The Latest Breaking News from David Brown

CHICAGO — After a two-year spike during the pandemic and national outrage over police accountability, Chicago has begun to see a decline in homicides, as the Chicago Police Department works to correct crime trends to levels before the coronavirus and turmoil over the killing of George Floyd took hold.

Over the last three years, at least five people have been killed and 25 have been shot in the 12-hour stretch between late New Year’s Eve and early New Year’s Day, according to police records.

There should be room for officers who make honest mistakes. But deliberately falsifying reports, and other more serious lies, shouldn’t be tolerated.

Interviews with Chicago City Council members, experts and a WBEZ analysis of the contract show minimal financial benefit to the city and few specifics about who pays for related costs, such as security and clean up.

The Civilian Office of Police Accountability found that officers may have included false or misleading information in hundreds of arrest reports during demonstrations at the end of May 2020.

The 1st District officer was found Tuesday morning in a home on the West Side, according to a police spokesman.

CHICAGO — Two of four students shot outside Benito Juarez Community Academy high school on the city’s Southwest Side Friday afternoon have died, according to officials.

The Chicago Police Department continues to make progress in a court-ordered revamp, but longstanding problems with manpower continue to hold it back.

The recommendation from Police Supt. David Brown comes four years after the officer, James Hunt, was suspended for yelling, “I kill motherf------,” an apparent reference to a 17-year-old boy Hunt fatally shot while on duty.

The unidentified 58-year-old female officer was found Thursday morning in the 5800 block of North Northwest Highway.

CHICAGO — An Indiana man who admitted to straw-purchasing the handgun later used to kill Chicago police Officer Ella French and critically wound her partner during a traffic stop last year was sentenced Wednesday to 2 1/2 years in prison.