New details emerge surrounding 2025 incident that led to a Black man being ‘choked’ by the feds in Chicago • The TRiiBE A newly obtained Chicago police report reveals the Black man ‘choked’ by feds in 2025 wasn’t involved in the crash and didn’t have any involvement in a robbery.

Here's an update from a chaotic scene following a car crash on the West Side in 2025. An unidentified Black man was placed in a chokehold and temporarily detained by federal immigration agents.

The man told CPD he had nothing to do w/the crash or a robbery.

thetriibe.com/2026/04/new-...

COMMENTARY OTHER VIEWS LGBTQ+ No, my Sun-Times colleague, Violet Miller, and lare not the same person Many people can't tell us apart because they don't know or understand trans women, a deficit that fuels policies and rhetoric that harm us all. By Ellery Jones | Apr 15, 2026, 6:00am CDT Chicago Sun-Times reporter Violet Miller (left) and Sun-Times and WBEZ Innovation Editor Ellery Jones | Candace Dane Chambers/Sun-Times

A very important personal message for you all today:

No, @vimiller.bsky.social and I are NOT the same person.

And the fact that y'all keep confusing us says something about Society™️

in case you need more clarification: chicago.suntimes.com/opinion/2026...

How Ald. Raymond Lopez Became Conservative Media's Favorite Chicago Democrat As Southwest Side neighbors were targeted or hid in their homes, Lopez repeatedly defended Trump's immigration roundups on conservative and right-wing media.

As Southwest Side neighbors were targeted or hid in their homes, Ald. Raymond Lopez repeatedly defended Trump’s immigration roundups on conservative media. We looked at Lopez’s rise and how he became a favorite in the right-wing media ecosystem. blockclubchicago.org/2026/04/14/h...

No Trial. No Guilty Verdict. How Civil Commitment in Illinois Can Mean Decades Behind Bars Under two different Illinois laws, people charged with sex offenses are subject to indefinite detention. Some people who’ve only been charged with a crime — never convicted or sentenced — can spend th...

NEW: An indefinite sentence without being convicted of a crime. Under Illinois' Sexually Dangerous Persons Act, men are detained in a southern Illinois prison, with the only way out being to complete treatment. But those inside say they just receive three hours a week. news.wttw.com/2026/04/14/n...

In Prison, She Changed Constitutional Law. Meet the Trans Woman Behind the Case. Farmer v. Brennan is one of the most cited Supreme Court cases of all time. Few people know just how revolutionary Dee Farmer was.

Every jailhouse lawyer knows Dee Farmer’s name, even if they don’t know who she is.

What most of them don’t know is that the person who paved the road for them was a transgender woman who filed her suit from a federal prison cell, in an era when her gender identity was considered a mental illness.

Tenants at Chinatown’s storied Richland Center food court brace for potential rent increases - Chicago Reader Since last summer, Heung Seng Corporation’s staff have told tenants they will nearly double the rent on their next leases.

Commercial tenants in Chinatown's storied Richland Center food court face a steep increase in monthly rents under new landlord chicagoreader.com/city-life/ch...

The last man at the shoeshine stand For 20 years, Steve Fullerton has polished and buffed the footwear of famous Chicagoans and faithful regulars from his bench in the Cook County Building.

Nice work in today's @chicago.suntimes.com from colleagues Stefano Esposito and photog Pat Nabong

Proactive building inspections one step closer to reality in Chicago — but questions of funding and logistics remain Chicago took a step toward beefing up its safety oversight of apartment buildings on Wednesday following years of criticism that the city’s patchwork of reactive building inspections has cost the […]

New: Chicago officials have for years resisted calls to mandate proactive apartment safety inspections, even as renters keep dying in preventable fires.
The City Council just passed an ordinance directing departments to study the idea in earnest.
illinoisanswers.org/2026/03/18/p...

The King of Liens Tax buyer Greg Bingham has amassed hundreds of tax-foreclosed properties in Cook County since the 1990s. Along the way, he’s been dogged by allegations of fraud, an Injustice Watch investigation found...

NEW: @cb-312.bsky.social on the business dealings of Greg Bingham, the real estate investor who "made a fortune" taking Cook County homes through tax foreclosure and faced fraud allegations along the way
www.injusticewatch.org/project/take...

The National Police Index’s brand new website provides unprecedented public access to police employment records from across the United States and allows users to track law enforcement employment records across 24 states — searchable by officer name, agency, and more. national.cpdp.co/

A timeline:
June 2021: Officer Noah Ball shoots at a man (no one is injured)
May 2022: Ball shoots a 13-year-old boy fleeing a traffic stop, paralyzing him
June 2023: COPA rules June 2021 shooting unjustified, urges Ball be fired
Sept. 2023: Supt. Snelling rules June 2021 shooting justified (1/2)

Ex-Illinois inmate’s lawsuit over forced labor induction tests Gov. JB Pritzker on reproductive rights Illinois has positioned itself as a national safeguard for reproductive rights. But a new case raises questions about how those principles are applied behind state prison walls.

A mom sues the state and prison medical provider over forced labor induction: “That was my right that got stripped away from me when I should have been able to have, you know, this baby whenever she felt like coming"
✍️ Jeremy Gorner @angieleventis.bsky.social www.chicagotribune.com/2026/02/28/i...

I’m zipping around town dropping off stacks of the print version of the @injusticewatch.org judicial election guide. Find them all over the dang place or online at that link.

2026primary.injusticewatch.org

The Chicago real estate firm leasing an empty prison to ICE Highlands Real Estate Investment Trust looks to profit from President Trump's anti-immigrant agenda.

new: highlands reit, a small chicago-based real estate firm, is renting an empty prison it owns in colorado to ice and private prison giant geo group.

highlands is part of a network of private contractors hoping to get a cut of the $45 billion allocated to warehouse immigrants through 2029.

🤩 The Triibe's incredible reporters are unionizing @onetriibeunited.bsky.social 🤩 Signal your support by signing this petition asking org leadership to voluntarily recognize the union: actionnetwork.org/letters/were...

Notably: the Illinois AG determined state police violated public records laws when they failed for months to respond to Block Club reporters' requests for copies of arrest reports. State police ultimately produced 41 arrest reports this month.

Why Is The Cook County State's Attorney Prosecuting Nonviolent ICE Protesters? A Block Club investigation found dozens of protesters arrested by state police are still facing criminal charges for minor infractions, such as sitting on a concrete barrier — even after Gov. JB Pritz...

Read of the day: local law enforcement arrested dozens of nonviolent protestors at Broadview over minor offenses, including jaywalking. Why is the state's attorney prosecuting them? by @minabloom.bsky.social blockclubchicago.org/2026/02/26/w...

Keeley Schenwar Memorial Essay Prize The annual prize is awarded to two writers who are currently or formerly incarcerated.

Submissions for this year's Keeley Schenwar Memorial Essay Prize, for writers who are incarcerated or formerly incarcerated, are open!

The prize honors my sister, who died tragically in 2020 after many years in & out of incarceration.

Please help us spread the word.❤️
truthout.org/articles/kee...

We’re forming a union to build a more sustainable and equitable newsroom that serves Chicago’s Black communities. ✨

You can support us by:

Linktree
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Following us here and on Bluesky (@onetriibeunited) for updates ✅

Thanks for your support!

CPD Officer Accused of Violating Rights of Black Drivers During Downtown Traffic Stops Stripped of Police Powers Officer Richard Rodriquez is the fifth member of a tactical team to be stripped of his badge and gun after COPA identified a troubling pattern of undocumented and unprofessional traffic stops of Black...

5 members of a CPD tactical team have been stripped of their badges ands gun after the agency tasked with investigating misconduct identified a troubling pattern of undocumented and unprofessional traffic stops of Black Chicagoans. @wttw.bsky.social

Chicago woman says she killed abusive boyfriend to save herself and their unborn child. Will a jury agree?

Keshia Golden says she fatally stabbed Calvin Sidney in 2022 when he attacked her after their baby shower. Now the mother of a 3-year-old daughter, Golden is still facing murder charges in a case her lawyers argue amounts to self-defense.

HUD, whistleblower says CHA has violated disability and civil rights laws for years

“Black, brown, and elderly CHA residents languished and died, their names sitting on a de facto waiting list for nearly a decade before their much needed and deserved reasonable accommodations were ever made available,” according to whistleblower Amanda Motyka.

Dozens of Chicago suburbs have shifted to majority nonwhite Flossmoor and Lansing are now majority-Black, while Burbank and Franklin Park are now majority-Latino, according to a WBEZ analysis of new census data.

Took a data deep dive on Chicago area suburbs, where social services infrastructure sometimes don't keep up with how quickly the population is diversifying racially but also economically and culturally.
www.wbez.org/immigration/...

The rise of Black political power in early Chicago • The TRiiBE From abolition to the fight for political office, the work of early Black Chicagoans helped to establish Black political power.

BLACK HISTORY — From the 1840s to the 1860s, the John and Mary Jane Richardson Jones used their influence to fight against the Illinois Black Codes that prohibited Black people from voting, required them to carry a “certificate of freedom,” and more.

thetriibe.com/2021/06/the-...

Identified: the El Paso BORTAC crew rampaging through the Midwest One violent duo in particular, U.S. Border Patrol agents Michael Sveum (EZ-2) and Edgar Vazquez (EZ-17), have been frequently seen alongside former commander-at-large Greg Bovino terrorizing crowds wi...

NEW: since last year, a pair of "highly trained" feds have been involved in an array of incidents attacking crowds with chemical weapons.

We used public records and open source analysis to identify Edgar Vazquez and Michael Sveum, alongside some other members of their tactical team.

Read more:

City Sues For Millions In Damages After ‘Worst Landowner’ Property Auction Fails It’s the latest controversy surrounding land owned by Suzie B. Wilson and her sister Swedlana Dass, who have been caught in a legal web since a 2023 investigation by Illinois Answers Project and Block...

Mayor Johnson said: "We took her to court and we won back millions of dollars for taxpayers and more than 800 lots across the South and West Sides of the city of Chicago.”

But he got the facts wrong.

My latest w/ @ctoner.bsky.social @blockclubchi.bsky.social

blockclubchicago.org/2026/02/04/c...

Families Scammed By Convicted Mortgage Fraudsters Are Still Fighting For Their Homes More than two decades after Mark Diamond began conning homeowners on the West and South sides, some of his victims have lost their homes, while others are battling lenders in court.

Read of the day: reverse mortgage scammer Mark Diamond and an accomplice are now behind bars, but >100 victims and their next of kin are still in court fighting to regain title of family properties. Others have lost those homes. By @tatiwm.bsky.social
blockclubchicago.org/2026/02/03/f...

White former downstate cop gets 20-year sentence for murdering Sonya Massey

A white former sheriff’s deputy convicted of murdering an unarmed Black woman in her Springfield area home was sentenced Thursday to 20 years in prison, marking a capstone in a racially charged case of police brutality that drew national headlines.