Free Republic

<p>CHICAGO (WLS) -- A high school student has been charged in a shooting in the Brighton Park neighborhood last week that left three people dead, the Chicago Tribune reports.</p>

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Democratic Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL), Ranking Member of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, released the following statement in response to leaked memos from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) implementing President Trump’s controversial executive orders on immigration.  "These guidelines are now the official policy of the Trump Administration, implementing the President's mass deportation Executive Orders. I have called on my counterpart on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Chairman John Cornyn, to hold hearings on these orders—we need an immediate public examination in Congress of these heavy-handed, anti-family policies. The Senate should also pass the bill...

An unseasonably warm Presidents Day holiday weekend saw at least 37 people shot across the city, leaving five dead, according to Chicago Police.(snip) (snip) officers responding to a call of shots fired in the 900 block of East 132nd Street found a man in his 20s in a field with gunshot wounds across his chest and torso. (snip) (snip) 33-year-old Eddie Thomas was sitting in a vehicle in the 4900 block of West Van Buren when someone in a silver car pulled up and opened fire, (snip) Earlier Saturday, a man was found shot to death in Back of the...

A man who escaped from an Illinois prison in 2003 has been arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Atlanta. An ICE spokesman says Jorge Soberanis-Rumaldo was taken into custody Friday as part of an enforcement operation targeting criminal illegal immigrants. Authorities say Soberanis-Rumaldo is a Mexican national who was in the U.S. illegally.

A man whose father was killed at a New York City restaurant bombing for which the militant Puerto Rican nationalist group FALN claimed responsibility lashed out at Chicago aldermen Thursday for approving an honorary street designation for FALN leader Oscar Lopez Rivera. At the behest of local Ald. Roberto Maldonado (26th), the City Council’s Transportation Committee voted without a word of debate to designate a three-block stretch of North Luis Munoz Marin Drive as Oscar Lopez Rivera Way. Joseph Connor was just 9 years old when his 33-year-old banker father Frank was killed in the 1975 explosion at Fraunces Tavern...

<p>Democratic U.S. Rep. Robin Kelly of Matteson has written a letter to President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence calling on them to do something about violence in Chicago, and included photos of the 38 children age 16 or younger whom her aides determined had been shot and killed in the city since February 2016.</p>

What if — and it's a crazy thought, I know, but stay with me — what if it actually isn't a good idea to allow nearly everyone to buy all the guns they want with minimal to nonexistent background checks? What if it's not just poverty, joblessness, illegal drugs, wimpy judges and fractured families causing the sort of mayhem that recently saw three kids die of bullet wounds in just two days in Chicago? What if the glut of guns is a part of it?

A 10-year-old boy who was in a car as it was carjacked said the suspects dropped him off when they realized he was in the back seat and told him to “have a good day at school.” “I went to open the car door for my mom and out of nowhere some girl came over and took me with her,” said Richard Rodriguez. “I was scared but I didn’t want the girl to see me. I was afraid I was going to get hurt.” Chicago police said the vehicle was stolen just before 6 a.m. Tuesday in the 2000 block...

Chicago (AFP) - A toddler and a man were fatally shot while riding in a car in a Valentine's Day attack captured in a live video on Facebook. Police said Wednesday that they were still searching for a suspect in the shooting which shocked Chicago, a city grappling with a surge in violence so severe that it has drawn the condemnation of President Donald Trump. The two-year-old boy, identified by officials as Lavontay White, was shot in the head on Tuesday and died at a hospital. The boy was riding in the back seat of a red sedan, with his...

(Full article title: Chef Rick Bayless to Close Multiple Chicago Restaurants ‘Out of Respect’ For Immigration Demonstrations) Celebrity chef Rick Bayless said Wednesday he would be closing four of his Chicago restaurants "out of respect" for his staff's decision to support a planned civil action in response to recent immigration issues. Organizers in cities across the U.S. are telling immigrants to miss class, miss work and not shop on Thursday as a way to show the country how important they are to America's economy and way of life. The protests have been dubbed "A Day Without Immigrants." Bayless said Frontera...

Six people, including a 12-year-old girl, were shot Wednesday night on Chicago's South Side during a memorial for a victim of a previous act of gun violence, police said. The shootings occurred about 8:16 p.m. in the city’s Greater Grand Crossing community in a "business establishment" on the 500 block of East 75th Street, Chicago police said. Community activist Jedidiah Brown told reporters that "the opposition" to those attending the memorial came through an alley before opening fire on the group of mourners. He added that the mother of the person being memorialized was also among the victims, though police...

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Monday that Margarita Del Pilar Fitzpatrick, a resident alien who registered to vote illegally, can be deported for the act despite her claim that she did so at the direction of a DMV employee. Fitzpatrick arrived in the country in 2002 and is married to a U.S. citizen. Fitzpatrick applied for an Illinois driver’s licence a few years after arriving in the country, court records show. During the process, the DMV clerk asked Fitzpatrick if she wished to register to vote, telling her “it’s up to you.”

Two scenes in Chicago: •Children playing basketball in a schoolyard suddenly scatter. Because it begins to rain or was time to go home? Yes, in most neighborhoods that's why children run with purpose. In parts of Chicago, children run from gunfire. They know the sound. They know they should duck. Kanari Gentry Bowers, 12 years old, is in a West Englewood elementary schoolyard with classmates early Saturday evening when they hear shots. Kanari knows to duck, her uncle says, but the kids scatter. Kanari is struck in the head by a bullet.

Chicago police clear officers of racial profiling in stop of U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush On Aug. 4, 2016, U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush was pulled over in Bronzeville. He was let go without a ticket being issued, but later filed a complaint with IPRA alleging racial profiling. This video contains body cam footage from one of the officers that Rush filed the complaint against. (Source: CPD) Chief spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said the department's Bureau of Internal Affairs found that the two Wentworth District officers acted properly because they had probable cause to make the stop. Earlier that day, officers at roll...

A female Palestinian-Arab terrorist who murdered two Israeli students is to be a featured speaker at a Jewish Voice for Peace conference in Chicago. […] More than half of the featured speakers listed on the Jewish Voice for Peace event’s website are Muslim or Arab. But perhaps the most significant speaker will be Rasmea Odeh, a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) who was convicted of murdering two Hebrew University students in Jerusalem in 1969. […] Odeh was released from prison in a prisoner swap after serving ten years of her (life) sentence. …

A handful of Chicago restaurants are baking cookies and selling them through Feb. 24, with the proceeds benefitting the abortion group Planned Parenthood, the Chicago Eater reported. ADVERTISEMENT ADVERTISEMENT Participating restaurants i the pro-abortion fundraiser: Bad Hunter bang bang pie shop Cellar Door Provisions Elizabeth Elske Floriole Giant Honey Butter Fried Chicken Hoosier Mama Pie Company LOba pastry Local Foods Lula PArachute PLeasant House Bread SPINNING J“Planned Parenthood is an amazing organization that directly serves many of the groups impacted by President Trump’s recent executive orders,” the Planned Parenthood of Illinois Bake Sale website stated.However, this couldn’t be further from...

The four people charged in the Facebook Live attack that drew outrage across the city and country pleaded not guilty at their arraignment Friday before Cook County Judge William Hooks. All the defendants’ assistant public defenders entered the pleas on behalf of their clients. Their next court date will be March 1.

A state representative has a resolution making October 2017 “Zombie Awareness Month.” State Rep. Emanuel “Chris” Welch (D-Hillside) said he wants to grab media attention with the title in his resolution. He hopes the bill will encourage discussions on how to be prepared for the next disaster. “If you can find something like zombies, which modern culture is talking about, you’ll catch people’s attention,” Welch said. He also thinks “Zombie Awareness Month” is a better name than “Disaster Preparedness Month.” “When you have six or seven thousand pieces of legislation, you have got to have creative ways to bring attention...

Editor’s note: This is the third in an occasional series of opinion essays, produced in cooperation with the University of Chicago Crime Lab, exploring solutions to the scourge of gun violence in Chicago. The Crime Lab released a report this month about the historic surge in There is much to learn from the Crime Lab’s report. For example, many people likely do not know that almost 20 percent of Chicago’s homicide victims are children and teens; that almost half of gun violence victims are not affiliated with a gang; and just 6 percent of shootings last year resulted in arrest.

With his sights set on Chicago, America’s third-largest city, as a target, recently-elected President Donald Trump claims to have a solution for the violent city where gunfire has become commonplace and created a homicide rate that last year reached a 20-year high. His plan, while vague, follows a Jan 24 tweet in which he said, “Chicago’s murder rate is record setting – 4,331 shooting victims with 762 murders in 2016. If the Mayor can’t do it he must ask for Federal help.” Trump later added, again in a tweet, that if Chicago doesn’t fix the horrible “carnage” he would “send...