GRETCHEN HAMMOND
Author | Journalist | Photographer
Investigative Stories
Just a few of the deep dives Gretchen has undertaken and published in Windy City Times and Tablet Magazine.
Guardians From Hell
In 2016, Michigan woman Virginia Wahab was placed under guardianship by a judge at the Oakland County Probate Court in the suburbs of Detroit. Her rights and freedom were stripped away from her over an unpaid nursing home bill. Wahab’s daughter Mimi had no idea that it had happened nor did she have any comprehension of the legal forces arrayed against her as she fought for her mom’s release. This is the story that began my journey towards an independent investigation of the probate court, to connecting with Julie Belshe and the April Parks cases in Nevada and to the shocking, hidden portrait of America’s unpeople.
LGBT immigrants still face hurdles, Part one
Immigration and LGBTQs: Immigrants tell their stories, Part two
Dennis Akpona came to the United States having fled his home in Nigeria. Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan had signed the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act into law. For the LGBTQ population there, it meant penalties of up to 10 years for same-sex couples engaged in public displays of affection or operating or participating in a gay club or organization. For Dennis, winning asylum in the United States meant he was one of a vanishingly fortunate few.
Immigration and the LGBT community: Inside ICE detention, Part three
Every Friday at 7:15 a.m., Sister Pat Murphy and Sister JoAnn Persch of the Sisters of Mercy in Chicago arrive at the Broadview Detention Facility, a squat, two-story building located in a bleak-looking industrial park in Broadview, Illinois. Behind its walls detainees wait to see their family members and friends one last time before they are shackled into a bus that will start them on their forced journey back to the countries of their birth.
Immigration and LGBTQs: Inside ICE detention, Part four
In 2015, I was given access to the McHenry County Adult Correctional Facility in Woodstock, Illinois. It was used by ICE to house up to 650 male and female immigrant detainees following arrest by the agency. Inside, the darkness is claustrophobic and the passage of time is blurred. A sign in the prison common area read “Don’t Let Go of Hope.”
Trans murders rising alongside anti-transrhetoric
An illustration used as part of a 1938 children’s book Der Giftpilz (The Poisoned Mushroom) by Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher features a menacing-looking, burly caricature of a Jewish man confronting two young children who stare up at him in wonder as he uses a bag of caramels to entice them to come with him. In 2015, anti transgender political commercials airing in Houston, TX were designed to evoke the same terror and fear, this time of a tiny subset of the US population. Rising violence against them was, the community states, an inevitable result.
One night in Austin
Following the slaying of sex workers on Chicago’s West Side and numerous accounts of violence against them perpetrated by ruling neighborhood gangs, I spent the early hours of a weekend on the streets of Austin. There, I saw for myself how sex workers try to survive and where and how they die. Winner of the Lisagor Award for Excellence in Journalism.
A tale of two murders: Connected or not?
In 2012, 22-year-old Eshia Love was arrested and charged with attempted murder. Love claimed that she and a friend were attacked by a gang member on Chicago’s West side and that she was just trying to defend herself. Two years later, Love was still sitting in jail awaiting trial when her friend was murdered along with a sex worker who may have been mistakenly targeted. They were just three in a series of violent assaults after the neighborhood’s ruling gangs decided to enact their own laws on Chicago’s streets. Winner of the Lisagor Award for Excellence in Journalism.
Trans* woman claims self-defense in case
Today, the question of whether transgender women should be housed in men’s, rather than women’s prisons is one the Trump administration has decided is a matter of biology. In 2014, I looked into the life and case of Eisha Love, a woman who was still awaiting trial in the men’s division of Chicago’s notorious supermax prison. Winner of the Lisagor Award for Excellence in Journalism.
Transgender woman released from jail after nearly 4 years without trial
After spending nearly four years without a trial in Chicago’s Supermax detention facility, Eisha Love caught a break. A top criminal defense lawyer, Daniel Coyne, read about her case and offered to take her case pro bono. The justice system was suddenly moving alot faster and Eisha was free. However Coyne believes there are questions that must be answered by Chicago police on behalf of two murdered individuals whose cases remain unsolved.