Did cops jump the gun in arresting volunteer?

Good morning, Chicago. ✶

🔎 Below: Nakia Smith says he was just trying to get a gun off the street by handing it over to the police. Instead, he faces trial next week in a case former Education Secretary Arne Duncan calls a “travesty.”

🗞️ Plus: Another City Hall shakeup, a Chicagoan’s quest to make the city’s municipal code a comedy bit and more news you need to know.

📝 Keeping score: The Cubs defeated the Dodgers, 10-5; the Sky fell to the Mercury, 106-101.

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⏱️: An 8-minute read

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TODAY’S TOP STORY 🔎

Candace Dane Chambers/Sun-Times

Did cops jump the gun in arresting anti-violence volunteer?

Reporting by Frank Main

Future at risk: Nakia Smith says he walked into the Calumet District police station to get a gun off the street. Instead, he walked out in handcuffs. Three years later, the 51-year-old anti-violence volunteer is set to go on trial next week on gun charges that could send him to prison for decades.

The details: Smith, a convicted felon, was arrested March 4, 2023, after officers found a loaded .45-caliber handgun in his coat pocket inside the police station. He says he was there to surrender the weapon. Police say he was breaking the law because felons can’t possess guns. Smith said he believed the Chicago Police Department’s gun turn-in program allowed people to surrender weapons anonymously and without fear of arrest.

Getting involved: The case has stunned former U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who now runs the Chicago CRED anti-violence group, where Smith volunteers. “It’s crazy,” Duncan said. “If I didn’t know his character, I wouldn’t be involved. But it seems like a complete, complete travesty.”

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SPRINGFIELD ✶

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times file

Report raises questions about Speaker Welch’s handling of sexual harassment

Reporting by Mitchell Armentrout

New report: On Friday, Legislative Inspector General Michael McCuskey released a long-awaited report outlining the lewd comments ex-state Rep. Harry Benton, D-Plainfield, is accused of making to several women. McCuskey submitted his findings to Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch on June 30, and recommended Welch boot Benton from the House Democratic Caucus and strip him of committee assignments and speaker’s office staff support. Benton resigned July 3.

Key takeaways: It only takes “a cursory reading” of a woman’s 2023 complaint about Benton “to see a very early pattern and practice of sexual harassment,” McCuskey found, but that didn’t stop Welch from supporting Benton’s reelection campaign to the tune of $1.4 million. The timeline laid out by McCuskey amplified questions around how long Welch took to act, whether he could’ve prevented more misery — and whether he can hold on to his post in a chamber long mired in a culture of harassment.

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CITY HALL 🏛️

Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times file

• Budget director out: Chicago Budget Director Annette Guzman abruptly resigned Monday, forcing Mayor Brandon Johnson to head into an important investors conference and election-year budget season with a new financial team. One week ago, Acting Chief Financial Officer Steven Mahr and Mahr’s top deputy jumped ship without explanation.
• Police supervisors organize: Some high-ranking Chicago police officials are pushing to form their own union, setting up a possible fight with Mayor Johnson’s administration. A union attorney asked the city to “voluntarily recognize” a collective bargaining unit of commanders and deputy chiefs.
• Mayor knocks without naming: Johnson charged Monday that the same billionaire business interests that closed schools and mental health clinics under former Mayor Rahm Emanuel are trying to “take us back to a time of trauma and torment.” The statement came the same day Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias entered the mayoral race with deep pockets.

MORE NEWS YOU NEED 🗞️

• Budget back and forth: After the Chicago School Board approved a budget to reverse deep staffing cuts, Chicago Public Schools said it might not be able to get a short-term loan to make payroll. But financial experts say CPS will likely get the money it needs to open schools on time.
• AG sues over tariffs: Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul sued the Trump administration for the third time over its latest efforts to impose tariffs, as part of a coalition of 23 state attorneys general.
• Pitchfork Fest, co-founder settle suit: Condé Nast, organizers of the Pitchfork Music Festival, had accused fest co-founder Mike Reed of misappropriating more than $500,000 in festival funds.
• Wishbone closes: After 36 years, the restaurant, near the West Loop, plans to close at the end of the month. It’s becoming “harder and harder” for independent restaurants, owner Joel Nickson told the Sun-Times.
• Stella’s to Sather: The owner of Stella’s Diner has sold its recently-shuttered Lakeview location, which will be converted into an Ann Sather Restaurant.
• Thunderbirds to return: Historically, U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds and U.S. Navy Blue Angels have traded off years appearing at the Air and Water Show. But the planes will break tradition Aug. 15 and 16.
• More whales to come: Seven beluga whales were expected to leave a troubled Canadian adventure park, as part of a rescue operation that will ship all of the park’s whales elsewhere, including Shedd Aquarium, which already received four whales last month.

LOLLA RECAP 🎶

Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Another Lollapalooza came to a close Sunday, marking the end of four days packed with music, mud and a small town’s worth of festivalgoers.

We’ve recapped Thursday, Friday and Saturday, now take a look at our final rundown of the latest installment of the city’s biggest music festival.

Day four reviews:

More must-read Lolla coverage:

WATCH: GRANT PARK AFTER LOLLA ▶️

ON WBEZ 91.5 FM 📻

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FROM THE PRESS BOX ⚾🏀

• Sox analysis: White Sox GM Chris Getz has accomplished his goals — will that help his players accomplish theirs?
• ‘We’re here to win’: Jed Hoyer is getting aggressive at the trade deadline, dealing prospects with the Cubs’ present in mind.
• Sky suffer Plum power: All-Star Kelsey Plum had a 20-point debut with the Mercury on Monday, and the Sky had to pay for it.

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BRIGHT ONE 🔆

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Comic with da accent turns city’s municipal code into laughs in new podcast

Reporting by Mariah Woelfel

Musician and comedian Al Scorch thinks he got the “last gasp” of an old-school childhood growing up in the 1980s and ‘90s on Chicago’s blue-collar Northwest Side.

That “last gasp” was more like a deep inhale that shaped Scorch into a Chicagoan’s Chicagoan with an imaginative sense of humor and authoritative knowledge of the city. He’s been exhaling Chicago-centric creative projects that have gained him tens of thousands of followers in the decades since.

Now, Scorch is embarking on a major endeavor: to read the entire municipal code of Chicago aloud for a podcast in an iconic Chicago accent.

The accent is an exaggeration of his own vernacular, honed in alleys and parks growing up with friends who would imitate the adults in their lives as comedic relief.

“It was this way of making fun of these adults who would be kind of jerks to us,” Scorch said. “You know they’d be like, ‘Don’t-ch-you kids go messin’ ‘round wit’ my garbage cans!’ And you’re just like — that’s the funniest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Scorch plans to release weekly episodes reciting the code, which governs everything from how tall you can grow your parkway plants to how the city defines bodily autonomy.

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YOUR DAILY QUESTION ☕️

How would you describe the “Chicago accent” — and where in the city can you hear it?

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Editor: Michael Lansu

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