Chicago media is playing a considerable role in the public's negative perception of Chicago Police
Bias in the Chicago media is real, unfortunately. Among the worst biases in Chicago journalism is against the Chicago Police Department (CPD). Seeking to cement an anti-police sentiment in the conscience of its shrinking audience, it should not surprise many that, once again, Chicago’s media has unleashed a new round of stories suggesting Chicago Police are inherently biased against Black residents and lawsuit settlements linked to prosecutions overturned under Kim Foxx somehow prove CPD resists reform.
Many in the press remain determined to perpetuate a narrative of systemic racial discrimination in law enforcement — despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Let’s look at a number of examples.
Police shootings: Facts ignored
Consider WTTW’s June 16th story, later updated, which emphasized that Chicago police shootings in 2024 — then at 16 — had already surpassed the 12 reported the previous year. What the story deliberately ignored is that even at 16, the total is far below averages from the previous decade, when police shootings regularly exceeded 60 in a single year and once topped 80.
Also absent in WTTW’s reporting was any real attention to the surge in police officers fired upon by criminal offenders. Superintendent of Police Larry Snelling reported that from 2020–2024, CPD officers were targeted by gunfire more than 330 times, resulting in 38 wounded and 7 killed — over four times the annual average of the previous decade. When officers face dramatically higher levels of armed assault but result in dramatically fewer fatal encounters, that is not evidence of abuse. It is evidence of restraint.
Traffic stops and racial disparities
WBEZ recently ran a headline suggesting despite a 45 percent reduction in Chicago traffic stops in 2024 “racial disparities” still exist as Black’s and Latinos accounted nearly 75 percent of all traffic stops. No significance is given to the fact that 57 percent of all non-moving violations are Black and Latino drivers, perhaps because it all but matches their 58 percent of the city population. Non-moving violations are stops not actually tied to the act of driving, occurring when the vehicle is stationary or involves its condition.
Even more telling: There is no reference to Black and Latino residents accounting for nearly 95 percent of Chicago’s murder victims and 97 percent of felony gun possession arrests suggesting a reason for the heavier police presence and thus more stops in Black and Latino communities. Traffic stops are the most effective tools police have for intercepting illegal firearms in high-crime neighborhoods where shootings are concentrated. In this context, the real disparity may be that White residents are proportionally stopped more often than their share of serious criminal involvement would warrant.
Use of force and community violence
Chicago media’s obsession with tarnishing CPD is not limited to traffic stops or police shootings. Media’s coverage of fatal police shootings is also terribly distorted and tends to frame disparity without context whatsoever. Frequently, media coverage of fatal CPD shootings make the claim that Black residents are overrepresented among police shooting victims but rarely acknowledge that the rate of violent crime arrests among Black residents is over 20 times higher than that of White residents.
While Blacks make up 28 percent of Chicago’s population but are responsible for approximately 78 percent of known homicides. In neighborhoods on the Chicago’s South, Southeast, and West Sides, residents endure murder and shooting rates 10 to 17 times higher than other areas. Though the higher instances of crime in these quarters of Chicago would lead to the assumption a higher concentration of CPD in these communities naturally brings more confrontations, this context is routinely stripped from coverage in favor of simple ratios meant to imply racial targeting.
The Consent Decree and its costs
The 2019 CPD Consent Decree, now often cited by journalists when lawsuits are settled, is itself a product of political theater. The decree — 236 pages long, with 503 mandates — was forced on the city by Mayor Rahm Emanuel in the aftermath of the fatal shooting of an armed teen, Laquan McDonald. What began as a response to one tragic incident became a sprawling monitoring regime dominated by outside consultants. The Consent Decree Monitor’s law firm has already billed Chicago taxpayers nearly $19 million — resources that could have funded more detectives, mental health services, or youth programming.
There are now more consultants working on compliance than sworn officers assigned to the entire CTA transit system. This is regulation for regulation’s sake, enriching lawyers and monitors while sidelining real public safety.
Wrongful convictions and exorbitant settlements
In nearly every major settlement for wrongful conviction or police misconduct, the failure to implement the Consent Decree is cited as justification for multi-million-dollar payouts. Rarely do reporters question whether individuals receiving these settlements were actually innocent, or why the settlements are so large. Since 2000, Chicago has paid over out $700 million in lawsuits, not because claimants were proven innocent but for alleged police misconduct. The media ignored Kim Foxx’s brokering deals with a secretive “Lawyers Committee” composed of private attorneys specializing in lawsuits against the police. These lawyers, sometimes hired as “Special Assistant State’s Attorneys,” worked to overturn murder convictions, often not because of new exculpatory evidence, but due to allegations of police misconduct. Foxx’s “Conviction Integrity Unit” issued “Certificates of Innocence” even when there was no evidence to support actual innocence, paving the way for successful lawsuits against the city.
After eight years of Foxx having her thumb on the scales of justice, Chicago has seen half the nation's overturned convictions and wrongful conviction lawsuits filed. By the time she left office in December 2024, Foxx left as many as 275 wrongfully conviction cases for which lawsuits have or will be filed seeking millions more in damages. These new suits are expected to cost the city well in excess of $1 billion. No one in the media ever seems to question whether these individuals were innocent of the crimes or even the size of the settlements preferring to continue the narrative of bad city police costing taxpayers.
Clearance rates and justice reform
For all media’s negative or contorted coverage of CPD, here lies the great irony: In one breath, media reports accuse CPD of disproportionately targeting Black residents. In the next, they criticize CPD’s lower clearance rates in solving murders in Black neighborhoods — as if both claims can be true simultaneously.
The reality is that years of criminal justice “reforms” have undermined police capacity to deliver justice. Staffing shortages mean half of 911 priority calls go unanswered, the elimination of ShotSpotter slowed response times to shootings, and restrictions on vehicular and foot chases allow violent criminals to escape the law. Even before the SAFE-T Act, pre-trial release policies returned over 70 percent of violent offenders to the streets pending trial. With insufficient detectives and witnesses unwilling to testify under real threat of retaliation, it’s hardly surprising that clearance rates are low.
Who profits from anti-police narratives
The real beneficiaries of this endless cycle are not Chicago’s neighborhoods but the growing “criminal industrial complex” of lawyers, consultants, and monitors who profit from lawsuits, reform studies, and consent decree contracts. Their influence depends on perpetuating the narrative police cannot be trusted, no matter how crime rates or police actions.
Meanwhile, as this concatenation of events occurs, vital city resources are drained from programs that could address violence, and police officers remain hamstrung by rules and scrutiny that make it harder to keep our streets safe. The ultimate victims of this dynamic are not the lawyers or the media — it is the overwhelmingly Black and Latino residents of Chicago’s poorest communities who suffer under the daily weight of shootings, homicides, and fear.
Chicago cannot afford a media landscape that turns its back on facts in pursuit of narratives. Our city needs stronger, fairer journalism — and a justice system that prioritizes public safety over politics and profit.
