The AP Article

Via a few letter writers and some more in the comments, Officer.com has the complete AP article we referenced a few days ago covering J-Fed's first 100 days. Get a load of this:

• Everyone expected Jody Weis to make changes in the Chicago Police Department when he left the FBI to become the first outsider in decades to head the city force.
• J-Fed, as the former head of the FBI's Philadelphia office is called by more than a few street cops, brought in his own command staff, including another former FBI agent hired specifically to make officers more accountable for their actions.
  

The INTERNATIONAL MEDIA is calling Weis "J-Fed" now! Is that hilarious or what?

Anyway, the writer from AP, Don Babwin wrote to us looking for insight into J-Fed's first 100 days. And as we stated, he used exactly none of our replies. We guess it didn't fit in with AP's bias about bringing an "out-of-control police department" to heel. The letter and our reply is a bit lengthy for a single post, but this is the response we were really hoping made the report:

• Babwin: you touched on this in one article, but i would like to know if the federal charges in the wheel chair case sent a message to the force that Weis would not hesitate to charge officers with abusing their powers.
• SCC: It showed that Weis is a petty, vindictive individual. The officer was the subject of an internal investigation, found guilty and given a two year suspension. He also pled guilty in a State Court, was sentenced to two years probation and ordered to undergo mandatory classes, including anger management. The Police Board, a group of civilians appointed by the mayor, reinstated this officer following his appeal. Then-Superintendent Cline appealed the Police Board finding of reinstatement to the Courts in a further attempt to fire this officer, but lost. The officer served his two years, completed all the required classes and had no further incidents while off the job.
  
  Let's just review:
• guilty by the internal investigation - 2 years suspension
• guilty by the courts - 2 years probation
• won an appeal before the Police Board
• won an appeal before the courts

• And note that neither of his wins in any way reduced the amount of his suspension time or probation time or mandatory class time. He served it all. The Friday before the officer is to report back to duty, a single count of Civil Rights violations is handed up, not by a state court, but by a Federal Grand Jury. And we're being run by a former fed? Hmmm.
  
  Isn't the basis of the criminal justice system rehabilitation? Or is that only for the crack dealer and the rapist? The message wasn't one of "don't abuse your power." The message was "if I can't win in your courts, I'll take it to mine."

But none of this made it to the AP article. Perhaps we'll put up the entire exchange over the next weekend or so. We certainly are going to be eager to hear what happens at the "meeting" Wednesday.