Where's That Damn Helmet?

Everyone got their riot helmets somewhere? We might need them again:

• The Chicago Bulls swept the defending NBA champion Miami Heat out of the playoffs, winning a postseason series for the first time since the Michael Jordan era.
  
  Ben Gordon scored 24 points, Luol Deng had 22 points and 11 rebounds and Chicago beat Miami 92-79 Sunday in Game 4 to finish off their first-round Eastern Conference series. The Bulls, who will face Detroit in the second round, became the first team to oust a defending champion in the opening playoff series since Phoenix did it to San Antonio in 2000.

The Bulls played a pretty decent season this past year, mostly under the national radar. National stories concentrated on their last 3 or 4 games where they fell from the #2 seed to the #5. But their dismantling of the Heat hints at a deep run in the playoffs.

Someone better make sure the Gas Teams are prepped.

Immigrant March

Tuesday, hundreds, if not thousands of law breakers will be marching downtown in an attempt to bully the law abiding citizenry, law enforcement and the political powers into giving them all sorts of stuff - amnesty, driver's licenses, free health care, free schooling, etc.

And nothing will be done about it.

The media (the Sun Times in particular) attempts to blur the lines between people who live by the law and those who chose to ignore it by publishing a liberal guilt-ridden piece about a family whose matriarch will probably die of terminal colon cancer if she stops getting treatment at an unnamed university hospital. The article takes pains to note that the family has worked out a payment plan with the hospital, but that is unique - most illegals don't even bother to make the effort and that's where the largest problems lie.

Someone in past comments sections accused us of being nazis and racists for advocating that immigrants arrive in this country legally and through proper channels. We'd just like to say, "Huh?" Either argue facts or don't comment. Illegal means ILLEGAL. Laws have been broken, consequences must follow. Otherwise, what's the point of having any laws?

Nice Seizure at O'Hare

By US Customs.

• U.S. Customs agents at O'Hare International Airport said they made one of the biggest drug busts in Chicago aviation history. Late Saturday night, officers from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection said they found more than 700 pounds of cocaine inside the cargo compartment of an AeroMexico flight from Guadalajara, Mexico.

Does anyone have any idea how much coke and heroin is estimated to run through Chicago? Truck, car and airplane traffic? Has there ever been a realistic study? The totals have to be huge because even after a good size seizure like this one the street price remains steady, meaning the cartel doesn't really feel the hit. And it's only going to get worse when the trucks from Mexico are allowed to travel within the US borders.

Anyone from Narcotics have any idea?

What's Up With Sergeants?

Seems a bunch of Sergeants from the west side are making headlines:

• Wednesday from the Tribune: Two people were injured Wednesday afternoon after a fire at an apartment building on Chicago's Lower West Side, authorities said.
  
  The blaze broke out about 12:30 p.m. in a three-story brick building in the 1600 block of West 21st Street in the city's Pilsen neighborhood, Fire Department spokeswoman Eve Rodriguez said. A CPD Sergeant on viewed the fire and rescued two people from the flames
• Friday in the Sun Times: A Sergeant and 5 PO's credited with pulling a crash victim out of his burning car seconds before it was completely engulfed by flames
• Saturday morning from Channel 5: A uniformed police sergeant driving in a marked car saw two armed men forcing another man to lay on the hood of a car in the gas station's parking lot, police said. The alleged victim yelled for help and said the two men were trying to rob him (more coverage at Channel 7 and the Sun Times.) Sergeant shoots the subject twice.

Nice to see some good news making headlines.

Kill All the Lawyers

Seriously.

• The family of a 17-year-old north suburban girl who fell to her death through a warehouse skylight last weekend has won a court order to preserve the accident scene.
• Attorney Daniel Kotin is representing the family. He says they want to know who was with the girl the night of the accident, who owns the warehouse and who provided alcohol to the girl and her friends.

All well and good if they want to find out who served this girl alcohol and prosecute them to the fullest extent of the law. Bravo. But you know that even if someone is prosecuted criminally, that isn't going to provide any amount of "blood money" to replace a lost daughter.

• Kotin says he wants to determine whether the skylight met city building code standards.

Ah yes, sue the entity with the deepest pockets - the City. Meaning you and us. Great. A minor child can come to town, get drunk on private property, trespass on someone else's private property, get killed WHILE TRESPASSING on private property and now the taxpayers of the City of Chicago (of which we are members) can be on the hook for potential damages because a skylight of a warehouse that might be decades old might not be up to code?

We really need to see stacks and stacks of dead lawyers around here.

Howard Dean is a Turd

And he's running the democratic party:

• Democratic party chairman Howard Dean said on Thursday that Rudy Giuliani "personal life is a serious problem."
  
  Dean sent the warning on CNN's SITUATION ROOM with host Wolf Blitzer.
  
  BLITZER: Well, describe those character issues...
  
  DEAN: No, I'm not going to get into that stuff. I don't like attacking people on their personal lives, but I can assure you that in the Republican primary, given what went on in the 2000 Republican primary in South Carolina between George Bush and John McCain, those attacks will be made in the Republican Party.

He won't get into it, but he'll throw it out there regardless and hope someone else picks up on it. What a stroke.

More to the Story?

Channel 2 continues to try to blood out of a stone:

• Chicago police officer Catherine Doubek is under investigation for her role in Joe Rossi�s beating.
  
  As CBS 2 Investigator Dave Savini reports, Doubek was stripped of her police powers Thursday night pending the investigation into the incident, but it took five months and the publicity of a CBS 2 videotape before that happened.
  
  Rossi says Doubek grilled him while the man she lives with, Jose Garcia, threw punches.

But do a number of comments by our readers point to other problems?

• HEY IAD ROSSI WANTED ON A INVESTIGATIVE ALERT YOU MAY WANT TO MAKE AN ARREST IF U INTERVIEW AGAIN HIM AGAIN. TAKING A CR NUMBER FROM WANTED FELONS WHAT A JOKE. ITS ALL MOB RELATED......
• From what I know about this incident, that prick got what he deserves then Maher has the nerve to say a search warrant should have been obtained to look for evidence of the crime. Well that couldn't happen because the prick never made himself available to the police to ascertain the location of occurrance but he sure made himself available to the media. When the fucker give the police a bad address in the begining then changes his phone number to make himself unavailable

So can anyone confirm an Investigative Alert on the "victim"? Or the lack of availability of the witness for a possible Search Warrant? And should this entire investigation fall apart, what kind of can of worms if the City opening up for officers to sue over wrongful suspension time and damage to reputations? Has anyone from Legal even ventured an opinion as to the rights of the accused? this is still America, right? Presumption of innocence and all that?

Hero Cops

Nice to see some good news finally. Good job guys:

• A Chicago police sergeant and two officers, with the assistance of some passersby, pulled a man who had been in an auto accident out of the car he was trapped in, seconds before it was consumed by flames early Friday in the Humboldt Park neighborhood.

Coverage at the Sun Times and Channel 7.

Hilarious Paragraph

This is just too funny:

• About 775 probationary teachers in Chicago public schools learned Friday they are losing their jobs in a purge that district leaders say could improve the quality of instruction in the system's most challenged schools.

The only thing that might improve Chicago Public Schools is a mass conflagration that happens to burn down 80% of the schools and 100% of the administrative staff. CPS is broken. We won't even mention the piles of brand new text books that we've seen sitting in warehouses or the unopened boxes of computers stashed at various locations around the city, while teachers with overcrowded classrooms struggle to get paper for kids to write on.

Just about the only place that can kill morale as fast as the CPD is the CPS.

Channel 2's Big Story

Kind of a dud actually.

• Rossi says he was repeatedly beaten inside a Bridgeport building by a group of thugs and he says Chicago police officer Catherine Doubek, did nothing to stop it.
  
  Records show Doubek lives with one of the alleged attackers, who accused Rossi of knowing about heavy equipment stolen from this business.
  
  "She sat there and said the beatings will stop when you tell us what we want to know,� Rossi said.

So the officer isn't accused of kidnapping, beating, or pretty much anything except sitting around while some unnamed offenders beat Rossi. Let's see - a kidnapping, construction equipment, duct taped to a chair, beaten, Bridgeport ... does anyone see any clues we could string together here? Anyone who isn't blind and ignorant of Chicago politics?

This was an Outfit job, plain and simple.

But of course, Channel 2 isn't going to say that. Some reporter might start getting calls in the middle of the night. Should Doubek's allegedly poor judgement in friends be overlooked? Of course not - give her the Rodriguez treatment the whole way if you can prove she was there, hanging with felons or Organized Crime figures. But to use her to slam the entire Department and entire investigative process? Give us a freaking break. No wonder Channel 2 had to drag the Abbate video back into the limelight. This is some shallow, dumb and weak investigating.

We did like how they demoted the Chief of Detectives though:

• Detective Maher confirmed Thursday that Catherine Doubek was stripped of her police powers and there is an investigation into the beating.

Wow - from Chief to D-2A in a single report. No wonder Zekman didn't have her name all over this crap - it's half assed at best.

Beating a Dead Horse

Or a live bartender. The story that just won't die:

• ABC7 news has learned that suspended Chicago police officer Anthony Abbate is about to face more criminal charges. Sources say Abbate will be named Friday in a 15 count indictment in connection with the beating of a female bartender caught on a tavern surveillance camera.

  Officer Abbate was stripped of his police powers and was initially charged with aggravated battery. The additional charges, sources say, will include official misconduct, conspiracy, intimidation and improper communication with a witness.

Wow. From a case that barely made "Simple Battery" to a 15 count indictment to be announced Friday. My, my, my. They must really really want to send a message to someone. Who though?

Did everyone catch the fact that Channel 2 didn't waste an opportunity to run this piece of tape over their "huge" story Thursday night? Media jackals tearing at a the bleeding reputation of the Department.

Justified Display of Force

Why bring out the long guns?

• The raid took place Tuesday because the feds said they thought Leija-Sanchez had conspired to murder one competitor a few weeks ago and was planning to kill another.

  That made authorities come armed, the feds said.

  "If this organization was operating on State Street, we would have done the same thing," said Elissa A. Brown, who runs the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigations office in Chicago.

Nice comment by Ms. Brown to stomp on the allegations by "activists" that the Feds wouldn't have used an overwhelming display of force if it hadn't been in Little Village. The fact that someone made threats and phone calls regarding killing rival gangsters is exactly the reason the rifles were on scene. Too bad feeling got hurt. But always better to be safe than sorry.

Sergeant Class Coming

Evidently, calls are going out again for a Monday start. No word on class size. Whoever sees the list first, get some names up here.

Good luck.

UPDATE: Detective familiarization names

• Brian Hauser, Matthew Price, Andrew Block, Edward Delao, Robert Burrell, Christi Ford, Michelle Wilson, Rich Dowling, Michael Poppish, Roderick Gardner, Angel Novalez, Miguel De La Torre, Antoinette Ursitti, Patrick Haran, Tim Weiglein, Thomas Stack, Paul Sedlacek, Pat Donahue, Norman Kwong, Fran Vergara, Brian Callaghan, Dan Bartoli, Yvette Wooten, Mark Sedevic, Mike Nowacki, Steven Dziak, Sharon Huffman, Dan McGuire, Eric Cato, Alex Sanchez, Tom Horton, Greg Whitmore, William Gentile, Andre Hasan, Mike Saladino, Joe Schuler, Sheamus Mannion, Sam Dickerson Jr.

Actualy Detectives will be added to the list when the Sergeant positions are to be filled in about 10 to 12 weeks.

Channel 2 Tonight

They're promising some blockbuster stuff. Anyone have insight? Is it this Reader article revisited? Or is there something else brewing?

Hurt Feelings

Now the "undocumented" migrant worker advocates are bitching about the Feds carried out their raid, with rifles and black armor and lots of loud shouted orders (Channel 2, Channel 5, Channel 7).

Bullshit.

This forgery ring stands accused of conspiring to kill at least two people, not to mention that fact that they use the latin kings as security - and one only has to look at the trail of bodies laid at the doorstep of the kings to realize that an overpowering show of force is EXACTLY what is needed in a raid like this.

Plus, the Feds have always gone overboard on raids anyway. Why stop now?

Poll Results

In 24 hours of voting, a little over 600 people cast their ballots and Hiram Grau ran away with it - 242 votes accounting for 37% of the total.

So we guess we can rule out Hiram as the next Superintendent.

Why do anything that might make a segment of the Department happy?

Anyone got any rumors about the Sergeant class?

A Poll

Just for shits and giggles:

The next Superintendent will be ...
	Maher
	Kirby
	Skahill
	an as yet unnamed female
	Grau
	Keating
	some other political hack
	an outsider or civilian
pollcode.com free polls

No Mas?

Run this one by us again:

• Fake IDs are being sold with impunity up and down 26th Street in the 010th District. Even Pam Zekman is bragging about how her team was able to purchase ID's a year ago from the "mica men" in Little Village.
• The selling seems to be centered around Foto Estudio Munoz. We aren't sure if this is associated with the Foto Estudio Munoz that was owned and operated by Aldercreature Munoz mother back in the late 1990's that mysteriously burned to the ground around 2 years ago. One wouldn't be hard pressed to make that logistical leap as the aldercreature's mother was arrested on at least one occasion for producing fake IDs (charges were dropped that evening following certain phone calls.)
• Gang members make hundreds of thousands of dollars with the protection racket associated with selling these IDs.

This would seem to make this a criminal enterprise of rather large proportions. As American citizens and police officers, we would have to encourage this sort of behavior on the part of the Federal authorities. If we recall correctly, nineteen arab terrorists with something like seventy-six separate forged identification documents among them, crashed 4 civilian aircraft into buildings in New York, Washington DC and a field in Pennsylvania. That would seem to make the prosecution of forged IDs and related documents something of a national obligation of sorts, wouldn't it?

So why are these people protesting? (Channel 2, Channel 5, Channel 7)

• Anger, frustration and, ultimately, solidarity spilled into the streets of Little Village Tuesday afternoon. Chicago police only showed up after residents flooded 26th Stree and Albany Avenue. Participants held signs that said things like "no one is illegal." [No one is illegal? Then why are they selling these documents everywhere? - SCC]
• "Selling illegal papers to immigrants so we can work, basically. That's all we buy them for, is to work," said Little Village resident Luz Nolasco. "But apparently that's against the law and God forbid we help America!" [Um, exactly - IT'S AGAINST THE LAW! Dumbass. - SCC]
• "This is discrimination. This is unfair because the United States Of America is made out of immigrants," said area resident Carlota Trevino. "If they dont want Hispanics here, then everbody who has Mexican, German , Irish Swedish and Dutch, we all need to leave the country because this is the Indians' country that was stolen from them." [Discrimination by going against people who are here ILLEGALLY? Why does the lame-stream media even give these people a forum? Why expel people who went through the process legally? - SCC]
• "We are not here to stop anybody from enforcing the law. But there is common sense into this thing. Why do it in such a public way as to intimidate the people here in this community?" said Alderman George Cardenas, 12th Ward. [Aldercreature, this is common sense enforcement. Just because certain people decide to treat the entire expanse of 26th Street like some barrio flea market doesn't mean the laws of this country don't apply there. - SCC]
  

This should have been done years ago - and it was being done by a very small team of 010 District coppers - until rather large political feet were dropped on their efforts. And in the meantime, persons seeking illegal documentation to facilitate movement within this country, continued (and still continue) to acquire their fake IDs and plan to do us harm.

This is Rhetorical, Right?

The Sun Times article begins with this headline:

• Why Didn't City Hall Stop Him?

Reporter Tim Novak knows the answer to this question - it was he and Steve Warmbir who broke the Hired Truck scandal - but we'll answer it anyway:

• Because No One Wanted To!

Part One of the story is here. Too bad the national media is focusing on the "Obamessiah" coming to save the democratic party from the certain doom of Shrillary - there's a real story here that just might derail a presidential contender.

Burge Again

This is getting nutty:

• Legal and activist groups claim that a special prosecutor's probe into allegations of police torture under former police Commander Jon Burge was insufficient.
  
  As CBS 2's Kristyn Hartman reports, a highly critical report endorsed by more than 200 groups was released on Tuesday morning. The groups are petitioning for a federal investigation, and believe it's a very real possibility the U.S. Attorney could act where special prosecutors did not.

So this "activist group" can just march in with a completely separate report and demand investigations continue until someone somewhere comes up with a result they like? And that's hardly the most ridiculous point:

• Bowman said the major problems included:
• A lack of criminal indictments of anyone in the case;
• The failure to examine responsibility of the Cook County state's attorney's office that was then run by Mayor Richard M. Daley;
• And not acknowleding the systemic and racist nature of the torture.

Um...didn't the report find that the statute of limitations had expired? Therefore the criminal indictment point is moot. The mayor is on record denying over and over again that he knew anything about torture in Area 2. So be it on that count - more lawsuits aren't going to shake that tree. And acknowledging the torture was systemic and racist? Please. Systemic? Maybe. Racist? That would imply that Burge targeted members of a certain ethnic minority based simply on the color of their skin. Call us naive, but we're pretty sure that Burge targeted people who were probably described in the case reports. Racism is a stretch in this case.

Officer Down - Indiana

Out of South Bend:

• A police officer was killed and another wounded early Tuesday in a shootout with a gunman near a motel, authorities said.
  
  The officers were investigating a report of gunshots near the Wooden Indian Motel at 1:37 a.m., Police Chief Tom Fautz said.
  
  The gunman shot at the officers when they tried to apprehend him.
  
  The officers returned fire, fatally wounding the gunman, Fautz said.
  
  Cpl. Nick Polizzotto, 34, a nine-year veteran of the force, also died in the shooting, Fautz said.

Prayers for the fallen - especially this close to Police Memorial Month

Another Home Run

Mark Steyn writes what is probably the greatest argument for responsible gun ownership in a single paragraph in this past Sunday's Sun Times:

• I live in northern New England, which has a very low crime rate, in part because it has a high rate of gun ownership. We do have the occasional murder, however. A few years back, a couple of alienated loser teens from a small Vermont town decided they were going to kill somebody, steal his ATM cards, and go to Australia. So they went to a remote house in the woods a couple of towns away, knocked on the door, and said their car had broken down. The guy thought their story smelled funny so he picked up his Glock and told 'em to get lost. So they concocted a better story, and pretended to be students doing an environmental survey. Unfortunately, the next old coot in the woods was sick of environmentalists and chased 'em away. Eventually they figured they could spend months knocking on doors in rural Vermont and New Hampshire and seeing nothing for their pains but cranky guys in plaid leveling both barrels through the screen door. So even these idiots worked it out: Where's the nearest place around here where you're most likely to encounter gullible defenseless types who have foresworn all means of resistance? Answer: Dartmouth College. So they drove over the Connecticut River, rang the doorbell, and brutally murdered a couple of well-meaning liberal professors. Two depraved misfits of crushing stupidity (to judge from their diaries) had nevertheless identified precisely the easiest murder victims in the twin-state area. To promote vulnerability as a moral virtue is not merely foolish. Like the new Yale props department policy, it signals to everyone that you're not in the real world.

Go read the whole thing. Steyn hits another home run for the Right.

Move Along - Nothing to See Here

You have to love when the guy in charge gets to set all the rules and make all the hiring decisions. We thought the mayor didn't handle the day-to-day stuff like this?

• Mayor Daley today turned down a request from his corruption-fighting inspector general for 10 more investigators to police hiring abuses in the wake of the city hiring scandal.
• Two weeks ago, Hoffman brought his New York City counterpart to Chicago to address the mayor’s cabinet in an effort to bolster his case for 10 more investigators.
• Today, the inspector general got his answer, but it was not the one he was looking for. The answer was no.

Imagine that. Why have any additional bodies poking around in the hiring process when Daley claims its all clean now? Would the mayor lie?

Exploding Mannequin

Safety Alert from Streamwood Illinois:

Probably just kids screwing around. But still, kids screwing around with potentially explosive materials that aren't always readily identifiable. Be careful until you know what you're dealing with.

Blues Brothers - New York Style

Also from LAPD Rant:

• NEW YORK - Six police officers were injured in a car chase on the Bronx River Parkway Wednesday morning. The chase ended in an accident – involving three police cruisers – just after 9 a.m. near exit five.

Ouch. We don't think this one would fly past the Traffic Review Board. Anyone else?

Why Don't We Have One of These?

From LAPD Rant:

• (NEW YORK) The search is over for a new Police Academy, and it is going to be spectacular - a 30-acre campus in Queens complete with 250 classrooms, firing ranges, indoor and outdoor tracks, a "tactical village" and a simulated subway station.
  The projected price tag is equally breathtaking: $1 billion - and, perhaps, a lot more.
  Mayor Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Ray Kelly announced yesterday that the current tow pound in College Point had been selected as the site of the new academy, replacing the woefully inadequate Manhattan facility that opened in 1964.

Our current facilities, aside from the new fitness center, seem woefully dated. The range, the plumbing, the gym, the classrooms, etc. You get the idea? Why hasn't someone come up with an idea for a "Police Campus," centrally located, accessible to metro classes, new everything and in some sort of modular fashion so it can be upgraded as technology moves us forward?

Of course, with the new and improved collapsible concrete floors like they've installed at Headquarters, the brand new leaky roofs in each District station recently built, the constantly going off fire alarms, faulty electrical wiring, overhead doors that don't function as designed along with other numerous safety disas.... we mean, "unique features" prevalent in so much City construction, it's amazing that some politically connected big thinker hasn't come up with something.

Ted Nugent on Gun Control

Speak Ted:

• Anybody see what the evil Brady Campaign and other anti-gun cults have created? I personally have zero tolerance for evil and denial. And America had best wake up real fast that the brain-dead celebration of unarmed helplessness will get you killed every time, and I've about had enough of it.

  Nearly a decade ago, a Springfield, Oregon, high schooler, a hunter familiar with firearms, was able to bring an unfolding rampage to an abrupt end when he identified a gunman attempting to reload his .22-caliber rifle, made the tactical decision to make a move and tackled the shooter.

  A few years back, an assistant principal at Pearl High School in Mississippi, which was a gun-free zone, retrieved his legally owned Colt .45 from his car and stopped a Columbine wannabe from continuing his massacre at another school after he had killed two and wounded more at Pearl.

  At an eighth-grade school dance in Pennsylvania, a boy fatally shot a teacher and wounded two students before the owner of the dance hall brought the killing to a halt with his own gun.

  More recently, just a few miles up the road from Virginia Tech, two law school students ran to fetch their legally owned firearm to stop a madman from slaughtering anybody and everybody he pleased. These brave, average, armed citizens neutralized him pronto.

Can we get an amen? Go read the whole article.

Ramsey Rumors Again

And he does nothing to dispel them:

• Former Washington, D.C., police chief Charles Ramsey may be interested in returning to the city where he started his policing career, according to a published report.
• Ramsey told the Chicago Sun-Times that he hasn't decided whether to apply for the top police job in Chicago. But he said he's qualified to succeed Police Superintendent Philip J. Cline, who announced his retirement April 2 amid complaints about the department's handling of misconduct allegations.
• Ramsey, 59, also said he has "a great deal of respect" for Mayor Richard M. Daley and he thinks that planning for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games -- if Chicago wins the honor -- would be an exciting challenge.

How much planning could Ramsey actually do as he'd be mandatoried off the job 4 years or more before the Olympics even got here? Unless he's looking to run any private security start ups that come into being in the next few years? Always an angle somewhere.

Got to Love Ms. America 1944

Stories like this warm our heart:

• WAYNESBURG, Ky. Miss America 1944 has a talent that likely has never appeared on a beauty pageant stage: She fired a handgun to shoot out a vehicle's tires and stop an intruder.
  
  Venus Ramey, 82, confronted a man on her farm in south-central Kentucky last week after she saw her dog run into a storage building where thieves had previously made off with old farm equipment.
  
  Ramey said the man told her he would leave. "I said, 'Oh, no you won't,' and I shot their tires so they couldn't leave," Ramey said.

To all the gun grabbers and liberals out there, where were the police when she needed them? Damn good thing she had a gun and knew how to use it.

Watch Out - Here Comes Daley!

And he wants your guns!

• In the wake of the Virginia Tech killings, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley is pushing for what he calls "common-sense" gun laws.

  The mayor took part in a community policing rally with dozens of people on the South Side. He's asking federal and state lawmakers to enact reasonable, middle-of-the-road laws, without infringing on the rights of gun owners who obey the law.

  The mayor's state legislative package includes laws that ban assault weapons and magazines that hold more than ten rounds.

Common sense, meaning you don't get guns if you live in Daley-land.

Middle-of-the-road like the searchable Internet database of all guns, gun sales, gun owners and similar crap he is proposing to create - none of which will stop a criminal with an unregistered gun (whether bought or stolen) from wreaking havoc in supposed "gun free" zones.

Bans on magazines that hold more than ten rounds, but -SURPRISE!!- the VT assassin only had 10 round magazines for one of his guns, magazines bought over the Internet and delivered to an authorized gun shop that performed the required background checks and found no reports of mental illness or involuntary commitment because there weren't any - every law was followed and they still didn't protect those kids. Perhaps a new approach is needed rather than more laws that criminals won't follow?

Hopefully, Daley keeps more ideas like this to himself.

Metal Detectors "Fail" Again

Is this a nationwide phenomenon? Or are these things unplugged and unmanned far more than the public is permitted to know about?

• The freshman girl told police she was "tired of getting picked on," so she took a mace to school.

  Not Mace, the pepper spray.

  Mace, as in a medieval weapon.

  A long wooden stick attached to a metal chain with a spiked ball on the end.

• Charmella Greer of the Gary Community School Corp. said disciplinary action will be taken. As for how the student got the weapon past metal detectors, Greer said, "I have no idea. ..."

We have an idea. And we also heard the metal detectors at CVS were unmanned because the single security guard running the machines had to take someone to the Dean's office and left the devices unattended, leaving a critical window in which to smuggle a gun in. What else has been smuggled in that no one knows about yet?

Keep Voting Democratic

Thanks Emil Jones!

• Senate President Emil Jones used a loophole Friday to gut legislation that would have cut electric rates for millions of ComEd customers, a move that also may cripple efforts to roll back prices in southern Illinois.

  The maneuver stunned the sponsor of the rollback legislation, a member of Jones' Democratic majority.

  ''This is not fair, ladies and gentlemen. I want to tell you right now, it's not fair,'' said Sen. Gary Forby, D-Benton.

  But Jones, D-Chicago, reiterated his position that a rollback wouldn't provide consumers immediate relief. ''We must quit giving people false hope,'' he said.

  The maneuver came moments after Forby had scored a major victory in his efforts to cut electric prices that surged in January after a 10-year rate freeze ended.

This is what happens when government intrudes into what should be a free market economic decision. Complete and utter chaos. Com-Ed isn't about to go bankrupt and we aren't all going to be living in the Dark Ages even if they did. But trust the Illinois Democratic Party to be leading the charge into the worst of all possible scenarios.

Channel 7 also covers.

Dow Closes on 13,000

It's the economy stupid.

• Stock prices were rising strongly on Wall Street on Friday, putting the Dow ever closer to the 13,000 level. The blue chip index soared more than 150 points to reach an all-time trading high above 12,900 and to build upon Thursday's most recent record close. Investors have embraced corporate earnings this week, having had low expectations coming into the reporting period.

Just thought we'd mention it.

Open Post

It's Friday. We're busy. The Sergeant class got cancelled. So material is at a low ebb. Open post for topics we haven't covered in a while. Have fun.

Family Secrets Trial

Lots of nervous people over at the "Legitimate Businessmen's Social Club."

• A federal judge in Chicago unsealed the prosecution's plans Thursday in the upcoming trial known as Operation Family Secrets. It reads like a crime syndicate novel, but government lawyers contend their plan for the prosecution of Chicago's top mobsters is strictly non-fiction. The day outfit boss Jimmy "The Man" Marcello got home from prison, Marcello had no idea that he had left something very important behind at the Milan, Michigan, penitentiary: his words, secretly recorded in jailhouse visits.

  Government documents unsealed Thursday paint a vivid picture of how Marcello's alleged grip on illegal video gambling in suburban Chicago is just the latest chapter in the rich heritage of Chicago mob rackets.

All part of a fun summer planned by various federal entities.

And then There Were ...?

Guess it isn't going to be Huberman:

• CTA President Frank Kruesi, who has become a lightning rod for criticism among CTA riders and legislative leaders, resigned today and handed the reins to Mayor Daley's corruption-fighting chief-of-staff Ron Huberman.

  Although Huberman's only transportation experience is the three years he spent driving a school bus while working his way through college, Daley said he has demonstrated the toughness and management expertise he needs to make the cost-cutting decisions lawmakers will demand in exchange for more funding.

Gee, his "transportation experience just about matches his street experience as a copper. So we guess technically, he could still be eligible for the top spot.

And a more serious note, do we have a list of potential nominees? The Police Board thing is all smoke and mirrors as demonstrated on numerous occasions. Who are the real frontrunner's?

What a Way to Run a Railroad

Or a Department.

Seems lots of people got calls today telling them that the new Sergeant class was to begin 23 April. Then, not even 4 hours later, another call telling them the "merit" selections had not been finalized and everything was on hold.

One has to wonder if the aldercreatures who lost their re-election bids might have had a few promises that aren't going to get fulfilled now.

Hypocrisy, Thy Name is Media

From our buddies over at burbcopschicago:

• Stumbled across this in the Daily Herald (April 17)...concerning the Brown's Chicken trial...
  
  

• After Bakalla’s testimony, prosecutors ushered her out a private exit so she would not have to face the media throng waiting for her. No other witnesses - including the victims’ families - have received such special protection thus far.

• Didn't you guys go through "media hell" when Abbate went out a back exit?!?!? And that was for a battery. This BITCH (understatement) obstructed authorities for nine years and helped two maniacs destroy evidence from a mass homicide...and she got immunity in exchange for her testimony (that should have been enough of a gift).

• So here's a challenge for any media snoops lurking around this blog...either give this the same level of national hype you guys gave the "Abbate exit"... OR...publicly acknowledge that cops aren't the only ones who get detoured around your lynch mobs during high profile trials.

Hmmm. Guess if it isn't a copper, no one cares. We wonder if any captains got demoted over this one?

Political Correctness Takes a Hit

Minnesota just can't make up it's mind:

• On an 11-0 vote Monday, Metropolitan Airports Commission (MAC) members voted to crack down on drivers refusing service, making Minnesota the first place in the country to decide how to treat Muslim cabbies who decline to transport alcohol- toting riders on religious grounds.

  Starting May 11, any airport taxi drivers who refuse riders will face 30-day suspensions. Drivers will have their licenses revoked two years for a second offense.

For those unfamiliar with the issue, muslim cabbies had refused to transport passengers who might have alcohol in their baggage. Glad to see someone (or actually 11 someones) stood up to this BS and told them to do their jobs as described. (via CaptainsQuarters)

Oh Happy Day!

So far, Haithcock is going down in flames, Tillman is behind by more than a little bit, Colman is trailing and Chandler is hanging on by a thread. Even Rostenkowski's guy Matlak is gone, done, toast.

If these numbers hold the rest of the night...

OK, nothing will change. At first. But it's a hopeful sign that incumbents can lose.

Coverage at the Sun Times, Channel 2, Channel 5

More Coverage of VT

Hop over to Gun Law News. We have a link for them on the right hand side. This is a very underrated blog and news aggregator that covers a wide range of gun issues, even linking to the gun grabbers on occasion just to refute them.

If it involves your rights as a gun owner, this blog has you covered.

Sorry for the Delay

We were out. Filing our taxes. It was the deadline you know. Oops.

Hey, we haven't done a Quick Hits in a while. How about these?

• Missing college student found. Dead. At the bottom of a tarp covered swimming pool in the building where he had worked. Every news channel uses the exact same AP report.
• The mayor of Nagasaki, shot and killed by the head of the Nagasaki yakuza after the mobster wasn't compensated for damage to his car suffered from a pothole. This would be similar to Lombardo whacking Daley over a bent tire rim - we can only dream.
• TMA killed on the south side (Sun Times, Channel 7 coverage).

Slapping a Lib-Tard

We're taking a bit of abuse in the comments section of the "Doomed by Gun Control" thread.

How about this comment?

• Man...all those deaths, and SCC wants to fight the anti gun folks and put the blame at their feet. [Where else would you put it? It's obvious that gun control failed, and failed miserably. - SCC]
• Does anyone out here think this slaughter of all those people could hve been avoided if the students had "concealed" guns on their persons on the college grounds? [Ummm, yeah, that's exactly what we think. It disturbs us that you can't see the obviousness of this solution - SCC]
• This was a WHACKJOB who obviously planned this attack out! Maybe some armed student might have nailed the guy, maybe not, but I guarantee you, a whole bunch of folks would have still died, nonetheless. [At what point do the students of Virginia Tech have to stop being killed? After 5? After 10? Is the bag limit 15? If even ONE single student could have been saved by someone carrying a Concealed Carry weapon, what right do you have to say, "Well, 32 dead students isn't really that bad." - SCC]
• The truth is, there is very little ANYONE could do against a crazed individual who is intent on taking his own life, and killing a bunch of other folks along the way to his/her own self destruction. [So we should just accept our fate to be victims? You're a moron. - SCC]
  
• He was prepared. He was well armed. He planned. And he was determined. And usually, just as we've been finding out in Iraq since the famous "mission accomplished" party hosted by W on board that ship, folks like that are quite successful in their endeavors. [Guess what? Most gun owners are prepared, mentally, and via practice and training. And they're well armed and versed in their weapon of choice. And now you dare to compare the slaughter of innocents to an irregular army of insurgents making war on a trained army? You aren't just a moron, you're a fucking lib-tard moron. - SCC]
• Shame on you, SCC, for blaming this on a "lack of armed students" on the campus. You guys have posted some dumb shit before, but this is about the lowest, even by YOUR standards. If anything, your argument has been made even weaker. [Shame on us for refusing to lay down and be victims? You and your ilk are raising an entire generation of kids who are afraid to fight back, afraid to stand up for what is right, who trust in the all seeing nanny state to protect them from evil. No thanks. You want to be a slave to the system, so be it. But you aren't taking us down that road with you. Weaker? If anything, our argument is going to sway Virginians more so than yours. - SCC]

If this goof and any other goof out there doesn't think that ONE person with a gun couldn't make a difference in stopping this rampage, figure this - Look what one psychopath with a gun did to the student body at Virginia Tech. Now imagine if one single trained student with a gun on the side of good was on the scene. Don't tell us they couldn't have saved almost 50 kids getting shot. Don't even go there.

Funny Funny Funny

Best joke ever from our comments section:

• Jesse Jackson has a heart attack and dies. He immediately goes to hell, where the devil is waiting for him.
  
  "I don''t know what to do here" says the devil. "You are on my list, but I have no room for you. You definitely have to stay here, so I''ll tell you what I''m going to do.
  
  I've got a couple of folks here who weren't quite as bad as you. I''ll let one of them go, but you have to take their place. I''ll even let YOU decide who leaves."
  
  Jesse thought that sounded pretty good, so the devil opened the door to the first room.
  
  In it was Ted Kennedy and a large pool of water. He kept diving in, and surfacing, empty handed. Over, and over, and over he dove in and surfaced with nothing. Such was his fate in hell.
  
  "No" Jesse said. "I don''t think so. I''m not a good swimmer, and I don''t think I could do that forever."
  
  The devil led him to the door of the next room. In it was Al Gore with a sledgehammer and a room full of rocks. All he did was swing that hammer, time after time after time.
  
  "No, I've got this problem with my shoulder. I would be in constant agony if all I could do was break rocks all day," commented Jesse.
  
  The devil opened a third door. Through it, Jesse saw Bill Clinton, lying on the floor with his arms tied over his head, and his legs restrained in a spread-eagle pose. Bent over him was Monica Lewinsky, doing what she does best.
  
  Jesse looked at this in shocked disbelief, and finally said "Yeah, I can handle this."
  
  The devil smiled and said . . .
  
  "OK, Monica, you''re free to go."

Open post in the meantime. Jesse Jackson jokes preferred.

CPD Enforcers

Some helpful soul keeps trying to post this entire article in the comments section. First of all, that'd be a violation of various copyright laws. Secondly, it's just too damn huge.

But what we can do is link the article here and send readers over the the Sun Times website to read what we sample below:

• During this recent practice at St. Ignatius College Prep, the Enforcers -- a year-old football team comprised of Chicago Police officers -- looked more like high school kids than cops, more like cops than athletes.

  But at a time when the Chicago Police Department is reeling under a series of brutality scandals, the Enforcers are a genuine feel-good story.

  It's their first season in the National Public Safety Football League, and they're building morale and giving Chicagoans alienated from their police department and professional sports something to relate to, said Shaun Gayle, a captain on the Super Bowl-winning 1985 Bears who is helping coach the Enforcers secondary.

Keep up the good work guys.

Knife/Gun - YouTube Video

Interesting. It seems to shoot .22 caliber rounds. Anyone have the specs on this thing? All the more reason to kill anyone who pulls a knife out. Now an armed offender doesn't even have to cover the 15-21 feet in one or two seconds to mess you up - they can do it from a distance.

Doomed By Gun Control

From TheOtherSideofKim we find this Roanoke Times article from 2006 (see the sidebar links for Kim's full site):

• A bill that would have given college students and employees the right to carry handguns on campus died with nary a shot being fired in the General Assembly.

  House Bill 1572 didn’t get through the House Committee on Militia, Police and Public Safety. It died Monday in the subcommittee stage, the first of several hurdles bills must overcome before becoming laws.

  The bill was proposed by Del. Todd Gilbert, R-Shenandoah County, on behalf of the Virginia Citizens Defense League. Gilbert was unavailable Monday and spokesman Gary Frink would not comment on the bill’s defeat other than to say the issue was dead for this General Assembly session.

  Virginia Tech spokesman Larry Hincker was happy to hear the bill was defeated. “I’m sure the university community is appreciative of the General Assembly’s actions because this will help parents, students, faculty and visitors feel safe on our campus.”

Virginia Tech is a "Gun-Free Zone." In 2005, VT took action against a student who had a state issued Concealed Carry permit when he brought his legally owned and registered gun onto campus. Today, the police are finding doors chained from the inside - a chilling discovery that may hint that the gunman prepped the building to be a slaughterhouse. And it sure is a good thing that the "lock-down" kept everyone safe.

We wonder where that student with the Concealed Carry Permit is today.

Lack of gun control didn't kill these students - gun control left them completely at the mercy of a madman. Just about every single link in our sidebar has coverage of the bloodbath.

Liability Anyone?

This will merely reinforce Chicago's aversion to pursuits. And in this case, maybe rightly so:

• A motorist was killed Sunday after leading police in northwest Indiana on a high-speed chase and crashed on I-94 near Chesterton.
• An Indiana State trooper was waiting at a crossover on the interstate and as the Trail Blazer went by, the trooper deployed stop sticks. The vehicle tried to avoid them, but the front and rear tires on the driver's side struck the stop sticks and the driver lost control, police said.
• The vehicle rolled over and the driver, who was not wearing a seat belt, was ejected from the SUV. The motorist died at the scene from massive head and neck injuries. Toxicology tests are pending.

So much for "stop sticks" being a safe and effective method to slow/stop a chase safely. The court depositions and lawsuits are going to be interesting on this one.

UPDATE: It was a female driver, not male as the first few comments have been assuming. Second, it was a disturbance call. No guns, no felonies, nothing. Third, this is almost exactly the sort of case taught in various courses where the punishment (death while fleeing) doesn't fit the crime (quasi or misdemeanor at best).

We are advocates of chasing, believe us. The minute the bad guy knows he can flee with impunity (and it's happening already), we've lost the entire game. The trouble is we are also advocates of police keeping their jobs and houses and pensions. And the political realities of the Northeastern corner of Illinois being what they are, it is truly a rare occasion when an officer of this jurisdiction is going to be backed by the exempts, the political structure and the courts.

Think There's a Message Here?

This was a bit brazen, don't you think?

• A 37-year-old man was killed Saturday night when as many as six shooters opened fire on him as he stood on a West Side porch.
• At about 9:30 p.m., the victim was standing with a 19-year-old man on a porch at 1615 S. St. Louis Ave. when five or six people walked up to them and began shooting

But hey, we've got officers "on the dots" and flooding the DOC areas. Too bad no one noticed six people with guns converging on a target.

Guess he wasn't near a "dot."

Pix to Publish

Anyone who can get us pictures of media vans parked illegally, be it hydrants, handicap spots, on sidewalks, we'll post them here as a feature.

Pictures with a parking ticket affixed are even more entertaining.

We can post .jpgs and .gifs. Haven't figured out the video angle yet.

Sopranos Update

We dunno. When The Sopranos first began, it broke all the rules and rewrote the book on cable television. It opened entirely new avenues in television entertainment.

Now?

It almost seems cliched. It's lost the hook. Unless it ends in some insane bloodbath, we don't know if we'll even watch it to the finale.

Let the Games Begin

Graft! Corruption!! Bribes!!!

Raised taxes. Connected construction companies. Cost overruns. Missed deadlines. Aldermanic extortion. Race baiting tactics. Strikes and union busting. Contract holdouts and pension promise betrayals.

An ancient Chinese proverb reads "May you live in interesting times." The next two years as Chicago competes against Madrid, Rio, Tokyo, and Rome will certainly qualify as "interesting times."

Coverage at the Tribune, Sun Times, Channel 2, Channel 5, and Channel 7.

Our favorite quote so far?

• [Ueberroth] added there was no reason to believe Chicago would end up in the red.
  
  "A city would have to be a [blithering] idiot to put on an Olympic Games and not have a surplus," Ueberroth said.

Luckily, we have a surplus of blithering idiots in Chicago, most placed there by the mayor.

Job Openings

So we have Radke gone and Molloy with his papers in.

We also heard that Lanuti is leaving?

How many exempt spots are open at the moment? And are we going to see any movement while the "Search for a Supe" goes on?

"Justice de CLINE d" T-shirts

Surfacing across the North/West sides. And making the papers, too.

• Some Grand-Central District officers are rallying in support of a police captain demoted after the media was blocked, apparently on his orders, from covering a court hearing for Chicago Police Officer Anthony Abbate on March 27.

  Last week, district officers paid $10 each for T-shirts protesting Capt. Marc Buslik's demotion. The shirts read "Save Buslik!" and "Justice De CLINE d," referring to Supt. Phil Cline, who demoted Buslik.

Ask around - they're easily found. And a soon to be collector's item.

And note the not-so-subtle bias in the story. Buslik wasn't blocking the media from covering the story - Buslik was preventing the media from entering a parking lot that isn't supposed to be accessible to the media anyway, and his officers enforced parking regulations that the media had a field day castigating the Department for disobeying. It sure is nice for the media to be able to establish the double standard for themselves and cost a Captain his job.

As Predicted - A Lawsuit

Do we know the "cult of victimhood" or what? Channel 2 covers:

• The mother of a teen shot inside his high school classroom earlier this week claims the school district and city failed to provide adequate security and supervision at the school.
  
  Michelle Lewis says her son, Jodale Woodfork, was shot in the leg Tuesday after Demond Gore got a gun past security at Chicago Vocational Career Academy High School.
  
  Lewis claims the city of Chicago, Board of Education, Chicago Public Schools and Gore are negligent for the shooting. The lawsuit was filed Friday in Cook County Circuit Court.

At least the Department isn't on the hot seat for this one.

Cheney Safe - Bird Dead

An apparent suicide attack on the Vice President's airplane was thwarted when the right engine killed the attacking fowl.

• Air Force Two carrying Vice President Dick Cheney struck a bird as the plane neared O'Hare International Airport on Friday. The aircraft landed safely.

  Mechanics checked the plane while Cheney spoke at the Heritage Foundation's annual leadership conference, but the incident did not delay his departure from the airport to return to Washington.

  ''A bird hit the right engine of the plane upon landing,'' said Megan McGinn, a spokeswoman for Cheney. ''He was told after he delivered his remarks.''

We don't know why the media doesn't make a bigger deal of this attack. Probably because the bird was a democrat.

Mayor Spins and Spins and Spins

A couple of people have mentioned this article in various comment sections:

• Mayor Richard Daley and his top emergency team Thursday vigorously defended the city's ability to communicate during a crisis. They were responding to an ABC7 I-Team report Wednesday night that uncovered serious technical difficulties with the city's emergency communication.

There are more than a few chuckles included in the entire article:

• Despite federal records that prove the city equipment was unauthorized for use the past six months, Chicago's disaster czar Thursday maintained there has never been a problem with the unified communications vehicle, or UCV.

  "The UCV does have satellite capability. It has had it from the very beginning," said Cortez Trotter, Chicago chief emergency officer.

Good thing Cortez Trotter is the "disaster czar," because he seems to be presiding over a helluva disaster:

• It may have had the [satellite] capability, but a rejection letter from the Federal Communications Commission just last month prohibited the city from turning it on and using it. The FCC said that, from the beginning, Chicago hadn't fulfilled all the requirements for a satellite permit.

Ah yes, the city that works. Who knows what might happen if terrorists ever made a serious run at this town.

And the Circus Continues

And now, allegations of bribery? From Channel 2, Channel 5, and Channel 7:

• Friends of off-duty Chicago Police Officer Anthony Abbate, who is accused in the brutal beating of a Chicago bartender, allegedly tried to bribe the woman. On January 19, almost an hour after 24-year-old bartender was kicked and punched by a man police identify as off-duty Chicago Police Officer Anthony Abbate, two of the cop's close friends show up at the Northwest Side bar, Jesse's Short Stop Inn, to talk with Karolina Obryka. That exchange, too, was caught on surveillance tape.

Great. And word is starting to percolate that the latest (and last set of) SOS indictments are finalized and prepared for delivery. And it's not even May yet.

Is This For Real?

OK, who can verify this one?

• The "camera car" test case has been presented to the department on a silver platter and this, boys and girls, is how the department will back you. Earlier this year a midnite traffic car stops a woman on LSD for speeding. She has has no licence or proof. PO tells her she has to go with him to the station to post a bond. Woman goes off and says she 's not going anywhere etc etc. PO gives her the go or arrest option. Woman states that she will make a complaint that he grabbed her breasts and MF'd her. Sure enough PO is served by IAD with charges and allegations on woman's SIGNED affidavit. BINGO.. entire episode is videotaped completely exonerating PO. PO asks IAD when complainant will be arrested. IAD replies that they're "not in the business of making these kinds of arrests" Want to give PO a day because bitch says he left her car running when he transported her. KNOCK KNOCK!!! DO ALL YOU HARD CHARGERS OUT THERE GET IT YET???

This would be the definition of "insanity." The Department spends millions on a camera system and touts the benefits for police and civilian alike - protecting police from false accusations and civilians from brutality and strong language. Then, when the opportunity presents itself to actually use the camera system, the Department declines to do so. If true, why not charge the woman? Wouldn't the result publicity completely justify the installation of more cameras? Couldn't public behavior be influenced by the tiniest bit if they knew they were held to certain standards also?

If it isn't being used to fuck a PO, we guess IAD isn't interested.

The Duke Rape Case

Jack Dunphy is "nom de cyber" used by an LAPD officer who writes what we can only describe as very enlightening articles, mostly for National Review. He doesn't disappoint with his latest:

• It may seem like ancient history now, but it was only a year ago that we were first subjected to the media circus that was the so-called and now-dropped Duke Rape Case. For months thereafter, you couldn’t pick up a newspaper or turn on the television or radio without learning some new tidbit about the accused lacrosse players, even as their accuser remained shrouded in mystery. Today we know there was no rape and now not even a case at all, but even in those early days it was apparent enough that there were glaring problems with the accuser’s story (or, as it happened, stories). But not even those problems prevented the case from consuming the attention of the sages in our national media, whose foot soldiers decamped from New York and Los Angeles and such places to descend on Durham, North Carolina, as quickly as they could find it on the map.
• Compare the attention given the Duke case with that accorded a far more heinous crime, one whose victims have thus far failed to arouse the sympathies or even the notice of those who found so much enjoyment in their condemnation of the lacrosse players. Chances are, unless you live in Tennessee, you will not recognize the names Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. Christian, 21, and Newsome, 23, both of Knoxville, were driving through that city together on the night of January 6 when they were kidnapped and murdered. Newsome’s burned body was found along some railroad tracks on January 7. Christian remained missing for two more days until her body, stuffed in a trash can, was found in a home not far from where Newsome’s was found. Police and prosecutors allege both victims were raped before being killed. Yes, both. Three men and a woman have been charged with the crimes in a 46-count grand jury indictment handed down in Knoxville on January 31.

Surf over and read the entire article. It's an eye opener - if you happen to depend on the lame-stream media for your news. We don't, and this is why.

Superstars!

Anyone who can photoshop us a picture of Molly Shannon in a CPD uniform, send it here. In the meantime, how about this Sun Times article?

• They call it "putting cops on the dots," meaning shifting officers to crime hot spots.

  The Chicago Police Department recently expanded its Targeted Response Unit, adding a fourth company of 80 officers. The officers were culled from the 25 districts across Chicago. They are being replaced in the districts by desk officers working at police headquarters.

  The Targeted Response Unit is assigned to the Grand Crossing, Calumet and Gresham districts on the South Side and the Harrison district on the West Side. Its officers wear uniforms and patrol in marked cars. One of their strategies is to conduct stops for traffic offenses and use those stops to look for other violations, such as gun possession.

We thought this was why they were shifting tact and gang teams out of "low crime/high tax paying" districts and sending them to the worst districts in the city? These districts must be the most over-policed areas of the world. It's a wonder any crime ever gets committed there with all these tact, gang, specialized units stumbling over each other.

Unless it's all smoke and mirrors?

Sharpton v Imus? Please

In light of recent events, comments are getting a little heated. People really seem to want to run with the Don Imus story. Our opinion? It tracks pretty much with an acquaintance of ours, Steve H over at HogOnIce.com:

• I watched the news for a few minutes just now with lunch, and I saw them talking about poor old Don Imus. He had a brain-fart and called the Rutgers women's basketball team "nappy-headed hos," and now he's doing what has been referred to as "an apology tour." And unbelievably, his first major stop is Al Sharpton's radio show, where he'll apologize to a man who encouraged black people to riot against Jews. In the riots, a Jewish man named Yankel Rosenbaum was dragged out of a car and killed by black rioters. Sharpton helped cause his death.

  Is this really a person who is entitled to accept an apology from an accused bigot? Call me crazy, but wouldn't Oprah be a better choice? I'm not picky; just any black celebrity who hasn't caused any race riots. Gary Coleman would be fine. I'm not asking for much.

  Al Sharpton supported Tawana Brawley when she claimed white policemen had abducted her. She later admitted the whole story was a lie. Sharpton continued telling the lie, and he was sued for it. He lost and refused to pay his victims. Now he's judging Don Imus for a lame joke made on the spur of the moment under the pressure of a live national broadcast.

  Does that make sense to anybody?

Go read it all.

We've got bigger problems in this country than Don Imus (who, along with Rush Limbaugh, we have NEVER listened to) making a stupid and badly timed joke. This is merely the "flavor of the week" for a vapid media and fodder for professional "class victims" like Sharpton and Jesse Jackson to make a dime off of. Does anyone truly think that Al Sharpton has any legit standing in asking for apologies after all the crap he's put people through?

Note: Comments are going to be heavily regulated for this post - we've seen where this stuff goes sometimes.

Unbiased Media?

This story on the Channel 5 website:

• Four Chicago traders who claim they were beaten up by off-duty police officers at a bar are filing a lawsuit.The suit alleges that the Jefferson Tap and Grille did nothing to prevent the fight last December and waited too long before calling police. It further claims that the tavern served alcohol to the intoxicated police officers who beat the plaintiffs "without warning and without provocation."

And the picture accompanying the Jefferson Tap story?

The Abbate video - with a clickable link so you can watch it again and again and again and again. Let's not have any more pretending that the media doesn't go out of it's way to make all coppers look like shit. The two incidents are similar only in that they took place in taverns and involved off duty police. But every time a scandal pops up, they're only using the Abbate video. Ridiculous.

How Much Will This Cost?

This is just great:

• Two teens playing with a 9 mm handgun inside a Chicago classroom both ended up shot in the leg after a bullet discharged as they were passing the gun between them, police said.
• There was conflicting information about whether all students at the school are required to pass through the building's metal detectors.
• Lopez said students are chosen at random to go through the detectors because it would take too long to scan each teen.
• But Michael Vaughn, a spokesman for Chicago Public Schools, said all students are required to go through metal detectors every day.

Personal Injury Attorneys LIVE for cases like these. Especially if policy was avoided or disregarded. These cases are regarded as "slam dunks." While Channel 2, Channel 7 and the Sun Times merely report what happened, Channel 5 cuts to the heart of the matter:

• The parents of one of the students who was shot Tuesday at Chicago Vocational Career academy said they wanted to know how the gun got into the school."I'm just mad. I want answers," said the victim's mother, Michelle Lewis. "They need to do something about this gun violence."

Don't worry momma, you'll be getting your answers in the form of a large check shortly, courtesy of the Chicago Public Schools, the Chicago taxpayers and the mayor.

Olympic Bid to be Announced

Saturday afternoon, we shall find out if we have to really consider retiring before the year 2016.

• (Channel 7) - That decision will be announced Saturday in Washington DC. Members of Chicago's Olympic committee are polishing their final presentation, and for the first time, the head of that committee is handicapping the city's odds against Los Angeles.
• (Channel 2) - With actual construction still two votes and many years away, maps, sketches and computer animations help us imagine what a Chicago 2016 Summer Games would be like. But it's more than that, Chicago will tell Olympic officials. It's also the way we live, and celebrate.
• (Channel 5) - Rogers reported that the USOC did ask for follow-ups in the past few weeks on some of the venues and the city's guarantee package. Officials added that they do not believe the infamous police tape, which allegedly showed an off-duty Chicago police officer beating a bartender, would hurt Chicago's bid.

We'll be KMA plus a few, so it has to be an option. We just can't see having to put up with this much BS. And we'd have to consider moving out of Illinois just to avoid the complete destruction of the tax structure to support this monstrosity.

Did anyone see the Tribune report where China is going to spend $40 Billion on their games - over 3 TIMES the original estimate? Lord help us.

Great News! And a Question

This is fantastic news!

• After eight terms in Congress Chicago Democrat Luis Gutierrez says he plans to retire and will not seek re-election.

We can only wonder at what opportunities await old Luis. Maybe he can run an upcoming FALN reunion? Here's an interesting angle though:

• [T]he congressman's decision is spurring a political stampede in the Hispanic community.
  
  Mayor Daley's allies in the Hispanic Democratic Organization have tried repeatedly, without success, to knock him out of the City Council. Now, Ald. Ricardo Munoz is voluntarily preparing to leave, hoping to become Illinois's first Mexican-American in the U.S. Congress.

Munoz? The ex-latin king aldercreature? That mysterious UUW arrest? The man whose mother runs (or ran) one of the most infamous "photo estudios" for fake and fraudulent identification cards in the Little Village area? And didn't "Photo Estudio Munoz" burn to the ground in mysterious circumstances within the last 2 years or so?

Things that make you go, "Hmmmm."

Small Good News Stories

Looks like the Sun Times and WBBM 780 are getting on board with the campaign to report some good news about the police lately. First up, the Sun Times:

• Chicago Police arrested two men Sunday and seized about 200 marijuana plants from a Northwest Side home equipped with indoor growth lights and a ventilation system.

  Acting on a tip, officers searched the three-story home in the 4500 block of North Kasson in the Mayfair neighborhood.

The Tribune also covers the story.

And from NewsRadio 780:

• A man remained in the Harrison District lockup early Monday after police recovered about 13,725 pairs of counterfeit Nike gym shoes in a South Side store on Saturday.

  Police took the man into custody after executing a search warrant at a small retail store at 9040 S. Commercial Ave. on Saturday, according to Harrison District police, who helped obtain the warrant.

Good jobs people.

Is This a Playable Lie?

The question a golfer has to ask every 17 years:

• Get ready for a loud summer -- the 17-year cicadas are coming to Chicago. They're out there. Millions of them. After 17 years feeding on root juice in the ground, they'll soon climb into the light of day. The red-eyed, clear-winged periodical cicada will be back in such numbers that some lawns will move like they're alive.

Of course, with assorted suburban development, the cicadas are nothing like they were back when grandpappy used to have to use a coal shovel just to clear a path to the old outhouse. Why, grandma used to gather up the carcasses for cooking fuel when the buffalo chips ran low. And tasty? Lemme tell ya, great uncle Earl didn't get through that summer on potatoes and jerked beef.

Applying for the Top Job

We've got a resume together. It's full of BS, half-truths and outright lies, but it's at least as legit as anything else that's going to appear before the Police Board.

To all those interested in applying for the Superintendent's job, we haven't been able to locate the actual requirements or application process, but we did find a Sun Times article describing a number of the hoops you'll have to jump through to get a sniff of the job. Here's the address for the Police Board:

• 30 N. LaSalle St
• Suite 1220
• Chicago, IL 60602
• (312) 742-4194; FAX (312) 742-4193

We encourage everyone who reads this board to submit an application and resume as soon as possible. At the very least, the mayor's hand picked Board will have a large pool of "qualified" candidates to chose from for the first time in years, decades maybe.

The Sopranos

*** Spoiler Alert - Do not read if you don't want to know about the latest episode ***

Ok, a half baked start to the final set of episodes. Anyone else sense some foreshadowing here? We had money that either Bobby and Janice Bacala's kid was drowning in the lake by the end of the episode or else AJ's grlfriend's kid would be floating in the Soprano pool during the party. We predict a child's death will bring about some sort of downfall here.

And how about Bobby Bacala finally getting to whack someone, and then leaving a trail of DNA a blind FBI agent could follow? Especially after complaining about how DNA was making it harder to get away with murder (evidently, the Jersey mob hasn't heard about the Chicago clearance rate).

Phil Leotardo is already itching to kill someone, and it doesn't even have to be a Jersey someone. He just needs to kill.

The glory hound State DA butting into the FBI's 5 year RICO case was a nice touch, but isn't it usually the FBI who screws up local cases more so than a county guy messing up a feeb's case? Isn't that why "conflict decerts" are mandatory nowadays?

New Awards

Has anyone gotten a look at these new awards the Department is putting out? A west side supervisor writes to us:

• R&D put out some fliers this week describing a "Top Gun" award and a "Traffic Stop of the Month" award. WTF? If they want to award marksmanship medals, all well and good, but what the heck is a "Traffic Stop" award supposed to be about? They've finally killed off morale enough with the cameras and TSSS so that no one is doing traffic stops anymore, so they have to create an award to get every one's interest up again? This Department is a joke.

This reminds us of a post (Post #1; Post #2) that we did over a year ago regarding awards. We had a number of awards that could be created to fill out every one's dress uniforms. We solicited new suggestions, but didn't get that many as we barely had a couple hundred readers at that point.

So lets try it again - who else has some suggestions for awards that the Department could give out to everyone? Photo submissions are welcome. Let's have some fun with this.

Red Light Cameras Unconstitutional

Once again, a State Supreme Court has found red light cameras to be in conflict with existing law and therefore, illegal. Unfortunately, the state is Minnesota. But it follows on the heels of another couple of state court rulings concerning the legality of the laws, including New Jersey and Virginia.

Anyone in Illinois want to step up and take the mayor's red light cameras to court?