Tag: chicago

Chicago inmates claim jail guards are pressuring them to illegally vote in the mayoral election

Chicago inmates have claimed they are being pressured to illegally vote in the city’s mayoral election.

The inmates, some who are accused of murder, argued guards at Cook County Jail were pushing them to vote – despite some being registered in a different jurisdiction.

They claimed the guards were receiving orders from higher up and were ‘just doing what I’m told’ when confronted over the move.

It comes amid fears of ballot harvesting as insiders claimed the jail was the ‘ideal environment’ due to no cameras or election observers.

It also raised concerns it could propel Lori Lightfoot back into office, despite her languishing on just 13 percent in the polls.

One inmate, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, told DailyMail.com the guards didn’t seem to care that they might be breaking the law.

He said: ‘I asked him [the guard], ‘Did you ask people first if they’re registered to vote?’ And he said ‘no’.

‘I said but you should because if I’m registered to vote somewhere else like I am, you are asking me and enticing me to vote even though I’m registered somewhere else and that’s a felony. I can’t be voting in two different jurisdictions.’

He claims another guard told him that he was ‘just doing what I’m told’. 

An inmate being held on murder charges, also says 21 of the 48 inmates in his Division 11, have already voted but none were asked if they were registered or eligible to vote. 

‘They just say who wants to vote? Line up to vote,’ he said.

An unnamed source familiar with Cook County Jail said it is the ideal environment for ballot harvesting.

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Study Reveals: Several Chicago Neighborhoods Riskier for Young Men Than What U.S. Troops Faced in Iraq and Afghanistan… And It’s Not Just Chicago

A new report published in the medical journal JAMA Network Open found that the most violent ZIP code in Chicago is even deadlier for young men between the ages of 18-29 than what U.S. soldiers faced in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Chicago Sun Times reports: 

“You fight in an Army combat brigade, you come back and say, ‘My God, I was in the thick of it for a year, and look at the risks I faced,’ ” says Brandon del Pozo, a Brown University researcher and former New York City cop who worked with three other scholars to examine violence in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York and Los Angeles. “In Garfield Park, these young men face those risks every single year. And the risks accumulate.”

ZIP code 60624 is bordered by Cicero Avenue on the west, Chicago Avenue on the north, Homan Avenue on the east and Roosevelt Road on the south. Garfield Park is in the middle.

Among men ages 18 to 29, the annual rate of firearm homicides in that ZIP code was 1,277 per 100,000 people in 2021 and 2022, the study found, compared with an annual death rate for U.S. troops in a heavily engaged combat brigade in Iraq of 675 per 100,000.

Even when the researchers expanded their sample to include Chicago ZIP codes ranked in the top 10% of violence, young men still faced a greater risk of dying than soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq, the study found.

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Lori Lightfoot Blames Robbery Victims, Tells Them to Stop Carrying Cash

LGBT-BLM Democrat Mayor Lori Lightfoot blamed robbery victims for the crimes of their attackers, telling citizens of Chicago that her solution for curtailing crime in the rabidly dangerous city is for people to stop carrying cash. Lightfoot is currently seeking re-election to another term as Mayor of Chicago, with a 9-candidate election slated for February 28th. Every single one of them is a Democrat.

Candidates for Mayor of Chicago gathered last night for a debate, sponsored by ABC7 News, which largely became focused on the city’s out-of-control crime, which makes regular headlines not just in the United States, but all over the globe, despite an intensely-enforced gun control program. Lately, property crimes and muggings have skyrocketed, as those walking down the street, or operating food trucks are being targeted on a regular basis.

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Chicago schools watchdog finds hundreds of employees groomed, sexually assaulted students

Hundreds of Chicago teachers and school officials sexually groomed and assaulted students last school year, according to a report released this week. 

The Chicago Public Schools Office of the Inspector General released its annual report Sunday, saying it substantiated more than 300 misconduct allegations out of more than 600 complaints for the 2021-22 school year.

An OIG investigation concluded one teacher groomed and sexually assaulted a 17-year-old student three times. That teacher was charged with multiple counts of sexual assault. After a November 2022 trial, the teacher was acquitted on all counts, the report said, despite evidence provided by the student and social media records. 

Another investigation revealed a former JROTC staff member had sex with a high school girl over the course of a year when she was 16 to 17 years old, the report said. The girl was also given alcohol and marijuana and purchased marijuana for him, the OIG said.

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Lori Lightfoot ripped by Chicago media for ignoring concerns about police scanner suppression

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, D., is facing criticism for ignoring local media members who are critical of her administration transitioning away from the traditional police scanner toward the use of an encrypted radio frequency.

A coalition of news organizations claims the new system will be inaccessible to the public and will hamper journalists’ ability to listen in real-time to warn the public about ongoing threats to safety. 

Traditional police scanner transmissions have always been accessible to the public, as well as media personnel, but the new encryption method is only accessible to the police and those offered a decryption key.

“Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration has refused to meet with members of the Chicago media who have voiced concern this will impact journalists’ ability to cover events as they unfold and warn the public about ongoing threats to safety,” Chicago outlet WGN9 reported.

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UChicago Announces ‘The Problem With Whiteness’ Course

The University of Chicago (UChicago) is offering a course to students titled “The Problem Of Whiteness” during the Spring 2023 semester, according to the school’s course catalog. 

The course was originally supposed to on start January 3rd but in response to backlash from students it has been moved to March 20, according to The Washington Times. 

The course is being offered under the college’s Critical Race and Ethnic Studies (CRES) program and the description names whiteness as “a conspicuous problem within liberal political discourse” that has “worldmaking (and razing) effects.” 

The course will examine material through the lens of critical race theory. 

“Critical race theorists have shown that whiteness has long functioned as an ‘unmarked’ racial category, saturating a default surround against which non-white or ‘not quite’ other appear as aberrant,” the description reads. “This saturation has had wide-ranging effects, coloring everything from the consolidation of wealth, power and property to the distribution of environmental health hazards.”

UChicago administration told Campus Reform, “The University works to foster an inclusive climate on campus, so all may participate fully in the distinctive open and questioning environment that has always defined the University of Chicago.”

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Chicago’s Guaranteed Income Pilot Program Open To Illegal Immigrants

A Chicago-area guaranteed income pilot program will be open to illegal immigrants, who can apply for the chance to become one of 3,250 residents who will receive $500 per month in cash assistance for two years.

The only requirement for the program is that applicants must be adults residents of Cook County, and make less than 250% of the federal poverty level – or less than $69,375 for a house of four, Fox News reports.

Applicants will not be asked about citizenship status, according to the website.

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In Chicago, the city’s largest children’s hospital offers ‘kink’ and ‘trans-friendly’ sex toys for minors

The largest children’s hospital in Chicago has created partnerships with local school districts to promote radical gender theory, “kink,” “BDSM,” and “trans-friendly” sex toys for children.

I have obtained insider documents that reveal this troubling collaboration between gender activists at Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and school administrators throughout the Chicago area. According to these documents, and a review of school district websites, Lurie Children’s Hospital has provided materials to school leaders promoting radical gender theory, trans activism, and sexually explicit materials in at least four Chicago-area public school systems: District 75, District 120, District 181, and District 204. According to a whistleblower, these documents were circulated to administrators, teachers, and other staff at the middle school and high school level as part of ongoing employee-training programs.

The primary training document, “Beyond Binary: Gender in Schools,” follows the basic narrative of academic queer theory: white, Western society has created an oppressive gender binary, falsely dividing the world into the categories of man and woman, that has resulted in “transphobia,” “cissexism,” and “systemic discrimination” against racial and sexual minorities. 

Versions of the document were attributed to Jennifer Leininger, associate director of Lurie’s Community Programs and Initiatives, and Hadeis Safi, a “nonbinary” genderactivist who uses “they/them” pronouns and works for the hospital’s LGBTQ and Gender Inclusion program—which advertises its care for children with “gender expansive” identities and offers “gender-affirming” medical procedures, including puberty blockers for children.

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Lightfoot Wants Chicago Drivers Under Constant Surveillance, But Look at What a Camera Caught Her SUV Doing

Chicago drivers are increasingly subjected to speed limit and red-light cameras that automatically send out millions in fines every year, and if they don’t pay, they can lose their driver’s license.

Meanwhile, Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s motorcade reportedly has racked up hundreds of dollars in fines that she has refused to pay — without any consequence at all.

According to a review of public records by CWB Chicago, Lightfoot’s police-driven SUVs have been recorded exceeding the speed limit and going through red lights by the city’s traffic camera system several times in the last year — and none of the fines has been paid.

Several other cars registered to her motorcade also have had fines assessed but never paid, the report said.

CWB Chicago even found that one of the vehicles is now eligible for booting and being impounded because the fines are so far in arrears.

Worst of all, two of the speeding incidents occurred while Lightfoot’s SUVs were driving through school zones while exceeding the speed limit.

The report said none of the $658 in fines accumulated by the mayor’s motorcade since May 2021 has been paid.

But this is not just a recent habit. Her motorcade cars have a long history of breaking traffic laws, getting tickets and fines, and never paying them. It has been so bad that the city has gotten in a habit of just forgiving them because they never get paid anyway, the Chicago Tribune reported in 2020.

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As Chicago Crime Sends Businesses Packing, Scientists Create Algorithm To Detect In Advance

Chicago’s legendary crime has caused businesses to leave town amid the growing threat of violence.

“We would do thousands of jobs a year in the city, but as we got robbed more, my people operating rollers and pavers we got robbed, our equipment would get stolen in broad daylight and there would usually be a gun involved, and it got expensive and it got dangerous,” said Gary Rabine, who pulled his road paving company out of the city after his crews were repeatedly robbed.

Rabine told Fox News that the increased costs of security and insurance for “thousands” of jobs in the city eventually caused expenses to be “twice as much as they should be” per employee.

Billionaire Ken Griffin moved his firm, Citadel, from Chicago to Miami, after saying in October 2021 that “Chicago is like Afghanistan, on a good day, and that’s a problem,” adding that he saw “25 bullet shots in the glass window of the retail space” in the building he lives in.

“If people aren’t safe here, they’re not going to live here,” he told the Wall Street Journal in April. “I’ve had multiple colleagues mugged at gunpoint. I’ve had a colleague stabbed on the way to work. Countless issues of burglary. I mean, that’s a really difficult backdrop with which to draw talent to your city from.”

AI to the rescue?

Scientists from the University of Chicago have created a new “AI” algorithm that can predict crime a week in advance.

By learning patterns in time and geographic locations from publicly available data on violent and property crimes, the “AI” can predict crimes up to one week in advance with around 90% accuracy.

The tool was tested and validated using historical data from the City of Chicago around two broad categories of reported events: violent crimes (homicides, assaults, and batteries) and property crimes (burglaries, thefts, and motor vehicle thefts). These data were used because they were most likely to be reported to police in urban areas where there is historical distrust and lack of cooperation with law enforcement. Such crimes are also less prone to enforcement bias, as is the case with drug crimes, traffic stops, and other misdemeanor infractions.

Previous efforts at crime prediction often use an epidemic or seismic approach, where crime is depicted as emerging in “hotspots” that spread to surrounding areas. These tools miss out on the complex social environment of cities, however, and don’t consider the relationship between crime and the effects of police enforcement. –PhysOrg

The model isolates crime by analyzing time and spacial coordinates of discrete events and detecting patterns to predict future events. It worked just as well with data from seven other US cities; Atlanta, Austin, Detroit, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Portland, and San Francisco

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