1/ I’ve been reporting on Chicago towing practices for years. In this investigation, I found the city seized and sold almost 50,000 cars because of unpaid tickets since 2011. The majority were from low-income/minority communities wbez.org/shows/wbez-new…
2/ During my reporting I met Sandra Botello. She lives in Chicago’s South Shore neighborhood. She got hit with several $200 city sticker tickets 
3/ But what’s more, a lot of car seizures also come from the low-income, minority suburbs like Cicero, Berwyn, Dolton, Calumet City and Harvey, some with numbers greater than some North Side neighborhoods
4/ Over the past year, @WBEZ has partnered w/ @ProPublicaIllinois to investigate Chicago’s unequal ticketing and debt-collection practices. Thousands of motorists are into massive debt, have lost their licenses of filed for bankruptcy over tickets. features.propublica.org/driven-into-de…
5/ Sandra’s story is not unique. When you lose a car, you can’t do normal things like take your kids to school, make doctor appointments, or as Sandra experienced: grocery shop or do laundry
6/ After taking their cars, the city still goes after people for ticket debt and impound fees. Impound fees start at $20 per day but go up to $35 after five days. I’ve talked with some residents who owe thousands of dollars in storage fees. I’ll have more stories on that soon...
7/ Also, I posted all the towing data from 2011-2018 on our new data portal! I will post more data from 2000-2011 as well.
data.world/wbezchicago/ch…
data.world/wbezchicago/ch…
8/ We reference city sticker tickets, which Chicago officials tend to forget is a road tax, and that these violations are penalties on top of a tax, that see higher rates of ticketing than the North Side wbez.org/shows/morning-…
9/ Botello also received two additional tickets for parking too close to a stop sign, her South Shore neighborhood was subject of a @cbschicago investigation by Dorthy Tucker and @creatingfavors which found the area lacked sufficient signage chicago.cbslocal.com/2018/10/01/2-i…
10/ Thank you for reading this story, and to Sandra Botello who agreed to be the subject, and to the city employees who helped with my over 100 FOIA requests over 2 years. You can check out the articles we’ve worked on with @ProPublicaIllinois at propublica.org/series/driven-…
