By six inches by 12 are permitted and subject to search.
And five, firearms, ammunition, fireworks,
laser pointers, stun guns, tasers, mace, pepper
spray, and toy weapons. Cell phones and other small
handheld recording devices must be placed in silent mode,
can only be used while seated, and can only be used in
a manner that does not interfere with the ability of other
individuals to view or hear the proceedings.
Individuals or groups failing to adhere to these
rules will be subject to removal from the remainder of the
meeting by the Sergeant at Arms.
City of Chicago City Council Rules of Conduct for Public
Meetings, 2023 to 2027.
Pursuant to Rule 58 of the Chicago City Council Rules of
Order and Procedure, the Sergeant at Arms sets forth the
following rules of conduct for members of the public.
These rules shall be in effect at all times that a viewing
gallery or room is open for a meeting of the City Council
or any of its committees. All individuals and their
belongings are subject to search at entry or upon request.
Individuals must remain seated at all times except,
one, when entering or exiting the gallery.
Two, when providing public comment during the portion of a meeting
set aside for that purpose. Or three, when asked
to rise and be acknowledged by a member of the City Council.
Profane, threatening, harassing, abusive,
or defamatory behavior or speech, which in the
judgment of the meeting's chair or the Sergeant at Arms may
lead to a breach of the peace or disrupt the orderly conduct
of the meeting is not permitted. Disruptive or distracting
actions, such as the stomping of feet, waving of arms,
throwing any item, whistling, booing, shouting,
or other loud utterances are not permitted when, in the judgment of the
meeting's chair or the Sergeant at Arms, such actions are
disrupting or impeding the orderly conduct of the meeting.
Any item that poses a potential safety hazard, as determined by the
Sergeant at Arms, is prohibited in the gallery.
Such items include, but are not limited to, one, any
pointed objects, including knives of any kind.
Two, banners, flyers, or other forms of signage.
Three, food and beverages, including in glass or metal
canisters. Four, backpacks, large bags,
and sealed packages. Clear bags, not tinted in color,
that do not exceed 12 inches by 6 inches by 12
are permitted and subject to search.
And five, firearms, ammunition, fireworks,
laser pointers, stun guns, tasers, mace, pepper
spray, and toy weapons. Cell phones and other small
handheld recording devices must be placed in silent mode,
can only be used while seated, and can only be used in a
manner that does not interfere with the ability of other
individuals to view or hear the proceedings.
Individuals or groups failing to adhere to these
rules will be subject to removal from the remainder of the
meeting by the Sergeant at Arms.
City of Chicago City Council Rules of Conduct for Public
Meetings, 2023 to 2027.
Pursuant to Rule 58 of the Chicago City Council Rules of
Order and Procedure, the Sergeant at Arms sets forth the
following rules of conduct for members of the public.
These rules shall be in effect at all times that a viewing
gallery or room is open for a meeting of the City Council or
any of its committees. All individuals and their belongings are
subject to search at entry or upon request.
Individuals must remain seated at all times except,
one, when entering or exiting the gallery.
Two, when providing public comment during the portion of a meeting
set aside for that purpose. Or three, when
asked to rise and be acknowledged by a member of the City Council.
Profane, threatening, harassing, abusive,
or defamatory behavior or speech, which in the
judgment of the meeting's chair or the Sergeant at Arms may
lead to a breach of the peace or disrupt the orderly conduct
of the meeting is not permitted. Disruptive or distracting
actions, such as the stomping of feet, waving of arms,
throwing any item, whistling, booing, shouting,
or other loud utterances are not permitted when, in the judgment of the
meeting's chair or the Sergeant at Arms, such actions are
disrupting or impeding the orderly conduct of the meeting.
Any item that poses a potential safety hazard, as determined by the
Sergeant at Arms, is prohibited in the gallery.
Such items include, but are not limited to, one, any
pointed objects, including knives of any kind.
Two, banners, flyers, or other forms of signage.
Three, food and beverages, including in glass or
metal canisters. Four, backpacks, large bags,
and sealed packages. Clear bags, not tinted in color,
that do not exceed 12 inches by 6 inches by 12
are permitted and subject to search.
And five, firearms, ammunition, fireworks,
laser pointers, stun guns, tasers, mace, pepper
spray, and toy weapons. Cell phones and other small
handheld recording devices must be placed in silent mode,
can only be used while seated And can only be used in a
manner that does not interfere with the ability of other
individuals to view or hear the proceedings.
Individuals or groups failing to adhere to these
rules will be subject to removal from the remainder of the
meeting by the Sergeant at Arms.
City of Chicago City Council Rules of Conduct for Public
Meetings, 2023 to 2027.
Pursuant to Rule 58 of the Chicago City Council Rules of
Order and Procedure, the Sergeant at Arms sets forth the
following rules of conduct for members of the public.
These rules shall be in effect at all times that a viewing
gallery or room is open for a meeting of the City Council
or any of its committees. All individuals and their
belongings are subject to search at entry or upon
request. Individuals must remain seated at all
times except, one, when entering or exiting the
gallery. Two, when providing public comment during the
portion of a meeting set aside for that purpose.
Or three, when asked to rise and be acknowledged by a member
of the City Council.
Profane, threatening, harassing, abusive,
or defamatory behavior or speech, which in the
judgment of the meeting's chair or the Sergeant at Arms may
lead to a breach of the peace or disrupt the orderly conduct
of the meeting, is not permitted. Disruptive or distracting
actions, such as the stomping of feet, waving of arms,
throwing any item, whistling, booing, shouting,
or other loud utterances, are not permitted when in the judgment of the
meeting's chair or the Sergeant at Arms, such actions are
disrupting or impeding the orderly conduct of the meeting.
Any item that poses a potential safety hazard, as determined by the
Sergeant at Arms, is prohibited in the gallery.
Such items include, but are not limited to, one, any
pointed objects, including knives of any kind.
Two, banners, flyers, or other forms of signage.
Three, food and beverages, including in glass or
metal canisters. Four, backpacks, large bags,
and sealed packages. Clear bags, not tinted in color,
that do not exceed 12 inches by six inches by 12,
are permitted and subject to search.
And five, firearms, ammunition, fireworks,
laser pointers, stun guns, tasers, Mace pepper
spray, and toy weapons. Cell phones and other small
handheld recording devices must be placed in silent mode,
can only be used while seated, and can only be used in
a manner that does not interfere with the ability of other
individuals to view or hear the proceedings.
Individuals or groups failing to adhere to these
rules will be subject to removal from the remainder of the
meeting by the Sergeant at Arms.
City of Chicago City Council Rules of Conduct for Public
Meetings, 2023 to 2027.
Pursuant to Rule 58 of the Chicago City Council Rules of
Order and Procedure, the Sergeant at Arms sets forth the
following rules of conduct for members of the public.
These rules shall be in effect at all times that a viewing
gallery or room is open for a meeting of the City Council
or any of its committees. All individuals and their
belongings are subject to search at entry or upon request.
Individuals must remain seated at all times except,
one, when entering or exiting the gallery.
Two, when providing public comment during the portion of a meeting
set aside for that purpose.
Or three, when asked to rise and be acknowledged by a member
of the City Council.
Profane, threatening, harassing, abusive,
or defamatory behavior or speech, which in the
judgment of the meeting's chair or the Sergeant at Arms may
lead to a breach of the peace or disrupt the orderly conduct
of the meeting, is not permitted. Disruptive or distracting
actions, such as the stomping of feet, waving of arms,
throwing any item, whistling, booing, shouting,
or other loud utterances, are not permitted when in the judgment of the
meeting's chair or the Sergeant at Arms, such actions are
disrupting or impeding the orderly conduct of the
meeting. Any item that poses a potential safety hazard,
as determined by the Sergeant at Arms, is prohibited in the gallery.
Such items include, but are not limited to, one, any
pointed objects, including knives of any kind.
Two, banners, flyers, or other forms of signage.
Three, food and beverages, including in glass or metal
canisters. Four, backpacks, large bags, and
sealed packages. Clear bags, not tinted in color, that do
not exceed 12 inches by six inches by 12, are
permitted and subject to search. And five, firearms,
ammunition, fireworks, laser pointers, stun guns,
tasers, Mace pepper spray, and toy weapons.
Cell phones and other small handheld recording devices must be
placed in silent mode, can only be used while seated,
and can only be used in a manner that does not
interfere with the ability of other individuals to view
or hear the proceedings. Individuals or groups
failing to adhere to these rules will be subject to
removal from the remainder of the meeting by the Sergeant at
Arms.
City of Chicago City Council Rules of Conduct for Public
Meetings, 2023 to 2027.
Pursuant to Rule 58 of the Chicago City Council Rules of
Order and Procedure, the Sergeant at Arms sets forth the
following rules of conduct for members of the public.
These rules shall be in effect at all times that a viewing
gallery or room is open for a meeting of the City Council
or any of its committees. All individuals and their
belongings are subject to search at entry or upon request.
Individuals must remain seated at all times, except,
one, when entering or exiting the gallery,
two, when providing public comment during the portion of a meeting
set aside for that purpose,
or three, when asked to rise and be acknowledged by a member
of the City Council.
Profane, threatening, harassing, abusive,
or defamatory behavior or speech which in the
judgment of the meeting's chair or the Sergeant at Arms may
lead to a breach of the peace or disrupt the orderly conduct
of the meeting is not permitted. Disruptive or distracting
actions, such as the stomping of feet, waving of arms,
throwing any item, whistling, booing, shouting,
or other loud utterances, are not permitted when in the judgment of the
meeting's chair or the Sergeant at Arms such actions are
disrupting or impeding the orderly conduct of the meeting.
Any item that poses a potential safety hazards, as determined by the
Sergeant at Arms, is prohibited in the gallery.
Such items include, but are not limited to, one, any
pointed objects, including knives of any kind.
Two, banners, flyers, or other forms of signage.
Three, food and beverages, including in glass or
metal canisters. Four, backpacks, large
bags, and sealed packages. Clear bags, not tinted in
color, that do not exceed 12 inches by 6 inches by
12 are permitted and subject to search.
And five, firearms, ammunition, fireworks,
laser pointers, stun guns, tasers, mace, pepper
spray, and toy weapons. Cell phones and other small
handheld recording devices must be placed in silent mode,
can only be used while seated, and can only be used in a
manner that does not interfere with the ability other
individuals to view or hear the proceedings.
Individuals or groups failing to adhere to these rules
will be subject to removal from the remainder of the meeting by
the Sergeant at Arms.
City of Chicago City Council Rules of Conduct for Public
Meetings, 2023 to 2027.
Pursuant to Rule 58 of the Chicago City Council Rules of
Order-
Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. The committee will start momentarily.
We are one member away from quorum, and I understand they're on their way.
So committee members, please remain in the chamber. We'll begin momentarily.
The Committee on Public Safety is hereby called to order.
We will establish quorum with a roll call.
Vice Chair Yancy, Alderman Chico.
Alderwoman Gutierrez, Alderman Lopez, Alderman Curtis.
Alderwoman Tabares.
Silvana? Thank you.
Alderman Cincho Lopez, Alderwoman Fuentes, Alderman
Taliaferro, Alderman Sposato.
Alderman Vasquez, Alderman Knutson.
Alderman Gardner, Alderman Martin. Thank you.
Alderwoman Manah Hoppenworth,
Alderwoman Hadden,
and Alderwoman Silverstein.
We have a quorum. Please welcome non-committee member
Alderwoman Lee. We also have County Commissioners
Miller and Stamps joining us. We appreciate your presence here today,
colleagues.
We will begin with public testimony.
Our first speaker is Diane Brown.
Chairman, Alderman Gardner's via Zoom, just so you know.
And Alderman Taliaferro as well.
Oh, thank you. Okay, so we have Rule 59 requests.
Have a motion to approve Alderman Taliaferro, Alderman
Gardner,
Alderwoman Hadden.
Anyone?
Good morning.
Okay.
Moved by Alderman Chico, with objection from Alderman
Sposato. Despite the division, the motion carries, and the remote
participants have been acknowledged for purposes of
participation.
Ms. Brown.
Good morning.
My name is Elder Diane Brown.
I'm so elated today on this task force
that a year, well, six months ago,
the city and the county came together
to put together a team that can correct this
broken system.
I'm so happy for Alderwoman Tabares
and Commissioner Donna Miller,
because you all took the time, and you've seen
us.
You heard us.
You sat attentively
And all the 50 aldermen of this great city of Chicago
unanimously voted to bring this task force
together. And all the commissioners,
I'm so grateful.
All the survivors that I met along the way.
I've been in this city,
worked in this city for 40 years. I have lived
here all of my life.
And one thing I can say, you all care.
And to the Honorable
Mayor Brandon Johnson, in his absence, thank
you. And to President
Prewinkle, thank you. But
Tabaras, I watched you every
meeting. Every survivor came up, you were
taking notes.
And I said to myself, "She cares."
Not all city official care,
but I thank you
for hearing us, for listening, for seeing,
for taking time out your busy schedule.
And thank you to all the 50 aldermens and
women.
Thank you so much,
and I'm so glad that today is here.
Thank you so much.
Thank you. The next speaker is Mone Wilson.
Hello. Thank you. I am Alderwoman Dr. Mone S.
Wilson from the city of Calumet City.
This work is deeply personal.
During the first semester of my second year of college, I was raped.
I've also been assaulted by people I was never in an intimate relationship with,
and harassed in a professional setting,
even still today, by people that should know better.
Today, at nearly 50 years old, I am still living with those
experiences. But I've learned that survivors should never suffer in
silence.
I made myself a promise I would not be a voyeur to the pain of
others. I will use my platform to be a resource that leads to the
protection and justice for women and men.
To Commissioner Donna Miller, Alderwoman Tabaras,
Sarah, Katie, Carmen,
the All In Alliance, thank you. From the
bottom of my heart, I am screaming, "You go, girls."
It is
everything
to have you all redefine domestic violence, reframe how
survivors navigate systems to reduce
re-victimization,
and refocus our efforts toward
equitable outcomes that transform pain into purpose.
Because of this work, I am so proud to have
sponsored Calumet City's Domestic Violence Task Force,
which passed unanimously through our city council.
Thank you.
Violence doesn't recognize city limits, zip codes, or municipal
boundaries. Neither should our response to it.
It's time to take this work throughout the Southland,
past Chicago limits,
where many of us are unheard, unseen, and get our resources
together to be on a even playing field so that every survivor
is seen, believed, protected, and given a path to justice.
Thank you all so much.
The next speaker is South Loop resident, Gleb Stasalunas.
Good morning, Chairman Hopkins and members of this committee.
My name is Gleb, and I'm a rising senior studying higher level global politics
as part of the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.
I would first like to acknowledge resolution
R2025-0019950 proposing the
creation of a Chicago Cook County task force to reduce violence
against women. I believe this is an important initiative.
According to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, more than
41% of women in the United States have experienced physical violence,
contact sexual violence, or stalking by an intimate partner during their
lifetime. The US Department of Justice has also reported that many
of these crimes go unreported, highlighting the importance of prevention,
victim support, and effective law enforcement.
Addressing this issue requires strong collaboration between the
Chicago Police Department, Cook County agencies, the Illinois State Police
Department, federal partners such as the FBI and Department of Justice,
healthcare providers, and victim advocacy organizations.
It also requires that law enforcement agencies
have the funding, personnel, training, and investigative resources needed
to protect victims and hold offenders
accountable. The members of this committee have a unique
opportunity to strengthen that collaboration.
Through legislation and oversight, the decisions you make help shape
public safety for the nearly 2.7 million
Chicago residents that you all serve.
The principle of evidence-based policymaking inspired my global politics
research. My investigation asks, quote, "Why does a gap exist
between public perceptions of crime in Chicago and official crime statistics
despite long-term declines in overall crime?" To answer this, I'm
analyzing crime data
through the Chicago Police Department, the FBI, and the Department of Justice,
alongside research on media influence and public opinion.
One trend stands out, that although Chicago's violent crime levels remain
significantly below the peaks of the early 1990s, public concern about
crime remains extremely high. Nationally, the FBI reported a
10.3% decline in violent crime in 2023, including a
22.7% decline in murders, while the Chicago Police Department has also
reported recent declines in homicides and shooting.
Yet many people still believe crime is continually increasing.
Traditional news and social media platforms such as TikTok,
Instagram, and X often amplify individual incidents, which can
shape public perception even when broader trends tell a
different story. As someone studying global politics, I find this relationship
between evidence, public opinion, and policymaking
intriguing. So my question to the committee is, how can Chicago continue
strengthening public safety while also helping residents better
understand the difference between isolated incidents and long-term crime
trends? Thank you for your time today, and thank you for your service to the people
of Chicago. Thank you.
Thank you for your testimony, and good luck with your research.
The next speaker is Patricia Puente.
Good morning.
This is a meeting of public safety.
I have a concern. Today in the
morning at 9:20 AM,
there's this motorcycle on the CTA
platform, and on the
cart inside, riding his motorcycle.
He rides his motorcycle inside the
elevator and he tells me, "You cannot come in
because my motorcycle doesn't fit." But he doesn't get off the motorcycle.
But he tells me this in Spanish, okay?
And then I tell him, "Oh, why don't you get off the motorcycle?" He tells me,
"I don't speak
English. I only speak Spanish," in Spanish.
Okay? And then I tell him, "Well, you should learn how to speak English."
He tells me, "This is not my country." Oh,
but you are asking for all of these privileges
from this beautiful nation, and then you
say this is not your country, that you don't have to abide
by the laws?
There's various motorcycles riding on the
sidewalk. They almost hit an African
American coming out of a restaurant, okay?
They almost hit a Hispanic coming out of the restaurant.
And what is it that they do? Oh, they just go like this.
What does that mean?
Respect this country.
If you don't know how to speak English, learn how to speak English.
Yesterday, I went to Staff Elite to work,
and this is what 95% of the persons working in that
factory started telling me, that I had to speak Spanish.
No, I don't have to speak Spanish. The first language is English.
We are in the United States of America.
And this is what they responded, "We're taking over.
The Hispanics are taking over." Oh, for real?
So then I told him, "Well, I'm going to refuse to speak
Spanish," and this is what he told me.
"Then you have to do..."
With his hands. What is that?
If another coworker would've told him that
to do to a Hispanic, he would've gone and said
discrimination.
Please,
respect this country it has been giving you, and you're
still asking for more.
You're asking to get money for a park.
You know what? They're asking to give money more for the
students and for the teachers. What's more important, to fix
a park or to have more teachers?
I think it's to have more teachers.
But this is what they said, too.
Thank you. Please add Alderman Lopez to the attendance roll
call. The next speaker is Peter Lota.
Public safety in Chicago is a dysfunctional
disaster. Every month, there are teen
takeovers. We have teenage anarchists that are running
rampant throughout this city with the intention of causing
mass destruction and disturbance.
This mayor doesn't want to call these teen takeovers
as riots or public disorder. Bring the prisons back.
Bring jail time. Watch how fast all of this buffoonery ends
within 24 hours. We need to lock up each one of these
individuals that participate in actions such as
these. You also can't have a nice day when
someone's loved one or someone's child gets either
injured or killed. Take a look at Sheridan Gorman, an
innocent, sweet girl attending college at Loyola,
gets brutally killed by an illegal alien.
It's an absolute shame that the city of Chicago prevents
the CPD to coordinate the removal of these types of people
that pose a danger to fellow Chicagoans.
These people, combined with the teen takeover individuals and many other
criminals, are potential threats to innocent,
law-abiding Chicagoans.
Nothing is also being done with violence on public transportation.
Nobody wants to be threatened or injured
or killed when they're taking the CTA.
Take a look at the example that happened to Bethany McGee, who was set on fire.
The perpetrator was arrested 70 other
previous times.
Don't you think that's a lot?
Do you want that in our city?
I don't think so.
CPD and various other law enforcement departments want to do
so much for its community, but Illinois and Chicago's laws
leave all law enforcement unsupported when criminals can be taken into
custody,
then released within hours
and repeat offend like nothing happened.
The Democrats can continue their path.
Citizens across this city, this state, and
throughout this nation are waking up, and they're
witnessing the detrimental actions that are taking place.
Chicago must change course now before
it's too late. Thank you.
The next speaker is Zoe Lee.
Oh,
man.
The whole Chicago is a public crisis.
Cook County, City of Chicago, State of Illinois, the
country in these blue ran cities, because
since I've been
born, since 1986, and since I've been an adult,
all I see is ghetto communism. Ghetto communism
is what we're about to discuss now with this City
of Chicago, Cook County Violence Against Women Task Force
scam.
It's a trillion-dollar business.
All that money y'all make with these stupid order protections on both
sides because women are some of the most vindictive
people on the planet, just as some of these men, and we're
dealing with it when it comes to y'all politics.
Y'all don't want a change.
I know people right now in the family court system, their children are getting
molested, sexually abused, and went to Donna Miller.
But she's running
for a federal position?
Y'all don't care about the kids?
I have people who have came to me because
they can't come to their elected officials about the abuse that they're
dealing with when it comes to the DCF,
DCFS,
Department of Children and Family Services.
That's a trillion-dollar business.
Just like taking our properties,
because who is all in on it? Who runs the state?
Governor JB Pritzker.
So he pays the judges,
he pays the prosecutors,
and he pays y'all
to continue to keep this trauma,
this ghetto communism in our community because it's a
trillion-dollar business.
It's a genocide happening right now with our young kids getting killed.
We dealing with
summertime shy, but we dealing with it when it comes to
some type of street fighter
edition.
Grand Theft Auto. They think they playing Grand Theft Auto out here, and y'all
don't care because y'all going to come in here and act like y'all care so
y'all can get some more non-profit money
and misallocate it somewhere else.
This is a scam.
A scam. And when I start on my first
case, when it comes to the first girl who has came to Donna
Miller about her child right now getting molested by her
father-
Please add Alderman Mosley to the attendance roll call
and also add Alderman Cincho Lopez to the Rule 59
motion to allow remote participation.
Alderman Cincho Lopez, please acknowledge.
Thank you, Chairman.
Yeah, and Alderman Fuentes. We got her previously. Alderman Fuentes?
Okay, we'll come back to you. The next speaker is Sandy Norman.
I first want to honor God.
I honor the council here and every person that have got up
respectively to speak.
I first want to just say to the parents that have lost their
children in this city to gun violence, I'm sorry.
I want to say to the family members of Chicago police officers who
get that call that your child has been murdered or
spouse, I want to say to you that I'm sorry from the bottom of
my heart.
I want to ask a question.
We just saw a couple of, what was it, two weeks ago,
where we saw the mayor of the City of Chicago and all the pastors and
CVI organizations that were here, and they talked
about this gun violence office. My question that I want to ask
everybody in here, where are all those pastors at now?
Why don't we ever see any of those pastors at any of these
public safety meetings? When I drive from 79th to
95th, when I'm in East Garfield, when I'm in
Lawndale, Austin, why don't I ever see any of
the CVI organizations or any of the pastors on the
streets where the violence is happening?
I was just on yesterday with a young man that was, life was
spared as he was a victim of a mass shooting.
I had to bury a young man
A couple of weeks ago from the mass shooting that was on 51st
and Woods. And so I say to the City of Chicago, we have all these
people that come and give statistics about gun violence
going down, but the reality is we see gun violence happening
every day in the City of Chicago, and the help that is needed, we
reject it. And I'm here because God sent me
here. And what we have going on in Chicago is
corruption. What we have going on in Chicago, as it was
already stated, a lot of this stuff is just about greed, it's
about money. You all are not blind.
Y'all see what's going on in the neighborhoods, and you continue to
support the same CVI organizations, the same
pastors, and the blood is going to be on your hands.
And I'm going to say to you, Brian Hopkins, I respected you.
You put your hands in my face, and I'm not even using a race
card as a Black woman, but I came to you and I simply
asked you, I said, "You don't have a ward night," and you put your hand
in my face and writ me off as if I was nobody.
I'm a director. I have my own organization, Life Beyond Limits.
Look me up, Sandy A. Norman. I'm in the streets. I'm in the field.
I'm on the blocks. I'm out there when those mass shootings are going
on. And so the question is, why do we have all this violence?
Well, part of it is because we have the wrong people in office.
We have people in office that are out of touch with reality.
And half of the pastors in Chicago don't even live in the communities that
they preach in. Brian Hopkins, you owe me an
apology. I respected you, and you had no-
The next speaker is George Blakemore.
Okay. And please add Alderwoman Gutierrez to the quorum roll call.
The term
violence against women.
Violence against women.
What about violence against men?
This country was built on violence.
America are violent people.
They enslaved the Black men and
women and children.
This country was built on the blood, sweat, and
tears of Black people.
These people enslaved us.
These Europeans
was
terrible people, savage people.
And they are the same way today.
Killers, stealers.
Violence against Black people.
What kind of man is this that would enslave another
man?
What kind of woman is this
that would watch him do that? The white woman.
She's just as violent
as the white man.
So, Mr. Blakemore, you are playing the race card.
Why not?
Why not play the race card?
And the egregious things that have happened.
Some of our Black people fell in love with the
enemy. Patty Hearst fell in love with her
captors and her rapist and abuser.
So it's the Black man mind is
messed up
mentally. How can you forget where you came
from?
You must use what you got to get what you want, and we
still want freedom,
justice, equality. And for her to
come up and particular saying violence against
women. You came from a man.
You had a father, a grandfather. So the whole
system is broken.
We got to love ourself. We got to heal ourself, Black
people. Something happened to us on the
plantation, and you've never been free.
Your mind is not free. If your mind was
free, you wouldn't be acting like you act.
All of us have been a victim
of slavery.
And America is known to be a violent
country.
Our men, our women, and-
Okay, this concludes our public speakers.
The next item is approval of the Rule 45 reports for May
and June. Can I get a motion to approve?
Moved by Alderman Knudson. Hearing no objections, so ordered.
The sole subject matter today of the hearing is
Resolution 19950, creation of a Chicago
Cook County task force to reduce violence against
women. We have a number of expert witnesses here to testify and to introduce
the subject matter. The chair recognizes Alderwoman Tabaras.
Thank you, Chairman Hopkins. I just want to thank you for your support
today. We're going to be making a presentation on the recommendations to the
task force, and I want to especially recognize
my co-chair of the task force on the county side, Cook County
Commissioner Donna Miller, who is here with us, so I want to thank her for all of
her support, too. I do have a closing statement
I can close, and if you're okay to close, too.
Okay And we also have, you heard from public
comment from Alderwoman Monet Wilson too, from
Calumet City. And then we have Commissioner Stamps as well, who's here too.
Thank you.
Please add Alderman Vasquez to the attendance roll call.
Commissioner Miller, did you have an opening statement?
Okay. All right. Thank you.
Okay, call the first witness.
Hi, good morning. My name is Katie Dunn.
I'm from Chicago 77 Group,
and I am here with Sarah Brown and Carmen Navarro Jacone,
and then two other special guests that I will let them introduce themselves.
Kelly Costello from Impact Partners.
And John Buckley, the practice director of PPL Midwest.
So first, we want to thank Chairman Hopkins.
Thank you for all your support and for bringing us all here today.
And then especially to our two co-chairs, it's been such an honor to
work with you both. These are two women that
work so hard for their communities every day.
And so to take this on with us was a huge undertaking, and it was
nights and weekends, and we cannot thank you enough.
We really look forward to the work ahead.
Today, we're going to be presenting the findings of six months of work.
This was six months of the city agencies, the county agencies,
and then also some state agencies that joined us as well.
This was a first of its kind effort, as Commissioner Miller said before, believe
it or not. It's the first time all these agencies came
together in this capacity. And
really, the primary focus was to
look at violence against women. That's a broad category.
But victimizations against women were on the rise, and were really
a symptom of a broken system overall.
And so what we did was bring together an executive
committee,
chaired by four of the aldermen. Alderman
Tabaris, obviously, Alderman Lee, Alderwoman
Nugent, and Alderwoman
Monique Scott. And then on the county side, we had
support from Commissioners Anaya, Gainer, and Dugnan,
along with our co-chair, Commissioner Miller.
And so that executive committee held monthly
meetings.
We brought in experts from across the country.
And so today, we're just going to present some of the findings from those
discussions, from hundreds of other discussions with
city, state, and county agencies, frontline
workers, and then also the advocacy and service provider
community.
So when we came to you just a few short months ago,
things were very dire. Illinois's per capita rate
caused by death of an intimate partner was the combined
rate of the states of New York and
California.
The City of Chicago,
which has the Violence Reduction Dashboard from the University of Chicago,
by the end of 2025, domestic-related fatal shootings had
increased by 56%.
In 2025, domestic victims in cases were
75% Black residents, 17% Hispanic,
Latino,
which equates to 92% homicide victims in domestic
cases. The Inspector General also reports that there were
336 calls a day just to the Chicago Police Department
that were categorized as domestic,
which did not capture other calls that would've
been domestic when the officers responded.
So
just to also add, the murder rate had increased by
27%.
So after conversations and input,
most importantly from victims and survivors, we decided
to initiate the City of Chicago Cook County Violence Against Women Task
Force. This is truly a whole government approach.
And throughout this journey,
survivors were leading these efforts.
And I truly spent many, many years in the county and
city before this, and Carmen has 30 years in the county.
And so many of the other partners have been around for a while.
No one could remember a survivor-led effort.
And so bringing their voices to the forefront was an honor.
And also,
Sarah will speak in a little bit, but just, we want to thank Sarah Brown, who
really truly
was just a heroine throughout this whole effort.
So many survivors do not feel safe coming forward.
And so her voice has really been--
She's amplifying the voices of so many people we've talked to, and so many people
that I know are supporting these efforts, and will
be going forward.
So there's a pretty famous book out right now.
It's by a journalist. She just was on Oprah's
bestseller, and
it's New York Times bestseller. But what she did was spend years
researching domestic violence across the country.
And
basically, in summary,
her quote is, "If I had to whittle down the changing world of domestic violence to
just one idea that made all the difference, it would be
communication, across bureaucracies, certainly, but also
across political ideologies and programs, people and systems and
disciplines."
That summary really states what was missing
in the City of Chicago and Cook County, and really throughout Illinois.
So the progress that has been made
We're here today at these final hearings after
truly about a year of work, six months officially of this task force.
And so
we do want to share that this has been a lot of
work, and there's so many people that have helped.
And putting pressure on the system and really looking at the system
holistically,
there's a lot more work to do. But as we sit here today, domestic
violence murders have decreased by
53% using the same statistics, the same
dashboard that I shared previously.
So the governor partners span across the state,
the county, the City of Chicago departments, and then
including Alderman Monie Wilson's efforts.
We are now going government by government in some of these south suburbs
that have also been overlooked and under-resourced for really a
very long time.
I do just want to share one caveat is that we don't have Cook County data yet,
which is one of the main recommendations of this report.
So we have some brilliant partners that have been helping us along the way.
The University of Chicago's Crime Lab provided support to
initiate this task force, Northwestern as well, and then the
Public Policy Lab, and Impact Partners.
And then finally, the All-In Alliance, which is going to be led by Sarah,
and it's a new effort that we're launching to go community by community
to hear from survivors.
So just to get to the system.
The system that
women go into is unlike any other government system.
So there's absolutely no one in charge, there's no
coordination, and you get bounced back and forth between different
court divisions, court systems, like civil system, criminal system.
And also there's three different levels of government: the city,
local, county, and state who have distinct
statutory obligations
in this system. They may oversee a different database,
like the LEAD system with state police or the FOID card system.
They may be the civil court,
and then also the Chicago Police Department, which is truly the front lines.
So dissimilar to the criminal justice system or one of the other government
systems, someone walking in the door can span across
multiple departments, multiple agencies, and truly
there's policies and laws right now that impede
data sharing between those agencies that limit any
coordination. And so truly that lack of
understanding of the system has created just a culture
of confusion, not just for the victims walking in the door, but for
everyone in the system. Every courthouse is its own
entity. Every
courthouse has different resources, different organizations as partners.
It's a really complex system.
And because of this culture and confusion and lack of data,
the entities that are providing the services,
housing, and advocacy,
unfortunately are in a fight every single year for funding.
There's no dedicated
funding streams on either side. And every year they're made to
make the case for funding
against all odds. And so we want to acknowledge them and then
also that hopefully all of these efforts will help
improve the ability to get some funding to expand
resources that are desperately needed in all of our communities,
especially the south suburbs from what we've identified.
So the principal goals were to create a unified system.
That is something that will not happen overnight.
There's legislation that needs to take place.
Sorry, I'll just wait. But there's legislation that needs to take place.
Okay, I can catch up here.
Now I really am showing my age.
Sorry, this is not going forward.
Oh, okay. So I'll just keep talking.
So the principal goals are to create a unified victim
center system that protects victims.
We've laid out recommendations on how to begin that approach.
The report that was generated and circulated
extensively lays out what we feel
would be the executive recommendations, but also
really the recommendations by each department to improve the capabilities
to be able to provide this unified system.
The other principal goal is to improve the first responder
safety and health.
Every single
aspect of the court system impacts the frontline people that are
responding to calls from all of the city agencies, but really
all of the law enforcement and first responder agencies throughout Cook County.
So we'll get to some of the issues that have been impacting their safety in a
moment. And then finally, to reduce violent crimes and victimizations, which
we are off to a great start, but there's so much
more work to do.
So the executive committee, as I mentioned, was chaired by our
incredible leaders, Commissioner Miller and Alderman Tavares.
The executive committee met monthly at the Cook County boardroom.
And it was really a space to bring in outside voices and then
also hear from the agencies that are doing the work here in Chicago and Cook
County. And so we really want to thank so many of the agencies that came and
participated and presented, and then obviously our partners from across the
country that came in or participated or just offered us
insight as we were building out the curriculum for that.
In addition, there were six working groups
that are the original focus areas.
The high priority court orders, data and research, court systems and
programs, first responder safety and health, training
policies, and the path to survivorhood, those are really the
initial targets, because those were the focus areas that we
identified where there was the most concern and really the areas where we
needed to have conversation to initiate these
findings.
The overarching concern,
we'd love to be here today to present more information and new
data, and have more information about Cook County as a whole.
But unfortunately, we still are facing some limitations from the court system
data. And so there's been a lot of different people working on
that, and we're going to continue to pursue those efforts.
Alderman Tabaris recently held a hearing,
Commissioner Miller recently held a hearing, requesting more data that
would
have supported these efforts and these reports.
And so,
we move forward with the caveat of the
report that was issued is a live document, and it's a living
document that will be updated as we get more
information.
But truly, the Cook County Court system is not subject to the
Freedom of Information Act.
So what happens right now is if you're a
journalist or you're a researcher or you're someone in public
policy or you're a leader, you put in a request
to the office of the chief judge, and if he approves it, then it goes to the clerk,
and then you may or may not get it. And so that process is just not
working and it's not functioning.
It's limiting grant dollars, it's creating chaos and
confusion, and it's impeding the efforts to unify the system.
And so,
the need for transparency is going to be a theme throughout these
recommendations,
and really how we can initiate some
kind of quick fixes and get information out to the public.
So the court system, when I say it's not subject to FOIA, this is what it
includes. So the entire criminal court system, the entire civil
court system, pretrial release, which manages tens of thousands
of defendants every year, the Office of Probation and Parole,
orders to parole,
also tens of thousands of individuals every year.
GPS monitoring, there's three different programs
under the office of the chief judge, and then one that's tapering down under the
sheriff,
and then really all of the other specialty programs.
And so to get any kind of information is really at the
discretion of the system holders, and currently, they're not
beholden to the public to share that information.
So that brings us to executive recommendation number one, which is
to legislate transparency. And so our
first and foremost recommendation is
to work with our legislative teams to incorporate the Cook County Court system and
all of its programs into compliance with FOIA.
The next working group, and also point of focus
is high priority orders. That was a term that we
defined
in our working group and in these efforts
as including protective orders, arrest warrants,
and then firearm enforcement orders.
And so,
these directly impact victims and
victimization and the safety of first responders and
everyone in our community. And so just to give a preview
of what a protective order means, it's a domestic violence
order of protection. So an emergency order of protection, someone walking
into a courthouse and seeking that assurance from the court
system that they can get an order of protection served that
limits the communication and even
provides other remedies to what's called the respondent, which
would be their abuser. And that offers immediate protections to someone
who's in a state of crisis. There's also stalking no-contact orders,
civil no-contact orders, firearm restraining orders, which
is just grossly underused throughout Illinois,
and then the workplace protection restraining orders, which are
also really important and are rarely, if ever,
initiated in Cook County.
So then once you get an order of protection, there's three different types.
So you can be given an emergency order by a judge,
but that has to be served, and then there has to be a hearing.
A judge can issue an interim order as cases proceed, and the victim
has to come to court over and over and over again.
And then really the end goal is a plenary order, which offers up to two
years of protection. So if this data is correct,
in 2024, less than 15% of cases that were
initiated ever received that plenary order.
And so we know that the system right now is just not working.
The main component would be the lack of service.
And so CBS did an amazing analysis
a couple of years ago using, I believe, 10 years of data from the county that they
were able to retrieve, and the service rate had been
25%.
That rate has now doubled, but there's other states where
the goal is 90%.
There's a few other states where if it drops below 75%,
then there's legislative action to bring everybody together to see
why
the service rate has dropped. And so that's something that Cook County has just
been very behind our counterparts across the country.
The next
high priority order is warrants.
So the Cook County Court, uh, clerk of the circuit court shared with us that
there's 72,000 outstanding warrants.
Um, so arrest warrants are issued from the court system.
These are different from search warrants from the Chicago Police Department.
An arrest warrant is issued from the court system.
It could be for a failure to appear, um, most often, or a
violation of one of the programs you're ordered to.
Um, those are transferred to the Cook County Sheriff to input into the LEADS
system. This is the law enforcement database, um, that's a statewide
database, um, and then to initiate that arrest.
Um, so all police agencies must make an arrest during a LEADS
check, so that could be a traffic stop, um, or another instance where an
officer, um, is running someone's, uh, identification through
LEADS.
Um, so for many years, arrest warrants were the number one cause of
arrests for Chicago Police Department, um, 75, uh,
7,551 reported in 2024 alone.
Um, so we know that the court warrants are causing, um,
a major, uh, it's impacting the city's operations,
its budget, public safety overall.
But, uh, in terms of this work, um, there was a, uh, an
estimated 20% of all warrants were for domestic violence
cases. Um, and so that's like a number that's
very, um, probably, uh, tw-twice if not, you know,
double that because you do this kind of check by lead charge and
oftentimes a domestic violence charge is a misdemeanor.
Um, and so,
uh, when it's listed, it's not the lead charge.
So what we do know is it's one in five, and it could be
much more than that. Um, so what that means is when someone's walking
into the courthouse, they get an order protection.
If they're lucky and get that one, uh, one in two that gets the order served,
someone violates that order, and a violation of an order protection
warrant is issued,
um, it's likely never being enforced.
Um, so really we've just created this system with all of these different points for
victims to have to go through, all of these hoops, all of these court dates, all
of this paperwork, and the system itself is not functioning.
Uh, similarly with firearm retrievals, um,
an emergency order protection is granted, um, um,
the respondent's FOID card is temporarily revoked.
Um, if a weapon is not, firearms, weapons are not transferred
to, um, law enforcement at the time of service, um,
there's really not a mechanism right now that's following up on these firearms.
Um, so there's been reported of, I think upwards to s-67,000
ex, uh, revoked f-FOID cards in, uh, the state of
Illinois. Um, and there's no efforts to try
and get the firearms out of that home.
Um, if you are in a home with a firearm, you are 10 times more likely to be a
victim of murder. So that missing step is
absolutely a public safety crisis.
Um, Karina's Law, which is a relatively new law to Illinois, allows for
search warrants out of civil court to be ordered.
Um, and those are supposed to be transferred to local police to conduct
the, um, enforcement of those warrants and retrieve those
firearms. Um, due to the warrants being from the civil court and
then really local police having minimal access to civil court records,
there's been some limitations, and so those numbers are just starting to uptick
now. Um, but tracking the orders is a paper-based process,
and so there's been a lot of discrepancies in the reported numbers and
challenges that a lot of the partners are trying to work through now.
Um, but if you want to believe the data that's been
reported, there's just really been only a handful that have been enforced.
Um, so that brings us to our second executive recommendation,
um, which is to build out an interagency
data center.
Um, and so this would follow, um, what's a really successful
model from the high intensity drug trafficking areas.
Um, the HIDTA mo-model where it's a co-location space with a lot of
different government entities with access to their respective systems.
Um, so this agency center would triage cases,
look at how many orders of protection are outstanding, try and share
relative, uh, relative information between the different agencies, but then
really focus on how to improve safety
for, um, women, their children, and all of our communities
by working together to improve the outcomes of all three of
these high priority orders. Um, the second
recommendation out of the high priority, uh, committee is an independent data
dashboard. Um, so right now there's, uh, four different
public dashboards, um, from county agencies.
There's one from the city. There's weekly reports issued by the Office of the Chief
Judge. There's quarterly reports issued by the state's Administrative Office of
the Illinois Courts. Um, but all of these reports are independent, and
sometimes they're conflicting. Um, and so it'd be really important, we feel it'd
be really important to bring in an independent partner.
Um, this is a project that we want to get a public-private partnership
and get some private funding, um, together to focus on this.
Um, but the dashboard will track how many orders of
protection are filed, so civil court, uh, data that's right now not shared
anywhere. Um, how many orders of protection are filed, how many warrants
are filed, how many are enforced, how many orders of protection are served,
and really track different points in the system that are impacting,
um, victims from the start of victimization to their path to
survivorhood. Um, the,
um, dashboard also p-will provide a level of
accountability for current and future leaders because
right now, as I mentioned before, there's not really a system.
Everybody's independently elected, um, and, um, there's
nobody technically in charge. And so, um, at least
these, uh, this data dashboard and the public information, um, will be
helpful to kind of track what everyone is doing and, and whether or not,
um, they've allocated the resources needed, uh, to, to
properly serve victims. Um, because there's not a system, we
came up with six points. Um, so this is, um,
really, um, a path
That is probably most common.
And so there's different initiation points. Some are in the community.
It could be a hospital referral to the system, or it could be a
911 call.
A lot of times there's multiple points of contact at point one and point
two until somebody finally seeks an order of protection.
And so,
these different points are where we think efforts should be focused
going forward, because these are all drop-off points.
As people say, there's cracks in the system. These are the cracks.
As Sarah will share, we also feel the whole system is broken.
It's not necessarily just the cracks.
But these points really need
further evaluation and deliberation,
but these are the points that we really try to
look at. Over the course of these six months,
the absence of data makes some of
the recommendations a little
difficult to
truly share how important some of the
recommendations are to fixing the system.
But as more data becomes available, we'll update these points of the
system with actual data points, and we'll be able to then show
the absolute need for more collaboration at these
points.
Which brings us to our executive recommendation
number four, which would to be to initiate a City
Cook Charter.
This would be an independent oversight committee that looks at the
system as a whole. The system lacks a primary
authority.
We see this a lot of times with high priority cases when finger-pointing in the
news stories starts.
That has not fixed anything. And as so many of the victims and
surviving family members have shared with us, they just feel like nothing has
changed
since they lost their loved one or since they were harmed.
And so, this oversight committee would really bring
a level of authority, or at least transparency to the entire
system and its partners,
and then really look at
enhanced coordination amongst all agencies.
So the report identifies 15 different things that this committee will
be focused on, but most importantly, it's improving
transparency to those people that are seeking help in the system.
So for example,
there's no court recordings in a lot of the
courtrooms that hear cases that involve the safety of women
and their children.
And so Sarah will share more about her case, but people's cases go
on for a decade, and they have multiple judges,
and there's no court transcripts, there's no court recordings, there's no
way to prove that discussions have already been had, or determinations have already
been made. Every time you get a new judge, your case basically resets,
and you're re-victimized over and over and over by the system.
So to improve transparency around and really look at just where we're
deficient compared to other jurisdictions.
In talking to people across the country, we are just very
behind.
But this charter will also provide some level of assurance
to some of the researchers,
and some of the
philanthropic community that want to invest in this system.
But currently, there's not
a coordinated system for them to invest in.
And so this would bring more resources to the system, more
oversight, more communication, and provide a structure where one currently
does not exist.
And so, I'm going to have Sarah really
quickly just introduce herself and tell her story, because I could sit
here all day, but until you hear from her,
you won't truly understand the scope of what's happening.
Sarah Brown. I am a survivor.
I actually share a child with my abuser.
I have been in
an open court domestic relations case for nine and a half
years.
I have had over eight judges assigned to my case.
Due to
the lack of no reporters in the courtroom,
the problem that I've definitely, which has been consistent,
has had, once there's a new judge on your case, you have to retell your
story.
And so it depends on the judge and their diligence with
looking at the past history of
the other individual. And in my case, he was my
current abuser and actually was still abusing other
women. And so one thing that actually
really affected me, and actually started this
conversation
with me reaching out to Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller,
is when my son actually had
to witness his father
beating his now or then girlfriend.
This happened in 2024,
and so, as I was advocating to those multiple
judges time and time again,
with letting them know, hey, he had not completed his
class that was required, or he had another
battery case in 2020. None of
that mattered. And so when my son now,
at the age of actually observing and being able to tell me
what happened,
I was broken because I thought the system
was here to not only protect me, but at this
point, to protect my son.
Shortly thereafter, when that incident happened in 2024,
my case was assigned to another judge.
That judge, my case was up for a status call, and I remember
that was the most horrific day of my life,
because he was actually in jail over the weekend
And the judge that was hearing the case, we were
discussing, I was requesting for a modification of parenting time, because any
parent that is aware that their child's seeing such an
abusive situation, I need a, could it be a
modification of parenting time? And at that time, the judge said to
me,
stated to me, "If there's issues with
paying an attorney that was assigned to your case,
I would rather give the custody to
him."
And beyond that, just the further detail of it
is, for me, there was no stop in parenting
time. And the reason being, and at that time, I did not know, now I
know, the access that judges have to the
databases that's supposed to be in place to look at the
history of the person, and
as a victim, I'm here trying to prove my point to a
stranger.
And so for me, in this process, and for
many others,
there's been many others, throughout this duration of the task force
has said it's the same situation. And so for me,
not having court reporters in a courtroom,
being victimized with high court
fees, and these court fees are related to appointed
attorneys that a lot of times people don't understand,
especially as we went through with the working groups,
that these are private attorneys that are appointed by judges that,
again, don't have a history of knowing signs of domestic
violence or signs of a repeat abuser.
And so for me, that is what my story
is. This is what fueled my
passion to stand up and,
I do have an open case. But I chose this moment
to say, "Hey, if my case don't ever get solved or closed,
the next woman that goes through this situation does not have to go through it the
way I went through
it."
Thank you, Sarah.
And so, that brings us to our recommendation number five, which
is,
to create a victim-centered system, we want to primarily
focus the next part of these efforts on the domestic relations court.
So for those of you that are not aware, the civil court system
is where an order of protection is filed and heard.
In addition, there's a civil court system called domestic relations.
It's oftentimes called family court,
misunderstood as just divorce court in Cook County.
But domestic relations court hears parentage cases, child
custody, and a few years ago, the
court system decided that when a victim came in to get an order of
protection if they had a current case or a need for a domestic relation
case. So basically, if you had a child with your abuser, your case would be
reassigned to that division.
At that point, all services dropped off.
So no advocacy, no access to
legal advocates, no access to any sort of coordinated
services.
And so, what we
discovered using the data that was available is that almost 30% of
all orders of protection have domestic relations cases.
And so as Sarah mentioned, the lack of court recordings, transcripts,
these cases go on for years. We have to be in court with your
abuser. There's been forced mediation where someone
was almost murdered by their ex-husband, one of the survivors that we work
with, and then she was forced to sit across from him in a mediation.
There's really just not any sort of domestic violence
competency across,
at least from the stories that we heard.
And so
really what we've figured out is that this is a focus area, and it's also where
someone's probably at the highest risk in the system.
On the criminal case side, you have amazing state's attorneys,
resources in that office. There's a lot more
competency around the dangers and the
risks. But in the domestic
relations division, it just doesn't seem to be the same kind of
focus.
A lot of people are reporting some horrible
relationships and situations with some of the judges.
But the most concerning part that we found out was that
the court fees and costs for the services that were being
assigned,
not selected by the victim survivor, were costing tens
and thousands of dollars. So we talked to some women who had literally living
out of their car with their children who were being assigned
a child psych order that cost $20,000, or
a guardian ad litem that charges $300, $400 an hour.
And so the system is really, when you get to that, your
choice is really to go back to your abuser,
or to somehow figure out how to
have all these fines and fees add up and figure out how to
keep your head above water. It just absolutely makes no sense start to
finish.
And so,
the six points of the system are where we like to
focus our further attention. But the domestic relations division
also needs legislative reforms initiated in the
fall. And for all sessions going forward, there's a lot to
fix.
And so, with that, our next
point that we focused on was-
Also called Survivorhood. And our amazing partners did months and
months of work. They've talked to a lot of survivors, some
that are re-entering or that re-entered from custody themselves.
Many
people that work in the system.
And they just did an amazing job journey mapping
start to finish the system. And so with that, I'm going to pass over the next
few minutes and slides over to Kelly and Jon.
Thank you, Katie, and thank you everyone for having us.
We
conducted this qualitative research to understand the journeys
that survivors go through and to develop recommendations.
Let me move to the next slide.
And the one after that. I can tell you that the Public Policy Lab,
where I am representing, is a nonprofit that
works with government agencies and departments to improve public services
for low-income and marginalized communities.
We actually recently wrapped up a
project with the Michigan Supreme Court to improve their
court forms for 1,100 court forms for self-representing litigants
to better navigate the court system and also to prepare the court system there
in Michigan for digital
first filing.
Joined by Kelly.
And on the next slide, you'll see Kelly Costello
from Impact Partners. I'm the founder.
We lead innovation projects with government,
nonprofits, private industry, and startups.
And as a coach for the Bloomberg Center for Public Innovation, I've worked with
12 different cities. Most recently with Hamilton,
Ontario, to redesign the residential development application
process to address affordable housing, and then other
projects in early childhood education and community engagement.
If we go to the next slide, there's a quick sort of a synopsis of this
engagement. We've interviewed 19 different people and visited both the
Skokie and Markham courthouses.
We spoke with judges, leads clerks, counselors, DV specialists,
and interviewed advocates with nonprofits, subject matter experts with
educational institutions, and survivors.
You'll see at the bottom of this a journey map that we created to show
the civil court process, primarily
focusing on the order of protection.
When we go to the next slide, today, we really want to focus on four
areas of opportunities and a recommendation.
The digital court experience,
care-centered communication strategy, a real-time navigator
with wraparound services, and DV prevention programs.
Jon will talk about a couple of these in detail.
Yeah. On the next slide.
We know that virtual channels can increase access to
courts.
However, our site visits and conversations with survivors and court
staff
allowed us to identify a number of issues with the digital
processes of filing court forms and attending virtual court.
We observed how difficult it is to navigate the Cook County Court website to
begin e-filing.
We saw individuals be recommended
to fill in paper forms rather than create online accounts that would ensure
timely information of hearings, which is a major
issue for those seeking justice.
And we heard about survivors arriving at the court and sitting outside courtrooms
on their phones because they were unaware that their cases were being held
virtually on video conferencing.
To address these challenges, we are proposing to redesign the digital court
journey for self-representing litigants so that those who wish to file and attend
court online can do so with the same ease and clarity as those who
choose not to. The good news is that the key
technology is already in place for e-filing and virtual court in Cook County.
What we are proposing is to improve the processes and communications to ensure
easy access to the existing digital infrastructure.
Taken together, these changes will increase access, lessen
administrative burden, and reduce case dismissals.
On the next slide.
Survivors who are seeking court protection are often
doing so as a last resort. They do so
with a great deal of vulnerability and fear.
And during our site visits, we observed, in some cases, court
staff being unnecessarily combative and
being transactional.
Through interviews, we heard from survivors who were totally unclear of
the processes they were entering into, and particularly their role in those
processes.
And we saw that the paperwork is daunting.
Katie mentioned this earlier, but it is often unclear what to expect, and that's
particularly true if survivors are filing
multiple filings at one time, which is common.
To address these challenges, we are proposing to conduct an analysis
of existing DV court materials and communication flows,
and to implement a care-centered communication strategy that would inform the tone
of materials, include compassionate communication training for
court staff, and consider courthouse design recommendations to
reduce the emotional labor of accessing the courts.
In particular, we are proposing the creation of what to expect guides for
the different common DV case pairings.
By demystifying the court process and ensuring survivors are treated with care,
we will increase the numbers of survivors who benefit from court protections.
For the next concept, the real-time navigator and wraparound
services, we had observed that services can be
inconsistently sort of applied. People have to prove eligibility,
or they don't know about services.
And so this would really help people by developing
additional court-involved and public resources explicitly made
available for survivors seeking protection.
It could include emergency housing that targets the
72 hours around the seeking of the order of protection.
courthouse childcare services. Right now, you only have that available if
you already have a court date, but when you're going to file, you also need
childcare services, and then consistently available
legal aid. On the next slide, our last concept really
focuses on DV prevention program.
It includes identifying and piloting proven programs aimed at
reducing instances of domestic violence.
One of our interviewees, who's a director of counseling,
made this comment, "If I could do anything, I'd like to get a curriculum
in schools so that children learn a little something more about the
cycles of violence." So, this concept could include
educational programs about healthy relationships for school age, or
teenagers,
or for adults that may be dealing with abusive children at home that have
mental health issues.
This could also bring about voluntary abuser
intervention programs. Some already exist, but sort of increasing
the availability of these that provide an opportunity for those who
cause harm to seek help before violence
escalates. And then the last, focusing on
peer coaching and a support network that could reduce isolation and
provide support throughout the end-to-end process of filing an
order of protection. And then-
On the final slide, as
both Kelly and Katie mentioned, we conducted a
decent series of
qualitative research on and with the survivor
journey. And so we're happy to share more of that, and particularly the
journey map that we previewed up on the screen.
And myself and Kelly will also be sticking around a little bit afterwards for
any additional questions you might have.
But any further contact, you can do so at those web
email addresses, and we'd be happy to send you the materials that we have.
Okay. So, just to kind of close, we want to thank everyone again.
And then also, a lot of what we mentioned today was court system or
collaborative
recommendations.
We also just want to
open this up for discussion. We do have
some recommendations that are specific to Chicago included in the
report. And so, the main one being is that
we need the Chicago partners to help us increase the
number of protective orders served.
So, local law enforcement officers can do what's called a short form
service. Chicago police are doing those,
but
they intercept probably
many more people than
any of the other agencies
in Cook County. And so we would love to just look at that and give them the
resources and training that they need.
But then also just to continue a whole system approach.
Because we've heard from people who are afraid to register their kids at the
Chicago parks because they're afraid that the abuser will come and pick up their
kids, or we've heard
about the need for more programming and training
in the schools. And so we want to look, going forward, at some
more bigger picture partnerships with City of Chicago,
and really how we can start to create a culture
where, as we rebuild the system for victims to come and get
the services and
just the care that they deserve, that we're also improving
the understanding in communities of what's going on.
When we came here in November, I put up a map of the City of Chicago
with the points of domestic relations
violent crimes, and it was the entire City of Chicago.
And so we just want to make sure that every alderman and alderperson
knows that we're here as a resource, and that
every community is impacted. And going forward, we'd really like to
hear from all of you and figure out how we can
partner to better serve the survivors in your community.
With that, I'm going to give this over to Carmen Tavares.
Thank you, everyone.
I just want to close by saying you've obviously seen all
the work that went into this. You heard earlier that this year
alone, in just the last six months,
the 53% decrease. And you ask, what has
changed in the six months? Well, we're going to tell you what's been done
differently over the past few decades is that this was strictly a
victim-led approach. We can't say that enough.
Today, we have presented a roadmap built directly from lived
experiences. This report demands sweeping reform.
But let me be clear, transparency is not a threat to our legal system.
It is a requirement for public trust.
Our courts must answer to the people they are built to protect.
We are delivering the exact resources, protections, and
services that every single citizen should rightfully expect when they are in
crisis.
To the survivors who guided us, thank you for your courage.
To the public, we promise you a system that answers your
need with dignity, clarity, and speed.
The era of talking is over, and the era of accountable
action hopefully begins today. Thank you.
Commissioner Miller?
Thank you so much. Well, thank you, Katie,
and Sarah, and Carmen, and the other partners for the information from
this report. And I just wanted to thank Alderwoman Tavares for
leading this for City Council. Thank you, Chairman, for allowing us to be
here today. And thank you for all the City Council members who
voted unanimously for this
initiative to go forward and Hearing from so
many of them and own personal testimonies also just
highlights the need for this initiative and the first
collaboration between Cook County as well as the City of
Chicago. And I can't be more proud of the information that we've gathered
from this report. As you can see, it's very detailed.
There's mult-
... at the end of just to have a report and say, "Here, we're filing
this report." This lets us know the areas that we have work to do in, what
that work can look like, and how many people actually want
to work together to get that report.
So Alderwoman Tavares has been such an amazing leader
and just focused on what this looks like to come
together, work together, and we also have my
commitment that as I move forward and look at the Violence Against
Women Act on the federal level, that we can get resources, not only here in the
City of Chicago, but in Cook County and across the country, because this is
not an isolated issue just here in our area.
But I think that we have so many experts now that will be able to come and
testify and say what it looks like and how the work has been
led by victims, unfortunately re-traumatizing many of those
stories over and over again. So we appreciate them from the bottom of our hearts
for sharing these deeply personal issues with us.
But we couldn't have gotten here without that information, and it's been
so telling for each of the different departments, whether it be at the city
or at the county level, to hear that this is what the result of our work
is doing. Whether they think they're putting things in place or not putting things
in place, we have to be absolutely sure to protect not only the
women who are victims, the children who are victims, but
also put things in place so that we can move forward to have higher
transparency and accountability. So thank you.
It's been great being your partner, and we're not done yet.
Yeah. Thank you, Commissioner.
And I certainly appreciate your leadership on this issue,
and it just highlights the fact that we really need to do a better
job of collaborating with our two government agencies.
We share the same building, but we share responsibilities at
a much more significant level. And I can think a few issues that highlight
that need like this issue does.
We can't do it alone. Each government on its own could not solve
this massive problem. There's jurisdictional barriers as
well, but we have to do a better job collaborating and
working together as one of the recommendations to form a
charter that would directly address that.
I think that's essential, and I think this issue highlights the need to
move forward on that. So your presence here today is both
symbolic and significant, that I hope it will signal a
new dawn of cooperation between city and county government so we
can begin to solve some of these problems.
Questions from committee members?
Alderman Martin.
Thank you, Chairman. I want to first express my appreciation to
Alderwoman Tavares, to Commissioner Miller, for your leadership on
this.
We have seen in the 47th Ward in recent years these
problems felt in a very acute way. Just a few weeks ago, in fact,
tragically, there was a
neighbor who was shot and killed by his neighbor's
abuser who came to her property despite
there being an order of protection that was issued.
We're still looking to figure out the details.
My understanding was that order had not been served
on the offender who shot and killed
this neighbor, but it was just really highlighting the need
to, piggybacking on a previous hearing that Alderwoman Tavares led on,
that we figure out how to serve these more quickly, more
effectively.
We don't have gun violence affect our community in the 47th
Ward in the same ways that some of my
colleagues' wards are affected, but this is one
that really hits close to home in multiple ways.
And some of the recommendations here I think will be very
helpful once they are instituted to help prevent tragedies like this from
happening again. So thank you to the two of you and to the folks in the box and the
other leaders who aren't here today but still provided
invaluable help.
One question I had was around
this proposal around a single data center
or data sharing. How can we make sure that
we're not just putting that in place so that both CPD, the sheriff's
office, and anyone else in law enforcement have access to it, but they have
access to it in a timely way, they have the right resources so that, for
example, we can serve these orders of protection as quickly as
possible?
Thank you.
That is a great question. And so the
partnership that it's kind of modeled off of
right now does these for high-intensity drug trafficking, so the drug
trafficking cases. And
it
has resounding success. And so what it is, it's a co-location model.
But just to kind of explain this under just a term or
kind of like the pathway for a victim in Chicago and Cook County is
there's a civil order, and even the criminal system judges
don't always check that and vice versa.
So even just in Cook County,
access is limited across the
court systems.
Access to the civil court system is limited by
state law and policy to local law enforcement.
So say, for example, Chicago Police Department
cannot do the same thing that the Cook County Sheriff can because the sheriff is
the law enforcement entity for the court system.
This impacts so many different cases.
For example, orders of protection, unless they're served, are not public record.
And so what we found was some of the women that were either killed or
missing had five prior orders of protection, and the Chicago Police
cannot see that, at least in a really
easy way. I think a couple people might now have access, and they don't even know
what they're looking at. They have to go through every single case to try and find
what they're looking for. So, really just to have people who are experts in their
own system in one place, and then to bring in outside
experts to come in and say, "Okay," there's lethality assessments,
there's high-risk teams, there's all different models across the country that have
been doing this really for decades.
But we've never had that ability to implement a research-based model because we
don't have the data, and we don't have the collaboration.
And so really what we'd like to look at is, say, how do we improve orders of
protection being served across the system?
Right now, you could go to a criminal case today, have an active order of
protection against you, and no one on the criminal side will serve it to you
because they don't know. So really, how do we improve communication is step one,
but then really this is more the remedy of how do we get everybody together right
now and at least start trying to triage these cases, especially those that
are high risk.
Someone might
be charged with attempted murder. We know a warrant was issued this morning.
This team should be activated and try to figure out, in the respective systems,
what's the best address.
Or say the orders that cannot go into the system, the lead system, because they're
missing a birth date. The secretary of state has the birth dates.
The Cook County Clerk's office has the birth date.
So it's just trying to kind of look at some of the impediments to
getting the care and the services that women need,
and try to fix the system through this collaboration.
So I hope that answered your question.
The different focal points have really different
initiatives under each of them. The orders of protection would be one kind of
component, the warrants would be another, and then the third would be the firearm
retrievals, which we are in desperate need of collaboration.
Across the country, FROs, firearm restraining orders, they're high-risk
orders.
It's a family can initiate that if they're worried about a loved one.
We only have a handful every year compared to thousands in other
jurisdictions that are filed. So really, it's fixing the system, and then
we'll be able to present it to the public as something that functions and actually
works. But right now there's so
little coordination that even filing one, it might never
get served, they might never get the guns.
And so it's really kind of twofold; fixing the system and then bringing in a
data-driven research-based approach.
That's very helpful. One follow-up question to that is,
do you anticipate that the county would be better served than the
city to lead on both the,
I guess, design of that system as well as the funding of any work
associated with it?
Truly, I think what we'd like to include is eventually local law enforcement as
well. As Commissioner Miller stated, this is something we know is happening across
Cook County, so incorporating all local law enforcement would be the
ultimate goal. But the City of Chicago has a lot of
information through their 911 center, through Chicago Fire,
through Chicago Police, and so they'd be a really critical partner.
Because just to kind of get creative and start to look at this as
a system,
there's a lot of data points that are missing right now that we'd need to collect,
just to even understand the scope.
That's helpful because I know it's both a benefit and a disadvantage to
have something that spans multiple jurisdictions, multiple levels of government.
On the one hand, it mirrors the ways in which we need them
collaborating across jurisdictions, but also can lead to
situations where maybe there's a lack of clarity on who's going to
contribute what percentage of funding, who's going to be running
point on certain aspects of both the creation and implementation.
So I think that's something that we as government leaders at both the county and
the city level can think through so that we don't see
unintentional delay because there's no one stepping up
to run point on that.
The only other thing that I would share is a comment, not a question,
which is the Chicago Children's Advocacy Center is a
great example of
collaboration at not just the city and county level, but also the state level.
So having people on site who are
detectives from CPD, who are
attorneys from the state's attorney's office, prosecutors,
and then people from DCFS at the state level to help provide wraparound
services to children who have witnessed or otherwise
experienced a truly horrific trauma.
I think that that works really well, and I think that as some of the
suggestions talk about with regard to adult survivors, I think
that CCAC would be a good model to look to, in particular
their Can Hope proposal, as we expand the sorts
of services that some of the most vulnerable and underserved members of our
community
need help with. So would just flag that for folks.
Thank you again to my two colleagues. Thank you, Chair.
Thank you, Alderman Martin. Further questions?
Alderwoman,
well, you'll be next. Okay. Alderwoman Silberstein, followed by Alderman Chico.
Thank you. And I also just have a comment, or actually, I want to
say thank you to my colleague, Alderwoman Tabaras and
Commissioner
Miller, for really spearheading this task force.
There's a lot that needs to be fixed.
And thank you for presenting to us and letting us know
everything
that's involved. And I also just want to say one thing to Sarah.
Thank you for your courage.
Thank you for being here today and sharing your
horrible experience, years-long horrible experience
And
we need women to stick together, to stand up, and
know that as much as we can, we have your back.
So,
thank you.
Alderman Chico, as always, we appreciate your perspective as the only member of
this committee who is a sworn law enforcement personnel.
Thank you, Chair. And I too want to thank the leadership of Alderwoman
Tabaras and Commissioner Miller.
As somebody who is in the system as a
Chicago police officer,
one of the routine calls we went to on a day-to-day basis were domestic violence
calls. And there were some addresses we went to multiple times a day
and multiple times a week. And after
most shifts, I would reflect on
what I saw, the incident,
and collect my thoughts about it. And after seeing
this robust and thorough
presentation,
a lot of my questions and a lot of the things I pondered on
were kind of addressed there. I'm so happy to see that.
And to Alderman Martin's point, and I think he hit it right on the head, when we
left those situations,
I thought about the children and the impact that it must have on
them as they were going through this traumatic
experience. So I'm so glad to see the
efforts being led in addressing how we're going to work with the
children and
what they've gone through in these situations, because that's so very important.
Especially for our young women who see that
and are traumatized by that. So I just want to thank
everybody here in providing the leadership, and I could
tell you for certain we are on the right path. So thank you.
Thank you.
Yes. Thank you, Alderman Chico. Alderman Vasquez.
Thank you, Chairman. I also want to thank Alderwoman Tabaras and Commissioner
Miller for their work and the conversation.
In the 40th Ward, we've had
Jayden Perkins, whose life was lost
because of the court system, and sometimes
even seeing some of the judges who aren't taking some of the complaints seriously
or the orders of protection with the
severity they need to be seen. It actually led us to the point we're going to
partner up with other elected officials to move a judge from being in the domestic
violence to going to traffic. And I think conversations
related to what training looks like for the judges and where they start should
be part of the equation. So I really am grateful for a lot of the work
and the reporting shared here.
I also appreciate your courage in speaking out, but I think we know
how many people
don't feel comfortable speaking out at all because the system isn't strong
enough to make them feel protected if they actually want to file a complaint
or actually take it to the next step, as well as
the services needed to intervene on the front end to not even let it get that
far.
I think there's a number of us who've grown up in communities where
what could easily be interpreted as domestic violence is referred to
as not sparing the rod.
And I think that we need a more fulsome
conversation and context so people feel comfortable enough to have these
conversations in the open, so that they know where they can go and
feel protected in doing so. I think that the
questions I have are kind of
general. So in some regard, just kind of curious any conversations that have
happened with Chief Judge Beach as far as taking on some of this, because
I think it was a little bit of a challenge with the prior leadership.
So I don't know if anyone could share
what those conversations have looked like.
Sure. So I
met with the chief judge, I think, on his second day.
So
we definitely elevated this as quickly as possible.
The commissioners have also been meeting with him as well, just about
the lack of transparency, the issues.
He has a couple working groups right now that I know are focused on different areas
in the court. Once again, it's not transparent, so I don't really know
much about the findings or even who's on it to really share, but I'm sure they are
focused on this.
There's a lot of people that do really truly
care. There's also people that are advocates for the system, and those are
the people that you just really need to figure out a way around.
And I think by looking at it together and to kind of create some
legislation that just mandates some things that are long overdue,
that will be a great kind of pushing the people that have just been
institutionalized in the system and this is the way things are, kind
of push them in the right direction.
Chief Judge Beach is a really great guy.
He's committed to data and transparency.
It's going to be a slow process.
Yeah.
And he also oversees an office with 300 judges, I think
200 of which are independently elected.
So it's just something that it's in the report about judicial
inquiry boards that's run by the state and how little
the turnaround is for any kind of investigations on judges.
And so that's something that the charter needs to look
at.
There's also attorneys that are assigned.
Like, say, in Sarah's case, she's had different GALs assigned that are assigned
by the judges, and the judges tell someone like Sarah how much they
need to be paid. They're supposed to interview the children
and decide what's best for the children.
They're lawyers, not social workers, not anybody else.
And there's no transparency on how they're identified or what their
background is. There's been some removed from even being arrested
themselves. I think one was
a horrible case. So there's a lot of questions
about-
That need answers-
Yeah
... about all the different stuff in the court system, and I do believe that he's
committed to helping these efforts as we proceed.
No, thank you. I think that that's my sense too, and I think when you have new
leadership, there's definitely opportunities to improve and to
take on some of these initiatives on.
And I think I'm being very polite. I think as far as
pushing people in the right direction, sometimes the right direction is out,
if they're not willing to make the changes necessary to make sure people are
protected in situations like this.
And I
imagine a chief judge coming in with so many things to take on,
that there is a really good first step of just providing as much transparency as
possible in a way that allows us to improve systems.
I think it is always a good thing.
The second question, well, I'll say this, for me, we see
agencies where we want to make improvements, or sometimes it's just having a
baseline of reporting mechanisms quarterly and just looking like, "How are we
doing? Have we improved?" That I think just helps any system in
general.
And my next question and part of my ignorance, because I saw the
charter conversation and wanted to know if there were other examples of where the
city and the county has
had these kind of partnerships and intergovernmental ones, because I can imagine
other opportunities. Right now we're talking about the Protecting Renters
ordinance, which is a completely separate matter, but the county does have some of
the data we'd be looking for in a rental registry, so to speak.
And so I'm just curious as to what precedent there might be or
examples of really good working intergovernmental partnerships that we might be
able to model after when we look at something like this.
Well, I will just tell you that we started with this is the
first of its kind from what we've heard.
And there was something years ago that looked at the opioid
epidemic at the time, some conversations, but nothing to this
magnitude, nothing that's brought in the state as well.
So we're hoping that this is an impetus for a lot of other
conversations. I will just say your point is,
we would love to also get eviction data, because we know that women are coming in
and get orders of protection, and then the same system is evicting them 90 days
later. So there's so many different points in the system that we'll be adding
along the way.
The good news is the county has a $55 million new record
management system. We just need to get that functional and get that producing
the information that it needs. I know the chief judge will approve these requests
until we get this legislation changes where it's mandated,
where especially requests from other bodies like city council
are prioritized and everybody gets the information they need.
And then we could start creating blueprints going forward that are evidence-based
and data based instead of conjecture or
however we're doing it right now.
Sure, yeah.
It's not working.
Absolutely. And I'm confident that our colleagues on the city council side
have the will to really make a partnership work.
So I think whatever you all have as recommendations, and sometimes challenges
to us to rise up to the occasion and make sure we're doing everything at
our part as city council,
please share those with us and let us know, because
it's not going to get approved but for taking these first steps, and so it is
tremendous work that we're all appreciative and want to make sure we can help
continue the momentum and lead to more progress.
So thank you very much, and thank you again, Commissioner, and thank you, Chairman.
Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you, Alderman Vasquez.
Alderman Tabaras to close, but first, Commissioner Miller
had to add something to the response.
Yes. I just wanted to add, so thank you for
the question.
So I've met with Chief Judge Beach many times, and even prior to him being
elected, I said, "If you were to become the chief
judge, this is what we're going to be talking about." So there's been multiple
meetings about the issue of transparency and what you touched on
about
how do we remove judges if that needs to be the case.
Unfortunately, the system that Katie outlined doesn't
lend itself for that, so that's a legislative issue that might be able to be
changed in Springfield on some level.
So that is one of the other points that we're looking at.
We have many of the victims who came to our different task
force have filed these grievances.
And so what I wanted to do was compile the data of
who's filed grievances, and nothing happened from it.
So those are the other issues that we've made Chief Judge Beach very aware
of. He has been very accommodating.
He's also been very open to the transparency of data as much as
he can provide. We have to get input from several different
organizations from the county side, and that's where we
run into some stumbling blocks. And so I think that having this
report, having the pressure from two different agencies from the
city and the county, and saying we
are adamantly requesting and need this data so we can move
forward with getting finalization of not only the report,
but we can't have Cook County, and I always say this all the time, Cook County
is half of Chicago. Well, the other half, we can't have
nothing. We can't have no information about. So that's where we're at right now.
We don't have that other 50% of information.
So we need to get it, and by any means that we have to get it, we
have to have that so he can have the information to compile
for these reports. So we're definitely moving those steps along the way, and
now it's documented in this report.
Yeah.
Thank you, Commissioner. That is encouraging. Alderman Tabaras to close.
No, thank you. Thank you, and I'm going to be very brief.
I just want to close out and say that six months ago we came
together because the crisis was undeniable.
Domestic violence was claiming too many lives, and we
created this first of its kind task force,
public
safety and health task force, and really brought the city and the
Cook County together.
And I want to thank all the survivors,
especially Sarah Brown, who is with us today, for her courageous
voice. Thank you. I also want to recognize all the survivors, the
family of survivors, who stood with us at the press
conference, who gave public comment, who came to all the meetings.
I want to thank them, and
I want to let them know that we're not going to stop until the system works for
them. We're not going to stop. I also want
to thank all of my colleagues in the city council who
supported this and voted for it. It was voted on very unanimously.
I want to thank them for all their support, and especially you, Chairman Hopkins,
for all of your support as well, for giving this
hearing, this resolution to be in your committee,
as well as your staff, very helpful
staff. Thank you. I also want to say thank you to
my co-chair, Cook County Commissioner of the task force,
Donna Miller, for carrying this on the county side.
They'll be putting their recommendations next
Wednesday at the county level. Today, we're hearing on the city
side. But I want to acknowledge and recognize all of the city
agencies who are here,
and I want to recognize them who are in the box.
Daniel Castaneda with the Department of Family and Support Services.
He's the deputy commissioner for gender-based violence and human services.
Want to recognize also Christopher Soderlund with the Chicago Fire
Department. Thank you. As well as
we have Jackie Silva, who's the policy analyst with OEMC.
Thank you for being here. As well as from the Chicago Police Department,
we have Detective Alfredo Vivas Jr.
and Officer Mariana Martinez. They have been very engaged throughout
this whole process, attending the working group meetings, the
executive meetings at the county building.
Been very engaged, very present, listening as we talk about all of
this. So I want to thank them for being there and hearing this out and being
part of this task force. And then finally, I just want to
thank Katie Dunn and Carmen Navarro Jacone.
We just did this six months, but these two ladies have
been working on this for years. For years.
And they dedicated their professional lives
tackling this issue. So I want to recognize their hard work on
this as well.
And I want to thank also the experts here, Kelly Costello, as well as John Buckley,
who are here too. Thank you for coming.
Today, we wrapped up phase one of the task force, which
lays out clear recommendations centered
on improving collaboration between the city and the county,
which is very critical to improving public safety.
This report is not the end. This is not the end of the task force.
This is progress. We're just getting started,
and let's move these recommendations forward with the
same urgency and unity that created this task force six
months ago. I'm looking forward to continuing working on phase
two of the task force, which will begin this fall,
and that's going to expand the collaboration by including leaders in the
Illinois state legislature. So thank you.
Yes. Thank you, and I, too, want to thank Ms. Dunn in particular.
I recognize that none of this would have happened
without your persistence
and your diligence and your hard work.
And we are only just beginning.
And of course, to your team especially, and to everyone who testified here
today. As my colleague, Alderman Vasquez, pointed out, the political will is
already there. Typically, when we have an issue before this committee, that's our
challenge is to generate the support and to get everybody on the same page.
That's already done. Just in informally discussing the five
recommendations in the past few days, I haven't heard anyone
who hesitated to recognize the validity of it,
the justification for it, and signs on right away.
So we are as unanimous as we can be as a political body.
We checked that box already. The next step, of course, is overcoming the
inertia that could be our obstacle to
continued progress. So I pledge to you, Ms.
Dunn, and my colleagues on this committee, you have the full support
of this committee and all the resources that we have to ensure that the
progress continues to be gained. And not to say that there
aren't obstacles out there. We know there are. This won't be easy.
In fact, when you think about the challenges that we're talking about
with the jurisdictional barriers that have traditionally been
an obstacle to reform, we have to push back as hard as we can on that
and not let that stop us from making the necessary progress.
Literally, lives are at stake, and we all know it.
So thank you again, Commissioner Miller and Alderman Tabaras, for
initiating this. We are on your team, we are on your side, and we
look forward to making continued progress.
And with that, a motion to adjourn by Alderman
Lopez. Motion to adjourn.
All those in favor, aye.
Opposed, nay. Thank you. This meeting is adjourned.
Thank you.
Yeah, you did it.
Thank you.
Thank you guys very much.