Maya Dukmasova
@mdoukmas
Followers
14,116
Following
1,165
Media
1,052
Statuses
12,587
Senior reporter at @injusticewatch . Mothman. Co-host #FirstTuesdays . @Chicago_Reader alum. Send your courts tips.
Chicago, IL
Joined July 2009
Don't wanna be here?
Send us removal request.
Explore trending content on Musk Viewer
UCLA
• 592069 Tweets
May Day
• 284543 Tweets
Senna
• 155987 Tweets
HAPPY BAMBAM DAY
• 148262 Tweets
Yusuf Tekin
• 143043 Tweets
Dortmund
• 86446 Tweets
Paul Auster
• 73269 Tweets
رونالدو
• 71352 Tweets
Plaza de Bolívar
• 61950 Tweets
Anitta Baile Funk Experience
• 44366 Tweets
Colorado
• 39840 Tweets
Powell
• 36207 Tweets
#BVBPSG
• 34835 Tweets
Bruno Mars
• 23837 Tweets
Robert De Niro
• 21931 Tweets
Fyodor
• 18577 Tweets
Olga
• 18088 Tweets
طحنون بن محمد
• 15303 Tweets
Casagrande
• 14929 Tweets
gracie
• 14293 Tweets
Massive Caller
• 12773 Tweets
لوي ناظر
• 12143 Tweets
Deion
• 11572 Tweets
Boulos
• 11535 Tweets
Alcaraz
• 11147 Tweets
Paco Villa
• 10709 Tweets
Timmy
• 10003 Tweets
Man it's truly wild how much 🤯 news has broken about Chicago's Mayor and police issues over basically the last 24 hours:
50
3K
12K
Cash bail is abolished in Illinois. This means the only people who'll be in jail pre-trial are those who a judge decides are a true danger to others. We'll see if this will lower the bar for what's considered "dangerous" or actually restore presumption of innocence to more folks.
31
1K
9K
First it comes to light that $281 million of the city's $1.2 billion in covid relief has gone to CPD
24
705
3K
If your mind boggles at the size of the CPD budget, wait tell you learn about their secret, off the books budget
21
2K
3K
On July 30 I captured this video of a Rogers Park neighbor being extracted from his home at gunpoint. Turned out these guys were ex cops working for the landlord. "Ideally, I would ask that you not run this story," the landlord wrote to
@Chicago_Reader
:
63
2K
3K
"Chicago accents among the least understood by smart home devices, finds study"
Well maybe if smart home devices weren't jagoffs...
51
378
3K
Hey how did cops get unions in the first place? I looked into it and turns out they decided to join the labor movement only pretty recently. In large part to resist discipline for brutality.
31
2K
3K
Then the Inspector General publishes a report about how police response to this summer's protests was basically a shitshow and quotes Lightfoot saying the unrest that developed alongside was part of a conspiracy to "bring chaos" to American cities
5
400
2K
Chicago: A place where the police union got a contractual right for cops to review all evidence against them and circle their wagons before they're questioned over possible misconduct but where the teachers' union is prohibited from striking over class sizes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
12
879
2K
Good morning journalists: today is a day to be v careful about language and framing and action verbs. Fact check. Double check your editors. Wait an extra minute to publish. No one needs our coverage so fast that we can't think about what we imply/who we endanger/what we sanction
6
563
2K
And THEN, the mayor gets Ald Chris Taliaferro to cancel a hearing to advance a new police accountability ordinance (establishing civilian oversight over CPD) backed by BOTH GAPA AND CPAC that has support of 40 aldermen and would have passed next week
This press conference with GAPA and CPAC coalitions is beginning shortly. The coalitions yesterday sent a joint statement criticizing Lightfoot for "once again blocking community-driven efforts to bring about long-overdue fundamental police reform."
2
20
57
5
350
2K
As a reminder: Lightfoot had promised to pass GAPA's original ordinance within 100 days of taking office. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
12
280
2K
"To people who live in Chicago it's an unthinkable notion to have one third of the police department suddenly not working." I'm curious what led to this conclusion
@juliebosman
Is it unthinkable? Many people in the city already experience the police dept as mostly not working
22
173
2K
A month into reporting on judges full time and I'm discovering some major hurdles on the beat: accountability for these public officials is so non-existent that the people who are in the best position to speak on the shit they're doing are too terrified to go on record.
11
319
2K
I've been covering abolitionist organizing in Chicago since 2016. Here are all the stories you can read to educate yourself about what this concept means today and practical, thoughtful work being done to promote it
2
792
1K
A regular Chicago cop in first year on the job starts with a salary of $48,078, jumps to $68,616 in the second year. As
@KofiAdemola
put it "If you gave folks in a community $65,000 a year to keep their communities safe you'd see communities transformed."
14
609
1K
Today it's ten years since I moved to Chicago. This was the first photo I took when I got here. I've never lived anywhere longer in my life and I've never known love like the love this city shows.
17
29
1K
🚨THREAD🚨
Two years ago my first request for Cook County eviction court records was finally answered--a decade of data, every eviction case filed in one Excel spreadsheet. As I began analyzing I saw one landlord filing a disproportionate number of cases
37
742
1K
The best food in Chicago is all within one block of the intersection of Kedzie and Lawrence
61
100
1K
Spent a few weeks examining the carjacking issue in Chicago.
Fellow journalists in local media, especially in breaking news: Please stop obsessively reporting on carjacking with information obtained from the police. They're misrepresenting their own data.
36
461
1K
Early voted at Loop supersite. Only person in the entire joint not wearing a mask was the posted CPD officer.
23
171
1K
Not a single tv reporter calling these people LOOTERS as they describe them stealing shit from congresspeople's desks
11
312
1K
And he's the president of the Chicago police union now, voted in by nearly 5,000 of its members.
In 50 years, only one Chicago police officer was fired for verbal abuse involving racial or ethnically biased language.
9
169
307
9
494
1K
If we're gonna have opinion sections they should be filled with opinions of ppl farthest away from power and ppl whose opinions are based on deep expertise. Not ex-reporters whose reward for years of good work is to get to do bad work and get paid more than all their colleagues.
16
134
1K
🧵As people focus on the role of Gary Carlson (the landlord in whose apartment building the fire started), a reminder:
This city does not register or track landlords in any systematic way. The state of the private housing market is basically like the pre-FDA food industry.
This is what’s left of the Twisted Hippo Brewery and Ultimately Ninja in Albany Park. Chicago Fire Dept crews have been battling the fire since 3:30 a.m.
@nbcchicago
22
82
256
10
260
1K
In large part because journalists have trained them to to be
Why are suburbanites so obsessed with city crime?
Employee in store in Ruxton greeted me with "how's the crime in Baltimore?"
Almost gleefully.
Is this all they think about?
This is the same community that blocked a light rail stop.
Which I noted before leaving.
169
129
2K
5
166
917
Happening now: Marianne Williamson is at a gay bar in Chicago watching the
#LGBTQTownHall
she's not a part of on tv
20
130
879
I don't want to see any political "journalism" about Arne Duncan that doesn't address his role in Chicago's school closures or confront him w/ Qs abt that during interviews. Journalists shouldn't be contributing to amnesia about the most impactful thing he ever did in this city.
25
210
865
BREAKING: We had to sue Chicago Public Schools to get this data, and as soon as we did they produced it. Here's what I found when I looked under the hood of the survey on cops in schools they first presented at their June board meeting.
13
429
817
As we head into the coldest night of the year so far, it boggles my mind that the city's warming centers are only open from 9 to 5.
18
153
827
Nothing like waking up to the news that an active duty Chicago cop who trains rookies on the force is running a weapons accessories company called "Diplomacy Failure" with the slogan "choose your victims carefully"
15
561
802
*~*pErSoNaL nEwS tHrEaD*~*
This summer I'll be saying goodbye to my beloved
@Chicago_Reader
to join the team at
@injusticewatch
as a senior reporter. My full time job starting September will be covering judges in the criminal and civil courts!
57
32
799
Two of Chicago's city council members won their elections by 13 and 25 votes. Local politics may not feel sexy or interesting but this is where each vote really really really counts. These are legislators of the third largest city in America.
9
242
737
Honers/AP classes are some of the biggest segregators in "integrated" schools
A lot of the “integrated” schools are racially segregated.
0
38
85
9
200
739
Raised bridges and transit interruptions in Chicago have became onormalized since the May 30 protests over George Floyd's killing. Behind every barricaded road and closed CTA stop there are real people, severely impacted. I collected some of their stories
7
336
741
"Our cafeteria does not have enough food. At breakfast I used the intercom to tell 670 children we had no milk. We are short-staffed every day."
A heartbreaking op-ed from a Chicago Public Schools principal that mirrors almost every recent conversation I've had with educators: "Children are not okay. Teachers are not okay. Schools are not okay."
39
1K
3K
11
292
738
Would be great if you all would use these mini plows to also clear neighborhood sidewalks so the disabled and elderly could get around!
We have about a dozen pieces of equipment like this mini plow and salt spreader out today working to clear protected bike lanes. If you must head out, take it easy & and bundle up 🚴🏽 ❄️ ❄️🥶
52
57
462
9
128
736
Growing up as an immigrant in white middle America Thanksgiving always meant dry turkey and gross pumpkin pie at someone's house. Then
@jbouie
introduced me to his mom's sweet potato pie and it changed my life and that of many other immigrants I've shared it with over the years!
12
25
704
Chicago public schools board will vote again on whether to continue keeping cops in schools in August but in the meantime individual school communities can vote on whether to keep the program. 👇
Thread of Local School Councils meeting this week in Chicago Public Schools
4
131
250
4
323
705
Public service announcement: if you have a felony conviction and are no longer in prison YOU CAN VOTE IN ILLINOIS! (Including if you're on probation or parole). You can also register to vote same day, AT THE POLLS. Check your local election admin site for ID required to register.
1
484
670
June 3: FedEx announces it's temporarily suspending shipping to these Chicago area zip codes (all Black neighborhoods. Notice how Hyde Park is neatly excluded)
June 12: FedEx posts solidarity statement to uplift African American community.
🙃
@unfard
Quietly(on June 3rd) FedEx arbitrarily decided not to deliver to certain Chicago zipcodes. No apologies.. nothing. No one has mentioned this on the news
12
102
85
6
625
633
As I look at pics of Chicago cops arresting I think abt where they live. On the very edges of city, to comply w/ residency requirements. In mostly white nhoods. Their kids go to gorgeous pub schools/catholic schools. Median income in Mt Greenwood: $94,677. In Edison Park: $99,194
20
169
619
I've been following a Cook County case for 3+ years in which a person convicted of murder almost 40 years ago has been trying to get in front of a judge to present new evidence of his innocence: another incarcerated man who's been confessing to being the actual killer since 2009.
3
160
609
More property taxes, no fewer cops. Welcome to Chicago.
The City of Chicago budget for the 2021 fiscal year passes with 29 votes for and 21 votes against.
6
27
83
6
102
584
The view from Chicago abolitionists. (Also a seasoned reporter from a major mainstream news org just called me asking where they could learn about abolition and understand the movement. Maybe more people will start treating these organizers with respect)
6
256
581
This week the
@Chicago_Reader
and unionized editorial staff signed a new contract!!! This is our second one as a bargaining unit. AND WE NOW HAVE PARENTAL LEAVE! 8 weeks 100% pay + 4 weeks 50% pay + 12 more weeks unpaid FMLA leave (which
@TracyBaimWCMG
generously volunteered to).
9
45
557
W/out Ida B. Wells we would know so much less about lynching in America. She exploded the myth that lynching was some sort of punishment for rape. She's one of the most important investigative journalists in history. And she did much more! Google! Put up a monument in Grant Park!
@mdoukmas
@ElizAnnStan
@sarahanneconway
@city_bureau
@ReclaimedSoul
@NerdettePodcast
@triciabobeda
@gretamjohnsen
@MWAChicago
@TheTRiiBE
Thanks for this! Can you reply to this tweet or email us a bit more about why Ida, and if you have ideas for where her statue could be located in Chicago? curiouscity
@wbez
.org
2
0
3
6
205
524
Would be nice if he paid for 105,000 internet bills instead
Obama, in surprise appearance, gives 105,000 CPS students free digital copies of ‘A Promised Land’
83
44
222
9
49
523
Found this taped in my building today. These nimby cowards never put their names on this shit
32
50
515
If you're a news org covering the arrests of youth downtown last night, know that you're using racist dog whistles when you run a story about young Black people that includes words like:
"Descend"
"Swarm"
" 'kids' " (yes this was in quotes on trib headline)
"Chaos"
"Wilding"
13
151
505
After two weeks of hearing peers casually discuss having 5-16 weeks of vacation time, 35 hour work weeks, and $150/month child care costs I'm gonna be coming back to America madder and less motivated than ever lmao. We've really chosen a culture of death for 50+ years
5
45
487
Grateful and heartened to see so many Chicago journalists, media workers, and allies show up to our vigil for colleagues killed in Gaza tonight. The installation with messages to journalists in Gaza will remain at the Chicago Art Department until April.
6
138
474
Honestly, I don't care how many bridges this burns, but fuck every media outlet giving Rahm a platform.
5
62
465
Every single ex-Soviet immigrant I know who supports him also voted for Trump
The more I read and watch about Russians who support Putin, the more I recognise in them the 70+ million Americans who voted for Donald Trump.
Much of America is similar to Russia than most people care to admit.
541
2K
12K
17
76
456
After every instance of police violence abolitionists remind us that we don't have to live in a world where it's the norm. Police abolition is already here, just go to any rich white neighborhood and see it for yourself. Everyone could have that world.
5
163
444
Holy shit this settlement check from the lawsuit over Facebook's violation of Illinois biometric data law just came in - $397! Hope you all signed up back in 2020!
24
25
465
Takeaway from tonight: strong evidence that it's still 1965 in Chicago.
12
152
444
Taking note of the Karen Lewis RIPs from all the people who have been opposing and continue to oppose everything she stood for.
9
55
458
If you're a journalist interested in criminal justice and you're not paying attention to the ideas and organizing of abolitionists or trying to understand their thought process and their work you're not really covering the beat.
2
106
435
From the bottom of my heart I want to congratulate each and every Chicagoan this morning because we all have many happy years ahead of us without a single Paul Vallas text message.
4
36
434
The unionized staff of
@Chicago_Reader
just voted unanimously to ratify our 1st contract w/ mgmnt!! It's been a long 2.5 years to get here!
12
77
410
A group of us Chicago journalists horrified by the situation in Gaza will come together Monday night to honor our fallen colleagues and express solidarity with journalists who remain there, steadfast in their duties while trying to survive. Hope to see many local colleagues there
8
201
413
The new mayor of the third largest city in America lives in a house that clearly needs some work done on its roof. This country still has a few things going for it.
4
20
407
Still less than the cost of a typical Chicago police misconduct settlement payout
¯\_(ツ)_/ ¯
6
131
382
Still can't get over the 🔥 of this
@Chicago_Reader
from 1978
@PhotosBySebas
unearthed. The TONE!!
12
40
398
The degree to which I don't care about the Bears fills me with so much tranquility
7
21
399
Omg omg the bound copies of my book are here!!! I'll be signing them this week so get your order in if you want one with my John Hancock 🤓
10
33
390
Wow Hamburger Mary's in Andersonville turning into a Sweetgreen... gentrification of gentrification
12
11
386
so they're for real building a new police academy AND moving to use a closed public school as a police academy...
9
186
368
In a room w/ 200 white people in Jefferson Park vociferously opposing new private affordable housing proposal. "It's a project!" man shouts
54
320
357
Solidified my status as a Chicagoan this evening as I ate wings with mild sauce while doing 60 on Lake Shore Drive
20
8
374
Parked in front of the Chicago police union headquarters...
57
94
361
Tomorrow City Council has a chance to make the Chicago Police Department release ALL police misconduct records since 1967 so they become truly open to the public. To do that 18 more aldermen need to vote to postpone the Charles Green lawsuit settlement.
4
240
363
I'm certain that this will hopelessly [further] impoverish a generation of young people. Drop out rates will soar. So will incarceration.
16
163
341
Chicago will fund any "violence prevention" program that's not wealth redistribution
3
60
360
Now that I've written this 25,000-word story, how will I convince you to read it? It's a complicated and sad tale of something that cops and prosecutors did nearly 40 years ago. Following all of it will make a serious demand on your brain and your time.
8
128
361
Funny that Richie Daley went to Paris and was like "I want more flowers on Mag Mile!" And not like "Let's put a thousand chairs around Buckingham fountain."
They don't want the public to actually use public space.
17
43
358
Crime is down
Crime is down
Crime is down
Crime is down
In 1992, Chicago had 14,644 shootings. A record at the time.
To put that in perspective, Chicago has seen 14,250 shooting incidents in the 5 years between 10/19/2018 and 10/19/2023
Source: Chicago Tribune Jan 21, 1993 edition, page 35.
21
87
334
78
57
357
That's almost 2% of the detectives in the entire Chicago police force.
3
110
338
We can expect a lot of proposals for police "reform" to come of all this. Here's a great piece by
@prisonculture
that parses which "reforms" are actually justice oriented and which are just a way to increase the power and reach of police departments
3
236
335
Public Defender
@SharoneMitchJr
making a great point: opponents of bail reform are ALREADY blaming the end of cash bail in IL on crime trends. Which is insane because it doesn't go into effect until 2023. This is a classic strategy from law enforcement and conservative media.
Illinois
@SenatorVanPelt
is a no-show at our forum, but Sen.
@RobertJPeters
and
@SharoneMitchJr
are here sharing crucial info on Illinois's massive criminal justice reform.
Join us live now! [Meeting ID: 857 6554 3808]
0
3
14
1
128
333
Or idk leave them alone because they're kids on spring break and the streets and parks of this city belong to them too?
9
74
326
On Saturday the protest at Sheridan and Greenleaf in Rogers Park had just a handful of people. Today there's easily at least a thousand
#BlackLivesMatter
#GeorgeFloydProtests
5
86
330
This is a tweet about how hard undergrads are now working to become part of an underpaid and exploited labor force for universities at which they'll ultimately have next to no chance to get a permanent job. Yet faculty continue to talk about PhDs like they're apprenticeships 🙄
My jaws keep dropping as I go through 70 PhD applicant files. People w/ 2 coauthored papers & an interesting solo writing sample don’t even make it to the top 10 in my pile.
The level of knowledge, research experience & passion these kids bring to the table is just remarkable! 🤩
412
66
782
2
58
332
A crazy thing abt US white middle class ppl is that many really believe that they're living better than white middle class people everywhere else. And they're ready to accept and support so much oppression to defend against imagined threats to what amounts to a very shitty life.
14
35
334
Sooo because the president of NU feels personally offended about being yelled at and called a pig and won't meet with students demanding changes to policing practices on and off campus there are now cops from a weird interagency consortium in riot gear on the streets of Evanston?
day 28 of daily actions. cops come with canines, weapons, riot gear, paddy wagons no matter what. threaten arrest for anyone in the street (yell at and threaten students crossing crosswalks to get to sit in location). outnumber students at least 2:1. they are the escalators.
2
56
168
6
143
320
Is this really the time for the fraying remains of our city's social safety net to stop delivering food to children?
NEW: Chicago Public Schools has suspended its meal distribution program "based on the evolving nature of activity across the city." The district has given out more than 12.5 million meals since start of the coronavirus pandemic. Remote learning continues, though. Story tk.
174
3K
5K
9
118
323
For this story I went aaaaaalll the way back to Lori Lightfoot's mayoral campaign, dug up her platform, and examined her 18 distinct police reform promises. Basically everything she's promising to do now in 90 days she promised to do when she was running.
18
136
317
Impact journalism is when you start asking questions about why a recording system that took years of lobbying and $370,000 to install and was supposed to be up and running four months ago still isn't working and it magically turns on the next day.
0
111
322
Another tragic consequence of the pandemic on IL prisoners and their loved ones: train between Chicago and Pontiac has changed schedules so people w/out cars can't get there early enough to make full visiting hours and they'd have to wait 8+ hours for a train back late at night
3
90
318
The whole notion of no "expectation of privacy" while in public was developed when news reporting didn't live online, forever. The cost of public assembly when this framework was developed meant maybe your picture is in a physical paper for one day in probably in one community.
Reminder: if you’re in public, you have no expectation of privacy (see: First Amendment). That stands for cops and protesters alike. Tonight I saw protesters hassling and bullying a photographer for taking photos of them. We’re trying to tell the full story. Let us do our jobs.
79
37
301
2
63
314