2020: A year of sickness, unrest — and sparks of hope

At first, it felt like little more than a far-away rumble. Many of us watched the TV footage of Chinese doctors clad head to toe in protective gear treating intubated patients and thought: Oh, those poor people — so glad it isn’t here.

Then on Jan. 21, a coronavirus case was confirmed in Washington state. Three days later, a Chicago woman who’d recently returned from a trip to Wuhan, China, was confirmed to have the new pneumonia-like virus.

“This is a single travel-associated case, not a local emergency,” Chicago Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady said at the time.

The woman’s husband caught it too, making it the first instance in the United States of person-to-person spread.

A quiet panic took hold, as we all wondered just how deadly and how disruptive this virus would be. Over the next 10 months, our lives would be upended in ways few of us could imagine. The city and state shut down. Most of us retreated to our homes, leaving only to stock up on groceries or to see a doctor when we thought there was no way to avoid it. We wore masks — although not always the right way — and stepped to the side when someone on the sidewalk approached from the opposite direction. We hid our deepest fears from our children, many of whom had to get used to seeing their teachers and classmates only on a computer screen.

We hailed the doctors, the nurses, the bus and train drivers, the grocery store workers — and everyone else who had no choice but to leave home for work.

And we listened day after day, as the grim tallies mounted, bringing Dr. Ngozi Ezike, the head of the Illinois Department of Public Health, to tears on at least one occasion.

But perhaps we also noticed things we’d not had time for in our pre-pandemic lives: a flamingo-pink sunset, a nest of baby sparrows under the eaves, a rotting windowsill in need of repair.

Then, remarkably, there was hope: Several vaccines were showing promising signs in clinical trials. Toward year’s end, a 90-year-old grandmother in England became the world’s first person to get the just-approved Pfizer/BioNTech shot. And on Dec. 15, emergency room physician Dr. Marina Del Rios became the first person in Chicago to be vaccinated for COVID-19.

And we dared to hope that maybe, just maybe, 2021 would bring an end to our global nightmare.

Though it might have felt that way, the pandemic was not the only story in 2020. Here, in no particular order, is what else mattered to us at the Chicago Sun-Times:

Public corruption

Sun-Times file

The year in public corruption began with former state Sen. Martin Sandoval admitting he took hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes, pleading guilty and agreeing to cooperate with federal prosecutors “in any matter in which he is called upon.”

The year ended with Sandoval’s death from COVID-19, which could now complicate the feds’ aggressive probe of Illinois politics.

In between, prosecutors filed charges against at least 17 other public corruption defendants, including former Cook County Commissioner Jeffrey Tobolski, state Sen. Terry Link — who then resigned — and Omar Maani, a former partner in the politically connected red-light camera firm SafeSpeed.

But none of those roiled state politics like the bribery charge filed in July against ComEd, which implicated House Speaker Michael Madigan. The feds followed that up with an indictment in November against longtime Madigan confidant Michael McClain, ex-ComEd CEO Anne Pramaggiore and two others.

Madigan has not been criminally charged and has repeatedly denied wrongdoing. But the allegations have left him fighting to hold on to the speaker’s gavel, which he’s held for decades.

George Floyd demonstrations, looting

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

Protests erupted in cities across America in late May after the widespread viewing of a video that showed a white police officer kneeling on the neck of 46-year-old George Floyd outside a Minneapolis convenience store. Floyd, who was African American, lost consciousness and died.

Protesters turned out here in the thousands, with many demanding major reforms, despite this city’s police department already being under a federal consent decree aimed at doing just that. The protests at times turned violent, with windows smashed, police cars set on fire and stores looted downtown and beyond. The mayor expressed her “total disgust” at the actions of the few who came “armed for all-out battle.” She imposed a citywide curfew. Downtown was cordoned off.

Hammers echoed across the city, as shop owners — already weary from coronavirus-related restrictions — hastily boarded up storefronts. President Donald Trump chimed in, threatening to send in the U.S. military to areas where the unrest continued. The protests died down, but the conversation about race in America continues.

Chicago violence

Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times

The year 2020 will be remembered in Chicago not only for the coronavirus pandemic but for an epidemic of fatal shootings on the city’s streets. The toll is staggering: more than 730 people were killed through early December and there were 18 slayings on just one day — May 31 — the most violent day in 60 years. There’s a small chance 2020 could be even deadlier for Chicago than 2016 when 781 people were killed by the end of that year, which was the city’s deadliest one since the mid-1990s.

The coronavirus pandemic may be linked to Chicago’s rise in killings. Cops have made fewer arrests and traffic stops in 2020, partly out of fear of getting the virus. More than 1,200 officers have tested positive for COVID-19, and four officers have died. Criminals, many of who have worn masks that conceal their identities, have been less afraid of getting caught, emboldening them to carry guns and use them, police say. They point to this fact: even though the total number of arrests in Chicago was down in 2020 compared with the previous year, gun arrests were up.

After George Floyd died in police custody in Minneapolis on May 25, protests and looting swept across America, including Chicago. Violent crime is up in 2020 not only in Chicago but in many other big cities, such as New York.

Christopher Columbus statues taken down

Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times

In July, violence flared again. This time, the target was the 15^th century Italian explorer Christopher Columbus — a symbol of hope for generations of Italian Americans but loathed by some who saw statues celebrating him as monuments to white supremacy.

The Grant Park Columbus statue had been a regular target of vandals after George Floyd’s death. But the situation escalated in July when hundreds of protesters converged at the park, with some trying to tear it down. Police in riot gear were dispatched to protect the statue and disperse the crowds. The scenes of baton-wielding cops and some protesters hurling water bottles and other objects at them were captured on videos that went viral.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot at first argued against taking down the statues, but then — citing concerns over demonstrations becoming “unsafe for both protesters and police” — did exactly that and in the dark of night. All three of the city’s Columbus statues were eventually removed.

The statues were put in storage in an undisclosed location. The mayor said it was only temporary and then appointed an advisory committee to talk about how the city should handle these and other monuments. At year’s end, there were no sightings of the famed explorer nor any public comments from the panel.

Former Gov. Rod Blagojevich is released from prison

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

Trump had long hinted he might commute the 14-year prison term of former Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who was a contestant on the future president’s reality TV show “The Celebrity Apprentice.” A federal jury in 2011 found Blagojevich guilty of 18 counts, including allegations he tried to sell or trade President Barack Obama’s old U.S. Senate seat (an appeals court later dismissed five of those counts).

Trump’s decision came down in mid-February, eight years after Blagojevich began serving his sentence in a Colorado prison. A white SUV pulled up outside Blagojevich’s Ravenswood Manor home in the early-morning hours of Feb. 19, and he was instantly mobbed by reporters and supporters.

A few hours later, he stood before the microphones and said: “A lot’s changed in the nearly eight years [since] I’ve been here.”

But it was vintage Blago, albeit now with a shock of silver hair and a few more wrinkles around his eyes. He quoted poetry. He called himself a “freed political prisoner.” He talked about how his devotion to his wife and his two daughters had kept him going as he lay in a tiny concrete cell. He gushed about his liberator.

“I’m a Trumpocrat,” he said, promising to vote for the president in the election.

It might have seemed, in the blizzard of coronavirus news, that Blagojevich had retreated into obscurity. But he’s remained busy. He has a podcast called “Lightning Rod,” He has stumped for Trump, as well as Chicago businessman Willie Wilson in his failed run to unseat U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin. And in early December, according to POLITICO, Blagojevich was preparing to donate the suits he wore as governor to a community group that mentors young men.

“Who knows, maybe one of these young men will go on to become governor someday,” Blagojevich said.

Chicago native Wilton Gregory is chosen as first African American Catholic cardinal

AP

Like so many things this year, the elevation in November of 13 men from across the globe to the highest rank other than pope in the Catholic Church felt a bit sterile. There were no parties, candidates wore masks and were quarantined before the ceremony at the Vatican.

But the event was nevertheless a celebration for American Catholics, and particularly for Black Catholics. Chicago native Wilton Gregory became the Roman Catholic Church’s first African American cardinal.

Before being elevated, Gregory told the Associated Press that he considers his appointment “an affirmation of Black Catholics in the United States, the heritage of faith and fidelity that we represent.”

“There is an awareness now of the need for racial reconciliation, an awareness that I have not seen at this level and at this intensity before,” Gregory said.

Gregory served as an associate pastor at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Glenview and was a faculty member at St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein. After serving as a master of ceremonies to Cardinals John Cody and Joseph Bernardin, Gregory was named an auxiliary bishop in Chicago in 1983 and later was installed as the bishop of Belleville in 1994. A decade later, he was appointed archbishop of Atlanta before he was named archbishop of Washington in 2019.

Legal marijuana goes on sale

Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

As it turned out, 2020 was a great year to legalize recreational weed.

Facing what seemed to be a daily dose of despair — and the constant reminder that disease, and even death, could be lurking around any corner — pretty much everyone needed a reprieve.

For many Illinoisans, that came in the form of a blunt or a bowl or a bong stuffed tightly with the state’s most promising new cash crop.

With pot shops deemed essential in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, sales skyrocketed, resulting in much-needed revenue for a state facing a virus-induced economic downturn. In Chicago, Mayor Lori Lightfoot even leaned on cannabis revenue to save the jobs of 350 city workers.

And while experts predict that combined sales of medical and recreational weed will hit the billion-dollar mark by year’s end, Illinois’ legalization play has been far from perfect.

Most notably, the state’s push to diversify the overwhelmingly white weed industry and prioritize new licenses to so-called social equity candidates has been stymied by delays and a series of lawsuits over the application process.

As it stands, there’s not a single licensed marijuana business in the state with a majority owner who’s a person of color.

Kenosha protests; Antioch teen charged in killing of two

Adam Rogan / The Journal Times via AP

On Aug. 23, a white police officer shot Jacob Blake, a 29-year-old African American man, seven times in the back in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Police at the time were attempting to arrest Blake in connection with a domestic incident and he resisted, police have said.

The shooting left Blake, who grew up in Evanston, paralyzed from the waist down and it left parts of downtown Kenosha in ruins after nights of protests. Trucks, cars and buildings were set on fire. Police, with tear gas and rubber bullets, repeatedly clashed with protesters. On Aug. 25, 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse of Antioch was among those who’d come to Kenosha vowing to help protect the city from looters.

And in an incident that has almost overshadowed the event that sparked the protests, Rittenhouse shot and killed two demonstrators as well as wounding another. Videos posted on social media show Rittenhouse roaming the streets of Kenosha armed with a rifle. He was arrested and charged with first-degree intentional homicide, among other charges. His high-profile defense team has said he was acting in self-defense, going so far as to call him an “American patriot.” While Rittenhouse awaits trial, the state of Wisconsin has opened an investigation into the Blake shooting.

Derecho slams into region, spawning rare tornado here

Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times

If you were huddled in your basement, peering out of a window, you might have seen the whip-like crack of the power lines, sturdy trees bending like saplings. It wasn’t until people stepped outside and took a walk around that the devastation became apparent.

The Aug. 10 derecho — a straight, fast-moving line of storms — tore off roofs, downed power lines and destroyed thousands upon thousands of trees just in the city alone.

At one point, some 900,000 ComEd customers were without power. And in Rogers Park, an EF-1 tornado touched down before spinning out onto Lake Michigan and morphing into a waterspout. It was the first time since 1976 that a twister of comparable power had plowed through the city.

For days afterward, streets echoed with the sound of chain saws as cherished trees were pulled from atop homes, garages and cars.

Contributing: Frank Main, Tom Schuba, Jon Seidel and the Associated Press