Good morning, Chicago.
As prosecutors closed their case against two Chicago police officers Wednesday at the Leighton Criminal Court Building, they alleged that the officers shot an unarmed man, instigated a gunfight with the man’s companion and then lied about it on official department forms.
The officers, Christopher Liakopoulos, 44, and Ruben Reynoso, 43, are charged with two counts of aggravated battery with a firearm and two counts of official misconduct, all felonies, in connection with a July 2022 on-duty shooting in Pilsen that wounded one person.
They are standing trial before Cook County Judge Lawrence Flood, who told a crowded gallery of observers that he plans to hand down a verdict Thursday afternoon.
“Before they knew they had to get their story straight, they lied,” said Assistant State’s Attorney Alyssa Janicki. “There is no justification here.”
Read the full story from the Tribune’s Madeline Buckley.
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27 buses carrying migrants arrive in Chicago since Saturday as city moves forward with tent plan
The number of asylum-seekers in Chicago has surpassed 15,000, as hundreds of new migrants have arrived in the city over the last week, with the arrival of 27 buses since Saturday, including seven on Wednesday alone.
With the city running out of room to house them all, Mayor Brandon Johnson on Wednesday defended his administration’s decision to contract with a private security firm to help place the new arrivals in base camps before winter.
What to know about Chicago’s migrant crisis
Larry Snelling, ‘son of this city,’ confirmed as next Chicago police superintendent
Larry Snelling was confirmed as Chicago’s next police superintendent in a City Council vote Wednesday, finalizing Mayor Brandon Johnson’s choice for the longtime insider and South Side native to lead the department with a vision of rejuvenating officer morale and repairing community relations.
After outgoing interim Superintendent Fred Waller handed off the superintendent’s badge, Snelling addressed aldermen and urged a unified approach in addressing the city’s public safety challenges. “We have to find a way to stop this,” Snelling said in a reference to the recent rash of armed robberies and carjackings that have plagued Chicago.
Oak Park police chief says carjacking, robberies likely tied to Chicago crime sprees
On Tuesday night, at the Music Box Theatre in Lakeview, a most alarming affair unfolded in front of a near-full house of movie lovers: Local filmmakers, Chicago directors, each of some distinction, discussed the films they just completed, then, one by one, they destroyed those films. They showed the works first. They’re not nuts. But if you were not in that audience on Tuesday night to see those works, unless someone was shooting the big screen with a phone — a fair possibility — you are fresh out of luck.
The civil charges and settlement allege Rochester, New York-based Hyzon misrepresented its potential customers and sales before and after going public through a special purpose acquisition company in July 2021.
The public offering generated about $600 million in investor money.
The Bears have the NFL’s longest active losing streak at 13 games and will march into Sunday 342 days removed from their last victory. These are bleak times for Chicago football fans. And with this weekend’s game closing in, here are a dozen eye-catching numbers and nuggets.
Bears sign cornerback Joejuan Williams off the Vikings practice squad to bolster depleted secondary
‘Reptile’ review: A staredown, dark thriller-style, between Benicio Del Toro and Justin Timberlake
Sometimes a great performance is enough to pull you through a half-baked script, writes critic Nina Metz. In the dark thriller “Reptile” on Netflix, a police detective played by Benicio Del Toro works to solve the brutal murder of a real estate agent, and del Toro single-handedly keeps the film afloat.
‘The Creator’ review: Rise of the machines! But who’s the real enemy here?
Critic Michael Phillips speaks to Carrie Holt de Lama, unit production manager on “The Bear,” a large part of which means coordinating with location managers to find, for example, the right house in the right neighborhood for Jamie Lee Curtis (Season 2, Episode 6) to implode on Thanksgiving.
De Lama is also executive producer on the new Chicago-set and filmed “We Grown Now,” which opens the Chicago International Film Festival Oct. 11. The film is very good, set in 1992 in the Cabrini-Green housing projects, among other Chicago locales. There’s a question: How to evoke a physical place, and presence, that has been erased from Chicago history for a generation now?
