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Burdened with a weak property tax base, Robbins can't afford to pay its officers a competitive salary and often has to settle for cops recently fired by other departments. (Credit: Casey Toner/Illinois Answers Project)
Burdened with a weak property tax base, Robbins can't afford to pay its officers a competitive salary and often has to settle for cops recently fired by other departments. (Credit: Casey Toner/Illinois Answers Project)

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Casey Toner, a Chicago native, has been an Illinois Answers reporter since 2016, taking the lead on numerous projects about criminal justice and politics. His series on police shootings in suburban Cook County resulted in a state law requiring procedural investigations of all police shootings in Illinois. Before he joined Illinois Answers, he wrote for the Daily Southtown and was a statewide reporter for Alabama Media Group, a consortium of Alabama newspapers. Outside of work, he enjoys watching soccer and writing music.