Illinois

cross-posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/21815584

If Donald Trump was actually serious about fighting crime in cities like Chicago, he, along with his congressional Republicans, would not be cutting over $800 million in public safety and crime prevention grants nationally, including cutting $158 million in funding to Illinois for violence prevention programs that deploy trained outreach workers to deescalate conflict on our streets. Cutting $71 million in law enforcement grants to Illinois, direct money for police departments through programs like Project Safe Neighborhoods, the state and local Antiterrorism Training Program, and the Rural Violent Crime Reduction Initiative, cutting $137 million in child protection measures in Illinois that protect our kids against abuse and neglect.

Trump is defunding the police.

Earlier today in the Oval Office, Donald Trump looked at the assembled cameras and asked for me personally to say, "Mr. President, can you do us the honor of protecting our city?" Instead, I say, "Mr. President, do not come to Chicago."

You are neither wanted here nor needed here. Your remarks about this effort over the last several weeks have betrayed a continuing slip in your mental faculties and are not fit for the auspicious office that you occupy.

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/30576777

Following 404 Media’s reporting and in light of new legislation, automatic license plate reader (ALPR) company Flock has stopped agencies reaching into cameras in California, Illinois, and Virginia.

here is a tool if anyone is interested in locating these cameras in their area: https://deflock.me/

in case the above archive link doesnt work: http://archive.today/0a7W6

cross-posted from: https://midwest.social/post/30576930

here is a tool if anyone is interested in locating these cameras in their area: https://deflock.me/

Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias’ office is investigating whether other Illinois police departments are breaking a state law that bars them from sharing data with outside agencies tracking people for their immigration status or for seeking an abortion.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/5292486

There are more than 500 miles between the Prairie Band Potawatomi Nation’s tribal reservation in northeastern Kansas and 1,500 acres of mostly prairie in northern Illinois.

So, Raphael Wahwassuck has come far to visit the site of a long-gone cabin there. Except it’s not an unfamiliar place to him and his kin. Wahwassuck is a member of the Prairie Band’s tribal council and a direct descendant of Chief Shab-eh-nay, for whom the state park is named after.

Most members of the tribe were forced from their homelands of the Great Lakes region into Kansas. They ceded approximately 28 million acres to the United States government, while an 1829 treaty promised Chief Shab-eh-nay 1,280 acres of reservation in Illinois.

Yet when he left in 1849 to visit his relatives in Kansas, the U.S. illegally sold the chief’s land to white settlers.

Over the last 15 years, the tribe has spent $10 million to purchase parts of the original reservation — including 130 acres near Shabbona Lake State Park in what is now DeKalb County, Illinois.

For Wahwassuck, this return is a step toward “correcting some of the historical injustices” his tribe has experienced.

Full Article

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/31504672

If you laugh at this, you have to send our campaign $5: https://secure.actblue.com/donate/abu-youtube

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/30983917

In a carefully planned overnight heist, thieves cut through a safe and stole more than $1.3 million worth of jewelry from a store outside Chicago, the store owner said.

The burglars worked for nearly five hours during the night of May 9-10, 2025, disabling Internet service to the entire office complex where Rick Kleinvehn Diamond Brokers in South Barrington, Illinois, is located before breaking into the store, according to store owner Rick Kleinvehn.

South Barrington is about 45 minutes outside Chicago.

"They used a wet saw, and the interior where the safe was became all slushy, muddy, just kind of a goo on the floor from them cutting for hours and hours through that steel," Kleinvehn told ABC News. "They had buckets, and they were filling buckets and pouring it on the hot metal."