Latest news with #ChicagoPoliceDepartment
Yahoo
2 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Chicago police warn of recent burglaries in St. Ben's, Palmer and Logan Square
The Brief Within the 14th and 19th districts, there have been recent residential robberies of buildings undergoing construction. The offender(s) gains access to the building or unit via the rear or patio door; in one case, via an unlocked door while workers were present. A description of the person or people involved with these crimes is unknown at this time. CHICAGO - Chicago police are warning of a recent string of residential burglaries in the St. Ben's, Palmer and Logan Square neighborhoods. What we know Within the 14th and 19th Districts, there have been recent residential robberies of buildings undergoing construction, according to authorities. The offender(s) gains access to the building or unit through the rear or patio door. In one incident, the offender(s) gained entry via an unlocked door while workers were present, police said. In the other two incidents, the offender(s) kicked open the doors. Once inside, the offender(s) stole copper piping and tools. In the incident where the offender(s) gained entry via an unlocked door, one of the workers saw a moving truck driving away. It is unclear whether the truck was involved with the theft. Incident times and locations 3900 Block of North Hamilton Ave on May 16, 2025 @ 5:00PM (St. Ben's) 2800 Block of W Shakespeare Av on May 23, 2025 @ 6:00 PM (Palmer Square) 2600 Block of North Mozart St on May 24, 2025 @ 4:00 PM (Logan Square) 2100 Block of North Mozart St on May 24, 2025 @ 6:00 PM (Palmer Square) What we don't know A description of the person or people involved with these crimes is unknown at this time. What you can do Be aware of your surroundings and unfamiliar or suspicious people If possible, install video surveillance cameras on exterior buildings/garages/gangways Make sure all outside gates and interior windows and doors are properly secured Do not try to rationalize or confront offender(s). It could lead to possible injury Ensure that existing surveillance cameras are functional and recording Call 911 immediately if you are a victim or witness to a crime and provide a detailed description of the offender(s) and involved vehicles. If you have any information, contact the Area Three Bureau of Detectives at (312) 744-8263, Area Five Bureau of Detectives at (312) 746-739 or submit an anonymous tip at and use reference RD# JJ260602, JJ267484, JJ273642, JJ273484. The Source Details for this story were provided by the Chicago Police Department.
International Business Times
4 days ago
- International Business Times
Ex-Chicago Police Officer Admits to Fatally Shooting Husband Following Argument Over Her Affair
An ex-Chicago police officer has pleaded guilty to shooting her husband, a fellow cop, over three years ago, but will only spend about a week in prison. As reported by WBEZ, as part of her plea deal agreed on Tuesday, Jacqueline Villasenor agreed to a sentence of more than six years. However, with Illinois' day-for-day sentencing law and credit for the years she spent on electronic monitoring awaiting trial, Jacqueline Villasenor is expected to serve only about seven days in the Illinois Department of Corrections, plus a year of supervised release, according to her attorney. Villasenor and Her Husband were Arguing Over a Previous Affair She Had and a Struggle Ensued, Leading to Him Getting Shot On Nov. 2, 2021, Jacqueline Villasenor and her husband, fellow Chicago police officer German Villasenor, were inside their Northwest Side home, arguing over a previous affair she'd had, when she pulled out her gun and threatened to kill herself, according to prosecutors. While struggling over the weapon, it fired, striking German Villasenor in his chest. Their then-16-year-old son heard the gunshot and went to his parents' bedroom, where he found his father lying on his back and his mother performing CPR, prosecutors said. Jacqueline was Charged with Involuntary Manslaughter Jacqueline Villasenor was charged with involuntary manslaughter. She resigned from the Chicago Police Department in December 2022. "She admitted that what she did was, in fact, a crime," her attorney Tim Grace said Tuesday. "It's a very triable case, but she didn't want to do that. She wanted to accept responsibility. She didn't want to put her family through it." In statements submitted to the court earlier this year, the couple's son and daughter asked the judge not to sentence their mother to time in prison for what they saw as an unfortunate accident. "I don't want to lose both my parents," the son wrote in a statement. Two of German Villasenor's siblings also wrote letters in support of Jacqueline Villasenor, asking that the children not suffer any further by having their mother taken away. "They have given the hardest gift of all. ...They've given forgiveness," Grace, her attorney, said in court Tuesday. 'There is No Punishment Worse Than the Punishment I Give Myself Every Day' Fighting through tears, Jacqueline Villasenor told Judge Arthur Wesley Willis Tuesday, "There is no punishment worse than the punishment I give myself every day." "Although the kids love and support me, I still see him in them every day, which makes it hard to know he's not here," Jacqueline Villasenor said before she was taken into custody. "We miss him every day." German Villasenor's parents, on the other hand, called for Jacqueline Villasenor to be punished, claiming this incident was no accident.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Chicago fatal car crash totals remain stubbornly high in pandemic's wake
The officers were just north of 71st Street when they saw a man lying in the middle of Western Avenue, close to the eastern boundary of the Chicago Police Department's 8th District. It was about 10:30 p.m. on May 13, and several witnesses told police that a silver vehicle was speeding north on the busy thoroughfare when the driver struck the man crossing the street. An ambulance took the injured 76-year-old to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, but he was soon pronounced dead. Police records indicate he was just half a mile from his home. The offending driver, witnesses said, kept going north on Western after the collision. The man was among the hundreds killed in recent years in car crashes in Chicago. Citywide, fatal crashes now are occurring at a higher rate than before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when stay-at-home orders forced scores of drivers to keep off the roads. Since the start of 2019, more than 1,040 people have died of injuries suffered in Chicago motor vehicle crashes, according to data from the Cook County medical examiner's office. Of those, more than 300 were pedestrians. About 200 of those died in crashes that occurred on Chicago expressways, records show. Of the dead, more than 30 were children aged 14 or younger. In 2019, the year before the pandemic, Chicago recorded 115 traffic fatalities, according to medical examiner's office data. Five years later, in 2024, the city saw 175 traffic-related deaths — a 52% increase. Through the first four months of 2025, another 32 people were killed in Chicago crashes, data show. Some researchers have found that aggressive and reckless driving was exacerbated by COVID-19, though they said traffic fatalities should eventually return to pre-pandemic levels. 'While traffic trends showed meaningful yet temporary increases in road collisions in the aftermath of similar natural disasters, it is hypothesized that the changes in driving habits brought about by COVID-19 too will subside following the return to more typical work conditions,' researchers concluded in a 2023 article published in the journal Transportation Research Record. But in neighborhoods where crashes are most common, elected officials bemoaned a Police Department stretched too thin and a culture that's lost respect for law enforcement. Activists on the Southwest Side, meanwhile, pointed to societal trends — larger and larger vehicles, as well as in-car tech features that can distract drivers — along with the physical characteristics of several arterial streets. Killed in traffic Minutes after the fatal crash on South Western Avenue earlier this month, officers saw a silver Nissan with extensive front-end damage drive south past the scene. The driver was curbed a few blocks away. Officers saw two open bottles of vodka within arm's reach of the driver's seat. More unsettling, though, was what could be seen stuck to the windshield. 'Arresting officers further observed the vehicle's front windshield to contain a chunk of hair consistent with the color of the victim's,' an officer later wrote in the driver's arrest report. Officers allegedly could smell liquor on the driver, but she refused to undergo field sobriety tests. The 29-year-old woman, through slurred speech, asked to lean against a squad car to avoid falling over, an officer later wrote. The driver, whose listed address is less than a mile from the crash site, remains in Cook County Jail pending trial. Prosecutors dropped the DUI charge against her three days after her initial court appearance, records show, though she still faces a charge of failure to report an accident involving injury or death, a felony. CPD does run anti-DUI efforts in the area. A saturation patrol was conducted in the Chicago Lawn District between March 14 and 15, according to the department. That mission did not result in a single DUI arrest, but more than 50 citations were issued, most commonly for 'unsafe vehicle violations.' A look at one district Data shows that nowhere in the city are crashes more common than in the Chicago Lawn District. In fact, it's the only one of CPD's 22 patrol districts to record more than 10,000 car crashes every year since 2021. The district saw just three fatal crashes in all of 2019. Since the start of 2020, though, it has averaged more than one traffic death per month, more than any other police district, records show. All told, the district has recorded more than 80 traffic-related deaths in the last six and a half years, records show. Most recently, 84-year-old Maria Ochoa Flores, a pedestrian walking just blocks from her home, was struck and killed by a vehicle at Archer and Laramie avenues over the holiday weekend. Several bouquets of flowers remained at the crash site Tuesday morning. Tire marks, left by drivers doing doughnuts, could be seen in the middle of the intersection. 'This has to end,' Alberto Ochoa, Ochoa Flores' son, told reporters after the crash. 'My mom, all she was doing was crossing the street, and she's dead now.' 'All she was doing was taking a walk, crossing the street innocently and was run over,' he added. Ald. Marty Quinn, whose 13th Ward is covered by CPD's Chicago Lawn District, said several arterial streets are akin to expressways, and the area's police officers are regularly swamped with other calls for service and unable to discourage aggressive and reckless drivers. 'Pulaski has become a highway. Cicero Avenue has become a highway,' Quinn told the Tribune last week. 'We had some issues earlier this year along 63rd Street. We've had issues near the airport on 55th Street. I (attribute) it all back to the lack of manpower.' '250,000 residents (in the Chicago Lawn District) and only 259 blue shirt officers — that's a problem,' Quinn added. Police officials have acknowledged in the past that patrol officers across the city are routinely tied down on high-priority calls for service. Jason Huff, of the Chicago Lawn District councilors, echoed Quinn's concerns about the district's lack of officers. 'I think drivers, especially younger ones, know this and they have no respect for law enforcement,' Huff said. 'I think that's partially due to social media, partially other aspects that have influenced young people. And so they have no respect for the law or law enforcement and just feel they can do as they please until they either get into an accident or actually do get stopped by the police.' The Southwest Collective, an equity-aimed nonprofit on the Southwest Side, started a campaign in 2023 — 'Pulaski, Slow TF Down' — to reduce traffic fatalities on Pulaski after two pedestrians who lived in the area were struck and killed by vehicles. 'These were two people who were doing what everybody should be able to do, which is just walk around in their neighborhood, cross the street, come home from visiting a friend or getting groceries or doing whatever,' Dixon Galvez-Searle, the Southwest Collective's transit advocate, told the Tribune last week. 'A lot of people in the neighborhood and on the Southwest Side in general who live near Pulaski, work (and) spend time near Pulaski, were outraged, were upset, were angry, but were not terribly surprised,' Galvez-Searle added. During the City Council's meeting last week, a teacher at Curie High School, located at Archer and Pulaski across the street from a CTA train station, told aldermen that many reckless drivers in the area have no fear of legal reprisal. 'Like many CPS students, most of our students walk and commute via CTA to school,' Veronica Schwenn, an English teacher at Curie, told the City Council on May 21. 'South Pulaski is especially unsafe. It is a wide road with little permanent infrastructure, and many drivers are willing to take their odds that no one will be there to give them consequences for their speeding, running red lights and drag racing. People have been killed by this behavior, and it makes our students feel unsafe.' The Southwest Collective last year surveyed nearly 500 people who live near the busy Pulaski corridor, and the vast majority said their three largest traffic concerns were speeding drivers, congestion from trucks and not enough time to use crosswalks. Meanwhile, a fall 2024 report on traffic crashes by the city's Department of Transportation noted that a four-mile stretch of Pulaski from the Stevenson Expressway to 71st Street 'has become a hot spot for egregious driving, leading to tragic consequences.' As part of a larger review of crash data, CDOT is also 'targeting locations of severe crashes, especially in historically underserved communities, with infrastructure upgrades and policies designed to address the key traffic safety issues.' The city in recent months has added more speed enforcement cameras to issue tickets to drivers going more than 6 mph above the posted limit. There are now more than 200 across the city. In 2024, the city's speed cameras generated more than 2 million citations against drivers, according to city data. A representative for the city's Department of Transportation said in an email, 'Speed camera locations are selected through a data-driven process that prioritizes areas experiencing traffic safety concerns.' 'The final decisions on identifying, selecting, and designing automated speed enforcement camera locations are made on a case-by-case basis,' the email read, 'taking into account a variety of factors including feasibility, effectiveness, and equity.'
Chicago Tribune
4 days ago
- Chicago Tribune
Chicago fatal car crash totals remain stubbornly high in pandemic's wake
The officers were just north of 71st Street when they saw a man lying in the middle of Western Avenue, close to the eastern boundary of the Chicago Police Department's 8th District. It was about 10:30 p.m. on May 13, and several witnesses told police that a silver vehicle was speeding north on the busy thoroughfare when the driver struck the man crossing the street. An ambulance took the injured 76-year-old to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, but he was soon pronounced dead. Police records indicate he was just half a mile from his home. The offending driver, witnesses said, kept going north on Western after the collision. The man was among the hundreds killed in recent years in car crashes in Chicago. Citywide, fatal crashes now are occurring at a higher rate than before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when stay-at-home orders forced scores of drivers to keep off the roads. Since the start of 2019, more than 1,040 people have died of injuries suffered in Chicago motor vehicle crashes, according to data from the Cook County medical examiner's office. Of those, more than 300 were pedestrians. About 200 of those died in crashes that occurred on Chicago expressways, records show. Of the dead, more than 30 were children aged 14 or younger. In 2019, the year before the pandemic, Chicago recorded 115 traffic fatalities, according to medical examiner's office data. Five years later, in 2024, the city saw 175 traffic-related deaths — a 52% increase. Through the first four months of 2025, another 32 people were killed in Chicago crashes, data show. Some researchers have found that aggressive and reckless driving was exacerbated by COVID-19, though they said traffic fatalities should eventually return to pre-pandemic levels. 'While traffic trends showed meaningful yet temporary increases in road collisions in the aftermath of similar natural disasters, it is hypothesized that the changes in driving habits brought about by COVID-19 too will subside following the return to more typical work conditions,' researchers concluded in a 2023 article published in the journal Transportation Research Record But in neighborhoods where crashes are most common, elected officials bemoaned a Police Department stretched too thin and a culture that's lost respect for law enforcement. Activists on the Southwest Side, meanwhile, pointed to societal trends — larger and larger vehicles, as well as in-car tech features that can distract drivers — along with the physical characteristics of several arterial streets. Killed in traffic Minutes after the fatal crash on South Western Avenue earlier this month, officers saw a silver Nissan with extensive front-end damage drive south past the scene. The driver was curbed a few blocks away. Officers saw two open bottles of vodka within arm's reach of the driver's seat. More unsettling, though, was what could be seen stuck to the windshield. 'Arresting officers further observed the vehicle's front windshield to contain a chunk of hair consistent with the color of the victim's,' an officer later wrote in the driver's arrest report. Officers allegedly could smell liquor on the driver, but she refused to undergo field sobriety tests. The 29-year-old woman, through slurred speech, asked to lean against a squad car to avoid falling over, an officer later wrote. The driver, whose listed address is less than a mile from the crash site, remains in Cook County Jail pending trial. Prosecutors dropped the DUI charge against her three days after her initial court appearance, records show, though she still faces a charge of failure to report an accident involving injury or death, a felony. CPD does run anti-DUI efforts in the area. A saturation patrol was conducted in the Chicago Lawn District between March 14 and 15, according to the department. That mission did not result in a single DUI arrest, but more than 50 citations were issued, most commonly for 'unsafe vehicle violations.'A look at one district Data shows that nowhere in the city are crashes more common than in the Chicago Lawn District. In fact, it's the only one of CPD's 22 patrol districts to record more than 10,000 car crashes every year since 2021. The district saw just three fatal crashes in all of 2019. Since the start of 2020, though, it has averaged more than one traffic death per month, more than any other police district, records show. All told, the district has recorded more than 80 traffic-related deaths in the last six and a half years, records show. Most recently, 84-year-old Maria Ochoa Flores, a pedestrian walking just blocks from her home, was struck and killed by a vehicle at Archer and Laramie avenues over the holiday weekend. Several bouquets of flowers remained at the crash site Tuesday morning. Tire marks, left by drivers doing doughnuts, could be seen in the middle of the intersection. 'This has to end,' Alberto Ochoa, Ochoa Flores' son, told reporters after the crash. 'My mom, all she was doing was crossing the street, and she's dead now.' 'All she was doing was taking a walk, crossing the street innocently and was run over,' he added. Ald. Marty Quinn, whose 13th Ward is covered by CPD's Chicago Lawn District, said several arterial streets are akin to expressways, and the area's police officers are regularly swamped with other calls for service and unable to discourage aggressive and reckless drivers. 'Pulaski has become a highway. Cicero Avenue has become a highway,' Quinn told the Tribune last week. 'We had some issues earlier this year along 63rd Street. We've had issues near the airport on 55th Street. I (attribute) it all back to the lack of manpower.' '250,000 residents (in the Chicago Lawn District) and only 259 blue shirt officers — that's a problem,' Quinn added. Police officials have acknowledged in the past that patrol officers across the city are routinely tied down on high-priority calls for service. Jason Huff, of the Chicago Lawn District councilors, echoed Quinn's concerns about the district's lack of officers. 'I think drivers, especially younger ones, know this and they have no respect for law enforcement,' Huff said. 'I think that's partially due to social media, partially other aspects that have influenced young people. And so they have no respect for the law or law enforcement and just feel they can do as they please until they either get into an accident or actually do get stopped by the police.' The Southwest Collective, an equity-aimed nonprofit on the Southwest Side, started a campaign in 2023 — 'Pulaski, Slow TF Down' — to reduce traffic fatalities on Pulaski after two pedestrians who lived in the area were struck and killed by vehicles. 'These were two people who were doing what everybody should be able to do, which is just walk around in their neighborhood, cross the street, come home from visiting a friend or getting groceries or doing whatever,' Dixon Galvez-Searle, the Southwest Collective's transit advocate, told the Tribune last week. 'A lot of people in the neighborhood and on the Southwest Side in general who live near Pulaski, work (and) spend time near Pulaski, were outraged, were upset, were angry, but were not terribly surprised,' Galvez-Searle added. During the City Council's meeting last week, a teacher at Curie High School, located at Archer and Pulaski across the street from a CTA train station, told aldermen that many reckless drivers in the area have no fear of legal reprisal. 'Like many CPS students, most of our students walk and commute via CTA to school,' Veronica Schwenn, an English teacher at Curie, told the City Council on May 21. 'South Pulaski is especially unsafe. It is a wide road with little permanent infrastructure, and many drivers are willing to take their odds that no one will be there to give them consequences for their speeding, running red lights and drag racing. People have been killed by this behavior, and it makes our students feel unsafe.' The Southwest Collective last year surveyed nearly 500 people who live near the busy Pulaski corridor, and the vast majority said their three largest traffic concerns were speeding drivers, congestion from trucks and not enough time to use crosswalks. Meanwhile, a fall 2024 report on traffic crashes by the city's Department of Transportation noted that a four-mile stretch of Pulaski from the Stevenson Expressway to 71st Street 'has become a hot spot for egregious driving, leading to tragic consequences.' As part of a larger review of crash data, CDOT is also 'targeting locations of severe crashes, especially in historically underserved communities, with infrastructure upgrades and policies designed to address the key traffic safety issues.' The city in recent months has added more speed enforcement cameras to issue tickets to drivers going more than 6 mph above the posted limit. There are now more than 200 across the city. In 2024, the city's speed cameras generated more than 2 million citations against drivers, according to city data. A representative for the city's Department of Transportation said in an email, 'Speed camera locations are selected through a data-driven process that prioritizes areas experiencing traffic safety concerns.' 'The final decisions on identifying, selecting, and designing automated speed enforcement camera locations are made on a case-by-case basis,' the email read, 'taking into account a variety of factors including feasibility, effectiveness, and equity.'
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Yahoo
Chicago crime: Suspect kidnapped girl from West Side backyard, police say
The Brief A girl was kidnapped from an Austin backyard on Sunday afternoon by an unknown suspect. The suspect carried the girl to a nearby grocery store. A relative of the child confronted the suspect, who returned the girl to her mother. CHICAGO - A girl was briefly kidnapped from a West Side backyard on Sunday when a suspect carried her off to a store before returning the child to a relative. The incident happened in the 0-100 block of North Lockwood Avenue in the Austin neighborhood, according to the Chicago Police Department. What we know Police said around 2:15 p.m., the victim was playing in her backyard with seven other children when the unknown female suspect entered the yard and carried her across the street to a grocery store in the 5200 block of West Madison Street. The girl's relative walked across the street and confronted the offender. The child was returned to her mother. Police said the incident was captured on video. The offender was described as an African American woman between the approximate ages of 20 and 25, and she frequents the area of Lockwood Avenue and Madison Street. What you can do Anyone who sees the suspect is asked to call 911 and give the location and any description of the suspect if it's safe and feasible. Those with information about the incident are asked to contact Area Four Detectives at 312-746-8251 or submit an anonymous tip at and use reference #JJ268584.
