Fearing traffic and security nightmares, people steered clear of Chicago's downtown area Monday, and the protests were smaller and more peaceful than those that occurred over the weekend. NBC's John Yang and Chuck Todd report.
Jared Chase, Brian Church, Brent Vincent Betterly, Sebastian Senakiewicz, Mark Neiweem were charged in Cook County Court for preparing explosives or making threats during the NATO summit this weekend.
Updated at 4:55 p.m. ET: CHICAGO -- Prosecutors said Sunday they have charged two more people as part their investigation into activists who planned to take part in demonstrations at the two-day NATO summit.
The Cook County State's Attorney's office said Sebastian Senakiewicz, 24, a native of Poland who lives in Chicago, is charged with falsely making a terrorist threat. Mark Neiweem, 28, who authorities believe to be from Chicago, is charged with attempted possession of explosives or incendiary devices.
Senakiewicz had bragged about having explosives, a prosecutor told a judge, claiming that he hid them in a hollowed-out Harry Potter book. But searches did not find any explosives, the prosecutor said.
The men were scheduled to make an initial court appearance later Sunday, when prosecutors were expected to offer more details about their allegations. Also expected in court Sunday is a third man, Taylor Hall, who was arrested during protests on Saturday night and is charged with aggravated battery to a police officer. Authorities did not immediately release Hall's age or hometown.
Three other activists appeared in court and were accused of manufacturing Molotov cocktails and having plans to attack President Barack Obama's campaign headquarters and other targets during the NATO protests.
Kris Hermes, a spokesman for the National Lawyers Guild, which has represented many of the activists pro bono, said the new charges were an "effort to frighten people and to diminish the size of the demonstrations."
Hermes said dozens of lawyers had donated their time over the weekend and that hundreds had called the guild's hotline. By Sunday morning, they had represented 37 people who had been arrested.
He said one man was clubbed over the head, causing heavy bleeding, and that another was transported to the hospital after being run over by a police van. That man, Hermes said, was shackled to his gurney during the four hours he was at the hospital.
Hermes said that while the five cases may not be related, his group believes the same police informants turned them in.
The trio charged Saturday are Brian Church, 20, of Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.; Jared Chase, 24, of Keene, N.H.; and, Brent Vincent Betterly, 24, of Oakland Park, Fla. They were arrested on Wednesday and face felony charges of conspiracy to commit terrorism, material support for terrorism and possession of explosives.
Senakiewicz was arrested a day later and there was no immediate indication that he had links to Church, Chase or Betterly. It also wasn't clear when Neiweem was arrested and if he had any links to the other charged activists.
Defense lawyer Michael Deutsch on Saturday accused police of setting up their clients in an attempt to frighten peaceful protesters. He said undercover officers brought the firebombs to a South Side apartment where the men were arrested.
Critics say filing terrorism-related charges against the protesters is reminiscent of previous police actions ahead of major political events, when authorities moved quickly to prevent suspected plots but sometimes quietly dropped the charges later.
"Even if charges are dropped or reduced later, they will have succeeded in spreading fear and intimidation," Hermes said.
Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy on Saturday flatly dismissed the idea the arrests of the initial three suspects were anything more than an effort to stop "an imminent threat."
Prosecutors said Church, Chase and Betterly used fuel purchased from a Chicago gas station for makeshift bombs, pouring it into beer bottles and cutting up bandanas to serve as fuses. If convicted on all counts, they could get up to 85 years in prison. They are each being held on $1.5 million bond.
Msnbc.com's Isolde Raftery contributed to this report.
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About 2,000 protesters showed up to protest the two-day NATO summit in Chicago Sunday, fewer than expected. NBC's John Yang reports.
Updated 9 p.m. ET: CHICAGO -- Dozens of anti-war veterans tossed their medals onto a Chicago street Sunday near where NATO began its two-day summit, calling them “representations of hate,” “lies” and “cheap tokens,” and with some making emotional pleas for forgiveness from the people of Iraq and Afghanistan.
With many dressed in military fatigues, they had filed through the streets in formation, chanting "N-A-T-O, NATO has got to go," and “No NATO, no war, we don't work for you no more,” leading about 2,000 protesters on a 2.5-mile march.
After “retiring” an American flag they carried through the streets and giving it to a woman whose soldier son committed suicide, they began hurtling their war service medals into the air -- a rare form of protest that was last done on a large scale by 900 Vietnam veterans in 1971.
The protesters cheered the post 9/11-era veterans on, clapping and yelling, “give them back!”
"I choose human life over war," Jerry Bordeleau shouted through a microphone, before tossing the medals onto the street.
Adrees Latif / Reuters
Veterans raise their hands in solidarity after throwing their medals towards the site of the NATO Summit in Chicago on Sunday.
Members of Afghans for Peace stood alongside the veterans, holding the Afghan flag and making speeches, too.
“All we have is this flag, but not our sovereign land. I’d like to direct my message to the NATO representatives here in Chicago today. For what you’ve done to my home country, I’m enraged; for what you’ve done to my people, I’m disgusted; for what you’ve done to these veterans, I’m heartbroken,” said Suraia Sahar. “I sympathize with their disappointment and being failed by the system and having their lives, their morals and humanity, toiled with.”
Another man said he was representing deserters who can’t come back to the U.S. and threw many of their medals away.
NATO summit prompts little buzz on streets of Kabul
Steven Acheson, an Army veteran who before the march said he had been waiting a long time for this moment, though he was also anxious about it, threw away his medals for the children of Iraq and Afghanistan.
“May they be able to forgive us for what we have done to them, may we begin to heal and may we live in peace from here till eternity,” he said.
Organizers had hoped 10,000 people would attend the 2.5-mile march that ended near McCormick Place, the convention center where NATO is meeting. But a Chicago city official put the crowd at around 2,000.
After the nearly three-hour march, skirmishes broke out between riot police and a small group of so-called "black bloc" protesters trying to push their way closer to the summit site. Members of the crowd, some wearing bandanas over their faces, threw large sticks, liquids and bottles at the police. Officers handcuffed several protesters and dragged them away.
Police arrested 45 people and four officers were injured, including one who was stabbed in the leg, said Police Supt. Garry McCarthy, according to NBC Chicago. Authorities were testing a liquid substance found in a backpack, and police used their batons because officers were assaulted, he said.
Sixty heads of state gathered in Chicago for a two-day NATO summit to discuss funding and implementing long-term security for Afghanistan. NBC's Chuck Todd reports.
During the two-day summit, leaders of NATO's 28-member nations were to discuss the strategy for ensuring a peaceful Afghanistan after the United States removes its combat troops by 2014.
Michael Mizner, 25, of Wilmington, Del., watched as the veterans tossed their medals.
“As a former Marine, it was hard to watch and listen to,” he said, noting that the statement about the war being a lie hit home. “It’s too true. It’s heartbreaking to think about.”
Returning the medals – even those that are given just for showing up to the theater of conflict, as are some of the ones the veterans threw away – is not without controversy.
“They’re as much of a disgrace as the veterans back in the Vietnam days that did the same thing,” retired Army 1st Sgt. Troy Steward, who served 22 years and is now a military blogger, said ahead of the protest. “If these veterans aren’t proud of the service that they did … then they should never have accepted them (medals) in the first place.”
Among the crowd that marched with the veterans was Arianna Norris-Landry, of St. Louis, dressed as a turn-of-the-century suffragette. She said she and 60 other women were protesting military action and a sense that women's rights are being targeted by conservatives.
Calling themselves "Grannies at the G8" and "Nanas at NATO," some of the women were dressed as World War II feminist icon Rosie the Riveter, others as 1950s' housewives.
"We need to be feeding our children, not the war machines," said Kellie Stewart, a 47-year-old from Saint Croix Falls, Wis. "We need to keep the money, we don't have housing, we don't have jobs. It's just not right what's going on here at home."
Miranda Leitsinger / msnbc.com
Thousands march through Chicago's streets Sunday in protest of war policies at a two-day NATO summit.
Some protesters had provisions for the march, such as food and water, while others had gas masks and bandanas to ward off the effects of pepper spray and tear gas, should they be used. Some have earplugs to shield against the crowd-control noise devices authorities reportedly have.
Not everyone who turned out was supportive. One person could be heard yelling “losers” and “agitators" about halfway through the march.
Narayan Mahon for msnbc.com
Iraq war veteran Steve Acheson posed at his home in Platteville, Wisc., days before returning his service medals.
Scenes from Chicago protests surrounding NATO summit
Great-grandma: Ready to 'lose' my life protesting
Attacks on police, Obama HQ were planned, prosecutors say
US veterans to return war medals
On Sunday morning, ahead of the march, two activists appeared in court on terrorism-related charges. Cook County prosecutors charged Mark Neiweem, 28, with attempted possession of explosives or incendiary devices and Sebastian Senakiewicz, 24, with falsely making a terrorist threat.
Three others made court appearances on Saturday, accused of assembling Molotov cocktails – firebombs made by filling glass bottles with gasoline – to attack, among other places, President Barack Obama’s campaign headquarters in Chicago.
Their lawyer, Michael Deutsch has denied the charges against them, calling it all a setup and “entrapment to the highest degree” by at least two police informants, while their friends have insisted they were simply operating a home brewery.
Fellow activists express disbelief at arrest of NATO summit bomb plot suspects
Thirty-seven people had been arrested by Sunday morning, said Kris Hermes, a spokesman for the National Lawyers Guild in Chicago. Chicago has assigned 3,100 officers to the NATO summit to protect the city against the sort of violence that broke out in the streets of Seattle at the World Trade Organization meeting in 1999. They are being assisted by hundreds of officers from Milwaukee, Philadelphia and Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C., NBCChicago.com reported.
Protester Jason Brock, of San Diego, Calif, drove from New Mexico to Chicago to join the march. A trumpeter, he traded "answers and calls" with a veteran who had also brought his trumpet.
“It’s beyond words really what’s happening here right now. I think we’re maybe making steps toward healing this nation,” said Brock, 44. “I hope we can move forward in a way that’s more peaceful and more positive and we can take … the lesson that these men and women are trying to teach us and bring it home to our own lives.”
Three men were charged with conspiring to commit acts of terrorism at high-profile locations in Illinois ahead of the NATO summit. NBC's Kristen Welker reports.
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NBC's Chuck Todd reports on the foiled plot to disrupt the NATO summit by attacking targets in Chicago with Molotov cocktails, including President Obama's campaign headquarters.
Updated at 8 p.m. ET CHICAGO -- Three anti-NATO protesters charged with terrorism conspiracy planned to attack four Chicago police stations, the local campaign headquarters for President Barack Obama and the home of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, prosecutors alleged in court Saturday.
A fourth man also was charged Saturday, police said, but it was not clear if that case was linked to the other three.
While friends of the first three men insisted they were just operating a home brewery, prosecutors stated that police found a gun that fires mortar rounds, swords, a hunting bow, ninja-like throwing stars and knives with brass knuckle handles.
The beer-brewing operation, prosecutors added, was used to fill bottles with gasoline that would later be thrown as Molotov cocktails.
"Plans were made to destroy police cars and attack four CPD stations with destructive devices, in an effort to undermine the police response" to attacks on the Obama office, the Emanuel home as well as unspecified financial institutions during the NATO summit this weekend, the charging statement said.
The men were identified as 22-year-old Brian Church, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla.; 27-year-old Jared Chase, of Keene, N.H.; and 24-year-old Brent Betterly, who told police he resides in Massachusetts.
The three are "self-proclaimed anarchists, and members of the 'Black Bloc' group," prosecutors said, without elaborating.
Michael Deutsch, an attorney for the men, denied that and said the men and their friends were in Chicago to "peaceably protest."
The three were charged with conspiracy to commit terrorism, possession of an explosive or incendiary device and providing material support for terrorism. Bond of $1.5 million was set for each defendant.
Sebastian Senakiewicz, 24, was arrested at an Odell Avenue residence Thursday by a Chicago police intelligence team. He was charged Saturday with one count of weapons conspiracy. Police said he was conspiring with two or more others to make explosives including molotov cocktails to be used during the NATO summit. It was not immediately clear if he was conspiring with the first three.
Defense attorneys for Church, Chase and Betterly told a judge on Saturday that undercover police were the ones who brought the Molotov cocktails, and that their clients were entrapped.
Deutsch later told reporters outside the courtroom that, though he was just getting into the case and didn't know all the evidence, he believed it was a setup. At least two informants "ingratiated themselves" with the three men, brought the materials and made the alleged plans, he insisted, calling it "an entrapment to the highest degree."
But Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy told reporters "the evidence speaks for itself" about what he called an "imminent threat."
Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez said the investigation began weeks ago and local authorities had the help of the FBI and the Secret Service.
"The individuals that we have charged in this investigation are not peaceful protesters, they are domestic terrorists ... these men were here to hurt people," Alvarez said. "They were making the bombs ... (and had) directions on how to implement this."
Read the full charging document
The charging document states that "while the Molotov Cocktails were being poured, Church discussed the NATO Summit, the protests, and how the Molotov Cocktails would be used ... At one point, Church asked if others had ever seen a 'cop on fire' and discussed throwing one of the Molotov Cocktails into" a police station.
"Church stated that he also wanted to buy several assault rifles, and indicated that if a police officer was going to point a gun at him, then Church would be 'pointing one back'," the document states.
Six others initially arrested were released Friday. They were all detained in a raid Wednesday on a home in Bridgeport on Chicago's South Side, NBCChicago.com reported.
Overall, 14 people have been arrested in the lead up to the summit, McCarthy said. When asked if more arrests were expected in this case, he said he was "not positive," though he noted the investigation was ongoing.
But the group of protesters said what police thought was suspicious was actually a home beer-brewing operation.
"We were handcuffed to a bench and our legs were shackled together. We were not told what was happening," one of those detained but later released, Darrin Ammussek, told NBCChicago.com. "I believe very strongly in non-violence, and if I had seen anything that even resembled any plans or anything like that, we wouldn’t have been there."
Scenes from Chicago protests surrounding NATO summit
He claimed that during 18 hours in custody, police never told him why he was arrested, read him his rights or allowed him to make a phone call, The Associated Press reported. He said he remained handcuffed to a bench, even after asking to use a restroom.
"There were guards walking by making statements into the door along the lines of 'hippie,' 'communist,' 'pinko,'" a tired-looking Ammussek told reporters just after his release.
Security has been high throughout the city in preparation for the summit, where delegations from about 60 countries, including 50 heads of state, will discuss the war in Afghanistan and European missile defense.
US veterans to return war medals in protest
Among the pre-NATO protests was a march on the home of Mayor Emanuel by about 500 people on Saturday. The big show will be on Sunday, the start of the two-day NATO summit, when thousands of protesters are expected to march 2½ miles from a band shell on Lake Michigan to the McCormick Place convention center, where delegates will be meeting.
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As world leaders gather for the NATO summit in Chicago this weekend, thousands of protesters prepared to march in protest of the war in Afghanistan and the shaky economy. Below are reports from msnbc.com's Miranda Leitsinger (@mimileitsinger), protesters and Chicagoans, documenting what they see.
Some downtown Chicago businesses are taking extra steps for security, including boarding up ahead of expected anti-NATO protests. WMAQ's Jeff Goldblatt reports.
As world leaders gather for the NATO summit in Chicago this weekend, they will be welcomed by thousands of protesters with a litany of complaints. Chief among them: Stop spending money on war and use it to rebuild recession-hit communities instead.
Protesters already have taken to the streets over a number of causes in the week leading up to the summit, including the shuttering of local schools and the loss of homes through foreclosures, and they stormed the building that houses the headquarters of President Obama’s campaign.
But they’re planning larger rallies and marches in the days to come, one to call for a “Robin Hood” tax on certain Wall Street transactions and another led by anti-war activists where a group of 9/11-era veterans plan to return their service medals to protest the "war on terror."
“We’re seeking to show how the policies and the money that goes to NATO trickles down to hurt people in every community in America and especially in Chicago,” said Rachael Perrotta, a 32-year-old receptionist and a member of the press team for Occupy Chicago, one of the two main groups organizing the protests. “Over 800 million in U.S. tax dollars goes to fund NATO each year and our country is crumbling. Here in Chicago, they’re closing schools, they’re closing health clinics and we’re saying that we need our money to stay here to fund services in this country, not to go overseas to kill people on the other side of the world.”
NATO, or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, consists of 28 member nations, including the United States. NATO members have deployed alongside the United States in the Afghan war and NATO led last year’s military action in Libya.
Chicago has assigned 3,100 officers to NATO's two-day summit to guard against the kind of violence that broke out in the streets of Seattle at the World Trade Organization meeting in 1999. They will be assisted by hundreds of officers from other cities such as Milwaukee, Philadelphia and Charlotte-Mecklenburg, N.C., NBCChicago.com reported, and the city has warned of massive travel disruptions.
The city also has imposed limits on how close the protesters, which include dozens of unions and anti-war, environmental, education, healthcare and civil liberties’ groups, can get to the convention center where the summit is being held -- within “sight and sound” of it, according to the Chicago Tribune -- raising the ire of the demonstrators.
“We’ve had an 11-month fight with the city and with the federal authorities for our right to protest against war and greed, and it’s come down to these days of protests,” which will give people an “opportunity to express their voices as part of this movement,” said Joe Iosbaker, an organizer with the Coalition Against NATO/G8 War & Poverty Agenda (CANG8), the other main group organizing the protests.
Archive video: Look back at the calamitous 1968 Democratic convention in Chicago
The National Lawyers Guild, which said it was sending out legal observers to the demonstrations and aiding those who were arrested, said late Thursday that at least 20 people have been arrested so far this week, and two people were still in custody.
The American Civil Liberties Union has released guidelines for protesters to consider under a new federal law that it said has “expanded the ability of the Secret Service to suppress protests” near people under its protection. But a spokesman for the group also said Wednesday that McCormick Place had agreed to let protesters put literature and multimedia materials in the center during the meetings, the Tribune reported.
Gary Gerstle, a professor of American history and an expert in social movements at Vanderbilt University, said the protests were reminiscent of those against corporate power in the late 1990s, including the ones targeting the WTO meeting in Seattle.
Jim Young/Reuters
Chicago police prevent protesters from placing furniture in front of a bank Thursday, ahead of the NATO summit in Chicago.
“This had quite a lot of momentum in the late ‘90s,” he said. “And then the intervention of Sept. 11 just killed that movement -- not permanently -- but it made its goals seem secondary in relationship to what most people in the world were worrying about, which was terrorism, not forms of international corporate exploitation.”
“But it would be foolish to think that that stuff just died,” he added. “And I think we’re beginning to see some of it come back.”
Todd Gitlin, a former leader of the 1960s-era group Students for a Democratic Society and a sociology and journalism professor, noted the high degree of organization and advance planning that had gone into the NATO summit protests. But he cautioned that Occupy and its satellite groups need to come up with “tangible results” rather than demonstrations that will play “as more of the same.”
“What it (Occupy) already has done is big, but diminishing returns will set in if what materializes now is simply one demonstration after another,” he said. “They’ve already accomplished the bulk of what they can accomplish by way of changing the atmosphere. The atmosphere has changed. Now they have to produce tangible results in order to evolve.”
US veterans to return war medals in protest
But Iosbaker said protesting was the only thing that worked to create change, citing the civil rights and anti-nuclear movements as well as Occupy.
“We are just another link in that chain but we’ve already won specific things,” he said, citing the decision to move the G8 meeting, planned for earlier in the week, out of Chicago to Camp David in Maryland. “We have made NATO and war a topic of dinner table conversation in the city of Chicago and I believe to a considerable extent nationally. The anti-war movement had been re-emerging around Afghanistan as more and more people turned against that war and now there is a major sense of momentum for all the peace groups in the country.”
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Just two days after her wedding, Estrella Carrera, 25, was found stabbed to death in her own bathtub. She was still in the dress she wore at her wedding reception. WMAQ-TV's Lauren Jiggetts reports.
Updated at 6 p.m. ET: When police showed up to Estrella Carrera’s apartment outside Chicago on Sunday, they found her dead in a dry bathtub. She had been stabbed multiple times, and she was still wearing the dress she wore at her wedding reception.
Carrera hadn’t told many people that she was getting married, the Chicago Tribune reported, and the news seemed to surprise her neighbors as well, who had always seen her alone. She was a Spanish interpreter for a social welfare agency and apparently lived alone with her daughter and son, ages 9 and 2.
On Friday, though, Carrera married a 30-year-old man she’d been with, on and off, for three years, according to the Tribune. He was the father of her 2 year old. The Tribune newspaper has not named him because he has not been charged.
Read local coverage on NBCChicago.com
That night after the marriage, Carrera called family members, inviting them to join her on a party bus. When she called her cousin Sandy Lopez, she didn’t mention a wedding, perhaps because her cousin didn’t approve of the man Carrera was seeing.
"She didn't want to tell me she had gotten married," Sandy Lopez told the Tribune. "She didn't tell anybody."
"We are following several leads but have not named a suspect at this," Captain Joseph Ford of the Burbank Police Department told msnbc.com. "We will release more info tomorrow."
Carrera was supposed to pick up her children from her father’s house the next day, Saturday, but she never showed up. By 3:30 p.m. on Sunday, her family dispatched police for a well-being check.
"We never thought this would happen; she was a strong woman,” Jaime Lopez, a cousin, told the Tribune. “She loved her kids."
Jason Tokarczyk, a neighbor, told NBC Chicago that he hadn't noticed anything abnormal about Carrera. He described her as quiet.
"I seen her walking to her car, her and her son,” Tokarczyk said. “Hi and bye and that was it. I never ever seen her with a guy since I have been here, and I never seen her walking in and out with a guy at all."
Carrera’s death was ruled a homicide following an autopsy Monday. Police said in a statement Monday that they believe her slaying stems from "a domestic situation." The investigation is ongoing.
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A group of demonstrators are handcuffed after refusing to leave the lobby of President Obama's Chicago campaign headquarters as they kick off a movement called "Week without Capitalism." Msnbc.com's Dara Brown reports.
Dozens of demonstrators calling for an end to war rushed into President Barack Obama’s campaign headquarters in Chicago on Monday morning, and eight were arrested, NBCChicago reported.
The protest, led by a group associated with the Catholic Worker movement, was the first of a series of planned demonstrations and marches by groups highlighting poverty, environmental, and education issues during the May 20-21 NATO summit in the city and the May 18-19 G8 summit at Camp David in Maryland.
"We are here today to boldly proclaim our desire to live in a world where we say no to NATO and yes to community," said Chantal de Alacuaz from Chicago in a release by the Chicago-based White Rose Catholic Worker posted late Sunday night. "As Catholic Workers, we serve the poor by practicing the works of mercy — feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, taking care of the sick and the works of war are directly opposed to that."
The plan, according to the release was to “invite Obama and other NATO leaders to break bread over a symbolic meal to discuss how to transform NATO from an instrument of war and empire into an instrument of peace and love that embodies the biblical works of mercy instead of the works of war.”
About 100 people took part in the demonstration, according to the Chicago Tribune. As eight protesters were led out of the building in handcuffs, other demonstrators danced and sang folk songs and gospel, and handed rolls to commuters, it said.
NBCChicago
A protester is seen being taken from President Barack Obama's campaign headquarters in Chicago on Monday.
"We see NATO as using up a lot of resources in the city and the world," said Jesica Arents, a member of the group speaking to the paper.
She said some of the demonstrators had come from across the Midwest and would be joining NATO protests throughout the week, the Tribune reported. The group was committed to remaining non-violent, she said.
Those arrested were charged with criminal trespass, according to NBCChicago.com.
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A speeding car hit a support beam of a Chicago elevated train track, crashing with enough force for the vehicle to split in two and killing four young mothers inside, authorities said Sunday.
Family and friends grieving on Mother's Day said all four women were mothers who were out for the night and had planned to attend a party. The crash left six children without mothers.
View more videos at: http://nbcchicago.com.
Images from the scene showed the vehicle was ripped in two, and mangled into a heap of metal unrecognizable as a car.
The crash happened in the 4800 block of West Lake Street just after midnight Sunday.
Chicago Police Department spokesman Hector Alfaro said the car was traveling fast when it hit a cement beam that supports Chicago Transit Authority 'Green line' tracks on the city's West Side before it ran into a light pole.
NBC Chicago: Crash Rips Car in 2, Killing 4 Young Women
Four women in their 20s were inside. Three died at the scene. A fourth woman, Ieshia Nelson, 21, was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 12:48 a.m.
Family identified two of the other victims as 21-year-old Tyshyra Hines, and 25-year-old Bernadette Harris, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Harris' sister, Sheila Harris, told the newspaper that her sister was a devoted parent to three children, ages 4, 6 and 8.
"She'd go above and beyond for her kids," she said. "She was an outstanding mother."
The Chicago Police Department Major Accident Unit is investigating.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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NATO representatives will meet with members of the largest anti-NATO protest group next week for an unprecedented one-hour public debate, NBC Chicago has exclusively learned.
Word of the strategic gesture toward the protesters came Wednesday afternoon from NATO's secretary-general following his meeting with the president at the White House.
"Our public diplomacy people are reaching out to these groups," said Anders Fogh Rasmussen. "They will organize some meetings where there will be a possibility to exchange views."
See the original report at NBCChicago.com
The event will begin at 6 p.m. Thursday, May 17 at -- in a bit of irony -- the Pritzker Military Library.
"We get to have a public forum where we are able to convince our fellow residents of this city just how bad and nasty an institution NATO is," said Andy Thayer, an organizer of the Coalition Against the NATO / G8 War & Poverty Agenda.
Thayer and other protesters take issue with the money spent on NATO operations and its occupations in sovereign lands, and he said he hopes the public demonstrations and next week's dialogue will enlighten more people to NATO's actions.
"I would argue that most people in this country, when they get to know the facts about what NATO is ... and what NATO does to places like Afghanistan, they would agree that this is not something that should be supported, that our city should not be supporting the NATO Summit," Thayer said.
During "Chicago Week" at NATO Headquarters in Brussels in March, there may have been a preview of how NATO representatives will respond.
Upon being told of the protest slogan that "NATO is the war machine of the one percent," U.S. Ambassador Ivo Daalder rejected the notion, saying he believes NATO's true mission is sometimes misunderstood.
"I wouldn't regard NATO as a war machine for any percent," he said at the time. "What NATO is is an organization that brings together 28 countries."
The summit is May 20 and 21.
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Sara M. Glashagel, 27, of Elk Grove Village, Ill., was charged with 24 counts of forgery.
A woman on probation for changing the grades of football players at Antioch High School in Illinois -- where she was a teacher and her husband head coach -- is now facing multiple counts of forgery for allegedly scamming her new employer.
Sara M. Glashagel, 27, of Elk Grove Village, has been arrested on a forgery warrant and charged with 24 counts of forgery, DeKalb police Lt. Gary Spangler said.
Glashagel was working in the Roselle area as a sales representative for DeKalb-based American Marketing & Publishing, Spangler said. She allegedly sold advertising to fictitious companies or real companies she did not visit and submitted the bogus contracts to collect commission payments.
For more, visit NBCChicago.com
Police said she submitted some real contracts too, but the scam was uncovered in early March when a company complained that it had not purchased ads, Spangler said.
Glashagel made headlines in 2011 when she was accused of changing the grades of several Antioch High School students, most of whom were athletes. She is the wife of head football coach Brian Glashagel.
The former special education teacher was placed on administrative leave after her December arrest and resigned a short time later. Investigators found she gained unauthorized access to the school’s computer database and changed the grades of 64 students -- including 41 football players.
She pleaded guilty to misdemeanor computer tampering in February and was sentenced to a year’s probation and 80 hours of community service. She also was banned form having contact with the school, but is allowed to attend football games.
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On a sunny day in July of 2006, Rennie Simmons was out doing his job.
Despite suffering a stroke three years earlier that left him with a noticeable limp, Simmons continued to work at his long-time job at the Chicago Water Department. His job that day in July was to deliver a bright-orange notice to a resident on Chicago’s south side, warning that his water would be cut off if he did not make arrangements to pay an overdue bill.
Simmons pulled up in his car, then walked up to the front of the house to deliver the notice. The resident, Glenn Evans, saw him and met him at the front stairs.
"He pushed me and said, 'Get off my porch,'" Simmons recalled.
Simmons retreated to car, but he said Evans followed him and then attacked.
"He was beating me, choking me," said Simmons. "I said, 'I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe! I’m a stroke patient! I’m a stroke patient!’ And he finally let me go."
Simmons called 911 from his car, and Chicago police officers arrived soon after. They got out their handcuffs, and they put them on Simmons.
"I said, 'Why are you putting me in the car and not [Evans]?’ They said, 'Because he’s our boss. He’s a lieutenant.’ I said, 'He’s off-duty, though.' They said, ‘He’s never off-duty.'"
In fact, Evans was a veteran tactical officer -- claiming that Simmons had threatened and shoved him. Simmons stood firm.
"He’s lying," he told the police.
Documents in the case posted by NBCChicago.com
Nevertheless, he was booked and charged with battery against Evans. The case went to Cook County Criminal Court, where Judge Adam Bourgeois found Simmons not guilty. He even admonished Evans: "Lieutenant, there is a lot I can say this morning, but I’m going to hold my tongue. The State has failed to meet its burden. The next time you pick somebody to come in here as a witness, make sure they lie a little better."
Simmons filed a complaint against Lt. Evans with the police department’s Office of Professional Standards, which was the agency -- at the time -- that handled citizen complaints.
That complaint was not sustained, meaning that OPS determined there was no evidence of wrongdoing by Evans. Simmons also filed a civil lawsuit against the City of Chicago, Evans, and others, alleging that Evans had falsely arrested him to cover up his beating. In that case, the city admitted no wrongdoing, but did eventually pay Simmons $99,999.00 to settle the case.
The complaint was neither the first nor the last one to be filed against Evans, who remains on the force today, collecting a six-figure salary as a tactical lieutenant, most recently stationed at the 6th district in Chicago’s Auburn-Gresham neighborhood on the south side.
The Unit 5 Investigative team along with The Chicago Reporter magazine, found that Evans is a member of a small group of officers who have been repeatedly accused of police brutality and misconduct, and the city has paid millions of tax dollars to settle claims against them.
"Nobody knows who the repeat offenders are, because the names are kept under wraps," said Angela Caputo, wrote the cover story for The Chicago Reporter’s May/June, 2012 issue.
State law and the Chicago police union contract require that Chicago policemen who are accused of brutality and misconduct be protected from identification unless a victim signs a sworn affidavit and the police officer is ultimately found guilty by the Chicago Police Board and the Chicago Police Superintendent.
A federal appeals court in November 2009 dismissed a court order that would have revealed the names of 662 police officers with 10 or more abuse complaints.
But Caputo was able to uncover some names of these "repeaters" by digging through more than four hundred lawsuits -- filed primarily as civil rights cases in U.S. District Court -- over the past decade. In all, she found, the city paid out more than $45 million in the three years from 2009 through 2011 for all settlements and judgments involving police brutality and misconduct.
Her findings on officers who were repeatedly accused of brutality show that payments for these "repeaters" are significant:
Of 441 police misconduct lawsuits that led to city payments between January 2009 and November 2011, Caputo’s article states, nearly a third -- or 145 -- involved "repeaters." This small group -- 140 in all -- proved costly. Despite making up one percent of the police force, they accounted for more than a quarter -- or $11.7 million -- of all damage payments incurred from police misconduct lawsuits. The city defended a good number of those officers in additional cases as well; nearly a third of the 140 officers were named in at least five misconduct lawsuits since 2000."
In the case of Evans, Unit 5 found five lawsuits filed over the past decade which accuse him of police brutality. Two cases are still pending, but three were settled by the city, although -- once again -- it admitted no wrongdoing in any of those cases.
One of those settled cases involved a 24-year-old man named Cordell Simmons (no relation to Rennie), a community college student with a long history of marijuana-related arrests. Cordell Simmons was arrested for marijuana possession in June of 2007 and taken to the Chicago Police Department’s 6th district at 78th and Halsted, where he crossed paths with Evans.
According to the police report detailing his arrest, Cordell Simmons kicked Evans in the legs. Then -- according to Cordell Simmons’ court complaint -- officers pulled off his pants and shoes, and held him down while Lt. Evans "…Taser[ed] [him] in the groin, under his testicles."
The complaint goes on to say that Cordell Simmons rolled on to his stomach in agony, and Lt. Evans shot him a second time with the Taser gun, in his rectum.
That court case was eventually settled by the city, which admitted no culpability but paid Cordell Simmons $19,000.00.
So does the City of Chicago or the Chicago Police department have any way to keep track of officers -- like Lt. Evans -- who are repeatedly accused of brutality or misconduct?
The answer is complicated, because there is a series of steps required to get a formal complaint on the record against a police officer in Chicago. A victim must sign a formal affidavit with the Independent Police Review Authority -- IPRA-- which is the city agency charged with investigating police officers.
Chicago police union rules and state law prohibit IPRA from launching a complete investigation until that formal affidavit gets filed. So even if a victim of police brutality files a lawsuit in federal court, IPRA can’t launch a full investigation into the accusations.
IPRA does monitor these kinds of lawsuits, but Caputo and The Chicago Reporter found that 91 percent of the suits monitored by IPRA were tagged "no affidavit" -- meaning that they were closed because the plaintiff never came in to sign a sworn statement.
Rennie Simmons’ complaint was filed before IPRA was created. It came in to existence, in large part, because of a push by several citizens' groups: The agency charged with investigating Chicago police, they said, should be completely independent of the Chicago Police department.
While IPRA is charged with investigating citizen complaints, it can only make recommendations for discipline. The ultimate decision to discipline or fire a Chicago police officer rests with the Chicago Police Superintendent and the Chicago Police Board.
Since September of 2007, when Ilana Rosenzweig became chief investigator at IPRA, IPRA has recommend that sixty officers be "separated" -- or fired -- from the Chicago Police Department. Thirty-eight of those cases are pending.
Of the 22 that have gone through the entire review process, the Chicago Police Board found one of those officers not guilty (because the key witness ultimately refused to cooperate); two officers resigned; and the remaining 19 were fired.
For Simmons, though, it all comes down to the fact that Evans is still on the job as a lieutenant with the Chicago Police Department.
"I’m doing my job, and he’s still there?" Simmons said. "There is something wrong. There’s something wrong."
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