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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Black Chicagoans Apply To Be Cops, But Few Make It On The Force. Here’s Why.
The city’s inspector general finds African Americans account for 37% of CPD applicants but just 18% of those who get hired.
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Is Chicago’s Gun Violence Surge Due To Bail Reform? Top Cop Still Can’t Prove It.
Police Supt. David Brown still hasn’t provided evidence for widely published claims he made about the city’s July 4 weekend violence.
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A Year After The Most Dire Need, Chicago Nursing-Home Resident Advocates Will Be Hired
A city program helps facility residents suffering abuse, but for years, officials allowed it to shrink. Now they’re staffing it up.
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CPD Strips Powers From Sergeant Tied To Cops Who Stole Drug Money In 2012
Chicago Sgt. Alvin Jones could face discipline for his role in an earlier narcotics arrest involving corrupt former Sgt. Ronald Watts.
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Chicago’s Mayor And Top Cop Trash Kim Foxx For Challenging CPD’s Gun Arrest Priorities
A data presentation from Cook County’s top prosecutor raised apparently unwelcome questions about who CPD is arresting for gun crimes.
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Kim Foxx’s Office Says CPD Is Arresting The Wrong People To Curb Gun Violence
Cook County’s top prosecutor shows Chicago gun arrests increasingly netting people who committed no violent crime and have no priors.
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Whistleblower Who Sought Tougher Police Oversight Awarded $1.1 Million For Emotional Distress
A Cook County jury’s award rebuffs an appellate ruling that left the whistleblower with $100,000 for that harm.
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Police Tortured ‘At Least 100’ Chicagoans. But City Lawyers Tell A Different Story.
As Chicago’s mayor condemns abuse tied to the late Cmdr. Jon Burge, lawyers for her administration refuse to admit its existence.
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For-Profit Nursing Homes Seek Yet More Illinois Funds While Fighting Staffing Requirements
The facilities oppose accountability measures but press lawmakers for $486 million toward COVID-19 “recovery and stabilization.”
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No Bail For Man Charged With Plowing Truck Into Picnic Because Of ‘Yuppies’ With Dogs
Tim Nielsen, 57, faces four counts of attempted first-degree murder. The incident happened Saturday on the grass median of Logan Boulevard.
