Welcome to the Reader‘s morning briefing for Thursday, November 16, 2017.
Chicago Police Department superintendent Eddie Johnson is expected to announce Thursday that Englewood shootings and homicides “are on pace to reach historic lows in 2017,” according to the Sun-Times. Recent data refutes Englewood’s reputation for being one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in the city and even in the U.S. There were only 158 incidents of gun violence reported in the neighborhood as of October 31, compared to 302 during the same time period in 2016. Johnson credits the force’s “implementation of tech-based crime-fighting strategies that gel with community policing” for the significant decrease. [Sun-Times]
- Sessions’s Justice Department is questioning Illinois’s new Rauner-backed immigration bill
The U.S. Department of Justice, led by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, is questioning Illinois’s “sanctuary state” law. Over the summer Governor Bruce Rauner signed into law the Illinois Trust Act, which prohibits Illinois law enforcement officials from holding a person in custody based on immigration status. Sessions has been attacking Chicago’s sanctuary city policy for nearly a year, and now he’s released a statement accusing Illinois and other states, cities, and counties of holding “the view that the protection of criminal aliens is more important than the protection of law-abiding citizens and the rule of law.” [Sun-Times]
Local preservationists want landmark designation for Emmett Till’s Woodlawn home
Preservation Chicago is hoping to earn a landmark designation for the Woodlawn home that civil rights movement icon Emmett Till grew up in, according to Curbed Chicago. Renters are currently living in the two-flat at 6427 S. Saint Lawrence. Till, 14, was brutally lynched in Mississippi in 1955 and his killers were acquitted. [Curbed Chicago]
