‘Get down, boy!’ That’s what The Triibe reports a police officer can be heard saying in video of three San Antonio cops—one of whom is Gus Vallas, the son of Chicago mayoral candidate Paul Vallas—shooting and killing a Black man fleeing them last year.
■ A police accountability expert tells The Triibe that body camera footage portrays “a firing squad.”
■ The Vallas campaign: “This matter was the subject of a complete investigation. Gus Vallas was found not to have engaged in any violations of policy or procedure.”
■ The story’s putting new focus on Paul Vallas’ ties to Chicago’s Fraternal Order of Police …
■ … with which columnist Julie Vassilatos says he is “uncomfortably cozy.”
■ Vallas took the brunt of criticism in yesterday’s WBEZ/Sun-Times candidate forum …
■ … which you can watch here.
‘That would have been idiotic.’ Columnist Eric Zorn rejects the notion that Chicago mayoral candidate Chuy Garcia attended the State of the Union address in Washington as “a projection of his importance” instead of joining a debate in Chicago.
■ Garcia’s campaign says it’ll redirect $2,900 it got from scandal-scarred cryptocurrency kid Sam Bankman-Fried instead to reimburse clients of Bankman-Fried’s failed exchange.
■ On Facebook, Zorn’s fellow former Tribune columnist Mary Schmich is collecting reader suggestions for who should get her vote for mayor.
■ While you’re in a voting mood, don’t forget to give Square a nod in the Reader’s Best of Chicago poll.
‘It’s a traumatizing experience to have a gun pulled at you in the performance of your duties.’ The leader of Chicago’s branch of the National Association of Letter Carriers is sounding an alarm about a string of armed robberies of postal workers.
■ The Postal Service is offering $50,000 for help leading to the criminals’ arrest.
People working, drugs not.
■ Data from Kastle—maker of many commercial buildings’ security systems—suggests that, for the first time since the pandemic’s onset, half of Chicago’s office workers are back in the office.
■ Wired: Monoclonal antibodies—a key tool in the early COVID-19 response—aren’t working against new variants.
■ A Stanford University professor probes the loss of 1.2 million students from U.S. public schools during the pandemic.
■ Your Local Epidemiologist takes a scientific look at the pandemic portrayed in HBO’s The Last of Us.
Grim reality. The earthquake toll in Turkey and Syria was nearing 20,000 today.
■ Photos convey some of the horror.
■ Be ready for a Chicago disaster: Download the city’s new emergency communications app.
Walmart’s farewell. The company’s closing three stores in Chicago’s suburbs.
■ Bed, Bath & Beyond—once a retail innovator, now at the threshold of extinction—is closing four more stores in Illinois.
■ The case of a suburban man who’s collecting $91 million from 7-Eleven after losing both legs in a storefront crash has exposed thousands of such crashes at the company’s stores nationwide.
‘I find it despicable.’ Tuesday’s Square, which flippantly applied the phrase “grandpa-in-chief” to a preview of the president’s State of the Union message, triggered complaints of ageism:
■ A reader who asks not to be named (“The last thing I would like is to start a social media fight”) writes: “Would you ever have used fatty-in-chief if the president were overweight?”
■ Barry Koehler: “Don’t really care for it considering all the flack we take from the GOP on his age.”
■ For what it’s worth, your Square columnist—a proud grandpa—considers that a term of honor …
■ … but, you know what? It turned out to be a lousy choice in this case anyway.