Old Timers

Back in the day, before probable cause, racial profiling and such, we remember a few old coppers telling us when they did traffic stops, they used to ask the drivers a bunch of questions and then toss in off the wall stuff just to see what people would say. Then they'd sell them a pencil and send them on their way.

One of the best exchanges went something like this:

• Where are you going? Where are you coming from?
  
• What were you doing? With who?
• Was Donald Duck the mouse or the dog?
  
• Who killed Abraham Lincoln?

We finally solved at least one of those questions.

Did You Know ...

... that the City doesn't test for Ecstasy? It's true! It is supposedly the subject of negotiations with the Union, but at the moment, you could go to rave parties and ... and ... um, do young people still "get down?" or are we showing our old age again? "Hook up?" That doesn't sound right - it sounds like some bad dialogue from a Peter Pan movie.

Can anyone help us here with the slang those young cops use when they're "out on the town?" Thanks!

Today is the Day

0

At least we think it is. Our anonymous "outer" never gave us a specific time frame - was it going to be revealed after midnight? Just before? And they never told us where it'd be done, either. So we'll just leave this thread here so everyone can enjoy "The Event" while we're out fighting crime. Or chasing the one-bagger. Or thwarting some nefarious scheme somewhere. Or sleeping.

Rumors! We Got Rumors!

After the rumor mill seemed to be treading water for a few weeks, end of year stories begin to pop up. How about these boys and girls:

• Heard about this one before it was posted in some of the threads, but there might be some exempt movement Friday as the new captains requirements take effect. Are they going to bust some people back down to lieutenant? Or are they going to bust them UP to commander? And doesn't this just make a mockery of the ENTIRE promotional system? You can't qualify for one spot, so they promote you to a spot where there are NO requirements - just a phone call. Ms. Brennan! Call for you on SCC Blog!
• As if the department wasn't short enough - rumors of a NEW UNIT are being bandied around. Where this manpower is going to come from is unknown, but look for it to be run out of 35th Street by a whole boatload of politically connected people. The focus? Quality of Life issues - like buildings. "The Broken Window" theory of policing comes to Chicago in full force - but without the manpower necessary to implement it.
• And speaking of manpower - anyone catch the Supe on the radio saying Property Crimes are going to be a major initiative of the department in 2006? Maybe all those districts being short a car or two every shift is finally coming home to roost? As we stated, property crime numbers are climbing - especially in the areas where manpower is shortest.
  

Karma Train Comes a Calling

Remember the two "Uselessness of Europe" threads we put up last week (post 1; post 2)? The German government released the killer of a US Navy diver after serving 19 years of a life sentence in spite of a standing treaty and official request for his extradition. Shortly thereafter, a German hostage in Iraq was released. Quid pro quo? You bet your ass it was. The terrorist was briefly held by the Lebanese government, but released after a few days as there is no standing treaty with Lebanon for extradition. The only darkly humorous part of this entire story is that the released hostage had converted to islam a few years ago when she married an arab and refused to stay in Germany after her release - she is in the process of returning to Iraq if she isn't there already. So she's right back where she began and Germany is upset she isn't more appreciative of their efforts.

The lesson learned? It pays to kidnap Germans because they'll negotiate, pay ransom and release terrorists, even for hostages that have left the country of their citizenship.

Headline yesterday: German Ex-Diplomat Kidnapped in Yemen (h/t Captain's Quarters)

• A former German ambassador to Washington and four members of his family were reported missing and apparently kidnapped Wednesday while vacationing in a remote part of Yemen.
• Chrobog, 65, served as Germany's deputy foreign minister until last month, when a new government came to power. In 2003, he played an instrumental role in winning the release of 14 European hostages -- nine of them Germans -- who had been kidnapped in the Sahara and held for six months by Islamic radicals.
• he personally delivered a cash ransom worth several million dollars to intermediaries in Bamako, Mali, in exchange for the hostages' safe return.

Once the bandits, terrorists, and other assorted miscreants know that your governments will pay (and pay millions!) to get their citizens back, or will release prisoners upon demand (even those sentenced to life in prison!), you are going to see quite a few more kidnappings of Germans in the coming year. Useless Europe continues it's slide into irrelevance.

Countdown - Can You Stand It?

1

Only one more day! Too bad it's on a Holiday weekend and everyone who checks at work will have to wait until Tuesday to find out! But we'll be here waiting with baited breath - baited because we love to pig out on the pickled herring for the New Year. Mmmm - Pickled Herring.

They Need a Study Group for This?

We saw in the comments that someone might have seen ANOTHER extension for the Police exam? Anyone have a link? Now the city is offering a free four hour prep course for the police and fire exams?

• The City Colleges of Chicago will provide, free of charge, a four-hour workshop designed to prepare adults to take the City of Chicago's Public Safety Exams soon to be given by the Chicago Police and Fire Departments. Workshops will be held on Saturday, January 21, 2006 and Saturday, January 28, 2006, from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Advance registration is required. The last registration date is Saturday, January 7, 2006. Online registration is available. Click on the link below for more information and to register online.

Anyone talk to Personnel lately? How many people are signing up? Based on this, it doesn't sound like many at all. Looks like we'll be selling our P-days and BFD's again because there isn't any manpower available for us to use them.

Do You Have the Inner Eye?

While we are waiting for our inevitable discovery, here's a fun project for everyone - you get to play Jeane Dixon for a thread. Dazzle us with your predictions for the year 2006. Let's try to keep it within a few categories:

• Political - it can be local, state or national. We have a midterm election in November and a whole boatload of looming indictments locally. This ought to be a good one.
• Sports - the Sox are looking very good after the winter meetings, but could the Cubs be the next team to break the century old curse? Probably not, but still ...
• Departmental - what does the future have in store for the Chicago Police Department? More manpower shortages? A new Superintendent? You tell us!
  
• General - predict trends, predict fashion, predict Hollywood box office totals, whatever. Just keep it clean.

Knock your socks off people. Find a quiet place, a "happy" place, meditate upon the task at hand and see if you can do better than Jeane Dixon ever dreamed of doing.

Still Counting Down

2

Only two more days until our outing! Can you feel the tension in the air? You could cut it with a knife! Personally, we kind of think we know who at least one of us is, but the other couple of people we're not too sure about. There appears to be at least one southsider and one northsider. Could there be a westsider mixed in? Tune in and find out!

Confidential to the outer - could you let us know what time this is going to take place so we can be waiting near a computer? We might be working or partying late (New Years Eve ya know) and we want to make sure we don't miss anything. Thanks.

RIP - Fred the Baker

Michael Vale (aka Fred the Baker) has passed away.

For all you young whippersnappers, Fred was a hero to coppers everywhere. Neither rain, nor sleet, nor dark of night could keep Michael/Fred from his appointed rounds. We have just one question for everyone:

Who's going to make the donuts now?

Per the Superintendent, all flags at Department facilities will be flown at half staff for next 7 days. All exempts may wear the optional black armbands. Memorials of half empty Dunkin' Donut boxes, coffee cups and candles may be placed on the sidewalks in front of all 25 district stations and HQ. In the event of inclement weather, the display may be moved indoors temporarily.

The Caves of Lascaux

The town of Lascaux in southern France is home to some of the most spectacular cave drawings in existence. Discovered in the 1940s by schoolboys, the cave drawings have been estimated to be almost 17,000 years old and contain the most colorful and detailed pictographs of animals. One area of the cave is purported to be an ancient astronomical observatory charting the planets and stars. The caves were closed to the public around 1963 because of deterioration caused by the numerous visitors, but the pictures live on. Check these out:






Scientists are still attempting to explain the significance of this drawing however. It would appear to be a human image of some sort, but what it represents and any meaning it might have held for the people in the midst of the last known "Ice Age" may remain a mystery for some time:

Countdown

3

That how many days are left until the outing of this web site moderator! We can't wait! Maybe whomever is attempting to make us nervous could post a little bit every single day to kind of whet everyone's appetite? Maybe a list of all the units we've served in? Maybe the first initials of all our mothers maiden names? Or our middle intitals?

Again, as we posted months ago, why anyone would want to bring that kind of heat on a fellow copper is a mystery. We provide a free place for people to vent and opine and bitch and moan and exchange info. And sometimes, the inmates get a little out of hand and we have to drag them back. When you get down to it though, no matter how deviant, opinions are still protected speech. Does it really matter who runs it all (Seiser)?

We noticed in some of our photo(shopped) threads (thanks to all the contributions still arriving daily) that people were speculating that we were going to get shut down for various slander/libel issues. We have been reviewing our work and we can't find anything even remotely actionable. The photos are obviously satire (protected speech); names are never mentioned by ourselves unless released by the department to the media and even then, we just link it, we don't air out dirty laundry; even the tagline up top says "Sarcasm and Silliness from a Windy City Cop." Our previous e-mail addresses were trusted friends who merely forwarded us stuff and the new one is merely a convenience.

In the meantime, we remind readers that civilians have and are wandering into the threads. Watch the language and innuendo. We had to delete a few comments that were personally distasteful and didn't contribute to anything. We hate membership lists and want to keep it as simple as possible for everyone to have fun. If you want something deleted, contact us with a legitimate reason and we'll consider it. All names and e-mail is kept in the strictest confidence. We, unlike some, respect anonymity.

Police Shortages Nationwide

From a reader who forwarded us this New York Times article:

• Among the depleted ranks of police departments throughout the country, it has come to this: desperate want ads offering signing bonuses to new recruits, and cops paying other cops to find new cops. (emphasis added)

And the mayor and his people want us to believe that 3,000 people signed up to take the police exam AND they're offering it 4 times this year? Sorry, but we are far from believing that one. We're more apt to believe Sharky who actually talked to people who know.

No one wants this job, and those who do, want it to pay for an advanced degree so they can QUIT as soon as they can and get a nicer job away from all the BS that goes on here. We were told that at the most recent FOP meeting, the pension board is seeing more and more guys quitting early - not just 20 and out, but EARLY as in walking away from it all. This isn't just a shortage - its a crisis in the making.

A Question for the Left

Remember when Valerie Plame's name was bandied about in the press and such? The left wing of this country started screaming about Bush, Cheney and Rove leaking her name to "get even" with her husband Joe Wilson for his report about yellowcake from Niger and all sorts of nonsense. Never mind the fact that Joe Wilson's report SUPPORTED the Bush Administration's position of Iraq trying to buy uranium, Wilson was bragging for years about his "secret agent" wife, Wilson tells two different stories constantly (one to the new york times, one to Congress), that Plame herself wasn't an "undercover" agent, didn't have Non-Official Cover, was NEVER in any danger of being exposed, and nowadays, can't seem to resist posing for all sorts of pictures in Vanity Fair and other such liberal magazines.

The total outcome of this entire event? One reporter spends a few months in jail before breaking, then the reporter gets FIRED from the new york times (who until that point had been holding her up like a martyr to the cause) and one indictment. And the indictment isn't even for exposing an agent; it's for lying to a Grand Jury during the course of the investigation.

Wow.

So where is the outrage and screaming from the left now that TWO undercover operations with the potential to expose dozens, maybe hundreds of American agents to capture, torture or even death? We're talking about (1) the secret CIA prisons detaining at most 30 high value terrorist targets who have knowledge of numerous operations targeting American citizens across the world and (2) the NSA electronic intercepts of persons outside of the country communicating with others who might occasionally be based on American soil (which is legal, just ask Carter and Clinton who expanded these powers when in office).

A leak is a leak? Treason is treason, right? A felony is a felony any way you slice it, correct? We guess not if it has the potential to politically damage a Republican President. Then it's "All the News That's Fit to Print."

Airplane Safety

This is a utility knife. On 11 September 2001, terrorists using tools just like this cut the throat of at least one flight attendant, letting her bleed to death as they took over an airplane and turned it into a missile. A pilot was also killed by a utility knife.

Now the Transportation Security Administration will allow small knives, scissors and other such tools to be carried aboard aircraft. Their reasoning is that cockpit doors and such have been reinforced and terrorists will be unable to use planes as bombs.

Fine. But what about the flight attendants? Passengers? Granted, in this day and age, passengers would probably fight to the death to prevent a hijacking, but why give anyone the tools to threaten, harm or incapacitate other passengers when you're 30,000 feet up in the air? Bad idea by ignorant bureaucrats. Make the screeners do their jobs. There is no need for anyone to have a box cutter, a Leatherman, a Swiss army knife and certainly not an icepick, knitting needle or throwing star in the passenger compartment of a plane.

Those Pesky WMD's

From Captain's Quarters:

• For those who keep insisting that Saddam had no WMD and no way of producing them, The Hague has some embarrassing news. It convicted Saddam's supplier, Dutch businessman Frans van Anraat, to 15 years for selling Saddam the chemicals used to kill at least 5,000 Kurds in Halabja
  

From the UK Times online, it seems Mr. van Anraat had been hiding in Baghdad of all places for 14 years until the US led invasion caused him to flee to the Netherlands where he was arrested in 2003. He had sold Saddam 1,000 tons of chemicals to make mustard gas. Tons of chemicals that Saddam refused to account for in numerous UN Resolutions. And this is only from a single supplier. As more documents become declassified, the evidence of a massive WMD program will come to light and the silence from the American left and the main stream media becomes more deafening and damning by the day.

JFK Assassination Revisited

Evidently, it has been decided to release some of the secret evidence from the Warren Commission Hearings that investigated the Kennedy assassination. Many of these files were sealed for 50 years or more due to potentially damaging National Security issues. Among the material released was a series of photographs that might shed some light a number of theories previously dismissed out of hand as "crackpot" in nature.

Photo #1 from the motorcade:

Photo #2 is a NSA digital enhancement of the "grasssy knoll:"

Photo #3 was taken a few days later at the funeral for JFK:There seems to be a commmon thread to all of these pictures, but we're having trouble putting a finger on it. Any assistance from our readers would be greatly appreciated. You would be doing your country a great service. And to those readers that have already contributed to the above - thanks. Plenty more where this came from.

Another Republican Scandal

It just keeps getting worse for the Bush Administration. Now they stand accused of actually attempting to protect us from a nuclear dirty bomb! What is it with these people? Have they no shame?

• ... the federal government since 9/11 has run a far-reaching, top secret program to monitor radiation levels at over a hundred Muslim sites in the Washington, D.C., area, including mosques, homes, businesses, and warehouses, plus similar sites in at least five other cities ... USNews and World Report
  
• the officials said the air monitoring took place since the Sept. 11 attacks and from publicly accessible areas which they said made warrants and court orders unnecessary. YahooNews

Can you imagine the audacity of this government? Sampling the air we all breathe? Driving around in public parking lots, circling storage facilities and just maybe checking out the local Saudi funded mosques in various cities, including Chicago? The nerve! On the other hand, a few more scandals like this and Bush's approval rating will be around 70% or so - he hit 50% last week.

From PowerLineBlog - Do we have the Democrats' pledge that under a Democratic administration, the government would not use radiation-detecting equipment to search for dirty bombs? If so, that should make it a lot easier for millions of Americans to cast their votes in the 2008 election.

Too Legit to Quit

In a continuing effort to prove that it can be trusted to hire and fire people based solely on their ability, the city moved on Friday to vacate the Shakman decree.

• The move to overturn the 1983 Shakman decree comes despite Daley's assertions that he wants to keep city hiring free of politics.
• ...Daley's top lawyer, Mara Georges, previously said the administration would persist in challenging the Shakman decree because it needs more freedom to streamline the hiring process.

If these aren't the most bald faced assertions of a premise completely devoid of historical perspective and reality (in other words, lies) we've ever seen, we don't know what is. Channel 2; Channel 7; Tribune coverage. If Patrick Fitzgerald is reading this - Faster Please. Squeeze "Quarters" and Segal a little harder. Someone somewhere is going to pop soon. And to Michael Shakman - keep fighting the good fight.

Happy Birthday!

A belated Happy Birthday shout out to one of our favorite people in the universe.

Karl Rove - Genius. 55 years young today. And we are certainly surprised that Lefty has kept his promise keeping Republican bashing under wraps, especially in light of this momentous day. Happy Birthday Karl.

More Photographed Stupidity

Unbelievable:

The Iroquois Theater

This is embarrassing

The Eastland

Um, Sergeant-to-be? That's a crime scene your standing in.
Just thought you ought to know.

Christmas Wishes

A Merry Christmas to all our readers.

Be safe out there if you are working.

ExamScam II? Investigate Please

We've been going over a few of our threads and a lot of the comments regarding the recently announced class of new detectives. Comments seem to be divided into two camps (well, three maybe).

Camp A, to which we belong, notices that something seems odd. We have a rudimentary grasp of probability and finite mathematics and are reasonably well educated. We make an effort to be trained observers; we are aware of the city's propensity to interpret rules to suit themselves; the history of political favoritism; the fact that trusting the city's version of events ALWAYS results in bad outcomes. All we want is an open and fair explanation of the results; open up the curtains and let the light shine in.

Camp B insists everything is fine, there was no cheating, everything the city does is on the up and up. And they could be correct. We never said there was cheating and at the moment, there is no (admissible) evidence that any cheating took place. The exam was probably administered completely within the bounds of the contract the testing firm had with the city. The city would never play fast and loose with an exam, would they?

Camp C says 016, 008, and TRU suck, so we think we can disregard their input at this time.

We have called for an independent investigation as to the statistical possibility and improbability of an obvious cluster of loosely connected people all scoring so well as to be promoted in the first class. The fact that some of these people have so little time on the job is another red flag in that so many recent exams have been "front loaded" with higher seniority officers. Where did they all go?

QUESTION: If you had the opportunity to sit down with, oh we don't know, a Federal Hiring Monitor or someone similar, how would you change the testing process? How would you evaluate "merit" as the basis for promotion? What keys things would you look for if you were going to be initiating an investigation? We're just curious.

Sergeant's Union Update

Sergeants Arbitration Award announced today! Congratulations on getting a contract about 2.5 years after expiration of the old one. Prepare to enter new negotiations next year. Don't spend that retro check all in one place. Highlights include .75 hours per day, wage compression, and PO equivalent raises. Lowlights include not re-establishing the D2A gap.

In the meantime, the Sergeant's union recently held an election and the winners are as follows:

• President: Michael Dejanovich
  
• Vice President: vacant - no candidate
• Treasurer: John Pallohusky
• Financial Secretary: Dennis Hinkson
• Recording Secretary: vacant - no candidate
• Area 1: vacant - no candidate
  
• Area 2: Larry Lynch
• Area 3: Ed Brennan
• Area 4: Mike Lazzaro
• Area 5: George Whiteside
• At Large: Bob Kirchner, Nancy Higgins, Rich Wiser, Debra DeYoung

People were questioning why there were so few choices in the recent FOP election and it was pointed out that there were only 200 or so members out of about 17,000 members (active & retired) that had attended the minimum number of meetings and were eligible to run. Is it possible that the Sergeant's Union had fewer candidates eligible for office based on meeting attendance? Are the Sergeant's unhappy with their union? Why no interest in the spots?

A Final Thought On Stupid "Stuff"

If you want to be the type of copper that has to photograph every crime scene and keep a few for your private little photo album, you've got bigger problems that we can imagine. You are a ghoul. Plain and simple. In the early part of the last century when photography was a new and novel invention, some people in Texas were taking photographs of the dead after a major hurricane destroyed the coast. A number of them were summarily rounded up and hanged by the necks by irate townsfolk and we can't say we blame them.

Death, especially violent death, is not really an appropriate subject of photography (and don't give us any shit about the Tookie picture - if you can't tell the difference, fuck you). For some reason, probably around the time of the Kennedy assassination, filming death became something of a media staple, culminating in the "If it bleeds, it leads" news shows of the 1990's. The "Photo's of the Year" at most major magazines always include some bloody victim of some heinous event and this is supposed to do what? Move us? Make us thankful we aren't that poor bastard? What exactly? Does anyone ever stop and wonder why? Curiosity? Fascination with violence? A general lack of moral outrage?

We signed onto to our e-mail account today and we had no less than 3 different e-mails with an entire SERIES of these unauthorized photo's attached. THREE. And each of the address lists had around another 10 to 25 names in it. Photographs from the public way? Fine. It's a goddamn plane parked on Central Avenue. You aren't going to see that every day. BUT PHOTOS FROM INSIDE THE CRIME SCENE TAPE? Sorry, but you're a fucking moron looking to get suspended or worse. In this age of instant communication, who in their right mind would even think of taking, let alone spreading these photographs around? We hope to high heaven that the individual in those photos never knows the pain having a bunch of people (POLICE OFFICERS FOR GOD'S SAKE) standing around the spot where their child was crushed to death, grinning like it was a spectator sport.

A little boy died in that plane accident people. He was six years old and his name was Joshua Woods. He was by all accounts a spunky kid with his entire life ahead of him. And he got crushed by a fucking airplane in our city. We are appalled that photographs like this made it into the public realm. A-fucking-ppalled. You can't imaging the disgust we are feeling right now.

TRUE WAR STORY - On the scene of a traffic accident many years ago, a car went airborne and landed on another car. Cops on the scene didn't even realize there was a victim in the crushed car at first because it was pancaked so bad. When the fire department cut her out, she was a mess. Some media jackal was up against the tape, within 30 or 40 yards of the car and he started taking pictures. Without a word, 3 or 4 coppers went and stood in front of him so he couldn't get a shot of this poor dead woman. When he moved, all of them moved to block his angle. When they backed the tape up another 30 yards, he got shouldered back the whole way so he couldn't get any shots. No violence. No words. No need.

Where are those guys today? We see so much misery every single day. Let's try to act like we're fucking police officers once in a while and not some gawky goddamn tourists from the sticks. Comments are closed for this post - we are just too pissed off to listen to any excuses right now.

Stupid "Stuff"

Language Warning

There are many ways to do stupid shit. Everyone has done stupid shit. The key thing you have to remember about stupid shit is to (A) try not to get caught doing stupid shit and (B) if you get caught, learn from it so you don't do stupid shit again.

Many times, stupid shit is easy to avoid. These are usually common sense issues, but everyone has bad days. Occasionally, you have to be caught doing stupid shit to learn how to avoid it. These are usually things that you have been told to avoid, but for some reason, slip your mind and you end up getting SPARred to "assist" in reminding you to avoid further stupidity. And sometimes, rarely, you run across a situation where the only good that comes out of it is that you serve as a reminder to other people NOT to do stupid shit.

This would appear to be one of those times. Over beers last night, we were talking a friend of a friend who knows someone in the "Detective Familiarization" detail. During the instruction, they were specifically told to avoid unauthorized crime scene photos, whether by disposable camera, cell phone camera or digital camera, and we understand why: in the event that alternate photos become available, cases fall apart, stories become confused, reasonable doubt can be implied where none actually exists. Additionally, the possibility of pictures falling into the wrong hands or the hands of people who shouldn't be subjected to the content (families seeing homicide scenes) increases when unauthorized photos are out there.

And yet this person, who was told by instructors that they should avoid these types of photos, that when they are sergeants should ensure that these types of photos are NOT taken, is seen on the ABC Channel 7 News posing in an unauthorized photo at what is essentially a crime scene!

What the fuck? We wonder if this person is a "merit" pick. Does this sound like someone who even remotely "merits" a sergeant spot? Like someone you want supervising police officers? Like someone you want handling crime scenes or, god forbid, a police shooting? We have our doubts and so should whoever approved the recommendation of this person for sergeant. Aren't there a few thousand other people out there a tiny little bit more deserving of promotion, at least based on having good judgment? Of course there are.

Our friend was amazed that someone like this is actually on the way to being promoted - we, on the other hand, weren't. We just shook our head and ordered another round. This is exactly what happens when what is defined as "merit" is all in who you know and not what you've done.

UPDATE: Now we are getting conflicting info that this person may be a legit score promotion. If so, it seems to be a case of "book smart, street stupid." Regardless, our info that the entire class was told to avoid unauthorized picture taking stands. Stupid shit, boys and girls, has toasted more than one career.

Open Thread

Tis the season and all that, so we are going to be taking a short break today as we finish up some shopping or cooking or wrapping or something. We'll be posting this evening and we're assuming everyone is ducking out early for the long weekend. So post your Christmas thoughts here if you aren't going to be checking in over the weekend.

WE WILL BE POSTING OVER CHRISTMAS.

Perhaps not three times a day, but we will be here (or somewhere near a computer). Expect a Quick Hits post, an update on the Sergeant's contract if they settle, something special for one of our celebrity readers and who knows what else. We've also got a fun post for next week that ought to stir the creative juices a bit. See you this evening.

New Business Idea

Copyright 2005 by SCC Inc! Must Credit SCC! Our Idea! Licensing options available, enquire at our e-mail address listed in the profile! OK, it's not really a new idea, but an improvement on an existing idea, so who knows how much money we might actually make on it.

Urinal Stickers.

Yes, yes, we know. Who spends time thinking about Urinal Stickers? No one really, so the guy who invented them made a killing when he came out with them. For those unfamiliar with the concept, a study was undertaken that conclusively proved that men were more ... accurate around the urinal if they had a target to aim at. This reduces cleaning costs and make for a happier bathroom. They already make urinal stickers in a variety of types - political, whimsical, sports etc.

Our idea? Gang logos. And they'd be used in ALL the bathrooms in police stations so that if a gangbanger had to take a leak, he'd have to whiz all over his colors! You could use the stickers in the cells or in the public johns. You could have one of every gang logo in the PO's locker rooms so you could take a leak on the nation of your choice. It's a can't miss proposition, like those damn plastic bracelets we see everywhere. Investors? This could go nation-wide.

Bury this Garbage Already

We updated the police related links on the right. CrimeFileNews (aka Crime, Guns and Video Tape) is one of the latest entries into the police related blogging world. We don't agree with Paul Huebl's stance on the death penalty, but we borrowed this photo from his website:


and we MUST say:

• (A) Tookie has NEVER looked better!
• (B) Here's ONE murderer who will never kill again
• (C) He looks so life-like, NOT!
• (D) Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead - LIKE TOOKIE!

Mayor Environmentally UNfriendly

The "blue bag" program has been a disaster from the start, what with mixing recyclables in with regular garbage and then RE-sorting it somewhere else and THAT sorting being done poorly, if even done at all. Now the mayor is going to have Ward yards with recycling drop off boxes and bins at strip malls for people to bring their pre-sorted garbage?

City recycling is estimated to be at about 13%. Our prediction - this time next year, it's under 5% unless a major new (expensive) initiative is undertaken.

A Reader's Christmas Wishes

SCC Christmas

Twas the night before Christmas and Second City Cop
Was alive with silliness, sarcasm, and slop
The topic was “merit” – imagined or real
And the coppers who all got such a raw deal.

Daley was tossing and turning in his bed
Indictments of friends whistling all over his head
Oh Franny, Oh Franky, write me a good one
To not put an end to my fifteen year run.

Nine chiefs of staff during my tenure
Their names gone so fast, they’re all just a blur
Thank God for Ronnie, he may be my savior
From charges of covering criminal behavior.

Like padding the rolls or selling city blacktop
Or mystery trucks that do nothing but stop
Department heads falling weekly or quicker
I need some spin – get firemen with liquor!

On the front page, to save my dead ass
And deflect the heat to the CFD brass
Find cases on coppers that are all settled and done
And rehash the nonsense – my spin battle won.

Daley, Oh Daley, how low will you sink
Will Patty Fitz get you thrown in the clink
Our hero, our hero go, Patty Fitz, go
When will you land Daley a terrible blow.

Next topic – acronyms, S.O.S. TRU (true)
Sons of shitheads and total retarded U
Focus and stay on the topic today
Stop ranting and going all over the place.

Washington and some dickhead posting shit
That will cause some more grief and assholes to get bit
Bringing heat on us all, well intentioned or not
Keeps posting in all of the threads, what a sot.

Entertaining or not, yet still we are drawn
To visit today or tomorrow at dawn
We’ve seen SOX Titanic get raised from the deep
And a thread has been hijacked for bosses who're creeps.

Farrell was best boss by everyone’s vote
"Stop posting racist shit!" S.C.C. wrote
Censoring, deleting, keeping it clean
New topic! – Millennium Park and the Bean.

Trying to spot waste and criminal dealings
Not caring about hurting some feelings
If what’s spoke is the truth then live with the actions
Stop fighting, fussing, and splitting into factions

Repugs, Democraps, 016 and 008
All must join now to make this job great
Once more and stop all this shit that goes on
In violation of contract – right or wrong?

File grievances and contact your alderman
In order to help with this grand master plan
And return this job to its glorious state
Instead of dooming it to a perilous fate

Go Lefty, Go Bush Boy, Sgt. Northen too
And Shady, who without, what the fuck would we do?
His ranting and raving entertain all of us
His left leaning philosophy making a fuss

Without SCC Blog I admit
We wouldn’t have known a lot of the shit
That goes on in CPD right under our nose
That turns us into arguers, fighters, and foes

With the New Year that’s coming around
We must come together and start standing our ground
With FOP, aldermen, writers, and we
To stop getting fucked over by little King Richie

To everyone who enjoys this SCC site
I wish Merry Christmas with New Years in sight
A THANK YOU to M for providing this chance
To vent, rant, and talk shit while wearing no pants

Santa hat dangling its furry ball in my lap
While I post some more nonsense and crap
Back to being serious – SCC Blog is for all
For good or for bad – you make the call

In closing I must mention just one more thing
Keep aiming at grabbing that little brass ring
Keep Patty Fitz and Brennan at the top of your prayers
And hopefully we’ll bag us a big trophy – The Mayor!

UPDATE: Uselessness of Europe

The convicted terrorist released by Germany after "serving" a life sentence landed today in Lebanon and was immediately taken into custody by Lebanese authorities while they consider a request from US authorities to extradite. (Thanks to CaptainsQuarters for the story)

The chances of getting him extradited are admittedly slim as we have no treaty with the new Lebanese Government, but with the pressure we've been putting on Syria (which led to a Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon after a 15+ year occupation) and the troop presence in Iraq, the Lebanese might feel a bit more inclined than normal to hold this terrorist.

At least they have more balls than the Germans.

Remember, when you Mirandize ...

... you have to remember to Mirandize ALL OF THE SUBJECTS PERSONALITIES. That's right. If you read a Miranda warning to a subject who has multiple personality disorder, you have to make sure you are Mirandizing all of the personalities involved or your case will get thrown out of court.

The Tennessee Supreme Court has disallowed the confession of a suspected serial killer of 4 prostitutes because the confession was made through an "alter ego" of the suspect who didn't receive Miranda. The subject is currently serving a 66 year sentence for other crimes and likely won't see the light of day ever again, but no justice for the 4 dead prostitutes. We really hope the revolution comes soon enough to line these lawyers up against the wall.

The Uselessness of Europe

First we have Austria threatening to strip the name of Arnold Schwarzenegger from a sports stadium and instead name it after the convicted murderer of four innocent people. Arnold's reply?

• "... I withdraw from them as of this day the right to use my name in association with the Liebenauer Stadium."

Good for you Arnold! He also returned a "ring of honor" to the city. Unconfirmed reports say that Austria is going to commemorate an "Adolph Hitler Memorial Highway" in the next few weeks in honor of their other famous countryman.

Then we have Germany releasing a convicted terrorist involved in the murder of US Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem in 1985 even though the terrorist was sentenced to LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE and in complete disregard for existing extradition treaties. Excuse our incredulity, but when someone here in America is sentenced to "life without parole," he doesn't get out after 19 years.

So we have Austria decrying the execution of a convicted murder and Germany releasing a convicted murderer shortly after a German hostage was released in Iraq. The lesson learned? Terrorism pays off.

Dennis Miller said that once upon a time, "Conquistador" was the most feared word in the world (before the Spanish populace collapsed in the face of islamic terror). What is the German word for "coward" or "appeasenik?" It sure is hard to believe these people helped us win the Cold War.

FOP Meeting

Just got some information from a source that attended the FOP Meeting this afternoon. It seems that the FOP is conducting a survey of officers regarding how certain judges are handling cases where the PO is the victim. The survey has been up for about 8 months and they've received a grand total of 4 comments. 8 months - 4 comments. That's kind of sad. It does partly explain why voter turnout for the recent pension board election was an anemic 20% or so for the active guys.

So we've decided to have a little "booster drive" as it were. If you have a story about how a certain judge treated you in a courtroom recently, hop over to this link here and tell the FOP about it for their survey. Let's see if we can give them a couple dozen or even a couple hundred comments. We only ask for a small favor:

In the comments section, start with the line, "I was referred to your survey by secondcitycop.blogspot.com." That's all. We're just looking to get noticed more.

Other interesting info -

• DON'T go to dope court without a lab report because if it's negative, you won't get paid. Call the State Police Crime Lab to get a report.
• No Affidavit = No CR#. IAD will be notifying supervisors of this by fax and by their newsletter.
  
• Cameras in the squad cars! Coming soon to 005, 016 and Traffic. The city has budgeted ZERO dollars for cameras, so they are getting 15 different companies to donate 2 cameras each for a pilot program. Be aware of the cameras and what the capabilities are of each. Some activate when you turn on the mars lights, some run constantly, some are manual activation. Watch yourselves - literally
  
• GPS. It's coming. In fact, it's already in some of the cars being used for CTA Special (look for the little "donut"). The park district has been using this for some time and supervisors can pull up reports on where you were and when. These boxes are "smart" and will tell the control stations exactly what time and place attempts were made to disconnect it, so don't screw around with the machines.

Remember the survey link - and tell them SecondCityCop sent you!

We Don't Need No Stinking Fences!

President Vincente Fox of Mexico continues to stick his nose where it doesn't belong in attempting to dictate American border security. From the Sun-Times and NewsMax:

• ...Fox stepped up his attacks on the U.S. plan to build a fence along its southern border on Sunday, saying it was a ''shameful'' initiative for a democracy.
• Fox said the measures were hypocritical for a country made up of immigrants.

He also brings up comparisons to the Berlin Wall, which was actually put up to stop people from escaping the "worker's paradise" that was East Germany.

We're all for immigration - lawful and controlled immigration. We're even open to discussion on "guest worker" type programs - lawful, controlled, regulated programs. But you have Vincente's government printing INSTRUCTION BOOKLETS on how to get over the border, armed incursions by gangs of drug runners attacking US Law Enforcement, and an entire Mexican economy based on money sent home by people working here. The 10 million or so illegals in this country cost the economy untold billions of dollars a year and Fox says we're wrong for building a fence? He's just afraid that if these millions of illegals get shipped home to a country with no jobs, they might break his social infrastructure, bankrupt a teetering economic house of cards and vote him out of office.

Time to look at our southern border George if you want to keep the Senate in 2006.

More Proof of Manpower Crisis

Besides the post we put up over the weekend about the massive discrepancy between the number of applications the administration says it's received as opposed to what certain people in Personnel (who actually process the applications) are telling our readers ... AND the Superintendent admitting that 92% of his districts are undermanned ... AND the fact that cops all over the city can't get time off when requested ... AND ... the declining number of checks cut for Title Code 9161 ... AND god knows how many threads we've written here decrying the shift of scheduled manpower from one area to the next, we have additional information that the manpower number is reaching low levels:

CHA Special Employment is now open citywide and they're paying time and a half. We saw in the CO Book that it came out Thursday last week and someone mentioned it in a comments section somewhere. We remember it being pointed out that it was only Housing getting the opportunity to work extra days for overtime, but now it's open season. This brings to three (?) the number of initiatives to work for time and half on your days off - TARA, CHA and the other thing for 50 people working the DOC areas on Fridays and Saturdays.

A couple of observations:

• Can we make any of this money pensionable? Would we want to? At least two of these are funded by Federal money.
• Why anyone would work CTA for straight time anymore is beyond us. Stop going and maybe they'll make it time and a half too.
• How about making ALL initiatives like this time and a half? Imagine the attendance numbers for Closed Market operations! Or even the details for 3 July, Billiken, PR Fest, Cinco de Mayo, or South Side Irish Parade?

Make the people running the event PAY for coverage instead of giving them free security. We recall some kind of program being pushed by the FOP to make Bears games and such Special Employment for time and a half - you'd have NO shortage of volunteers and the city wouldn't be pulling people out of already short districts to cover what is a FOR PROFIT endeavor. Now would seem to be the time to really start some sort of publicity push to force the issue. How can we take advantage of it?

Officer Bit (and an Open Thread)

Any details on this story? And are more people being bitten lately? Whatever happened to that off duty goof who bit the 018th District officers? And do officers taste like chicken?

Enquiring minds want to know!

you can use this as an open thread in the meantime - we're still thawing out from last night.

Payroll Horror Stories

Is everyone else as amused as we are at the stories coming out of payroll? You'd think it would be a relatively easy thing, but the city had to go screw everything up by messing with it. Yes, we know that they're trying to nickel and dime their way to solvency, so they eliminated a number of pay checks and rolled them into 4 main printing days, but couldn't they find anyone to do it correctly? Some stories we've heard:

• Way back for the retro checks, some people had Federal withholding taken out, others didn't. It's seemed to center mostly on husband/wife combinations, but there were others.
• Recruits getting Duty Availability on check, then having their next to checks reduced by a few hundred dollars to make up the overpayment.
• Detective NOT getting uniform checks.
• Now we're hearing about the automatic withdrawals getting screwed up at the Credit Union and they're suddenly taking out a large lump sum to make up for misses? If you have automatic payments withdrawn, you better be checking and balancing your books. They are going to catch the errors eventually because there are too many checks and balances.

Any bets on (A) how bad are the W-2s going to be screwed up, (B) how late the W-2s are going to be because of the screw ups and (C) how many coppers are going to get audited because they filed early and got their updated W-2s later and have to re-file? We're betting it's going to be an interesting tax season.

And Speaking of Football

Evidently, we have a Chicago Police Football Team in addition to Baseball and Hockey Teams. We've been contacted by one of the principals and asked to post this notice.

The Chicago Police Football Club is looking for members interested in playing full pad tackle football against other departments from around the country in the National Public Safety Football League (www.npfsl.com). An informational meeting will be held on Wednesday, 18 January at 1900 hrs at the F.O.P. located at 1412 W. Washington. If interested please attend the meeting or for more information please contact:
P.O. John Curry (153) 773-406-0749 john.curry@chicagopolice.org
Det. Jim Sherlock (610) 773-610-3673 jshoes007@yahoo.com
Sgt. Jim Ade (143) 312-550-2279 james.ade@chicagopolice.org

Tis A Bit Chilly Here

Not that we have anywhere to be or anything, but we may be taking a break from blogging this evening. The Bears have finally decided to comply with the NFL mandated "Frisk Everyone" policy, and they've decided to implement it on the last home game of the year and on the coldest day of the season so far. Nothing like starting a new policy in the dead of winter instead of working out the kinks when it's 40 degrees or so. Channel 7 covers it here.

Shorthanded - at the jail

And it seems Chicago isn't the only law enforcement agency operating at below recommended strength. From the Sun-Times:

• The report by MGT of America concluded that 3,589 correctional officers are needed to properly oversee jail operations. The jail has a roster of 2,791 officers -- 798 fewer than necessary

And how did they arrive at this figure? From a 1996 Federal Consent Decree as a result of a lawsuit filed by inmates who claimed the staffing levels were too low for the number of detainees. So the inmates really are running the asylum over at County.

Did he LIE to us?

From the comments section of the post titled "More Smoke and Mirrors:"

• Sharky said...I was down at HQ today and had a chance to speak with a buddy at Personnel. He told me the reason for the extension on applications for new Police Officers is because they have less than 500 applications turned in to date (473 as of yesterday, not including Internet applications that may have been submitted today).

But... but... but the mayor said he had 3,000 applications?! And they were keeping it open in order to get even more??! And the mayor wouldn't lie to us, would he?

See, here's what we don't get - if any true investigative reporter took the pains to actually, we dunno, ASK QUESTIONS and maybe ACTUALLY DO SOME FACT CHECKING, they would probably be amazed at how often politicians (especially chicago politicians) lie to the media. We suggested that the 3,000 number was a wee bit exaggerated 5 freaking days ago. No one extends an application deadline because you're getting too many applicants, especially if you're giving the test 4 times in a year.

We would suggest that maybe some reporters do a little legwork, ask some questions, grease a few palms and get some information. Have someone pay the $25 bucks and go do a head count at where ever they happen to give the test. Then figure out how 500 applicants becomes 3,000 test takers. Trust us, they aren't going to have 2,500 people taking it on the internet and only 500 show up at UIC.

An Interview with Tookie Williams!

SCC: "So Tookie, any regrets about no final apology to the families of those you slaughtered?"

Tookie:SCC: "We see. And how about any words of thanks to all your supporters?"

Tookie:

SCC: Mmhmm. Any advice to Jesse and Al and Mike Farrell and Susan Sarandon for the next mass murderer they may attempt to help to avoid a date with justice?

Tookie:SCC: Well said. Very well said. Thank you so much for your time and we hope you enjoy your stay in Hell while little dudes in red pajamas poke you in the ass with pitchforks for all eternity.

"This Fog is Getting Thicker."

"And Leon is getting laaaaarger!"

Still one of the funniest movies of all time. But anyway - the CTA is buying buses with larger seats to accommodate the ... um ... larger backsides of it's riders. See coverage at Channel 5, Channel 7 and the Tribune. Here's our question though. They are only expanding the seats from 17.5 inches to 18 inches. If the average American is 25 pounds heavier than in the 60's, what is to be gained by a half an inch?

Yeah, yeah, ask an Irish woman. We've heard those ones before.

Friday Quick Hits

Here we go again:

• The city continues to violate the Shakman Decree according to a report released by Federal Monitor Noelle Brennan. We know Michael Shakman reads this site and we know Noelle Brennan is aware of it. How about a little oversight this way people?
• In what was a precursor to the "Hired Truck" scandal, there was once a mountain of debris on the north side of Roosevelt Road in K-town the Zone 10 guys used to call "Mount Henry." It was named after the man who took about $5,000 dollars in bribes to dump 7.5 million TONS of Dan Ryan construction waste there. Ald. Bill Henry did the most decent thing he ever could by dying before the indictment came down. Now the mayor wants more money to make a movie studio there. As with all city projects, the price tag has increased by about double so far with no end in sight.
• The mayor is starting a sideline of tarot and tea leaf readings by predicting Paris style riots could come to American shores if the poor continue to be isolated. First of all, we don't think rioting in the Appalachians is going to come any time soon. Second, America does a better job of assimilating it's muslim citizens than France did. Third, since the mayor has banned all guns in the city, we're sure that nothing bad would happen here, would it?
• Thirty feet might not seem like a long way - unless it's straight down. Nice catch of a one month old child dropped from a burning building. Mom got out when the NYFD arrived.
  

The Baddest of the Bad

Yesterday, the F-22A Raptor became a fully operational cog in the USAF's phenomenal inventory of air superiority fighters. During combat flight exercises, a single F-22A engaged and "destroyed" EIGHT F-15C Eagles, the premier air superiority fighter in existence for about 15 years. Expect to see this aircraft perform admirably in the upcoming Syrian and Iranian Wars.

Cancer Cluster

If 9 people within three blocks of us suddenly came down with cancer, you can bet that the Centers for Disease Control would be out testing the air, the water, the dirt, everything. Because 9 people don't come down with cancer for no apparent reason. It's statistically impossible that some outside influence didn't affect those people.

Which brings us to the 011th District situation. As we stated before, it is possible that 5 or 9 or even 20 cops registered the same score citywide. In a pool of 4,500 test takers, there are going to be ties - that's why seniority is the tiebreaker. But of those 4,500, the odds of 9 people associated with a single district Tact/Gang team ALL scoring high enough to get promoted in the first class are damn near incalculable. We don't care if they studied together, bought the same books, attended the Robert's study group AND took the Berstein course together. The chances of 9 individuals associated with ONE location (by working there, used to work there or a relative there) with all of the foibles and idiosyncrasies of human beings in general, CANNOT be clustered like this.

And if it does happen, there needs to be an investigation. Period. INVESTIGATE. The city already gets 20% of the promotions for "merit" (30% for supervisors). ANY hanky panky means that the city isn't getting 20% - it means they're getting their 20% IN ADDITION TO whatever else they can get. They are cheating US. We aren't competing for 8 spots out of 10. We're trying for maybe 7 or even 6 spots out of 10. Maybe 5?

Of course, maybe there wasn't any underhandedness. But INVESTIGATE it damnit. We deserve to know. The curtain needs to be torn open on the promotional process. This city and this department have operated in the shadows for far too long to take them at their word that everything is on the up and up. INVESTIGATE.

It's the least we can ask for.

Go Mark! Go Mark!

Well, looks like the FOP won one, and they did it pretty damn quick, too. In the Current Updates section of their website, they state:

• At the urging of the Fraternal Order of Police, the Illinois Police Training and Standards Board voted today to begin processing the applications for Retiree Carry Concealed without the endorsement of the City of Chicago.

Essentially, what they did was take Daley completely out of the equation. The mayor can pout and sulk and send his lawyers all over, but as soon as the Board sets up a schedule for processing and locations for qualifying, the City has no say in the matter. If the city is going to disregard the rules, screw them. All in all, this looks like a damn good move by the FOP and after all the flak they've taken in the comments sections regarding this issue, they deserve a bit of praise for handling this one quickly, efficiently and in a manner that really stuck it to the political administration.

OK, This is Definitely "Odd"

We're not one to see conspiracies everywhere, but this deserves comment and actually HAS been commented on in previous threads. What the hell is going on in the 011th District? We can see people across the city in what would be called "statistical ties" whereby 6 people (or even 20 or 30) people among the 4,500 or more who took the test scoring identically. There are plenty of smart people on this job.

But 6 people from the same office in the 011th District AND the relative of one of the 6 AND possibly one or more people DETAILED OUT of the same office in 011? Sorry, this doesn't wash. This deserves an investigation or at the very least, an explanation. There is NO WAY POSSIBLE that 9 people this closely associated were able to all score well enough to make it into the first class of detectives. We don't care HOW WELL they studied and if they all studied together. Coupled with the fact that seniority has been the tie-breaker in so many of the past few exams, the abundance of young coppers on that list raises even more questions. The only possibility we see is that 2 made it on score and the rest were merit? But that seems very far fetched that they'd burn all their merit picks in one district.

We are hereby calling on the city to immediately RELEASE the test results of the 51 people promoted and sit down with a NEUTRAL qualified Actuary to figure out the statistic possibility AND THE STATISTICAL IMPROBABILITY of these results. The FOP ought to be asking the same damn questions or it's going to look very suspicious, not to mention the Federal Hiring Monitor supposedly looking over this whole process (we are doubting she even knows a new test existed - the city probably just showed her a list and told her they were taking the numerical scores without explaining how 9 people associated with the 011th District tact/gang office were making the first class).

Perhaps our retired Sergeant with the statistics about the crooked Lieutenant's test would like to weigh in? Or perhaps someone with a little "inside information" about the "sooper-sekret" study group downtown would like to expound on their theory? Because it seems like the "sooper-sekret" group might have been from 011 and NOT 35th Street.

This is a Test

We seem to be having blogger problems on this end. Posting will resume and this post might disappear if we figure out what the heck is going on. Comments are closed for this post.

UPDATE: Oooook. Now we are up again. Checking the meter stats, we had a dead area between 8 and 9 o'clock, which happens to be one of our highest traffic hours as everybody checks us out first thing in the morning. We have no idea what that was about.

Posts are now open - consider this an open post for the time being while we check things out.

Truth? Or Rumor?

From the comments section - PLEASE let this be true!

• Anonymous said...

  You've heard it here first.
  
  Incarcerated multimillionaire Michael "Mickey" Segal is rolling over on Dirty Li'l Richie. Segal has been singing to Fitzgerald's feds at the Metropolitan Correctional Center.

Detective List is Out

Watch this space for names later tonight. It might be a whole lot later though, just so you know. Congrats to the new guys and gals - is this going to affect the pre-sergeants who are in the Areas at this time? We saw that rumor posted in a comments section that they might get sworn in early for either (A) federal grant money or (B) to make room for real detectives.

UPDATE: Whomever typed in the list in the comments section, THANK YOU! We'll get a little something extra for you in the envelope next week. We're also going to copy/paste it here on the front page so the new Detectives can experience the joy of having their names on the SCC main page.

Megan Aylward 001/116; Mark Delfavero 001
Thomas Osika 002; Michael Vogenthaler 003
Stanley Kalicki 004; Pamela McClinton 005
Elizabeth Mishler 005; David Demato 007
Beth Svec 007/193; Lawrence Herhold 008/193
Jacob Alderden 009; Stephen Pietrzak 009
Daniel Tapia 010; Saul Barrientos 010
Michael Walsh 010; Luke Connolly 011
Amalio Corral 011/193; Peter Devine 011
Daniel Gallagher 011; Roy Isakson 011
Joel Keller 011; Brian Spain 011
Gerald Swinkle 011/189; Jaime Duignan 012
Troy Flemming 012; Eric Winstrom 013
Sheamus Fergus 014; John Folino 015/193
Andrew Senner 015; Kevin Bruno 018
Marlene Laurich 019; Jennifer Fowler 020
Robert Kane III 020; Emmet Welch 020
Thomas Coffey 021/377; Ryan Miller 021
Phyllis Simson 021; Nari Isakson 023
Jessica Jones 023; Frank Traynor 023
Jeong Park 024; David Roberts 025
Randall Ryan 025; Stephen Wojik 025
Baz Khoushaba 112/116; Randall Bacon 121
John Benigno 177/377; Fernando Carvajal 189
David Hindman 189; John Lewis 189
Douglas Livingstone 253

100,000 Visits

Sometime in the next hour (around 1500 hours), we will hit our 100,000th visitor. Last time we mentioned a milestone number (80,000 it was), some person tried to rip us a new one for thanking all of our readers, commentators and contributors. Here is the exchange from 25 November 2005:

• SCC,
  What do want, a Department Commendation?!!! You would deserve as much as any the other heros we see walking around with the ribbon they got for just being on the scene of some other coppers good arrest.
  ************************************
  (We Replied) No, we just wanted to say "thanks" to our readers. Where do you get off thinking we want something? It's tiny brains like yourself with limited reading comprehension skills who think that because people were raised right and thank those that help them build a successful enterprise, we're out to get something.
  
  You and your ilk aren't happy unless you're tearing down someone who is doing well. We don't see your website up anywhere providing coppers with a tiny little bit of entertainment (for free no less) in the midst of a morale death spiral. You aren't reading ads here. We aren't making a dime here. We have a HOBBY that (happily) happens to involve other copppers who can contribute at no cost, other than their time. And maybe, possibly, sometimes, we can change the way things are done (like the illegal details).
  
  We imagine your hobby involves a dark room, one hand, a blow up doll and mommy knocking at the door asking what you're doing in there. Go away troll.

So here we are, 19 days and 20,000 hits later and the numbers just keep going up. Despite the fact we might tempt the same troll to exercise his one handed typing techniques, we again say THANKS to everyone who visits, reads, comments, e-mails with ideas, whatever. Without you, we're just spouting nonsense into the electronic void that is the internet. With your visits, at least our nonsense might provide you with information to do your job, a thought that might help you avoid trouble, or a smile that sticks with you during an extremely long shift. Keep spreading the word people.

UPDATE: Got it about 1445 hours. So if you logged on then, it was probably you.

Welcome to Ethics 101

From Fran Spielman in today's sun-times:

• Chicago's 50 aldermen and 35,872 city employees will be required to undergo ethics training every year -- instead of confining classes to 3,800 top managers every four years -- under a crackdown triggered by City Hall corruption scandals.

Wheh! Just in time, too! Because it was really looking like there might be a problem with a few hundred trucks sitting around doing nothing. Or that downtown park with the shiny sculpture. Or the parking lot that can't seem to pay off it's bond issue. Or those crumbling flower boxes that block traffic views (any report on how they're holding up plowing streets?) Or that airport that disappeared. Or those Water Department people swiping in and out for each other. Or the Lincoln Park land sold to developers for $1. Or the insurance mogul with all the connections. Or the politically connected felons holding down jobs paying a hundred grand a year. Or the 911 center that tripled in price. Or the computer systems in cars and districts that if they stay operating for more than 24 hours straight, they call the pope to verify a miracle has occurred. Or the next jackass with a badge embarrassing the rest of us.

You can tell that ethics were always a TOP priority in the city of Chicago. Another hour of our lives that we won't be getting back because "Friends of City Hall" just can't keep their paws clean.

UPDATE!!!

This is an UPDATE of the utmost IMPORTANCE!!!

Tookie is still dead.

That is all. We now return to previously scheduled blogging

More Smoke and Mirrors

Did everyone hear that the city was extending the application deadline for the upcoming police test for 4 more weeks?

• Mayor Richard M. Daley and Chicago police officials announced today that the deadline for applying to become a Chicago police officer has been extended to Jan. 9, 2006, and that the City is launching a major recruitment drive to attract more qualified applicants.

They are claiming to have received 3,000 applications so far, but if they are going to have the entry test FOUR TIMES this year, why would they need to extend the deadline? Does anyone else get the feeling that maybe the 3,000 number is a tiny little exaggeration?

They can't get people to take this job at any price lately. We remember when they used to draw over 30,000 people for an entrance exam given every 5 years. Now they have to give it 4 times a year.

Of those "3,000," only a thousand will pass and of those thousand, 300 will decline to continue, 100 will fail the background checks, 50 won't have the college, 75 will fail the power test and 25 will piss hot. And of the 450 remaining, 10 will back out at the last moment and 10 more will fail training. So the 430 who make it will fall short of covering the 650 that retire every year and you still won't be able to get time due in the districts. Hooray!

Gee, Who Saw This One Coming?

Mearday arrested again for dealing drugs (registration may be required at the Trib site). Wow. Maybe he was just trying to make ends meet until his big settlement came through? Now he's facing 15 years in the pen. DuPage County has very little sense of humor in these cases, so hopefully they go for the max. Maybe they can fine him $1.75 million dollars in a little jab at poetic justice?

Is anyone down at city hall or corporation counsel wiping egg off their faces? Or did they have their sense of shame removed along with their spines and balls when they joined up?

And Another Thing ...

Just for any reporters reading this site (feel free to forward this to interested parties like reporters, the NRA, etc):

How much firearm training do aldercreatures receive? As stated in the Municipal Code, aldercreatures are allowed to carry firearms. And as pointed out by some of our readers, there are at least a couple of them with IR numbers that might cast a bit of doubt on their suitability to be carrying weapons. "The Hat" and "the latin king" come to mind. Anyone else?

Midnight Gang Teams

Someone pointed out the coverage in the sun-times of the "new" midnight gang teams being deployed in 4 of the 5 Areas. Rather than "hate" on the gang teams, we applaud the city and department for realizing there is a gap in the overnight coverage and crime truly is a 24-hour a day problem.

However (there always seems to be a "however" in this town), they seem to be leaving out Area 3, because as the article states "...crime is relatively low there." It's all well and good that crime is low there, but we've heard (someone correct us if it's wrong) that they are still pulling coppers out of Area 3 districts to man the midnight teams. That would seem to be robbing Peter to pay Paul. Especially in light of the superintendent admitting that 92% of his districts are undermanned. We're just curious, and so are our neighbors and the aldermen and the media we write letters to. Can anyone confirm if this is true or not? We'd like accurate information so we aren't just spreading rumors (which is still fun).

UPDATE: 1215 hours - We don't think anyone has answered the question posed - are they pulling cops out of Area 3 Districts to cover the midnight gang teams while NOT deploying in Area 3? This thread WASN'T meant as a 025 v 016 flame war. Try to stay on topic.

Tookie Watch

Arnold denies clemency. Way to go Arnie! Looks like we'll be staying up late tonight to see if LA goes up in smoke again. Hopefully, it's quiet, but Arnold keeps the Guard on call. We'd suggest a "shoot to kill arsonists, shoot to maim looters" type response. It'd be in the finest traditions of big city mayors and the California governor might boost his standing among the bleeding hearts if he acted more like a democrat.

Wow - We Must Be Psychic

Or psychotic. It is frightening to think we might be channeling Fran and Frank, but when we posted the previous thread, we had no idea our two favorite reporters were going to have an article in today's sun-times covering the same subject. We published at 2330 or so and post dated it to be today's opening item.

Anyway, the article quotes the FOP website as saying their lawyers have advised against legal action at this time, but will instead be "addressing the agencies responsible for ensuring the proper enabling procedures." We're not sure if this means the State or the State police or local jurisdictions or what, but the issue itself seems to be generating a lot of interest. It's obviously an anti-gun stance by the mayor who is accustomed to running his fief without federal interference, but we're thinking that is going to change shortly.

H.R. 218 Debacle

Well, according to the FOP website, the City has refused to qualify retirees based on "cited concerns of unresolved issues "including but not limited to the issues of liability, standards for the certification of retirement in "“good standing"” and a comprehensive and reliable identification system.”"

Pardon us, but what a pile of crap. In our humble opinions:

• Liability - The city is obviously worried that if they "authorize" someone to carry a gun, they'd be held liable if that person goes around the bend. Fine, if the retirees decide to stick around this city, get them to sign a waiver or have them evaluated (on the City's dime) by a shrink before they retire. They trusted you with a gun for 29 years, now they're going to raise mental status? If the state keeps issuing them a FOID card, the city ought to drop this objection.
• Retirement in "Good Standing" - Bullshit. If you retired with your badge, no outstanding beefs, eligible for your pension and were issued a retirement star and ID, that would seem to qualify "in good standing." This is by far the most unreasonable roadblock tossed up by the city.
• Comprehensive and reliable ID system - More bullshit. You have a valid DL, FOID, a retirement ID, what more do they want? 99 times out of 100, they even have your gun registration numbers for your duty weapons because 99 out of 100 coppers keep their duty weapon. Your fingerprints have been on file since day one. What more do they want? DNA?

Someone (hello FOP!!) ought to be putting a little effort behind finding out why the city feels it's above Federal Law. This would make for an EXCELLENT political issue. It's been proven time and time again that the retirees are a voting block to be reckoned with - they got every retiree running for office elected AND they had something like an 85+% turnout for the pension board election. Someone could make quite a run for office by hitting the Retiree Breakfasts and pushing for explanations on this issue. Hmmm.

Bears Spanked

A great defense can only keep you in the game. No offense will burn you in the long run. Please post advice to Lovie Smith in this thread in case he ever gets around to reading this blog.

Run Howard Run!

The chairman of the DNC has been briefed on how well his recent comments are playing in the sticks and has now "recast" his statement from a few days ago (can you smell the burning rubber as Howard reverses course?) What Howard said previously:

• "The idea that we're going to win this war is an ideal that unfortunately is just plain wrong," Democratic Party Chair Howard Dean told a San Antonio radio show on Monday.

Hmm. Seems pretty straight forward to us. It's in English. No screaming at the end. Howard appears to be in control of his faculties. Perhaps one of our leftists would like to take a shot at parsing this sentence? Maybe explain it in context?

What Howard said Thursday:

• Asked Thursday to defend his statement in the Texas radio interview, Dean said: "It was a little out of context. ... We can only win if we change our strategy dramatically. ... We want to serve our troops well. They're doing a fantastic job in Iraq."

Hmm. We're still not seeing the "out of context" part. We do agree that out and out retreat would be a dramatic strategy change, though. And it seems that Howard is taking a page out of John Kerry's playbook whereby he supported the troops before he stopped supporting them (and then read his poll numbers and started supporting them again.)

Fry Tookie

Seldom, if ever, does the LA Times get anything right.

They did this time though.

UPDATE: 2030 hours: Steve at HogOnIce thinks Arnold might be about to commute Tookie's sentence to life in prison. We sure hope not.

Again with the Holiday Appeal

Yes, we're sure you get bombarded with "requests" to buy tickets to Christmas parties. And there is always some cookie or candy sale going on for someone's kid. And there is definitely NO shortage of retirements or medical fundraisers going on at any given time. But this is something people have contacted us about and it bears repeating. Below are some addresses that you can send pre-paid phone cards to defer the cost of calls home for wounded military personnel.

Medical Family Assistance Center - Walter Reed Medical Center
6900 Georgia Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20307-5001
(202) 782-3501

National Naval Medical Center
8901 Wisconsin Avenue
Bethesda, Maryland 20814
(301) 295-4611

There are also thousands of active duty military folks that could use a hand. Check out www.uso.com and www.usocares.org to see how you can help our men and women overseas and away from home during the holiday season. It only takes a couple minutes, a couple dollars and a couple stamps to make someone's day.