A federal jury Tuesday awarded a combined $1.6 million in damages to 21 Cook County correctional officers after finding the sheriff's office retaliated against them for backing an opponent in 2006 when Sheriff Tom Dart first won election.
Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart is joining an unusual coalition to protest decreased state funding for preschools.
It's a group of some 300 prosecutors and police officers, who say the proposed $55 million in preschool savings will lead to increased crime and eventually cost taxpayers $200 million.
Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart hopes jail inmates will learn a thing or two from kings and queens. Or maybe the knights and rooks and pawns will get through to them. On Monday, with former world chess champion Anatoly Karpov on hand, Dart launched a chess program at the Cook County Jail that he hopes will help prepare inmates for life outside.
Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and Sheriff Tom Dart say they're reviewing a controversial phone contract at the jail that charges inmates inflated phone rates.
Rather than being turned over to immigration authorities, 346 Cook County jail inmates have walked out of jail without delay after posting bond, serving their sentence or having their case dropped in the nearly five months since county commissioners passed a controversial immigration ordinance. From that group, 11 were freed only to be arrested again on new charges for drunken driving, theft and drug possession.
