Chicago

Graduate Workers Condemn Saturday Police Escalation

November 4, 2020 Isabelle Sarraf, The Daily Northwestern. Resist! Chicago, Higher Education, Police Abolition, Police violence

In a Sunday statement, Northwestern University Graduate Workers condemned the police escalation — including the pepper-spraying and shoving student protestors — at Saturday’s NU Community Not Cops protest. At least two participating NUGW members were pepper-sprayed, the group wrote, during the 20th straight day of demonstrations demanding that NU divest from law enforcement. “Last night proved once again that it is heavily armed, militarized police who create and escalate violence,” NUGW wrote.

Teacher’s Viral Arrest Helped Stop Evictions

November 1, 2020 Keith Schnabel, Midwest Socialist. Resist! Chicago, Evictions, Occupation, Teachers

Sophia Lukatya is a Chicago Public Schools teacher. She organizes with the Chicago Teachers Union and is a member of Democratic Socialists of America. During the Lift The Ban Coalition’s protests in Daley Plaza this August, Lukatya was one of a dozen housing activists who were arrested in the week-long occupation. Positive press from the event—including a viral video of Lukatya and fellow DSA member Shannon Pilz—contributed to Governor Pritzker’s decision to extend the eviction moratorium.

Laid-Off Hotel Workers Rally After Health Insurance Yanked

October 26, 2020 Mitch Dudek, Chicago Sun Times. Resist! Chicago, COVID-19, Health Insurance, Hotel workers

About 150 hotel workers who’d been laid off — but promised their jobs back when the hotel industry rebounds — gathered in Grant Park Friday to call on their employers to continue providing health insurance. They are among about 7,000 Chicago hotel workers represented by UNITE HERE Local 1 who are out of work, most since March. Their health insurance lasted until Oct. 1, and workers are now calling on hotel operators to extend benefits.

150 Federal Agents Set To Deploy In Chicago

July 22, 2020 Associated Press. Educate! Chicago, Donald Trump, federal law enforcement, Militarization, Police abuse

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security is crafting plans to deploy about 150 federal agents to Chicago this week, the Chicago Tribune has learned, a move that would come amid growing controversy nationally about federal force being used in American cities. One Immigration and Customs Enforcement official in Chicago, who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak on the matter, confirmed the deployment was expected to take place. The official noted that the HSI agents, who are part of ICE, would not be involved in immigration or deportation matters. "We’re not going to leave New York and Chicago and Philadelphia, Detroit and Baltimore, and all of these — Oakland is a mess. We’re not going to let this happen in our country, all run by liberal Democrats,” Trump said. Atty. Gen. William Barr and acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf would roll out a plan this week for tamping down crime in various U.S. cities.

Chicago School Board Votes To Keep Police Contract — For Now

June 26, 2020 Nader Issa, Chicago Sun Times. Educate! Chicago, Education, Police in Schools, Police violence

Chicago’s school board has voted against ending a program that puts police officers in public schools, following the wishes of the mayor and top Chicago Public Schools leadership while rejecting the demands of students and activists who for years have called for police-free schools. While the narrow 4-3 vote, the most suspenseful by the Board of Education in years, keeps intact a scrutinized $33-million contract between the school system and the Chicago Police Department, another vote is likely in the next two months on whether to renew the contract that’s set to expire at the end of August. Ahead of the highly anticipated vote that for now leaves more than 200 officers in about 70 schools, students and activists held protests across the city, including in front of the board president’s house, to give one final push toward dumping the contract.

Chicago’s Neighborhoods Will Remain “Occupied” Until The City Defunds CPD

June 26, 2020 BobVanecko, Southside Weekly. Educate! Chicago, Defund the police, Militarization, Police

The book Occupied Territory: Policing Black Chicago from Red Summer to Black Power, published last year, details the history of the Chicago Police Department’s quasi-military occupation of the city’s Black communities from the race riots of 1919 through the present day. Author Simon Balto, an assistant professor of African American history at the University of Iowa, demonstrates that “there is not a time in Chicago’s history where the city was home to large percentages of black people, and in which they had a smoothly functioning relationship with the CPD.” While most histories of mass incarceration start around the “War on Drugs” or “War on Crime” eras, Balto shows that those years’ massive investments towards expanding and militarizing America’s police forces had such devastating effects precisely because the police had already gained decades of experience working as the hired enemies of Black people, in the words of James Baldwin.

What’s The Alternative To Police In Schools?

June 25, 2020 Curtis Black, Chicago Reporter. Create! Chicago, Conflict Resolution, Police in Schools, Restorative Justice

Thousands of Chicagoans have rallied in the past couple weeks behind the demand that Chicago Public Schools end its relationship with the police department. But a small group of advocates have been working on this issue for years, and they’ve won significant progress in recent months. We don’t know the impact of those changes yet — though we do know that alternatives to police in schools need much greater support. A new Chicago Police Department policy implemented last August removed so-called school resource officers from involvement in day-to-day disciplinary matters. It requires screening of potential officers, including consideration of their disciplinary records and involvement with youth, and selection in consultation with school principals. It mandates training in youth development, de-escalation, restorative justice, crisis intervention and disability issues.

Abandoned Communities Arrange Black/Brown Truce

June 10, 2020 By Jacqueline Serrato, Southside Weekly. Create! Chicago, Conflict Resolution, George Floyd, Racism

“After days of tensions and anti-black racism fueled by the Chicago Police Department, gangs from Little Village and the West Side are negotiating an understanding.” “Latinx and Black street organizations from the west side of the Little Village neighborhood and from North Lawndale have come together in a day understanding to commit to continuing working on Black and Brown unity,” the post continued. “We have confirmation similar conversations are happening in Humboldt Park, Cicero, and the west side of Chicago in an effort to stop the tensions that are being fueled by the police.” A dozen more Black Lives Matter marches from Belmont-Cragin to South Chicago, mutual aid efforts, mural projects, art campaigns, banner drops, and signs of solidarity have been organized since, as Black and brown neighborhoods lick their wounds and attempt to rebuild their communities. On Thursday, June 11, North Lawndale and Little Village residents are planning a Truce Peace March that will culminate in Douglass Park.

Chicago Freedom School Offered Food, Water And Rest To Weary Protesters Trapped Downtown

June 9, 2020 Justin Laurence, Chicago Book Club. Educate! Chicago, Food and Agriculture, Police abuse, Protest support, Rebellion2020

Last weekend, as thousands of protesters gathered Downtown, the Chicago Freedom School sprung into action, working to feed and transport those stuck in the Loop — but a surprise inspection by the city has the nonprofit worried about its future. The Chicago Freedom School, 719 S. State St., provides training to primarily Black and Brown youth to learn the fundamentals of community organizing. School leaders knew their members were out on the front lines, confronted with pepper spray and potentially trapped Downtown as curfew approached, bridges were lifted and CTA service halted May 30. The school offered a refuge.

Chicago: Police Investigation Into Officer Covering Up Name Tag, Badge Number

June 6, 2020 Jonathan Ballew, The Chicago Reporter. Educate! Chicago, Police, Rebellion2020, Transparency

After one of the most volatile mass protests in the city’s recent memory sparked by the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd, Chicago police are investigating at least one officer for covering up his badge number and name tag. Images and video circulating on social media show police officers who appear to have either taped over the name tags on their uniforms and badge star numbers or removed them entirely. In a statement to the The Chicago Reporter Wednesday evening, the Chicago Police Department condemned the practice. “All Chicago Police Officers are required to wear their unit assignment designator, nameplate and prescribed star so that they are clearly visible.

Were Chicago’s Police Torture Reparations From 5 Years Ago Implemented?

May 24, 2020 Flint Taylor, Truthout. Organize! Chicago, Police abuse, Reparations, Torture

The Chicago reparations movement offers a shining example to movements across the country, and in the past few years, activists in other cities have pursued their own calls for reparations. In Little Rock, Arkansas, the family of Eugene Ellison, a man fatally shot by the police, together with the largest police violence settlement in Little Rock history, obtained an official apology from the city manager at a ceremony where a memorial bench was dedicated to Ellison. In New Orleans, the City settled 17 police violence cases that were representative of the official lawlessness that reigned before, during and after Hurricane Katrina. Mayor Mitch Landrieu announced the $13.3 million settlement at a press conference after a prayer meeting with the victims and families.

It’s Official: Chicago Has Declared A Climate Emergency. Now What?

March 5, 2020 By Patty Wetli, News.wttw.com Create! Chicago, Climate Change

On Wednesday, members of City Council approved a climate emergency resolution introduced last month that calls on the city to “initiate a Climate Mobilization to reverse global warming and the ecological crisis.” “We join over 1,300 other jurisdictions in sounding the alarm,” said Ald. George Cardenas (12th Ward), a co-sponsor of the resolution. Sounding the alarm and responding to it, however, are two different matters.

Police Torture In Chicago

March 1, 2020 Eve Ottenberg, Counterpunch. Educate! Chicago, Police abuse, Racism, Torture

The Chicago police department has a problem. They say it’s fixed, but local African American residents can’t be blamed for being skeptical. The problem is torture. And of course the Chicago PD is not one bad apple in the nation’s police departments, because when it comes to police brutality, the whole barrel is rotten. Chicago is just an extreme case. “Between 1972 and 1991, approximately 125 African American suspects were tortured by police officers in Chicago,” Princeton anthropology professor Laurence Ralph writes in his new book “The Torture Letters: Reckoning With Police Violence.” More than 400 cases currently await investigation by the Illinois torture inquiry and relief commission, “which also gets three to five new torture claims each week.” From 2004 to 2016, Chicago police paid $662 million in police misconduct settlements.

The Torture Machine, Racism And Violence In Chicago

February 22, 2020 Jeff Haas and Dennis Cunningham, Blackagendareport.com Educate! Chicago, Racism, Violence

The Torture Machine, Racism and Police Violence in Chicago, by People’s Law Office and longtime National Lawyers Guild attorney Flint Taylor, is a meticulously detailed and authentic, truly appalling story of shame and disgrace to the city of Chicago, its political and police administration establishments, and numerous judges of the Cook County criminal courts; an account of dozens of cases in which black men from the South Side...

Chicago High School Students Hold Sit-In In Defense Of Students Who Refused To Stand For National Anthem

February 17, 2020 Andy Thompson, Wsws.org Resist! Chicago, Class Struggle, Schools, Sit-In, Youth Activism

Students at Chicago’s Nicholas Senn High School carried out a sit-in on Wednesday in response to a teacher telling a Hispanic student, Yésica Salazar, 17, to “go back to your country” after Salazar refused to stand for the American national anthem during an assembly on January 30. Another student who also refused to stand, Tionda Cobb, 18, was questioned about her status in the school’s free lunch program and was told she should stand because, “people had died for the country.”

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