From Mayor Lori Lightfoot to Gov. J.B. Pritzker, Democratic leaders across Illinois quickly hailed the conviction today of former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin in the death of George Floyd but offered sober assessments about the difficulty that remains on the road to racial justice.

Lightfoot, who is a former federal prosecutor and the city’s first Black woman to be mayor, praised the jury’s verdict as “the only reasonable verdict based on the overwhelming evidence brought by the prosecution.” She also said, “George Floyd’s death sparked a pivotal movement for Americans fighting to end systematic racism.”

Pritzker issued a statement saying that the “verdict marks an important milestone on the journey to justice.”

Former President Barack Obama, who cut his political teeth in Chicago and was the nation’s first Black president, and former first lady Michelle Obama said in a statement, “true justice is about much more than a single verdict in a single trial. True justice requires that we come to terms with the fact that Black Americans are treated differently, every day. It requires us to recognize that millions of our friends, family, and fellow citizens live in fear that their next encounter with law enforcement could be their last. And it requires us to do the sometimes thankless, often difficult, but always necessary work of making the America we know more like the America we believe in.”

Earlier, Lightfoot said the city is prepared for peaceful protests stemming from the verdict. But she had a warning for those thinking about a repeat performance of last summer’s looting here: “Don’t test us,” she said, noting that officers won’t hesitate to make arrests.

The mayor asked Pritzker to have the Illinois National Guard here to be on standby if needed to deal with any potential fallout, angering activists.

Meantime, Latino lawyers and community leaders plan to ask President Joe Biden’s Justice Department to investigate the fatal shooting of 13-year-old Adam Toledo by a Chicago police officer, The Associated Press reports. The group also wants Lightfoot to hit the gas on federal court-supervised police reforms — set in motion by the police killing of another teen — and to put the brakes on law enforcement foot chases such as the one that ended in Toledo’s death.

The mayor has said she wants to see changes to the foot chase policy, but told reporters yesterday that officials must strike a careful balance so suspects don’t think they can evade police by running off.

The officer in the case, Eric Stillman, has given a statement to Cook County prosecutors as part of the agency’s review of the night Toledo was killed, sources told the Tribune. It’s not unusual and, to that end, nothing should be read into whether prosecutors intend to charge the officer in connection with the killing.

And a Tribune analysis of state and local data revealed deep imbalances in COVID-19 vaccine supply and demand across Illinois as a third surge in cases grips Illinois, my Tribune colleagues Joe Mahr and Dan Petrella report in a new analysis out today.

Politics certainly plays a role. Bureaucracy too.

The state for weeks kept sending doses to places struggling to sign up enough people to get vaccinated, including pockets of southern Illinois where hesitancy is an issue. Meantime, areas such as Chicago and the collar counties — where the bulk of the state’s population lives — scrambled to find enough doses for the flood of those eager to get a shot.

“That hesitancy has been seen in other parts of the country, particularly more rural ones that lean Republican, fitting the profile of many counties outside the Chicago area,” Mahr and Petrella write. “Polls last week by Monmouth University and Quinnipiac University found nearly half of Republicans plan to avoid getting vaccinated, compared with less than a tenth of Democrats.”

After the Tribune began asking questions last week about the imbalance, the state announced it would bump up the supply of first doses to local health departments in the suburbs, a move that could make it as easy to get shots near Chicago as it is in many Downstate regions, Mahr and Petrella report.

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From Mayor Lightfoot to former President Barack Obama, Illinois pols praise Chauvin guilty verdict, call for more work on racial justice

From the Tribune’s Gregory Pratt, Alice Yin, Dan Petrella and Stacy St. Clair: “As people danced in the streets of Minneapolis following Derek Chauvin’s murder conviction Tuesday, Chicago activists and politicians praised the verdict while acknowledging the city still must come to terms with its own history of police killings.

“The Minnesota jury’s unanimous decision comes less than a week after Chicago officials released a video showing a white CPD officer fatally shooting 13-year-old Adam Toledo in Little Village. The teenager was mentioned in many of the statements released immediately after the verdict, which held Chauvin criminally responsible for the death of George Floyd.”

Mayor Lightfoot praised the jury for reaching “the only reasonable verdict based on the overwhelming evidence brought by the prosecution.”

“In May of 2020, I saw the harrowing footage of George Floyd’s life being extinguished beneath Derek Chauvin’s knee, and I cried. I said then and I say now, being Black in America cannot be a death sentence,” Lightfoot said in a statment. “I join my fellow Chicagoans, Americans, and human beings across the world as justice is being served in Minneapolis today.”

Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx said the verdict stopped short of “justice” for Floyd because Chauvin’s conviction does not bring him back, but she added it was a step toward accountability for what she said was a criminal justice system marred by racism.

“As we waited with bated breath on behalf of a man who cried out that he couldn’t breathe, today is a small measure toward healing,” Foxx wrote on Twitter. “His murder has forced us as a nation to reckon with its racist legacy, that permeates all institutions — particularly the criminal justice system.”

Illinois House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, the first Black lawmaker to hold the position, “suggests we may have some common sense of justice.”

“There’s nothing to celebrate, though, as a system that allows this to happen still prevails,” Welch said in a statement. “This year our legislature passed historic police reform, and we will continue to build on that. Simply put, our work here continues and we’re going to make sure our policies in Illinois value Black lives.”

The criminal justice overhaul Pritzker signed into law earlier this year, which the Illinois Legislative Black Caucus pushed in response to Floyd’s death, includes ending cash bail and requiring all police officers to wear body cameras, among a host of other changes.

Illinois House Republican leader Jim Durkin of Western Springs also issued a statement praising the verdict as “a powerful statement that no one is above the law.”

“Derek Chauvin is now a convicted murderer, and bad actors like him have no place in law enforcement,” Durkin said.

In the wake of Floyd’s death last May, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle called for winding down law enforcement’s footprint, and she echoed some of that today. While attacking the outsized budgets of police departments across the U.S., Preckwinkle said society must provide other social service responses in emergencies that do not require law enforcement.

“Today’s verdict is a step in the necessary direction of reforming the systems that have entrenched racism into the police departments of this country: the codes of silence, the inadequate disciplinary systems, the bloated budgets, and the fearmongering rhetoric whenever police departments come under scrutiny,” Preckwinkle said. “Even in the best of situations, long term improvements in public safety will not be brought about by police departments,” she said in a statement.

Some familiar Chicago faces in politics were in Minneapolis today: The Rev. Jesse Jackson, civil rights leader who still helms the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition headquartered in Chicago, could be seen in front of the cameras at a news conference with some of Floyd’s relatives and the family’s legal team.

Ja’Mal Green, an activist who made a brief run for Chicago mayor back in 2019, was outside the downtown Minneapolis courthouse when the verdict was announced. He tweeted before that: “When George Floyd was killed, I headed to MN & helped lead protests for the first week. I was there for the first fire & first case of looting. That was the beginning of a revolution to change policing in America. Today, I return for the next step towards justice. Pray for me.”

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Preckwinkle blasts Lightfoot for criticizing Cook County’s criminal justice system after a violent weekend in Chicago

The Tribune’s Alice Yin has this dispatch: Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle gave her most pointed rebuke of Mayor Lori Lightfoot in months when asked to respond to her former rival’s criticism of Cook County’s criminal justice system.

Lightfoot, who defeated Preckwinkle in the 2019 mayoral race, had said on Monday that the county was not providing adequate criminal trials amid the COVID-19 pandemic and blasted its electronic monitoring program for what she characterized as failing to stem violent crime. “I don’t control electronic monitoring,” she said. “If I did, that problem would be solved.”

During an unrelated news conference held Tuesday morning, Preckwinkle called those remarks a “false narrative” and said the tide of violent crime in Cook County is not unique given the unprecedented economic uncertainty faced throughout the U.S.

“In this extraordinary moment, you can either acknowledge the circumstances … or you can point the finger at other people,” Preckwinkle said. “Unfortunately, that’s been the mayor’s standard operating procedure: blame others.”

The answer from Preckwinkle included acknowledging that police are seen more as “oppressors” than “public servants” in some communities and followed a news conference announcing $458,322 in funding for law enforcement and nonprofit organizations thanks to the federal government Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant.

About $60,000 of the grant will go toward Loyola Medicine in Maywood, which helps run a law enforcement partnership to combat the opioid epidemic in over 30 cities and townships. To date, about 3,000 law enforcement officers have been trained in recognizing opioid overdoses and in administering the nasal spray overdose antidote. Other chunks of the grant will go toward body cameras and vehicles for police as well as a carpentry program to reduce recidivism.

In 2020, Cook County saw its deadliest year of opioid-related deaths yet at 1,827 cases. The previous year recorded 1,296 such deaths. Preckwinkle on Tuesday said, “Cook County is not immune to this crisis … (and) the deaths are occurring disproportionately in our Black and brown communities.”

At vigil for shooting victim Jaslyn Adams, 7, neighborhood leaders and family call for shooter to be turned in, my Tribune colleagues report.

COVID-19: Surge in cases in Chicago seems to be plateauing while massive vaccine supply imbalance statewide is being fueled by vaccine hesitancy

Chicago public health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady said today the city is showing “real signs of progress” after weeks of alarm over a third surge of COVID-19, the Tribune’s Alice Yin writes.

Data points: As of Monday, Chicago’s seven-day rolling positivity rate was 5.5%, down from 5.7% a week earlier. “And the average daily positive cases went down 6% from last week and is now at 657,” Yin writes. “But both figures still put the city in danger, with Arwady’s ideal metrics landing under 5% for positivity rate and under 400 for daily average cases, she has said. More on that and state figures here.

On the vaccine front: Today’s deep dive by my colleagues Mahr and Petrella on the serious supply-and-demand issue is but one chapter in the state’s vaccine rollout.

As they note, “The analysis follows earlier Tribune reviews that documented how the state initially strained more than most to ramp up a COVID-19 vaccination program, then made up for the slow start by sending disproportionate amounts of the vaccines to areas outside Chicago that the Illinois Department of Public Health had surmised would be able to get shots into arms more quickly.

“Complicating matters has been that the city of Chicago gets its doses directly from the federal government, not through the state health department controlled by Pritzker. The city has been lobbying the state to bolster city supplies, arguing that its doses were being given to many suburbanites who either work in the city or could more readily find appointments there,” Mahr and Petrella note. More on how the state is stepping up as well as the rest of the story, here.

RELATED: Lightfoot says she expects Chicago Bulls, Blackhawks will be allowed to have fans inside United Center “before season’s end,” the Tribune’s Gregory Pratt writes.

Wisconsin, Iowa moved down on Chicago’s COVID-19 travel order, but Indiana in danger of new restrictions, the Tribune’s Alice Yin reports.

University of Chicago lifts COVID-19 restrictions after outbreak linked to spring break travel and student gatherings, the Tribune’s Elyssa Cherney reports.

Christian rights group objects to Glenview school system’s vaccine policy, the Tribune’s Karen Ann Cullotta reports.

155 students are in quarantine at Hersey High School after more than a dozen COVID-19 cases reported, the Tribune’s Cullotta reports in this piece.

700-plus Naperville D203 students quarantined for having COVID-19 contact: The number doubled in the first two weeks of students returning to classrooms, Rafael Guerrero reports for the Naperville Sun.

State Board of Elections executive director resigns after reporting online extortion attempt

From the Tribune’s Rick Pearson: “The executive director of the Illinois State Board of Elections is resigning a little more than two weeks after being put on administrative leave after he reported being the victim of an unspecified online extortion attempt, the board said Tuesday.

“Board officials have said little publicly about the matter involving Steve Sandvoss, 55, who took over as executive director seven years ago after serving as the board’s general counsel since 2004.”

“An internal investigation by the board found no data or systems had been compromised in the incident. State Police officials are investigating but have offered no details. Full story here.

Obama Foundation looks to raise $400M for presidential center construction, other investments

From the Tribune’s Alice Yin: “The Obama Foundation on Tuesday announced a new fundraising goal of $400 million over five years that will go toward building the Obama Presidential Center at Jackson Park and other investments.

“Most of the ‘Hometown Fund’ campaign will go toward workforce and building costs for the presidential center, while the remaining $75 million will boost programming for youth on the South and West sides, according to a news release from the foundation.” Full story here.

What Biden’s proposed Civilian Climate Corps, modeled after The New Deal, could mean for the Great Lakes

The Tribune’s Morgan Greene writes: “In President Joe Biden’s January executive order aimed at addressing the climate crisis, there was a call for the creation of a Civilian Climate Corps. The modern CCC would employ Americans ‘to conserve and restore public lands and waters, bolster community resilience, increase reforestation, increase carbon sequestration in the agricultural sector, protect biodiversity, improve access to recreation, and address the changing climate.

“‘The $2 trillion infrastructure plan introduced at the end of March included $10 billion for a corps.’”

Greene notes that for the Great Lakes region, a new corps “could mean checking off a long list of items on advocates’ lists: more green space and infrastructure in cities, much-needed assistance to eroding shorelines, habitat restoration, reforestation of dwindling canopies — and new jobs.” Full story here.

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