A look inside the watch list Chicago police fought to keep secret
As Chicago endured a devastating surge in gun violence last summer, scores of people with long rap sheets stood atop the Chicago Police Department’s secret watch list, newly obtained records show. One...
View ArticleFor J.B. Pritzker, mansion’s disrepair has saved $230K in taxes
J.B. Pritzker, billionaire would-be governor, bought the historic mansion next door to his even bigger home on Chicago’s Gold Coast, let it fall into disrepair — and then argued it was “uninhabitable”...
View ArticleFor some airline workers, tipping off the DEA pays off big
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has paid some airline employees hundreds of thousands of dollars to provide flight itineraries of suspected drug traffickers, leading to the seizure of millions...
View ArticleTaxpayers paid for weekend resort getaway for recorder of deeds, staff
To perk up morale after voters, roused by calls of waste and redundancy, decided in November to do away with her office in 2020, Karen Yarbrough, Cook County’s elected recorder of deeds, deemed a field...
View ArticlePolice superintendent defends use of secret watch list
Chicago’s top cop on Friday defended the department’s use of a secret watch list to track people deemed likely to get caught up in violence, saying many of them have “gotten out of that lifestyle.” But...
View ArticleRed-light cameras reap suburbs millions: Sun-Times/ABC7 special report
Red-light cameras brought in nearly $67 million last year for 86 Chicago suburbs and the companies that operate the devices, an investigation by the Chicago Sun-Times and ABC7 Chicago’s I-Team has...
View ArticleChicago cops who left under a cloud land police jobs in the suburbs
While visiting Universal Studios with his wife and kids, Dewayne Smalarz, a veteran Chicago cop, walked out of a souvenir shop with a “SpongeBob SquarePants” book bag and other items without paying,...
View ArticleChicago cop couple’s mysterious deaths under investigation
On a hot summer night in 2015, Chicago Police Sgt. Donald Markham’s wife found him dead in their bed with a bullet wound to his head hours after they’d argued at a bar and later at their home,...
View ArticleFor immigrant crime victims, police block path to win special visas
The man stepped up to the bank counter in Calumet City and handed teller Cynthia Salazar an envelope with a message written on it: “Give me $10,000.” Then, he made the same demand out loud but with the...
View ArticleChicago’s jailhouse strip club — and feds say they can’t shut it down
The first time she witnessed a naked woman gyrating on the roof of a parking garage across from the federal jail in downtown Chicago, Briana Fitzgibbons couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “I come...
View ArticleAnother mystery in case of Chicago cop couple’s mysterious deaths
Months after Chicago police Sgt. Donald Markham was found shot to death in the master bedroom of his Northwest Side home in what police concluded was a suicide, the FBI got a tip that the narcotics...
View Article571 dead in Chicago since 2014 from fentanyl, hero officer one of them
His parents were waiting for him to come home when he got out of a Lake View rehab facility on Oct. 8, 2015. But that’s not where Michael Raines headed. Instead, Raines, 33, a Cook County correctional...
View ArticleSuburban mayor defends big money from red-light cameras
The mayor of Hillside defended the west suburb’s lucrative red-light-camera program Monday after critics questioned what local leaders have done with millions of dollars brought in by the cameras the...
View ArticleCash-strapped state college paid big for speakers despite ‘optics’
Cash-strapped Northeastern Illinois University — which came under fire for agreeing to pay former Obama White House adviser Valerie Jarrett a fat fee to speak at graduation last month — has paid nearly...
View Article‘A lot of fights’ — incidents put spotlight on violence in River North
Clint Williams heads to River North from his South Side home in Chatham for the nightlife. “The clubs, the people, the vibes — the nightlife is different here,” says Williams, 25, a rapper who sells...
View ArticleAmid money troubles, NEIU boss flew to D.C. for Trump inauguration
With Northeastern Illinois University facing a worsening financial situation that soon led to unpaid furloughs, the cancellation of three school days and layoffs of 180 employees, the state college’s...
View ArticleAldermen got loans from bank led by lawyer, OKed his clients’ projects
While backing plans to build condos in their wards, two aldermen representing Logan Square, Humboldt Park, Wicker Park and other booming neighborhoods got loans from a bank headed by the lawyer for the...
View ArticleFormer No. 2 exec at UNO settles suit against Juan Rangel over firing
The former head of the scandal-tainted United Neighborhood Organization and its charter-school network settled a wrongful-termination suit filed by his former top deputy after a judge ordered a...
View ArticleCop drank, drowned in bathtub amid FBI probe of cop husband’s death
A Chicago cop, found dead amid an FBI investigation into her cop-husband’s shooting death, accidentally drowned in her bathtub after drinking alcohol and taking an anti-anxiety drug, the Cook County...
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