Said FOP President John Catanzara, “I do not believe civilians should be training sworn officers, that’s their job. We do not have it in the military or anything else like that. It’s obviously military training military, police should be training police.”

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is continuing to talk to religious leaders to develop rules for in-person services, and hopes to issue those guidelines by this weekend, so restrictions could be eased. Meanwhile, Bishop Ron Hicks, vicar general of the Archdiocese of Chicago, sent church leaders a series of guidelines this week that they must follow as in-person Sunday Mass resumes.

“A former federal prosecutor who at one point oversaw police misconduct cases, Lightfoot knows intimately the balance the city must strike between supporting a police force that ultimately reports to her, and transforming a culture of aggression that, in the past, landed those very officers before her disciplinary board.”

Alderman Gilbert Villegas (36th Ward) said, “On a Sunday, you get 15,000 calls for service and this past Sunday we had 65,000 calls for service. That’s almost five times the amount of calls.”

“I have no faith whatsoever in the health department, but the health department is the only vehicle by which this pandemic can be brought under control,” said Dr. Howard Ehrman, one of the founders of the group and a former city public health deputy commissioner.

“Don’t act like you’re checking ID’s to see who lives where when ‘defending our hood,’” said Ald. Raymond Lopez (15th).

“Under a slower market recovery … six of the plans—Charleston (West Virginia) Fire, Dallas Police and Fire, Chicago Municipal, Chicago Police, Chicago Teachers, and New Jersey Teachers—would see their funded ratios dwindle to 25% or less.”

Owner Hak Tong Kim is a first generation Korean-American. His family says he works seven days a week and has put his all into this business to support them.

Officials with the state’s attorney’s office say last weekend the cases of 253 defendants were handed over to their felony review division for possible approval of charges. 184 of those cases-most of them gun charges-were approved and 24 were rejected for an authorization rate they say of 88%.

Edwards said he thinks consumers will slowly return to the downtown, as people overcome fears of COVID-19 and this past weekend’s destruction.

The city has received more than 800 sidewalk cafe applications this year. Nearly 400 of them have come in since March, when BACP closed its offices and began processing licenses online. So far, 324 permits have been issued, with another 417 “approved and in the final stages of issuance,” according to the city’s Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection

“…(T)his college town of 74,000 became the first municipality in America to commit public dollars — in this case, tax revenue from the soon-to-be-legalized sale of recreational cannabis — to reparations for its black citizens. In doing so, Evanston’s leaders accomplished something that a generation of civil rights activists hadn’t managed to elevate beyond a legislative pipe dream.”

A new surface transportation bill unveiled today in the U.S. House will be sold as a COVID stimulus bill, in hopes of getting GOP support.

“Situations where there’s a lot of devastation like this, a lot of times people find they’re underinsured and don’t have enough coverage,” saidJ anet Patrick, director of the Illinois Insurance Association Hotline, “and so once the damage has been done, it’s too late. You can’t buy more coverage.”

“The opposite of violence is not security. The opposite of violence is justice,” she said.

On March 20, the same day Gov. J.B. Pritzker issued his stay-at-home order, HUD officials in Illinois announced that they would work remotely for the foreseeable future. William O. Dawson III, HUD’s director of public and Indian housing for the state, wrote in an email, “If you are able to resolve a complaint without referring the participant to the Field Office it would be greatly appreciated.”

“For the restaurants and retailers that can open under precautions, including outdoor seating only and with limited capacity, Lightfoot’s directive will allow them a trickle of new revenue for the first time in months…Chicago in its long history has faced tragedies and rebounded each time. This resilient city will recover again.”