What a Crock of Shit

We know Mope-rah.

And Dawn Turnip Tripe is no Mope-rah. We sample her writing here:

• Mayor Richard Daley demonstrated his lack of understanding last week in responding to the 28 aldermen who petitioned a federal court to release the names of Chicago police officers most often accused of using excessive force.

And Turnip Tripe demonstrates her complete inability to begin a column that has anything resembling truth in it. "The List" isn't officers most accused of using excessive force - the list is officers identified in Complaint Register investigations. As the FOP helpfully pointed out, many of these officers named are merely accused of various rule violations that are addressed through the CR process and have nothing at all to do with excessive force. And she completely glosses over the aldercreatures attempt to circumvent the judicial process for political reasons.

• Daley said, in essence, that the aldermen would better serve their communities by dealing with gun violence that, in a matter of five days, claimed the lives of two Chicago public school pupils, Samuel "Sammy" Benavente, 14, and Arthur "AJ" Jones, 10.
  
  "How about a petition to the courts about putting people in jail who commit violent crimes?" Daley said in a tirade. "Where are [the aldermen] when it comes to violence in their own communities? How about a petition there -- all 28? How about looking at more and more children being killed?"

Shockingly, Daley actually has it correct. Granted, he's playing politics to attempt to protect various connected persons and to hide the missteps of politically appointed hacks in charge. But the aldercreatures are playing their political games, too, catering to the gangs and their supporters. Don't believe us? Look at their spokespeople and run their names.

• I fully understand the mayor's anger about the deaths of these children. You look at the grieving families and you can't help but feel a kaleidoscopic array of anger and sadness and frustration. But to suggest that the aldermen should be focused on street violence instead of the identities of rogue officers misses one factor that contributes to the pathology of a tough neighborhood. To be clear, there are many factors, including persistent fatherlessness, failing schools and the easy availability of guns.
  
  But the focus here is on rogue cops. They have the power to shape the perceptions of the entire community and, even worse, pervert the entire system.

Let's just take a look at that focus, shall we? Abbate, Finnigan plus 6, the Jefferson Tap 3, who have we missed? A total of 10 officers. Using a most generous estimate of 10,000 officers, that's one-tenth-of-one-percent you can label as "rogue." Even going back a few years and adding in the DUI convictions, Broken Star, Englewood Rangers and others fired for various rule violations, you won't break half-a-percent.

But we have 56% of the City Council attempting to do something that they'd scream bloody murder about if it we tried it on people with real criminal backgrounds. So Turnip Tripe is just jumping on the aldercreature bandwagon and ignoring the other factors she names - broken families, broken schools and that tired old saw, "easy guns."

The article goes downhill from there, hits bottom and begins to dig. Then she throws out this laugher:

• I am not an apologist for civilians who terrorize neighborhoods, particularly those who kill children.

Sure you are. Otherwise you'd be actually taking the community to task for shielding the lawbreakers the way you accuse the Department of covering up things. You'd actually do some research and wonder why convicted felons are the spokespersons for certain groups with axes to grind. You'd wonder at the lack of hue and cry from the race hustlers regarding the recent deaths of a 10 year old boy, a pregnant mother and a 14 year old executed for a bicycle.

You'd actually be trying to make a difference, rather than following the lead of political grandstanding morons.