Chicago on edge. “Closely monitoring events across the country,” the city’s been beefing up officer presence in business districts against the possibility of fresh unrest over cop violence in the news—including …
■ … the continuing trial of ex-Minneapolis officer Derek Chauvin, accused of murdering George Floyd …
■ … and the cop who exclaimed, “Holy shit! I shot him!” after fatally wounding a Black man during a traffic stop in the Minneapolis suburb of Brooklyn Center …
■ … firing a gun when she purportedly meant to use a Taser.
■ Media columnist Tom Jones says news outlets that chose to broadcast or publish “disturbing video” of that incident made the right call.
■ Dozens of people were arrested overnight during unrest in Brooklyn Center.
Know an aspiring journalist? Spread this word from the Chicago Headline Club: April 16’s the deadline to apply for the Les Brownlee Memorial Scholarship. A worthy undergrad attending a Chicago-area institution can land $5,000. Apply here.
‘They didn’t do anything wrong.’ A Chicago Police Department spokesman tells Block Club Chicago cops were following standard procedure last month when they turned off their body cams eight minutes after an officer fatally shot 13-year-old Adam Toledo.
■ Four people were wounded—one fatally—and a sixth fifth was hit by a car early Monday in a shooting on the Eisenhower Expressway.
■ A doctor reports “slow but steady progress” for a 1-year-old shot on Lake Shore Drive last week.
■ Chicago police arrested one man—and were seeking others who rode a “convoy of cars”—in a break-in and theft early Monday at the Michigan Avenue Nordstrom store.
‘Racial battle fatigue.’ University of Iowa research suggests “race-related stress could be driving educators of color away from the job.”
■ Prosecutors were reviewing video of students at a Moline, Illinois, high school forcing a black football player to sit in a locker stuffed with banana peels as a fellow player threatened to break his knees if he refused …
■ … behavior the Moline police chief calls “a disgusting way to treat a fellow teammate.”
Vaccine alert. The U.S. government is recommending a “pause” in delivery of the one-dose Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine …
■ … for investigation of at least six cases in women between 18 and 48 of a “rare and severe” type of blood clot …
■ … and prompting the company to delay a rollout in Europe …
■ … developments that won’t help dispel a perception among minority Americans that the J&J vaccine is “a second-class shot” (March 10 link).
‘You don’t have too much time to think.’ The Tribune rounds up veteran Illinois vaccine hunters’ tips on how to get a shot.
■ A member of Gov. Pritzker’s staff—someone who’d received the first dose of a two-shot vaccine—has tested positive for COVID-19.
■ Illinois’ top doc: We’re in “a race between vaccine and variants.”
‘It’s a nightmare.’ A 24-year veteran employee of Chicago’s Swissotel is one of many industry workers who tell the Trib they’re worried they won’t get their jobs back, even as the city’s hotel business revives.
■ The ArcLight Cinemas chain, which owns theaters in Lincoln Park and Glenview, says it’s going dark for good.
■ A Sun-Times editorial recommends Illinois take “caution regarding selling the Thompson Center.”
Where are the tornadoes? National Weather Service records show the Chicago area’s off to its seventh slowest start for the severe weather season in 71 years: The Trib reports zero days so far this spring.
■ Style change at Scientific American: “Climate emergency,” not “climate change.”
Cartoonist Keith J. Taylor’s take of the day:
Know an aspiring journalist? Spread this word from the Chicago Headline Club: April 16’s the deadline to apply for the Les Brownlee Memorial Scholarship. A worthy undergrad attending a Chicago-area institution can land $5,000. Apply here.
Chicago Public Square supports the Headline Club.
Correction. One of the most-clicked items in yesterday’s Square linked to the wrong page. Here’s the right one: “The jewels of America’s landscape should belong to America’s original peoples.” Thanks to reader Karen Berman, first to note the problem.
■ That’s not the only thing your Square columnist got wrong Monday—as you’ll see in the latest edition of Justin Kaufmann’s online series Da Chicago Game Show.