A police spokeswoman explained why it might be hard to get through on the phone: “Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Chicago Police Department’s Alternative Response Section (ARS), which takes non-emergency reports, has been temporarily relocated to the Education and Training Academy facility... (T)here has been a reduction in how many calls ARS is able to take at one time."
A largely unasked question is becoming glaring: Is Illinois doing all it should to use artificial intelligence to make government cost less and work better? So far, the evidence says no.