Chicago Briefing: Despite witness ID, acquittal in toddler's slaying
After three and a half hours of deliberations, jurors found Danzeal Finley not guilty of murder in connection to the 2010 killing of 20-month-old Cynia Cole.
Finley was acquitted Friday despite being identified by the girl's mother Alberta as the man who fired into a white Cutlass in which her boyfriend Jerome Hendricks and three daughters sat on a South Side Chicago street.
"She is a mother," public defender Brendan Max told jurors in his closing arguments. "Of course she thinks she knows what she saw. Of course she is certain, but that doesn't make it a fact."
Millennium Park named to 'great' list
Millennium Park has been designated one of six "Great Public Spaces" by the American Planning Association.
Chicago's lakefront gem is one of six spaces on the organization's annual "Great Places in America" list that was announced Wednesday.
Others include the Santa Fe Railyard (Santa Fe, New Mexico), the 445-acre Herman Park (Houston, Texas), San Diego's 1,200-acre Balboa Park, the Flint Farmer's Market (Flint, Michigan), and the Pearl Street Mall (Boulder, Colorado).
Drug overdoses sweep the West Side
Paramedics have seen a spike in drug overdoses on the West Side since Wednesday night and have since armed themselves with more antidote, fire officials said.
At least 74 people have overdosed on what appears to be heroin laced with opiates throughout the last 72 hours, Fire Media Affairs Director Larry Langford said Friday evening. Langford said the overdose numbers are citywide, but the fire department has seen a concentration on Chicago's West Side.
"At this time last year we had less than half that number of overdoses," he said. "But it's not such an increase that this is stressing us at all; we haven't had to put any extra ambulances out or any extra crews. We're just make sure Narcan is available."
Chicago police spied on protest groups
The Chicago Police Department has routinely spied on activist groups during the past six years, police records obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times show - including union members, anti-Olympics protesters, anarchists, the Occupy movement, NATO demonstrators and critics of the Chinese government.
Under the department's rules, police aren't allowed to purposely interfere with people exercising their free-speech rights. In recent years, though, department officials have repeatedly justified spying on protesters by saying they fear they might engage in "disorder" and "civil disobedience."
FAIR seeks O'Hare noise tax relief
Chicagoans inundated with new O'Hare Airport jet noise should not have to shoulder the record property tax increase proposed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the leader of a citizen group says.
As a result, the Fair Allocation in Runways coalition wants members to urge their aldermen to vote down the Emanuel budget containing $588 million in property tax increases over four years unless steps are taken to fix the city's "flawed" $8.7 billion O'Hare overhaul plan, said Colleen Mulcrone of FAIR.
Emanuel has contended that without the property tax increase, the city would have to cut so many services it would become "unlivable."
CPS won't close schools this year
The Chicago Public Schools, in response to a state deadline to set out guidelines for major school changes this year, says it is sticking with its five-year moratorium against closing schools for poor performance or underuse.
But it still may change boundaries for existing schools or propose putting multiple schools in one facility. And no law governs how CPS conducts its academic "turnarounds" in which the entire staff is fired and the school's operations turned over to a private, nonprofit company. CPS said it reserved the right to close a school should a building suddenly become a health or safety risk.
Rooftop suit against Cubs dismissed
The playoff-bound Chicago Cubs won a big victory Wednesday, but it won't help them in the playoffs.
U.S. District Judge Virginia M. Kendall dismissed a federal lawsuit filed against the Cubs earlier this year by Wrigleyville rooftop owners who accused the Cubs of monopolization, defamation and breach of contract for erecting a video board above the right-field bleachers at Wrigley Field that threatened the rooftops' lucrative views.
• The week's city briefing was collected in partnership with the Chicago Sun-Times. For complete versions of items, check chicago.suntimes.com.