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Officials to answer jail expansion questions By ERIC R. OLSON eolson@shawmedia.com SYCAMORE – DeKalb County officials will attend Tuesday’s city council meeting to give an update on plans to expand the jail and answer questions from the public. The County Board has approved a $35 million borrowing plan to pay for the expansion, which is slated to begin in late March or early April,
DeKalb County Administrator Gary Hanson said. “The timetable’s a big thing because we want the public that not only use our facilities but also the library and the public at large to understand what’s going to be closed,” Hanson said. “… We’re very mindful that all county services plus [Sycamore] Public Library services have to continue, not to mention this is a presidential election year,
so that brings a lot of traffic to our campus.” In addition to Hanson, DeKalb County Sheriff Roger Scott will be at the meeting, scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday at the Sycamore Administrative Building, 308 W. State St. Also in attendance will be Brian Kerner from Dewberry Architects, which is working on the project for the county. “We’re going to give an update
on where we’re at, what the building will look like and kind of the timetable where they’re headed on construction,” Scott said, “and then answer any questions they might have.” The City Council, library board and county reached an agreement in 2012 that laid out how the project would proceed.
See JAIL, page A8
If you go WHAT: Sycamore City Council meeting WHEN: 7 p.m. Tuesday WHERE: Council Chambers of the Sycamore Center, 308 W. State St., Sycamore INFORMATION: DeKalb County officials will give an update on plans to expand the jail and answer questions from the public.
Police video laws under state debate
MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. DAY
By IVAN MORENO The Associated Press
Photos by Katie Smith – ksmith@shawmedia.com
Clinton Rosette Middle School Spanish teacher Maurice McDavid helps sixth-grader Mawaiah Alhossaini translate her own “I Have a Dream” speech from English to Spanish Friday. Alhossaini’s dream was for ISIS to end its violence.
Remembering MLK Jr. DeKalb students translate famous MLK speech into Spanish, modern experiences By KATIE SMITH ksmith@shawmedia.com DeKALB – Maurice McDavid has a dream that his students might see parts of themselves reflected in the people they admire most. McDavid asked his sixth-, seventh- and eighth-grade Spanish classes at Clinton Rossette Middle School to translate Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech Friday, adding their own hopes for the nation as they went on to create “Tengo un Sueño, También” – “I Have a Dream, Too.” The completed project offers McDavid, parents and other teachers insight as to how today’s students are affected by world violence or ways in which they continue to experience discrimination. “Here is our objective.” McDavid said. “’I can identify strengths and weaknesses in American heroes. I can identify with heroes, and I can express my dreams, hopes and aspirations.’” Students rattled off the names of their favorite athletes and musicians, but the class erupted in giggles when one student said he looked up to his grandma. “I think it’s interesting that we don’t chuckle at those athletes, but we chuckle at this kid who says, ‘My grandma is my hero.’ Absolutely,” McDavid said, applauding the sev-
Clinton Rosette Middle School seventh-graders work on writing their own “I Have a Dream” speeches in class Friday. Spanish teacher Maurice McDavid asked students to identify with one of their heroes and create a list of hopes for the world. enth-grader. “That makes sense.” The exercise challenged kids to think introspectively and consider what improvements they would like to see in the world. Translating the speech into Spanish encouraged them to apply King’s words to their own culture, McDavid said. “I think that it really just represents, wherever we are right now, the idea that that dream goes beyond the black/white issue,” he
said. As his students watched a blackand-white video of King’s August 1963 speech, they devised hopes of their own, surrounding terrorism, financial security and world peace. “I started mine off with saying that I don’t want there to be terrorists and that everyone should be happy and help one another,” 12-year-old Shawn Ager said. “If everyone just helps and works with one another, there won’t be as big
of fights and conflicts in the world that would mess countries up and ruin their societies.” This is the first year McDavid has taught this lesson in his Spanish class, although he had used it during his time as an eighth-grade language arts teacher, he said. Based on the input he saw this year, he plans to continue using the lesson. “When I sit down and read these, I laugh, I cry – a little bit of everything,” he said. His students’ insight never ceases to catch him off-guard. “I had a young lady, an eighthgrade African-American student. Hers was about ending this gun violence, and one of the things that she did, which was phenomenal, is she said, ‘I have a dream that there won’t be police shootings in African-American communities,’” McDavid said. “But then she goes on to say, ‘I have a dream that African-Americans will see education as the answer to some of the issue.’ ... for an eighth-grader to be able to have that mindset is phenomenal.” Sixth-grader Mawaiah Alhossaini used the assignment to express her feelings about a national concern that has affected her per-
See MLK, page A3
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Winterfest activities include birdwatching, arts and crafts / A3
NIU men’s basketball team faced a slew of ejections in its first MAC game loss / B1
Sycamore VFW, Country Store & Catering host a fundraiser buffet / A6
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SPRINGFIELD – The yearlong delay before the release of a video showing a white Chicago police officer fatally shooting a black teenager has Illinois lawmakers facing the same question before many states: As officers’ dashboards and body cameras capture more police encounters with the public, how much access to the videos should there be under open-records laws? It’s a challenge for government officials who have to weigh the public’s increasing appetite to monitor how police officers do their job with law enforcement’s desire to protect the privacy of victims shown in videos and the integrity of pending investigations. In Illinois, some legislators want a judge to be the first stop in determining whether a video involving police use of force should be released to the public, removing the power from law enforcement agencies to make that determination on their own. “We’re saying, ‘Go to the judge to issue a protective order.’ Otherwise, it should be released under the normal (open records) guidelines,” said Rep. Art Turner, a Chicago Democrat who introduced the proposal last month with the intent of restoring “public confidence in the process and the way these police shootings are handled.” The bill was spurred by the killing of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald in October 2014, which was captured by a Chicago police cruiser’s dashcam, but the video wasn’t made public until November – and only after a judge’s order. Officer Jason Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder the day of the video’s release. Already, Turner’s bill has bipartisan support from 16 lawmakers who have signed on as co-sponsors. It would apply to dashcams and officer-worn body cameras, which are being more widely used around the country as fatal police interactions with citizens, especially African-American boys and men, come under greater scrutiny in the last 18 months. Twenty states and the District of Columbia have laws addressing body cameras, 16 of which passed in 2015, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The majority deal with guidance on how to use the cameras, but only 10 put the videos under the umbrella of state’s open-records laws. In California, one of five states that require the cameras, the recordings aren’t covered under the open-records law. New Jersey requires either dashcams or officer-worn cameras but doesn’t address whether the footage can be released. In North Carolina, Greensboro police use body cameras, but the
See POLICE, page A8
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