Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson headed to Washington, D.C., on Wednesday to speak at the National Press Club luncheon.

The mayor plans to talk about the challenges of leading Chicago this past year, and what city officials learned about resisting federal overreach and responding to federal immigration raids in the city.

“I’m obviously very much still concerned about the private, masked, terrorizing police force that the Trump administration continues to sic on working people across this country,” said Mayor Johnson said Tuesday. “It’s why I’ve used every single tool available that’s available to me, and many mayors have looked to those tools that we’ve used, whether it’s through the ICE-free zones, and even the litigation around ICE-free zones, so that we can strengthen and codify our ability to enforce it.”

Mayor Johnson said the next step has to be “real organized resistance, as what we saw organized and prepared during the Civil Rights Movement.”

“We cannot just simply leave it to protests that just react to the egregious and the harmful and deadly actions coming from the Trump administration,” Johnson said.

Johnson is in Washington to attend the U.S. Conference of Mayors.

Meanwhile, Mayor Johnson also said he is extremely proud of how Chicago handled the 2024 Democratic National Convention. But he is concerned that if the city were awarded the 2028 convention, it would not receive the federal help needed for security for the event.

“You know, the Democratic National Convention would take place at a time in which the Trump administration will still be in charge, and what we’ve seen in cities across America — and more recently Minneapolis — that to turn over our security to the Trump administration, it’s not just me,” said Johnson. “There are a number of us that have profound concerns about that.”

In 2024, Chicago received a $75 million grant from the federal government for security costs.

Atlanta, Boston, Denver, Las Vegas, and San Antonio are also believed to be bidding to host the political convention in 2028.

WASHINGTON (7News) — A grieving mother from Kentucky is suing Washington, D.C., to uncover the truth about her son’s sudden death.

Was it preventable? Did 911 operators make a mistake?

Those are the questions she’s desperate to answer, but her attempt to access the city’s emergency calls has been denied.

“It’s a struggle to keep moving forward and be a part of the world,” Stephanie Clemans, holding back tears, said during a Tuesday press conference.

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William Ostertag, known by friends and family as Will, was 28 when he was working in his apartment’s gym on November 3, 2024. He lived at the Allegro Apartments in Columbia Heights in Northwest, D.C.

Suddenly, he went into cardiac arrest and collapsed.

“I’m his mom, and I wasn’t there, and I want to know what happened,” Clemans said.

What she does know is that Will lived right next door to a D.C. Fire and EMS firehouse where paramedics could’ve come to his aid almost immediately.

Yet, according to the lawsuit below, it took them nine minutes.

By then, it was too late. Will had already lost oxygen to his brain and died 11 days later.

“My son was living, making plans, and successfully navigating adulthood. I am so completely proud of him,” Clemans said.

So what happened in those critical moments before his death?

Well, Clemans obtained a written timeline from the 911 dispatch system that shows dispatchers misclassified the original response as a “seizure”, sending an ambulance not equipped with the drugs on board that Will needed for a cardiac arrest.

But the Office of Unified Communications (OUC) has denied her requests for the 911 calls, falling back on their policy of only releasing 911 audio to the original caller.

“My nightmare is that my vibrant, very much alive son died, and people with power are saying to me that I do not have the right to hear what was happening as he lay on the ground,” Clemans said.

Kevin Bell, her lawyer and a partner at the Freedom Information Group, says her Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request appeal was also denied by Mayor Muriel Bowser’s Office of Legal Counsel. A decision, he urges them to reconsider.

“I believe, looking at this case, that this is a pretext to attempt to avoid producing records, which are potentially embarrassing to the department and which would provide information that might reflect negatively on the performance of their statutory duties… I believe that this is an instance where government can do the right thing. They can release the information that’s been requested.”

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Will grew up in Louisville, Kentucky, and had a little brother.

He lived in D.C. for three years, working for the federal government. He’d just applied for several MBA programs. He lived a full life, suddenly cut short, with a mom determined to get answers about his death.

“This audio recording will help me understand the end of my son‘s life, and it is necessary for me to have it,” Clemans said.

Clemans is scheduled to testify as a public witness in Wednesday’s D.C. Council Performance Oversight Hearing on OUC virtually at 9:30 a.m.

7News reached out to OUC and the Mayor’s Office for a comment on the lawsuit ahead of Cleman’s testimony.

As of this report, we have not heard back.

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