seven miscarriages. None of her doctors suggested testing her to find out why — something that, as a nurse, she never understood. Ultimately, she found a solution herself after reading a study in a medical journal about progesterone suppositories. Her doctor agreed to try them, and she ultimately had four children, including the infant daughter who passed away.
Advertisement
Now 50 and living in West Pullman, Ford can’t shake the feeling that she might have been treated differently had she been white.
“You can’t put your finger on it, and say, ‘This is why this happened to me,’ but I feel like they would have investigated,” she said. “It’s almost like a belief that, as a Black woman, that you don’t deserve a baby.”
Many Black Chicagoans have had similar experiences when seeking medical care: times a doctor didn’t believe them, dismissed their concerns or didn’t fully explain their options. Sometimes racial prejudices are obvious. But even well-meaning medical providers can act differently toward Black patients because of a phenomenon known as implicit bias, which is bias that can surface automatically, and often unconsciously, when encountering a person of another race, gender or group.
When it occurs in medicine, it can have devastating consequences for patients, and may be one factor leading to worse health outcomes for Black people, such as higher rates of deaths from COVID-19, experts say.
Those higher death rates, along with the recent death of George Floyd in Minnesota and the unrest that followed, have spurred many organizations to act. In the Chicago area, three dozen health systems — including all the city’s biggest hospitals — recently announced plans to ramp up their efforts to fight racism, including by focusing on anti-racism and implicit bias training for doctors, nurses and other employees. The effort is part of the city’s Racial Equity Rapid Response Team.
Onna Ford, a nurse practitioner at Chicago Family Health Center, does telehealth consultations from her home in Chicago on July 22, 2020. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune)
Many health care leaders and Black community members say eliminating the effects of racism and implicit bias in health care is an attainable goal.
But they also acknowledge that health systems have a long way to go.
“I think that health care has realized that the impact that COVID has had on Black and brown communities is not happenstance, that long years of compounding health care disparities, structural issues, policies that are basically racist policies that impeded equity in our organizations, are a reality,” said Brenda Battle, vice president of University of Chicago Medicine’s Urban Health Initiative and its chief diversity, inclusion and equity officer. “We have to realize that we have contributed to these realities and we have to do our part in addressing them.”
Advertisement
The effects of bias
Black people, as a group, have worse health outcomes than whites in many areas, including when it comes to dying of pregnancy-related complications, cancer and heart disease.
There’s no doubt that factors such as poorer air quality in Black neighborhoods, less access to high-quality health care and less availability of fresh fruits and vegetables play a role in some of the differences. Some Black patients also trust doctors less than white patients, following a long, ugly history of being experimented on without consent, such as in the Tuskegee syphilis study, in which Black men with the disease went untreated for years.
But implicit bias is also likely partly to blame for the health disparities between Black and white people, experts say.
The existence of implicit bias in health care is well-documented and was highlighted in a landmark 2003 report by the Institute of Medicine. That report noted that while most health care providers find prejudice “morally abhorrent,” they may not recognize how implicit prejudice shows up in their own behavior, such as reduced eye contact with nonwhite patients or adopting a more closed posture.
“Doctors who are more implicitly biased spend less time with Black patients, they’re less patient centered, they tend to display less empathy,” said John Dovidio, an emeritus professor of psychology at Yale University who’s studied the issue. “Black patients detect this and have less trust and confidence in their physician.” Patients who are less trusting of their doctors are less likely to follow their recommendations and return to those doctors for care, he said.
Doctors may also implicitly associate Black people with self-destructive behaviors, such as drug abuse, the Institute of Medicine report said. Such stereotypes may make doctors less likely to recommend treatment to Black patients or lead them to spend less time trying to get to the bottom of a Black patient’s medical problem.
Advertisement
In situations where there’s a clear ailment with a clear solution, a doctor’s implicit bias may not make a difference in medical treatment, Dovidio said. But when it’s less obvious what’s going on, such as when it comes to gauging a patient’s pain level, implicit bias can change how a doctor treats a patient, he said.
For example, a 2012 study found a correlation between pediatricians’ implicit racial biases and how they treated pain in a simulated Black teenager versus a white equivalent following surgery.
Overall, health care professionals have low-to-moderate levels of implicit racial bias — about the same levels as the general population, according to a 2015 review of 15 studies.
Researchers often measure implicit bias using a test called the Implicit Association Test, which is available for free online. The test presents participants with a series of faces and words, and asks them to categorize those faces and words as fast as they can. A greater implicit preference for white people is inferred if the test taker has faster reaction times when categorizing negative words alongside pictures of Black faces, as well as positive words with pictures of white faces, than vice versa.
“In the health care setting, just because someone is a doctor, and a very good doctor, and a wonderful or decent person, doesn’t mean they don’t have biases,” said Adaeze Enekwechi, who served as the federal government’s chief health care budget official under President Barack Obama, and is president of IMPAQ, a policy research firm.
‘So degrading'
Even when the bias isn’t obvious, many Black patients are on guard for it, given what African Americans have endured for so long in this country, said Barrett Hatches, CEO at Chicago Family Health Center, which has six health centers on the South Side.
Advertisement
Growing up in Mississippi in the 1960s, Hatches didn’t see a doctor until he was 13 years old — partly because of the cost and partly because he and his family didn’t feel welcome at the local medical facilities.
“Every time you hear a ‘no’ or hear, ‘You can’t get in to see this doctor for three months,’ you’re looking through that lens, you’re hearing through that earpiece,” he said.
The effects of bias sometimes emerge as soon as a patient walks through the door, said Chris Harris, pastor at Bronzeville’s Bright Star Church and founder and CEO of Bright Star Community Outreach.
Harris was on Medicaid as a child and as an adult. A lifelong asthmatic, he remembers being turned away from certain health care facilities because he was on Medicaid, and even when he was given treatment, he felt unwelcome, he said.
“Imagine walking in, you already know that you don’t have health insurance or good insurance and the first question they ask is, ‘Can I have your insurance card?’” he said.
He said some of his congregants have shared similar experiences with him. They don’t feel comfortable going to Chicago’s most prestigious hospitals because they don’t think they’ll be welcomed.
Advertisement
Instead, they go to community health centers or forgo care altogether, instead relying on “grandmom and grandpop remedies,” he said.
“That’s a lot of the reason why Black and brown people don’t want to go, because the experience is so degrading, the way people talk to you, what you feel, what you experience, what you see,” Harris said. “How I’m greeted should not be based on the type of insurance I have or the color I am, or clothing I wear.”
Xavier Ramey, who grew up in North Lawndale, said Black patients’ complaints are often dismissed. When he was in his 20s, he had pain in the back of his head. He had to ask doctors multiple times if he could get an MRI before one agreed to order the test for him. He said he had similar experiences with doctors throughout his life.
“Nine times out of 10, I was completely brushed off,” Ramey said. “If there was ever a book on medical racism, it should probably just be called, ‘They Don’t Believe Us.’”
That’s why he was so taken aback when he finally had a good experience in 2015 at the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he underwent surgery for knee problems. His orthopedic surgeon was also a person of color, he said.
“I didn’t have to fight any doctor, any nurse or any person to believe me,” Ramey said. “When I said ‘ouch,’ they said ‘where?’ rather than something like, ‘Are you sure?’”
Advertisement
‘It can be fixed'
Ramey is now CEO of Justice Informed, a social impact consulting firm that’s worked with many organizations, including local hospitals and medical schools.
At Rush Medical College, Ramey has reviewed elements of the curriculum and trained core teaching faculty on the different types of racism and on how to teach students not to let racism, or their implicit bias, affect the care they give patients.
Ramey has also met with the school’s first-year medical students in North Lawndale to talk about the connections between racism, poverty and health.
Rush University Medical Center also has a training course for its leaders where they are taught concepts such as how to recognize and avoid microaggressions, which are comments or actions that subtly and often unintentionally express prejudice toward a member of a marginalized group. For example, they’re told not to tell a Black person, “I don’t see color,” which can minimize that person’s racial experience.
“It’s getting everyone to understand how we all have biases and how these biases are automatic and can affect our behavior with one another,” said Dr. David Ansell, senior vice president for community health equity at Rush University Medical Center. “We’re in the process, at this moment, of looking at everything we’re doing and saying, ‘Can we do it better? Can we do it differently?’”
University of Chicago Medicine also already trains workers throughout its system on implicit bias, through an 18-hour course. In one of the exercises, participants are asked to close their eyes, listen to descriptions of people, form mental pictures of those people and then pay attention to how those images change as they’re given more information.
Advertisement
Participants may be told to picture an African American woman who is a single mother. They will then be told that she’s extremely wealthy and the chief of cardiology at a hospital. Participants will then be asked how their mental pictures shifted as they heard more about the woman, and what they learned about themselves and their own biases as a result.
“We’re able to really see in ourselves what stereotypes we might hold about others,” said James Williams Jr., executive director of diversity, inclusion and equity at University of Chicago Medicine. “How might our biases and stereotypes impact our work with each other?”
The system has trained more than 500 people in an array of departments who have then gone on to train thousands more, said Battle, the system’s chief diversity, inclusion and equity officer.
University of Illinois Hospital has worked to battle bias in its system by hiring diverse workers and recruiting employees from the Near West Side neighborhoods surrounding its campus, said Nicholas Haubach, chief of human resources for the hospital. Also, those who sit on committees responsible for hiring medical school faculty must undergo implicit bias training every three years, said Charu Thakral, associate vice provost for diversity at University of Illinois at Chicago. There are discussions now about expanding implicit bias training into the medical school curriculum as well, she said.
“Unless we name it and address it head on, it will continue to be a factor,” said Marcus Betts, assistant vice chancellor for external engagement at University of Illinois at Chicago.
That is something Ford, the West Pullman woman who lost her daughter so many years ago, couldn’t agree with more.
Advertisement
Ford now works as a nurse practitioner at a Chicago Family Health Center in South Shore. She chose to work in that neighborhood in hopes of being the change she wants to see. She also is on the nursing faculty at Malcolm X College, where she teaches her students to recognize their own biases.
She has one lesson based on “Power Flowers.” Each petal contains the name of a characteristic such as “religion,” “race” and “sexual orientation.” The students consider which group within each petal is considered more powerful or valued by society, such as men versus women or Christian people versus Muslim people.
They then discuss how this might affect their interactions with people from the groups considered less powerful or valued and how they can make sure, as medical professionals, that they don’t become part of the problem.
“I think it’s something that can be fixed,” Ford said, of implicit bias in health care. “I think you have to do an assessment and recognize the biases that may exist within yourself.”
lschencker@chicagotribune.com


chicagotribune--2020-08-13--Five more tornadoes confirmed, for total of 11 in northern Illinois during Monday’s storms

The latest tornadoes to be added to the list were an Enhanced Fujita-0 tornado in Park Forest , a brief @ @ @ @ @ side of Ottawa in LaSalle County and an EF-0 tornado near and through Grant Park @ @ @ @ @ County .

Corbett Wilkinson climbs on a downed tree in Rogers Park after a powerful storm tore through the area Monday evening in the West Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)
The National Weather Service on Wednesday said the agency confirmed five more tornadoes spawned by a derecho storm system Monday, bringing the total number of tornadoes during the destructive storms to 11.
The weather service had confirmed six tornadoes on Tuesday, but Wednesday, forecasters said there were five others during the storm, which left hundreds of thousands without power across northern Illinois and northwest Indiana.
Advertisement
Chicago alone has logged more than 7,000 requests to 311 for downed trees and related emergencies since Sunday, according to city data. By Wednesday afternoon, almost 175,000 Commonwealth Edison customers remained without power.
The latest tornadoes to be added to the list were an Enhanced Fujita-0 tornado in Park Forest, a brief EF-1 tornado on the north side of Ottawa in LaSalle County and an EF-0 tornado near and through Grant Park, Illinois, in Kankakee County.
Advertisement
Wednesday morning, the weather service confirmed a tornado near Marengo, said Brian Leatherwood, a meteorologist with the weather service’s Chicago office. It struck about 3:05 p.m. Monday and had peak wind speeds of 95 mph, officials said.
It moved in a line south of Marengo and moved west to east, almost directly in a path to hit Union, but the tornado dissipated before it approached the small far northwest suburban town.
In addition to one that tore through Lincolnwood and Rogers Park, the weather service on Tuesday also confirmed tornadoes in Spring Grove, Marengo, Wheaton and Lombard, as well as two near Rockford.
The brief Wheaton tornado touched ground just east of the Wheaton Public Library, 225 N. Cross St., and moved east across the Wheaton College campus, downing a steeple on the College Church in Wheaton.
The weather service said the Marengo-area tornado mostly damaged trees and one single-family home.
More than 200 homes were in some way damaged by winds in Lombard, where a tornado moved through..
None of the tornadoes were confirmed to have caused any injuries. The tornadoes in chronological order include:
Southwest Rockford: Winnebago county; 2:37 p.m.; rating, EF-0; peak winds, 75 mph; length, 1.5 miles; width, 50 yards. The tornado touched down near the intersection of Pierpoint Avenue and Montague Road and continued northeast into the southwest side of Rockford. The tornado ended near the intersection of Ferguson and Loomis streets, damaging trees in its path.
Winnebago county; 2:37 p.m.; rating, EF-0; peak winds, 75 mph; length, 1.5 miles; width, 50 yards. The tornado touched down near the intersection of Pierpoint Avenue and Montague Road and continued northeast into the southwest side of Rockford. The tornado ended near the intersection of Ferguson and Loomis streets, damaging trees in its path. Rockford to Caledonia : Winnebago county; 2:47 p.m.; rating: EF-1; peak winds, 100 mph; length, 9.2 miles; width, 300 yards. The tornado was part of the same supercell that produced the first tornado. The tornado formed near Guilford Road just north of Rockford College before heading northeast, crossing I-90/39 and lifting near Caledonia Road. Significant tree damage occurred in a small area immediately east of Rock Valley College.
: Winnebago county; 2:47 p.m.; rating: EF-1; peak winds, 100 mph; length, 9.2 miles; width, 300 yards. The tornado was part of the same supercell that produced the first tornado. The tornado formed near Guilford Road just north of Rockford College before heading northeast, crossing I-90/39 and lifting near Caledonia Road. Significant tree damage occurred in a small area immediately east of Rock Valley College. Ottawa: LaSalle County; 2:59 p.m.; rating EF-1; peak winds, 100 mph; length, .75 miles; width, 150 yards. Affected the north side of Ottawa.
LaSalle County; 2:59 p.m.; rating EF-1; peak winds, 100 mph; length, .75 miles; width, 150 yards. Affected the north side of Ottawa. Southeast Marengo : DeKalb/ McHenry county; 3:05 p.m.; rating; EF-1; peak winds, 95 mph; length, 5.7 miles; width, 200 yards. It formed on Harmony Road directly southwest of Interstate 90 near the DeKalb and McHenry county line. It moved northeast and “heavily damaged,” a home before lifting near Coral and Dunham roads. There also was tree damage immediately northeast of I-90.
: DeKalb/ McHenry county; 3:05 p.m.; rating; EF-1; peak winds, 95 mph; length, 5.7 miles; width, 200 yards. It formed on Harmony Road directly southwest of Interstate 90 near the DeKalb and McHenry county line. It moved northeast and “heavily damaged,” a home before lifting near Coral and Dunham roads. There also was tree damage immediately northeast of I-90. Yorkville: Kendall County; 3:15 p.m.; rating, EF-1; peak winds, 105 mph; length, 14.5 miles; width, 250 yards. It formed on the far south side of Yorkville near Walsh Drive, then progressed east-southeastward along State Route 126 toward Schlapp Road before continuing southeast into neighborhoods south of Renwick Road and ending just before I-55. The “most significant damage” was caused east of Schlapp Road along Wheeler Road, where “trees were mangled, a farm building was destroyed with debris deposited in a nearby field and a large grain bin was bent inward.”
Kendall County; 3:15 p.m.; rating, EF-1; peak winds, 105 mph; length, 14.5 miles; width, 250 yards. It formed on the far south side of Yorkville near Walsh Drive, then progressed east-southeastward along State Route 126 toward Schlapp Road before continuing southeast into neighborhoods south of Renwick Road and ending just before I-55. The “most significant damage” was caused east of Schlapp Road along Wheeler Road, where “trees were mangled, a farm building was destroyed with debris deposited in a nearby field and a large grain bin was bent inward.” Wheaton : DuPage county; 3:35 p.m.; rating, EF-1; peak winds, 90 mph; length. 0.3 miles; width, 200 yards. A tornado very briefly touched down near Seminary Avenue and Scott Street before moving northeast. There was minor tree damage along the tornado’s path before it lifted near College Avenue and Howard Street.
: DuPage county; 3:35 p.m.; rating, EF-1; peak winds, 90 mph; length. 0.3 miles; width, 200 yards. A tornado very briefly touched down near Seminary Avenue and Scott Street before moving northeast. There was minor tree damage along the tornado’s path before it lifted near College Avenue and Howard Street. Lombard/ Villa Park : DuPage county; 3:39 p.m.; rating, EF-1; peak winds, 95 mph; length, 2.1 miles; width, 200 yards. The same storm that produced the brief Wheaton tornado caused more damage immediately east of Interstate 355, just east of Lilacia Park. This tornado also continued in a northeasterly direction, uprooting trees. Homes were damaged, including a few with substantial roof damage. The worst damage occurred near the Lombard Common. The tornado lifted just northeast of the Jefferson Middle School.
: DuPage county; 3:39 p.m.; rating, EF-1; peak winds, 95 mph; length, 2.1 miles; width, 200 yards. The same storm that produced the brief Wheaton tornado caused more damage immediately east of Interstate 355, just east of Lilacia Park. This tornado also continued in a northeasterly direction, uprooting trees. Homes were damaged, including a few with substantial roof damage. The worst damage occurred near the Lombard Common. The tornado lifted just northeast of the Jefferson Middle School. Spring Grove to Camp Lake, Wis. : Lake County; 3:41 p.m.; rating, EF-1; peak winds, 90 mph; length, 3.75 miles; width, 150 yards. This tornado started in northwest Lake county and continued through Camp Lake, Wisconsin. Trees were damaged along the path and structures were damaged in northwest Lake county.
: Lake County; 3:41 p.m.; rating, EF-1; peak winds, 90 mph; length, 3.75 miles; width, 150 yards. This tornado started in northwest Lake county and continued through Camp Lake, Wisconsin. Trees were damaged along the path and structures were damaged in northwest Lake county. Park Forest : Cook County; 3:57 p.m.; rating EF-0; peak winds, 85 mph; length 2 miles; width 350 yards. The tornado began close to the border between Will and Cook counties and moved east to the Sauk Trail Woods Forest Preserve.
: Cook County; 3:57 p.m.; rating EF-0; peak winds, 85 mph; length 2 miles; width 350 yards. The tornado began close to the border between Will and Cook counties and moved east to the Sauk Trail Woods Forest Preserve. Rogers Park : Cook County; 3:59 p.m.; rating, EF-1; peak winds, 110 mph; length, 3 miles; width, 300 yards. This tornado initially touched down south of the intersection of Crawford and Touhy avenues in Lincolnwood. It continued east before moving offshore near the Jarvis and Fargo beaches. The most intense damage occurred within approximately one mile of the lakefront, as well as near and within Phillip Rogers Park.
: Cook County; 3:59 p.m.; rating, EF-1; peak winds, 110 mph; length, 3 miles; width, 300 yards. This tornado initially touched down south of the intersection of Crawford and Touhy avenues in Lincolnwood. It continued east before moving offshore near the Jarvis and Fargo beaches. The most intense damage occurred within approximately one mile of the lakefront, as well as near and within Phillip Rogers Park. Grant Park, Illinois: Kankakee County; 4:04 p.m.; rating, EF-0; peak winds, 80 mph; length, 1.5 miles; width, 250 yards. Traveled from west of Grant Park to east edge of village.
Tornadoes are confirmed using a combination of radar, trained weather spotter reports, and photos and videos submitted to the agency, which are used to corroborate what meteorologists are seeing on radar.
Advertisement
But the weather service also sends its meteorologists out to examine locations where a tornado is believed to have occurred, Leatherwood said.
“It’s most certainly a team effort to try to determine exactly what happened,” Leatherwood said.
Four meteorologists were dispatched to various locations Tuesday to determine the validity of reports. Other contributors include academics who study meteorology and who help out by going into the field and reporting back their findings.
“The Chicago office (of emergency management) had a helicopter in the air looking for the paths the tornadoes took,” he said.
For more weather stories check the Tribune’s weather page.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to correct the location of Yorkville. It is in Kendall County.
Advertisement
kdouglas@chicagotribune.com
@312BreakingNews


chicagotribune--2020-08-13--Trinity Hospital reopening labor ward as Mercy plans to close, but South Side women are still stuck

Trinity Hospital reopening labor ward as Mercy plans to close, but South Side women are still stuck in a birthing ‘desert’

“ I ’ m hoping that there will be some sort of Hail Mary to save the hospital , ” @ @ @ @ @ now , COVID is really just pulling the veil back on the disparities in health @ @ @ @ @ .
COVID came at a time when we were already struggling with high maternal mortality @ @ @ @ @ delivery units , and this is kind of putting the last nail in the coffin @ @

Nurses Nina Garcia, from left, Ana Cruz and Barbara West work on a new bulletin board as they help set up the obstetrics unit at Advocate Trinity Hospital on the South Side of Chicago on August, 12, 2020. The hospital is reactivating the labor and delivery unit after it was closed for COVID-19 in March. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune)
A South Side hospital will reopen its labor ward next week, adding 35 beds to a community still facing a dearth of options amid the planned closure of one of its few hospitals that treat pregnant women.
Advocate Trinity Hospital will open its labor and delivery services Monday, after temporarily closing them March 31 to handle an influx of patients amid the coronavirus pandemic. In the interim, the hospital, located in Calumet Heights, redirected patients to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn and Advocate South Suburban Hospital in Hazel Crest — both about a 30-minute drive from Trinity.
Advertisement
”We are very excited to come back,” said Dakisha Lewis, head of obstetric services at Trinity. “Our patients have been asking for it.” Already, she has a Tuesday cesarean section on the schedule, bringing in a patient who would have been sent elsewhere otherwise.
The hospital will resume treating emergency and planned births, and reopen the nursery and other obstetric and gynecological services. Doctors, neonatologists and nurse practitioners who were deployed to other hospitals will return.
Advertisement
Nurses reorganize medical equipment in patient care areas to set up the OB-GYN unit at Advocate Trinity Hospital on the South Side of Chicago on Aug. 12, 2020. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune)
Even before COVID-19, Chicago-area hospitals were closing obstetric units, citing competition with bigger hospitals and too low a patient count to operate an entire unit. Some said it was difficult to make money from labor and delivery units because women tend to be on Medicaid more than men.
But the pandemic has only amplified health disparities and challenges in maternal health.
Hospitals with birthing centers
During COVID-19, some hospitals closed their labor wards as they experienced an influx of patients. St. Bernard Hospital in Englewood announced it would suspend deliveries in April to make room for COVID-19 patients. Women in labor who would be seen at St. Bernard were transferred instead to Mercy Hospital & Medical Center in Bronzeville.
In July, Mercy itself announced plans to close entirely next year. The announcement followed a decision not to merge by Mercy, Trinity, South Shore and St. Bernard hospitals after state lawmakers failed to set aside funding for the deal.
That will leave Trinity, Roseland Community Hospital and the University of Chicago Medical Center as the sole hospitals on the South Side for women giving birth. Joy West, an OB-GYN at Roseland Community Hospital, did her residency training at Mercy. She said she was disheartened to hear of its planned closing. Already, she noted, the options for women are limited.
Valdemar Duran, left, and his father, Lauro Duran, paint patient rooms for the OB-GYN unit at Advocate Trinity Hospital on the South Side of Chicago on Aug. 12, 2020. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune)
“I’m hoping that there will be some sort of Hail Mary to save the hospital,” she said. “Right now, COVID is really just pulling the veil back on the disparities in health care, especially maternal care. COVID came at a time when we were already struggling with high maternal mortality and closures of labor and delivery units, and this is kind of putting the last nail in the coffin.”
In the hopes of remedying some of those issues, lawmakers including U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood introduced the Maternal Health Pandemic Response Act on Tuesday, which would require the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to collect and post data related to COVID-19 and pregnancy, broken down by race, ethnicity and state.
It also would require at least one COVID-19 vaccine be developed for use in pregnancy and lactation, something that the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists has said is needed. The bill also defines anti-racist care, and mandates a report from the Government Accountability Office after COVID-19 ends on maternal care during the pandemic.
Advertisement
Nurses organize medical equipment in patient care areas for the OB-GYN unit at Advocate Trinity Hospital on the South Side of Chicago on Aug. 12, 2020. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune)
State Sen. Mattie Hunter, D-Chicago, said the Trinity reopening is “great news,” and that the closures have been devastating. She and other advocates have been working on plans to potentially keep it open.
Hunter said she has heard from doctors concerned about the city’s maternal health and residents who are upset.
“They were born there, their children were born there, their grandchildren born there,” she said. “So it is clearly a major vehicle in our community.”
The lack of options for pregnant women means they have to travel far beyond where they live to seek prenatal care, and to deliver. With the added complications of a pandemic, people may be unable to secure safe transportation, meaning they might miss prenatal appointments, which are vital to a healthy pregnancy.
Many women seek prenatal care at community health centers, closer to their home. For some, their first visit to a hospital might be to deliver, and some arrive without any transferred medical records — meaning doctors and nurses treat them without knowledge of potential complications.
The lack of options may affect women already at risk; Black moms in Illinois are six times more likely to die from pregnancy-related conditions. Many women are dying from preventable causes within a year of giving birth, an issue the Illinois Department of Public Health has been studying.
Advertisement
COVID-19 complicates things even further; recent data from the health department showed that Black and Latina women make up more than 70% of known cases in Illinois of pregnant women with COVID-19.
All of these factors add concern for the health of pregnant women and their babies.
As co-founder of Black Girls Break Bread, a nonprofit geared toward empowering Black women and girls, Jessica Davenport-Williams has closely monitored the availability of maternal health services. She said it’s good news that Trinity plans to reopen, but noted that this adds just 35 beds for women in an area where thousands need care.
“It’s good news that Trinity is planning to reopen its labor and delivery unit. However, (with) Mercy, that’s an entire hospital that’s closing,” she said. “So that cripples the South Side in a major way.”
She added, “It’s still a desert.”
abowen@chicagotribune.com


chicagotribune--2020-08-13--The Spin: Illinois at ‘make or break moment’ on COVID-19, Pritzker says | NYT: Kanye West met with J

The Spin: Illinois at ‘make or break moment’ on COVID-19, Pritzker says | NYT: Kanye West met with Jared Kushner | Kinzinger weighs in on QAnon

“ The meeting took place in Colorado , where Mr. Kushner was traveling with his wife , Ivanka Trump , @ @ @ @ @ said .
Mr. West had been camping in Colorado with his family , and afterward @ @ @ @ @ with Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump , but was not accompanied by his wife , @ @ @ @ @ with knowledge of the meeting said , ” the newspaper reported .
Read the rest @ @

In this file photo, Kanye West makes his first presidential campaign appearance, Sunday, July 19, 2020 in North Charleston. (Lauren Petracca Ipetracca/AP)
Wear your masks and keep your distance — that’s still considered the best way to reverse the recent upward trend in Illinois coronavirus cases that has alarm bells ringing and threatens a return to stiffer COVID-19 restrictions, Gov. J.B. Pritzker said today.
Meanwhile, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced the formation of a committee to review the city’s monuments following the recent removal of statues honoring Christopher Columbus.
Advertisement
And, the New York Times is reporting that rapper Kanye West met with President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, in Colorado last weekend as the celebrity tries to file paperwork in some states to run for president.
Welcome to The Spin.
Advertisement
Sign up for The Spin to get the top stories in politics delivered to your inbox weekday afternoons.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker at a news conference at the University of Chicago's Harper Center on July 23, 2020. (Antonio Perez / Chicago Tribune)
From the Tribune’s Jamie Munks: With coronavirus trends in most of Illinois moving in the wrong direction, Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Wednesday again warned that the state might reimpose stricter measures to slow the spread of the highly contagious disease.
Pritzker repeated a plea for local officials to “impose greater mitigations on a targeted basis to bring down the number of infections or the positivity rate.”
“Otherwise, it will only be a matter of time before the state will be forced to step in and roll things back on a regional basis, something none of us wants,” Pritzker said.
While offering up that sober warning, Pritzker also announced the release of $46 million in grants to small businesses across the state whose operations have been severely impeded by state shutdown rules aimed at curbing the spread of coronavirus. Read the rest of the story here.
From the Tribune’s Rick Pearson: Gov. J.B. Pritzker voices support of Black Lives Matter goals while making clear that ‘anybody who is looting ... should be held responsible’
Kanye West makes his first presidential campaign appearance, in North Charleston, S.C., on July 19, 2020. (Lauren Petracca/The Post And Courier)
According to the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman and Danny Hakim, West and Kushner met in private last weekend.
“The meeting took place in Colorado, where Mr. Kushner was traveling with his wife, Ivanka Trump, those familiar with the meeting said. Mr. West had been camping in Colorado with his family, and afterward flew to Telluride to meet with Mr. Kushner and Ms. Trump, but was not accompanied by his wife, Kim Kardashian West, those with knowledge of the meeting said,” the newspaper reported. Read the rest here.
Advertisement
West tweeted a response Tuesday night: “I’m willing to do a live interview with the New York Time about my meeting with Jared where we discussed Dr Claude Anderson’s book Powernomics.”
I’m willing to do a live interview with the New York Time about my meeting with Jared where we discussed Dr Claude Anderson’s book Powernomics — ye (@kanyewest) August 12, 2020
As the Tribune’s Rick Pearson recently reported, West filed paperwork in an attempt to get on Illinois’ ballot. But a preliminary check “indicates the rap artist may fall far short of the required number of signatures.”
“To make the ballot, West had to file 2,500 valid signatures from Illinois voters. He submitted 3,218 signatures, but a state elections board review Friday found that 60% of them, or 1,928, were invalid.”
“The Chicago-raised rapper and businessman’s late bid for the White House is viewed as an attempt to take Black votes away from Democratic candidate Joe Biden. Forbes reported that West acknowledged as much in an interview published Thursday.
“News outlets have reported that West appears to be getting help from Republican operatives, some allied with President Donald Trump, to get on the ballot as an independent presidential candidate in some states.”
U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger speaks during a gun violence hearing on Oct. 3, 2019, at Kennedy King College. (Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune)
Illinois Republican U.S. Rep. Adam Kinzinger, of Channahon, weighed in on QAnon today, after Georgia Republicans nominated a vocal supporter of the conspiracy theory to run for a seat in the U.S. House.
Advertisement
Kinzinger did not mention Marjorie Taylor Greene, who’s running for Georgia’s 14th Congressional District seat, by name. But in a tweet, he said, “Qanon is a fabrication. This ‘insider’ has predicted so much incorrectly (but people don’t remember PAST predictions) so now has switched to vague generalities. Could be Russian propaganda or a basement dweller. Regardless, no place in Congress for these conspiracies.”
Qanon is a fabrication. This “insider” has predicted so much incorrectly (but people don’t remember PAST predictions) so now has switched to vague generalities. Could be Russian propaganda or a basement dweller. Regardless, no place in Congress for these conspiracies. — Adam Kinzinger (@RepKinzinger) August 12, 2020
Read the rest of the AP story here.
Crews remove the Christopher Columbus statue in Grant Park in the early hours of July 24, 2020, in Chicago. (Armando L. Sanchez / Chicago Tribune)
From the Tribune’s Gregory Pratt, Blair Kamin and Kori Rumore: “Nearly three weeks after ordering the removal of Christopher Columbus statues in Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Wednesday announced the formation of a committee to review the city’s monuments as part of “a racial healing and historical reckoning project.”
“The Lightfoot administration also said it will commission ‘a series of temporary public artworks that focus on a broader range of topics around COVID-19, inequality and racial reconciliation.‘”
“The panel’s co-chairs will be Mark Kelly, who heads the city’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events; Bonnie McDonald, president and CEO of Landmarks Illinois; and Jennifer Scott, director and chief curator of Jane Addams Hull-House Museum.
In making the announcement, Lightfoot referred obliquely to her middle-of-the-night removal of the Columbus statues in Grant Park and Little Italy, a move she has insisted was temporary and based on public safety concerns. She later ordered the removal of a smaller Columbus statue in South Chicago.” Read the rest here.
Advertisement
Corbett Wilkinson climbs on a downed tree in Rogers Park on Aug. 11, 2020, after a powerful derecho storm tore through the area the previous evening. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)
From the Tribune’s Katherine Rosenberg-Douglas: “The National Weather Service on Wednesday said the agency confirmed four more tornadoes spawned by a derecho storm system Monday, bringing the total number of tornadoes during the destructive storms to 10.
“The weather service had confirmed six tornadoes on Tuesday, but Wednesday forecasters said there were four others during the storm, which left hundreds of thousands without power across northern Illinois and northwest Indiana.” Read the rest here.
* From the Tribune’s John Byrne: The city will cancel street cleaning tickets for cars in areas with storm damage after at least one ticket for street cleaning was issued on a street where the car owner said downed trees made it impossible to move the vehicle.
Northwest Side Ald. Ariel Reboyras, 30th, said he complained to the city Revenue Department after a resident, former Tribune reporter Mary Wisniewski, tweeted that she got a ticket Tuesday even though “we couldn’t move the car” because of downed trees on the block following Monday’s storm.
“It’s unbelievable,” Reboyras said. “There’s nowhere to park because of all the tree damage, and they’re adding to the stress by issuing tickets? Come on.”
Revenue Department spokeswoman Kristen Cabanban said in a statement: “For streets where street cleaning was impacted due to fallen debris caused by Monday’s storm, the City will work to identify those locations and dismiss any tickets that were issued in error.”
Advertisement
Thanks for reading The Spin, the Tribune’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to have it delivered to your inbox weekday afternoons.


chicagotribune--2020-08-12--Man convicted in infamous 1994 Aurora murder ordered to return to prison after sentencing error led

Man convicted in infamous 1994 Aurora murder ordered to return to prison after sentencing error led to his early release

Kane County Circuit Court Judge D.J .
Tegeler ruled Joyner was , in fact , given nearly twice as much @ @ @ @ @ been given for time served in jail between his 1994 arrest and his 1998 sentencing @ @ @ @ @ than the 3,002 days of credit Joyner was given — or more than eight years @ @ @ @ @ 1,502 days , and ordered him back to prison to serve the remainder of his @ @

A man convicted in a high-profile 1994 Aurora murder has been ordered to return to prison weeks into his parole, after prosecutors said he was released too early because of a sentencing error.
Bonzell Joyner, 45, was taken back into custody following a court hearing Wednesday. He had been released on parole July 22, fewer than 30 years into a 60-year prison sentence for murder.
Advertisement
Prosecutors had contended he received too much credit for time served in jail before his sentencing, and they said he was released four years too early.
Kane County Circuit Court Judge D.J. Tegeler ruled Joyner was, in fact, given nearly twice as much credit as he should have been given for time served in jail between his 1994 arrest and his 1998 sentencing. Tegeler found that rather than the 3,002 days of credit Joyner was given — or more than eight years — he should have received 1,502 days, and ordered him back to prison to serve the remainder of his sentence.
Advertisement
Joyner, wearing a black shirt, glasses and a black face mask, said little during the hearing, speaking only to tell Tegeler, in response to a question, that he was employed.
He sat quietly as the judge announced his ruling to the courtroom, then looked back at a handful of family and supporters sitting on benches behind him. Additional supporters waited outside the courtroom, unable to enter because of COVID-19 occupancy restrictions.
Joyner was convicted of firing the bullet that killed Armando Mendez, a 19-year-old college student whose murder is among those credited with sparking sweeping change in Aurora, a city that some say by the mid-1990s had become numb to bloody gang violence.
Nine men were convicted of varying crimes in Mendez’s killing. Joyner is the last remaining in prison.
He had been ruled eligible for the death penalty but was ultimately sentenced in 1998 to life in prison. Two years later, the 2nd District Appellate Court modified his sentence to 60 years.
Mendez’s sister, Elsa Mendez-Ruiz, said the Wednesday ruling seemed a bit of justice to offset the frustration of Joyner’s life sentence being reduced.
She relayed messages from her mother, who she said was thankful and said it helps to see the justice she has desired carried out. Mendez-Ruiz’s father said the ruling doesn’t take away the pain and sadness of his son’s loss, but knowing Joyner is serving the time left on his sentence helps, she said.
“It won’t make up for him not being in prison for life, but it was a little bit more of justice that we can have,” Mendez-Ruiz said.
Advertisement
Mendez-Ruiz is thankful to prosecutors and the judge, but hopes there will not be another error in Joyner’s sentence.
“It is incredibly painful for us, the family, and truly another injustice on top of the crime committed on my brother,” she said. “It is egregious the system does not have checks and balances to prevent this from happening. I can’t stress enough the pain caused when this error gave Joyner in the least bit a taste of undeserved freedom. My brother is gone for good - without deserving it.”
On Oct. 27, 1994, Mendez’s old Cadillac ran out of gas as he drove home after working a night shift at a Naperville Cracker Barrel. As he walked back to his car from a service station on East New York Street, blocks from his house, he was approached by a group of teens and young men and mistaken for a rival gang member. They beat him and, eventually, one pulled out a gun and shot him.
Mendez, a recent Aurora Central Catholic graduate, was studying at the College of DuPage. He hoped to one day be an architect.
Kane County State’s Attorney Joe McMahon has said prosecutors discovered the error in Joyner’s sentencing more than four years ago — and more than 15 years after Joyner was sentenced — and had been working through the court process to correct it when Joyner was released.
Wednesday, prosecutors with the Kane County State’s Attorney’s Office said that Joyner was never entitled to 3,002 days of credit, and asked Tegeler to correct the mistake.
Advertisement
“The defendant should not be given credit for time before the offense even occurred,” the prosecutor said.
Joyner’s attorney, a Kane County public defender, told the judge prosecutors’ arguments amounted to an attempt to add additional time onto the sentence the court issued. Revisiting Joyner’s sentence goes against legal principles, she said.
“He served the sentence he was given,” she said. “He is entitled to an end to this.”
She argued the circuit court shouldn’t have jurisdiction to hear the sentencing issue, and Joyner’s sentencing as it stood was final.
Tegeler said the hearing Wednesday amounted to the first time Joyner’s credit for time served had ever been litigated in front of a judge. Credit would not have been an issue when Joyner was first sentenced, because it was a life sentence without the possibility of parole, he said. Later, the appellate court did not address the issue of credit.
Tegeler said he did not think a trial judge would purposely violate the law, and acknowledged the Illinois Department of Corrections also plays a role in determining credit.
Advertisement
Still, the amount of credit Joyner initially received was an error, he said.
“3,002 days was an error,” he said. “(It) was erroneous and violated the law, quite frankly.”
sfreishtat@tribpub.com


chicagotribune--2020-08-14--Officials confirm 4 more tornadoes, at least 7 injured in Monday storms; 82,000 without power Thursd

Officials confirm 4 more tornadoes, at least 7 injured in Monday storms; 82,000 without power Thursday as northern Illinois continues cleanup

The weather service was still surveying the damage Thursday , according to Leatherwood .
He said the weather service is @ @ @ @ @ the evidence is gone but is limited in manpower and in its ability to get @ @ @

Corbett Wilkinson climbs on a downed tree in Rogers Park after a powerful storm tore through the area Monday evening in the West Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)
People across northern Illinois were still dealing with the aftermath of storms that saw at least 15 tornadoes touch down Monday, with at least seven injuries confirmed and thousands still without power Thursday as Chicago fielded more emergency requests.
The National Weather Service confirmed Thursday four more tornadoes had touched down during the storm, bringing the total for the derecho storm system to 15. The newly confirmed twisters cut through Oak Forest and Midlothian in Cook County; Kirkland in DeKalb County; northwest Elburn in Kane County; and Kentland in Indiana.
Advertisement
Other tornadoes wreaked extensive damage on Illinois communities, including Rockford, Ottawa, Marengo, Yorkville, Wheaton, Park Forest and Grant Park, and Chicago’s Rogers Park neighborhood. The National Weather Service reported Thursday there were at least six injuries from the storms — five in Forreston in Ogle County and one in Peru in LaSalle County.
“I think those were all associated with vehicles, trailers being overturned,” said Brian Leatherwood, a meteorologist with the weather service’s Chicago office. “And those, again, were not from the tornadoes — those were from the derecho, the straight-line winds.”
Advertisement
Additionally, in Chicago fire officials said one woman was injured in Albany Park about 4:10 p.m. Monday when a tree struck her car in the 4300 block of North Albany Avenue. She was taken to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center and was not in life-threatening condition, according to a Fire Department spokesperson.
By Thursday, about 82,000 Commonwealth Edison customers remained without power following the storms, according to Marietta Harrison, a company spokesperson. The electric utility brought in 1,400 mutual assistance crews Wednesday for additional help.
“For a lot of those hard-hit areas it’s not just about getting the debris out of the way, but we actually have to rebuild the service in order to restore it,” Harrison said. “So it’s kind of like starting from scratch.”
About 89% of customers have had their power restored since Monday, and the company aims to have service restored to 95% of customers by Friday night, Harrison said. She advised people to immediately call ComEd or report online if they see any downed power lines.
The city’s Department of Streets and Sanitation has also addressed nearly 1,000 tree emergency requests, Mayor Lori Lightfoot tweeted Thursday.
Over the past 24 hours, our Department of Streets & Sanitation has addressed nearly 1,000 tree emergency requests. That’s a response every 86 seconds! If you have a service request, please submit it at https://t.co/c4yb6GpbN6 or by calling 311. pic.twitter.com/iGbYKOuA2t — Mayor Lori Lightfoot (@chicagosmayor) August 13, 2020
“That’s a response every 86 seconds!” she wrote in the tweet.
Chicago’s Office of Emergency Management said that as of Thursday morning it received 14,508 service requests regarding downed trees, traffic signals out and storm-related damage. Streets and Sanitation officials took care of 2,307 tree emergencies, and transportation crews repaired 341 damaged streetlight poles and wires and completed 224 traffic signal repair jobs.
The city announced it would cancel street-cleaning tickets for cars in areas with storm damage after at least one ticket for street cleaning was issued on a street where a car owner said downed trees made it impossible to move the vehicle.
Advertisement
The weather service said Thursday the tornado in Rogers Park was the strongest in Chicago since March 12, 1976. The city last experienced a tornado on Sept. 3, 2018.
The weather service was still surveying the damage Thursday, according to Leatherwood. He said the weather service is trying to assess it before the evidence is gone but is limited in manpower and in its ability to get to places.
The storm “was one of the bigger ones that the forecasters that have been here for a while have seen,” Leatherwood said. “They said it was a pretty significant event.
“Everybody tends to center on the tornadoes, but there was a lot of damage that was done throughout northern Illinois and in Indiana that was due to the derecho itself, the straight-line wind,” he added. “That’s something that is getting lost a wee bit.”
Heading into the weekend, there’s a slight chance of precipitation Saturday afternoon and a weak cold front coming through the Chicago area, but forecasts don’t show severe weather or anything near the magnitude of Monday’s storm, Leatherwood added.
“We don’t see things at (Monday’s) magnitude at least for the foreseeable future,” he said. “Enjoy the next couple of days, since the weather is going to be nice.”
Advertisement
For more weather stories, check the Tribune’s weather page.
kelsmith@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @KelliSmithNews


chicagotribune--2020-08-14--Another Cook County clerk’s office employee tests positive for COVID-19

Previously , other floors in that building that belong to the Chicago Board of Elections had two recent cases of @ @ @ @ @ time , the sixth and eighth floors were closed on July 30 for a deep @ @ @ @ @ a positive test , according to Executive Director Lance Gough .

The Cook County clerk’s office will close Friday for the second time this week, after another employee tested positive for the coronavirus.
The employee last worked on the fifth floor of the office at 69 W. Washington St. on Thursday, clerk’s office spokesman John Mirkovic said. Anyone still at the office was sent home about 4:30 p.m.
Advertisement
Earlier this week, another employee tested positive on the same floor, causing the office to shut down on Tuesday. It opened back up Wednesday morning. Mirkovic said he did not know when the office would reopen.
Previously, other floors in that building that belong to the Chicago Board of Elections had two recent cases of the coronavirus. The first time, the sixth and eighth floors were closed on July 30 for a deep clean after an employee reported a positive test, according to Executive Director Lance Gough.
Advertisement
Then the eighth floor was shut down again on Aug. 7 after an employee tested positive. Gough said contact tracing “determined both contracted the virus outside the office.”
ayin@chicagotribune.com


chicagotribune--2020-08-14--Citing environmental racism, Southeast Side activists file civil rights complaint against Chicago: ‘

Citing environmental racism, Southeast Side activists file civil rights complaint against Chicago: ‘We’ve been a dumping ground for too many years’

Emails show Emanuel ’ s lieutenants enjoyed cordial relationships with the Labkon family that owned General Iron through four generations @ @ @ @ @ was the top recipient of the more than $ 500,000 in campaign contributions to local @ @ @ @ @ who hired a former top aide to Emanuel as one of their City Hall lobbyists @

A metal recycling company at 106th Street on the east bank of Calumet River near the site where General Iron metal shredder is planning to move operations by merging with an existing company, Reserve Marine Terminals on the old Republic Steel site in Chicago on July 16, 2018. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune)
Chicago is perpetuating environmental racism by pushing industrial polluters from the wealthy, largely white North Side to low-income communities of color on the South Side, according to a new complaint that draws upon the city’s long history of segregation.
Citing provisions of the federal Fair Housing Act, community activists are seeking an overhaul of zoning and planning ordinances that protect industries in certain parts of the city without consideration of the health and well-being of people who live nearby, most of whom are Black and Latino.
Advertisement
If the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development agrees to launch an investigation, it could increase pressure on Mayor Lori Lightfoot to follow through on campaign promises to crack down on industrial pollution and make the city more fair for everyone.
The chief target of the complaint is General Iron, a scrap shredder that plans to move from Lincoln Park on the North Side to a site on the Calumet River in the East Side neighborhood.
Advertisement
“The North Side doesn’t want it. We don’t want it either,” Peggy Salazar, director of the Southeast Environmental Task Force, said during a Thursday news briefing.
The General Iron facility in the Lincoln Park neighborhood, May 19, 2020. (E. Jason Wambsgans / Chicago Tribune)
Before a May explosion forced General Iron to temporarily shut down its North Side scrap yard, neighbors routinely complained about noxious odors and bits of shredded automobiles and appliances drifting into their homes.
City health inspectors had ticketed the company 11 times during the previous five months. Each complaint documented “untreated emissions” escaping General Iron’s scrap shredders along the Chicago River near Clybourn Avenue and Cortland Street.
Aggressive enforcement under Lightfoot contrasts sharply with the policies of former Mayor Rahm Emanuel, whose administration cited General Iron once during his eight years in office.
Emails show Emanuel’s lieutenants enjoyed cordial relationships with the Labkon family that owned General Iron through four generations. The former mayor also was the top recipient of the more than $500,000 in campaign contributions to local politicians from family members, who hired a former top aide to Emanuel as one of their City Hall lobbyists.
Days before Emanuel left office, his top aides gave the scrap merchant permission to keep operating until 2022 on riverfront land that local aldermen are pushing to convert into a city park.
Lightfoot brokered a deal intended to ensure General Iron abandons the North Side by the end of this year. For Southeast Side activists, the agreement is a linchpin of their civil rights complaint.
A metal recycling company at 106th Street on the east bank of the Calumet River near the site where General Iron metal is planning to move operations by merging with an existing company, Reserve Marine Terminals, on the old Republic Steel site in Chicago on July 16, 2018. (Zbigniew Bzdak / Chicago Tribune)
“We need more jobs, but not at the expense of our health and quality of life,” said Marcelina Pedraza, a member of the Southeast Side Coalition to Ban Petcoke.
Advertisement
On paper, at least, the Lightfoot administration appears to agree. A recent report on air quality throughout the city notes that “structural racism and economic hardship” are “making it more likely for certain people to live in polluted communities.”
Pollution hot spots are concentrated in predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods on the South and West sides, the city’s report found.
Lightfoot pledged to adopt some of the changes activists are seeking, including more stringent permit requirements for industries operating in certain neighborhoods. “This agenda is the first step toward addressing our city’s long-standing issues related to environmental justice,” the mayor’s office said in a statement.
Having exhausted other forms of protest, Southeast Side activists are urging federal housing officials to withhold lucrative grants if the city refuses to change its land-use policies. Lawyers who drafted the complaint acknowledged it could take years to resolve the case, echoing counterparts behind the federal consent decree requiring the Chicago Police Department to stop abusing people of color.
“We’ve been a dumping ground for too many years,” said Cheryl Johnson, a veteran activist who leads People for Community Recovery, a nonprofit group based in the Altgeld Gardens public housing development. “It needs to stop.”
Heavy industry once could be found throughout Chicago. But the creation of planned manufacturing districts under then-Mayor Richard M. Daley encouraged companies to locate (or relocate) in specific areas and made it difficult for neighbors to object.
Advertisement
City leaders abolished one of the North Side districts where General Iron is located, clearing the way for the upscale Lincoln Yards development between predominantly white neighborhoods that gentrified years ago.
Other industries already have left the North Side, including the A. Finkl and Sons steel mill, which sold its riverfront parcels to the Lincoln Yards developers and moved to a largely Black neighborhood on the South Side.
General Iron is planning to move into a manufacturing district in the East Side neighborhood that already includes facilities handling brain-damaging metals and toxic chemicals. Nearby are two sites on the federal Superfund list of abandoned, highly contaminated industrial properties.
The company vows to be the nation’s cleanest metal-shredding operation and maintains it provides a vital service by keeping scrap metal out of alleys and landfills. (City officials recently allowed General Iron to resume shredding on the North Side.)
But moving the company into an already polluted neighborhood just adds to the cumulative burden of industry and makes it practically impossible to persuade others to invest in their community, activists said.
“Students and community residents do not see opportunity or a future in this type of industrial development,” said Lauren Bianchi, a social studies teacher at Washington High School. “Many students feel that as adults they will have to move away from the Southeast Side to access jobs and a better quality of life.”


chicagotribune--2020-08-14--Latest Mag Mile looting nets 42 felony charges, says State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office

Foxx has been criticized as being too lenient after the lootings earlier this summer during the fallout from the killing @ @ @ @ @ hands of Minneapolis police .
After the mayor ’ s news conference , Foxx pushed @ @ @ @ @ few hours later , insisting that her office approved charges for the vast majority of @ @ @ @

At least 42 people have been charged with felonies after hundreds of people tore through the Magnificent Mile and elsewhere in the Chicago early Monday morning, looting stores and clashing with police, according to the latest figures released by the Cook County state’s attorney’s office Thursday.
The charges include one for attempted murder, 28 for burglary and looting, six for gun possession, five for aggravated battery or resisting a police officer, and one each for theft and criminal damage to property, the office said.
Advertisement
In one case where State’s Attorney Kim Foxx’s office declined to approve felony charges, police detectives “concurred’' with the decision, according to the statement.
Earlier this week, Mayor Lori Lightfoot pressed Foxx to make sure there would be “consequences” for the widespread looting, which virtually shut downtown Monday morning as bridges were raised and trains were stopped to control the unruly crowds.
Advertisement
“Our expectation is that this is going to be treated with the level of seriousness it should be. Period,” Lightfoot said.
Foxx has been criticized as being too lenient after the lootings earlier this summer during the fallout from the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. After the mayor’s news conference, Foxx pushed back with her own a few hours later, insisting that her office approved charges for the vast majority of looting-related felony arrests.
rsobol@chicagotribune.com