Chicago Sun-Times: All posts by John O'Neill2023-12-26T06:30:00-06:00https://chicago.suntimes.com/authors/john-r-oneill/rss2023-12-26T06:30:00-06:002023-12-22T18:12:23-06:00We brought our loved ones close to say goodbye
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<img class="Image" alt="A man and woman, John and Nancy McBride, on a walk with their two young kids, around 1970." srcset="https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/6442f63/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1511x848+145+0/resize/490x275!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2F1cLiavV6ty0LrqLvuncQ0VC0kXg%3D%2F0x52%3A1800x900%2F1800x848%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28900x450%3A901x451%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F25177851%2FUntitled_1.jpg 1x,https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/cb0f80a/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1511x848+145+0/resize/980x550!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2F1cLiavV6ty0LrqLvuncQ0VC0kXg%3D%2F0x52%3A1800x900%2F1800x848%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28900x450%3A901x451%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F25177851%2FUntitled_1.jpg 2x" width="490" height="275"
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<div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p>John and Nancy McBride with their children, around 1970. When we’re young, our parents take care of us. When our parents are older, we take care of them.</p></figcaption><span class="line"></span><div class="Figure-credit"><p>Provided</p></div></div>
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<p>I was at the kitchen sink one day a few years ago as my father-in-law walked up with a few things to load into the dishwasher.</p><p>When he was done, he opened the silverware drawer, reached into his pocket, pulled out a fork and started to put it away.</p><p>“It’s clean,” he assured me. “I found it in my pocket.”</p><p>I put it in the dishwasher anyway.</p><p>My wife’s dad always had a wonderful, distinguished, absent-minded-professor way about him. But he’d recently been diagnosed with Lewy body dementia, and things were getting more challenging.</p><p>At the time, my in-laws were living in our basement family room so we could help take care of my mother-in-law before and after cancer surgery.</p><div class="RichTextSidebarModule Enhancement" data-module data-align-floatRight><a class="AnchorLink" id="module-2a0000" name="module-2a0000"></a>
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</div><p>Eventually, she was ready to go back to their home in the Quad Cities. But as he got worse, we wanted them near. Maybe not in the basement — I can keep track of only so many forks — but at least in the same city.</p><p>It seemed obvious. Though they’d lived in Iowa for decades, both were from Chicago. Both children were here and the grandchildren. My parents are long dead, so these were the only grandparents my kids had ever known.</p><p>But even obvious choices are not always easy. Downsizing after nearly 40 years takes time. Eventually, though, we found a place they liked, an eight-minute drive from our house.</p><p>When they moved, the pandemic was lingering. We were still mostly working from home, allowing the flexibility to squeeze in our regular jobs around the work of preparing their condo, lining up the movers, then helping them adjust to a new place.</p><p>They loved it. It was near everything. My mother-in-law could drive to Mass, to Jewel. Friends would stop by. They enjoyed walking around their block, saying hi to new neighbors.</p><div class="Enhancement" data-align-center>
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<img class="Image" alt="Portrait of Nancy and John McBride." srcset="https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/cfa26e3/2147483647/strip/true/crop/4200x2357+0+696/resize/490x275!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2Fv5JU5IziGpIebD9EFZ9S4c_63kw%3D%2F0x0%3A4200x3750%2F4200x3750%2Ffilters%3Afocal%282100x1875%3A2101x1876%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F25177921%2FNancy_John_McBride.jpg 1x,https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/2433cbe/2147483647/strip/true/crop/4200x2357+0+696/resize/980x550!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2Fv5JU5IziGpIebD9EFZ9S4c_63kw%3D%2F0x0%3A4200x3750%2F4200x3750%2Ffilters%3Afocal%282100x1875%3A2101x1876%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F25177921%2FNancy_John_McBride.jpg 2x" width="490" height="275"
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<div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p>Nancy and John McBride.</p></figcaption><span class="line"></span><div class="Figure-credit"><p>Provided</p></div></div>
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</div><p>But my father-in-law’s decline continued. He’d ask me, day after day after day, to show him how to work on the computer he’d used for years but would never use again.</p><p>He was a fantastic poet. And he had dozens of poems on that computer. But he could no longer double-click, no longer type. Writing by hand was too difficult. A big piece of him was gone.</p><p>And then the biggest piece of him was gone, too. After a few wonderful months, my mother-in-law’s cancer returned.</p><p>We were never more grateful to have them close. My wife and her brother spent plenty of days and nights over there, managing her care. Our tiny dog — of all our pets, the only one she ever really doted on — would snuggle with her.</p><h3>Unspoken goodbyes</h3><p>As she grew weaker, a parade of friends and relatives visited to say hello. There were unspoken goodbyes.</p><p>Talking became difficult, so we’d watch House Hunters, one of her favorites, and I’d talk for both of us, debating the merits of each property, predicting what they’d pick. By then, I pretty much knew what she’d say.</p><p>In November 2021, just shy of her birthday, not even eight months after moving in, she died. My wife was at her side and called me soon after. It was 4 a.m. I waited to tell the kids.</p><p>After that, one of us was almost always at their condo. My in-laws’ frugality, which had bordered on obsessive, meant enough savings to pay for caregivers, including someone to stay overnight, though my wife and her brother also were there a lot.</p><p>My wife looked after her dad on Sundays, and when she was out of town, I’d go.</p><p>One Sunday, he wouldn’t get out of bed.</p><p>“I don’t want to do this anymore,” he said. He knew his mind was starting to go, he said. He knew what was ahead.</p><p>“Well,” I said, “you can tell it’s happening, so that means it hasn’t happened yet. And I brought breakfast from McDonald’s.”</p><p>“OK,” he said, and we headed for the kitchen.</p><p>Over time, it got harder to move around, to go out. He started seeing things, started shuffling papers, packing up a briefcase that wasn’t there to go to an office he didn’t work at anymore.</p><p>A Christmas baby, he saw just one more birthday after his wife died, and seven months after she was gone, so was he.</p><p>Nancy and John McBride had similar funerals, in the same church, and are buried next to each other in Des Plaines — as it happens, about four miles from where I lived as a boy. My wife has a plot there, too, as do I, purchased by her family long before they knew whom she’d marry.</p><p>I’m more of a cremate-me-and-scatter-my-ashes kind of guy, but I definitely want part of me there, with them, too.</p><p><i>John O’Neill is deputy politics and government editor. He has worked at the Sun-Times since 2012, after 19 years as a reporter, editor and columnist at The Indianapolis Star. He is married to Suzanne McBride, a Sun-Times assistant metro editor. </i></p><p><i>This column is part of an occasional series introducing readers to editors and others “behind the scenes” at the Sun-Times.</i></p><p><i>Send letters to </i><a class="Link" href="http://letters@suntimes.com/" target="_blank" ><i>letters@suntimes.com</i></a></p><p></p><p></p>
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2023/12/26/23999123/parents-aging-caregiving-cancer-dementia-covid-families-john-oneillJohn O'Neill2021-10-10T09:31:17.016-05:002021-10-10T09:31:19-05:00Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay wants to open a museum for his pop culture collection
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<img class="Image" alt="Indianapolis Colts owner and CEO Jim Irsay with the Fender Stratocaster guitar that Bob Dylan played at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. Irsay is talking with officials in several cities about the possibility of creating a museum to display the pop culture memorabilia that he’s spent millions of dollars collecting over the past 20 years. " srcset="https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/cd0693f/2147483647/strip/true/crop/4014x2253+0+416/resize/490x275!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FwTnuDkg9ZhBDpoN0U1g1dMf24h4%3D%2F0x0%3A4014x3084%2F4014x3084%2Ffilters%3Afocal%282024x610%3A2025x611%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F22914492%2FIRSAY_pop_culture_museum.jpg 1x,https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/9161838/2147483647/strip/true/crop/4014x2253+0+416/resize/980x550!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FwTnuDkg9ZhBDpoN0U1g1dMf24h4%3D%2F0x0%3A4014x3084%2F4014x3084%2Ffilters%3Afocal%282024x610%3A2025x611%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F22914492%2FIRSAY_pop_culture_museum.jpg 2x" width="490" height="275"
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<div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p>ndianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay with the Fender Stratocaster guitar Bob Dylan played at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965. Irsay is talking with officials in several cities about the possibility of creating a museum to display the pop culture memorabilia that he’s spent millions of dollars collecting over the past 20 years. </p></figcaption><span class="line"></span><div class="Figure-credit"><p>Michelle Pemberton/The Indianapolis Star, distributed by the Associated Press</p></div></div>
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<p>INDIANAPOLIS — Indianapolis Colts owner Jim Irsay is talking with officials in several cities about the possibility of creating a museum to display the pop culture memorabilia that he’s spent millions of dollars collecting over the past 20 years.</p><p>That collection includes musical instruments such as guitars used by Prince and Bob Dylan, a piano used by John Lennon and a Ringo Starr drum set, and other items such as the 120-foot-long scroll on which Jack Kerouac wrote the 1950s novel “On the Road.”</p><p>Irsay has ramped up discussions about a museum recently, Colts chief operating officer Pete Ward told the Indianapolis Business Journal.</p><p>“He’s added some really significant pieces to his collection over the past six to 12 months and he doesn’t want them sitting in a room where no one can enjoy them except for himself,” Ward said.</p><p>Irsay in the past couple months has purchased an Apple II computer manual signed by Steve Jobs and Elton John’s tour piano.</p><p>Irsay has loaned some of his collection for museum exhibitions or displayed them at private showings, but he’s interested in a permanent location. He is looking at Indianapolis, along with cities such as Boston, Chicago, Nashville, Tennessee, and Austin, Texas.</p><p>“We’ve had some casual conversations — nothing real intense or serious, but there have been indications that there’s interest,” Ward said, noting that no decisions haven’t been made on how to pay for creation of the museum. Irsay has been “approached by a couple of entities about the collection and we’re looking at engaging an architect to talk about concepts. But that’s really all that’s happening right now.”</p><p>Chris Gahl, vice president of the Visit Indy tourism promotion group, said the organization had been asked to determine how the collection could attract visitors to the city.</p><p>“Part of our responsibility as the city’s lead tourism agency is to look for ways to continue to diversify and grow our tourism ecosystem to attract more visitors and keep them here longer, spending more,” Gahl said.<br></p>
https://chicago.suntimes.com/entertainment-and-culture/2021/10/10/22719234/indianapolis-colts-owner-jim-irsay-museum-pop-culture-items-on-the-road-scroll-elton-john-pianoJohn O'Neill2016-07-22T13:34:34-05:002019-05-07T10:07:25-05:00Police: 'Several dead and wounded' in Munich mall shooting
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<div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p>Policemen arrive at a shopping center where a shooting was reported in Munich, Germany on Friday. | Matthias Balk/dpa news agency, distributed by the Associated Press</p></figcaption></div>
</figure>
<p>BERLIN — A manhunt was underway Friday for a shooter or shooters who opened fire at a shopping mall in Munich, killing and wounding several people, a Munich police spokeswoman said. The city transit system shut down and police asked people to avoid public places.</p><p>“At the moment no culprit has been arrested,” Munich police said on social media. “The search is taking place at high speed.”</p><p>Police said witnesses reported seeing three different people with guns near the Olympia Einkaufszentrum mall.</p><p>Munich police spokeswoman Claudia Kuenzel told The Associated Press there were “several dead and wounded” in the shooting. She could not provide exact numbers. The Bavarian Interior Ministry confirmed at least one dead and multiple people hurt.</p><div class="Enhancement" data-align-floatRight>
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<img class="Image" alt="In this frame grab taken from video, people run from the Olympia Einkaufszentrum shopping centre after a shooting in Munich, Germany on Friday. Munich police confirm shots have been fired at Olympia Einkaufszentrum shopping center but say they don’t have" srcset="https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/eb9ec04/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1711x960+0+34/resize/490x275!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2Fzh7uyyPLXS8Zr_5Wun7oBDffJ_4%3D%2F0x0%3A1711x1028%2F1711x1028%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28855x514%3A856x515%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F16130405%2Fgermany_munich_shooti_one.jpg 1x,https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/71d0d39/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1711x960+0+34/resize/980x550!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2Fzh7uyyPLXS8Zr_5Wun7oBDffJ_4%3D%2F0x0%3A1711x1028%2F1711x1028%2Ffilters%3Afocal%28855x514%3A856x515%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F16130405%2Fgermany_munich_shooti_one.jpg 2x" width="490" height="275"
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<div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p>In this frame grab taken from video, people run from the Olympia Einkaufszentrum shopping centre after a shooting in Munich, Germany on Friday. Munich police confirm shots have been fired at Olympia Einkaufszentrum shopping center but say they don’t have any details about casualties. | Thamina Stoll/UGC, distributed by the Associated Press</p></figcaption></div>
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</div><p>Munich police spokesman Thomas Baumann told German news agency dpa the attack started at a fast food restaurant in the mall shortly before 6 p.m. local time.</p><p>Public broadcaster Bayrischer Rundfunk reported that shops in the center of Munich had closed with customers inside.</p><p>Police responded in large numbers to the mall in the northern part of Munich, not far from the city’s Olympic Stadium in the Moosach district of the Bavarian capital.</p><p>It’s the second attack in Germany in less than a week. On Monday, a 17-year-old Afghan wounded four people in an ax-and-knife attack on a regional train near the Bavarian city of Wuerzburg, and another woman outside as he fled. All survived, although one man from the train remains in life-threatening condition. The attacker was shot and killed by police.</p><p>The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the train attack, but authorities have said the teen likely acted alone.</p><div class="Enhancement" data-align-center>
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<img class="Image" alt="Police in Munich, Germany respond to a shooting at a shopping center on Friday. Munich police confirm shots have been fired at Olympia Einkaufszentrum shopping center but say they don’t have any details about casualties. | Associated Press" srcset="https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/2580e3c/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3000x1684+0+33/resize/490x275!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FPa8R35ui9s-VLVYeQJbOw4c7uwo%3D%2F0x0%3A3000x1750%2F3000x1750%2Ffilters%3Afocal%281500x875%3A1501x876%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F16130406%2Fgermany_munich_shooti_one_1.jpg 1x,https://cst.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/fe55b3b/2147483647/strip/true/crop/3000x1684+0+33/resize/980x550!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fthumbor%2FPa8R35ui9s-VLVYeQJbOw4c7uwo%3D%2F0x0%3A3000x1750%2F3000x1750%2Ffilters%3Afocal%281500x875%3A1501x876%29%2Fcdn.vox-cdn.com%2Fuploads%2Fchorus_asset%2Ffile%2F16130406%2Fgermany_munich_shooti_one_1.jpg 2x" width="490" height="275"
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<div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p>Police in Munich, Germany respond to a shooting at a shopping center on Friday. Munich police confirm shots have been fired at Olympia Einkaufszentrum shopping center but say they don’t have any details about casualties. | Associated Press</p></figcaption></div>
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</div><p></p>
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2016/7/22/18414767/police-several-dead-and-wounded-in-munich-mall-shootingJohn O'Neill2016-06-24T11:37:00-05:002019-05-13T11:28:56-05:00Autopsy: Woman struck by Metra train in Oak Forest committed suicide
<p>(OAK FOREST) A woman who was fatally struck by an outbound Metra train in the south suburbs early Friday committed suicide, according to the results of an autopsy.</p><p>Just after midnight, 23-year-old Christina Birkmeyer was struck by Rock Island District train No. 531 near Cicero Avenue and 159th Street in Oak Forest, authorities said.</p><p>Birkmeyer, of the 7700 block of 167th Place in Tinley Park, was pronounced dead at the scene at 3:46 a.m., according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.</p><p>An autopsy Friday found she died of multiple blunt force injuries suffered when she was struck by the train, the medical examiner’s office said. Her death was ruled a suicide.</p><p>Service was terminated for the train, which was scheduled to arrive in Joliet at 12:44 a.m. Train 533 was stopped at the Blue Island station for two hours before it was allowed to move again.<br></p>
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2016/6/24/18430149/autopsy-woman-struck-by-metra-train-in-oak-forest-committed-suicideJohn O'Neill2016-06-24T11:15:00-05:002019-04-17T23:18:32-05:00Once upon a time, Schock’s media attention was kinder, funnier
<p>Before he was the globe-trotting, Instagramming, adventure-seeking congressman at the center of a slew of ethics allegations, Rep. Aaron Schock was just a kid in Congress.</p><p>For a glimpse of that younger, more innocent time, before he got the shock treatment of media scrutiny, we take you to a September 2009 broadcast of the National Public Radio comedy quiz show “Wait, Wait … Don’t Tell Me!” — broadcast nationally but taped in Chicago.</p><p>Schock had just been elected to his first term the year before, and the 28-year-old was the youngest — and as show host Peter Sagal noted — the “hottest” freshman congressman, according to an unspecified vote.</p><div class="Enhancement" data-align-floatRight>
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<div class="Figure-content"><figcaption class="Figure-caption"><p><small><strong>Peter Sagal is the host of “Wait, Wait … Don’t Tell Me!” on National Public Radio. | Sun-Times Library</strong></small></p></figcaption></div>
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</div><p>“Well, there’s definitely worse things to be voted,” Schock said, before going on to play a segment of the show called “Not My Job,” so named because the celebrity guests (usually, like Schock, calling in) are asked questions about things they presumably should know nothing about.</p><p>Schock was asked about Woodstock, which was at the time celebrating its 40th anniversary. That Schock would not know much about it seemed a safe bet, considering his youth, and indeed he went on to miss two out of three questions.</p><p>The congressman was known for his shirtless ways even then, as Sagal asked about a photo of Schock poolside — “showing off a pretty premium-level craft-brewed six pack, if you know what we mean.”</p><p>Schock demurred, saying it had not surfaced until after he was elected.</p><p>But before that, Sagal asked about Schock’s aspirations.</p><p>“You must have, like, some sense of what your future might be. I mean, it’s only, let me think, do a little math, seven years until you can qualify to be president,” Sagal said.</p><p>“I’m flattered people say that. I’ve had people ask me that, but you know, who knows what the future holds?” Schock said. “There’s a lot of variables that play into what’s going to happen in four, six, eight, 10 years down the road.”</p><p>You can listen to the whole appearance here:<br></p>
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2016/6/24/18480159/once-upon-a-time-schock-s-media-attention-was-kinder-funnierJohn O'Neill2016-06-24T11:05:00-05:002019-04-17T19:08:37-05:00Italy’s highest court tosses out convictions of Amanda Knox, former boyfriend
<p>ROME — Amanda Knox, who maintained that she and her former Italian boyfriend were innocent in her British roommate’s murder through multiple trials and nearly four years in jail, was vindicated Friday when Italy’s highest court threw out their convictions once and for all.</p><p>“Finished!” Knox’s lawyer Carlo Dalla Vedova exulted after the decision was read out late Friday. “It couldn’t be better than this.”</p><p>The surprise decision definitively ends the 7 1/2-year legal battle waged by Knox, 27, and co-defendant Raffaele Sollecito, 31, to clear their names in the gruesome 2007 murder and sexual assault of British student Meredith Kercher.</p><p>The supreme Court of Cassation panel deliberated for 10 hours before declaring that the two did not commit the crime, a stronger exoneration than merely finding insufficient evidence to convict. Instead, had the court-of-resort upheld the pair’s convictions, Knox would have faced 28 1/2 years in an Italian prison, assuming she would have been extradited, while Sollecito had faced 25 years.</p><p>“Right now I’m still absorbing what all this means and what comes to mind is my gratitude for the life that’s been given to me,” Knox said late Friday, speaking to reporters outside her mother’s Seattle home.</p><p>The case attracted strong media attention due to the brutality of the murder and the quick allegations that the young American student and her new Italian lover had joined a third man in stabbing to death 21-year-old Kercher in a sex game gone awry.</p><p>Flip-flop verdicts — guilty, then innocent, then guilty — cast a shadow on the Italian justice system and polarized trial watchers on both sides of the Atlantic, largely along national lines.</p><p>Though it cleared Knox of murder, the supreme Court of Cassation upheld a slander conviction against her for wrongly accusing a Congolese-born bar owner in the murder. The court reduced the sentence to three years. Since Knox already spent nearly four years in Italian prison, she won’t have to serve that time. The decision to overturn the convictions without ordering a new trial amounted to a rebuke of another high court ruling two years ago that vacated Knox and Sollecito’s 2011 acquittal, ordering yet another trial. Such a direct contrast in decisions by two high court panels is as rare as the double rainbow that arched over the monumental courthouse near the Tiber river during the deliberations.</p><p>The five-judge panel’s reasoning will be released within 90 days.</p><p>Across the Atlantic, a shout of joy erupted from inside the Seattle home of Knox’s mother as the verdict was announced. Several relatives and supporters filtered into the back yard, where they hugged and cheered.</p><p>Dalla Vedova said he called Knox to tell her the news, but said she couldn’t speak through her tears.</p><p>“She was crying because she was so happy,” he said.</p><p>Knox has sought to resume a normal life since returning to the United States three years ago, recently announcing her engagement and writing theater reviews and human interest stories for a weekly paper in her hometown.</p><p>Kercher, 21, was found dead Nov. 2, 2007, in the apartment that she shared with Knox and two Italian lawyers-in-training. She was half-nude beneath a duvet soaked in blood with her throat slashed. Investigators determined she had been sexually assaulted.</p><p>DNA evidence in Kercher’s room led police to arrest a man from Ivory Coast, Hermann Guede, who was convicted of the murder in a separate trial and is serving a 16-year sentence.</p><p>The court that convicted Guede ruled he did not act alone, citing the absence of defensive wounds on the victim and concluding that bruises on Kercher’s arms indicating she was restrained while one or two others inflicted numerous stab wounds.</p><p>The Kercher family attorney, Francesco Maresca, was clearly disappointed by the decision.</p><p>“I think that it’s a defeat for the Italian justice system,” he said. “Whoever was Guede’s accomplice does not have a name.”</p><p>Kercher’s mother, Arline Kercher, told Britain’s Press Association news agency that she was “a bit surprised and very shocked.”</p><p>“They have been convicted twice so it is a bit odd that it should change now,” she said.</p><p>Also disappointed by the decision was the bar owner, Diya “Patrick” Lumumba, who was jailed for two weeks after Knox falsely accused him of the murder and is convinced of Knox’s guilt.</p><p>“It is a strange justice for me, long, uncertain, a little opaque, a lot of darkness,” he said outside the courtroom. “This is a judicial error in Amanda’s case.”</p><p>The couple maintained their innocence, insisting that they had spent the evening together at Sollecito’s place watching a movie, smoking marijuana and making love.</p><p>Knox and Sollecito were convicted by a Perugia court in 2009, then acquitted and freed in 2011, and then convicted again in 2014 in Florence after the Cassation court overturned the acquittals and ordered a new appeals trial.</p><p>That Florence appeals conviction was overturned Friday.</p><p>In closing arguments, Dalla Vedova pounded away at the absence of any physical trace of Knox in the room where Kercher was found and highlighted doubts about the presumed murder weapon, a bread knife found in Sollecito’s kitchen drawer that bore Knox’s DNA — which the defense said was from kitchen use. The defense lawyer also said Knox’s false accusation was coerced by police and obtained without being advised she was a suspect. He has challenged the slander conviction with the European Human Rights Court in Strausbourg.</p><p>Sollecito’s defense lawyer, Giulia Bongiorno, argued there were errors of “colossal proportions,” in the guilty verdicts.</p><p>Sollecito, who turned 31 on Thursday, sat in the front row during hours of arguments during the Cassation Court over two days, a new girlfriend by his side. He returned to his home in southern Italy to await the decision followed by Italian police presumably ready to act in case his conviction had been upheld.</p><p>“You have your whole life ahead of you now, Raf,” Sollecito’s lawyer, Luca Maori, told the Sollecito by cell phone from the steps of the courthouse under the glare of TV cameras. Sollecito has completed his computer science degree, but has said the notoriety surrounding the case has made it difficult to find a job.</p><p>Speaking to reporters, Maori added: “He almost couldn’t speak. Eight years of nightmare over.”</p><p><i>AP television producer Paolo Santalucia contributed.</i><br></p>
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2016/6/24/18427062/italy-s-highest-court-tosses-out-convictions-of-amanda-knox-former-boyfriendJohn O'Neill2016-06-24T11:03:00-05:002019-04-17T19:28:29-05:00Rise in homicides, shootings is bad news at bad time for Emanuel
<p>A troubling spike in both homicides and shootings in Chicago could not come at a more difficult time for Mayor Rahm Emanuel.</p><p>There were 80 homicides <a class="Link" href="http://homicides.suntimes.com/2015/04/01/police-killings-shootings-rise-in-first-quarter-of-2015/" target="_blank" >in the first three months of the year</a> — nearly 30 percent more than the same period in 2014, according to Chicago Police.</p><p>That’s the highest first-quarter total since since 2012 when 117 people were killed in the first three months, according to Chicago Police data. Police also reported that compared to last year, shootings were up by about a third so far. The 414 people shot in the first quarter of the year was the most since 562 people were shot in the first three months of 2012.</p><p>The news comes with just six days to go in a mayoral campaign that has seen challenger Jesus “Chuy” Garcia hammering Emanuel for the 10,000 shootings on his watch and promising to deliver on the mayor’s broken promise to hire 1,000 additional police officers.</p><p>“Yes, homicides are up and shootings are up. [But] gun seizures are [also] up. We’ve seized guns more by, I think, 20-to-25 percent. Overall crime is down. I’m proud of that number. But I’m not proud of the more important number that affects the quality of life,” Emanuel said Wednesday after accepting the endorsement of members of the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus.</p><div class="Enhancement" data-align-center>
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<blockquote><p>HOMICIDE WATCH: Murders, shootings up to start 2015</p></blockquote>
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<p>“That means, while we have model gun control legislation here — at gun stores, it’s now filmed. There are further background checks. [But] to get the gains we need, you need to change the gun laws. Which means Springfield has to step up. There has to be an alteration. We cannot just be focusing on minor narcotics. We must be focusing on gun use and make sure the criminal justice system is actually focused comprehensively [on] dealing with the access and freedom of guns coming into the city of Chicago.”</p><p>Garcia reacted quickly to the new crime numbers, delaying a news conference on public housing issues to schedule another to blast Emanuel.</p><p>“Public safety is not a major concern of Rahm Emanuel and his administration. The leadership of the Chicago Police Department leaves a lot to be desired. However, you must remember that the ultimate decision maker, the ultimate decider of which policies are instituted as it relates to public safety deployment of services and resources is the mayor of the city of Chicago,” Garcia said.</p><p>Speaking outside the 12th District police station on the Near West Side, Garcia also hinted that Police Supt. Garry McCarthy may not have a job should he win.</p><p>“The report that we are addressing is very disappointing and is very disheartening. This doesn’t bode well for Superintendent McCarthy . . . I will give him the courtesy of an interview to get his sentiment, his approach, his philosophy about how to make neighborhoods safe, but the ultimate responsibility lies in the mayor of Chicago,” Garcia said.</p><p>Garcia blamed the number of unsolved murders on police understaffing. More police on the streets would get the murder and shooting rates down, he said.</p><p>McCarthy, meanwhile, emphasized in a phone interview the importance of getting illegal guns off the street, noting that Chicago got more of them off the street than New York and Los Angeles combined. Police have recovered more than 1,500 illegal guns this year — a 22 percent increase compared to 2014 — and arrests for illegal gun possession are up about 39 percent compared to last year.</p><p>“The way you stop shootings is to arrest people with guns,” McCarthy said. “I think that what we have been doing has been working really well. We need backup from the rest of the system.”</p><p>McCarthy said the strategies have worked the past two years to reach record low murder totals, and the department will continue to “constantly refine our strategies.”</p><p>Overall crime is down 40 percent over the past four years, he said. This year, burglary is down 16 percent, theft is down 7 percent and robbery, which McCarthy called a “bellwether crime,” is down 4 percent compared to the same time last year.</p><p>After an unusually violent 2012, homicides fell by about half in the first three months of 2013. And the following year in the first quarter, they continued to fall; the 62 killings in the first three months of 2014 were the fewest since 1958 for that time period.</p><p>This year’s numbers include at least five double homicides. The Cook County medical examiner reported 83 homicides in the first three months of the year — a majority of them on the South and West sides. Austin had the most killings — seven — of Chicago’s 77 designated neighborhoods. Roseland was next, with five.</p><p>Last fall, Emanuel asked reluctant state lawmakers to soften Illinois’ war on drugs to let nonviolent offenders off the hook and free police officers to focus on more serious crimes.</p><p>Emanuel wanted the General Assembly to go beyond what he did in Chicago — with disappointing results — by decriminalizing possession of 15 grams or less of marijuana and reducing from a felony to a misdemeanor the penalty for possession of one gram or less of any controlled substance.</p><p>The mayor’s plan went nowhere. Skeptical lawmakers questioned the mayor’s motives for proposing the dramatic change in the way drug offenses are prosecuted.</p><p>Some viewed it as a political ploy tailor-made to resurrect his plan to impose mandatory minimum sentences for gun crimes shot down by the Legislature’s Black Caucus.</p><p>Others characterized it as yet another maneuver to appease black voters and undercut the progressive base of his strongest challengers — no different than Emanuel’s recent proposals to raise the minimum wage and champion immigration reform and affordable housing.</p><p>On Wednesday, when Emanuel accepted the endorsement of some members of the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus, that group included one of those outspoken former critics: State Rep. Ken Dunkin (D-Chicago).</p><p>Apparently referring to the drive for tougher gun laws and more lenient penalties against minor drug offenses, the mayor said: “This gets to why having a forceful voice in Springfield and a coordinated voice between the mayor and the legislative leaders” is so important.<br></p>
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2016/6/24/18431367/rise-in-homicides-shootings-is-bad-news-at-bad-time-for-emanuelJohn O'Neill2016-06-24T10:17:00-05:002019-04-17T23:08:01-05:00Report: Cosby paid women after sex, tried to hide payments from wife
<p>NEW YORK — Bill Cosby says he paid women after having sex with them and went to great lengths to hide his behavior and the payments from his wife, according to the New York Times.</p><p><a class="Link" href="http://nyti.ms/1CPjldP" target="_blank" >The Times reported</a> the revelations Saturday after obtaining a copy of a transcript from a deposition Cosby gave a decade ago.</p><p>The 78-year-old comedian was testifying under oath in a lawsuit by a former Temple University employee, Andrea Constand, who says he molested her.</p><p>According to excerpts from the deposition released a month ago, and first obtained by The Associated Press, Cosby admitted he procured Quaaludes with the intent of giving them to young women he wanted to have sex with.</p><p>The Times reports that Cosby told lawyers for Constand that he was a “pretty decent reader of people and their emotions in these romantic sexual things,” according to the transcript.</p><p>He said he offered to pay for Constand’s education and paid another woman whom he had met in 1976. He said he funneled money to one of the women he had sex with through his agent so his wife wouldn’t find out.</p><p>Cosby’s publicist, David Brokaw, did not immediately return a message seeking comment late Saturday.</p><p>Although Constand never sought any money from Cosby, the comedian said he figured his wife would have known he was helping her with furthering her education but said, “My wife would not know it was because Andrea and I had had sex.”</p><p>Cosby has denied accusations made by dozens of women who claim he sexually assaulted them. He has never been charged with a crime.</p><p>At points during the deposition, Cosby also described his sexual encounters with the women in detail.</p><p>The deposition also paints Cosby as emotionally charming, but he also spoke about disregarding relationships to pursue other women.</p><p>He suggested he was skilled at understanding women and nonverbal cues signaling sexual consent.</p><p>Cosby, who has been married since 1964, said he sparked a relationship with Constand in the early 2000s and invited her to his house and had conversations about her family and plans for future education.</p><p>The relationship between the two continued for several years until, Constand says, Cosby drugged and molested her in his Pennsylvania home.</p><p>Cosby said during the deposition that Constand was “a liar.”</p><p>Although Cosby painted himself as sensitive to Constand, he told her attorney, “I think Andrea is a liar and I know she’s a liar because I was there,” when he was asked how he felt about Constand crying during her deposition in the case.</p><p>The AP generally doesn’t name people who say they have been sexually assaulted unless they agree to have their names published, as Constand has done.<br></p>
https://chicago.suntimes.com/2016/6/24/18477915/report-cosby-paid-women-after-sex-tried-to-hide-payments-from-wifeJohn O'Neill