Chip Mitchell

Trump order targets homelessness visibility, not solutions, advocates say Billed as “ending crime and disorder on America’s streets,” the order would shift funds away from “housing first” and “harm reduction” efforts and ease removing encampments and institutionalizing peop...

ICYMI: #Trump is attacking “#housing first” and “harm reduction” strategies to address #homelessness and #addiction, making it easier to remove tent encampments from sight and forcefully institutionalize people.

@vimiller.bsky.social @wbez.org @chicago.suntimes.com

www.wbez.org/government-p...

Chicago’s crime decline is part of a national trend, researchers say A new report from the Council on Criminal Justice shows most major crime categories in Chicago are down below pre-pandemic levels, including homicides and sexual assaults.

A new report from the Council on Criminal Justice shows most major crime categories in Chicago are down below pre-pandemic levels, including homicides and sexual assaults. https://trib.al/Syn4Hm4

Trump order targets homelessness visibility, not solutions, advocates say Billed as “ending crime and disorder on America’s streets,” the order would shift funds away from “housing first” and “harm reduction” efforts and ease removing encampments and institutionalizing people.

Trump's executive order, "ending crime and disorder on America’s streets," redirects harm-reduction funds to states and cities for removal of homeless encampments and institutionalization. Chicago advocates view this as targeting visibility over solutions.

Trump order targets homelessness visibility, not solutions, advocates say Billed as “ending crime and disorder on America’s streets,” the order would shift funds away from “housing first” and “harm reduction” efforts and ease removing encampments and institutionalizing peop...

Photos by Ashlee Resin, story w/ @chipmitchell1.bsky.social and Mary Norkol via @wbez.org and @chicago.suntimes.com.

Trump order targets homelessness visibility, not solutions, advocates say Billed as “ending crime and disorder on America’s streets,” the order would shift funds away from “housing first” and “harm reduction” efforts and ease removing encampments and institutionalizing peop...

Billed as “ending crime and disorder on America’s streets,” #Trump attacks “housing first” and “harm reduction” and makes it easier to remove tent encampments and institutionalize #homeless and #addicted folks.

@vimiller.bsky.social @wbez.org @chicago.suntimes.com www.wbez.org/government-p...

Per the National Registry of Exonerations, about 55% of the nearly 3,000 exonerations sine 1989 involved some form of official misconduct. Brady lists keep uncredible officers off the witness stand. Chicago has had multiple misconduct waves and this policy is a massive step towards the darkness.

Gazans Are Dying of Starvation

Severe hunger has gripped #Gaza, where growing numbers of people are starving and the doctors treating them are working on empty stomachs.

#Israel #Biden #Trump

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/24/w...

Cook County state’s attorney stops maintaining lists of discredited cops The changes amount to small but significant rollbacks in the office’s openness under State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke.

Cook County top prosecutor Eileen O’Neill Burke stops maintaining lists of discredited #police officers,
Max Blaisdell reports.

@samstecklow.bsky.social @chicagoreader.com @invisible.institute

chicagoreader.com/news/reader-...

City Hall wouldn’t pay $14 million for cop overtime. Now, it might have to pay at least $195 million. A judge ruled five years ago in favor of 8,500 current and former Chicago Police Department employees. As the case has lingered, interest on the debt has ballooned while the city disputes how much it ...

#Chicago could face a bill in the hundreds of millions of dollars for #police overtime in a long-running case involving 8,500 current and ex-#CPD employees, @dmihalopoulos.bsky.social reports. A former union lawyer says settling early would have cost just $14 million.

www.wbez.org/investigatio...

Torture didn't originate in Guantánamo and it didn't stay there.

Ex-Gitmo detainee will be allowed to testify about alleged torture by former Chicago detective The same detective allegedly also tortured a confession out of Anthony Garrett, leading to his conviction for 7-year-old Dantrell Davis’ 1992 fatal shooting in the Cabrini-Green public housing complex.

A Cook County judge will allow a Mauritanian-born writer and terrorism suspect to testify at a hearing that will determine whether a Chicago man imprisoned more than three decades for an infamous North Side murder will get a new trial.

Ex-Gitmo detainee will be allowed to testify about alleged torture by former Chicago detective The same detective allegedly also tortured a confession out of Anthony Garrett, leading to his conviction for 7-year-old Dantrell Davis’ 1992 fatal shooting in the Cabrini-Green public housing complex...

A Cook County judge will allow a Mauritanian-born writer and #terrorism suspect to testify at a hearing that will determine whether a #Chicago man imprisoned more than three decades for an infamous North Side murder will get a new trial, @wbez.org reports.

www.wbez.org/criminal-jus...

Report shows big drop in Chicago police traffic stops, but sharp racial disparities persist CPD made 45% fewer traffic stops in 2024, but Black and Latino drivers were four times more likely than white drivers to be pulled over.

Chicago police traffic stops plummeted last year, but the drop varied wildly across the city and sharp racial disparities persisted, a WBEZ analysis of Illinois Department of Transportation data has found. https://trib.al/UwAWVCc

We’ll take up the large discrepancy between CPD and OEMC data on another occasion.

#Chicago #police traffic stops plummeted last year, but the drop varied wildly across the city and sharp racial disparities persisted, a @wbez.org analysis of #Illinois Department of Transportation data has found.

#CPD #twill

www.wbez.org/data/2025/07...

Alberto Rojas, a #California bishop letting folks in his 92-parish diocese skip Sunday masses due to fear of #ICE raids, was a #Chicago auxiliary bishop from 2011 to 2019. He worked closely here with Cardinal Blase Cupich and, several times, met Bishop Robert Francis Prevost (now Pope Leo XIV).

Chicago keeps controversial police promotion list secret - Chicago Reader The CPD committed to releasing “merit” promotion lists in 2017. Now, the city claims it would be an invasion of privacy.

#‪Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson's admin keeps #police “merit” promotion lists secret despite #CPD vows to release them and despite an Obama-era U.S. Justice Department report decrying the promotions. @samstecklow.bsky.social @invisible.institute @chicagoreader.com chicagoreader.com/news/reader-...

Brady Files Lawsuit Against Gun Dealer Range USA for Negligently and… Brady is uniting Americans against gun violence. We invite everyone who wants to end our epidemic of gun violence to take action, not sides.

NEW: #GunControl group @bradybuzz is suing gun dealer Range USA in Cook County Circuit Court for "failing to appropriately train, supervise and monitor" its staff to stop and report straw purchasing. An 18-year-old shot plaintiff Laura Carlson in 2023. www.bradyunited.org/press/lawsui...

Organizers of the prohibited #Budapest #Pride were engulfed in a wave of public support so massive that some commentators are calling it a political turning point, potentially weakening #Orban and his self-proclaimed “illiberal” Christian authoritarianism.

wapo.st/4nqNvwr

A bank in #Bogotá, the Colombian capital, is decked out for #pride.

The council approved the $14.75 million settlement with James Gibson, my @wbez.org colleague Mariah Woelfel reports. The payouts by #Chicago, Cook County and #Illinois to Burge-related exonerees now total $168.3 million.

ICE field director defends agents after ramped-up enforcement, arrests of US citizens at Chicago immigration court protest The head of Chicago’s U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement field office Tuesday defended the conduct and decorum of federal agents who have ramped up arrests of undocumented immigrants.

#ICE detained 3 protesters, all U.S. citizens, for "assaulting" an officer at Chicago #immigration court. A witness said the agents wore masks, didn’t identify themselves, cuffed the protesters and forced them into an unmarked vehicle.
@nellsalzman.bsky.social

www.chicagotribune.com/2025/06/18/i...

4/4

These sums exclude cases tied to those detectives after Burge’s 1993 firing.

Burge was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice in 2010 and sentenced to 4½ years in federal prison. He received police pension payments — totaling $900,676, according to Taylor — until his 2018 death.

3/4

The $153 million — a @wbez.org tally — covers settlements, judgments and state compensation.

The city and county have paid an additional $70 million or so for outside counsel, special prosecutors and other litigation costs, according to attorney G. Flint Taylor, who tracks those funds.

2/4

Gibson has alleged that detectives under Burge beat him into making a statement that he was present during the shooting, which killed Lloyd Benjamin and Hunter Wash.

Gibson spent nearly 30 years behind bars before prosecutors dropped the charges in 2019.

1/4

The #Chicago City Council today is set to vote on a $14.75 million settlement with James Gibson, exonerated in a 1989 double murder.

Chicago, Cook County and #Illinois have already paid $153 million to 85 people allegedly tortured by Cmdr. Jon Burge or detectives under him.

Mia Contreras, 21, of Libertyville says she turned out to the #Chicago march for her undocumented friends who could not attend. She called on #Trump to “stop running America like it’s a dictatorship…. Immigrants make the USA and now we’re trying to kick them out. It’s just sad.”

@wbez.org

After a half-hour rally, the #Chicago crowd, now around 1,000 strong, set off on a march to #Trump Tower, chanting: “Donald Trump, you’re a clown. Immigrants will take you down!”

@wbez.org and @chicago.suntimes.com

Hundreds of immigrant advocates are rallying in downtown Chicago, chanting: “No hate, no fear! Immigrants are welcome here!”

@wbez.org and @chicago.suntimes.com

A Chicago judge says an immigrant who was framed for threatening Trump can be freed The Mexican immigrant can be released on bond, a federal immigration judge ruled Tuesday.

A Milwaukee dishwasher who came from Mexico decades ago was framed for threatening #Trump. He helped authorities identify the case's real criminal.

But the Trump administration is still trying to deport him.

@annasavchenko.bsky.social reports for @wbez.org.

www.wbez.org/immigration/...