>> Good evening and thanks for joining us on the week in review.

I'm Nick Blumberg.

Federal prosecutors drop all charges against Broadview protesters after stunning misconduct allegations.

A federal judge says she was incredibly shocked by the behavior of prosecutors arguing they violated the trust placed in them.

Meantime, a Cook County judge denies a bid to appoint a special prosecutor charged with investigating Midway blitz, misconduct claims.

>> When compromise is reached.

People don't leave happy.

I know I'm not happy about this.

Some quiet, heartbroken.

>> Mayor Brandon Johnson is forced to accept a compromise measure delaying the phaseout of tipped minimum wage for 2 years.

>> The mayor has no plan.

come up with no plan at all about how the Bears would end up in the city of Chicago amid the debate over the new Bear Stadium, Governor JB Pritzker throws cold water on last-minute claims that Chicago could still be in the running.

>> In order to have thriving city.

We need to have the safe public transportation system.

>> Cook County State's Attorney Eileen O'Neill, Burke expands her office's focus on prosecuting crimes on transit to include Metro case and an array of law enforcement agencies.

>> And now to our week in review panel.

Joining us are our own Matt Masterson of Wt Tw news 3 inside of the Chicago Tribune.

Also from the Chicago Tribune, Talia Soglin and Maxwell Evans of Block Club.

Chicago.

Thank you all for being here.

Let's get right to it.

Matt, you had a busy week of lots of stuff to cover.

As we mentioned, all the remaining charges dropped against the remaining broadview defendants.

Very sharp words from the judge for federal prosecutors and now the defendants attorneys for help with the new demand today.

So fill us in on all that happened this week.

It was quite a shocking day yesterday to see shows the U.S.

attorney step in voluntarily dismiss these charges after these wide-scale allegations of misconduct that >> were detailed in ahead of this grand jury that indicted these protesters months ago.

were accused of breaking the trust, misleading the grand jury, misleading the court, misleading defense attorneys about what went on to secure these charges.

behavior that you really have never seen at the federal courthouse.

I've never seen it.

People work there much longer than me said the same thing that they've never seen anything like this that they excuse grand jurors who didn't like how they present to the case.

There tension between them down the word vouching for the quality of the case, basically saying we would have brought this if it wasn't warranted.

They were having ex parte communications outside of the grand jury room with members of the grand jury.

This is all just truly baffling.

That's what Judge April Perry found.

That's what the defense attorneys who just all learned this yesterday found and they some of the defense attorneys in this case were former federal prosecutors who worked in that office.

They said they were they were shocked.

They were sickened by this behavior.

They've never seen anything like this before in it led to the end of a case that really it's felt like it was going this way a little bit.

There were initially 6 people charged dropped all charges against 2.

They dropped the top conspiracy count last month.

It was their only gonna go to trial on misdemeanor charges at this point.

But still the way this case wrapped up was just another shocking how this all worked.

And what did we hear today?

There is a new development from some demands from the defense attorneys for for these folks.

Yeah, defense attorneys want the federal government to maintain all records related to these grand jury proceedings.

They want to there.

They're going to seek possible sanctions against the prosecutors who handled this case for Prescott prosecutorial misconduct.

want all these things secured.

Now, typically that wouldn't be a big ask.

But with the trust that has broken Judge April Perry said yesterday her trust was broken in the prosecutors who handled this case the need in order to make sure these records are maintained.

Some of these records were concealed from the going into this.

This is the federal courthouse in Chicago is one of the most storied and respected prosecutorial offices in the country.

This is the office that they prosecuted.

Al Capone right, brought down.

They brought down governors in Illinois.

man recently exact that more recently they've secured convictions against Mike Madigan.

R Kelly at Burke and now they're misleading grand jurors just to secure case charges.

a case like this, it was truly wild in Mexico.

had just such a shocking collapse to this case.

It was essentially Mets laying out that claims that prosecutors have tampered with a grand jury.

Were you surprised to see?

>> Even though it was, you know, may be trending toward the charges, getting dropped to just very minor charges.

Response to see it and so dramatically.

Yeah, to be honest, this is like a reality TV TV levels of crazy is like I don't think that anybody would have expected something like this to happen in a case that has taken so much presidents in local news and national news like this isn't some minor case that nobody is aware of.

This is a serious case about a serious issues affecting the entire nation.

So yeah, absolutely shocked to see something like this would have happened.

defense attorneys also in this case had previously asked if this case was politically motivated by the Trump administration.

>> The prosecutors in this case basically said no, there was big ever provided any evidence that there's any communication coming from the Trump administration from Washington to pursue these charges against these defendants who are all related to Democratic politics in one way or another.

Again with the trust violation that's happened in this.

That needs to be looked at again.

Judge Perry said that the these defendants are likely entitled to another hearing over while the weather.

This was a vindictive prosecution against them.

And it will see if that actually goes forward.

But this is something that.

Defense attorneys might for out that their their clients are being maligned some way or another.

But this is truly a nother level.

Yeah.

And you have to imagine this could color other potential prosecutions and make it tougher for you know, this is to us attorneys, even if they do have a case.

This is one of dozens of cases that came out of Operation Midway Blitz.

And this is the first one.

Hopefully the only one where we see there's a level of misconduct.

But we don't know this grant.

These grand jury process is a behind closed doors.

And if defense attorneys didn't push for Perry to to read these transcripts, we may have never got to this point.

Alright, sticking with you for a second.

Another high-profile, a ruling this week, judge denying the effort for a midway blitz.

Special prosecutor.

Why did that effort Falls Judge Erica Reddick yesterday denied this push from hundreds of petitioners.

The head of the Illinois Accountability Commission was one of these petitioners.

A lot of elected officials.

said that we know you'll Burke.

The Cook County State's attorney had not done any investigation.

She had done nothing to look into any of the cases against federal officers for their misconduct during Operation Midway Blitz.

That includes the shooting of Miramar.

Martinez.

So Villegas Gonzalez should she had taken no action to pursue charges.

And that now she has maintained that her office cannot start these investigations.

She can only bring charges when evidence is present been presented to her by local law enforcement yesterday agreed.

She said that needs to be police to investigate these first.

Obviously, the Illinois State police earlier this month have they did launch investigation into the the murder of so Villegas Gonzalez deal Sparks office is assisting in that.

They say that's what they can do when somebody else starts an investigation, they can help, but they can't bring these charges on their own.

Yeah.

Be interesting to see how that investigation plays Tell you another story with state attorney o Neale Burke this week talking another high-profile issue.

Crime on public transit.

What's her new initiative here?

>> It's a task force that will involve meetings of representatives from the transit CTA, Metra and Pace, as well as local law enforcement, her office and then even federal law enforcement essentially having meetings, she says, will help strengthen prosecutorial efforts of transit crime.

>> And of course, this is all in advance of the soon to kick off effort of a big regional overhaul of Chicago area.

Public transit, you know, and a lot of effort along similar lines going to into that legislation.

>> Absolutely.

There are many task forces and there's an internal 3 of them.

There's an internal states attorney's office task force there.

So it's now kind of external task force.

And then there's a task force to come that will be led by the sheriff's office.

Also to do crime fighting on public transit.

Lawmakers led the task force public learn all about them.

>> Alright does arena and some city council news.

Big debate earlier this year.

That seems like it had maybe been settled about the phaseout of tipped minimum wage as of this week still set to happen.

But with a two-year delay, seems like sort of a compromise effort that alters tried to reach between folks like, you know, restaurant workers and small business owners.

Yeah.

So what the measure means is that.

>> Chicago's tipped workers will no longer receive the city ordered wage boost which was supposed to speak scheduled for July first of this year.

And then July 1st of next year.

So now they're gonna have to wait 2 years and they're looking at it from 2 different angles.

So the supporters of the measure saying that it does help mitigate some of the economic barriers and pitfalls that Chicago pellet industry has faced over the last year.

But the opponents of the bill are saying, well, it's going to hurt the most Chicago's vulnerable hospitality workers that are relying on these wages, relying on increases probably to make ends Yeah.

And you know, back are saying little black and brown folks, a lot of women and a lot of low-income Chicago and certainly affected here.

>> Some other city council news this week, Matt Albers, voting officers with ties to extremist organizations shouldn't be allowed to serve on the Chicago Police Department.

How exactly will that work?

This had previously been handled by internally by the Chicago Police Department.

Their internal investigations would look into these extremist ties to officers.

This pushes that out to the civilian office of Police Accountability.

So this will be more external look at these ties.

And if these officers are found to be connected to these extremist groups or have extremes post, they could face consequences from further out than just an internal investigation.

Be interesting to see how much this is actually used if it actually goes into effect there.

You know, becomes a major issue see how many actually >> get investigated for this.

>> Maxwell lot of attention on data centers in recent years.

As you reported, the city's Department of the environment, they just hosted a community conversation on that issue.

What did residents have to say?

Yes, was actually kind of surprised on this event had been listed as sold out ahead of time.

I mean, free event, Butler capacity ahead of time.

And it was really surprising to me to the panel is also were generally it against the development of Sanders, at least had major concerns about the environmental impacts, the economic impacts, the impact on day-to-day life and neighborhoods that host them.

>> And so, yeah, I was a little surprised to see that it wasn't kind both sides situation which are being presented with tons of benefits, tons of drawbacks.

It was a conversation really focused on the drawbacks.

And to be honest, I think that's what the majority of the audience was was aligned with an expecting as well.

So, yeah, and what are what are the next steps for this panel that's looking into the issue.

Yes, a little bit making a series of policy recommendations by the end of next month.

They have a deadline of June 30th to gather the input from things like this their own research into the issue and then present that to city So, yeah, there should be some sort of policy recommendations coming out of that.

I don't believe there's a requirement for any legislation specifically to be drafted or created out of it, but at least policy recommendations to guide City Council on how to approach was very clearly a pressing issue, not just in Chicago, Chicago land but nationwide.

And of course, you know, a lot of these data centers in the city in the suburbs there in communities that already have, you know, environmental impacts from, you know, massive distribution warehouses that have sprung up over the last decade means are in.

You have to imagine that make some residents particularly upset about adding data centers on top of all that truck traffic apps.

And I feel like there's so many other issues that are happening within these communities that a data center just as like, okay.

Now this now.

>> So it's like people don't really know where to focus their rage is it in an environmental issue?

Is that like an economic issue?

It's a lot to consider.

>> And I would also add the environmental people were saying that the mega Hyperscale datacenters that you'll see in areas like Jolly had proposed for Joliet, Aurora, that kind of thing.

Chicago simply doesn't have the space freighter.

So within the city limits, it is the smaller to medium-sized data centers on which obviously still have their own concerns about power, draw water usage.

All the environmental concerns.

But when you're thinking about like hundreds of acres there just simply isn't the land or at this point, the interest in developing land into those.

So they really press that these are small to mid mid size data centers that concern the actual city limits.

But that even our power supplies impacted by these larger ones in our in our outer regions in our suburbs.

So, yeah, yeah.

With a lot of folks seeing electricity bills going up recently and expected to go up, more people are going to be very interested in where this all goes.

>> Turn back to transit Natalia, A.

>> As we said, this overhaul of kicking into high gear.

Maybe there's a better transit related metaphor to use their this picking up steam.

There you go.

Thank you.

But you know, before that happens, Mayor Brandon Johnson reported to making a last-minute effort to see if we can get a >> permanent CTA president install.

This is after nearly a year and a half with an interim leader.

What are the details there?

so Mayor Johnson is making this kind of last made cut last minute, push to get a permanent leader and on CTA just weeks before this overhaul takes effect.

>> One of the things the new transit legislation will do is remove some of the power.

Ultimately the mayor has over making that appointment.

Other people get to say now too.

So he sent a letter to the CTA board chair on May 7th saying essentially lets move quickly.

Let's get someone in work with me here.

you know, it is not clear if the board is going to take him up on that.

They certainly didn't vote on anything at their last meeting.

They don't have another regular meeting scheduled for June 1st.

Yeah.

And of course, there was that, you know, kind of hastily scheduled special meeting of the board that a lot of folks thought was based on the mayor's effort to get his choice in the City you know it.

Is there any sense of whether >> that kind of fraught process that previously played out might affect what happens here.

>> We shall see.

I mean, I think, you know, certainly it's ruffled some feathers.

People saying, you know, you had more than a year to do this.

And now things are changing.

Why make this change now?

It's obviously, you know, also not unusual for agency to have had an interim leader for so long under this particular station fair.

I mean, you know, there have been a lot of eyes on the transit agency.

It's it's struggled over the last several years.

There was a lot of >> negative attention directed at former President Dorval Carter.

You know, Maxwell.

Does it feel like some of that has cooled off it?

You know, with the interim leader taking over in some of these issues improving.

Yeah, I've actually been a little surprised at how much positive I've heard just out in the neighborhoods covering a transit the community.

The people seem to like the interim leader in.

>> The idea that this has taken so long, other is at least to my understanding, seemingly approval of what she's been doing in office it's been a little confusing to be on well as things often reported Alright, there's a new report looking into states Attorney O'Neill, Berks policies, specifically about prison terms for retail theft, which they found.

>> Doubled last year that necessarily a surprise.

It's been a big focus for know.

It's certainly not surprise.

She ran.

I'm kind of reversing some of the policies that can FOX had put into place specifically regarding retail theft can.

FOX had lowered the or I'm sorry increased threshold for what she would.

>> Seek charges.

Eileen O'Neill, Burke immediately ripped lowered that down to the state level.

So it's not at all surprised that we're seeing more of these convictions in this in types of cases.

She has more recently said this isn't a huge priority of hers she's very focused on gun crimes.

She's repeatedly said throughout her administration, this is sort of a just a byproduct it can FOX.

at the level I believe in $1000 where they would not pursue charges unless the amount of retail theft had exceeded that under O'Neill Bearcats down to around $300.

Just with that gap.

It's led to a lot more charges being pursued by her office.

Yeah, of course, there's still a lot of debate among policymakers about how much of an actual to turn because there are so many, you know, various factors that contribute to why folks commit these crimes.

Right?

It's not just that there's more convictions.

That means the number of these cases are going up.

It's likely that they're more steady, but her office is just seeking more charges than her predecessor had been doing.

Tell you, we heard this another twist of the knife when it comes to Chicago's much hated parking meter What's the latest that Yeah, I mean, I think we still have like 57 more years on like for But, you know, I came to light that the firm that owns the park meters, which a the city of Chicago, but private firm.

>> Wants to sell the them to a different a New York based investment firm called Stone Peak.

I believe that's still subject to a city council approval.

So there's some discussion, you know, could the city use that leverage to get anything out of this?

But I don't know how optimistic people yeah, I mean, because some of the terms of the deal or, you know, fairly onerous any time these come offline, the city has to pay them back to have to imagine.

>> All those might at least take a swing at getting out some of those.

again, we shall see.

Alright, you really interesting piece this week about how some local bars and restaurants have become hubs for political action, would you?

yeah, so we've been seeing a lot of these different types of protest events.

So it's really a feel-like stemming from a place of everybody just feels so unhappy.

And there is.

>> An experience of rage.

Everyone's feeling and just the traditional protest of the traditional rally might not be suitable for everybody.

And so restaurants bars in one case, a bowling alley which hosted Chicago postcard protest event.

What they're seeing is that people are liking this more targeted approach where it's a smaller group.

And so with this postcard event, for example, it was very well organized.

Organizers had like stacks and stacks of postcards, very aggressive like it was like Trump's face on it was the 25th amendment was looted and it was and then they had like a sheet, another sheet of of like names of lawmakers, congressmen and congresswomen, senators and then a sidebar of like what exactly they've done.

That's been problematic, whether it's immigration or what's going on in Lebanon or Gaza on very, very targeted.

And so a lot of the people there were like we would love to pick up the phone and call our lawmakers.

But are you really going to do that?

So this is a great place for them to come.

Released their grievances.

It's cathartic and they just, you know, it send it out and the physical it the postcards take a physical space on someone's desk.

So that also is like very powerful imagery.

And then another event that I that I was writing about in that story is an Anti Supper club.

so it's actually the second iteration of a Supper club.

It was first founded by Anthony Bourdain and a guy named Nathan Thornburgh a company called Roads and Kingdoms.

And so in the first Trump administration, they had announced something called the band dinner series.

So Ban Country Center series.

So it countries that are Muslim majority were banned.

And so they highlighted chefs from like Somalia and Sudan and Yemen to cook dinner for these people.

And now the Anti Supper Club series of partnering up with restaurants across cities.

Chicago had a 40 stunned and it's a ticketed event.

People come by all the proceeds go to organizations like ICE or or other immigrant legal aid resources and another targeted approach of and I think restaurants bars naturally the hospitality industry is trying to create spaces for people wear.

When you walk into that door, probably everyone in their agrees with you at least on a moral level and that itself is proving to be very powerful.

Yeah, and it's interesting as well.

You know, you hear a lot about folks who, you know, sort of have this.

>> Hunger for in-person connection.

This is a way to do that, as you say not and, you know, maybe a massive rally of 10's of 1000 people.

>> But that they can still, you know, sort of connect with their neighbors and folks in our community absolutely.

And I think it's also really important to note that protesters are not like one size fits all.

They all look very different.

Some of them are elderly.

Some of them.

don't really like going outside, but they still feel the same way and they still want to make a difference, at least make their voice heard.

So organizers and a lot of the organizers of the same organizers that do organize big events and big rallies and protests.

But they've heard that we want to participate who.

And so there's been a demand for a creative way to set of like having to go in March down the street.

Interesting stuff.

All right.

Speaking of a subject of protests in recent months at you had an update this week on a long-running fight over whether clergy ministers, religious figures and get access to broad use ICE facility.

What's the latest there?

They want an agreement with ICE where a Catholic and interfaith leaders will be able to provide pastoral services to detainees held in the ice facility on a daily basis.

This is something that they had to go to court to agree to.

>> The department, Homeland Security, of course, pushed back saying that this is a processing center.

People are in and out of there overnight, but not supposed to be there more than 12 hours.

Of course, they were held there for days and sometimes weeks during the height of Midway blitz and the past, the faith leaders said that this is another level of care that these people deserve while they're while they're there, that even though it is not a detention center, it had been operating.

It is as a detention center and that they were entitled to this faith.

These feats services while they're held.

They're so this agreement and a temporary basis allows them to go on on a daily basis and do that just Yeah, I mean, you have to imagine serene, even if this isn't a detention facility, it's a processing facility denying people access to, you know, religious ministry, something that a lot of people would disagree with.

Even folks who are anti-immigrant.

Absolutely.

I think it's taking away humanity.

>> When something like that happen so having your faith leader, whether you're Christian, Muslim Jewish situations, just instilling that human back into how it should be.

All right.

We're in the homestretch down in Springfield at the General Assembly.

>> We heard Governor Pritzker reiterating the only 2 states.

The Bears are considering Arlington Heights and Hammond.

But tell you, there was some reporting from the Tribune that, you know, their questions now from lawmakers about whether the city continuing to beat the drum for a Chicago site might soften some of support for this mega projects Bill, do we have a sense of how likely that is given the lateness of the hour?

>> Well, it's certainly late.

You know, there's not that much time left session.

you know, I it's 37 the Bears of right, that they're really only 2 sides, Arlington Heights or Indiana as cell.

How optimistic people should be.

I don't now.

Yeah.

And if they're saying they want to make a decision and you know, spring or summer is the time is running running up.

Pretty quickly.

Wishful thinking, anything, it may well be.

All right.

Next one big development that is happening in Chicago's the Obama presidential center.

That will be here before we know it.

>> More details been coming out about the grand opening next month.

What folks need to be aware Foundation officials have said there's been so much demand for the on-campus celebration of the the opening, which will take place on the 18th head of its grand opening on the 19th.

>> That taking the watch party for these opening ceremonies to the midway.

There will be going essentially amounts to a community festival going on in the mid to kind of coincide with the grand opening ceremonies on the 18th as well as the grand opening on the 19th and neighborhood events through the 20th and 21st.

So, yeah, I think that's really exciting for a lot of people.

But at the same time after Stoney Island had been shut down for transportation improvements for so long, we also get a new round of road closures through June 2 to accommodate this festival in the grand opening ceremonies.

So definitely has it.

Everything has been with the Obama center.

There's lots of excitement, lots of joy and lots of oh, boy, here we go again in terms of day-to-day interruptions.

So as messy as it can be as exciting as fun as it can be, it's all being thrown together yet again.

Yeah.

So folks in the area definitely going to have some closures.

Some alerts to watch out for while this is all happening.

Most definitely and mostly through June.

15th through the A lot of the closures will go out of the through the rest of that weekend.

But yeah, at least a few days there, Woodlawn residents outside of trying to get through the area will be much tougher than it usually is, which is already pretty All right.

Well, one thing that's not tough is talking to the 4 of you, but we are out of time.

So our thanks to.

>> Matt Masterson ringside.

Talia Soglin and Maxwell Evans.

And before we go, a quick note about a special upcoming event.

You're invited to join us for a W T Tw News town hall about police community relations in Chicago.

It's next Tuesday May 26th at 06:00PM at tally Hall in Pilsen.

You can reserve your free tickets at W T Tw dot com slash events.

Tickets are limited.

So sign up today.

Again, that's W T Tw dot com slash events.

Hope we'll see you there.

And we're back to wrap things up right after this.

>> Chicago tonight is made possible in part why the Alexander and John Nichols fate.

The Pope Brothers Foundation, additional support is provided by.

>> And that's our show for this Friday night.

And a programming note.

Chicago tonight will be off on Monday evening for the Memorial Day holiday.

But we'll see you right back here on Tuesday.

Now for all of us here at the week in review.

I'm Nick Blumberg.

Thank you for watching.

Stay healthy, stay safe and stand Have a great weekend.

>> All right.

The biggest story of the week.

Finalists for the names for Chicago's baby bald eagle in the jetway.

Marion and not to Chicago environmentalist Marion Burns.

Claudia Mets think Add there's are you mad?

>> I'm about to go against months again.

Rose from Montrezl because it was a little easier bills move could call you met bills like people are just trying to it is half-game to misspell what's a cool room and I think they've got 3 good options there.

>> very interested.

Just imagine that's going woes.

Caption is made possible by Robert a cliff and Clifford a Chicago personal injury and