>> Hello and thanks for joining us on Chicago tonight, Black Voices on Brandis Friedman.

Here's what we're looking at.

>> Tierney requires your fear and your silence and your compliance.

>> Democracy requires your courage.

>> Governor Pritzker compares the Trump administration gets up ideas and not see Germany as he unveils his budget proposal.

City Council rejects effort to lower the speed limit.

And Oscar nominated documentary revisits the scene of a deadly police shooting.

>> Other countries have women on their parents.

Us minority for I'm not doing.

>> And civil rights icon Ida B Wells is honored on the U.S. quarter.

>> First off tonight, Governor JB Pritzker's proposed state budget holds the line on taxes.

But it also largely holds the line on additional spending as Illinois faces, more modest revenue projections and the expectation that the state will see cuts in federal funding under President Donald Trump and of indicate joins us now from Springfield with more.

Amanda.

>> Yes, brand this was a budget address and will.

Doubled as the state of the State address and Governor JB Pritzker used it to issue a warning.

>> About what he worries is happening to the country under President Donald Trump, he says is a Jewish man who knows Holocaust survivors.

He after all helps to build the Holocaust Museum in Skokie.

He is watching what's happening to the country was for boating dread.

>> It took the Nazis one month.

3 weeks, 2 days, 8 hours and 40 minutes to dismantle a constitutional republic.

And all I'm saying is that when the 5 alarm fire starts to burn every good person better be ready to man a post with a bucket of water.

If you want to stop it from raging out of control.

>> What the future holds for Governor Pritzker's and open question.

It could be a run for a 3rd term as governor.

But Republicans say that he's openly campaigning for president and they say this was an offensive way to do it.

>> I'm personally offended that I had to sit here and repeatedly here, the governor of this state.

Accused members of my party as being Nazis.

>> In a lazy trope to launch a national campaign I think the Republican caucus, both the House and the Senate deserve an apology from the governor.

>> Asked about it just a bit ago.

Pritzker stood by his remarks.

He said that he was warning of tyranny and that what happened last entry in Germany and in Europe, he says could happen anywhere.

>> and then there's the budget.

Of course, that could be impacted by federal cuts under Trump.

Yeah, certainly could.

Although the governor said just how is difficult to contemplate, he did warm residents that if federal cuts to, as the president has been talking about, do hit that, it would hurt many Illinois families, be it reducing their options or their health care or even the impact of tariffs.

Otherwise, though, he said depending on what Trump really carries out, it could cost a whole lot of chaos and confusion in Illinois, but also he says in red states as well.

He says that it is difficult.

However, given that degree of uncertainty to build into a budget at this point in time.

and what does this budget do then?

And how does it handle this deficit that we've been hearing about for some time?

>> Yeah, that deficit was supposed to be over 3 billion dollars.

And we're still really looking at the numbers.

Republicans skeptical.

>> About these rosier projections that and said stay that Illinois is going to have more revenue coming in all be a ticket that will be modest.

So governor had an easier time than he would have if it had been that 3 billion dollar deficit.

So getting to a a balance, a spending plan did not require systemwide cuts, nor it require all wholesale tax increase like a reason.

The income tax rate.

>> Let's be clear.

I will only sign a balance budget if you come to the table, looking to spend more, I'm going to ask you where you want to cut.

I've made difficult.

I have made difficult decisions, including to programs that I have championed, which is hard for me just as I know, some of the difficult decisions you will have to make will be hard for you.

>> Already led to no lawmakers are pushing back hard the governor's proposed elimination of a program that provides health care to non-citizen immigrants roughly between the ages of 40 60 years old.

Look for that to be a big of hearing that it was going to be a tough budget year.

I think that we expected there to be some things in the budget that we weren't going to be happy with.

>> I think completely removing a program not anything that we were expecting.

We're absolutely committed to continuing to fight and hold the line for the program.

We believe that healthcare is a human right.

And we believe taking people off of health care is not the right answer.

>> Now, when it comes to spending increases, more money will be going toward pensions.

Also, there is a proposed increase to spending on education.

However, it is nowhere near the amount that Chicago public schools and the teachers union have long been clamoring for altogether.

Republicans say that this is a proposed spending plan that is nowhere near modest nor last year.

>> Under his leadership, the budget has increased almost 37%.

Now for hard-working families out there.

Has your salary increased 30% over the last 7 years or have your bills decreased?

37 1% over the last 7 years.

But yet we have a governor who thinks taxpayers are the golden Goose.

>> Now this is a 5th.

dollars state budget.

So of course, there is a whole lot more in it.

>> And then there is also this the governor's office pointedly trying to it says help families by programs that don't cost the state money into that and they are proposing changes like allowing community colleges to offer four-year degrees in select areas like where there are hi needs for careers, for example, nursing and then also restricting or it helping to hone in health care costs.

That is by restricting what pharmacy benefit managers can do.

This is a operators that Pritzker partially responsible for increases in prescription drug prices.

All of this at this point is just a proposal in Illinois.

Lawmakers have the next 3 months to hash it all out.

Back to you.

>> All right, Amanda, thank know, keep an eye on it for us.

And you can Mandel's full story on Governor Pritzker's.

55 billion dollar budget proposal and reaction to it on our website.

It's all at W T Tw dot com slash news.

And now to some other top stories.

School districts across the state would be required to come up with a plan banning cell phones from public school.

Classrooms under another proposal by the governor today, Pritzker's office says legislation already introduced in Springfield would ban personal wireless devices during instructional time except in cases of an emergency.

Terry.

The goal is to increase student engagement and reduce social media exposure, which research shows leads to anxiety, depression and body dissatisfaction.

The governor's office says 10 school districts in the state already have states as well as 8 other states in the country.

Another group of workers against >> This Time research unit Illinois-Chicago say they feel.

Research.

>> These grants have made our institution or regional a national leader in public health research and practice these activities include.

Stopping the development and spread of disease protecting people from environmental and occupational hazards and effectively responding to public health emergencies.

>> Members of a coalition called labor for higher education protested proposed cuts to the National Institutes of Health.

The National Science Foundation and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Last year, last fiscal year, the NIH awarded more than 1.2 billion dollars in funding to Illinois mostly to universities.

The group says UIC alone relies on half a billion dollars in federal research funding.

Some of which studies AI in healthcare or how to train the next generation of occupational health and safety workers.

And this might be bad news for Bears fans.

The team is raising its season ticket prices by an average of 10% team President Kevin Warren announced the increase in an email to season ticket holders today citing market dynamics, industry trends and a strong home schedule.

The move comes after the teen recently hired Ben Johnson as coach.

He was widely considered the top coaching candidate on the market.

Up next city council decides on whether to decrease Chicago speed limit right after this.

>> Chicago tonight, he's made possible in part by the support of these don't use.

>> Chicago City Council members today rejected a push to lower the speed limit on most city streets.

While supporters say dropping the speed limit by 5 miles an hour would save lives.

Opponents warn of unintended consequences.

Here's a bit of the debate.

>> All of this matters because even that 5 mile per hour difference.

Cut in half the likelihood.

But your vehicle kills the person that he crashes into.

Why are we doing this right now?

Despite the fact that I would say notably, we have never in the past decade, but fewer than 100 traffic fatalities in any given year.

This is an essential tool.

The polls in city, why?

>> Lauren >> of the speed limit.

We'll have unintended consequences that they not be may not have been looked at today.

>> Our Heather Sharon joins us from City Hall with more on this move.

Had to remind us what this proposal would have done.

>> Will the speed limit right now Chicago streets is 30 miles an hour.

This measure would have dropped that to 25 miles an hour in an effort to encourage people to slow down to stop the stem of it trend of deadly crashes that have caused serious injuries and deaths since the pandemic changed how we all drive.

Now, opponents said that this was rush that they need more time to study such a big change with they said could increase gridlock and causes.

We heard Alderman Irvine say a host of unintended consequences.

Head of the council voted 28 to 22 against this ordinance.

Why did it fail?

>> Well, it failed because essentially the Black caucus voted on mask against it and many of its members said that they were concerned that this would lead to increased enforcement by Chicago police officers on the city streets that could lead to negative interactions between residents and police officers and could lead their residents with tough fees to pay that they can't afford as they struggle to afford the basic necessities of life.

There is also a sense that this proposal was designed more with the North side in mind that in the South and the West side.

And that is always a recipe for disaster on the city council's him to clarify a header.

I misspoke.

That vote was 28 to 21.

Not 22 in another action today, City Council agreed to pay 27 million dollars to the family of a woman.

>> Who was killed by a driver fleeing Chicago police.

You took a look at the cost of these pursuits.

What did you find?

>> Well, since 2019, which was the year that Chicago entered into that federal court order requiring reforms that city taxpayers have spent nearly 102 million dollars to resolve more than 2 dozen lawsuit stemming from police wrist pursuits.

Today's was just the latest.

It will go to the family of Angela Parks and her 5 children.

She was killed by a driver fleeing police as part of an unauthorized chase.

She was left a quadriplegic and died 18 months after the crash in what I think was a truly, truly just ate, really displayed the toll that these crashes have taken on Chicago streets.

Heartbreaking case.

It sounds like thrown a city hall for us.

Thank you.

And you can full story on our website.

It's all at W T Tw Dot com Slash news.

>> A film covering a deadly Chicago police shooting is up for an Oscar.

It's about her reef Augustus.

The 37 year-old Barber who was shot and killed by police in South Shore in July 2018.

The shooting sparked immediate public outcry and legal fights for full access to police body cam video that released footage is now a documentary called Incident which retails Augustus says Death and explores how cameras affect police behavior.

Joining us now with more are the film's director Bill Morrison and Jamie Calvin co-producer of the film and executive director of the Invisible Institute, a journalism nonprofit.

Welcome.

Welcome back to you both.

Thank you.

So this film, as we mentioned, uses a variety body cam dash cam and security footage to sort piece together what happened to her refocused U.S. Bill, starting with you first, how to all of these pieces sort of fit together to tell the narrative.

>> We started with what's called the PRD, the police observation device.

gets sort of the wide shot and you see the event take place a police stop.

And this man falling onto the ground.

It's at that point that the audio kicks in, which is from one of the body-worn cameras and what we hear is police shot shots fired at the police and then the officer corrects himself Stammers and tells his commander that he shot this man and that he had pointed a gun at him from there.

We take a variety of different sources to piece together what actually happened, which was that the heads, wreath Augustus was armed, but his gun remained in its holster the whole time.

That's clearly seen.

And we see this narrative that's adopted by the police that he had taken a gun out and pointed it at the officers in broad daylight.

That's just not true.

He was armed.

And you also showing the film that he have the right to be armed.

He was a FOID.

>> Full firearm identification or owner identification card.

Holder.

Jamie, how was getting access to the video this time different from McDonald several years before than the climate Donald case.

You know, after the video was released and the sort of political earthquake, the city adopted one of the first major reforms was a policy that.

And incidents of this nature video.

Another.

>> Related evidence would be released within 60 days of the incident and COVID complied with that requirement.

In this case, the civilian office this.

really is because of oversight.

But the the one thing that was really striking by contrast to the Kron McDonald, remember, it was 13 months from the incident to the release of the video with the building public campaign legal challenges we all reported on it.

In this case in less than 24 hours.

Superintendent of police released a snippet of edited video for the purpose of showing that Mr. Augustus had a gun.

There had been, you know, demonstrations and turbulence in the South Shore neighborhood where it occurred.

And so there was this activity kind of.

False transparency.

>> can attempt to shape the narrative show how so such a striking contrast with the Laquan McDonald incident.

Litigation was initiated Freedom of Information Act requests for all of the video and over time bit by bit came out.

So ultimately we got all of the video of all of the officers present in the incident and the aftermath on added which was really the basis for the film.

So nobody has ever seen in such a complete global immersive way.

One of the so many perspectives on to the documentary.

Police are very aware that they're being recorded not becomes clear.

Here's a little bit of >> And there's a couple of other moments in the film as well where you hear officers talking to each other and saying don't say anything while this camera is on still before those cameras get cut.

>> Jamie, how does the use of body cameras impact police behavior in bill?

>> Yes, so it's always fascinated me that there's a sense in which now please kind of perform for the camera.

They're aware of the cameras.

They alert each other to the fact that they're on camera.

But then they actually keep talking.

So, you know, think body cameras to some degree act as a deterrent.

You know, not on the initial prime necessarily, but you know what the film shows in great granular detail is how the official narrative forms almost the moment the body hits the ground.

So, you know, right away, principal officers involved are in a kind of call and response saying, you know, he had a gun.

I had to shoot to explain to You saved us, you know, back and Any kind of traumatized, I think all but historical way in less than a minute.

You know, sort of dithering exchange terms into the official narrative when a sergeant shows up on the scene, what happened?

He pulled a gun on us.

I had to shoot and there are civilian witnesses who are never interviewed.

I mean, you've direct unimpeded view of what happened.

They're told, get out of here, get behind the the caution, baby.

Yes, you know, sue the film to serve, shows granular process of the narrative for Maine.

Bill, how does this film it get to that point?

How does this give us a sense of how CPD and those officers were functioning in that aftermath?

>> Well, it seems pretty chaotic grade.

I there is always there was a telling exchange between the 2 officers Officer Holley essence partner Officer Fleming.

>> Was there a gun?

And she says, yes, officer, Howie, being that the officer who fired on upcoming being his partner, his partner, was there a gun issue response?

Yes.

And how the week can we get the gun?

And she says yes.

And then he makes e enormous leap.

Why did you have to point a gun straight at us which you know, it, shows that this narrative was So made up.

Wholesale on on the spot and then it's sort of spreads throughout without anybody doing any investigation.

As Jamie said, nobody does police work.

There are eyewitnesses.

None of them are interviewed.

It seems to be the the entire protocol was just to cordon off the area and removed the corpse as soon as possible.

And of course, we know theres a lot of work, of course, around the police department.

The consent decree only being 9% compliant to address.

>> Training and discipline in these instances.

And sadly, we don't have time to get into all of that.

But I do want to ask because you've been showing this film quite a bit since you've been working on it and you've heard from her read the justices family about it, bill, what they said, yeah, we've had 2 screens here in Chicago, one as part of Chicago Humanities Festival in November of 2023.

>> And after the screening wreaths, mother stood up and said now the world can see what happened to my son.

And we feel strongly that this film gives her and the family narrative, justice in place the justice, any justice provided through the legal system.

Jamie, 10 seconds.

What you want people to take away from this.

What you wanted to add to the conversation?

You know, I think this is film that >> stands in for all sorts of other incidents where the police please conduct as produced the moment when officers choose to use deadly force.

This was not an incident where Mr. Augustus.

Provoked the violence.

>> Yeah, I watched the film.

I've seen it.

definitely something to watch.

Best of luck to the 2 of you at the Oscars.

Thank you for joining us.

The more Sun Engine.

Calvin, thank you.

Very thank you.

And incident is nominated for an Academy Award in the documentary short film category.

The Oscars are on Sunday March 2nd for information on where to watch it check out our Web site.

And we're back with more right after this.

>> women's suffragist journalist and civil rights icon Ida B Wells is being immortalized as part of the U.S. Mint's American women Quarters program.

The Chicago icon is in good company.

The 2025 coin circulation includes Girl Scouts founder Juliette Gordon Low astronomer, Vera Ruben, Disability, Justice Advocate Stacey Park, Melbourne and Tennis star Althea Gibson.

She's one of 20.

She rose honored in this collection were caught up with her great grandson for his thoughts on the recognition.

>> The lady that was having part of it is a it's about time and far currently written other countries have women on their currency.

Us in the minority for not doing that.

So we appreciate that.

But that's catching up.

But when you talk about, I think part of the difficulty in honoring I've been talking about it and how great she was and courageous she was.

You're going to talk about with the country was going through at the time, which is not pleasant.

All right.

And so to be able to recognize or and open dialogue about who she is, what she did.

She not she met with President William McKinley 18.

98 to try and get lynching to be a federal crime.

Women in general black women in particular have been it undervalued or erased from history.

There's still so many African American people who were the first.

So she was kind of America's first investigative journalist.

Just happen to be African-American woman, but to allow heard story to be told for Inspire other, especially African-American young women to be courageous and speak your mind can fight for what's right is important.

>> And the I B wells quarter is in circulation now.

And that's our show for this Wednesday night.

You can stream Chicago tonight on Wtta W's YouTube channel every evening and you can catch up on any programs you may have missed and join us tomorrow night at 5, 30 10.

Now for all of us here at Chicago tonight.

I'm grant us Friedman, thank you for watching.

Stay healthy and safe.

Have a good >> Closed caption cost by Robert a and Clifford law a Chicago personal injury and wrongful That is proud to be a