Concerts

In her first campaign for mayor, Lori Lightfoot was something of a cipher, someone Chicagoans could project any number of feelings or impressions upon. 

She was an experienced lawyer who had undertaken a few public-facing roles. She tapped into popular discontent with the politicians running against her and won in a landslide.

Lightfoot is more animated on the stump talking about neighborhood investments than she is about any other issue, even if, as the Tribune reported, many of the largest initiatives of her signature Invest South/West initiative were planned after she took office.

And it is meaningful and important that Chicago elected a gay Black woman to lead its government after decades of homophobic, racist, and chauvinistic politics. But her tendency to repeatedly say things that simultaneously alienate both sides of an issue, compounded by the often-displayed harshness of her personality, her inexperience managing the staff and bureaucracy that manage the nation’s third-largest city, and the inescapable difficulty in connecting with the public have made her reelection anything but certain. 

Despite how removed elected officials are from people’s daily lives, Lightfoot is no longer a cipher. Chicago will soon see if voters give her another term.

The Reader interviewed Lightfoot on Jan. 13, after she hosted an interfaith prayer breakfast honoring Martin Luther King Jr. 

Gettinger: You faced an unprecedented confluence of crises in your first term: the pandemic, the George Floyd uprising, a restive City Council, just to name a few. How do you navigate that as a new mayor?

Lightfoot: Very carefully. Look, it has been unprecedented. We’ve had a lot of headwinds, some of which were clearly unexpected and beyond our control, top among them a global pandemic that turned everything that we understood as our role upside-down. There’s no playbook for that.

Luckily, we have a very well-prepared Department of Public Health. Luckily we built a very good, strong team—not just subject matter experts but people who are truly committed to service. And we have grown together. We as a mayor’s office, we as a city government, but we as a city—we’ve been through life together. Every facet of it in these past four years.

My primary focus in the early days of the pandemic was really focused on three big buckets. One was to make sure that our healthcare system didn’t buckle, because at that time we were seeing what was happening in China and other parts of Asia. We were seeing what was happening on the West Coast and starting to see what was happening in New York and the surrounding area. 

So I was very concerned that we did not have a health care system that buckled and was not able to manage itself to manage the patients who were in need, because that was one of the dire predictions that was resonating across the media in that early time. So the health care system and making sure that that didn’t happen was very much on my mind. And not surprisingly, another area of focus was health care workers and first responders. Your health care system is going to fail if the workers are not safe and protected. So we did a lot in those early days to make sure that we were shoring up those vital essential workers: first responders, police, fire, EMTs. That was also really important. 

And then also in our city, making sure that our most vulnerable residents: our seniors, our homeless, the people who were not connected to health care—those most vulnerable residents were the worry of many of us, me included, and making sure that we were doing everything that we could right away to reach out to them. That’s why we decompressed homeless shelters. That’s why we worked hand in hand with Sheriff Dart to ensure the Cook County Jail didn’t become a leading COVID hotspot. 

And then fanning out from there, as we started seeing data from testing rolling in and understanding who was getting sick, who was dying—I’ll never forget for the rest of my life—in early April learning about the fact that Black people in this city were dying at seven times the rate of every other demographic. That was the ultimate call to action. 

The election of a Black lesbian was historic, and you were elected with a lot of support from the LGBTQ community. Can you talk about the policies you’ve enacted to make Chicago more welcoming to the LGBTQ community?

Well first of all, I think that it’s important that I lead by example and that I’m unapologetic. You know well that over the arc of our history there have been prominent leaders from our community who never say the words, “I am gay.” That’s not me. And so I think that part of it is really important.

I cannot tell you the number of parents who come to me, usually pulling me aside and whispering in my ear, “My son/my daughter has come out. We admire you.” Because, look, I think a lot of straight parents who didn’t have that vision for their child, didn’t know that that was a possibility. When they learn—even if they’re accepting—they’re worried about: “What kind of life is my child going to have? Are they going to be happy? Are they going to be able to have a family? Will they be accepted? Will they have the kind of life that I envisioned for them?’”

And what I hope is, through me as a role model, that I’m able to show, “Yes, yes yes”—the answer to all those questions. Vanquish those fears, because there is, in this moment in our time, even as we’re in this tough time—and I don’t underestimate that, for our community that is under siege, particularly our trans brothers and sisters—that those parents who are out there and particularly our children see that there are people like me who’ve fought that fight, come out on the other side of it, and are better for it, frankly. And that they can now walk in the path that was blazed for me and that I am hopefully blazing for them.

In your 2018 framework for LGBTQ Chicago, there was a promise or a proposal of shelters for LGBTQ kids in the city. That hasn’t happened. What have you done to address homeless LGBTQ youth?

I think the thing that we have done is make sure that we are supporting those existing places, both with beds but, importantly, programming in places of connection. Because when I was campaigning back in 2018 for example, I went to a shelter up on the north side, just north of Addison on Ashland, and remember thinking, “These folks need help and resources.” And what I heard from the people who ran the shelter and employees is that young people, and particularly young people of color, were coming from all over the city because those resources weren’t there.

Now I’m not going to tell you we’ve done everything yet. We haven’t. But we have made sure that resources are flowing, that supports are there, even though this is a very tough time. I’m very painfully aware that a certain percentage of the people who are living on the street are the people from my community, LGBTQ youth, who left their homes or were thrown out of their home because they sought to live their authentic life. I think there’s still a lot more work that we must do, and I am 100 percent committed to doing it.

Particularly funding—I think of it as earmarks for transgender Chicagoans and that kind of stuff. What is your administration doing to address the high rates of unemployment, off-market employment, homelessness—particularly for trans people in Chicago. What are you guys doing to invest in that community?

First and foremost, we have to start with a values statement. We have to recognize and say, “Our trans brothers and sisters deserve the same access to the benefits of this city as everyone else.” The values statement is critically important, then we have to back it up with real, concrete, tangible actions. Again, making sure that, for example, on my advisory committee, that we have members of the trans community that are front and center.

Who’s on it?

It’s a pretty diverse group, and they’re not shy. But making sure that I’m hearing directly from them about the continuing challenge of their community. I’m, obviously, a lesbian, but I’m not a trans woman or man, and I don’t get to pretend that I have captured and understand fully the unique challenges that they face on a day-to-day basis. Making sure that I am present in those communities and that people see me with my trans brothers and sisters. 

And then again, it’s about putting your money where your mouth is, making sure that we are putting money into resources. It’s also about raising the necessity with other institutions within city government who need to be there to support the trans community, notably the police department. We can’t live in a world where trans lives don’t matter. We can’t live in a world where trans women in particular are getting assaulted and murdered and those cases are falling by the wayside. 

One of the things I’m proudest of is increasing the number of liaisons from the police department to the LGBTQ+ community and making sure that we are focused on supporting trans lives. We have a member of our community who is a senior leader in the police department in a community policing role. So making sure that our presence is noted, that this is a priority for me, and that we are holding ourselves, each and every department, accountable to be responsive to the needs of that and other vulnerable communities in our city.

Do you think the relationship between you and the Chicago Teachers Union can be repaired? 

If I see, and they articulate, a commitment to putting our children first, a commitment to respecting the voices of parents as the first principles, the core principles around which they rally, then absolutely. I think there’s ample opportunity for us to reach common ground because that’s where I’m at. That’s where I’ve always been at. Our kids come first. Creating safe, nurturing environments for them has to be the primary work that we’re about. And we would love the partnership of the CTU, but I think we’re, right now, on different planets.

Another historic first is the fact that civilians will be elected to police district councils. How do you intend to engage with the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability and the district councilors to improve public safety, both in terms of crime and police misconduct?

I think that their primary focus should be, as embedded in the ordinance, to help decipher the various levers of accountability and to be a voice for community members who need constitutional policing. An emphasis on “constitutional,” because they need a police department that sees them and respects them. They need a police department that understands the most-important tool that officers have is being a champion of a community. And I think, to me, that’s got to be the primary focus and work of the commission. 

And I’ve said it to the interim group of commissioners. I’m going to say it again, over and over again, because I believe that, to me, is their highest calling.

How can the city address homelessness and ensure we’re comprehensively and sustainably getting people the homes they need to survive and thrive?

I think we have laid the groundwork for that in these first four years. Our relentless work on closing the gap in affordable units across our city is critically important, and that goes to address the issue. I think our seven-fold increase in the amount of services that are now available to residents of our city at no cost is a part of it. I think our monumental investments in substance abuse addiction treatments are a big part of it. Because you know as well as I do, people are on the street for a variety of reasons. Some of it’s financial, some of it’s mental health, some of it’s substance abuse, and sometimes it’s all of the above. 

So we’ve done, I think, important work and brought the biggest investments in the city’s history, but we know that there’s more work to do, and this is a very complicated problem. We are fortunate that we don’t see the proliferation of homeless people on our streets like we see in other cities across the country, particularly on the West Coast and the Northwest Coast, despite sometimes the hyperbolic language that we hear from some. 

But we got a challenge, and I firmly believe, particularly as we sit here in January—it’s not as cold as it usually is this time of year, but none of God’s children should be living on the streets in cold weather, hot weather, or in any weather. It’s not a life that supports them in what I hope are pursuits to live out their best lives and to really be a part of the fabric of our city. It pains me when I go by and see the encampments. It pains me when I see the way in which people are suffering. 

But it’s not just about “do I have enough units?” It’s about making sure that we’re forming a relationship with the people, that we have the wraparound services to help them see the virtue in moving through the various stages of housing to get to a place of independent living.

In the next four years, what will you do to improve CTA reliability, frequency, safety, and comfort?

The reason that we’ve made progress and we’ve seen the numbers of violent incidents of crime go down in the last few months of 2022 was a number of things that we put in place. Number one is that we sat and listened to the frontline workers: the bus drivers, the people who work in the rail section of CTA. And they told us what they felt like they needed to feel safe. That’s important. In the dark old days of the summer of 2020 when we heard from Amalgamated Transit Union members: “We don’t feel safe. We don’t want to come to work. We don’t feel like we’re going to be protected.” We have to be constantly listening and engaging with them because the people who are closest to the challenges are closest to the solutions.

The other reason we made progress is because what we heard from those workers, from riders, is we want more police on the CTA. We want uniformed officers to be present. Heard it loud and clear. We’re delivering that. 

The CTA also, frankly, has to step up its game, and it has. You can’t just issue rider alerts; you’ve got to go out to communities. You also have to listen. You’ve got to be part of the solution. You’ve got to bring the non-uniformed security personnel. And you’ve got to keep being diligent all the time.

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For immediate release

Chicago-area media strategist and nonprofit executive Solomon Lieberman has been hired as the new CEO and publisher of the Reader Institute for Community Journalism (RICJ), which operates the 51-year-old newspaper, Chicago Reader. He will take the reins mid-February from Tracy Baim, who announced her intent to leave last summer.

Lieberman, who has a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University, most recently worked as founding executive director of the Institute for Political Innovation, a national think tank that researched and advocated for nonpartisan election reform. Previously, he served in several capacities at the nonprofit Better Government Association in Chicago, most recently as vice president of strategy and civic engagement. He has a bachelor’s of arts in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“We are very excited about the media savvy, passion, and business-development acumen that Solomon brings to this job,” RICJ board chair Eileen Rhodes said. “He has worked in nonprofit Chicago journalism, and built a successful nonpartisan organization with national reach. Our hope is that he continues to grow the RICJ nonprofit, strengthening the infrastructure needed to lead this legacy newspaper for the next fifty years.”

“I keep pinching myself,” Lieberman said. “I get to follow Tracy Baim’s lead, serve a beautiful, interdependent community of makers, members, readers, leaders, business owners and donors, and support community journalism at its finest.”

The nationwide six-month search for the leader of RICJ was conducted by the Morten Group, LLC. The board of directors of RICJ interviewed the top candidates, and made the final decision. Morten Group, a national consulting firm based in Chicago, focuses on executive placement and transitions, and racial equity integration and strategic planning.

“The past four years have been more than challenging,” said Baim. “When it became independent from the Sun-Times, we first had to rebuild the business side of the organization. The next challenge was surviving during the early phase of the COVID pandemic, and most recently, in May 2022, we were finally able to obtain full nonprofit independence. Now it’s time for the next phase, bringing in more resources to stabilize and thrive. I am excited for what Solomon will bring to this equation. I am also very confident in the incredible team we have built at RICJ and our Chicago Independent Media Alliance (CIMA) project. I am proud of the work I have done to build both the Reader and our local media ecosystem, and I plan to continue to advocate for community media.”

“We can’t thank Tracy enough for her passion and dedication to saving the Chicago Reader—several times over the past four and a half years,” said Rhodes. “Tracy, who has been doing community journalism for 39 years, including as co-founder of Windy City Times, was the right person at the right time. I have been so happy to work by her side, as board treasurer and then chair, as we met the incredibly difficult challenges of keeping the Reader alive.”

Since Baim took over as publisher of the Chicago Reader in 2018, the organization has moved to strengthen its infrastructure and has diversified its revenues, distribution, leadership, and staff. It has tripled in revenue, more than doubled its number of employees, and has expanded its print and online readership. In 2018, there was one person of color on the team. Current leadership consists of 57 percent people of color, 57 percent LGBTQ+, 15 percent disabled, and 86 percent female, nonbinary, or trans. Of the overall staff, 47 percent are people of color, 33 percent LGBTQ, 8 percent disabled, and 67 percent female, nonbinary, or trans.

For more information on RICJ and the Chicago Reader, see www.chicagoreader.com. For CIMA info see www.IndieMediaChi.org.

Read More

For immediate release

Chicago-area media strategist and nonprofit executive Solomon Lieberman has been hired as the new CEO and publisher of the Reader Institute for Community Journalism (RICJ), which operates the 51-year-old newspaper, Chicago Reader. He will take the reins mid-February from Tracy Baim, who announced her intent to leave last summer.

Lieberman, who has a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University, most recently worked as founding executive director of the Institute for Political Innovation, a national think tank that researched and advocated for nonpartisan election reform. Previously, he served in several capacities at the nonprofit Better Government Association in Chicago, most recently as vice president of strategy and civic engagement. He has a bachelor’s of arts in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“We are very excited about the media savvy, passion, and business-development acumen that Solomon brings to this job,” RICJ board chair Eileen Rhodes said. “He has worked in nonprofit Chicago journalism, and built a successful nonpartisan organization with national reach. Our hope is that he continues to grow the RICJ nonprofit, strengthening the infrastructure needed to lead this legacy newspaper for the next fifty years.”

“I keep pinching myself,” Lieberman said. “I get to follow Tracy Baim’s lead, serve a beautiful, interdependent community of makers, members, readers, leaders, business owners and donors, and support community journalism at its finest.”

The nationwide six-month search for the leader of RICJ was conducted by the Morten Group, LLC. The board of directors of RICJ interviewed the top candidates, and made the final decision. Morten Group, a national consulting firm based in Chicago, focuses on executive placement and transitions, and racial equity integration and strategic planning.

“The past four years have been more than challenging,” said Baim. “When it became independent from the Sun-Times, we first had to rebuild the business side of the organization. The next challenge was surviving during the early phase of the COVID pandemic, and most recently, in May 2022, we were finally able to obtain full nonprofit independence. Now it’s time for the next phase, bringing in more resources to stabilize and thrive. I am excited for what Solomon will bring to this equation. I am also very confident in the incredible team we have built at RICJ and our Chicago Independent Media Alliance (CIMA) project. I am proud of the work I have done to build both the Reader and our local media ecosystem, and I plan to continue to advocate for community media.”

“We can’t thank Tracy enough for her passion and dedication to saving the Chicago Reader—several times over the past four and a half years,” said Rhodes. “Tracy, who has been doing community journalism for 39 years, including as co-founder of Windy City Times, was the right person at the right time. I have been so happy to work by her side, as board treasurer and then chair, as we met the incredibly difficult challenges of keeping the Reader alive.”

Since Baim took over as publisher of the Chicago Reader in 2018, the organization has moved to strengthen its infrastructure and has diversified its revenues, distribution, leadership, and staff. It has tripled in revenue, more than doubled its number of employees, and has expanded its print and online readership. In 2018, there was one person of color on the team. Current leadership consists of 57 percent people of color, 57 percent LGBTQ+, 15 percent disabled, and 86 percent female, nonbinary, or trans. Of the overall staff, 47 percent are people of color, 33 percent LGBTQ, 8 percent disabled, and 67 percent female, nonbinary, or trans.

For more information on RICJ and the Chicago Reader, see www.chicagoreader.com. For CIMA info see www.IndieMediaChi.org.

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Safe consumption sites (SCS), also known as overdose prevention sites, are places where people can use drugs, safely and without threat of arrest or stigma, in the presence of folks trained to respond in case anyone accidentally overdoses. SCS supply sterile paraphernalia, reducing the risk of infection and disease, and guests can test their drugs for fentanyl before consuming. 

As a harm reduction worker once reminded me, safe consumption sites have existed as long as humans have been doing drugs, with or without permission from the law. Whenever drug users come together to support each other–whether in a private home or public park, watching someone’s back when they nod out, making sure they’re on their side, administering the opioid-overdose reversing medication naloxone if someone needs it–that’s a safe consumption site. But being able to operate in the daylight, without fear of prosecution and with access to funding and social and medical services, would be safer.

In 2022, the number of Chicagoans who died from accidental overdose was higher than the number who died by guns. Also in 2022, Representative La Shawn Ford introduced the Overdose Prevention Pilot Act, calling for state support to open SCS sites in Chicago.

SCS are the opposite of the abstinence-only approach most of us are familiar (and therefore comfortable) with when it comes to reducing drug deaths, but evidence shows that in neighborhoods where they’re allowed to operate, overdose deaths are reduced, the number of ambulance calls for treating overdoses lowers dramatically, and HIV rates decrease. According to the Drug Policy Alliance, “more than 100 evidence-based, peer-reviewed studies” link SCS to outcomes like “increasing entry into substance use disorder treatment” along with other medical and social services, “reducing the amount and frequency that clients use drugs,” and “reducing public drug use and syringe and/or other drug paraphernalia litter.”

It’s not so much my answer has evolved as I have a personal lived experience where, in the neighborhoods in which Black people in particular live, drugs have been a very sore, hurtful, harmful, damaging experience to so many.

On January 30, 2023, WBEZ released their Chicago mayoral candidate questionnaire, which included the question, “Would you support setting up ‘safe consumption sites’ where people use pre-obtained illegal drugs under the supervision of trained health workers?” 

Five of the nine candidates answered yes; Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Representative Chuy Garcia chose “other,” and Commissioner Brandon Johnson and former CPS CEO Paul Vallas replied “no.” 

In his response, Johnson further elaborated: “Given Chicago’s history, these sites would most likely be on the South and West sides, further burdening already struggling neighborhoods. There are other ways to address the drug epidemic and aid those in need, while also protecting our communities.” However, later that morning, when a Twitter user asked Johnson if he does, in fact, support SCS, Johnson replied: “Yes, and it’s not either/or. It’s ‘we need more.’ I’ve lost family to mental illness, addiction, and homelessness. I want to go beyond safe consumption sites to address mental health care and [the] unhoused. I also believe sites should be accessible to those in need throughout our city.”

That afternoon, I asked campaign spokesman Ronnie Reese if Johnson would be up for an on-the-record conversation about where he’s at with SCS. Within 15 minutes, Johnson called my phone: we spoke for about half an hour. Below is our conversation, lightly edited and condensed.

Prout: I’ll start out just by asking you just straight up: Do you support safe consumption sites in Chicago?

Johnson: Yes, I do support safe consumption sites in Chicago, and I also want to make sure that there’s some real equity with these sites. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but my eldest brother died from untreated trauma, addicted and unhoused. I have another brother who is also struggling with addiction.

These individuals who are struggling like my brother—they’re parents. They’re attached to other lives. And so we have to treat the entire family, right? We know those who are struggling with addiction, they do have triggers. And in some cases, those triggers have a profound impact on the other people in their lives. Making sure that there’s childcare services, there’s counseling for families–they’re gonna need it.

With the WBEZ answer, just to be clear, is that an answer you don’t stand by? Did you say no, and then your view has evolved since answering that question? 

It’s a combination, right? Like sometimes these spaces don’t allow for the context that I need to offer up a full answer. When you have multiple siblings who are struggling with addiction–I’m gonna date myself–you come home and your VCR or your class ring is stolen, or your coat is gone. Or you have children who have to figure out who to feed themselves, because, you know, their parents who are struggling with this addiction are not healthy enough to support their family.

Let’s talk about it this way. I have an older brother who died addicted and unhoused. How do I talk to my niece, nephew and his grandchildren about how their father or grandfather may have overdosed, and his brother, me, was trying to figure out a safe way for a drug to be administered? You know what I’m saying? These dynamics are complicated. Drugs have been used as a means to harm neighborhoods, and they’ve become the economic drivers for some individuals who believe that’s the only pathway to survive. So you have neighbors selling drugs to their neighbors in areas where schools are not funded, access to health care not available, transportation, jobs, accessibility–all of that is missing. It’s not so much my answer has evolved as I have a personal lived experience where, in the neighborhoods in which Black people in particular live, drugs have been a very sore, hurtful, harmful, damaging experience to so many. 

And so, it’s not either yes or no. It’s like, well, I support these sites if it’s done in an equitable way, and we’re providing other services to communities that have had to live through the drug market. [Funding a safe use site] in the same community where a neighborhood school was not fully funded–you understand? The contradiction that exists in our society?

Once a week, I go to the Chicago Recovery Alliance in East Garfield Park to pack Narcan kits, sterile crack pipes, and sterile needles. It was counterintuitive at first: I thought, “But if you want to protect people, don’t you want to have them not using? Isn’t it just going to make their addiction worse? Isn’t this going to promote other people using more, or introduce people who haven’t used before?”

But conversations with Black people who live on the west side changed my mind. When one woman was talking about why she carries Narcan, she said, “People are overdosing in my front lawn. I might as well have the ability to bring them back.” 

Now Narcan is becoming more socially acceptable, and is understood as a harm reduction tool. Safe consumption sites are still different. Right now there’s much more caution, more concern.

Yeah, you’ve laid it out well. The first thing I thought about when you were describing the evolution of this approach, is how we’re telling children, “Drugs are bad, say no to them. But we want you to come visit this site so that you can see how people use them safely.” I’m a parent and a teacher, I have family that’s struggled–it’s hard for me. 

A nephew snuck into one of my house parties. I didn’t get a chance to see a lot of [as he grew up] because it was what his mother thought was better: to keep him away from everybody associated with his father, including his uncle and his aunts. Now his uncle is running for mayor. He’s gonna read that his uncle is trying to figure out how to have safe consumption sites for individuals who are struggling with an addiction, and it was that very addiction that kept him from being able to have a father growing up. 

Can you talk a little bit more about what you mean by the “equitable distribution” of safe consumption sites?

We want to make sure that the sites are available in the neighborhoods that the individuals who are suffering from addiction live in. You want to eliminate as many barriers as possible.

Individuals who are struggling with an addiction, maybe they need a safe space where they can engage in that particular substance. But you know, these are individuals who are often already unhoused, right? Or they’re housing insecure, to say the least. So what are we doing to put people on a pathway where they’re not relying on this space? Where they can live, and work, and be part of their families?

My brother who’s still alive, he tells us he doesn’t want to continue to live with this addiction. That’s what he shared, and we always want to believe in that, believe him when he says that.  So what type of support that we surround him with in order to secure the type of life that he desires, one without addiction?

I’m interested in what you said about how families need support. NA and AA groups talk about addiction being a family disease. Some folks I know on Lower Wacker and in the Loop have lost custody of a child as they’ve tried to deal with their own addictions. Can you talk specifically about what support for families that have a loved one who’s addicted might look like, especially when that person is a parent?

That’s powerful. It’s a really powerful question. My brother, he’s got a few children. But his youngest daughter is the person you can really see really struggling. I’m trying to condense this as much as I possibly can, but it’s pretty fresh. 

The woman that my brother has this child with, she passed away. So the only parent she has is my brother now. Because of his addiction, there’s this question around suitability, right? But then there becomes this question, like, “Where? Where does this child go? Does she go with the brothers’ family? Her mother’s family?” How do you have a centered, focused support system for a child who will need adults to help her process losing a parent and having a parent who’s here, but who’s unavailable because of this addiction? 

It’s not just having counseling, though I think that’s going to be important. But whatever place is best for a child to be who has a parent who is addicted, what are the arrangements that can be made that keep and maintain connection and support that is safe for everyone? Because the challenge with my brother is the addiction. He’s a great human being. 

One of my own brothers struggles with addiction, so my heart goes out to you and yours.

Thank you for that. You know how hard it is as a family: I don’t know the extent to which you and your family deal with your brother, but with my brother who’s still living, he has children. It’s placed a great deal of stress on my niece. As a family, we bear the responsibility for being the support system for his children. I want to make sure as a city, we are committed to equity in how we deliver services to the communities hit hardest by disinvestment, which often leads to the type of addiction that we’re seeing explode in these neighborhoods.

I don’t know if I should go off the record for this, but you know, there are some people who, no matter what the situation is, they’re just a jerk. [Laughs] In this case, my brother is not a jerk! People probably will question my thinking on this, but outside of his addiction, he’s not a bad parent. I know that sounds like an oxymoron to some, but it’s not like he doesn’t have the ability to sit down with my youngest niece and work through with her with her homework when she’s getting frustrated or just being a typical little girl. And so, when we talk about support systems, I don’t know if it’s always best for parents to be completely removed and out of the picture entirely as they go through a restorative space, a healing space, even as they work through the addiction. [Groans] I’m sorry! There’s no simple way to put it.

I think that’s a rich answer for a complicated question. 

It’s about equity, and it’s also about seeing it through the lived experience of poor people, of Black people, or brown people, or families that have been ripped apart as a result of addiction and drugs. Thank you for indulging me and giving me the opportunity to express this–the complication of all these decisions, provide context to the nuance, and why “yes or no” is not always the best way to be able to work through something that is dynamic as a safe site.

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Safe consumption sites (SCS), also known as overdose prevention sites, are places where people can use drugs, safely and without threat of arrest or stigma, in the presence of folks trained to respond in case anyone accidentally overdoses. SCS supply sterile paraphernalia, reducing the risk of infection and disease, and guests can test their drugs for fentanyl before consuming. 

As a harm reduction worker once reminded me, safe consumption sites have existed as long as humans have been doing drugs, with or without permission from the law. Whenever drug users come together to support each other–whether in a private home or public park, watching someone’s back when they nod out, making sure they’re on their side, administering the opioid-overdose reversing medication naloxone if someone needs it–that’s a safe consumption site. But being able to operate in the daylight, without fear of prosecution and with access to funding and social and medical services, would be safer.

In 2022, the number of Chicagoans who died from accidental overdose was higher than the number who died by guns. Also in 2022, Representative La Shawn Ford introduced the Overdose Prevention Pilot Act, calling for state support to open SCS sites in Chicago.

SCS are the opposite of the abstinence-only approach most of us are familiar (and therefore comfortable) with when it comes to reducing drug deaths, but evidence shows that in neighborhoods where they’re allowed to operate, overdose deaths are reduced, the number of ambulance calls for treating overdoses lowers dramatically, and HIV rates decrease. According to the Drug Policy Alliance, “more than 100 evidence-based, peer-reviewed studies” link SCS to outcomes like “increasing entry into substance use disorder treatment” along with other medical and social services, “reducing the amount and frequency that clients use drugs,” and “reducing public drug use and syringe and/or other drug paraphernalia litter.”

It’s not so much my answer has evolved as I have a personal lived experience where, in the neighborhoods in which Black people in particular live, drugs have been a very sore, hurtful, harmful, damaging experience to so many.

On January 30, 2023, WBEZ released their Chicago mayoral candidate questionnaire, which included the question, “Would you support setting up ‘safe consumption sites’ where people use pre-obtained illegal drugs under the supervision of trained health workers?” 

Five of the nine candidates answered yes; Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Representative Chuy Garcia chose “other,” and Commissioner Brandon Johnson and former CPS CEO Paul Vallas replied “no.” 

In his response, Johnson further elaborated: “Given Chicago’s history, these sites would most likely be on the South and West sides, further burdening already struggling neighborhoods. There are other ways to address the drug epidemic and aid those in need, while also protecting our communities.” However, later that morning, when a Twitter user asked Johnson if he does, in fact, support SCS, Johnson replied: “Yes, and it’s not either/or. It’s ‘we need more.’ I’ve lost family to mental illness, addiction, and homelessness. I want to go beyond safe consumption sites to address mental health care and [the] unhoused. I also believe sites should be accessible to those in need throughout our city.”

That afternoon, I asked campaign spokesman Ronnie Reese if Johnson would be up for an on-the-record conversation about where he’s at with SCS. Within 15 minutes, Johnson called my phone: we spoke for about half an hour. Below is our conversation, lightly edited and condensed.

Prout: I’ll start out just by asking you just straight up: Do you support safe consumption sites in Chicago?

Johnson: Yes, I do support safe consumption sites in Chicago, and I also want to make sure that there’s some real equity with these sites. I know I’ve mentioned this before, but my eldest brother died from untreated trauma, addicted and unhoused. I have another brother who is also struggling with addiction.

These individuals who are struggling like my brother—they’re parents. They’re attached to other lives. And so we have to treat the entire family, right? We know those who are struggling with addiction, they do have triggers. And in some cases, those triggers have a profound impact on the other people in their lives. Making sure that there’s childcare services, there’s counseling for families–they’re gonna need it.

With the WBEZ answer, just to be clear, is that an answer you don’t stand by? Did you say no, and then your view has evolved since answering that question? 

It’s a combination, right? Like sometimes these spaces don’t allow for the context that I need to offer up a full answer. When you have multiple siblings who are struggling with addiction–I’m gonna date myself–you come home and your VCR or your class ring is stolen, or your coat is gone. Or you have children who have to figure out who to feed themselves, because, you know, their parents who are struggling with this addiction are not healthy enough to support their family.

Let’s talk about it this way. I have an older brother who died addicted and unhoused. How do I talk to my niece, nephew and his grandchildren about how their father or grandfather may have overdosed, and his brother, me, was trying to figure out a safe way for a drug to be administered? You know what I’m saying? These dynamics are complicated. Drugs have been used as a means to harm neighborhoods, and they’ve become the economic drivers for some individuals who believe that’s the only pathway to survive. So you have neighbors selling drugs to their neighbors in areas where schools are not funded, access to health care not available, transportation, jobs, accessibility–all of that is missing. It’s not so much my answer has evolved as I have a personal lived experience where, in the neighborhoods in which Black people in particular live, drugs have been a very sore, hurtful, harmful, damaging experience to so many. 

And so, it’s not either yes or no. It’s like, well, I support these sites if it’s done in an equitable way, and we’re providing other services to communities that have had to live through the drug market. [Funding a safe use site] in the same community where a neighborhood school was not fully funded–you understand? The contradiction that exists in our society?

Once a week, I go to the Chicago Recovery Alliance in East Garfield Park to pack Narcan kits, sterile crack pipes, and sterile needles. It was counterintuitive at first: I thought, “But if you want to protect people, don’t you want to have them not using? Isn’t it just going to make their addiction worse? Isn’t this going to promote other people using more, or introduce people who haven’t used before?”

But conversations with Black people who live on the west side changed my mind. When one woman was talking about why she carries Narcan, she said, “People are overdosing in my front lawn. I might as well have the ability to bring them back.” 

Now Narcan is becoming more socially acceptable, and is understood as a harm reduction tool. Safe consumption sites are still different. Right now there’s much more caution, more concern.

Yeah, you’ve laid it out well. The first thing I thought about when you were describing the evolution of this approach, is how we’re telling children, “Drugs are bad, say no to them. But we want you to come visit this site so that you can see how people use them safely.” I’m a parent and a teacher, I have family that’s struggled–it’s hard for me. 

A nephew snuck into one of my house parties. I didn’t get a chance to see a lot of [as he grew up] because it was what his mother thought was better: to keep him away from everybody associated with his father, including his uncle and his aunts. Now his uncle is running for mayor. He’s gonna read that his uncle is trying to figure out how to have safe consumption sites for individuals who are struggling with an addiction, and it was that very addiction that kept him from being able to have a father growing up. 

Can you talk a little bit more about what you mean by the “equitable distribution” of safe consumption sites?

We want to make sure that the sites are available in the neighborhoods that the individuals who are suffering from addiction live in. You want to eliminate as many barriers as possible.

Individuals who are struggling with an addiction, maybe they need a safe space where they can engage in that particular substance. But you know, these are individuals who are often already unhoused, right? Or they’re housing insecure, to say the least. So what are we doing to put people on a pathway where they’re not relying on this space? Where they can live, and work, and be part of their families?

My brother who’s still alive, he tells us he doesn’t want to continue to live with this addiction. That’s what he shared, and we always want to believe in that, believe him when he says that.  So what type of support that we surround him with in order to secure the type of life that he desires, one without addiction?

I’m interested in what you said about how families need support. NA and AA groups talk about addiction being a family disease. Some folks I know on Lower Wacker and in the Loop have lost custody of a child as they’ve tried to deal with their own addictions. Can you talk specifically about what support for families that have a loved one who’s addicted might look like, especially when that person is a parent?

That’s powerful. It’s a really powerful question. My brother, he’s got a few children. But his youngest daughter is the person you can really see really struggling. I’m trying to condense this as much as I possibly can, but it’s pretty fresh. 

The woman that my brother has this child with, she passed away. So the only parent she has is my brother now. Because of his addiction, there’s this question around suitability, right? But then there becomes this question, like, “Where? Where does this child go? Does she go with the brothers’ family? Her mother’s family?” How do you have a centered, focused support system for a child who will need adults to help her process losing a parent and having a parent who’s here, but who’s unavailable because of this addiction? 

It’s not just having counseling, though I think that’s going to be important. But whatever place is best for a child to be who has a parent who is addicted, what are the arrangements that can be made that keep and maintain connection and support that is safe for everyone? Because the challenge with my brother is the addiction. He’s a great human being. 

One of my own brothers struggles with addiction, so my heart goes out to you and yours.

Thank you for that. You know how hard it is as a family: I don’t know the extent to which you and your family deal with your brother, but with my brother who’s still living, he has children. It’s placed a great deal of stress on my niece. As a family, we bear the responsibility for being the support system for his children. I want to make sure as a city, we are committed to equity in how we deliver services to the communities hit hardest by disinvestment, which often leads to the type of addiction that we’re seeing explode in these neighborhoods.

I don’t know if I should go off the record for this, but you know, there are some people who, no matter what the situation is, they’re just a jerk. [Laughs] In this case, my brother is not a jerk! People probably will question my thinking on this, but outside of his addiction, he’s not a bad parent. I know that sounds like an oxymoron to some, but it’s not like he doesn’t have the ability to sit down with my youngest niece and work through with her with her homework when she’s getting frustrated or just being a typical little girl. And so, when we talk about support systems, I don’t know if it’s always best for parents to be completely removed and out of the picture entirely as they go through a restorative space, a healing space, even as they work through the addiction. [Groans] I’m sorry! There’s no simple way to put it.

I think that’s a rich answer for a complicated question. 

It’s about equity, and it’s also about seeing it through the lived experience of poor people, of Black people, or brown people, or families that have been ripped apart as a result of addiction and drugs. Thank you for indulging me and giving me the opportunity to express this–the complication of all these decisions, provide context to the nuance, and why “yes or no” is not always the best way to be able to work through something that is dynamic as a safe site.

Read More

When I heard about this new New England psych project, I wondered if the name “Stella Kola” referred to a solo artist, a duo, or a band—or possibly alluded to a soft drink. It turns out that it’s a little from column A and a little from column B. Stella Kola is the collaboration of Beverly Ketch, a poet and vocalist who’s performed in folk-psych bands such as Bunwinkies and Viewer, and guitarist Rob Thomas, a longtime member of fearless experimental ramblers Sunburned Hand of the Man. They’d been writing dark acoustic songs together for some time before deciding on a name. Ketch originally wanted to call their project “Star Soda,” but she settled on “Stella” in tribute to a friend’s grandmother, who’d recently passed away. 

Once Ketch and Thomas had settled on a mutual musical direction, they compiled a wish list of local musicians they wanted to bring aboard to flesh out their fragile tunes. Miraculously, all of them were game. Guitarist, synth player, and fellow SHotM member Jeremy Pisani joined them to form a live trio, and from there the group expanded into a larger ensemble with multi-instrumentalist Wednesday Knudson (Pigeons), bassist Jim Bliss (Wet Tuna), and violist and violinist Jen Gelineau, who’s recorded with Six Organs of Admittance. They began recording Stella Kola in 2020, inviting even more friends to provide additional instrumentation, including guitar wayfarer Willie Lane, Pat Gubler of legendary acid-folk group P.G. Six, and prolific “outsider” musician Gary War. The album isn’t as wild as you might expect, though, despite this star-studded freak-folk lineup: it’s a slice of chamber-folk bliss fueled by Ketch’s hushed but powerful vocals.

Pitched somewhere between Vashti Bunyan’s breathy, quavering delicacy and Judee Sill’s conversational but melancholy clarity, Ketch’s soft sighs weave among aching strings and chiming guitars, and her gentle ruminations on the sparse space shanty “Rosa” haunt my dreams. She can also rise to the occasion of a full-band setting, as she does on the righteous folk-rock anthem “November,” and she multitracks her evocative verses on baroque laments such as “Heart in the Rain” and “Being Is a Beggar’s Blessing,” where her performances recall singer-songwriter greats Margo Guryan and Susan Pillsbury. I know I’ve compared Ketch to four people just in this paragraph, but she’s unique—and she proves it amid the fluttering horns and orchestral flourishes of “First Fret,” when she gently intones “I think of my life / From the beginning to the end / And this time presses so close around / But those times are laid deep in the ground.” Stella Kola transcended their casual beginnings to create something epic with this first album, and I’m excited to see what other trails they’ll blaze.

Stella Kola’s Stella Kola is available through Bandcamp.

Read More

In the summer of 2020, then-Chicago police lieutenant John M. Cannon was attending law school at UIC part time when a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd. As thousands of people gathered downtown to protest, Cannon and most of the police department worked overtime. Cannon worked as a lieutenant in the 18th District, policing some of the city’s wealthiest areas in the Near North Side: the Gold Coast, the Mag Mile, and parts of Lincoln Park. These were also parts of the city that saw some of the most brazen acts by protesters during the uprising and some of the most violent responses from the Chicago Police Department. 

Cannon worked the night shift, 8:30 PM until 5 AM, and in addition to overseeing the lockup and release of protesters at Division and Larabee, he also patrolled the streets. A Tactical Response Report, which officers are required to complete whenever they use force, documents that he pepper-sprayed a group of people who he reported as having been looting a Binny’s Beverage Depot in the early morning hours of May 31. 

A few weeks after the riots subsided, one of the deans of UIC Law (formerly John Marshall Law School) emailed the entire student body to affirm the institution’s anti-racist values, stating the school’s broad support for the nationwide movement against police brutality. It included an attachment titled “Pledge Denouncing Racism,” and it outlined steps the administration would take to steer their students—future attorneys and lawmakers—to be better allies against systemic racism while acknowledging the role the legal system plays in perpetuating racism. 

Cannon wrote back to the dean, “Please immediately remove me from this and any other similar email blasts. I do not have time to respond as I am busy fighting against terrorists and anarchists.”  

Cannon graduated from UIC in August 2021 and soon became the subject of an investigation by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) into bigoted social media posts he made since 2018 that disparaged immigrants, women, and queer people. One of the posts depicted Obama in a turban with the text, “Obama is ISIS.” Another post suggested that Minnesota congressperson Ilhan Omar would bring Sharia Law to America. 

An anonymous tipster emailed COPA in late June of 2020. It was at least the sixty-third time a complaint had been filed against Cannon, according to records obtained from the CPD. It was the first time such a complaint was sustained against Cannon. It took COPA nearly a year and a half to complete its investigation. 

One post Cannon wrote read, “Brave young warriors face to face with an urban terrorist and the better trained professional Police Officer won the day. Excellent work by all the new batch of warriors. Love it,” in regards to body cam footage of the police killing of Harith Augustus in 2018. The shooting set off weeks of protests that summer as well as its own investigation. 

COPA’s investigators concluded that Cannon had violated the police department’s social media policy, which prohibits cops, either on or off duty, from posting content that is disparaging to a person or group based on being a member of any legally protected class, or content which “brings discredit upon the Department.” COPA found Cannon was unfit to be a cop and recommended he be fired. 

In the midst of the COPA investigation, Cannon filed a lawsuit against UIC and a former classmate, which is still ongoing. The lawsuit alleges that the university and three of the school’s deans discriminated against him for being white and a cop, violated his civil rights, and defamed his reputation. He also alleged that a former classmate hacked his Facebook, referring to the posts in question. He is seeking more than $50,000 in damages. 

Throughout the COPA investigation, however, Cannon admitted to investigators that by “hack” he meant that someone accessed his social media without permission, took screenshots of things he admitted he posted himself, and shared them on an anonymous, and now suspended, account on Twitter. An attorney for the former classmate said the lawsuit is an attack on free speech and an attempt to silence people for speaking out against white supremacy and violence within policing.

Via a text message, Cannon declined to speak to the Reader for this story.

Cannon’s lawsuit alleges that his reputation was sullied by the COPA investigation. As a result of the investigation, his lawyer wrote, the police department rescinded a job offer for a position supervising cops on desk duty at the city’s “alternate response unit,” or non-emergency 311 call center. “Desk duty” is the colloquial term used when cops are removed from street work and assigned an array of administrative roles while awaiting judgment over alleged misconduct.

Instead of commanding the call center, however, Cannon surrendered his star, shield, and ID card and found himself on desk duty in the Alternate Response Section, Unit 376 for the last seven months of his career. He quit the police department in October 2022, two weeks before COPA released the findings and recommendations from its investigation.

The campaign to kick cops off campus 

According to several past and current UIC law students who spoke with the Reader, uniformed, on-duty beat cops used to use the UIC Law building like a break room.

UIC Law has traditionally been a place for working-class people and police officers to earn a law degree. (The school offers part-time options and evening classes.) On-duty cops using the space became a contentious issue in 2019, when the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) chapter at the school started a campaign to get them off campus. 

The NLG is an association of legal students, attorneys, and volunteers focused on social justice, who use the tagline “Human rights over property interests” on their Facebook page. 

“CPD officers would come in off their beat right there on Jackson on the Red Line,” said Bryan Higgins, an attorney and former UIC NLG. “Come inside, use our restrooms, sit in the student lounge. Some of them would even take naps in the student lounges. They would eat leftover food from student events, and the security guards would just let them come in.”

UIC has a strictly enforced visitor policy, according to Higgins, and whenever a student group such as the NLG wanted to host an event open to the public, they were required to provide security with a full list of attendees the day before. Each attendee was required to provide ID in order to enter the school. 

“Whereas if a CPD officer just wants to come have an on-the-clock nap, they can just be let in,” they said. 

By 2018, they said that the security guards at the school were “almost week by week, enhancing their appearance.” The guards got body armor, new uniforms, handcuffs, and even batons.

The tipping point, Higgins said, was when security guards started wearing large “Blue Lives Matter” pins on their uniforms. “And so we said ‘hey, no, no, no, that’s just way too far,’” they said. “‘And by the way, where’s all this money for body armor, and why are y’all turning into these robocops?’”  

Members of the NLG chapter began to question how the presence of cops affects students who are victims of police brutality, taking into account that many Black, Brown, and working-class students at the law school may have had distressing experiences with cops. 

“The police can really trigger certain responses from [students] and just make it harder for them overall to be able to study and do their work peacefully,” said Antoinette Bolz, the former president of the UIC NLG chapter who now works as a staff attorney at a nonprofit. “I don’t even know what the purpose of them being there was, but it was very common to see two or three officers just walking around the school.” 

The NLG drafted a letter to school administrators in 2019, and eventually two members, Bolz and Micheal Drake, secured a meeting with the deans. They were surprised to find the school’s lawyers were present at the meeting, along with the head of security and the deans.

The meeting was tense, said Drake, who is now a staff attorney at a nonprofit. Not much changed afterward. The school started sending out more emails to students about leftover food from events, he said, and campus groups continued to meet about the issue. Uniformed cops, however, still roamed the campus.

“There really shouldn’t be this mixture of surveillance and policing at the school,” Drake said. “Firefighters aren’t coming into UIC to use the bathroom. It’s just cops.”

Via a text message, Cannon declined to speak to the Reader for this story.

As president of the UIC chapter of the NLG at that time, Townsend sent a collectively drafted demand letter in response to Dean Dickerson’s email—the one Cannon said he was too “busy fighting terrorists and anarchists” to respond to. 

The letter begins, “The John Marshall NLG Chapter actively supports and stands in solidarity with the protests against police brutality in America. We take this opportunity to publicly reaffirm our belief in police and prison abolition as the only true solution to this problem and renew our fight to remove Chicago police from JMLS.” Cannon called the letter “hate speech” in his lawsuit.

The NLG statement also demanded that the administration offer a class on prison abolition for students to learn about viable alternatives to incarceration. And while it emphasized the systemic role that cops play in perpetuating white supremacy, the letter never mentions Cannon or any other cop specifically. 

“None of the authors, I can confidently say this, none of the authors of that letter knew who Cannon was when we wrote it,” said Jacqueline Spreadbury, a current UIC law student and NLG member.  

Townsend is represented by Brad Thomson, an attorney with the People’s Law Office. Thomson filed a motion to correct his client’s name and pronouns—Cannon consistently misgendered and misnamed her throughout his complaint and also falsely labeled her as a professor at the school. 

Thomson also motioned to dismiss the case against his client on November 11, immediately after COPA went public with their recommendation to fire him, on the grounds that it’s frivolous, meritless, and meant solely to silence his defendant’s First Amendment right to free speech. 

“Anyone who’s concerned about free speech principles in this country, specifically about freedom of speech on college campuses, should be concerned by actions like this,” Thomson said. “Anyone who has concerns around police violence and white supremacy within the legal system should be paying attention to situations like this where individual police officers are attempting to use the law to silence their opposition.”

Townsend was one of many students at UIC who spoke out against police brutality and the anti-Black racism endemic in the criminal legal system during 2020 and before. Thomson says that he believes Cannon’s lawsuit is an attack on all students who organize against white supremacy in the legal system and that it is meant to intimidate those who speak out. 

Not only that, but it wastes people’s time, he said. 

“It forces people to have to defend these meritless claims and have to defend themselves when their activity and their actions are protected by the First Amendment [rights] guaranteed by the Constitution,” he said.

Townsend was the co-president of the UIC NLG in 2020. The previous year, she and others in the group drafted a letter asking the administration to get cops off campus. 

In March 2020, this new cohort of NLG students met virtually with one of the school’s deans about the issue. They reached a compromise, according to NLG members, where the administration said that they would tell visiting police that they’re limited to the lobby, the restrooms, and the first-floor cafe.

Then classes went remote indefinitely. 

“And then George Floyd happened, and [the administration] was like, ‘Oh, we’ve got to make so many changes,’” said Jacqueline Spreadbury, a current student at UIC Law and member of the NLG.  

After the uprising in Minneapolis had spread to Chicago and beyond, the NLG chapter drafted a letter urging the administration at UIC to add an elective prison and police abolition course.

“Law students have a duty to the people we will serve to understand the effects of prisons and consider viable alternatives to incarceration,” the letter says. “Having an elective course on mass incarceration . . . is not enough.  We need to have an ongoing, campus-wide conversation that all students can engage in.”

Spreadbury said that while the letter touched on the systemic role that cops play in perpetuating white supremacy, it didn’t name Cannon or any other cop individually. 

The people who wrote the letter had no clue who Cannon was, she said, until weeks later when they saw screenshots of his racist Facebook posts, which COPA deemed racist, on an anonymous Twitter account called @sugaronmitongue. 

“None of the authors of that letter knew who Cannon was when we wrote it,” Spreadbury said. 

The fall 2022 semester was the first time that everyone was back on campus full time since the pandemic began. Spreadbury said she’s seen cops come in and use the restroom on the first floor and leave, and hasn’t seen them go anywhere else, which was the compromise they reached during the meeting in March of 2020. 

“I can’t say if this is an official policy change or it’s because of this letter [or if it’s] because of the meeting or because of the George Floyd movement,” Spreadbury said. “But somewhere along the way, it does seem like something changed.”

There’s now an entire first-year, anti-racist curriculum woven throughout much of the curriculum at JMLS, according to Spreadbury. The material usually consists of brief videos about how certain aspects of the law are rooted in racism, and students are asked to complete a set of questions. 

The administration never directly addressed the NLG’s demands to create an elective police or prison abolition curriculum, Spreadbury said. One of the deans did guide her through the steps to propose a new elective curriculum, however, which she submitted last summer. “And the school’s actually been really receptive to it. They said it’ll likely be a class for fall of [2023].”

Her goal is to make sure that the prison abolition course happens. She says that a course on alternatives to policing and prisons is the next logical step after the gains of the uprising. 

As of publication, the judge presiding over Cannon’s lawsuit has not posted a hearing to dismiss or hear the case. Cannon’s lawyer, Dan Herbert, did not respond to a request for an interview.  

When asked whether he’s ever seen a lawsuit like this, attorney Brad Thomson said no. “The specific facts here are just so unusual and so far afield that I can’t think of any instance where I’ve seen anything quite like this.” 

Lawsuits like Cannon’s may be part of a larger reactionary backlash towards attempts by institutions to implement equity and inclusion policies, said Thomson. 

“But targeting another student for speaking out . . . is particularly egregious,” Thomson said, “because it’s clearly targeting speech and organizing that is constitutionally protected.” 

Read More

When I heard about this new New England psych project, I wondered if the name “Stella Kola” referred to a solo artist, a duo, or a band—or possibly alluded to a soft drink. It turns out that it’s a little from column A and a little from column B. Stella Kola is the collaboration of Beverly Ketch, a poet and vocalist who’s performed in folk-psych bands such as Bunwinkies and Viewer, and guitarist Rob Thomas, a longtime member of fearless experimental ramblers Sunburned Hand of the Man. They’d been writing dark acoustic songs together for some time before deciding on a name. Ketch originally wanted to call their project “Star Soda,” but she settled on “Stella” in tribute to a friend’s grandmother, who’d recently passed away. 

Once Ketch and Thomas had settled on a mutual musical direction, they compiled a wish list of local musicians they wanted to bring aboard to flesh out their fragile tunes. Miraculously, all of them were game. Guitarist, synth player, and fellow SHotM member Jeremy Pisani joined them to form a live trio, and from there the group expanded into a larger ensemble with multi-instrumentalist Wednesday Knudson (Pigeons), bassist Jim Bliss (Wet Tuna), and violist and violinist Jen Gelineau, who’s recorded with Six Organs of Admittance. They began recording Stella Kola in 2020, inviting even more friends to provide additional instrumentation, including guitar wayfarer Willie Lane, Pat Gubler of legendary acid-folk group P.G. Six, and prolific “outsider” musician Gary War. The album isn’t as wild as you might expect, though, despite this star-studded freak-folk lineup: it’s a slice of chamber-folk bliss fueled by Ketch’s hushed but powerful vocals.

Pitched somewhere between Vashti Bunyan’s breathy, quavering delicacy and Judee Sill’s conversational but melancholy clarity, Ketch’s soft sighs weave among aching strings and chiming guitars, and her gentle ruminations on the sparse space shanty “Rosa” haunt my dreams. She can also rise to the occasion of a full-band setting, as she does on the righteous folk-rock anthem “November,” and she multitracks her evocative verses on baroque laments such as “Heart in the Rain” and “Being Is a Beggar’s Blessing,” where her performances recall singer-songwriter greats Margo Guryan and Susan Pillsbury. I know I’ve compared Ketch to four people just in this paragraph, but she’s unique—and she proves it amid the fluttering horns and orchestral flourishes of “First Fret,” when she gently intones “I think of my life / From the beginning to the end / And this time presses so close around / But those times are laid deep in the ground.” Stella Kola transcended their casual beginnings to create something epic with this first album, and I’m excited to see what other trails they’ll blaze.

Stella Kola’s Stella Kola is available through Bandcamp.

Read More

In the summer of 2020, then-Chicago police lieutenant John M. Cannon was attending law school at UIC part time when a Minneapolis police officer murdered George Floyd. As thousands of people gathered downtown to protest, Cannon and most of the police department worked overtime. Cannon worked as a lieutenant in the 18th District, policing some of the city’s wealthiest areas in the Near North Side: the Gold Coast, the Mag Mile, and parts of Lincoln Park. These were also parts of the city that saw some of the most brazen acts by protesters during the uprising and some of the most violent responses from the Chicago Police Department. 

Cannon worked the night shift, 8:30 PM until 5 AM, and in addition to overseeing the lockup and release of protesters at Division and Larabee, he also patrolled the streets. A Tactical Response Report, which officers are required to complete whenever they use force, documents that he pepper-sprayed a group of people who he reported as having been looting a Binny’s Beverage Depot in the early morning hours of May 31. 

A few weeks after the riots subsided, one of the deans of UIC Law (formerly John Marshall Law School) emailed the entire student body to affirm the institution’s anti-racist values, stating the school’s broad support for the nationwide movement against police brutality. It included an attachment titled “Pledge Denouncing Racism,” and it outlined steps the administration would take to steer their students—future attorneys and lawmakers—to be better allies against systemic racism while acknowledging the role the legal system plays in perpetuating racism. 

Cannon wrote back to the dean, “Please immediately remove me from this and any other similar email blasts. I do not have time to respond as I am busy fighting against terrorists and anarchists.”  

Cannon graduated from UIC in August 2021 and soon became the subject of an investigation by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) into bigoted social media posts he made since 2018 that disparaged immigrants, women, and queer people. One of the posts depicted Obama in a turban with the text, “Obama is ISIS.” Another post suggested that Minnesota congressperson Ilhan Omar would bring Sharia Law to America. 

An anonymous tipster emailed COPA in late June of 2020. It was at least the sixty-third time a complaint had been filed against Cannon, according to records obtained from the CPD. It was the first time such a complaint was sustained against Cannon. It took COPA nearly a year and a half to complete its investigation. 

One post Cannon wrote read, “Brave young warriors face to face with an urban terrorist and the better trained professional Police Officer won the day. Excellent work by all the new batch of warriors. Love it,” in regards to body cam footage of the police killing of Harith Augustus in 2018. The shooting set off weeks of protests that summer as well as its own investigation. 

COPA’s investigators concluded that Cannon had violated the police department’s social media policy, which prohibits cops, either on or off duty, from posting content that is disparaging to a person or group based on being a member of any legally protected class, or content which “brings discredit upon the Department.” COPA found Cannon was unfit to be a cop and recommended he be fired. 

In the midst of the COPA investigation, Cannon filed a lawsuit against UIC and a former classmate, which is still ongoing. The lawsuit alleges that the university and three of the school’s deans discriminated against him for being white and a cop, violated his civil rights, and defamed his reputation. He also alleged that a former classmate hacked his Facebook, referring to the posts in question. He is seeking more than $50,000 in damages. 

Throughout the COPA investigation, however, Cannon admitted to investigators that by “hack” he meant that someone accessed his social media without permission, took screenshots of things he admitted he posted himself, and shared them on an anonymous, and now suspended, account on Twitter. An attorney for the former classmate said the lawsuit is an attack on free speech and an attempt to silence people for speaking out against white supremacy and violence within policing.

Via a text message, Cannon declined to speak to the Reader for this story.

Cannon’s lawsuit alleges that his reputation was sullied by the COPA investigation. As a result of the investigation, his lawyer wrote, the police department rescinded a job offer for a position supervising cops on desk duty at the city’s “alternate response unit,” or non-emergency 311 call center. “Desk duty” is the colloquial term used when cops are removed from street work and assigned an array of administrative roles while awaiting judgment over alleged misconduct.

Instead of commanding the call center, however, Cannon surrendered his star, shield, and ID card and found himself on desk duty in the Alternate Response Section, Unit 376 for the last seven months of his career. He quit the police department in October 2022, two weeks before COPA released the findings and recommendations from its investigation.

The campaign to kick cops off campus 

According to several past and current UIC law students who spoke with the Reader, uniformed, on-duty beat cops used to use the UIC Law building like a break room.

UIC Law has traditionally been a place for working-class people and police officers to earn a law degree. (The school offers part-time options and evening classes.) On-duty cops using the space became a contentious issue in 2019, when the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) chapter at the school started a campaign to get them off campus. 

The NLG is an association of legal students, attorneys, and volunteers focused on social justice, who use the tagline “Human rights over property interests” on their Facebook page. 

“CPD officers would come in off their beat right there on Jackson on the Red Line,” said Bryan Higgins, an attorney and former UIC NLG. “Come inside, use our restrooms, sit in the student lounge. Some of them would even take naps in the student lounges. They would eat leftover food from student events, and the security guards would just let them come in.”

UIC has a strictly enforced visitor policy, according to Higgins, and whenever a student group such as the NLG wanted to host an event open to the public, they were required to provide security with a full list of attendees the day before. Each attendee was required to provide ID in order to enter the school. 

“Whereas if a CPD officer just wants to come have an on-the-clock nap, they can just be let in,” they said. 

By 2018, they said that the security guards at the school were “almost week by week, enhancing their appearance.” The guards got body armor, new uniforms, handcuffs, and even batons.

The tipping point, Higgins said, was when security guards started wearing large “Blue Lives Matter” pins on their uniforms. “And so we said ‘hey, no, no, no, that’s just way too far,’” they said. “‘And by the way, where’s all this money for body armor, and why are y’all turning into these robocops?’”  

Members of the NLG chapter began to question how the presence of cops affects students who are victims of police brutality, taking into account that many Black, Brown, and working-class students at the law school may have had distressing experiences with cops. 

“The police can really trigger certain responses from [students] and just make it harder for them overall to be able to study and do their work peacefully,” said Antoinette Bolz, the former president of the UIC NLG chapter who now works as a staff attorney at a nonprofit. “I don’t even know what the purpose of them being there was, but it was very common to see two or three officers just walking around the school.” 

The NLG drafted a letter to school administrators in 2019, and eventually two members, Bolz and Micheal Drake, secured a meeting with the deans. They were surprised to find the school’s lawyers were present at the meeting, along with the head of security and the deans.

The meeting was tense, said Drake, who is now a staff attorney at a nonprofit. Not much changed afterward. The school started sending out more emails to students about leftover food from events, he said, and campus groups continued to meet about the issue. Uniformed cops, however, still roamed the campus.

“There really shouldn’t be this mixture of surveillance and policing at the school,” Drake said. “Firefighters aren’t coming into UIC to use the bathroom. It’s just cops.”

Via a text message, Cannon declined to speak to the Reader for this story.

As president of the UIC chapter of the NLG at that time, Townsend sent a collectively drafted demand letter in response to Dean Dickerson’s email—the one Cannon said he was too “busy fighting terrorists and anarchists” to respond to. 

The letter begins, “The John Marshall NLG Chapter actively supports and stands in solidarity with the protests against police brutality in America. We take this opportunity to publicly reaffirm our belief in police and prison abolition as the only true solution to this problem and renew our fight to remove Chicago police from JMLS.” Cannon called the letter “hate speech” in his lawsuit.

The NLG statement also demanded that the administration offer a class on prison abolition for students to learn about viable alternatives to incarceration. And while it emphasized the systemic role that cops play in perpetuating white supremacy, the letter never mentions Cannon or any other cop specifically. 

“None of the authors, I can confidently say this, none of the authors of that letter knew who Cannon was when we wrote it,” said Jacqueline Spreadbury, a current UIC law student and NLG member.  

Townsend is represented by Brad Thomson, an attorney with the People’s Law Office. Thomson filed a motion to correct his client’s name and pronouns—Cannon consistently misgendered and misnamed her throughout his complaint and also falsely labeled her as a professor at the school. 

Thomson also motioned to dismiss the case against his client on November 11, immediately after COPA went public with their recommendation to fire him, on the grounds that it’s frivolous, meritless, and meant solely to silence his defendant’s First Amendment right to free speech. 

“Anyone who’s concerned about free speech principles in this country, specifically about freedom of speech on college campuses, should be concerned by actions like this,” Thomson said. “Anyone who has concerns around police violence and white supremacy within the legal system should be paying attention to situations like this where individual police officers are attempting to use the law to silence their opposition.”

Townsend was one of many students at UIC who spoke out against police brutality and the anti-Black racism endemic in the criminal legal system during 2020 and before. Thomson says that he believes Cannon’s lawsuit is an attack on all students who organize against white supremacy in the legal system and that it is meant to intimidate those who speak out. 

Not only that, but it wastes people’s time, he said. 

“It forces people to have to defend these meritless claims and have to defend themselves when their activity and their actions are protected by the First Amendment [rights] guaranteed by the Constitution,” he said.

Townsend was the co-president of the UIC NLG in 2020. The previous year, she and others in the group drafted a letter asking the administration to get cops off campus. 

In March 2020, this new cohort of NLG students met virtually with one of the school’s deans about the issue. They reached a compromise, according to NLG members, where the administration said that they would tell visiting police that they’re limited to the lobby, the restrooms, and the first-floor cafe.

Then classes went remote indefinitely. 

“And then George Floyd happened, and [the administration] was like, ‘Oh, we’ve got to make so many changes,’” said Jacqueline Spreadbury, a current student at UIC Law and member of the NLG.  

After the uprising in Minneapolis had spread to Chicago and beyond, the NLG chapter drafted a letter urging the administration at UIC to add an elective prison and police abolition course.

“Law students have a duty to the people we will serve to understand the effects of prisons and consider viable alternatives to incarceration,” the letter says. “Having an elective course on mass incarceration . . . is not enough.  We need to have an ongoing, campus-wide conversation that all students can engage in.”

Spreadbury said that while the letter touched on the systemic role that cops play in perpetuating white supremacy, it didn’t name Cannon or any other cop individually. 

The people who wrote the letter had no clue who Cannon was, she said, until weeks later when they saw screenshots of his racist Facebook posts, which COPA deemed racist, on an anonymous Twitter account called @sugaronmitongue. 

“None of the authors of that letter knew who Cannon was when we wrote it,” Spreadbury said. 

The fall 2022 semester was the first time that everyone was back on campus full time since the pandemic began. Spreadbury said she’s seen cops come in and use the restroom on the first floor and leave, and hasn’t seen them go anywhere else, which was the compromise they reached during the meeting in March of 2020. 

“I can’t say if this is an official policy change or it’s because of this letter [or if it’s] because of the meeting or because of the George Floyd movement,” Spreadbury said. “But somewhere along the way, it does seem like something changed.”

There’s now an entire first-year, anti-racist curriculum woven throughout much of the curriculum at JMLS, according to Spreadbury. The material usually consists of brief videos about how certain aspects of the law are rooted in racism, and students are asked to complete a set of questions. 

The administration never directly addressed the NLG’s demands to create an elective police or prison abolition curriculum, Spreadbury said. One of the deans did guide her through the steps to propose a new elective curriculum, however, which she submitted last summer. “And the school’s actually been really receptive to it. They said it’ll likely be a class for fall of [2023].”

Her goal is to make sure that the prison abolition course happens. She says that a course on alternatives to policing and prisons is the next logical step after the gains of the uprising. 

As of publication, the judge presiding over Cannon’s lawsuit has not posted a hearing to dismiss or hear the case. Cannon’s lawyer, Dan Herbert, did not respond to a request for an interview.  

When asked whether he’s ever seen a lawsuit like this, attorney Brad Thomson said no. “The specific facts here are just so unusual and so far afield that I can’t think of any instance where I’ve seen anything quite like this.” 

Lawsuits like Cannon’s may be part of a larger reactionary backlash towards attempts by institutions to implement equity and inclusion policies, said Thomson. 

“But targeting another student for speaking out . . . is particularly egregious,” Thomson said, “because it’s clearly targeting speech and organizing that is constitutionally protected.” 

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When Margaret Pak and her husband Vinod Kalathil visit his hometown in northern Kerala, his mom summons the couple to lunch with the expression “Chorum kariyum kazhikkam,” or “Let’s eat rice and curry,” even if there’s no curry on the table.

“It’s funny,” says Kalathil, “So many people say ‘Oh, we don’t use the word curry in India, but if you go to southern India pretty much everybody says curry—for anything and everything.”

For sure there will be rice and curry on the table on February 6 when Thattu calls you to the table for the next Monday Night Foodball, the Reader’s weekly chef pop up at Ludlow Liquors. Ahead of the delayed opening of their long awaited brick and mortar restaurant, Foodball vets Pak and Kalathil, are popping up with a taste of what’s for lunch and dinner when the juice starts flowing and the city inspectors give the thumbs up on their future 2900-square foot space.

Pak’s showcasing chemmeen and kappa, shrimp curry with coconut broth and mashed yucca, tarted up with sun-dried cambodge, aka Malabar tamarind, a souring agent her mother-in-law typically uses with tiny fish. She’s also reprising her pinquinto bean curry with cuminy jeera rice, a riff on the black chickpea kadala curry—a staple from Thattu’s Politan Row days—here made with heirloom legumes native to her native northern California.

But it ain’t just curry and rice. Her fiery batter-free Kerala fried chicken sandwich is on the menu. Pair that with a side of chaat masala-seasoned tots (chaattertots, of course), and you’ve got a bite of a signature from the brick and mortar’s lunchtime menu. And you’ll find the yogurt-marinated chicken biryani with basmati rice on the future dinner menu. Finish off with sweet cardamom-kissed, deep fried plantains with creme anglaise, and an essential masala biscuit, the cookie that started it all.

Ludlow barkeeps Joel and Grace will be mixing up Thattu’s Lime Sarbath, a citrusy Collins riff with sherry and Indian sarsaparilla syrup.

Come eat rice and curry—and anything and everything else—with Thattu, starting at 6 PM, Monday, February 6, at Ludlow Liquors, 2959 N. California in Avondale. No preorders. Just walk in and place your order with Kalathil, posted up at the turntables at the back of the bar.

Meanwhile, block out your future Mondays by scrolling down for the full Foodball schedule:

Margaret Pak, Vinod Kalathil Credit: Monica Kass RogersRead More