Unforced Error

This is a  badly timed "whoops" for sure:

• A lawyer for Dexter Reed’s family is calling for Chicago’s police oversight agency to release a report that largely clears a group of tactical officers of wrongdoing in connection to the 2024 shootout that claimed Reed’s life.

Why do we say "badly timed"?

• The report by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability remains under wraps as the Chicago Police Department reviews the findings. That means police Supt. Larry Snelling could still challenge COPA’s conclusions.

Why would Larritorious challenge the findings?

• [Officer X] was among three officers who continued firing after Reed had exited his SUV and fallen to the ground. [Officer X], who was the last officer to stop shooting, fired a total of 34 rounds and reloaded his weapon during the exchange of gunfire, according to a report by the state’s attorney’s office.

  Over the weekend, [Officer X] was named in a police report after allegedly threatening to beat up a detective at a Norwood Park bar. A police spokesperson said he remains on active duty.

Gee, could Larritorious could use this as cover to get rid of at least one potential problem child?

It's not like it hasn't been done before.

A couple times that we know of.

Even for people that were RDO when the shit hit the fan.

And then the City dragged out the appeals and lawsuits for two, three, even more years.

(don't post the names in the comments - go read the links if you want) 

You (Still) Don't Hate the Media Enough

This was a headline:

You mean....the president promised a crackdown on crime, delivered (even Conehead admited it) and this reliably left wing site wonders why crime is falling? 

It's a mystery. 

Maybe it was the Car?

Carjacking up north....and then it got interesting:

• A 22-year-old man was murdered during a carjacking in Boystown early Wednesday morning, and less than an hour later, a second man was found dead next to the stolen vehicle on the city’s South Side, according to Chicago police and law enforcement sources. Detectives are now investigating whether the second dead man was one of the carjackers.

  It all began around 3:59 a.m. in the 700 block of West Waveland Avenue, where two men were sitting inside a 2014 Hyundai Sonata, according to police. Two male carjackers approached the vehicle, displayed guns, and demanded the victims’ vehicle and belongings before opening fire, police said.

  They shot one of the victims, a 22-year-old man, and drove away with his car. The other victim, 38, was not injured. Officers applied chest seals and administered CPR to the younger victim, but he was pronounced dead at Illinois Masonic Hospital, police said. A bullet had apparently struck him directly in the heart.

  Shortly after 4 a.m., a Chicago Police Department license plate reader detected the hijacked car traveling in the 100 block of West 31st Street, according to police.

  Then, at 4:50 a.m., a passerby discovered a man lying unresponsive in the middle of the 3700 block of South Lake Park Avenue in Oakland, police said. The man, who had a gunshot wound to his head, was lying next to the Hyundai that had been hijacked in Boystown, according to a source. The car’s doors were open, and its blinker was on.

It may have been one of the carjackers, perhaps a falling out among thieves?

This is the stuff we miss. 

Illinois Jobs Improve?

Nationally, the January jobs were double expectations, so obviously the economy is turning around.

Illinois lags behind (as usual) but shows "improvement for the first time in TWENTY-FIVE months, so that's a good thing, right?

Not exactly:

• Chicago businesses expanded in January for the first time in 25 months, according to the Chicago Business Barometer. Chicago had a score of 54.0 for the month, up from 43.5 the previous month. A score below 50 indicates decline.

  The rebound in overall activity was driven by an increase in employment, which rose 17.5 points from December’s score, the lowest since 2009.

But (there's always a "but"), guess where the growth was?

• Almost all of the Chicago area’s job gains from November 2024 to November 2025 were in government with 19,800 and education and health services with 21,200. Professional and business services lost 11,200 jobs, and trade, transportation, and utilities lost 10,000.

So government grew. And how does the government pay for growth?

• increasing taxes

And what's still shrinking in Illinois?

• population

Meaning more taxes on the fewer remaining.

Nationally, the federal government cut over 42,000 jobs while Illinois added almost half that number to their payroll. This is not a sustainable model. We need to shrink state and local government. 

Exodus Slows?

According to one moving company, it looks like everyone who could afford to leave has exited:

• United Van Lines said Illinois dropped on its list of states ranked by residents packing up and moving out – the first time in a decade Illinois didn’t take one of its top spots.

From first place to ninth.

Other moving companies tell a different story:

• Other moving companies and the U.S. Census reported different results.

  Atlas Van Lines found 54% of its clients were moving out of Illinois rather than in during 2025. Allied Van Lines showed a 58% outbound rate for 2025, ranking Illinois No. 1 for losing people. Census estimates showed over 40,000 Illinoisans leaving for the year ending June 2025, with 82,900 leaving in 2024 – 95% for lower-tax states.

  The United Van Lines study ranks the percentage of those moving out versus those moving in. Illinois was considered “balanced” in 2025, meaning there wasn’t a big gap between inbound and outbound moves.

  Of everyone moving in or out of Illinois, less than 55% were moving out, according to the study. Just a year ago, nearly 60% of Illinois moves were people leaving the state, the second-highest rate behind New Jersey.

Maybe Atlas is just cheaper?

"Trust Us!"

The check is in the mail....we swear!

• Top mayoral aides assured the City Council on Monday that the full $260 million advance pension payment will be made, and that Mayor Brandon Johnson’s decision to make that payment in two installments to ease a cash flow crunch will not trigger another costly reduction in Chicago’s bond rating.

  A financial brain trust that included Budget Director Annette Guzman, Comptroller Michael Belsky and interim Chief Financial Officer Steve Mahr cited several reasons for Johnson’s decision to cut the initial payment in half. Chief among them are the delayed property tax payments from Cook County tied to the long-stalled computerized overhaul of that system by Tyler Technologies.

  Chicago’s share of those payments from Cook County have been trickling in slowly and are still roughly $135 million behind. Property tax payments to all four city employee pension funds were also delayed. That forced the city to make advance payments to those funds — to prevent them from losing investment income down the road — by selling off assets to meet obligations.

Investment 101 - selling assets to meet obligations is a HUGE no-no, because now the asset is gone. Not only is it gone, but (given the recent history and current market projections) it's going to cost significantly MORE to buy back that asset...or different assets.

Also, breaking up the payment only works if you don't spend the half withheld on some other boondoggle. Do we have that guarantee? Conehead already raided the TIF "surplus" to the tune of a billion dollars exclusively for the CTU, while the firefighters are owed something like four years back pay and the CPD white shirts have an outstanding VRI payment (ordered by the courts) dating back nearly a decade.

We can see exactly how this idiot didn't pay his water bill for years. 

Grow Up, Sober Up

This is dumb:

• One of the Chicago police officers who fatally shot Dexter Reed during a traffic stop in 2024 has now been accused of threatening to beat up a fellow cop at a Norwood Park bar over the weekend.

  [...]

  Police said the threats stemmed from a “previous incident” at the bar about a week earlier, and the detective who was accosted was listed as the victim in the report.

Oh, and it's ongoing from a "previous incident"?

If this is over a woman, we're going to need to raise the specters of Academy Instructors long since passed to beat some sense into these idiots....all of them.

Conehead Doesn't Want Money?

And Bally's is the reason?

• The $16.6 billion budget approved by a City Council majority last December lifted the ban on video gambling in Chicago, but Mayor Brandon Johnson has yet to pursue licensing approval from the Illinois Gaming Board.

  Convinced that Johnson is buying time in order to pursue a repeal of the Council’s lifting of the ban, Ald. Anthony Beale (9th) is taking matters into his own hands.

  Beale is sending a letter Wednesday to the Illinois Gaming Board meant to serve as official notification that City Hall has lifted the video gambling ban, and that acceptance of license applications for video gambling can begin. The letter is co-signed by at least 15 other Council members, and is accompanied by a certified copy of the revenue ordinance that counts on collecting $6.8 million this year by licensing newly legalized video gambling terminals at bars, restaurants, theaters and bowling alleys across the city.

And why isn't the broke-ass Conehead allowing licensing to proceed?

• Bally’s has warned that lifting the Chicago ban on video gambling terminals would cost the city $74 million in annual revenue and as many as 1,050 jobs at its temporary and permanent casinos.

  That’s because it would force the Johnson administration to renegotiate “critical elements” of its host agreement with Bally’s, and wipe out a yearly $4 million lump-sum payment from the company and shrink the jackpot needed to save police and fire pension funds.

Correct us if we're wrong, but Bally's hasn't hit a single one of their revenue "projections" at their temporary casino yet. And they're over a year behind in building the actual casino (which is probably twenty years behind what should have been decades of revenue).

And we're pretty sure that the video gambling going on at Bally's won't be in conflict with the video gaming going on at bars, (most) restaurants, theaters or bowling alleys. Ballys' is catering to the tourist and convention people - most of those other locations are in the neighborhoods where tourists aren't.

We don't like relying solely on gambling to fund the pensions, but it's a revenue stream to be exploited. 

Exploit it already. 

FBI Wiretap Revisited

Someone was asking about the "Fata$$ on the FBI wiretap" recordings. 

Here it is, provided by Bruce Rauner during the campaign:

This was the one helpfully taken down by the feebs right before Blago and Fata$$ started discussing someone else as a participant in the selling of the Senate seat.

::cough cough president-elect Sparklefarts cough cough::

You'd think this would have keep Fata$$ from winning, but it didn't. 

Maybe it will keep him out of Washington DC? 

More Minnesota Nonsense

Remember, ICE is racist.

Also, in Minnesota a couple days ago:

• Twitter link - WARNING: NSFW

Have your ear-buds in or keep the volume down. This isn't one you want playing out loud.

These are the leftist protestors. 

Dems Love Criminals

What is it with democrat politicians posing with murderers?

• A conservative watchdog group is suing the office of Gov. JB Pritzker, accusing the administration of unlawfully withholding public records tied to a photograph showing the governor posing with a “peacekeeper” just days before he was allegedly involved in a deadly Michigan Avenue smash-and-grab robbery.

  CWB Chicago was the first outlet to report that Kellen McMiller, a man wanted in four states, posed with the governor in Englewood days before the fatal incident. The reporting highlighted a photograph from the event that the governor’s office scrubbed from its website after McMiller was arrested on the murder charge.

  Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit last month in Sangamon County Circuit Court, seeking a judge’s order compelling the governor’s office to release photographs, communications, and vetting records related to McMiller’s appearance with Pritzker on September 5.

CWB helpfully kept (and posted) the picture Porkulous wants hidden:

 

Turban Durbin is another one who posed with a killer who later fled the country:

 

We think he's still at large from around four years ago. 

That Had to be Painful

Well well well:

• Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson pushed back on President Donald Trump’s claims that federal actions made the city safer, but acknowledged that there has been a significant reduction in homicides.

  Johnson made the remarks during an appearance on MSNOW’s “The Weekend,” where he was asked whether Trump was correct in saying his actions improved public safety in Chicago. 

  “He is not,” Johnson replied, accusing Trump of increasing “instability” in the country. “Where ICE and federal agents were present, we actually saw an increase in violence. In other words, the tension and the chaos that federal agents bring to cities in America, it actually is counter-productive,” he claimed.

Yeah, engineered and directed violence. But....:

• However, Johnson then acknowledged a sharp decline in violent crime. “Yes, we saw a 30 percent reduction in homicides, shooting, shooting victims, all down,” he said.

Removing the criminal element from the streets, whether home grown or illegally imported, reduces crime. Is that so hard to admit?

Where the Money Went

There's a social media account on X / Twitter named SubX News (or similar).  They were posting reports from someone who was taking pictures of snowed in bike lanes that weren't plowed, calling in to City Hall, and then posting more pictures of some specialty plow dumping the snow wither into traffic or onto nearby sidewalks. 

The one set we saw was mildly amusing and demonstrated what we had written about a number of years ago - that taking out an entire lane of traffic along with hundreds of parking spots was short-sighted in the extreme. Nearby businesses were denied thousands of customers and the City ended up cutting their own tax revenues in the end.

We had to go qualify last year at the Area 3 range and Belmont is a disaster from end to end, especially if a bus is there or God forbid, an ambulance has to try to force their way through.

The cost for these things was something around a quarter-million per city block, money that could have gone to balancing the budget, paying off debt, funding the pensions. This one isn't Conehead's fault but it's amazing how much money was wasted over the years for nonsense that continues to cost the City revenue.

Explain?

We've got explanations galore:

• Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling must explain why the number of times police officers used force against individuals has significantly increased since 2022, and detail what he is doing to reverse that trend, according to a measure approved by Chicago’s police oversight board.

  Snelling, who took over CPD in September 2023 after being appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson and unanimously confirmed by the Chicago City Council, must also explain why the number of times officers pointed their guns at individuals increased 44% between 2022 and 2024, according to one of the goals unanimously set for Snelling to achieve in 2026 by the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability during its meeting on Jan. 29.

  “It is imperative that CPD provide community members with an understanding and explanation of why these increases have been occurring and what, if anything, the department is doing to identify and address any trends,” according to the goals set by the commission, which has the power to set CPD policy and is responsible for evaluating Snelling’s performance.

Gee, maybe we're seeing the culmination of years of telling people to resist the police? Resist federal officers? That there's some sort of "right" to become physical in their efforts to protest? That they can fight and/or flee from the police with zero consequences thanks to Crimesha's years of not prosecuting the Law as written and passed by the Legislature?

Hmmmm? 

Conehead "Finds" More Money

A couple of days ago, we noted that Conehead was scraping up $50 million to buy the old Greyhound bus station.

 Now we find out he's stumbled into another $46.2 million for "neighborhood fix-ups:"

• Mayor Brandon Johnson kicked off Friday by touting a fresh $46.2 million in federal cash for 40 neighborhood projects across Chicago, covering everything from park upgrades to lead-service-line replacement. He is pitching the haul as targeted spending on public safety, housing and basic city services that will touch schools, transit hubs and shelter sites, all while City Hall keeps working on a broader infrastructure and budget agenda for 2026.

But the most pressing issue that needs "fixing up" would be the Pension Fund that he shorted 50% of the required payment.

Retiree IROCC Info

This appeared in the comments and in a few emails that seem to be going around:

• The communist State of Illinois will be trying to take away retirees right to carry a firearm. Read the article below on page 4 of the FEBRUARY 2026 Retired CPD Newsletter below.
  
  ALSO, there is a NEW DATABASE (see below) where you can look yourself up to see if you are still certified as a law enforcement officer. If you are de-certified, you can not carry a weapon as a retiree. Thank Pritzker.
  
  https://www.retiredchicagopoliceassoc.com/News.html
  
  https://www.ptb.illinois.gov/resources/officer-lookup/

The first link goes to the catalogue of Retiree Newsletters and the February issue seems to address some of this. It seems that the Illinois Law Enforcement Training and Standards Board can revoke your "retired in good standing" status for pretty much anything job related going back years - sustained CR numbers, Use of Force complaints, allegations of Domestics, etc. 

They can also revoke it for anything post-employment, including misdemeanor-type allegations.

The newsletter says that Lodge 7 is attempting some legislative maneuvers in Springfield, but no progress is listed.

Well, Golly Gee

Everyone is jumping on the "crime is falling!" bandwagon, but nobody seems to be pointing out the biggest and most obvious factor.

The Illinois Policy website touches on it:

• Violent crime in Chicago fell to more than a decade low in 2025, declining across nearly 9-in-10 neighborhoods as arrests rates continued to rise. Total crime in the city fell from 257,558 in 2024 to 235,338 in 2025, marking two consecutive years of decline, Chicago Police Department data showed. Violent crimes dropped from a peak of nearly 30,000 in 2023 to 22,760 last year – the fewest attacks reported in over a decade.

Okay....and?

• Nearly all categories of violent crime declined in 2025, with homicides, robberies and aggravated batteries falling to a decade low. Only criminal sexual assault increased, rising to a decade high. This follows a general trend seen in U.S. cities nationwide, with most cities also reporting a steep drop in homicides and other forms of violent crime compared to 2024, according to the Council on Criminal Justice.

Yes....lots of helpful charts and such at the link....but? 

• As crime fell citywide, arrests rate for total and violent crime rose. The arrest rate for total crime climbed from 13.8% to 15.8%. The arrest rate for violent crime also increased to 17.9%, the highest level since the pandemic.

And there it is!

We guess, contrary to what democrats have been telling us for years, you CAN arrest your way out of a crime situation. Increased enforcement numbers, successful prosecutions AND prison time contribute mightily to falling crime rates.

That and deporting tens of thousands of ILLEGAL ALIEN criminals, too. 

'Stray Voltage' in Action?

Politically, when you want to really launch a devastating attack on an opponent, you don't usually do it yourself - you have someone do it for you, usually via leaked documents or studies or phone calls. Then you have the "media" run with the story, distracting from the main event while subtly planting alternative solutions or ideas in the public realm that otherwise would have been too uncomfortable to address.

It's a common Chicago Machine tool. Entire political careers have been built and run using it. Rahm used it during the Clinton administration and later with Sparklefarts. Axelrod was another expert. Sparklefarts himself became rather adept at it, trolling the GOP to great effect. 

We may have just seen O'Neill-Burke use it against Conehead via a subordinate:

• Mayor Brandon Johnson’s executive order targeting federal immigration agents for prosecution faced a devastating critique Friday from the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office, which warned the mayor’s plan could sabotage criminal cases and inject politics into law enforcement decisions.

  In a two-page memo to staff, Yvette Loizon, Chief Assistant State’s Attorney for Policy and External Affairs, systematically dismantled key provisions of Johnson’s order, calling parts of it “wholly inappropriate” and warning it “jeopardizes our ability to effectively prosecute and secure convictions when federal agents have committed a crime.”

  The extraordinary rebuke came days after State’s Attorney Eileen O’Neill Burke publicly disputed Johnson’s claim that he “worked closely” with her office in drafting the order. Burke called the mayor’s assertion “not true” in an unusual social media statement posted within hours of Johnson’s announcement last weekend.

  Johnson’s office fired back, claiming it had “reviewed the language with the State’s Attorney’s Chief of Policy and made edits based on their feedback.” Friday’s memo raises questions about what edits, if any, were actually made.

  Loizon’s memo acknowledged that Burke “is deeply concerned” about immigration agents “who have been wreaking havoc in communities across the country and in our own neighborhoods.” She noted that Burke takes prosecution of criminal conduct by law enforcement seriously, but warned that “if a federal law enforcement agent commits a crime while on-duty, state and federal law limits the CCSAO’s ability to prosecute and secure a conviction, except in very narrow circumstances.”

  According to the memo, “The Mayor’s recent Executive Order introduces additional hurdles” to prosecution.

  The state’s attorney’s office identified a critical flaw in Johnson’s directive that the Chicago Police Department collect evidence of crimes by federal agents and refer those matters for prosecution “at the direction of the Mayor’s Office.”

  Loizon wrote that the mayor’s office is not part of the criminal charging process, and by inserting himself into the mix, Johnson taints a process that is supposed to be non-political. Anyone in the mayor’s office involved in reviewing evidence or making charging decisions would almost certainly find themselves called as witnesses by defense attorneys, she wrote.

We apologize for stealing such a huge chunk from CWB's reporting, but we wanted to convey the awesomeness of this rip job on Conehead. 

This is interesting on a number of levels. Remember, all democrats must support ILLEGAL ALIENS over US citizens and reflexively oppose everything Trump does. Conehead is following the script that has been placed in front of him - he's not smart enough to do anything else.

O'Neill-Burke wasn't Prickwrinkle choice for States Attorney. But Conehead had Prickwrinkle's backing for mayor along with the CTU money. And here's one of O'Neill-Burke's top people publicly roasting Conehead's position, publicly and meticulously and mercilessly, tying it into future Cook County court failures.

Prickwrinkle's Machine might have a flat tire....and it might be Conehead.

Conehead Corpses Stacking Up

After near record cold days in January, the mayor's people are touting a "continuing drop" in crime. We've warned about crime being cyclical and trends should only be cited in a year-over-year manner so as to avoid the usual surges.

And these still amuse us:

• A man was found shot to death on a front porch in Roseland early Friday morning, Chicago police said, but it was not immediately clear when he was slain because nobody reported gunfire in the area, and the mayor disconnected the city’s ShotSpotter network nearly 17 months ago without having a plan for replacing the gunfire detection system.

  At about 4:34 a.m., a 911 caller reported that a man she did not know was lying on her porch in the 200 block of West 108th Street. CPD dispatched officers to check it out and, about 10 minutes after receiving the call, they found the man had suffered a gunshot wound. The officers summoned EMS to the scene, but the 29-year-old, who had a gunshot wound to the left flank, was pronounced dead.

  Investigators later determined that the victim had been outside when a red truck rolled up and someone inside the vehicle shot at the man around 4:29 a.m., about five minutes before the 911 caller reported a stranger on their porch, according to a CPD statement. The victim ran to the porch and collapsed.

One really has to wonder how many of these people (or folks) would have been saved had ShotSpotter still been active.

The truly twisted and cynical probably wonder if society would have benefited from them being saved at all. 

Something Odd Here

Some questions on this one:

• Two teenagers are accused of hiding in a downtown Chicago Macy's store after it closed before stealing merchandise. The two suspect have been charged with burglary, officials said.

  The Cook County Sheriff's Department says it happened Monday night at the Macy's on State Street in the Loop. Two people could be seen on surveillance video emerging from inside the store, stealing sunglasses, cologne and clothing before leaving, officials said.

  The sheriff's department says the pair had even drawn a map of the store. 

First, why is the Sheriff's office investigating a property crime on Michigan Avenue?

Second, get a load of this map: 

The scaling is off (obviously) and the spelling leads us to believe these were CPS students.

But the penmanship is actually far better than anything we've seen from CPS students. And the actual planning....with a timetable - did anyone think kids today know how to tell time? Or make a map for that matter?

And More Taxes

Did everyone with a brain warn about this?

• IL Mileage tracker tax is back. An Illinois Democrat legislator is proposing a 1.5 cent per mile tax.
  
  
  The measure would establish a new Road Usage Charge Program. The per mile charge would require tracking devices to be installed in vehicles.
  
  
  In 2026, the proposal is a little different from the tracker legislation that was proposed in 2025.
  
  
  Senate Bill 3566 manates the new tax would only be applied only to EV vehicles for now, it would give drivers the option to pay 1.5 cents per mile, or an annual fee of $320 to the state. That fee would be charged on top of Illinois’ standard vehicle registration cost, which is currently $151, meaning EV owners would pay at least $471 per year under today’s rates.
  
  
  State Sen. Ram Villivalam (D‑Chicago) , the same individual who promoted the tracking legislation in 2025, is the same legislator who is proposing this initiative.

And guess what?

• Effective in 2028, the cost per mile would increase

Of course it will.

So the big push for electric vehicles (which are far more expensive than Internal Combustion Engine cars) was to "save" you gas costs and the environment.

But Illinois (and most other states) rely on gas taxes to fund budgets, and it's an easy way to add a penny or two per gallon that people won't notice as much (Illinois gas taxes are among the highest in the nation). Now, as budget holes grow larger, that "wallet-friendly" EV is going to cost you over $320 this year and more every year after that, rendering the "savings" pointless. And that's not even counting the electricity shortages as Fata$$ closes coal and gas plants, nuclear reactors reach the end of their functional lifespans, and these giant data centers gobble up the increasingly rare (and costly) electricity that remains.

More Taxes!

Nickel and diming the citizenry to death:

• Shoppers across Illinois could soon face new checkout fees for every bag they use under legislation proposed by Chicago-area State Representative Laura Faver Dias (D). The bill, known as HB5112, would require all retail and grocery stores in the state to charge customers a fee for every carryout bag—whether plastic, paper, or reusable—starting in 2027.

  The measure is designed to curb waste and encourage the use of reusable bags by incrementally raising the fee each year. According to the legislation, the fee schedule would start at 10 cents per bag in 2027, rising to 15 cents in 2028, 20 cents in 2029, and 25 cents in 2030. After 2030, the fee would increase by five cents annually until consumers stop using grocery bags altogether.

  Bag Fee Schedule:

  Year Fee per Bag
  2027 $0.10
  2028 $0.15
  2029 $0.20
  2030 $0.25
  2031+ Increases by $0.05 per year

  The money raised from the bag tax would be collected by the Illinois Department of Revenue and sent to Springfield. Retailers will be required to itemize the fee on customers’ receipts, ensuring transparency at checkout. The proposal also includes enforcement measures, with fines of up to $1,000 for stores that fail to comply with the law.

  Notably, the legislation goes further for home delivery shoppers: Under HB5112, Illinoisans who use home grocery delivery would be banned from receiving their groceries in bags.

We stopped using the store bags years ago when we got a bunch of tyvek and canvas bags that have lasted years, ten or more now. Are they going to try charging us for using those? Because we'll move to cardboard boxes and laundry baskets to avoid giving these people a single dime.

Shooting

No hits, no runs, no errors:

• Chicago police officers responding to reports of an auto theft in progress exchanged gunfire with a suspect Thursday morning in the South Chicago neighborhood, according to preliminary police information. No injuries from gunfire were reported, though police said a firearm was recovered at the scene.

  At about 11:32 a.m., officers were dispatched to the 8000 block of South Crandon Avenue for a report of three males attempting to steal a vehicle, according to CPD police radio transmission. Officers arriving in the area located the suspects in a nearby alley.

  The police engaged the suspects, quickly reported shots fired, and declared a “10-1” police emergency. Gunfire could be heard in the background of radio transmissions from the scene as officers relayed updates to dispatchers.

CWB has audio of the radio traffic at the link up top....and we couldn't make heads of tails of it. Hats off to the dispatcher for interpreting the transmissions and getting assist units rolling. 

More Shootings

The weather hasn't even broken yet and February has gotten stupid:

• A brazen daylight shooting in the Auburn Gresham neighborhood left a woman dead and a man wounded after three gunmen opened fire on their vehicle Wednesday afternoon, Chicago police said.

  The attack occurred around 1:25 p.m. in the 7900 block of South May Street when three gunmen dressed in black clothing emerged from a red car and rushed toward the victims’ vehicle, according to video footage captured by a passing motorist. The video, shared online by Chicago Critter, shows the gunmen firing round after round from three guns at the victim’s vehicle, which had crashed into a van.

  After the initial barrage, the suspects returned to their getaway car. But the video shows the driver stopping near the crashed car to allow the gunmen to fire additional shots at the victims.

That Chicago Critter link appears to be dead at the moment, but the video is out there.

This is the second woman killed this week accompanied by a child, the first being over at UIC.

But don't forget - generate unneeded useless reports about ICE enforcing Federal Law regarding ILLEGAL ALIENS in the United States.

Question: if no one is illegal on stolen land, why are we all paying property taxes? We won't even spend the money on some appeal to make a lawyer rich - we'll just find a native American and slip him $100 in back rent.

Chicago is Broke!

So why are they spending money like this?

• The city could soon be operating its first intercity bus terminal with strong Chicago branding — if everything goes according to plan.

  The city has taken the first step toward getting money to buy and rehab the Greyhound bus station at 630 W. Harrison St. That’s after Mayor Brandon Johnson’s contentious 2026 budget process, during which Ald. Bill Conway (34th) surprisingly discovered $50 million in line item funding for the project.

  The Department of Planning and Development held a public meeting last week on expanding the Canal/Congress tax increment financing district to include the Greyhound station. That meeting was required to move forward with allowing TIF money to be used to buy the property.

How many other mysterious "line item finding" surprises are there in the Chicago budget? We're guessing hundreds, not quite misappropriated, but spent in such a manner as to be disguised and difficult to locate for the casual observer.

The Chicago budget runs to hundreds upon hundreds of pages, mostly in small print, obfuscated in all sorts of legal jargon and government language meant to conceal spending on unneeded, redundant, politically toxic programs that wouldn't pass by voters - except voters have been lied to, dumbed down, guilt-tripped, or driven away from oversight by making the process tedious and mind numbing. 

The running gag used to be to write the spending bills like stereo instructions, the most boring manual ever created. It's a joke, but nowadays, as the money runs out, no one is laughing.

Deport Faster

Another ILLEGAL ALIEN was given a drivers license in Pennsylvania and may have been working for an Illinois company when he killed four Americans in Indiana:

• The driver of a semi-truck at the center of a multi-vehicle crash that left four dead in Indiana is in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody after a detainer was placed on him.

  Indiana State Police said the fatal crash happened Tuesday around 4 p.m. in the area of State Road 67 and County Road 550 East in Jay County, where the truck collided with a van. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) told Fox News that driver Bekzhan Beishekeev is a Kyrgyzstani national who entered the U.S. via the Biden-era CBP One cell phone app on Dec. 19, 2024, at the Nogales, Ariz., port of entry, and he was released into the U.S. via parole by the Biden administration.

  Beishekeev, 30, was reportedly driving on SR 67 in Indiana when he didn’t stop for another slowed semi-truck, swerving instead into oncoming traffic and crashing head-on into a van, killing four people, several of whom were reportedly Amish.

Porkulous immediately offered him sanctuary, called Indiana authorities nazis and threatened to block access to ICE facilities where the criminal was being held.

This is who democrat wants in the country. 

As Suspected....

Those Police District Councils are simply money laundering operations for political whores:

• The chairman of the police council tasked with improving policing in some of Chicago’s most violence-plagued neighborhoods has not shown up for work or responded to emails or phone calls in nearly a year, but he continues to collect his city paycheck, according to city officials and his fellow council members.

  David Boykin, the elected chair of the 6th District Council, has not attended a single council meeting since April 2025 and has not responded to communications from his colleagues, according to Aisha Humphries and Ciera Whitaker, the two other members of the three-person council.

This is at the low end of political graft, a mere $500 per month, not like those Somali health care swindles going on for multi-billions of dollars in Minnesota or the lesser lucrative here in Illinois for a single billion of so.

But it adds up. 

Third Time Not the Charm

A lawyer representing himself is said to have a fool for a client....but this guy is 3-and-0:

• As an amateur lawyer, Robert Ellis is now three-for-three in courthouse victories.

  Last week, a Cook County judge found the 67-year-old Englewood man not guilty of a felony charge of impersonating a police officer. It was the third such case filed since 2018 in which Ellis has prevailed after representing himself legally.

  [...] Ellis was arrested twice in the 1990s for felony police impersonation and convicted of both offenses, along with arson in 1997.

His "department" is a joke:

• He was appointed by Pembroke Township officials, even though the community of 2,000 people in rural Kankakee County had never put any officers through full police training, didn’t have a police station — or squad cars — or a budget.

So he goes out and buys a badge somewhere - in this case a "Beta United States Railroad Corporation and Police Department" badge and passes himself off as a cop.

Where are his e-learning records? Has he done Consent Decree training? Is there a list of awards and certifications he's gone through? How can he call himself an officer without any of these qualifications? 

Digging Deeper

Making excuses for his ignorance:

• Mayor Brandon Johnson Tuesday defended his decision to order Chicago police officers to document alleged abuses by federal immigration agents for potential felony prosecution after the county’s top prosecutor questioned his plan’s “legality.”

  Johnson said the executive order he outlined last weekend is “not something we thought we would have to do as a local municipality.”

And it still isn't. It's a waste of police resources for something that has already been decided on multiple occasions by Federal courts and the actual US Constitution.

Maybe concentrate on why four homicides occurred in the 012th District on Tuesday? We remember years when four homicides covered four or five months in 012. Of course, we also remember when four homicides was a normal day in other places. 

He also middled the States Attorney:

• He noted that O’Neill Burke has “said publicly that she is prepared to prosecute federal agents,” but hasn’t had evidence presented to her office. That’s why he’s trying to create a clearer pathway for accountability.

She said her office doesn't conduct independent investigations, which is kind of different - it puts the onus squarely on Conehead's not having any jurisdiction over federal actions.

Learn to Code

One of the larger and more famous media outlets is circling the drain....one foot in the grave as it were:

• The Washington Post announced on Wednesday that it is laying off hundreds of its employees, which marks one of the newspaper’s deepest workforce cuts in its history.

  This development is part of a broader trend as legacy media outlets are rapidly losing viewers and readers.

  [...] The layoffs are expected to affect hundreds of journalists across multiple departments, including local news and international issues, according to The New York Times. The daily “Post Reports” podcast is shutting down, as well as the Metro section, which covers Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. 

Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos bought the paper years ago and it's lost money ever since, hundreds of millions of dollars. Libtarded newspapers are a dying enterprise - we've seen it here with both the Fibune and the Slum Times, the latter operating as a non-profit for business and a charity case for otherwise unemployable hacks. 

We keep hoping this is the year that the Slum times will go under. The paper keeps getting smaller and smaller while ad revenues plummet. They're doing at least as badly as the Washington Post and there isn't a billionaire looking to bail them out.

A Shaky Start

Barely a day went by since we wrote what (we thought) was a pretty tame article about the new head of COPA and the retired sergeant popped into our comment section about his mostly positive experience working with her.

And then, the wheels fell off:

• The Chicago City Council will vote Feb. 18 on a proposal that would allow the Civilian Office of Police Accountability to investigate whether CPD officers have violated city law by helping federal immigration agents.

  COPA’s newly appointed chief administrator, LaKenya White, told a joint session of the Immigrant and Refugee Rights and Police and Fire Committees last week that her office is prepared to investigate 40 complaints filed against the Chicago Police Department over its interactions with federal agents since June.

  Chicago’s Welcoming City Ordinance prohibits all city employees from helping federal agents enforce immigration laws in nearly all cases.

  Elected officials, residents and immigrant rights advocates have said they repeatedly witnessed CPD actively helping ICE agents detain dozens by clearing the way for agents to make arrests by blocking streets, protecting ICE vehicles and “escorting” ICE agents to their destinations.

Do you know what one of the complaints is?

• a CPD supervisor shaking hands with the head of ICE on the scene where he showed up....you know, being polite and professional, introducing himself as the CPD person in charge to the Federal person in charge.

That's it. Also, keeping the streets clear and passable is a function of the CPD. So is making sure protestors abide by the Law, as in "not blocking streets." 

Ms. White is walking a fine line here. Doing what is required to maintain peace and order is NOT assisting ICE, but standing down like the police in Minnesota are doing only abets disorder....which is what democrats want.

Tread carefully. 

One-a-Day Catchup

HeyJackass.com notes that Chicago finished January with thirty-one homicides - one per day. Second best over the last dozen years or so. 

And then February started off with slightly less than one-a-day....until the west side decided to play catch-up:

• Three gunmen opened fire on a vehicle in a fast food parking lot Tuesday afternoon, killing two men and critically injuring a third in a brazen daylight attack in Tri-Taylor. The shooting occurred around 1:20 p.m. outside a White Castle restaurant at 2356 West Roosevelt Road, according to Chicago police and witnesses. The victims were sitting in a vehicle when three gunmen approached on foot and opened fire, CPD said

• A woman on her way to an appointment at UI Health was fatally shot in a parking garage Tuesday in the 1100 block of South Wood Street in Little Italy in what hospital officials say may have been a domestic-related attack, according to a release from UI Health. Investigators with UIC police believe the shooting, which occurred at 1:35 p.m., “may be related to a domestic dispute,” according to the statement. Chicago police deferred to UIC police, according to a spokesperson.

• A man died after being shot while driving in West Town on Tuesday afternoon, according to Chicago police. The man, 32, was driving in the 700 block of North Wolcott Avenue at 4:42 p.m. when he was shot in the chest, police said. He was taken to Stroger Hospital, where he later died.

We're told that in the second shooting, the woman's child was left unharmed in the back seat.

But it was certainly a messy Tuesday.

Checkpoints?

We see this type of behavior in third world shitholes as law and order breaks down:

• Anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agitators in Minneapolis have set up a makeshift street checkpoint to track federal agents, stopping vehicles and questioning drivers to determine whether they are ICE officers, video shows.

  Agitators could be seen standing in the roadway near makeshift barricades and traffic cones while they stopped or flagged down passing vehicles.

  In one clip, an agitator dressed in a black coat and black mask was seen approaching a stopped vehicle and directly asking the driver if they were "ICE," before allowing the car to proceed.

Someone behind pallet and garbage bin barricades, masked up, with no visible indicators of office stopping traffic, demanding ID and "running plates" in some half-assed database? Must be a democrat-run $hithole.

Send in the troops. 

Did We Break the Park District?

That voting site for a famous Italian to replace the Columbus statue?

So did we break it?

Or the gutless Park District people took it down once it was pointed out that it was probably too accurate a representation of Chicago voting for the past eighty or ninety years?

Sounds Insurrection-y

This would seem to be a violation of the NCIC protocols:

• Hey SCC: federal agent here (not FBI). Did you know IL SOS is no longer sharing DMV information with DHS ORIs? DHS “dispatches” (not in the sense you all get dispatched to calls) for a number of federal agencies, nationwide, not just ICE. NY, CA and IL all are restricting access so federal agents (I have nothing to do with ICE but god bless em) cannot run a license plate or DL out of those states. Should DOJ kick those states out of NCIC? Just another step on the road to eroding law and order.

Pretty sure there are rules in place about this, especially as the funding comes from federal taxes.

As We've Said for Years....

If there are no consequences for crimes, you're going to get more crimes committed....and this time, it killed someone:

• A man who repeatedly benefited from generous plea deals in gun cases, including a two-year sentence for his third felony gun conviction, was sentenced to 20 years in prison this week after pleading guilty to murder.

  Standing before Judge James Obbish on Monday, Isaac Corona, 29, admitted to murdering 21-year-old Justin Gamino in Back of the Yards in May 2022, just four months after being paroled in his third sweetheart plea deal.

Three felony gun convictions, and he was still getting sweetheart deals....from Crimesha!

CWB does the heavy lifting, listing cases and reduced sentences that he got over and over and over. They also list a couple of judges that aided and abetted the ongoing leniency that contributed to the murder:

• Judge Flood
• Judge Angela Munari-Petrone

We're going to recommend our usual habit - vote "NO" on every single judge in Cook County this election, and get your spouse, family, friends and neighbors to do the same.

But what we really want to do is concentrate on two very very bad judges especially:

• Peter Gonzalez who knows the system is broken, says in court that the system is broken, yet continues to release individuals like the "Loop puncher" to attack unwitting pedestrians;
• Tyria Walton who infamously released the naked crack addict who stole a police squad car and ran over an Officer in the 011th District. Then when the bad publicity ensued, manufactured a lie about being threatened by CPD Officers, but failed to notify Cook County Sheriffs or file a formal complaint with COPA/IAD regarding this alleged "misconduct."

She didn't file the beef because it might have required a signed affidavit and you can't have a blatantly false document like that floating around with a judges signature on it.

Are we tilting at windmills? Probably. But what else do we have?

This Guy is Everywhere

We hadn't seen his name around for years. Now it's in our email, all over our comment sections, in our mail delivery about the pension election, in mailers from unknown sources, and we've even managed to write about him a few times these past weeks.

He's taking shots at Conehead, too:

• Over the weekend, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order meant to hold federal agents accountable for criminal misconduct. But there are questions about whether such an order could actually be carried out.

  A former Chicago Police Department chief of detectives weighed in Monday on Mayor Johnson's weekend executive order directing police to investigate immigration agents who are accused of possible misconduct.

  [...] "We need to be working with the federal government. We cannot be at odds with the federal government; it serves no one's best interest," said Eugene Roy, former CPD chief of detectives.

  [...] "The Chicago Police Department should not be put in a position where they are investigating federal agents who are investigating federal crimes, which is clearly a federal jurisdiction. It serves no useful purpose," Roy said.

  Roy calls Mayor Brandon's Johnson's executive order directing police to investigate federal agents for possible misconduct nothing more than political theater.

And he's bucking the political establishment that made him? 

Will wonders never cease?

Another Chomo Teacher

Off-duty CPS wiener waver:

• A former Chicago Public Schools teacher with a history of sex-related misconduct has been sentenced to five years in prison for exposing himself to young girls on the city’s Far North Side.

  Elliott Nott, 51, pleaded guilty to two counts of exploiting a child before Judge Domenica Stephenson last week. She sentenced him to concurrent five-year terms, though the sentence will be cut in half by state law and reduced by 475 days Nott spent in jail awaiting trial and another 163 days of “program credit” earned while he was detained, according to court records.

All public employees need body cameras, in-vehicle cameras and classroom cameras so that taxpayers can see how their money is being spent. 

Hey, if everyone else used all sorts of off-duty and ex-cops' behavior as justification for body cams, it only seems fair that we do the same thing for teachers.