Ok....Um....

Alright, we're all for positive stories about the police. Seriously. We need a break from bad news. But we aren't sure this is it:

• If you've got one hand on the wheel and another pressing a phone against your head, you better steer clear of Officer Ramon Solidum. He doesn't want to brag, but he considers himself the "super cop" of Chicago's cell-phone ban.
  
  Two years after Chicago outlawed the use of hand-held cell phones while driving, police officers are issuing more citations than ever, and Solidum is leading the pack.
  
  The city's 13,600 officers had issued 25,432 cell-phone citations through mid July, and the median number of tickets issued by each officer was 2, according to a Tribune analysis of city data.

First up, we've proven time and time again that manpower is nowhere near 13,600 unless you include sergeants, lieutenants, captains, detectives, deputy chiefs, chiefs, assistant deputy superintendents, deputy superintendents, and interim superintendents. The number of actual officers working the streets is somewhere under 6,000.

The article goes on from there:

• The way Solidum sees it, enforcing the cell-phone ordinance keeps streets safe and preserves his credibility as a cop.

And the kicker:

• These findings call into question the widespread assumption that the city's cell-phone ordinance is not enforced, a belief the ordinance's sponsor, former Ald. Burton Natarus (42nd), shares. "I talked to the Police Department, and I surmised this is not a priority," Natarus said. "It's not enforced the way it should be."
  
  Ald. Brian Doherty (41st), who admitted to having violated the cell-phone ordinance, agreed. "Very few tickets have been written on that," he said, adding that he hadn't viewed the citations. "The police aren't looking for this as something they want to enforce. They've got better things to do."

These numbers would seem to give lie to Natarus and Doherty claiming the ordinance isn't being enforced. But here's the thing:

• This is EXACTLY the type of officer the City wants nowadays.

He's generating revenue. Evidently, LOTS of revenue. He's enforcing a hot button issue ticket that the aldercreatures want enforced. He's held up as an enforcer of law and order and pushed to the fore by News Affairs or whoever arranges these sanitized press interviews in an effort to generate some sort of non-negative publicity.

Does he come off as a bit of a odd ball? Sure. Most traffic guys have their pet peeve that they'll write every single time - look at your DUI kings, your sound impounders, the guy who will come up for every single accident and hammer the suspended/revoked drivers no one else wants to touch. These are necessary officers to have around and there aren't too many of them around, but they can carry an entire district worth of numbers.

For this reason, we WILL NOT be publishing any additional criticisms of Officer Solidum. We'll let the Tribune article stand on its own. Everyone can make their own judgments and if they want to confront Solidum, they can do it on their own time or on their own blog. We're pretty sure he didn't choose to give this interview.

But when you read this article, remember, he's doing the job he was assigned to do, and he's not going to be in federal court getting sued over a cell phone ticket.