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This week, State's Attorney Eileen O'Neill Burke joins Landon's Loop, DubClub hires a new CEO, and Divvy expands with more bike docks. Along with 5 events happening around downtown Chicago.

I sat down with State's Attorney Eileen O'Neill Burke to talk about how her office is modernizing.

She’s the chief prosecutor for more than 5 million people, leading the nation's second largest prosecutor's office with 1,300 employees, 750 prosecutors, and more than 200,000 cases passing through the office each year.

Now 18 months into the job, we talked about what’s changing, the challenges her office is facing, and what comes next.

Here are a few of the moments:

EOB: In 2018, the average felony case had about six hours of video. Today a single murder case can carry 165 hours. For scale, the entire Netflix catalog is 39,000 hours. We are currently housing 224,000 hours of video evidence. No prosecutor can watch that manually, so we built a forensic bureau and lean on technology to sort it, flag what matters, and get it right.

EOB: Corroboration. Take the man who stole an ambulance on the West Side. We had helicopter footage, ring cameras, street cameras, and body-cam video from roughly 50 officers who converged on the scene. All of it confirms one consistent line of travel, and cell phone tracking data places him there at the exact moment. There is no better evidence than video showing someone commit the crime, as long as we verify and corroborate it.

For newer tools like facial recognition, we have to pass a Frye hearing to prove the science is reliable enough to admit.

EOB: We ask for detention every time someone commits a violent crime on transit. When a judge won't detain but won't release outright, we ask for a stay-away order tied to the specific station or bus line, because offenders and victims are both creatures of habit and tend to return to the same platform. And the culture is shifting. My comms director was on the Brown Line recently when someone lit a cigarette, and the whole car told him to put it out before the conductor removed him. That does not happen when people feel there is no consequence.

EOB: I like to say we are one of the few areas that takes brand new lawyers who will not be replaced by AI. Our lawyers have to go into court. We're not sitting responding to interrogatories. We are in court litigating cases that can't be replaced by AI. We're one of the few places where entry-level attorneys cannot be replaced.

EOB: Electronic monitoring started under the old bond system as a way to release people who couldn't afford bail but weren't dangerous. The problem is the statute now guarantees a minimum of two "free to roam" days, time when no one is watching. That was fine for nonviolent defendants, but today we have 3,200 people on monitoring, including 87 charged with murder or attempt murder and 181 charged with sexual assault. The chief judge's office puts 10 to 12 percent of them AWOL, so more than 300 people we simply can't locate. It was never built for violent people, and it needs a legislative fix.

DubClub brought on former DraftKings exec Ed Silva as CEO on July 14, with co-founder Lew Burik moving to president.

Silva was at DraftKings for a decade working across product and analytics. The move came alongside a fresh round of funding.

I asked Lew why Ed matters right now for the business:

DubClub just posted a Lifecycle Marketing & CRM Lead role, its first dedicated hire to own the full creator lifecycle (onboarding, retention, reactivation, LTV) as they build the definitive consumer marketplace for sports fans.

Reply to this email if you want to meet the team.

Learn more here

New Divvy Bike stations were installed in Chicago.

These fill in key gaps along the lakefront trail making it easier to grab a bike between the Museum Campus, the beaches, and the zoo.

With these additions, Chicago has installed 124 new stations so far this year, continuing one of the fastest bikeshare expansions in the country.

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