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katieprout.bsky.social
Katie Prout
@katieprout.bsky.social
2.1K followers 460 following 380 posts
features writer, Chicago Reader: harm reduction, homelessness, and chicago/rust belt history.

proud member, Reader Union

kprout@chicagoreader.com; signal katie.507

https://www.katieprout.com/
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katieprout.bsky.social
Katie Prout @katieprout.bsky.social · Aug 21
After taking some time away to have a dang baby, I'm back to work at the Chicago Reader. Have a question or tip about the state of harm reduction, homelessness, and/or drugs in Chicago? Send me a line at kprout@chicagoreader.com. I also cover: cultural lore, ghosts of all kinds, & city characters.
Reposted by Katie Prout
meredithshiner.com
Marimar Martinez is so brave.
January 27, 2026 at 1:21 PM
Reposted by Katie Prout
asgvisalaw.bsky.social
The only thing that would make this more of a Congressional Democratic proposal is if they figured out a way to means-test not being shot.
gregsargent.bsky.social Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 2h
Dems coalescing around 5 restrictions on ICE, I'm told:

DHS required to cooperate with state probes (big)
CBP stays at border
warrants for arrests
IDs, bodycams
ICE out of churches, schools

"That package unites a lot of Dems," Sen Chris Murphy tells me on the pod:
newrepublic.com/article/2057...
A Dem Senator’s Harsh Takedown of Trump Hits Home: “Breaking Point”
As Trump scrambles to contain the damage from the latest ICE horrors, Senator Chris Murphy offers a sharp indictment of Trump-ICE lawlessness—and explains how Dems can meet the urgency of the moment.
newrepublic.com
January 27, 2026 at 1:24 PM
Reposted by Katie Prout
prisonculture.bsky.social
There's apparently body cam footage of Alex's murder. Do people know this?

This lets you know that a demand for body cams is USELESS and in fact just a way to give more money to the killers.
January 27, 2026 at 12:37 PM
Reposted by Katie Prout
goodtrailcams.bsky.social
January 26, 2026 at 7:59 PM
katieprout.bsky.social
What's old is new again: "The fear that young people, particularly young, white girls, would be corrupted if the literature they read acknowledged the existence of sex, queer people, and/or pleasure, was deemed by the federal government to be a national issue."
katieprout.bsky.social Katie Prout @katieprout.bsky.social · 21h
What is a literary salon, if not a kiki? Govt book bans only attest to the power of queer lit. For my first review of 2026, I read Adam Morgan's debut, "A Danger to the Minds of Young Girls: Margaret C. Anderson, Book Bans, and the Fight to Modernize Literature."

chicagoreader.com/books/book-r...
In A Danger to the Minds of Young Girls, Adam Morgan explores the biggest threat to American youth: books - Chicago Reader
Adam Morgan explores the trial of queer literary magazine publisher Margaret C. Anderson in 1921 on felony obscenity charges.
chicagoreader.com
January 26, 2026 at 4:05 PM
katieprout.bsky.social
What is a literary salon, if not a kiki? Govt book bans only attest to the power of queer lit. For my first review of 2026, I read Adam Morgan's debut, "A Danger to the Minds of Young Girls: Margaret C. Anderson, Book Bans, and the Fight to Modernize Literature."

chicagoreader.com/books/book-r...
In A Danger to the Minds of Young Girls, Adam Morgan explores the biggest threat to American youth: books - Chicago Reader
Adam Morgan explores the trial of queer literary magazine publisher Margaret C. Anderson in 1921 on felony obscenity charges.
chicagoreader.com
January 26, 2026 at 4:04 PM
Reposted by Katie Prout
jessicacalarco.com
On NPR on Friday, there was a story of a 4-year-old--an American citizen--who hasn't left her house since early December, not even to play in the yard. And her 8-year-old brother recently stopped going to school, too. Their father is undocumented, and the family doesn't want to risk him being taken.
January 26, 2026 at 3:47 AM
katieprout.bsky.social
Pritzker is over on X talking about abolishing “Trump’s ICE” but not ICE itself:
A screenshot of Gov Priztker’s X account, where he retweets a Minnesota Star article about Alex Pretti’s murder and writes: “Masked federal agents in Minnesota just shot and killed another person. We must put a stop to Trump’s ICE. Now. Stop the funding, stop the occupations, stop the killings.”
January 26, 2026 at 2:06 PM
Reposted by Katie Prout
mulchy.bsky.social
chat is it progressive to spend $23 million to buy your police department three new helicopters
January 26, 2026 at 1:48 PM
Reposted by Katie Prout
mulchy.bsky.social
related
mulchy.bsky.social shawn @mulchy.bsky.social · Jan 9
what if i told you chicago police spent $418,000 last year just on stickers and sirens and parts for their bikes during the dnc?

www.documentcloud.org/documents/25...
January 26, 2026 at 1:51 PM
Reposted by Katie Prout
djbyrnes1.bsky.social
Evening all,

Thank you to everyone who followed along with my coverage of this demonstration in Chicago today.

I love this work, but as an indie journo, for the moment, I'm pretty reliant on community support to do it.

Your support helps me to keep on reporting.
January 26, 2026 at 2:25 AM
Reposted by Katie Prout
djbyrnes1.bsky.social
Good afternoon from downtown Chicago, where despite heavy snowfall, thousands have gathered for an anti-ICE/CBP demonstration in solidarity with the Twin Cities. More are still streaming in.

Lt. Illinois Gov. Juliana Stratton just addressed the crowd, and called for ICE to be abolished.
January 25, 2026 at 7:37 PM
Reposted by Katie Prout
lake-michigan.live
Current* conditions near Chicago, IL:
View of Chicago skyline from the roof of the Field Museum of Natural History. // Image captured at: 2026-01-25 18:55:53 UTC (about 11 min. prior to this post) // Image sourced from: windy.com // Current Temp in Chicago: 17.37 F | -8.13 C // Precip: snow // Wind: NNW at 12.661 mph | 20.37 kph // Humidity: 87%
January 25, 2026 at 7:06 PM
katieprout.bsky.social
Praying to Her
dmercer.bsky.social dmercer.bsky.social @dmercer.bsky.social · 1d
Buxom mourning dove
Mourning dove perched on a power line. It's chest is puffed way up to keep it warm. Light brown breast, darker brown back and head, white underside to the tail.
January 25, 2026 at 7:16 PM
Reposted by Katie Prout
unraveledpress.com
Like so many others, @andral404.bsky.social risked his life and safety yesterday to document.

Would love to see some support sent *his way specifically* this morning: account.venmo.com/u/andresachavez
Border Patrol agent in thin green line mask pointing long rifle at people Masked agents with long rifles
January 25, 2026 at 4:05 PM
Reposted by Katie Prout
unraveledpress.com
We still don't know the names of the ICE agents who killed Gonzàlez behind the wheel of his car outside Chicago in September.

They were unmasked in this BWC footage from Franklin Park police.

If you have any information at all about these men—please text us on Signal at unraveled.66
Mustached man in green t shirt Mustached man in teal T shirt Mustached man in teal t shirt Two federal agents in t shirts and vests
January 25, 2026 at 2:05 PM
Reposted by Katie Prout
almacampos.bsky.social
The national response to Minneapolis has me revisiting the killing of Silverio González Villegas by ICE in Franklin Park, IL. I reported on it last fall. Worth remembering.

southsideweekly.com/a-tragic-hom...
A Tragic Homecoming
After nearly two decades in Chicago, Silverio Villegas González returned to Michoacán in a coffin. His death at the hands of federal agents left two families divided by borders, shattered with grief, ...
southsideweekly.com
January 11, 2026 at 3:45 PM
Reposted by Katie Prout
joncooper-us.bsky.social
Protesters in Los Angeles projected an anti-ICE video onto the Twin Towers, an ICE-linked detention facility where the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department actively collaborates with ICE for deportation screenings.
January 25, 2026 at 2:33 PM
Reposted by Katie Prout
unraveledpress.com
"Checking for a pulse and administering CPR is standard. Instead of doing either of those things, the ICE agents appeared to be counting his bullet wounds."
January 25, 2026 at 3:10 AM
Reposted by Katie Prout
imleor.bsky.social
“Tyranny is execution followed by a press release”
faineg.bsky.social Faine Greenwood @faineg.bsky.social · 2d
Absolute banger of a comment on r/military:

www.reddit.com/r/Military/c...
jaderemedy • 4h ago And now comes the most nauseating part of this whole goddamn mess: the hypocrisy. The same loud-mouthed idiots who spent years screaming about tyranny are suddenly dead fucking silent, or worse, cheering, now that it's their side doing it. "ThEy'Re cOminG fOr OuR gUnS!" "GoVerNMenT oVerReAch!" "ShAll nOt bE inFrinGeD!" All that chest-thumping bullshit evaporated the second armed federal agents started terrorizing people they don't like. Let me get this straight: a civilian gets shot dead by federal agents, and the only thing you brainless cunts can muster is "well, DHS says he had a gun"? THAT'S your red line? Guns are sacred when they're strapped to your waist, but magically become a death sentence when they're used as a post-hoc excuse by the government? Either the Second Amendment applies to everyone, or you never believed in it at all. Fucking pick one and own it. This is exactly what tyranny looks like, by the way. Not jackboots marching in formation, but armed agents roaming neighborhoods, stopping people, killing civilians, and then daring the public to question it. Tyranny is execution followed by a press release. Tyranny is labeling the dead a "threat" so the state doesn't have to explain why someone's life just ended in the street. Tyranny is demanding obedience while shredding due process and calling it order. And all you so-called "freedom lovers" are fucking fine with it, as long as it's brown people, immigrants, protesters, or anyone you've already dehumanized. Turns out "don't tread on me" actually meant "tread on them." You weren't afraid of tyranny. You were afraid of losing dominance. There's a difference, and this moment exposes it completely. "Just comply" isn't a principle. It's cowardice dressed up as common sense. It's the language of people who have already accepted that the state gets to decide who deserves rights and who doesn't. And once you make that deal, don't act shocked when the line moves, because it always fuckin…
January 25, 2026 at 1:40 AM
Reposted by Katie Prout
valontheborder.bsky.social
NEW: Dozens of detained immigrant families braved the cold outside the Dilley, TX facility to protest conditions and long detentions, sparked by the recent arrest of 5 y.o. Liam Conejo Ramos.

A detainee said the boy & his dad briefly participated.
apnews.com/article/texa...
Immigrant families protest at Texas facility housing 5-year-old boy, father detained in Minnesota
Dozens of immigrant families protested behind the fences of a Texas detention facility where a 5-year-old boy Ecuadorian boy and his father were sent this week after being detained in Minnesota.
apnews.com
January 25, 2026 at 12:38 AM
Reposted by Katie Prout
heatherk.bsky.social
Chicago protest against ICE in Logan Square
January 24, 2026 at 10:51 PM
Reposted by Katie Prout
fack.bsky.social
There's a prison revolt at a concentration camp in Texas in solidarity with Minneapolis:
21 minutes ago Jazmine Ulloa Hundreds of immigrant mothers and children detained at a South Texas facility on Saturday protested the killing of a 37-year-old man in Minneapolis, chanting "Let me out" and "Libertad," or "Liberty," according to an immigration lawyer who witnessed the demonstration. Eric Lee, the lawyer, said he had been waiting for his client in the visitation area of the family detention center in Dilley, Tex., when detention officials abruptly asked him to leave. Once outside, he peered through a chain-link fence and saw hundreds of women and children walking out of the facility and chanting in protest. Lee said his client later told him on the phone that he and other detainees were outraged over the latest killing in Minneapolis and the detention of Liam Conejo Ramos, the 5-year-old boy from Ecuador detained with his father in Minneapolis and sent to Texas.
January 24, 2026 at 11:04 PM
Reposted by Katie Prout
tangledwilderness.bsky.social
We should remember how great their victims were, not because that makes their deaths a greater outrage, but because it's good to memorialize the dead.

They didn't have to earn the right not to be murdered. No one does.
January 24, 2026 at 11:24 PM
Reposted by Katie Prout
tangledwilderness.bsky.social
We are not going to let them pull a "this person was no angel" when it turns out the next person they kill was maybe kind of a jerk, or used drugs, or had a violent past, or wasn't loved by all who knew them.

You don't have to be perfect to deserve to live.
polotek.bsky.social Marco Rogers @polotek.bsky.social · 2d
People already working hard to prove how perfect Alex Pretti was. To show he didn't "deserve" to be killed. But it's a trap folks. You're only feeding into a dynamic where people who are considered lesser get no protection. You don't have to be an Alex Pretti to deserve to live.
January 24, 2026 at 11:24 PM