Personnel Question (UPDATE)

The blog has been pointing out massive shortages at the District level and the theft of manpower to supply these CST teams that aren't doing a damn thing about the near-constant backlogs burning out cops citywide.

We also wrote about Groot's soft "defunding" via a budget cut of 600 unfilled positions. This was while the Department was close to 1,000 officers short of the staffing of four years ago.

Then, a few days ago:

• Wait until Jan 16th, we will be 2,023 officers shorter on that day due to retirements. This is the single largest retirement in CPD history. You not only have the guys with the 30 years but now the numbers leaving in the 100’s are down to 10 years. I work at the Jive-ory Tower and it’s chaos. Brown is disinterested because he’s gone soon back to Texas and Carter is just to stupid to understand. At least the young kids trapped in patrol are exploring massive lateral moves or just leaving for the private sector. We could conceivably have manpower dwindle under 5,000 and no help in sight. Another summer like last year the whole city could burn.

We don't know where this "2,023" number came from and if it included the 1,000 the Department was already short. We have observed many more people leaving with 20 years rather than 25 or 29. We've also seen new officers leaving for other agencies at a record pace.

To retire with the insurance under the 55-and-out provision, you have to notify the city of your intent to retire by 01 October of the year previous. So if you intended on retiring in 2021, you should have notified the city by 01 October 2020 to get the full benefits of the 55-and-out. [corrected info]

A typical year is 400 Officers....+/- a couple dozen. We've heard three separate numbers in the past two weeks.

• 800 - 2 times the norm
  
• 1,000 - 2.5 times the norm
  
• 1,200 - 3 times the norm
  

Any of these numbers would spell trouble beyond anything the Department has seen in living memory.

UPDATE: The 2,023 appears to be the number of officers who could go tomorrow - as in twenty years of service (pension eligible) AND 50 years of age. We've still got people tracking down this number and trying to figure out how many people have already declared their intent to leave.

Groot Wanted More Taxes

The little dictator doesn't seem to understand that aldercreatures are supposed to work for their constituents:

• Mayor Lori Lightfoot on Tuesday condemned as “aldermanic prerogative at its worst” the decision by downtown aldermen to block plans to raise commercial property taxes along North Michigan Avenue to bankroll security improvements after two rounds of looting.

  Lightfoot said commercial properties fronting the Magnificent Mile are “suffering and hurting” after a dramatic dropoff in sales and foot traffic and were willing to tax themselves to shore up their defenses and lure back shoppers.

Businesses asking for "more taxes"? We think Groot is misinterpreting the tenor of conversation going on between businesses, aldercreatures and her office.

• Hopkins countered that Lightfoot’s efforts to “achieve dictatorial rule of Chicago have been stymied, not because of aldermanic prerogative, but because the legislative branch is a co-equal branch of government.”

  “That’s a lesson she needs to learn and needs to learn quickly,” Hopkins said.

  Reilly renewed his complaint about the “truncated, hurry-up-and-approve-it” process used to create the taxing district and about plans to spend a “significant portion” of the money generated by the three-year tax hike on “salary, contracts, personnel and other operating expenses.”

  “This proposal was unveiled just four months ago [and] was developed without any input from the local aldermen. A number of key procedural checkpoints [to gauge support] were waived. And roughly a third of the impacted property owners still do not support the application,” Reilly wrote in an email to the Sun-Times.

One-third opposition is a significant number of businesses who have an actual stake in the TIF being created. The Tribune found that Michigan Avenue has already lost one-third of the businesses. If one-third of the remaining businesses decide that this is the last straw and they shut for good if implemented, the aldercreatures are looking at a 50% reduction in viable businesses in a single year.

Sounds like aldercreatures are doing their jobs, instead of rolling over. For once.

World's Greatest Nitwits

This is part of what passes for a "hard hitting" interview on WGN:

• Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx has her critics, but she easily cruised to reelection. Only days into her second term, Foxx sat down with WGN’s Tahman Bradley to answer questions about violence in Chicago and other issues facing her office:

  Already this year, Chicago has seen more than 700 homicides and 3,800 shootings through November. What’s happening?

  I think there are stretches on the South Side and stretches on the West Side where we’re seeing a high concentration of violence and if we just mapped what the resources are in those communities – if we look on the West Side, it would break our hearts to find that there are neighborhoods that have no access to libraries, no access to fresh foods, no access to health care and recognize that those are all symptoms of a larger problem where violence is the ultimate outcome.

So no libraries, food deserts and limited access to health care....causes crime?

That's some ignorant bullshit right there. How about we opine that crime drives these businesses from neighborhoods, making it impossible to operate at anything but a loss. The obvious follow up questions?

• There aren't any from this softball interview

Go read it all. You wouldn't think bullshit could be so fluffy, but WGN manages to make it so.

Nice Job if You Can Get It

How many years without even a hint of a Contract?

• Chicago Public Schools CEO Janice Jackson is getting a $40,000 raise, bringing her salary to $300,000 in a mid-pandemic increase that was unanimously approved by the city’s school board.

What's the graduation rate for CPS? 

What grade level are students reading, writing or doing math at?

What percentage of students aren't even attending remote learning?

Wait...What? How Much?

This is....insane?

• Shawn Kimbrough told authorities he “does stupid stuff when he drinks” before he was arrested for firing a collapsible rifle on a Metra train platform at McCormick Place, Cook County prosecutors said. No one was injured in the Dec. 1 incident but the 40-year-old’s alleged actions were more than stupid, Judge Mary Marubio suggested Tuesday.

  “This was a very deliberate discharge,” Marubio said before ordering Kimbrough held on $500,000 bail for aggravated unlawful use of a weapon, possession of a firearm without a FOID card and reckless discharge of a firearm.

But if we recall correctly (and CWB blog reported correctly):

• Two different carjackers - who were sober when they made the conscious decision to commit their crimes -  had bail set at $10,000 and were able to post $1,000 to get out of county.

Someone want to investigate the disparate bails granted by Cook County judges? 

Someone like the media?

Groot the Totalitarian

For a former federal prosecutor, Groot certainly seems like a dumbass:

• Mayor Lori Lightfoot's Law Department attempted in court this week to block a local TV station from airing body camera footage of Chicago police officers raiding an innocent woman's home and handcuffing her while she was naked.

  The city also filed a request to have the woman, Anjanette Young, sanctioned for allegedly violating a confidentiality order.

  Officials for Lightfoot made the extraordinary request to prevent WBBM-TV from airing a news report in an emergency court filing Monday evening, which a federal judge rejected. The courts long have ruled against efforts to prevent news companies from publishing reports, saying it's an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment.
  

Even Rahm was only able to suppress the JVD tape long enough to pay the family and ensure his reelection chances. These are cameras meant to shed light on police actions, paid for and maintained with taxpayer money. And in this case, they caught a whole bunch of avoidable errors.

Groot probably should have listened to an advisor before hanging her ass out for all to see:

• Mayor Lori Lightfoot apologized to social worker Anjanette Young on Wednesday for the Chicago Police Department’s 2019 raid on her home, during which officers handcuffed her while she was naked, and disavowed her Law Department’s extraordinary attempt to block WBBM-Ch. 2 from airing body camera footage of the incident.

  [...]

  Lightfoot disavowed the move by her Law Department, saying she was “blindsided” by it. “Filing a motion against a media outlet to prevent something from being published is something that should rarely if ever happen,” Lightfoot said. “And had I been advised that this was in the works, I would have stopped it in its tracks.”

Groot is a micromanager - look what she's doing to the Police Department. For her to have the Law Department (and her allegedly being a "lawyer" herself) this was a completely avoidable misstep and can only be explained by her authoritarian tendencies. 

Scratch a progressive, find a Stalin-esque authoritarian.

Putzker's Budget Cuts

One-sixth of what needs chopping....and guess who he blamed?

• Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker laid out more than $700 million in cuts Tuesday to deal with a projected $3.9 billion budget deficit, contending Republicans need to offer their own plan and blaming them for playing a role in destabilizing state finances even before the pandemic sent tax revenues crashing.

  Republicans quickly countered that the budget problems were self-inflicted by Democrats who enacted what Illinois House GOP leader Jim Durkin called a “fantasy budget” that hinged on voter approval of Pritzker’s proposed graduated-rate income tax and a “fingers crossed hope for a federal bailout” that has not materialized.

Republicans haven't had a majority in either chamber since when? Rauner had to "compromise" with dem majorities his entire tenure and then got blamed for Madigan refusing to even pass a budget to veto for years. And it isn't the Right shutting down the State economy via Executive Orders.

And why would the republicans even attempt to put forward suggestions that Madigan and Harmon would tie up in committee or just kill outright? Better to let the dems stew in the disaster of their own making.

Nice Downtown Groot

So these comments appeared earlier:

• Worked the Michigan Ave detail last night and 6-7 guns were recovered. WTF.  
• 5 handguns recovered on (2) traffic stops last night in 018 off Michigan Avenue. If you are headed downtown, arm yourself and be careful.

Anyone have the overview?

How Childish

Brownie is NOT happy that his "administration" has more leaks than the Titanic:

• Supposedly Brownie is big mad the promotional info leaked out via the blog the other day and then again today, before the order comes out later today. He’s allegedly making changes to whom goes where now, for the sole purpose of “proving” the blog wrong.

He can get mad about that, but can't clear the weekend for visiting the families of our fallen?

By the way, whomever had this comment in that post made us laugh out loud for nearly ten minutes:

• "Brownie sent a robot in his place."

The kids probably would have been happier with a robot in any case. 

Anyone have the final disposition of moves and promotions? We knew there were going to be a couple, but either the Department hasn't put them all in a press release yet or Brownie is still making changes.

Demotions and Promotions

We'll just throw this out there before HQ and City Hall get around to announcing anything:

• Retirements & Demotions:
  
  Saldana - retiring
  
  Hanna - retiring
  
  Williams back to Captain from Inspections (and retiring soon)
  
  Cmdr Quarterman to Lt. (007)

Then there are these:

• some new Captains and some reassignments:
  
  Ramirez 003
  
  Murphy 004 (from Academy - SPARred Mrs. Carter)
  
  Mullinex to 009
  
  Sesso 014 (from HQ)
  
  Parham 011
  
  Lamb 022
  
  S. Carter - didn't get 006. HQ working for Boik. Only Captain left working in an inside spot.

New Commanders:

• R. Watson to 003
  
  Ben to 006
  
  McKenzie to 007

"New" hire:

• Retired Cmdr Jimmy Sanchez as Director of GEU at Homan

Gee, commander pension and Director salary. What's that, about $250K or more?

• Deputy Chiefs:
  
  Snelling to A/S Deputy Chief
  
  Muhammad to D Unit as Deputy Chief
  
  Dep Chief Darlin to CCS from Patrol

And:

• Chiefs:
  
  ODonnel to CCS (Crime Control Strategies)
  
  Boik as Chief of Constitutional Policing from “Interim Deputy Sup.”

As a sop to "reform" the Area XO's (a commander slot?) are going to be eliminated / redistributed in open spots.

There are still some last minute changes expected for slots of those who aren't going to go quietly into the night.

UPDATE: There is a Lieutenants list ready to go now, but might not be released until January. Sergeants in January. Maybe.

Murder Leaders

From the comments:

• TOP DISTRICTS - MURDER (thru 13 Dec)
  
  011: 95
  
  006: 71
  007: 71
  
  015: 61
  
  004: 60
  
  010: 59
  
  005: 45
  
  003: 42

With two weeks left, you can pretty much stick a fork in 011.

No One Left to Tax

Tying into the Business Insurance post a few spaces down:

• Commercial property owners along pandemic-ravaged North Michigan Avenue will not be asked to pay higher property taxes to bankroll security improvements spurred by two rounds of looting and nearly constant demonstrations.

  Not yet, at least.

  A proposal to create a special taxing district for commercial properties fronting Michigan, from Oak Street south to the Chicago River, stalled in the City Council’s Committee on Economic and Capital Development on Monday at the behest of two local aldermen.

Could it have anything to do with this?

• On a recent walk down the Mag Mile, we counted 34 of 108 storefronts closed, most permanently and many boarded up. People we spoke to said it’s “dangerous” to stay after dark, and almost all of the shops now close by 6 p.m. After decades of investment and development in Chicago’s Streeterville, River North and Loop neighborhoods, it would be devastating — to Chicago’s economy and its image — to let Michigan Avenue and the downtown district turn into the Meh Mile.

Groot has well and truly murdered one of the larger economic engines of the City.

COPA Scandals

Typical inept city bureaucracy embroiled in their own scandals. The Contrarian covers numerous scandals roiling the "watchdogs" since inception:

• Though COPA is supposed to be under the prying eyes of the notoriously daft Inspector General Joe Ferguson, the agency is once again pegged to embarrassing news. On December 8, a COPA employee was arrested by officers serving with the CPD’s fugitive apprehension section. Though the employee’s name was not released, the COPA staffer is alleged to have participated in the rioting and looting which overwhelmed the Magnificent Mile on August 10. The accused, who is believed to be a paralegal with COPA, was later released without charge. Responding to the latest disgrace, COPA issued a programmatic statement declaring the agency was examining an “internal personnel matter.” COPA’s statement pointedly reminded readers of its “high accountability standards” and “strict code of conduct” for employees.

Go read it all.

We Can't Insure Your Business

Appearing in Portland, coming soon to New York, Chicago, and other shithole cities:

• Eric Murfitt watched helplessly from a live security feed as looters trashed his downtown clothing store, Mercantile, during a riot on May 30. Murfitt said the business suffered $1 million in losses due to the break-in and had to file an insurance claim to stay afloat.

  But in November, Murfitt was informed that his insurance carrier would not be renewing the store’s policy. Nearly a dozen other insurance companies declined to even offer Mercantile a quote.

  So earlier this month, Murfitt settled for a policy that nearly quadrupled his premium, had a significantly higher deductible, included a much smaller cap on coverage related to robbery and excluded any property damage related to civil unrest.

  “We’re effectively uninsured right now,” Murfitt said. “And we’re paying four times as much for the privilege.”

Insurance Companies don't exist to lose money, and the trend for libtards, race baiters, and social justice warriors is to say, "Hey, they're insured. Loot away!" is about to meet a cold hard reality.

Everywhere is about to be Detroit 2.0.

More Excuses

More stupid from the left coast:

• Seattle is considering adopting a law that would excuse suspects from most misdemeanor crimes if they can be linked to poverty, mental illness, or addiction.

  The City Council is considering a proposal introduced earlier this year that would excuse suspects of crimes like theft, trespassing, and assault if the suspects are found to be suffering from poverty, a mental health crisis, or addiction.

  Seattle would be the first metropolitan area to alter its criminal code in such a way.

We have always wondered what's the attraction of making excuses for criminal behavior. We didn't grow up rich by any stretch of the imagination and we feared a beating if we even thought about stealing something. When we got on this job years ago, we met people who grew up in circumstances far worse than we did, and they never would consider taking something that wasn't theirs or living somewhere they didn't pay for..

Seattle has been trending from shithole to Third World shithole for quite some time now. They keep voting in commies and antifa sympathizers, so it's impossible to feel sorry for them at all.

A Phone Charger?

CWB blog covering the backstories that the media won't involving Cook County judges:

• One day after a Cook County judge ignored a recommendation to impose “maximum conditions” on Michael Riddle during a bond court hearing, Riddle was arrested again Thursday — for allegedly stabbing his girlfriend 14 times as she sat on a couch next to her young child.

  Judge David Navarro allowed Riddle to get out of jail by posting just $1,000 bond after prosecutors accused him of trying to carjack a woman this week. Navarro made the decision just minutes after the court’s pre-trial services officer advised that “maximum conditions are recommended” for Riddle’s release.

  On Thursday night, Riddle watched TV with his girlfriend, the mother of his 5-month-old child, at her home in Grand Crossing. The woman’s three-year-old daughter was also on the couch when Riddle began looking for his phone charger, according to prosecutors.

  When the woman told him where the charge was, he allegedly attacked her.

All of this over a phone charger.

This part is priceless:

• The judge, who had been advised to set “maximum conditions” for Riddle minutes earlier, allowed Riddle to go home without electronic monitoring by posting 10% of a $10,000 bail order — $1,000 — Wednesday afternoon.

  “I better not see you in front of me on any new cases,” Navarro said as Riddle’s carjacking hearing concluded.

Good thing this will NEVER EVER happen again:

• On Saturday, not long after hearing about how Riddle allegedly violated bail by violently stabbing a woman, Navarro heard new allegations of attempted carjacking against a different man in a new case.

  Navarro set bail for that man at $10,000, too. He’ll also need just $1,000 to get out of jail.

Well....it couldn't happen TWICE in a row, could it?

She Knows a Guy

Remember....this is a "reform" mayor:

• A campaign contributor to Mayor Lori Lightfoot landed a $1.6 million no-bid deal with Chicago Public Schools after the mayor personally vouched for him, then delivered computers that in some cases didn’t meet district purchasing standards or work for virtual learning.

  District officials said they bought the used computers in April to meet an “urgent need” as schools scrambled to get devices to students and the district’s traditional vendors faced backlogs. Yet more than a third are still sitting in a district warehouse as backups, a Chalkbeat/Better Government Association investigation has found.

  Mark Aistrope, the CEO of Chicago-based Meeting Tomorrow, who contributed nearly $30,000 to Lightfoot’s mayoral bid, emailed the mayor in late March, saying his company could quickly provide tens of thousands of computers to the school district when it needed them most.

  Early the next morning, Lightfoot wrote CPS CEO Janice Jackson to put in a good word.

This is the Janice Jackson whose top aide (Pedro Soto) recently pled guilty to leaking bid info on a $1 BILLION (with a B) contract to one of the bidding parties. Now you have Groot vouching for a $1.6 million contract to a campaign contributor to this same Janice Jackson?

Groot fit into the Chicago-way of doing business pretty easily, didn't she? And Jackson at the nexus of all this corruption? 

Curious and curiouser.

Shots Fired...by Google-me

Readers will remember we didn't appreciate Google-me when he was here as the political mouthpiece of the Department, but this was a priceless jab at what he left behind for greener pastures on the east coast (click for larger version):

Google-me with the TKO.

We have confirmed via numerous sources that Brownie and Carter completely missed Day One and then ducked out of Day Two after the first stop. Anything else you hear - especially from the CPD Twitter feed - is an ass-covering in progress.

A Visual Representation

So when a District is down 50% manpower, this is what it looks like when two jobs come out:

Two jobs, and the District is left with two cars covering all the District. 

That's a safety issue if nothing else, especially considering the size of 017.

Social "Justice" LA Style

By the inimitable Jack Dunphy of course:

• Former New York mayor Ed Koch, on the occasion of his defeat in the 1989 Democratic primary by the late David Dinkins, was asked if he would again seek public office. “No,” he said. “The people have spoken . . . and they must be punished.”

  Well and properly punished they were, as things turned out. During Dinkins’s single term as mayor, crime and disorder in New York City reached their horrifying zenith. In 1990, 2,245 people were murdered in the city, one factor among many that earned Dinkins the reputation as the most feckless man ever to occupy City Hall. (Only recently has a challenger emerged.)

  Now stepping up to be similarly punished are the voters of Los Angeles County, who in their wisdom have installed George Gascón as district attorney. Gascón is the latest of the so-called social justice prosecutors to win election in some of America’s major cities, following in the path of Kim Foxx in Chicago, Larry Krasner in Philadelphia, and Chesa Boudin in San Francisco.

  Gascón was unabashed in embracing social justice themes during the campaign but gave little hint of the sweeping changes he would institute within minutes of taking office. He was officially sworn in at noon on Dec. 7, and at 12:03 p.m. that day an email was sent to all D.A. staff announcing the immediate implementation of nine new policies which go far beyond those he practiced in his former post as district attorney in San Francisco.

As usual, go read it all. Dunphy foresees a bleak future for cities and counties where the Soros-funded States Attorneys and District Attorneys hold sway over the unequal application of the law.

Where's the Monitor?

Remember that Consent Decree thing? 

The big push for "span of control" where a sergeant could only supervise ten officers at a time? This would provide more direct supervision so Officers wouldn't be doing naughty things and supervision could more easily direct missions, strategies and emerging crime trends.

So how is this allowed? (we cropped out the extraneous information):

Murder Central....a Desk Sergeant....and zero field supervision. What exactly are the officers supposed to do if they need a sergeant to sign a tow? Advise them through a particularly sticky domestic? Handle a squad car accident? Run a homicide scene?

It doesn't get better:

 

The very next day....a Desk Sergeant....and the one field supervisor working is going downtown for the business sector detail. So once again, no one watching a District that has had ninety-five murders and three-or-four-hundred shootings.

Someone want to get hold of Ms. Hickey?

Shortages Continue

Is this ever going to be addressed?

017 midnights the other Friday:

 

No Desk Sergeant, no early sergeants.

1711, 1713, 1731 down on the early side; 1722, 1772 down on the late side. No wagon unless a beat car is doing both jobs. 50% unmanned.

But 1740 is headed downtown with three cars.

Coming Soon

We'll just leave this here:

Side effects? What side effects?

This is XiNN

XiNN laying the groundwork for the next "pandemic":

• Authorities in Kazakhstan have denied a report published by Chinese officials that the country is experiencing an outbreak of "unknown pneumonia" potentially deadlier than the novel coronavirus.

  On Thursday, the Chinese Embassy in Kazakhstan issued a warning to citizens living in the Central Asian country that the pneumonia had killed more than 1,700 people.

  "Kazakhstani Health Department and other agencies are conducting comparative research and have not defined the nature of the pneumonia virus," the statement said.
  

So China - long known for telling the truth every time they're asked about anything - releases this "statement."

XiNN - a wholly owned Chinese media subsidiary long known for telling the truth every time they report something - runs with it, even though:

• CNN has been unable to independently verify the Chinese Embassy report and has reached out to Kazakhstan's Ministry of Healthcare for further details.

Figure this one will "arrive" just in time for summer, resulting in all sorts of lockdowns, shutdowns, mask mandates, cancellations and censorship.

Are you seeing a pattern yet?

UPDATE: We're aware it's from July. Do you recall when the media started with their "red wave mirage" reporting before hundreds of thousands of ballots appeared in the wee hours election night? It's called "prepping the narrative."

What the Absolute Fuck? (UPDATES)

Is this fucker even in town?

And if he isn't why isn't the First Deputy taking his place?

• ABSOLUTELY UNFORGIVABLE!!!

  For the first time EVER neither the Superintendent [n]or the First Deputy bothered to attend Operation Santa today. Apparently they both had more important things to do than to visit with the widows and children of our fellow police officers who were murdered serving this city.

  Brown and Carter can never atone for not supporting the families of people like Bauer, Jimenez, Gary, Marmelejo,Smetana, Gordon and more... These men were all killed in the line of duty and left young children behind. It’s not too much to ask that when we lose one of our own that the Superintendent and First Deputy visit their families at Christmas.

  WE NEVER FORGET.... BUT THEY DID!

There are certain things you have to do when you're in charge of one of the largest municipal police departments in the nation. A department that has given approximately five-hundred-fifty lives in service to Chicago.

Brownie might not have a historical attachment to the Department, but Carter's sin is the far bigger slap in the face to the men and women of the Department, living and dead. 

What fucking assholes.

Here's the media coverage.

UPDATE: DAMAGE CONTROL!!!

Brownie is telling people he was there, he just chose not to get out of the car.

• THIS IS A LIE

How do we know it's a lie? Figure it out. 

UPDATE: So this is a two day event. You'd think that the top brass would show up for the entire thing, as every family that suffered a loss deserved to see the top people offering them comfort.

Brown and Carter were shamed into making a photo-op with Santa at the start of Day Two....and then?

• SCC, I was a couple of houses ahead on the route. "Santa's Helpers" arrive shortly before the Brass and Santa to make sure everyone is ready. After the first photo-op, which was posted on the CPD Twitter page, Brown and Carter DUCKED OUT! Neither one appeared at a single family's house after the first one. These two assholes couldn't even make it through a couple of hours on a weekend while the families have to live 24/7/365 without their Fallen Officer. I am totally disgusted by the antics of these idiots.

But hey, don't forget - eight-for-eight on Christmas Eve and New Years Eve regardless of the plans you might have had for your RDO.

This is a Training Slide?

Someone needs to be fired:

Encouraging cannibalism is the height of unprofessional behavior.

Command Changes (UPDATES)

What we've been able to track down:

• Captains:
  
  Parham
  
  Perez
  
  Mullinex
  
  Ramirez
  
  Dunnem
  
  Lamb
  
  
  
  Commander:
  
  Lt. Brown to Commander Narcotics/OCD
  
  Lt. S. Carter to 006
  
  Cpt. McKenzie to 007
  
  
  
  Deputy Chief:
  
  Mohammad from 006 to DC A/South *
  
  Larry Snelling from 007  to DC Academy (was sgt 2 years ago) *
  
  Godsell from Academy to Compstat (replacing Khan & Lemmer)

Good Lord. 

UPDATE: Seems we made City Hall angry by posting the changes before they were official? Or someone at City Hall read the comments and decided a couple of these promos were too controversial?

• Snelling to A/S
  
  Muhammad to D Unit

Nice to know we're living rent free in Groot's head. 

UPDATE: Supposedly, a big pow-wow at City Hall about the spot in 006. The optics look bad, having the First Deputy's wife promoted and having her name attached to the test cheating scandal and a few other incidents. She might get a Captain spot in 022, but the alderman there doesn't want her.

Four Thousand Shot

Friday milestone:

 Congratulations to Brownie and Groot. 

The buck stops with you two.

Just Fire the Teachers

Last we checked, the employees don't get to dictate policy - the bosses do, and that's the City:

• As the fight continues over the safe reopening of Chicago Public Schools in the midst of a raging public health crisis, the Chicago Teachers Union has released for the first time a list of demands it wants met before members return to schools, including lower COVID-19 test positivity rates, testing and vaccination protocols and changes to both hybrid and remote learning.

  Some of the demands are likely to face strong and immediate rejection by city officials who have been adamant that it’s up to them to decide how and when the nation’s third-largest school district will return to classrooms for the first time since March.

Gutless Groot won't actually stand up for taxpayers though. 

One of our commentators claims teachers are demanding $5,000 in "hazard pay." That's probably what they saved in gas and dry cleaning bills already this year.

Glimmer of Intelligence

From Groot, believe it or not. Anyone here ever worked the lockup?

• Backers of a proposed ordinance that would guarantee arrested people prompt access to an attorney say a counterproposal from Mayor Lori Lightfoot could undermine the effort.

  Sponsored by Ald. Leslie Hairston (5th), the proposal would require Chicago police to allow detained people to use a phone within one hour of their arrest to contact family and an attorney.

  The ordinance is backed by the Cook County Public Defender’s Office; legal groups, including the National Lawyers Guild; civil rights advocates like First Defense Legal Aid; and more than 200,000 other individuals and organizations that signed an open letter asking for Lightfoot’s support.

The dozens of times we helped out in the lockup, there hasn't been a single instance of anyone being denied a phone call, usually within forty-five minutes of arrest, depending on the speed of the officer typing the arrest report. It just doesn't happen anymore. Someone actually got Groot to listen to reality.

Guess who the politicians are trotting out for this?

• Hairston invoked the example of former Police Cmdr. Jon Burge, whose notorious crew of officers tortured hundreds of Black men into giving false confessions between the ’70s and ’90s. Many of those confessions were later overturned.

Eeeeek! Jon Burge! By the way, many more of those confessions stood up to multiple reviews and recantations were proven to be manufactured. Burge was suspended in 1991 - twenty-nine years ago, and fired in 1993. There pretty much isn't an officer or detective around that even crossed paths with Burge any more, let alone worked for him - under one hundred for sure.

This is a solution in search of a problem that doesn't exist in any meaningful numbers.

Perspective Again

From our comments:

• Of the 11,481,848 tests performed (thru Thursday) 881,032 were done in THREE ZIP codes! That's 7.67%. ZIP code 61820 (Champaign) had 524,856 tests. 3,868 positives. 0.74% positivity rate.

  The Top 3 testing ZIP codes are from Champaign/Urbana??? Not Chicago?

  Could it be that University of Illinois MANDATES their students get tested 2x a week (On-campus living) and 3x a week (For off-campus living). Athletes 4x a week (off-season) and 7x a week (in-season)

Massive testing of a captive population that is the least susceptible doesn't give any sort of realistic picture.

They Did Hit Him

The "Shots Fired At / By Police" post the other day did result in the assailant catching lead:

• A Rogers Park man was ordered held without bail Thursday after allegedly shooting at police, who fired back and wounded the man earlier this week, authorities said. The shootout occurred Tuesday afternoon near the Metra station at Ravenswood and Lunt avenues.

  Chicago officers were trying to arrest Kenneth Olugbode, 25, for allegedly attacking his ex-girlfriend and stealing and threatening to kill her dog, Cook County prosecutors said in court Thursday. Officers pulled over Olugbode about 5 p.m. Tuesday in the 6900 block of North Ravenswood Avenue in Rogers Park. After being boxed in by an unmarked police car on Ravenswood, Olugbode allegedly got out of his car and fired two shots at three officers, prosecutors said.

  The officers returned gunfire, hitting Olugbode in his shoulders, his right hip and right hand, prosecutors said. Olugbode was taken to St. Francis Hospital in Evanston in serious condition, but his condition has since stabilized, prosecutors said.

We have no idea why Crimesha wouldn't have I-bonded him out already. This injustice must not stand!

In the meantime, good shooting by the Officers.

Now the Media Reports It?

We guess since the feebs are involved, it's okay now?

• The FBI and Metra Police Department are asking for help identifying the gunman who opened fire with a collapsible rifle on the McCormick Place platform last week.

  As CBS 2 [....] reported Wednesday, the FBI released startling video Wednesday of the man, who had just stepped off a train when he fired the rifle.

  Around 10:20 a.m. on Dec. 1, a man got off a northbound Metra Electric District train at the McCormick Place station, pulled out a collapsible rifle from his backpack, and fired a single shot while standing on the platform, according to the FBI and Metra Police.

That "CBS 2 reported Wednesday [09 December]" is hilarious as we told everyone about this on 04 December....and the CWB blog got it on 01 December. We were so far behind the curve on this one we can't even pretend to charge SeeBS $50 for stealing it.

Contrarian Articles

Florian and Marty have been busy. 

First, Sohnke takes a look at our own Chicago socialists:

• If the Chicago City Council had a Mount Rushmore for sheer stupidity, the likenesses of its six-member Socialist Caucus would certainly feature prominently.

  A group of cranks with crackpot ideas, these six ideological extremists include: Daniel La Spata, the delicate flower of the 1st Ward; 20th Ward militant Jeanette Taylor; Byron Sigcho-Lopez, the revolutionary who represents the 25th Ward; the 33rd Ward’s flighty Rossana Rodriguez-Sanchez; 35th Ward blowhard Carlos Ramirez-Rosa; and the 40th Ward’s hip-hop artist-turned-officeholder, Andre Vasquez. The Chicago City Council’s version of “The Squad,” all but one was elected in 2019, and all six have backgrounds in community organizing.

  A cult of action, community organizing is best defined as the practice of activists identifying a specific aggrieved population, and inflaming passions over their presumed plight. When a base is roused over the [supposedly] lamentable conditions in which they exist, activist leaders take collective action to apply pressure to local officials to redress their grievances, mainly by insisting the affected group receive money.

The Preib conducts an in-depth analysis of some Cook County judges tossing some sand in the gears of the "wrongful conviction" movement:

• Have judges in Chicago had enough of Cook County prosecutor Kimberly Foxx and her media enablers? It appears they have.

  Cook County judges Timothy Joyce and Arthur Hill, for example, recently refused to reverse the convictions of gang members Wayne Antusas and Nicholas Morfin at the behest of the Foxx administration. The men were convicted for their role in the 1995 murder of two girls in a botched gang hit.

  Not only did two different judges refuse to reverse the convictions of the two men, despite Foxx prosecutors asking them to do so, but Judge Joyce also stated he now has doubts about his decision two years ago to drop the conviction of a third gang member, Matthew Sopron, convicted of ordering the gang hit gone wrong.

As usual, click over to the links and read the entire articles.

Alternative Media Strikes Again

The big media won't touch it because of all the politics involved - but BlockClubChicago did:

• Restaurants and bars across the state are banned from serving customers indoors, but there are two places in Chicago where you can still legally drink inside a bar: the city’s airports.

  Despite an emergency travel order requiring travelers from 46 states to quarantine upon landing in Chicago, people are still allowed eat and drink alcohol inside bars at Midway and O’Hare. That’s because the airports are exempt from Gov. JB Pritzker’s Tier 3 mitigation measures.

  Allowing indoor drinking at high-traffic airports is dangerous, one doctor said, calling the move “ludicrous.”

"Ludicrous" because those spots went to big name political contributors and contractors. And you can't pay the pipers if you aren't selling $19 dollar burgers and $25 beers.

Lost Perspective

The country as a whole has lost all sense of perspective, by which we mean people - mostly the media and democrats - are driving a panic to shut down the economy and control the populace.

Here's something most people don't know:

• The Illinois Department of Public Health says that they've performed 11,481,848 tests for COVID (as of Thursday afternoon). That's a lot of tests.
• The entire population of Illinois is 12.67 million, minus whoever has moved out recently. That works out to around  90% of the population.

Do you know nine-out-of-ten people who have gotten tested? We don't. We barely know four-out-of-ten and that's mostly because the Department has been ravaged by COVID. Among our non-police friends it's even lower...maybe two-out-of-ten. They aren't sick and they aren't traveling, so why get tested? ILDPH isn't telling anyone how many repeat tests they've done, but no doubt it's tens of thousands.

Do you know the fatality rates nationally? This guy does:

He's the Governor of Florida and his state is open for business based on science.

How about some actual perspective? Our Stat Guy has some numbers:

• People 20-49 - the bar hopping public - it's a 99.98% recovery rate.  In reverse, that's a .02% fatality rate.  Put that into perspective, that's 1 out of 5,000 people.
• One's odds of dying in a car crash (according to the National Safety Council) are 1 in 106.
• People 0 - 19, the recovery rate is 99.997%.  In reverse, the IFR (Infection Fatality Rate) is .003%!!!  Or 1 in 33,333.

There were a bunch of headlines Thursday reported more people died of COVID Wednesday than died on 9/11 - over 3,000. First off, they don't report how many had extensive comorbidities, nor how many fell into the elderly category. Do you know how many people die in the United States every single day?

• approximately 7,100 of all causes.

You've noticed a massive uptick in funerals? Even though you can't go to the church services or the funeral homes, we haven't noticed any more than usual. What we have noticed is a massive increase in boarded-up businesses. How is it that we notice that - which doesn't affect us nearly as much as dozens more dead friends and relatives would?

Some troll, no doubt directed here by the Stan Rather scandal links, was spouting off about ICU's being at capacity, morgues utilizing refrigerated trailers and doctors/nurses freaking out:

• ICU's are not anywhere near capacity - we happen to frequent some of our finer medical facilities on a weekly basis, and there are plenty of beds;
• We also happen to frequent the Cook County Morgue semi-regularly. No reefers on standby for overflow bodies;
• We haven't seen a nurse freaking out since we forgot to take our shoes off after walking the dog in the rain the other day, but she relates no work-related freakouts either.

Perspective has been warped. Badly. It needs to stop. Sensible precautions are called for, but wholesale panic-mongering is not.

Twelve Monkeys

Now that the media is looking for tips and clues, how about this one?

• Groot and Fatass have shut down restaurants and bars, but opened up the airport bars full-throttle.  I traveled in to Midway a couple of days ago, the bars that line the aisle down Concourse B were PACKED with maskless drinkers eating and drinking. I counted 70 people, all indoors, all dining, all drinking (did I mention indoors?) and not a one with a mask on.

  This is so much Groot's "For thee! Not for me!" approach. The City needs their cut, so they open up full bars and restaurants in arguably the busiest place in Chicago right now.  There is a new restaurant/bar that opened up in the old Potbelly's space, it was full of drinkers too, but at least it wasn't in the middle of all the people and gates.

Anyone here read dystopic fiction? What's the common denominator if the bad guys want to spread a virulent disease around the world to wipe out humanity?

• an airport maybe?

Terry Gilliam's classic was the first thing we thought of. 

We didn't realize Groot thought it was an Instruction Manual.

Disparate Enforcement

So Tunney is facing two fines - one for up to $10,000 and another for up to $500. Note: "up to," meaning he could be fined considerably less....and probably will be because he's an aldercreature, he's connected, and this is Chicago.

Is everyone reading familiar with the Palace Grill on Madison Street? Anyone who has worked the west side, visited OEMC or attended a United Center event has probably stopped there for a bite. It's been there far longer than we've been alive....and we're old.

A health inspector visited there in early November after receiving an anonymous complaint that people were eating inside. We'll let our e-mailer pick up the story there:

• When she was there, there were no customers inside the restaurant. With that, she began looking around, asking for licenses, walking around outside, etc. She ended up writing him 5 tickets (each $10,000.00 fines). She wrote him tickets for the following: No permit for his outdoor tent (which is required for outside dining and in his parking lot), liquor license violation, a neon sign (which he says has been there for 82 years), flower pots (24 years), and awnings (24 years).

$50,000 in potential fines, all while:

• no one is in the restaurant....and no evidence anyone was;
• a tent in his lot to comply with outdoor requirements;
• a sign that's been up eighty-two years;
• flower pots and awnings that have been there decades.

We can't opine on the liquor license violation, but $40,000 of the "fines" are absolute bullshit, and probably more than enough to put the restaurant out of business. You think this is political? Someone wants the land the Palace Grill sits on?

Tunney kept Ann Sather open for weeks. He admitted it, even while lying that it was "regulars." You think the inspectors pulled the register tapes and fined him for every day he was open? Of course not - he's an aldercreature. 

But this unconnected (less connected?) joint might very well be bankrupted while trying to play a rigged game.

Civilian Boss Shakeup?

Don't keep us in suspense anonymous commentator:

• SCC-OT civilian Deputy Chief Khan didn’t get his gun and badge so he quit and went to join the private sector. Guess who is taking over?!

This was actually one of the past First Deputy's brighter moves. This softball demanded a badge and gun without any sort of training or qualifications (like Masters Masters Masters) based solely on the fact that he was working for a police department and held the civilian equivalent of Deputy Chief designation. 

We were told he complained almost weekly about not having a gun.

So who's taking over? We already know that Seattle reject Maurice "Pickles" Claussen is making all the major decisions for Brownie (via Groot).

San Fran Cop Indicted

After shooting a subject who beat him with a bottle, resulting in skull fracture(s), the cop gets indicted - and no, we aren't joking:

• A San Francisco grand jury indicted a police officer whose actions led to a leg amputation for a burglary suspect after the man allegedly attacked officers with a liquor bottle last year, authorities said Monday.

  The suspect, Jamaica Hampton, 25, was also indicted, though San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin did not say what charges the men face over the Dec. 7 incident in the city’s Mission district.

  In a brief statement, Boudin said the indictment was returned Friday. He said he would provide more information when an arraignment is scheduled, and he encouraged Hampton and the officer, Christopher Flores, to turn themselves in.

You have to read in TWELVE PARAGRAPHS to find the officer's injury:

• The president of the San Francisco Police Officers Association, Tony Montoya, criticized the decision, noting that Flores’ skull had been fractured and saying it amounted to declaring “open season” on police
  

And it's spreading across California to LA:

• In his first day on the job, Los Angeles County’s new District Attorney has announced that he’s lost his mind his office will decline to prosecute a whole spate of misdemeanors, damning a city already struggling with high levels of violence to accept even more crime in the name of “social justice.”

  According to a new statement from the DA’s Office and detailed by FOX LA’s Bill Melugin, L.A. County DA George Gascon, who previously worked as San Francisco's DA (and we see how well that turned out) says his office will no longer prosecute, with some exceptions for repeat offenses, misdemeanor crimes for: Trespassing, Disturbing the peace, Driving on a suspended license, Driving with no license at all, Prostitution, Resisting arrest, Criminal threats, Drug and paraphernalia possession, Being a minor in possession of alcohol, Drinking in public, Under the influence of a controlled substance, Public intoxication, Loitering.
  

Amazingly, this is the same asshole who turned San Francisco into a shit-strewn sewer and he got elected in Los Angeles after being chased out of San Fran by the smell. 

Some of the listed crimes can obviously be diverted to alternate routes of punishment - we support that. But driving offenses need to be dealt with harshly for repeat offenders, resisting arrest is a no-no (that's why there are civil courts and remedies), and attempting to legalize hard drugs has never worked out anywhere it was tried.

Legalizing bad behavior has always led to more bad behavior. Look it up.

Odd Twist

The dead armed robber from a few days ago that we were hoping might be connected to the Frank Castle / Paul Kersey storyline:

• A West Town man who was reportedly killed after he shot his friend during a robbery attempt near Goose Island early Sunday died almost exactly three years after he robbed another man while claiming to have a gun in the same area, according to court records.

  Police found Adan Delgado, 27, with multiple gunshot wounds and a handgun lying nearby in the 1200 block of West Fry around 4:30 a.m. on December 6. Another man who lives about a block away reportedly told police that his friend, Delgado, shot him in the leg during a robbery attempt moments earlier. The man, 28, said he ran away after Delgado shot him and he then heard more gunfire behind him.

This sounds like a fun one - accomplice gets shot by the guy carrying the heater, who has a hunting ground he likes to hang around, and then the shooter gets whacked by....the accomplice? The victim? The vigilante (which is what we were hoping for)? 

And is there a list of unsolved robberies or patterns in this area that might be X-Cleared Closed now?

Business Exodus Continues

Another one bites the dust:

• The Gap is closing its two-decade home on the Magnificent Mile, leaving a big space to fill on Chicago’s best-known retail street.

  Signs in the North Michigan Avenue flagship’s windows announce the upcoming closure, but the store remained open for business Tuesday.

  The clothing chain has occupied the postmodern, Stanley Tigerman-designed building since 2000.

  Gap representatives did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

Oddly enough, guess who else wasn't available for comment? Groot and Fatass.

And this isn't the only business related news - we got this from a tradesman who loops us into things:

• ...the massive Pro Mat Trade show scheduled for April 12-16 at McCormick Place, has been canceled due to “local regulations.” Pro Mat brought in over 50,000 visitors to Chicago for the week. That is 1000’s of hotel rooms, 100,000’s of restaurant meals and other services all gone.

  Not to mention the taxes this event brought into the city.

  Lighthead has told the Trade organizations that she does not anticipate any events to be held at McCormick Place in 2021.

This sounds great for next year's budget.

Corrupt COPA!

Remember, this is who Groot wants investigating police:

• Chicago’s civilian police investigative agency was reviewing a “personnel matter” of an employee who was arrested Tuesday, but later released without charges, on accusations he was involved in the looting of a downtown department store over the summer, officials said.

  The employee of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability was arrested shortly before 8 a.m. near 29th Street and Michigan Avenue by members for the Chicago police fugitive apprehension section, police said. Sources familiar with the situation said the person arrested is not an investigator for COPA.

"not an investigator"? So an administrator then?

UPDATE: A paralegal. Someone at least passingly familiar with the law and who assists lawyers in many cases, writing briefs, conducting research, doing filings. A pretty big deal.

Interesting Statistic

You really have wonder what's the purpose of the media nowadays:

• Chicago youth are at far higher risk of dying from gun violence than they are from COVID-19. That’s been the case since the start of the pandemic.

  As of December 1, four Chicago youth have died from COVID but over 90 have died from gun violence. That’s 23 children dead from gun violence for every COVID death.

  The numbers are far worse than they were five months ago when Wirepoints laid out the facts about reopening Chicago Public Schools to in-class learning. One of the more revealing points we covered was that the virus was far less a threat to Chicago children than gun violence.
  

But gun violence deaths are "acceptable losses" to Groot as long as she gets to hammer the CPD. 

And whomever is pulling Groot's strings at the national level doesn't really care about dead minorities either. They'll get to preach about the "evil guns" and attack right-thinking people and businesses.

You Thought We Were Joking?

Here it comes, as we predicted last week:

• CNN medical analyst Dr. Leana Wen on Monday advised the American public to cancel their Christmas and New Year plans as a result of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

  During an appearance on “New Day,” Wen voiced her concern that COVID-19 deaths and hospitalizations are still rising after Thanksgiving. Because of the “Thanksgiving surge,” she called on everyone to “absolutely not gather indoors with anyone who is not in their immediate family” for the upcoming Christmas and New Year holidays.

Here come the fearmongers:

• Dr. Anthony Fauci made a virtual appearance at New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D) Monday briefing, where the men discouraged small gatherings during the holiday season, prompting Fauci to warn that the U.S. could be in for a “dark time” in January.

  “We estimate that 70 percent of the spread is coming from small gatherings, and that’s a problem,” Cuomo, who has prohibited gatherings of over ten in his state, said.

Fuck this guy, a guy who murdered via executive order tens-of-thousands of elderly by forcing New York nursing homes to take back sick patients.

You know what isn't rising? The death rate. 

Recovery rate still 99.6%.

Sensible precautions for the at-risk categories.

COVID is Racist!

Of course, the virus is abetted by democrat leaders who reinforce the inherent racist present in the disease. How else do you explain this?

• Nearly half of Black small businesses had been wiped out by the end of April as the pandemic ravaged minority communities disproportionately, according to a report from the New York Fed.

  Black-owned businesses were more than twice as likely to shutter as their white counterparts, the report found.

  "Nationally representative data on small businesses indicate that the number of active business owners fell by 22% from February to April 2020—the largest drop on record," the report said.

  "Black businesses experienced the most acute decline, with a 41% drop. Latinx business owners fell by 32% and Asian business owners dropped by 26%."

So why do democrat "leaders" want to put so many black-owned businesses out of business? Why do black entrepreneurs succeeding in business frighten democrats?

Asking for a friend....who lost his business.