Tag: chicago

United Airlines Flight to Minneapolis Diverted Due to Failed Hijack Attempt

A United Airlines flight traveling from Chicago to Minneapolis diverted to Madison, Wisc., after an unruly passenger made multiple attempts to reach the cockpit, prompting the flight crew to declare a security emergency.

United Flight UA2005, a Boeing 737 carrying 147 passengers and six crew members, landed safely at Dane County Regional Airport in Madison on May 29, with no injuries reported.

According to air traffic control communications, the passenger made repeated attempts to access the cockpit before law enforcement officers who were traveling aboard the aircraft were able to restrain him. The pilot activated transponder code 7500, the emergency signal used to indicate a potential hijacking or unlawful interference with an aircraft.

The passenger, whom authorities identified as a 75-year-old man experiencing a mental health crisis, was detained after the aircraft landed. A United spokesperson told NBC News that Flight UA2005 “landed safely in Madison… to address a security concern with an unruly passenger.”

The Dane County Sheriff’s Office deputies took the individual into custody, and the FBI was notified of the investigation. Passenger Mike Rundle told CNN that a disturbance occurred near the front of the aircraft after another traveler observed the man reach toward a flight attendant. Several passengers and officers intervened and escorted him back to his seat.

In air traffic communications that NBC News acquired, flight crew onboard the plane could be heard discussing the attempted cockpit breach with ground control.

“I do not believe they ever cuffed him, but they were able to finally get control of him after multiple attempts to try to breach the cockpit,” a member of the crew said. “I believe at this point he is seated in a seat and flanked with law enforcement officers on either side.”

Rundle said signs of trouble emerged before takeoff from Chicago O’Hare International Airport, when the suspect repeatedly stood during taxiing and crew members sought a Russian-speaking passenger to assist with interpretation.

After landing in Madison, law enforcement officers boarded the aircraft, removed the passenger, and conducted their response. The flight later resumed its trip to Minneapolis, landing early on Saturday morning, data from FlightAware confirmed.

According to FlightAware tracking data, Flight UA2005 had been airborne for roughly 45 minutes after departing Chicago before the incident occurred. The FBI said its Madison Resident Agency and local law enforcement partners responded immediately to the incident. 

“A subject was detained by the Dane County Sheriff’s Office and afterwards passengers resumed their flight,” a spokesperson for the FBI’s Milwaukee office told NBC News.

Authorities have not released the passenger’s name, announced charges, or disclosed additional details about the events that led to his detention. The Federal Aviation Administration said it investigates all passenger disturbance incidents and may pursue civil penalties against passengers who interfere with flight crews. According to the agency, airlines have reported more than 640 unruly passenger incidents so far this year.

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Chicago-Area Democrat Alderwoman Arrested For Casting Ballot on Behalf of Her Deceased Mother

A Chicago-area Alderwoman was arrested for casting a ballot for her deceased mother.

Waukegan Ald. Sylvia Sims Bolton was arrested and charged with a felony after she voted on behalf of her deceased mother.

Prosecutors say Bolton, 67, filled out a mail-in ballot for her mother, Mary Sims, who passed away on January 12.

The clerk’s office issued Sims a mail-in ballot on February 5, three weeks after she passed away.

The mail-in ballot was filled out and returned on February 26.

“Our system of checks and balances worked as intended,” County Clerk Anthony Vega told the Chicago Tribune.

“Our staff followed established protocols. They identified the irregularities, and our office coordinated with our law enforcement partners. This is exceedingly rare, but if someone games the system, we will hold them accountable,” he added.

The Chicago Tribune reported:

Waukegan Ald. Sylvia Sims Bolton, 1st Ward, is facing a felony charge after, authorities say, she falsified election material in the March primary contest by casting a ballot on behalf of her dead mother.

Bolton, 67, was charged with felony mutilation of election material and disregarding the election code, a misdemeanor, on May 19, and appeared Wednesday in Lake County Court in Waukegan.

Though the irregularity was discovered on Feb. 26 by the Lake County Clerk’s Office, the investigation by the Lake County Sheriff’s Office did not start until March 27 — 10 days after the March 17 primary election — when the clerk’s office confirmed it.

After the clerk’s office issued a vote-by-mail ballot to Mary Sims on Feb. 5, the office cancelled Sims’ voter registration after learning of her death on Feb. 12 from the Illinois Department of Public Health through the Illinois State Board of Elections voter registration system, according to a joint news release from the offices of the county clerk, sheriff and state’s attorney.

Sims died on Jan. 12 and is Bolton’s mother, according to Richard Bradshaw, a licensed funeral director with Bradshaw and Range Funeral Home in Waukegan.

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LEFTIST UTOPIA IMPLODES: Hundreds of Dangerous Cook County Criminals ‘Completely Untraceable’ After Democrats’ Woke Pre-Trial Program Collapses

The lawless, woke experiment that Democrats have forced onto the state of Illinois has officially imploded, leaving the citizens of Cook County completely exposed to a terrifying wave of untraceable, violent crime.

In what can only be described as a catastrophic and total failure of the radical Left’s criminal justice “reforms,” Cook County’s pre-trial release electronic monitoring program has completely fallen apart.

A staggering 243 dangerous offenders, including cold-blooded murderers, attempted murderers, and violent sexual assaulters, have completely vanished.

According to sources close to law enforcement, these violent predators are now entirely off the grid and untraceable. That represents a horrific 8% of the entire program’s participants, people who were deemed too dangerous to roam free without ankle bracelets, yet were handed a “get out of jail free” card by radical Cook County judges anyway.

NBC Chicago reported:

Roughly 8% of the more than 3,000 people enrolled in the often-criticized electronic monitoring system in Cook County are missing, according to the chief judge.

In other words: 243 people are missing.

“Transparency is not optional — it is a core obligation of this office,” Chief Judge Charles Beach II said in a statement. “The public has a right to know how this program operates, what the data shows and what we are doing every day to make it stronger.”

Cook County State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke, a frequent critic of electronic monitoring, issued a statement Wednesday saying she welcomes the chief judge’s transparency but called the data “alarming.”

Burke also said the data “clearly demonstrates how current safeguards are falling short, particularly when [electronic monitoring] is available to those charged with the most threatening and heinous crimes.”

[…]

The chief judge has set up an online dashboard showing the charges of people currently on electronic monitoring as of April 3. The dashboard shows 21 people charged with murder, 13 charged with attempted murder, 173 charged with aggravated battery and 29 people charged with aggravated criminal sexual assault.

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Chicago City Council Passes Ordinance to Conceal Election Workers Identities From Public

In a 42-8 vote, Chicago’s City Council voted to pass the Reverend Jesse L. Jackson Sr. Fair Access to Democracy Ordinance.  The ordinance will essentially ban the doxing of government workers, especially election workers, and bolster requirements for landlords to provide secure mailboxes in accordance with United States Postal Service rules.

An earlier version of the ordinance included the creation of “democracy zones,” which would have forbidden federal immigration officials from entering the areas outside of polling places.  That provision, however, was removed prior to its passage.

The doxing stipulation claims the information can be used by those who wish to cause “death, bodily injury, stalking, harassment, or intimidation” to the government workers.  Those whose information was disclosed would be able to bring civil action for “damages, injunctive relief, and reasonable attorney’s fees.”

Last year, local officials in Chicago were calling for federal agents tasked with tracking down dangerous foreign gang members and detaining violent criminals to remove their masks and to provide identification upon request.  Two Chicago-area U.S. Representatives co-sponsored the “No Secret Police Act,” requiring ICE agents to wear identifying information on their uniforms, as reported by WTTW.

CBS News reported that the debate got contentious with some fierce language slung amongst the aldermen, with one claiming  that a threat of putting “a knife to your throat” if the ordinance is not passed was made:

Debate over the ordinance grew heated, as some alders expressed fears about potential voter suppression in the upcoming November elections, while others said it’s already the role of the Chicago Board of Elections to make sure polling places are secure from voter interference.

“This federal government is going to rig the elections this November. Make no mistake about it. So, choose a side. You’re on the side of history, when Reverend Jackson was fighting to encourage voting rights and protect them, or you are on the side of the fascists taking those rights away,” said Ald. Byron Sigcho-Lopez (25th).

Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd), who argued the ordinance was not yet ready for a vote by the full City Council, and said it’s already the job of the Chicago Board of Elections to secure polling places and protect voter privacy, said the threatening tone some of his colleagues used to pass the measure [was concerning.]

“It’s not about creating this situation here where dissent over a poorly drafted ordinance is something that should equate to divisive language that should be halted on the opinion of one person in this council,” he said. “One of the other comments yesterday, probably by one of the drafters, was if you don’t pass this, we will have a knife to your throat, and that kind of set me back a little bit when I was sitting in that committee meeting, because I heard that and I thought the same people who want me to vote on something recognizing the achievements of what is hopeful to be the long-lasting legacy of Jesse Jackson said, ‘If you don’t pass this we will have a knife to your throat.’”

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Chicago Resident Goes Off-Delivers Powerful Rebuke of Democrats Using ‘Voting Rights Act of 1965 Propaganda’: “You sick in the head and more sicker in your spirit”

Chicago resident Jessica Jackson called out Chicago Cook County Commissioners Tara Stamps and Dr. Kisha McCaskill for claiming Black voting rights are under attack by using “Voting Rights Act of 1965 propaganda” to fearmonger voters, all while ignoring the crisis impacting Black communities in the county.

The grassroots organization “Chicago Flips Red” shared her powerful remarks and noted on X, “Since 2020, nearly 2,500 homeowners have lost their properties and the equity tied to those homes through delinquent property tax sales. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled the practice unconstitutional years ago, yet families are still fighting for accountability, transparency, and relief.”

“Jackson also raises concerns about property theft tied to Cook County probate court practices, unlawful demolitions without due process, and generational wealth being stripped from longtime residents under the watch of local government.”

“Our argument: politicians continue using historic civil rights language during election season, but stay silent when Black families lose homes, land, inheritance, and wealth through government systems operating in their own backyard.”

Ms. Jackson said during her remarks, “The reality is this: Black people’s voting is not in danger, and you know it’s not, and you know it’s not. I’m 63 years old. I’ve been voting since I was 18. I have never had a problem voting.”

“Now, that may apply to my mother and father. It applies to my grandparents. Surely it does. And in fact, because it does, every single person in this room, including that Jewish lady that just got up and talked, need to really be thanking us. Really need to be thanking us for giving y’all the right to vote, for giving y’all the right to be here instead of sitting up here manipulating the Voting Rights Act like something’s getting ready to happen to our right to vote when you know that’s not true.”

“So now you all going to drag Black people in here, definitely some senior citizens, and going to have them come up here and talk about how they ‘scared to vote’.”

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Lawsuit: D300 secretly gender transitioned student; Seeks to nix IL gender ‘guidance,’ too

A mother from Chicago’s far northwest suburbs has lodged a lawsuit against her child’s public school district, accusing Community Unit School District 300 of allegedly attempting to secretly transition her child’s gender and of blocking the parent’s attempt to learn more about what was happening and be involved, even when the student struggled with suicidal thoughts and required hospitalization for mental health purposes.

However, the class action lawsuit also seeks to more broadly overturn policies at the district and potentially throughout Illinois, which the mother and her lawyer claim trample parents’ constitutional rights.

On May 10, attorney Ajay Gupta, of Naperville, filed suit in Chicago federal court against District 300.

Based in the village of Algonquin, District 300 ranks as the sixth largest public school district in Illinois, has a student population of more than 20,000 students from communities within a 118 square mile radius in Chicago’s northwest suburbs mostly in Kane County, near the McHenry County line.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of a named plaintiff, identified in the complaint only as S.K. According to the complaint, she is the mother of a student at one of the district’s three high schools. District 300 high schools include Dundee-Crown High School in Carpentersville, Harry D. Jacobs High School in Algonquin, and Hampshire High School in Hampshire.

The complaint does not identify which high school the student attended.

According to the complaint, staff at the student’s school allegedly began in 2022 using “alternate name and pronouns” for S.K.’s child, identified in the complaint only as T.K.

The complaint asserts the student at that time “experienced declining mental health and difficulty completing schoolwork.”

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Walgreens Closing Chicago Location Due to Massive Theft, Local Political Leaders Who Enable the Crime Are Outraged

Walgreens has announced that it is closing a store in the Chatham neighborhood of Chicago. They claim that the store is losing upwards of a million dollars a year to theft, so the reason for the closure is no mystery. They say that this particular store loses more in theft than any other store.

And yet… The political leaders in Chicago, who allow thieves to run wild, are angry at Walgreens.

They caused this, with their soft on crime policies, yet they are mad at Walgreens for closing the location.

FOX 32 in Chicago reported:

Walgreens to close Chatham store after more than $1M loss, cites theft and declining sales

Walgreens executives revealed the store lost more than a million dollars last year, partly due to declining prescription sales but also a massive amount of store theft.

“Theft at this store is 16 percent,” Johnson said. “That’s four times above the company average.”

And the company explained that they tried to stop theft.

“Lock boxes help us protect the merchandise in the store. A lot of the time, those lock boxes were getting destroyed. And that’s at a great cost to the company,” said Jason Vasquez, Walgreens District Manager.

They say Walgreens was spending $400,000 a year on security guards in the store, but there were still attacks on store employees.

“We’ve had people jump across the counters, because we sell liquor behind the counter, taking liquor, cigarettes… That wears. That wears down. Not so much the financial piece but the endurance of that day in and day out,” said Lonnie Fuqua, the store’s manager.

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8% of defendants in Chicago’s electronic monitoring program unaccounted for

According to the latest data released by the Cook County Chief Judge’s office, approximately 246 of the 3,048 criminal defendants currently enrolled in Chicago’s electronic monitoring program are considered missing or unaccounted for.

These individuals, who were released pretrial on the condition of wearing ankle monitors, have reportedly tampered with their devices, allowed their batteries to die, or otherwise remained out of contact with authorities for at least three hours.

The scale of the issue is particularly concerning given the nature of the charges involved. According to public tracking data, those currently in “AWOL” status include 21 individuals charged with murder, 13 with attempted murder, 103 facing sexual assault charges, and 173 charged with aggravated battery.

Nonetheless, Cook County Chief Judge Charles Beach confirmed to outlet WGN that law enforcement is actively working to locate and apprehend these missing defendants to ensure they are returned to custody.

“It doesn’t mean they’re out committing crimes necessarily,” Beach said. “Some might be. But they’re actively being searched for right now by law enforcement.”

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Chicago Schools to Bus Students to Anti-Trump May Day Protests Using Tax Dollars

Tomorrow on May 1st, teacher unions in Chicago have decided to once again hold ‘May Day’ protests, which will obviously be aimed at Trump and all things Republican.

As part of these protests, Chicago Schools are going to allow students to attend, and if they choose to go, they can be shuttled to the protests using tax dollars.

Aside from the fact that a significant number of students in Chicago schools can’t read at grade level, how is any of this even legal?

Using tax dollars to transport students to political protests? Where is the outrage?

This report is from PBS:

Chicago labor unions, community groups, students and other advocates are expected to participate in events around the city on Friday in recognition of May Day, also known as International Workers’ Day.

Thousands of Chicagoans are expected to participate in a May Day rally and march starting at Union Park, 1501 W. Randolph St., and ending at Daley Plaza downtown. Other related actions are scheduled in different parts of the city in the morning ahead of the march.

The main rally is expected to begin at 1 p.m. in Union Park. The march is set to step off at 2 p.m.

The expected May Day actions come after disagreements between Chicago Public Schools CEO Macquline King and the Chicago Teachers Union over whether to close schools on Friday to allow students and teachers to participate in demonstrations…

Chicago Public Schools will still hold classes on May 1 after reaching an agreement with CTU that will also allow students and staff to attend labor rallies.

The union said the school district has pledged to provide buses for field trips for students and educators who choose to attend the afternoon May Day rally in Union Park.

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Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson Calls for Reparations and Claims Restaurants Are Tied to Slavery in Bizarre Rant 

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is currently embroiled in some sort of feud with the city council over a raise for tipped workers and it’s not going the way he wants so he is lashing out.

This week, while he was remarking on the situation, he suddenly veered into the topic of reparations and then claimed that the restaurant industry has ties to slavery.

How was this man elected mayor of a major city? It really seems like there’s something wrong with him.

FOX News reports:

Chicago mayor links restaurant industry to ‘slavery’ as tipped wage fight intensifies

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson linked the restaurant industry to “slavery” Wednesday as he defended his push to eliminate the tipped wage, doubling down after surviving a City Council effort to block the policy.

Johnson’s remarks came after the Chicago City Council failed to override his veto of a measure that would have halted the city’s phaseout of the subminimum wage for tipped workers — a policy set to raise base pay to the full minimum wage by 2028 that is opposed by restaurant owners who warn it could drive up prices and cut jobs.

He called on Chicagoans to “challenge city council not to do stuff like take wages away from Black and Brown people,” saying that most workers in the service industry who rely on tips are minorities.

“You just watched the entire city council, in transparency, try to take wages away from the very people who are part of an industry that has its ties to slavery is hiding from that,” Johnson said. “I am boldly declaring that we need reparations in this city, and that’s why I’m funding it.”

What is he even talking about?

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