Afternoon Edition: June 15, 2020

Chicago police officers walk by a boarded up business with “Black Lives Matter” painted on it while following a protest Saturday, June 6, 2020. | Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times

Good afternoon. Here’s the latest news you need to know in Chicago. It’s about a 5-minute read that will brief you on today’s biggest stories.

This afternoon will be sunny, with a high near 74 degrees. Tonight’s low will be around 57 degrees. Tomorrow will be much warmer: sunny with a high near 85 degrees.

Top story

Blacks make up 75% of those charged with violating city curfew, data shows

As protesters took to the city’s streets to highlight racial discrepancies in police enforcement, city data shows Chicago police charged significantly more African Americans with violating the curfew imposed by Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

Of more than 400 people charged, 75% were African American, our review of the violations found.

The curfew was put into effect at 9 p.m. May 30, and continued each night until June 7, after a massive downtown protest over the murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer devolved into looting and vandalism and sparked days of unrest in the city.

The imbalance in arrests is “infuriating and tragic,” said Colleen Connell, executive director of the Illinois ACLU, particularly considering “the catalyst for these protests.”

“The curfew basically gave the Chicago Police Department carte blanche to continue over-policing people of color,” Connell said. “African Americans in the city of Chicago have long been subject to discriminatory treatment at the hands of Chicago police. … This is just the most recent example.”

We reviewed police records, obtained through a public records request, covering the first five days the curfew was in effect, and found 329 of the 440 people arrested were identified as African American. Police did not release records from June 5-7.

In a statement, CPD spokesman Thomas Ahern said the department’s enforcement of the curfew “was universal, regardless of race or neighborhood.”

In the week following the May 30 protest, police records show enforcement of the curfew largely moved away from mass arrests in areas where protests were held to almost entirely focus on the city’s West and South sides, with black Chicagoans almost exclusively charged with curfew violations.

Though the curfew was announced by Lightfoot on social media just 20 minutes before it took effect May 30, 49 people were arrested and later charged with violating the curfew during the first five minutes it was in place, police records show. Of those arrests, 45% were black, 37% were white, and 8% were identified as Hispanic by police.

Tenton Jackson, 25, was arrested at 9 p.m., according to police records. The south suburban Worth resident said he was filming on Facebook Live when he was grabbed by a police officer and had his hands bound with zip ties.

“It was mayhem. I’ve never seen anything like it before. There was smoke everywhere, fires, sirens going off,” Jackson said.

Police never announced the curfew, told Jackson to go home or gave him the opportunity to leave, he said.

“I was down there by myself, so I probably would have listened, just to not have to go through all this,” he said.

Read the full story from Matthew Hendrickson and Matt Kiefer, which includes more interviews with Chicagoans who were charged with violating the city’s curfew.

More news you need

1. A group of 20 community representatives will review the Chicago Police Department’s use of force policies, Mayor Lori Lightfoot and CPD Supt. David Brown announced today. The group came under immediate fire from the Fraternal Order Police after its community co-chair referred to police officers as “psychopaths with guns.”
2. A vaccine to protect against COVID-19 infection will be tested on at least 1,000 people in Chicago beginning next month. At least 400 of the people tested will be 65 or older, and researchers hope to test a large number of African American and Latino residents.
3. The CTA has launched a new tool to help riders avoid traveling on crowded buses, and hopefully limit the spread of the coronavirus on public transit. The Ridership Information Dashboard will show available capacity for each of the 127 bus routes, and trends for certain routes and times.
4. Chicago’s Lakefront Trail, closed since March, will reopen next week, Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s office announced today. Starting June 22, it’ll be open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. for exercise and transit.
5. Millennium Park reopened today with social distancing restrictions and mask requirements. The park is now open daily between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. to groups of 10 people or less.
6. General Iron’s move to the Southeast Side would cause more health problems for residents in a community that already suffers from heavy air pollution, Ald. Susan Sadlowski Garza said in a letter to Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s environmental office. Brett Chase has the story.

A bright one

Grant for minority business fosters sweet partnership

In times like these, we could all use good news, especially about minority-owned businesses expanding in Chicago. They’ve been dealt cruel blows lately, and some business owners question whether it’s smart to rebuild in the city even if they can.

Yet some are. Last week, the Illinois Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity put out a list of 32 minority-owned businesses and business incubators who were collectively getting $11 million in grants to support expansions and revitalize their communities. Twenty-one were in Chicago.

Stephanie Hart with John Stefanos at Cupid Candies. On the wall is a portrait of his father, Polyhronis “Paul” Stefanos.

Stephanie Hart and her Brown Sugar Bakery in Grand Crossing, known for its delectable and enormous cakes, is among them. She has both a retail store and manufacturing on 75th Street, and space was getting tight. So one day, Hart traveled about three and a half miles due west of her bakery to see John Stefanos, the owner of Cupid Candies. She heard he wanted to sell, and she was interested in the building.

They talked, laughed and bonded, and Hart ended up acquiring Cupid Candies, the equipment and the building, thus ensuring that a business known to generations will survive, and get a good sugary jolt of fresh inventory from her baked goods.

Included in the deal is Stefanos’ good counsel on all things candy and ice cream, and he and Hart are already dreaming up new products, like a brownie encased in an ice cream bar and with a pretzel for the stick — all edible and good for the environment, if not the waistline.

Read the full story from David Roeder.

From the press box

The Illinois boys high school basketball state finals are returning to their roots in Champaign following a vote by the Illinois High School Association’s board today. The finals, which had been held in Peoria for the last 25 years, will be hosted at State Farm Center, which completed a $170 million renovation in 2016.

Your daily question ☕

How are you celebrating the graduates in your life this year?

Email us (please include your name and where you live) and we might include your answer in the next Afternoon Edition.

Friday, we asked you what advice you had for Chicago’s graduating seniors. Here’s what ABC7’s Cheryl Burton said…

“I know in this highly competitive world we live in that building a social-media platform is important, but building great character has long term advantages. So guard your reputation. You only get one, so own it and protect it. Let excellence be the only difference between you and anyone else in the room.

Thanks for reading the Chicago Afternoon Edition. Got a story you think we missed? Email us here.

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