The Justice Department is launching an effort in Chicago and four other U.S. cities to reduce spiking gun violence by addressing illegal trafficking and prosecuting offenses that help put guns in the hands of criminals.
US Department of Justice
The Justice Department said Saturday that it no longer will secretly obtain reporters’ records during leak investigations, a policy shift that abandons a practice decried by news organizations and press freedom groups.
The Chicago Police Department has been operating under a consent decree since 2019. The order, which was prompted by the 2014 police murder of Laquan McDonald, is the first consent decree the department has faced. But it’s not the first attempt at police reform in Chicago.
Community activists and lawyers engaged in efforts to reform the Chicago Police Department have blasted Mayor Lori Lightfoot and CPD leadership for failing to move quickly on implementation of a court-mandated consent decree that is supposed to ensure change.
Nearly one-third of federal correctional officer jobs in the United States are vacant, forcing prisons to use cooks, teachers, nurses and other workers to guard inmates.
The Justice Department is sending a strong message about its priorities these days. In just over the past two weeks, it has opened investigations of police in Louisville, Kentucky and Minneapolis.
Federal agents raided Rudy Giuliani’s Manhattan home and office Wednesday, seizing computers and cellphones in a major escalation of the Justice Department’s investigation into the business dealings of former President Donald Trump’s personal lawyer.
Chicago-based Commonwealth Edison agreed as part of a deferred prosecution agreement last July to pay a $200 million fine for its role in a bribery scheme involving then-Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan. The Illinois case share similarities with what federal authorities have said occurred in Ohio.
Latino lawyers and community leaders on Tuesday will ask the Department of Justice to investigate the fatal shooting of a 13-year-old boy by a Chicago police officer.
The DOJ says the city is required to install accessible pedestrian signals that give audio or tactile cues when it’s safe to cross the street. According to the suit, Chicago has just 15 of those signals out of 2,700 crosswalks with visual signals.
Attorney General Merrick Garland on Tuesday ordered a review of how the Justice Department can best deploy its resources to combat hate crimes during a surge in incidents targeting Asian Americans.
Illinois comes in at No. 3, according to the UIC ranking
The rankings from the University of Illinois at Chicago are unchanged from 2018 — but big corruption trials are on the horizon.
Merrick Garland, President Joe Biden’s attorney general nominee, vowed Monday to prioritize combating extremist violence and said his first focus would be on the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol as he sought to assure lawmakers that the Justice Department would remain politically independent on his watch.
U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth intensified their push on Wednesday to convince President Joe Biden to keep John Lausch, Chicago’s top federal prosecutor, in office until a permanent replacement is confirmed.
The decision by the U.S. Department of Justice was swiftly condemned by Illinois’ two Democratic senators, both close allies of President Joe Biden.
The U.S. government is moving to revoke the citizenship of José Vilchis, a longtime gymnastics coach who’s been accused of sexually abusing multiple underage girls over the course of three-plus decades.
