Chip reports on criminal justice from WBEZ’s bureau on Chicago’s West Side. His investigative and narrative reporting has earned dozens of local and national awards. He is a three-time winner of the Chicago Headline Club’s annual award for “best reporter” in broadcast radio.
Before Chip joined WBEZ in 2006, his base for three years was Bogotá, Colombia. He reported from conflict zones around that war-torn country and from several other Latin American nations. The reporting reached U.S. audiences through NPR, the BBC and daily newspapers including the Dallas Morning News and the Christian Science Monitor.
From 1995 to 2003, Chip focused on immigration and Latin America as editor of Connection to the Americas, winner of the 2003 Utne Independent Press Award for “general excellence” among newsletters nationwide.
Chip was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, and raised in nearby Falcon Heights. He earned a B.A. in History from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
In Chicago, he lives with his partner and their daughter on the Northwest Side, where they founded the Humboldt Park Gators, an all-girls baseball team.
Chip Mitchell
Stories by Chip Mitchell
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8 Chicago Officers Suspended In Ex-Top Cop Eddie Johnson Drinking-And-Driving Scandal
An inspector general report spells out “incompetent” CPD response after cops found the superintendent asleep at the wheel in his SUV.
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Kyle Rittenhouse Attorneys Spell Out Case That He’s A Patriot Who Shot In Self-Defense
Court filing for the Illinois teen defends his arrival in downtown Kenosha with a military-style rifle and his fatal shootings.
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Experts Demur As Barr Declares Success Against Chicago Gun Violence
Criminologists dismiss claims by Trump’s law-enforcement chief that federal agents reduced crime in Chicago by 50% in just weeks.
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Charges Against Kyle Rittenhouse Detail Chaotic Kenosha Shootings
Wisconsin prosecutors accuse the north suburban 17-year-old of killing two protesters and wounding a third after police shot Jacob Blake.
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‘Winning Has Come Through Revolts’: A Black Lives Matter Activist On Why She Supports Looting
WBEZ talked with Black Lives Matter organizer Ariel Atkins about the idea of looting as a form of protest.
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Gov. Pritzker Replaces Officials Who Oversaw COVID-19 Response In Nursing Homes
Residents of those facilities account for 55% of all coronavirus deaths in Illinois.
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After A Violent Clash On Friday, Protesters And Police Clash Again Over Who Was To Blame
Miracle Boyd, a teenager who says an officer knocked out her teeth during the Grant Park protest, is calling for a “peace circle” with that cop.
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Advocates Blast Chicago Plan To Sweep Up ‘Drug Corner’ Teens Before July 4
Critics of Police Supt. David Brown’s plan say arrests will only increase violence in communities where relations with police are strained.
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Retired Black Cops Kneel In Protest Against White Union Leadership
“It’s time for us to do the right thing,” said one of the about two-dozen Black former cops and allies gathered at the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7.
