Friday Changes

This space reserved for the alleged upheaval taking place this fine Friday morn. Updates as we confirm movement.

Open post in the meantime.

UPDATE 1130 hours: No movement yet

UPDATE 1215 hours: Any reports of family members being seen near HQ? Exempts in dress uniforms?

Roll Call Questions

Well, If J-Fed is going to subject officers to the ranting of madmen at roll calls, there would seem to be a few options open to officers.

1. Sit there and take it - easily the simplest option. It takes no effort and you can zone out and day dream while the "reverends" ramble
2. Don't pay attention and converse during the "presentation" - conveys the unimportance of what the "guest speaker" is saying.
3. Turn your back - demonstrates utter contempt for what is being told to you. Unfortunately, a direct order can circumvent this one.
4. Walk out - again, contempt. Again, a direct order that you stay in the room makes problems.
5. One of the more creative solutions included the whole roll call taking an hour at the front or calling in late - hard to coordinate on short notice. And why would you want to give the City back some of the time you earned?

What about this one?

• Ask questions back

How about a laundry list of grievances about why the "reverends" support the actions of gangsters who terrorize the community over the actions of those who leave the safety of their own homes to protect the community? Why the community is encouraged to seek out confrontation in the hopes of a large payout from the City, many times by the "reverends" themselves? Why legitimate investigations are stymied by "reverends" and their congregations via lies to the media and fabrications to the investigators?

A few well placed questions would blow these gasbags out of the water. And speaking of well placed questions, next time the Superintendent comes to a roll call, maybe he needs to be asked for some "clarification" regarding this "pilot program." After all, when it goes south, he doesn't have Charlie Williams to send to 018 to pick up the pieces anymore.

Chicagoist Interview

We're taking a beating in some of the comments, but a slim majority seems to be supporting the police and what we're trying to accomplish here.

Read the whole thing here.

Making Drew Rich

This is stupid:

• Former Bolingbrook police Sgt. Drew Peterson's fight to get his guns back hit a snag Wednesday evening. Hours after a judge ruled in his favor to get them back from investigators, Peterson's rights to own them was revoked.
• Drew Peterson's attorney, Joel Brodsky, says he's pleased with the imminent return of Peterson's belongings but says "if police had a valid reason, they would have taken Peterson's FOID card a long time ago. They just did this to vex Drew."

And by abusing the law and not following their own rules, the State Police are opening up the taxpayers (that's us and you) to liability for their actions. Here are the questions that would deny Peterson an FOID card:

• convicted of a felony? No
• treated for mental illness in past 5 years? No
• addicted to narcotics? No
• mentally retarded? No
• subject of an order of protection? No
• convicted of a firearms offense? No
• domestic battery conviction? No
• delinquent minor? No
• illegal alien? No

Don't get us wrong, we think Drew is probably guilty of more than a few things. But the State Police misusing the law as a means to an end? The ISP does NOT make the law; they enforce the laws on the books passed by the state legislature.

Why make Drew rich if he beats this entire case?

Bad Auditor

Anonymous phone call trips up a $114,000 a year job:

• As Chicago's manager for auditing, Jeffrey Mina was supposed to be an internal watchdog who monitored city spending to make certain taxpayers got their money's worth, and everything was on the up-and-up.

  Instead, he was apparently crossing the line himself -- by living in Chicago Heights in violation of the city's residency rule.

  Mina -- who made $114,348 a year -- quietly resigned Feb. 15 after an undercover investigation by Inspector General David Hoffman touched off by an anonymous tip.

Rumblings of Change

Even MORE changes afoot!

Rumor has it (yes, we deal in rumors here - it's like hard currency) that Friday will be the day for a massive series of changes not seen since O.W. Wilson had everyone called down to the old Amphitheater to listen to the new gospel of "Policing in Chicago."

We imagine that should this come to pass, everyone will talk about "the day that everything changed." We are hearing of almost 20 command changes that include promotions, demotions, double jumps and forced resignations.

It certainly would make our rumor of earlier this year of 70 lieutenants and above leaving look damn near prophetic.

FTO Test

We've written about the FTO program a couple times. One of the articles is at the top right of this page under "Problems Facing the Department."

This past weekend was the test for Field Training Officer and we received the following statistics from a few e-mailers:

• 212 attended after an initial sign up of around 400
  124 passed
  75 points was passing but no word on how many points were available

Out of those 124 who passed, we'd expect almost half will turn down the position for various reasons including giving up partners, changing watches or being shipped out of their districts.

Anyone have further info? Was it a good test or kind of half assed?

Yet Another Video

This is getting crazy, but hey, it fills up a post and it entertains people:

• CLICK HERE for another video

We imagine that this is exactly how the demotions went last week.

Why J-Fed? Why?

A misstep:

• Police Supt. Jody Weis met privately with a handful of black ministers on Monday to begin to re-establish trust between citizens and police hit by allegations of excessive force and a scandal in the disbanded Special Operations Section.

  Those in attendance said Weis promised to promote more minority officers, re-double efforts to recruit African Americans and order sensitivity training.

  The new superintendent also talked about addressing black congregations at Sunday church services and broadening a pilot program that saw ministers and community leaders address police roll calls to suggest ways to bridge the gap between citizens and police.

How about we look at the statistics of police battered by members of this demographic? It's kind of high, isn't it? Then how about the number of dead altar boys who happen to be carrying pistols and pointing them at the police? We seem to recall a number of these incidents, not a few which led to mini-riots.

And having civilians and reverends address roll calls? If you troll through our archives, we had a post telling what happened when reverends came to address an 018th District Roll Call and spent their time ripping the coppers and labeling them all racists for what turned out to be a completely justified shooting of an armed offender. If we recall, recently dismissed Charlie Williams ended up going to 018 to apologize on behalf of the Superintendent for that bone headed decision. But that's what happened when reverends are front organizations for gangs and support the gangs over the rule of law.

Bad move Jody. Daley caters to the reverends because he needs their votes. You aren't running for anything...or are you?

• The ministers came away impressed with Weis. What impressed them most is the fact that Weis and members of his new team handed out their cell phone numbers.

How about you give coppers your cell phone numbers so they can call you when the reverends and their flock start hassling us? We hope you have a decent minute package for your cell provider.

Serious Immigration Enforcement

These are some FANTASTIC numbers:

• More than 200 illegal immigrants who had previously been ordered out of the country were arrested in Illinois and five other states during a four-day sweep that ended Monday, federal officials announced. In the Chicago area, federal agents arrested 30 people from Poland, Mexico, Romania and nine other countries—part of a continued escalation of enforcement against illegal immigration that has stirred fear and anger in immigrant enclaves across the country. About 72,000 "fugitive aliens" have been arrested since 2003, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said in a news release. In the Chicago area, 632 people have been arrested in such sweeps between October and last week, said ICE spokeswoman Gail Montenegro.
  

Wow! Thirty in the Chicago area alone over four long back breaking days of sweat and toil. Depending on who's stats you believe, there are between 8 and 12 million illegals here in the United States. What a dent these raids made.

Newsflash for ICE - we could grab thirty-one illegals in ten hours pushing elote carts in Pilsen, driving cabs in Greektown, and tending bar on Milwaukee Avenue. This is why border control, illegal immigration and amnesty are going to be the rather large issues of the next few election cycles.

New Video

We keep getting these in the mail:

• CLICK HERE for latest

If this whole policing thing doesn't work out, they've got a great start on a boy band, that's for sure.

Too Funny

We have the greatest readers in the world. From one of our regular commentators, the Keesing Bandit:

• The Keesing Bandit says---
  
  "I work in IAD..."
  
  Reading this blog for your research rat?
  
  Don't bother keesing me you fool!!!

You can't buy humor like that folks. And you get it here for free.

FOP Election

Well, we've just been handed a campaign flyer from a group calling itself the "Independent Candidates for Change." Independence is a good thing we suppose. Then we started reading the thing. And we came across this little paragraph:

• They [the citywide team] have utilized what has become known as the propaganda organ of the FOP - the www.SecondCityCop.blogspot.com and have smeared the officers and lied about what actions have been taken.

Propaganda organ? Wow. We very rarely touch on FOP issues here - they just don't generate that much interest. Back when two individuals were being expelled from the FOP, it wasn't for running against the incumbent team; it was for publishing restricted documents on the old Second City Cop Network bulletin board run by a 025 District sergeant. They tried to cloud the issue on this blog and no one cared. Now at least one of them is fronting this "independent" slate in another attempt to get back at the current board. And they're trying to drag us into it by calling us a propaganda organ?

Here's a clue. We've criticized FOP when they've been behind the curve. We've taken them to task for not being quick enough on issues we think they ought to have been on top of. They can hold all the press conferences in the world, but they can't force the Chicago media to cover it.

Someone was begging us for info on the election in the comments, looking for someone to vote for. We tried to stay out of the fray as we've done with other elections, like the Pension Board. But if the "ICC" wants to drag us in, we'll play along. Here's some food for thought:

• Three candidates for president. The ICC candidate (Jans) has admitted ON THIS VERY WEBSITE that he writes coppers parking tickets. And if the head of your ticket admits to writing coppers why would you trust anyone he has with him? And if you read their mailing, they take the side of a lawyer that was fired for incompetence over fellow police officers. As we pointed out earlier, the third candidate is a bodyguard for aldercreature Burke.
  
• Two candidates for Second VP - One (Al Jag) refuses to sign a sworn affidavit alleging wrong doing by the president of the union, yet will tell anyone who listens that he has evidence to back up said charges. Then why not sign the affidavit? It's required by union by-laws.

Let's look at a few of their trustee candidates:

• Kenny Pollack? He's the retired nutjob who at the last national convention, while dressed in full FOP regalia, uses a wheel chair to get to the front of the line to board an airplane, then jumps up and runs ahead of pregnant women and families to secure a seat when boarding is announced. Real classy.
• Chester Hornowski? He's the guy who got in big trouble for photographing and harassing an aldercreature's opponent while in uniform, on company time, out of district, in a CPD squadrol attempting to get her to drop out of the race, even making job offers to get her to drop out. The aldercreature he was alleged to have been working for? Dick Mell, father-in-law to the governor.
• Bob Podgorny and Harold Brown? Podgorny headed the last Nolan Team contract that got voted down by a 3 to 1 margin and propelled the current regime to power. Following an audit by the new administration, Podgorny was found to have spent $43,000 on food, $16,000 on travel, and $3,000 on automobile expenses. Harold Brown as trustee APPROVED each and every one of these expenditures by Podgorny.

And those are just the most egregious examples we can cite. We're sure there are lots more.

Our more astute readers will be able to glean which candidates we won't be voting for, and anyone else who appears on any literature with the above named "un-endorsed" persons also won't be receiving our votes.

We will again decline to endorse any specific candidates and encourage everyone to do their own research, ask their own questions and go to meetings to get answers. It's kind of sad that barely seventy people are running for office in an organization that has some 10,000 members. What's even sadder is the quality of people over at the "ICC" trying to drag us into a fight we had no interest in joining.

PS: the FOP dislikes us intensely. They never return our e-mails, have ripped us in the newsletter and at meetings for being a "bathroom wall." What part of "not the FOP" do you not get JT?

So What Happened?

Yesterday we mean?

Patton is the only one we've been able to verify with 100% certainty.

We've heard Rosebrock, Brown and Chasen may have dropped papers, but no one is confirming.

We've heard that Abandoned Buildings was disbanded or just shaken up (frankly, it ought to be civilianized).

Someone says the order canceling DOC meetings was miswritten.

Anyone have the real scoop?

Closer....Closer....

Almost there....

• For months, federal prosecutors have alleged that Antoin "Tony" Rezko tried to extort a $1.5 million contribution to the campaign of "Public Official A" from a Hollywood producer seeking investment business from the state.
  
  And for months, Gov. Rod Blagojevich has repeatedly denied he was "Public Official A."
  
  But a week before Rezko's much-anticipated trial, a federal judge revealed that Blagojevich was to have been the recipient of the $1.5 million campaign contribution at the center of the alleged extortion plot.

Now, how much did Blago know and when did he know it?

And would somebody please get Kjellander into an orange jumpsuit? This RINO (republican in name only) needs to be investigated for his hundreds of thousands in questionable "finder fees" regarding bond issues and Rezko dealings.

Ah, Politics

The deranged left:

• The cut-throat world of presidential politics usually doesn't go this far to get its point across.
  
  But Jose Ortiz, 28 — a Hillary Clinton supporter — is behind bars after stabbing his Barack Obama-supporting brother-in-law, Sean Shurelds, following a political argument, according to KYW1060.com.
  
  “One is a supporter of Barack Obama, the other is a supporter of Hillary Clinton, and an argument of words turned bloody when one brother-in-law tried to choke the other and the victim then responded with a knife and stabbed his brother-in-law in the stomach,” Montgomery County, Pa., District Attorney Risa Furman said, according to KYW.

If this was the November election, we could understand a little knife play, maybe even some petty arson torching your brother-in-law's car or his garage. But it's the primaries guys, and Hillary just isn't getting it done against the Obamamessiah. Relax and enjoy the Clinton meltdown as Hillary's people release photos of Obama in a turban and pull out the politics of sleaze that they all accuse the Republicans of doing but in reality, is always the democrats getting caught at it. We're talking about this photo here:

What could possibly be the purpose of Clinton's campaign releasing this photo? Oh wait, it's the evening dress, right?

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes!

More rumors....

Commanders of 006 and 014 have been called downtown. (UPDATE: No verifiable movement)

Abandoned Housing Unit has been disbanded citywide and all personnel have been reassigned to field duties. (UPDATE: Only the CO?)

Updates as available.

UPDATE: Patton retiring

UPDATE: No more DOC Meetings. Guess the Boss wasn't impressed by this circle jerking and smoke generating BS. Is this the death of the "event number"?

The Count So Far

Grau, Williams, Risley, Maher.

A few more older bosses on the verge of quitting slightly ahead of schedule.

A new week begins.

Is it a quiet week or a week filled with frantic phone calls, bitter recriminations, a flurry of moving boxes and retirement coffees? And maybe not even the coffee.

What Were We Saying?

A bicycle is a vehicle:

• A Chicago man who rode his bicycle through a busy North Side intersection died Sunday morning when he was struck by an SUV that had a green light, police said.
  
  The crash that killed a 29-year-old bicyclist, whose address was listed in the 1400 block of West Lill Avenue, happened in the 4000 block of North Lincoln Avenue around 9:15 a.m. Sunday. The victim was part of a group of about 40 bicyclists, Chicago Police Officer JoAnn Taylor said. He was pronounced dead at 9:47 a.m. at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center.
  
  "It looks like the bicyclist may have disregarded some traffic signals," said Taylor, adding that charges are not expected against the driver of the Chevrolet Suburban, which was eastbound on Irving Park Road.

And a 20 pound bicycle is gong to lose just about every time to a 3,000 pound SUV. Self righteousness isn't going to stop the laws of physics.

Bad Dream

We've had dreams like this - most cops have - nothing on the belt works and then your gun won't fire. Unfortunately, this incident ended up true:

• An American Airlines passenger died after a flight attendant told her he couldn't give her any oxygen and then tried to help her with faulty equipment, including an empty oxygen tank, a relative said.
• Other passengers aboard Flight 896 became agitated over the situation, he said, and the flight attendant, apparently after phone consultation with the cockpit, tried to administer oxygen from a portable tank and mask, but the tank was empty. Two doctors and two nurses were aboard and tried to administer oxygen from a second tank, which also was empty, Oliver said. Desir was put on the floor, and a nurse tried CPR, to no avail, Oliver said. A "box," possibly a defibrillator, also was applied but didn't function effectively, he said.

Two empty oxygen bottles and a faulty defibrillator. Doesn't anyone check these things? And if they aren't checking these simple tools, is anyone checking the evacuation slides? The door latches? Any one of a million things that could go wrong at 30,000 feet?

Anyone Else Sick of This?

We starting to think that Al Gore is pretty much full of crap:

• This winter has been especially bad. It's not just your imagination. According to an array of weather statistics compiled by Illinois state climatologist Jim Angel, it's the third-worst winter in a decade. And weird, besides.

And it's just going to keep on coming down:

• Sunday night, there will be increasing clouds, with a low around 30 degrees, the weather service said. There will be a southwest wind around 10 mph.

  On Monday, the weather service has issued a hazardous weather outlook for McHenry, Lake, DeKalb, Kane, DuPage, Cook, Will and Kankakee counties

  There will be a 100-percent chance of precipitation, consisting of either rain or snow.

Then we have multiple blizzards in Europe, China, no rain in Seattle, etc. It's almost like the Earth is one great big ecosystem that runs in cycles.

Anyway, prepare for more snow locally. If it wasn't for hockey, ice would really suck.

Challenge to the Mayor

If Chicago is such a safe place and gun laws are going to keep everyone safe and sound, we'd like to see the following:

• The mayor and aldercreatures give up any and all weapons in their possession. An amnesty would be granted to head off any awkward questions about origins of said weapons. This would include any guns former aldercreature Tillman has - she isn't authorized to carry a weapon anymore and we'd love to get hold of that pistol she waved around on the floor of the Council chambers.
  
• The mayor and certain city officials give up their body guard details, especially aldercreature Burke, seeing as how the alleged threat that necessitated body guards was close to twenty years ago and nothing ever came of the threat.
  

It's one thing to tell everyone else how to live and trust in the power of the state to protect them. It's completely another to do it from behind a phalanx of armed men. Practice what you're preaching and lead by example.

Mediocrity is the Name

What are these goofs thinking?

• The Bears and quarterback Rex Grossman have agreed to terms Saturday on a one-year contract worth $3 million, including a signing bonus, half of which is guaranteed. Grossman can also earn just shy of $2 million more in performances incentives.

  The AP has reported the deal has been signed.

  Grossman, who was headed for the free-agent market Feb. 29, will get a chance to compete for the starting role next season but has not been promised in job. One NFL source said it would be Kyle Orton's job to lose once training camp starts.

Just ditch Grossman, make Orton the guy, Griese can backup Orton.

Why waste the signing bonus money? Grossman was never the answer and the money is better spent on another wide receiver.

Maher Out

Confirmed through a 35th Street source. Papers are in.

Jewel and Dominick's have DOUBLED their cake output in anticipation of a number of retirements coming up. Frosting is standing by and an extra decorator has been put on short notice alert.
That is all.

LA Mayhem

Anyone think CPD could handle this any better?

• A drive-by attack followed by a wild shootout between gang members and police shut down dozens of blocks of Northeast Los Angeles for nearly six hours Thursday afternoon, stranding thousands of residents, keeping students locked in their classrooms and leaving two people dead.
• The violence began around noon when a 37-year-old man police described as a bystander was shot more than a dozen times by suspected gang members as he held the hand of a 2-year-old girl. He later died. The toddler, apparently picked up by a passerby and carried to safety, was not wounded. As the gunmen drove off, witnesses told police, several pedestrians who apparently knew the victim opened fire on the car.
• Minutes later, police attempted to stop suspects driving in a white Nissan sedan about 10 blocks away. Three men jumped out of the car, and at least two of them fired weapons at officers.
  
  A man wielding an AK-47 rifle was killed by police as they returned fire, authorities said.

But hey, we don't need long guns anywhere but 10 minutes away and we certainly don't need to qualify but once a year in a 30-round course.

More Scandals

Seems a few people were stripped today. A couple people from a disbanded gun team and someone in a specialized unit who wanted extra overtime. And those aren't the only investigations coming to closure.

Anyone else notice that none of these scandals seem to be coming from a uniformed patrol unit? Oh wait, EVERYBODY seems to be noticing, but Patrol is still the one paying the price for this nonsense.

Quick Hits

Covering a bunch of little stories.

First up, this has happened here. Now, elsewhere, too:

• A Berwyn police dispatcher accused of sharing confidential police information with local drug dealers and selling criminal history information from a private police database was arrested last week, police officials said Friday.
  
  John Flynn, 29, of Berwyn, is charged with one count of official misconduct and one count of bribery, the Cook County state's attorney's office said.

Just a heads up for everyone applying over in Berwyn.

Then we have another political move by the state's attorney's office:

• The Cook County state's attorney's office may reopen an investigation of an off-duty Chicago police officer accused of drunken driving in a Thanksgiving crash that killed two young Cicero men on the North Side, officials said Friday.
• A Cook County judge last Friday dismissed the charges against the officer after witnesses testified at his hearing that they didn't believe he was drunk. The case's quick dismissal drew strong criticism from the victims' families, who with the support of several prominent lawmakers, have spent the last week urging the state's attorney's office to reconsider the decision. A lawyer for the victims' families said a Thursday afternoon meeting with Bob Milan, the top assistant to State's Atty. Richard Devine, indicated the case may be reopened.

Let's see - Milan lost in the primary, his boss is leaving, no matter who wins he's going to be fired and if he gets sued for malicious prosecution the Cook County taxpayers are on the hook for the judgment. We expect a Grand Jury indictment to be handed up before March.

And remember, Drew is still innocent:

• After four years, three autopsies and an exhumation, the death in a bathtub of Drew Peterson's third wife, Kathleen Savio, was called murder on Thursday.
  
  "We have been investigating this as a murder since reopening the case," Will County State's Atty. James Glasgow said in a written statement announcing the new autopsy had determined her death was a homicide. "We now have a scientific basis to formally and publicly classify it as such."
  
  Peterson, 54, a former Bolingbrook police sergeant, has not been named a suspect in Savio's death.

Poor Drew. So much bad luck in his life.

Leap Pay

Salaries are figured on a 2,080 hour work year.

The salary is divided up among 24 checks.

What happens during a Leap Year when we end up with eight more working hours in the year? Are we working a free shift during the year?

Obama's Past

This is interesting, and really ought to catch the attention of our older cop readers and retirees across the country:

• In 1995, State Senator Alice Palmer introduced her chosen successor, Barack Obama, to a few of the district’s influential liberals at the home of two well known figures on the local left: William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.
  
  While Ayers and Dohrn may be thought of in Hyde Park as local activists, they’re better known nationally as two of the most notorious — and unrepentant — figures from the violent fringe of the 1960s anti-war movement.
  
  Now, as Obama runs for president, what two guests recall as an unremarkable gathering on the road to a minor elected office stands as a symbol of how swiftly he has risen from a man in the Hyde Park left to one closing in fast on the Democratic nomination for president.

Now, we know we're going to get our regular leftist trolls saying this means nothing, it was a one time meeting, it's a right wing smear job, yadda yadda yadda. But we seem to recall a bunch of people making hay out of that photo of Rumsfeld with Saddam. And a bunch more screaming about Bush missing National Guard time, even though it has been proven time and again that he met all commitments. Or the Bush DUI and cocaine stories that always pop up wherever liberals gather.

Your past forms your future. And it is interesting that two known unrepentant Weathermen bombers living in Hyde Park met and moved in the same circles Obama when he was still a little known Illinois politico.

We're sure we have some readers who served during the "Days of Rage" who can enlighten our younger brethren as to what the Weathermen stood for and who they bombed. We'll give you a hint - polic- offic-rs. (Vanna? I'd like to buy a vowel)

Operational Changes?

There was some meeting with all the on-duty Watch Commanders yesterday. We assume this is from someone who attended:

• went to the W/C's meeting with all the new bosses;
  Supt Weiss
  Morale and community relations are #1 and 2
  Thinning out the staffs at 35th st. has already started and will continue
  Expects to take some of the micro managing out of the districts and put the responsibilities on the commanders, w/c's., lt's, and sgt's
  Reminded to tell our people that cameras are everywhere
• Deputy Peterson:
  Starting the mission teams back up for the officers on the watch, first working with the detective division then hopefully gangs and narcotics.
• Deputy Cuello:
  Better use of missions, not just the quantity to get the numbers but the quality of picking relevant spots.
• Dep Shields:
  Tru is going to be used in higher crime areas and will take some of thier direction from the commanders and w/c's
  Tru, on the 1st watch, potentially handle seat belt missions
  Tru will take one of their sgt's and their people and be assigned to handle radio calls, probably in the Doc, not specifically paper jobs, the goal is to end the raps in the districts.
  Lockups will be help accountable for getting prisoners in from any unit in a timely fashion.
• Dep O'Keefe Admin services:
  Goal is to purchase beat and marked cars this year to help update the fleet
  Getting the new panasonic pdt's to as many districts as possible that don't already have them
  Try and get a plate reader in each district.
  Swiping is on hold at the moment mostly due to technological concerns but will be revisited in the future.
• Dep Brust, Bur of Profess Standars:
  Just basically spoke about what a great organization the CPD is and that he is honored to be a part of it and hopes to get the tools the officers need to do their jobs.
  The Supt. was asked about the merit process and he related he would like to see it go to an anonymous selection, meaning the merit package, which would be uniform would not contain names only the attachments needed to review the possibility of making that candidate merit, of course contract considerations would have to be considered.
  Those were the highlights, everyone appeared sincere and almost all spoke about front line supervison and accountabiltiy. the undertone appears that this new regime has maybe started to realized the patrol division has been the red-headed step children for a long time and that needs to change.
  as always stay safe!!

This sounds legit. Any takers?

Resolution

We will make no judgments as the cop involved wanted this plea to go through:

• Almost 40 years after a Chicago Police officer was shot, the accused gunman is expected to plead guilty Friday in a unique deal requiring him to pay $250,000 to a group for fallen officers and firefighters and agree to a sentence of 30 days in jail and two years of probation, sources said.

  On Feb. 7, Joseph Pannell, 58, returned to Chicago from his adopted home in Canada to face justice in the shooting of Officer Terrence Knox, who survived three 9mm bullet wounds in 1969. Pannell fled to Canada in the early 1970s to avoid prosecution. While in Canada, Pannell spent decades working as a research librarian.

  The deal would require Pannell to contribute $250,000 to the Hundred Club of Cook County, which provides for surviving spouses of cops, firefighters and paramedics who have lost their lives in the line of duty. Pannell's supporters are expected to help him foot part of the bill.

A unique solution we suppose. And as Officer Knox was the one going through the ordeal of being shot and recovering, anyone who has a beef with what he did should take it up with him. It's what HE wanted and in the end, his is the only voice that counts.

More Rumors

They never end, especially when there is the potential for so much change under current conditions. Here's the latest:

• Street Deputies are out. Or they soon will be. Deputy Chiefs will be responsible for their Areas and everything occurring within.

We don't know about this one. It seems far fetched. Area Chiefs are already responsible for most of what occurs during business hours and the Street Deputies covered the overnight stuff. Are the Deputy Chiefs going to be tied to their Blackberries a bit more now? Are call outs going to become more common? Or are they going to make Commanders cover the overnight stuff so the Deputy Chief can get some sleep?

More Rumors:

• The following changes supposedly happened today, Thursday, 21 Feb 08:
  
  1. Michael Chasen---retired under strong encouragement
  
  2. Maria Maher-----retired, period.
  
  3. Everett Johnson--retired
  
  4. Michael Boyce (chief of staff for the Supt--civilian)...separated from the department

Can any verify any of this? We heard at least one of these was mandatory at the end of the year and everyone knows Peterson and Maher never got along, so there was bound to be a change in the D-unit. Boyce, well, he's the mayor's guy and the less said about that the better.

Also, someone started up the "pending indictments" rumor again. At any given time, there are a few investigations going on that could result in criminal charges being filed at some point in the next 100 years.

Don't believe everything you read in the comments section people. There's going to be plenty of movement over the next few months without trying much.

UPDATE: It appears that every part of the second rumor is untrue so far. Give it a few weeks though - at least half of it should be true soon.

What They Really Think

Amazing what happens when they let the mask slip:

• Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism. That you put down your divisions. That you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones. That you push yourselves to be better. And that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual, uninvolved, uninformed.

Michelle Obama spent most of today backtracking away from her words when the right side of the spectrum lit into her.

We're just wondering if certain segments of the voting population actually listen to what she's saying.

Debunking Rumors

Tons of rumors floating around. We figured by not addressing them, people would figure out that they were BS.

• Roadside DUI checkpoints targeting cops- It's bullshit people. The schedule for the checkpoints is published a month or more ahead of schedule. If they happen to chose a neighborhood known for so called "cop bars," then we should all make plans to stay home that night or take a cab.
  
  They aren't fucking around with drinking and driving anymore and haven't been for a few years now, but people keep missing the message. If you are caught, you will lose two paychecks minimum. If you crash, you will probably lose more. If you kill someone, you will go to jail for 10 years at least (based on the most recent two or three incidents).
  

Another rumor has the most recent promotional lists coming down. Certain people saw J-Fed on "Chicago Tonight" and interpreted some of his comments as perhaps there was a chance of the lists coming down. We don't have a transcript of the show, so we can't make a judgment on any of it, but we will say this - tests cost money. $4 million or so per test. The City might fight tooth and nail for these lists to exist for a bit yet. That being said, a few points:

• The Lieutenants Test was probably the most crookedly run test we've ever seen. Mark Brown from the Sun Times had the questions published in his columns weeks before the "re-test" took place. How can that test a supervisor's ability to "think on their feet" when they already know the questions?
• Can someone (J-Fed) actually publish the criteria for "meri-clout-orious" promotions so that the rest of us shmucks actually have something to shoot for? Is there a certain number of arrests, part ones, search warrants, DUI's, curfews, ANOV's, parkers that we can do to have an actual shot at promotion? Or is it only by blood, birthright, and trading for sex and/or money that you get ahead?
• Can one of J-Fed's accounting buddies look into the statistical anomalies that somehow result in people who work for so called "subject matter experts" always scoring the top slots in exams? The number one, two and most of the top twenty-five spots always seem to come from some Deputy Superintendents office at HQ. We took a statistics course once and it's leads to some interesting questions.

You want to know why there are so many leadership problems with this Department? Look no further that the testing process. We aren't getting leaders. Not at all.

Create More Victims

This makes sense (note sarcasm):

• scc, got a funny story for you...
  
  i went to see a concert at U of I in champaign yesterday, went to give the guy the ticket at the door and was met by a student wielding a metal detector. i identified myself and showed my credentials, he promptly stated " and what am i supposed to do with that?" he then proceeded to tell me that i was not allowed to bring in my weapon because it is state land. two U of I police officers were there and were very polite about the whole thing, however they would not let me in the front door with my weapon. i had to find a means of securing it before i would be allowed admitance.
  
  just a thought but WTF??? lets take the guns away from the police now too, yea thats a BRILLIANT fucking idea!!!

This is why we stopped going a lot of places. Concerts. Great America. The list is pretty extensive. Their choice to deny themselves the extra security without paying a dime for it. Our choice to deny them our entertainment dollars. There are still enough venues in town that appreciate the help or have CPD security that will extend courtesy that we don't miss out on too many acts we like to see.

The next big attack in this country is going to be a soft target. It just is. And we don't plan on being anywhere near it if we're off duty.

Bureau Disbanded

Not the Bureau we would have chosen, but one to make up for this one just created.

Now we'll have to see if the new Deputy Superintendents cut out some of the useless middle management spots.

UPDATE: If anyone missed it, Crime Strategies and Accountability got rolled into the new Bureau of Professional Standards.

It Could Be Worse

We could be in Canada:

• The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the British Columbia Coroners Service are investigating three cases of washed-up right feet inside running shoes. The latest was discovered on a beach on the east side of Valdes Island on Feb. 8.

  The first foot was found washed ashore on Jedediah Island on Aug. 20, and six days later a second was found on Gabriola Island.

  Both were in size-12 runners. No information on the size of the shoe of the third foot has been released.

Feet. In size 12 running shoes. Washing up on the shore.

Man, Canada is weird.

More Laws That Won't Work

Right on cue:

• The NIU tragedy has renewed the gun control debate -- some lawmakers are pushing for tougher laws while gun rights advocates say more rules are not the answer. Mayor Richard M. Daley on Tuesday said he wants to introduce "common sense" procedures to reduce gun violence. He said the city will support the proposals, both in Springfield and in Washington, D.C. "The tragic deaths at Northern Illinois last week again are a fresh reminder," Daley said, of the need for tougher gun laws.

Unfortunately, the gunman at NIU followed every single one of the laws on the books before finally breaking the one that mattered most. And nothing stopped him. As we hear more and more about the run up to this incident, the signs were all there and no one who knew the gunman stepped up to take responsibility for getting him help. Recent articles and interviews are attempting to paint a false portrait of him as a victim and deflect the uncomfortable light shining on his friends and families as ignoring his need for intervention.

Channel 5 also covers.

Jail Lite

Riot at the Juvie center:

• Ten people were hurt during a big brawl at the center Monday. There's even talk of a possible worker walkout.

  There is no question many staffers at the juvenile detention center are unhappy. Many say they are worried for their safety at work. And the brawl inside the facility Monday was just one of many recent incidents. The new administrator says he's committed to fixing the problems and that begins with the staff.

  It was the sort of incident some juvenile detention center staffers say was bound to happen and is likely to happen again - a near riot inside the facility with dozens of teenagers involved, throwing furniture and causing numerous injuries.

A "near riot" in which 10 people are hurt badly enough to require treatment? And most of the injured are staff members? That would seem to be a full fledged riot.

We think we can safely state that once again, in Cook County, the inmates are truly running the asylum.

Another Jib Jab Video

Seems someone has begun a trend:

• CLICK HERE for the snowball fight

If they downloaded the entire past Command Staff, we're going to be getting this material for years.

• CLICK HERE for the first installment
  

Explain Please

Seen at Midway Airport, so it probably paid for with Federal grants. Anyone know the purpose? Function? Cost?

Suburban Shooting

Cops ok, thank goodness:

• One person was killed and three others, including two Burbank police officers, were wounded in a shootout Monday night at a motel in the southwest suburb, officials said.
  
  One officer was shot twice in the chest, but the bullet did not penetrate his bulletproof vest, said Burbank Fire Department Battalion Chief Timothy Kaufmann. The officer also was shot in the hand.

Open Offer

If any of the recently dumped bosses want to drop SCC a line and let us know what really happened...

...or if any of the soon to be dumped bosses want to let us know what's coming up in the next few weeks...

We have an e-mail contact in the side bar where you can reach us. We'd be more than happy to let you tell your side of the story.

Durbin Steps Up

And promptly proves every single talking point about liberals being divorced from reality and promoting the right to be a victim:

• People from Chicago to DeKalb grieved and prayed Sunday for the victims of the Northern Illinois University shootings as the state's senior U.S. senator spoke for legislation he hopes will improve campus safety.

  Sen. Dick Durbin said Congress should require that the nation's colleges and universities draft emergency response plans and test them every year.

OooooOoooo. A NEW LAW! We're SAVED! Next time a madman with a gun storms into a room full of unarmed students, they can wave pocket sized versions of NIU's emergency response plan to deflect flying lead and feel all self righteous about being non violent.

• While Durbin said no such law could have prevented the killings at NIU in DeKalb or at Virginia Tech, he said the federal government has a "special obligation" to encourage campus safety. He urged Congress to adopt a measure he co-sponsored with Sen. Barack Obama.

Again with the "nothing could have prevented the killings." A completely unprovable and demonstratively false statement.

• It would provide grants to help schools with the costs of enhancing security. The measure is before a House-Senate conference committee as part of reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.

  An early version of the bill called for a $5 million grant appropriation.

Ah, $5 million grant. That explains a lot.

Eddie, Shut Up

Once again, state representative Eddie Acevedo (D-idiot) opens his mouth and spouts nonsense:

• Less than 24 hours after the fatal shootings at Northern Illinois University, two lawmakers were drawing very different lessons from the tragedy. [...]

  Rep. Edward Acevedo, a Democrat from Chicago who has spent 12 years responding to shootings and other incidents on the Southwest side as a Chicago police officer, said such incidents point out the need to take more guns off the streets.

We hate to burst the Tribune's bubble, but Eddie hasn't spent 12 months on the street since he got off probation and lucked into a political spot. He's been detailed to "Detached Services" for years where he might perhaps type and serve a few papers as necessary to maintain the illusion of being a cop. This article is a blatant attempt to lend legitimacy to gun grabbers by having a "cop" be anti gun. Eddie is no more a cop than Eddie Burke was ever a cop. Or "Big Hog Balls" Beavers.

• “What’s going to happen when someone pulls out a hairbrush that someone else thinks is a gun?’’ Acevedo asked. “Are we going to turn this state into the Wild West, where everybody gets to carry guns?”

And in 48 other states, where are these supposed bodies stacking up? Where's the "Wild West" happening? The only "Wild West" we've heard about recently is the west side of Chicago where murders run rampant and even then, Area 4 barely keeps up with the insanity in Areas 1 and 2 lately. And what is banned in these parts? Guns of course!

• Acevedo said the NIU shootings show that Illinois must ban the use of assault weapons and certain types of shotguns, perhaps including the one used on the campus in DeKalb [...]

  “These weapons are made for mass destruction and war – they don’t belong on the streets of Illinois,’’ Acevedo said. “They are made to kill mass amounts of people. You don’t need these kinds of weapons to do any kind of sport hunting.”

Um, dumbass? The Remington 870 is the most popular hunting shotgun of all time. It's the most used sporting shotgun in existence. Stop parroting the Brady anti-gunners and do some research. Oh wait, aren't you the same softball who claimed Illinois needed to ban all .50 caliber long guns, even though the grand total of persons killed by .50 caliber rifles in the United States still stands at ZERO?

Shut up Eddie. You're being ignorant. Again.

Cicero Silliness

This is ridiculous:

• The long-awaited drug-test results of Cicero police Cmdr. Wesley Scott, cited in Chicago with misdemeanor possession, revealed he passed, but took the wrong test—something town officials can't explain.
• As a commander, Scott should have taken a hair-follicle test, which registers drugs in the system for 90 to 180 days. Instead, he took a urine test, with less of a shelf life. Under the town's zero-tolerance policy, Scott could have lost his job for testing positive.

What a joke. Anyone who does any research whatsoever can find all sorts of masking agents and even household concoctions that will mask the presence of illegal substances, especially marijuana. But who knows how many grounds for appeal Cicero has opened for this softball to try to get his job back. Luckily, TRU will be ready to do the same thing all over again. Unless J-Fed disbands them.

Odd Coincidence

It has been said that history repeats itself. It is also said that those who do not learn from history are bound to repeat the mistakes of the past.

We were rereading one of our favorite books the other day - "Boss" by Mike Royko. Everyone had an opinion of Royko and ours was that he was a crusty old fart with a penchant for decent writing and a sharp sense of how Chicago operates. Chapter VI covers the Police Department scandal of 1960. Summerdale. Cops as robbers. And it culminates in the event that finally severed the CPD from the Political Machine (or at least temporarily removed it as a political appendage for a short while). The appointment of the first civilian Superintendent - O.W. Wilson was heading the search committee to look for a new boss:

• When all the applicant had been interviewed, the committee began it's deliberations. The choice was difficult. Many were impressive, but no one man had been so outstanding that he towered over the others. That made the committee's job difficult, but it made McFetridge's job easier. At the right moment, when they were tired of the sifting, narrowing process, McFetridge said, "Why don't we select our own chairman?"
• Of course. Why not Wilson? He was sitting as chairman because he was the outstanding law enforcement expert in the country, and that was the man the committee was supposed to find. And with Wilson sitting right there, chuckling modestly, who was going to say otherwise? Besides, everybody on the committee knew that McFetridge was Daley's man, and it would never hurt to be on the right side of the mayor.
• Wilson held out for two days. Because he was an expert, he knew about Chicago's police-politician relationships. As he later said, "This situation may be the greatest challenge confronting law enforcement in the United States today, perhaps the world." He wanted a guarantee of independence in the form of the three-year no-strings contract and a salary more than double that paid him by the university.

Things that make you go "Hmmmm." Outsider; Police Board sifting through applications not once, but twice; the mayor suggests the outsider who is eventually chosen; three year contract; almost double the last Superintendent's salary.

It's almost like someone is using Royko's book as a script.

Great Video

We're working on figuring out how to embed video into the blog. It might be an entertaining option to have once in a while.

In the meantime, this is about the funniest piece of video we've seen in a while.

• CLICK HERE!

If true, we are truly in for a rough ride under the new boss.

If not, someone has way too much time on their hands.

Short Bus Rider Speaks

Anyone else think a few reading comprehension courses might help this GED candidate in our comments section?

• SCC, you’re a real piece of Shit!

Really? How so? We mean besides giving you a platform to demonstrate ignorance we mean

• Just like the guy who wants to ambush and kill a Police officer there is nothing we can do to stop that, only try to deter it. The response we have after that is what separates those who have a plan in place and those who don't. We may never know actions law enforcement took at NIU but I will give them the benefit of the doubt that their response saved some lives, unlike the response at Columbine.

Actually, if you read the linked articles and watched the news, we know pretty much what happened. The NIU police got there in two minutes and the gunman was already dead. So in reality, the police did nothing.

ATTENTION TINY BRAINED READERS AND READING COMPREHENSION CHALLENGED TROLLS - THIS IS NOT A SLAM ON THE NIU POLICE.

Two minutes is a FAN-FUCKING-TASTIC response time. We'd love to see CPD get to every call inside of two minutes, but with call volume and under-staffing, it ain't going to happen. But the fact of the situation is that NIU police did not engage the gunman and us pointing that out does not make us pieces of shit.

• So take your righteous attitude and shove it up your ass. This is not a Police state we live in, we have a constitution that we have to abide by. Unfortunately the bad guys don't have to follow the rules.

Um, wasn't that the point of our entire post? The US Constitution guarantees the Right to Bear Arms, yet Illinois won't allow young adults the means to defend themselves from a crazed maniac even though they can drive, vote, be drafted, or marry. Why not the right to chose to NOT be a victim?

As for our "righteous attitude," we can only assume you mean taking the Chief to task for his harebrained comment. How can he possibly stand up there in a position of authority and say to the parents of the dead and wounded, "and as much as we do, it's unlikely that anyone would ever have the ability to stop an incident like this from beginning.

Bullshit. One person can and has stopped things like this in their tracks. And the way they did it was they had a gun. The mall out west - off duty cop with a gun. Church shooting in Colorado? Female with a pistol. University shooting out east 5 or so years ago? Student with a concealed carry permit on a "gun-free" campus had to run back to his car to retrieve a gun and stopped a shooting - too bad he had to follow the "gun free rules" or he might have saved more people than he did.

• What happened at NIU was a tragedy perpetrated by a mad-man, don't blame law enforcement.

Ah, finally, the public school education rears its ugly head. Where the fuck did we ever blame law enforcement? Point it out, right now, you sanctimonious prick. Quote us you miserable jagoff.

You can't. Even obliquely (look it up in your word a day calendar asshat). What we stated was FACT. Cold hard fact. NIU responded promptly, professionally, efficiently and exactly two minutes too late. Sorry, but that's a fact. Pointing it out doesn't make us shit either. Pointing out what a half assed statement the Chief made was the point of the post, but you missed that, too. Not really surprising considering your entire thought process lack of thought process.

• You really pissed me off!!!!!

And you pissed us off - all those tax dollars wasted on your short bus riding public school education and you can't even read a blog post of a few hundred words. A-fucking-mazing. Do you even have a job and can we expect to be wasting money on your progeny in the coming decades?

Sign Up Today

It takes mere seconds and it makes you part of one of the most effective national organizations that will fight for and protect your Second Amendment Rights. CLICK HERE to sign up or renew an existing membership.


And if you want to act a little closer to home, CLICK HERE to register with ISRA.

It can't hurt to join both organizations. Especially in light of the push by gun grabbers to deprive you of the right NOT to be a victim.

Making Hay out of Death

The bodies aren't even cold, and these anti-gun Brady people are all over the place with their sanctimonious bullshit. We're going to de-construct one of the more egregious articles, this one from the Tribune:

• Parents of students at Northern Illinois University met in Skokie on Saturday to push for stricter gun control laws in the wake of the shooting on campus.
  
  "It's appalling that these weapons are on our streets," said Connie Catellani, a Skokie mother whose son is a senior at NIU. "These guns are not for self- defense. They're for mayhem."

Hyperbole and bullshit. Pistols are primarily self defense weapons. In the military, they are a weapon of last resort. You don't see armies marching off to war with pistols. And the vast majority of the injuries inflicted on the students? A Remington 870 pump action shotgun - the same type of weapon you can find in every single district police station, some with more time on the job than many captains.

• A leader of the national group Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence spoke about the need for gun-control legislation, including universal background checks and a ban on assault weapons. About two dozen parents held a news conference in a classroom at Oakton Community College on Saturday morning.
  

Not a single one of these weapons is a so called "assault weapon." The gun grabbers are going nuts over common pistols and a shotgun designed around 1950. Scare tactics.

• The NIU gunman, who opened fire in a crowded lecture hall Thursday afternoon, killing five, was able to do so much harm in two minutes because he could buy four guns easily, said Jennifer Bishop, a national program director for victim's families.

No, he was able to inflict so much damage because he surprised a group of unarmed students in a confined area with only three exits. He was able to sneak in an unlocked backstage door and he used a shotgun which is designed to scatter multiple pellets in a cloud to kill small game. The NIU police responded in two minutes and the gunman was already dead. TWO MINUTES! Nothing was going to stop this asshole from killing people in two minutes flat. Our OEMC considers a Priority 1A job (domestic, shots fired, battery-in-progress) dispatched on time if they get a car assigned in TEN minutes. And even if he had twenty guns, he still only has two hands and you need both to operate a shotgun.

• Police say the gunman, Steven Kazmierczak, brought a shotgun and three handguns into the classroom.
  
  "We are outraged because this doesn't have to happen," Bishop said.

No, it doesn't have to happen. If only his family recognized the warning signs... oh wait, they did! He was committed for over a year to a psychiatric facility for mental problems in the late 1990s. He also had experienced a number of setbacks in his personal life and was reaching out to people he hadn't seen in over a decade.

Well, maybe if someone else recognized the signs... oh wait, they did! The US Army of all institutions gave him an psychological discharge in 2001-2002 during basic training.

What if he was limited to one handgun purchase a month as has been proposed numerous times in this state and elsewhere? Oh wait, he bought one pistol 06 August 07, one pistol 30 December 07, and picked up a third pistol 09 February 08 along with the shotgun.

Maybe the State of Illinois should have caught his mental instability when he applied for an FOID card... oh wait, that's only for persons in treatment within the past 5 years. And that's only if they ADMIT it. Anyone reading think the State Police have anywhere near the manpower and money to go digging into peoples' past medical histories. Doesn't HIPPA come into play here?

Let's face facts. A gun is an inert piece of metal. In some cases, a finely machined piece of metal, in other cases a cast piece of shit or a stamped hunk of ore. It will sit there for thousands of years and never harm a soul until someone picks it up, loads it, points it and uses it. A gun is a tool.

Of the pages and pages of law written and proposed, what exactly is supposed to stop someone from killing another human being if they really want to? And if you want to kill a whole bunch of human beings, are you going to walk into a police station? An army barracks? Maybe a gun show? After all, there are hundreds, sometimes thousands of guns at a gun show. The bodies must stack up at gun shows, right?

Or are you going to go to one of the soft targets where no one is allowed to carry a gun, they leave doors unlocked into rooms with limited exits, and the police are minutes, maybe even tens of minutes away?

Unpreventable

A little food for thought for all "nanny state" believers:

• The day after the shootings at Virginia Tech last spring, Northern Illinois University President John Peters issued a letter saying the school would take a hard look at its security plan to make sure NIU was prepared in case of a similar crisis.
• Following the shooting Thursday at NIU, campus officials said that while no system could prevent such an attack, their system worked well in response to the tragedy.
• "You know, I wish I could tell you that there was a panacea for this kind of a thing, but you've noticed that there's been multiple shootings all over this country within the last six months," said NIU Police Chief Don Grady. "It's a horrendous circumstance, and as much as we do, it's unlikely that anyone would ever have the ability to stop an incident like this from beginning."

Wow. Don't pat yourselves on the back too hard there NIU. "[T]heir system worked well in response to the tragedy"? Evidently, NIU has decided that 5 dead and 16 wounded is the best they can do. That's their threshold of "acceptable casualties."

And this quote? "it's unlikely that anyone would ever have the ability to stop an incident like this from beginning."? Nothing like a completely unprovable blanket statement of surrender, by the Chief of the NIU Police, no less. No one could possibly know if an armed professor or an armed student could have stopped this. And thanks to gun grabbers like Daley, Blago, Stroger, Suffredin and the entire political establishment in Illinois, no one will ever know if it could have been stopped.

If the voters in Illinois consent to be disarmed, then every damn one of them better evaluate what their level of "acceptable casualties" is going to be. Because police can't be everywhere and when they do get there, they're just going to be cleaning up more dead students put there by psychos that don't follow the law.

New Bureau

We were actually hoping by "decentralizing," J-Fed was going to eliminate a Bureau, namely Strategic Deployment. The only thing there is TRU, Deployment Operations and the old Special Functions Group.

There's no reason that these things can't be rolled back into the Patrol Division Bureau of Patrol. The only reason they were stripped out in the past was some pissing match between Maurer and Starks and a couple of other gold stars fighting over who controlled what.

This Bureau of Professional Standards though....there are only two units in it:

1. Education and Training
2. Internal Affairs

Both are headed by Assistant Deputy Superintendents which is the level directly below all of yesterday's movement. Like we said yesterday, expect a few days, maybe a few weeks of calm and then a whole bunch of new movement among the Assistant Deputy Superintendents and the Deputy Chiefs. Maybe even a Chief.

Evaluating the Fallout

So, J-Fed reorganized the level of immediate supervision directly underneath his office.

What happens next?

We're going to speculate on a lull of a few weeks while the new offices are organized and then another round of promotions, demotions and retirements, probably at the A.D.S. / D.C. level.

It must be a very interesting time to be a political or merit promotion pick at this point.

By the way, thanks to the 10,000 visitors we had on Friday. Easily our best day ever.

Laski v Daley

Battle royale in the media:

• As a maverick alderman, then city clerk, Jim Laski was a constant thorn in Mayor Daley's side. Now that Laski has been released from prison and written a tell-all book, the thorn has turned into a knife.

  The war of words between political rivals escalated Thursday when Daley suggested that the convicted former city clerk has "a lot of personal problems" and that he's making wild post-prison allegations in a desperate attempt to sell his self-published book.

  Laski fired back that Daley was "blatantly lying" and lacks the "guts" to take responsibility for his actions.

We imagine most people are pretty sure that the only reason Daley doesn't sue Laski is that under discovery rules, god only knows what might come out into the open. Plus, truth is kind of hard to overcome, even in Cook County courts. This is getting rather entertaining though.

Be Aware

Be very aware:

• Ten Chicago-area patients have tested positive for an unusual type of drug-resistant influenza, prompting concern and increased surveillance by local and federal health officials.
  
  The strain of flu can be successfully treated with some drugs, but it does not respond to Tamiflu, the most common antiviral medication for flu. The Illinois Department of Public Health issued a health alert to doctors and hospitals Thursday suggesting that flu patients who are in intensive care receive a combination of drugs until their virus can be analyzed.
  
  Officials said eight of the Tamiflu-resistant infections came from an outbreak at a single Chicago health-care facility, the name of which they have not released.

We'd be willing to bet we know where more than a few of those patients are being housed at the moment. And being as the police come into contact with all sorts of persons with less than adequate hygienic practices, be sure you're aware of what your arrestee might be carrying that ISN'T visible to the naked eye.

Area 4 Decapitated

• Cmdr. James Jackson from 011 named First Deputy.
• Cmdr. Beatrice Cuello from 010 named Deputy Superintendent, Bureau of Patrol.
• Cmdr. Steve Peterson from Area 4 detectives named Deputy Superintendent, Bureau of Investigative Services.
• (Unknown rank) Mike Shields named Deputy Superintendent, Bureau of Strategic Deployment.
  

Also, new bureau created.

And we hear that Williams, Grau, and Risley will be putting in their papers.

Info to follow.

Massacre at 35th Street

Resignations abounding?

Sneed correct again?

We had rumors starting late last night in the comments section and a full blown fire is raging.

• the sawed off runt Williams
• Risley the cover up artist
• Kirby the blind corruption finder
• Tobias the SOS Commander
• Grau the placeholder

Hang on people.

Heroes

Unfortunately, the shooting at NIU drove this entire bit of good news underground over the course of the day. Here's a glimpse of what was leading the news early Thursday:

• A 44-year-old Calumet Area detective scooped up a 4-year-old girl from the fifth floor of a burning Chicago Housing Authority building early Thursday on the Near North Side.

  The detective -- with two other officers first on the scene -- helped rescue six other residents, none of whom were seriously hurt.

If you dig around the news sites, there's good video of the rescues. All in all, a great job by CPD before CFD arrived.

Raised Morale?

We've noticed a disturbing trend in the comments:

• Interest in the 12 hour day is high
• Interest in any alternative that gets rid of the sixth day is higher
• Numerous people are claiming that this is the best thing to happen to the Department in years and J-Fed truly has the pulse of the regular beat cops

What exactly has the new guy accomplished?

• He's attended one graduation where he pretty much parroted the company line.
• He's made one proposal that will take YEARS to implement
• He may have (emphasis on "may have") cut his office staff from 14 down to 9

No one has been demoted. No heads of Bureaus have been moved. No promotions or hirings have taken place. Yet there is an undercurrent of irrational exuberance all of the sudden in our comments sections and our visits are topping 6,000 per day for three days straight.

We're as eager as anyone to see what change J-Fed can implement. We certainly hope it's for the better. But we need to give this at least 6 months to get a feel for what's going on. Change in this Department takes time. Often, it takes way too much time. Molasses in January moves faster than this Department embracing change. Glaciers often outdistance the pace of change here. Look at what they did to the weapon order last year. And that was in the works for more than a few years that we know of.

Let's wait and see what the actual first change is before we crown J-Fed the greatest thing since sliced bread. Proposed changes are nothing more than "same old, same old" from City management.

Northern Illinois Shooting

DeKalb, IL:

• A former student dressed in black walked onto the stage of a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University and opened fire on a packed science class Thursday, killing five students, wounding 16 and setting off a panicked stampede before committing suicide.

  Police say they have no motive for the rapid-fire assault, carried out by the gunman who fired indiscriminately into the crowd with a shotgun and two handguns as students dove to the floor and ran toward the exit. At least two of the wounded were hospitalized in critical condition.

All the local links have stories up.

Berwyn Update

Word from Berwyn is that their internet site and telephone operator were overwhelmed by interest in the lateral move program, even though the entire process doesn't open up until 18 February.

One of the bits of info gleaned from speaking with the Berwyn people is that you'll need a copy of your training records from the CLEAR system, accurate and up-to-date.

Here's the link to the application process.

Another Cover Up

When does it end?

• Chicago authorities were documented as being expected resume their search for a Chicago Heights woman who reportedly disappeared involving with an apparent UFO abduction case while jogging late in the evening in a forest preserve. A 39-year old woman was on a three and a half mile run through the forest preserve on 26th and Euclid Avenue near Chicago Heights in the evening when she disappeared on 28 October 2007.

  Police spent all day Monday searching the forest preserve for clues into the UFO abduction disappearance. Around 7:00 PM that evening the mother of three called her sister and a friend on her cell phone before her run. Her last words were, “Hello please call me back, I had seen something, this is very important! Please hurry up! This is urgent!

This is a real news site in Canada. Evidently, "socially progressive" is code for "bat-shit insanity."

Comments Feature

NOTE: When a post runs over 200 comments, a tool appears at the top of the comments page. It reads, "Newer - Newest." After you click over, it will read, "Older - Oldest."

If you want to see the latest comments, you have to click on it to bring up #201 and beyond. We didn't invent it, e-Blogger did.

Comments closed here.

Nothing is on Paper

According to the Comments Section, the Superintendent was on TV saying something along the lines of, "I just threw that out there because of something an officer said at roll call in 021. There are no plans for anything."

Even in a best case scenario, a 12-hour day is 2 years away and the FOP would be entirely correct to research all options, get everything in writing and put it out for a vote. Then they'd have to do a year in two or four pilot districts and figure out equipment needs, manpower impact and get input from the rank-and-file.

Don't expect the Captains and Lieutenants Associations to go for anything that would reduce their manpower numbers.

A Closer Look at 12 Hours

LONG POST. Read it all.

Now that everyone has had their say in the previous entry, let's step back and look at a few of the nuggets that we've gleaned.

First up, FOP has NOT said they won't look at anything. Here's Donahue's quote since it seems a number of people are making up quotes again to further a political agenda:

• Fraternal Order of Police President Mark Donahue said the union is open to discussing it, with some reservation. In 2004, the department experimented with a 10-hour shift.

  "Twelve hours in a beat car in Chicago -- in most areas of the city -- is a very long work day. It has worked in other areas of the country. But it's something that has to be analyzed," said Donahue, who is pushing for a fixed schedule of six-days-on and three-days-off in contract talks with the city.

"open to discussing it." "has to be analyzed." These are legit concerns. And as someone pointed out, this is a contractual issue, subject to negotiation. The City isn't going to say, "Here's a 12 hour day! Live Long and Prosper!" The City is going to want something - actually, a lot of somethings. Here's a list we've come up with and others have noted:

• P-Days and BFD's - The City is not going to give you 4 Personal Days and 3,4,5 or 6 BFD's under a 12 hour schedule. They are going to demand concessions. They did the same thing under the 10 hour day proposal that didn't pass. The City wanted people to give up one P-Day and more than one BFD.
  
• Furloughs - 20 straight days or 24 working days? Gone. The City is going to demand everyone go down to 12 vacation days or less with increases only for service time. It's been proposed before. The City will recycle this idea.
  
• Federal Labor Law - We aren't experts on Labor Law, but we're pretty sure that there are certain rules that must be followed for a 12 hour day, namely a second lunch or a third personal. Will this be considered "unpaid" as lunch always has in the past? And if so, are they going to try to stick it in everyone's asses by checking off 30 minutes past the hour? That's 30 minutes out of your already shortened down time if you aren't on your Friday. Also, FLSA will come into play.
  
• Overtime and Court - Late pinch or morning in court after a 12 hour day. Truckers are under certain restrictions for driving extended period of time. We spend a large percentage of our time behind the wheel AND we carry a gun. Truckers can fudge log books and use uppers to stay alert - we have sugar and caffeine. What is our liability and the City's if a sleepy cop makes a bad decision?
• Start times - Multiple start times? You can't have all the cars down while we switch over. So if it's 6am to 6pm or 8am to 8pm, that will be three straight days you don't see your kids if you have them. Three straight days without seeing the spouse might be appealing to some cops, but not all.
• Duty Availability and Uniform Allowances - If you don't think there isn't a bean counter in the basement of City Hall figuring out how much less wear and tear there will be on your uniforms or how much less you'll actually be "available" due to Federal Labor Laws restricting how many hours you can actually be on call, think again. In December there was an aldercreature looking to cut Duty Availability because we weren't technically "available" in an emergency.

Now, some of the good points:

• Let's just say we agree that the sixth day sucks ass. And please, call it "the sixth day." People who say "six day work week" are blurring the issue and confusing readers. We work five days a week but six days in a row. If we didn't, only certain people would ever see weekends. Anything that eliminates the sixth day is good.
• Immediate alleviation of the manpower shortage. With only two shifts, you still pick up a bunch of bodies to man cars. The counter point is there aren't going to be enough cars to go around if Fleet keeps failing to maintain pool cars.
  
• While not seeing family for three days straight, seeing them for four days later might make up for it. Again, it needs to be explored.
• Side job opportunities - This could be huge. If we know coppers, there are a couple of sharp ones already looking into setting up some schedules where their people can work two or more of those four days off. With four days off, you can even do some graveyard gigs and still catch up on sleep before headed back to work. This could be an economic boon to hundreds of guys and gals looking to improve their financial situations. Perhaps the FOP could re-visit the Boston method where side jobs at malls and sporting events are dealt with EXCLUSIVELY through the Lodge, providing a steady work load.
  

We're sure that the comments here and elsewhere will point out more pluses and minuses to the entire endeavor. The City could potentially save millions on overtime (court and CAPS being on duty) while having to lay our more money to maintain a larger fleet. Inside spots and School Officers would have to be dealt with separately along with Tact/Gang manpower and Units that never worked an eight hour day to begin with. Same thing with continuing investigations in the D Unit (you can't have a heater case lying around while the dicks are on their four days off).

The side job thing would be the biggest sticking point for the City. Daley wants wage slaves. He wants you broke and demoralized, not financially comfortable and with a good attitude. That's one of the reasons the City canceled the ten hour day experiment - too many people liked it so the City figured they ought to have the FOP negotiate to give something up to get it back.

Continue to discuss. We're withholding judgment until we see the proposals in writing, see what is offered, and most importantly, see what is surrendered to get any changes.

Damn, We are Popular

Firstly, we apologize for the comment situation in the "Three 12-hour Days" post. Here's a little explanation:

• We post late at night or early in the morning.
• We moderate comments once in the AM
• We moderate comments once in the PM
• Lather, Rinse, Repeat.
  

When a BIG story like this work schedule change hits the blog, we arrive to an overload of comments, today, somewhere near 300 waiting to be posted. That takes time and it also buries the reader under a few hundred comments that might not have been there when he checked in 12 hours ago. Look at this chart:

We are going to do over 6,000 hits for the 4th time in 8 days and the 5th time this month. We'll have 100,000 page views for February by tonight. There just happens to be a shitload of interest in where things are going with a new guy in charge. We'd love to be able to leave the comments wide open and in real time, but unfortunately, certain persons have proven they can't be trusted with such things. Even tonight, we had to delete seven comments from someone who has been banned for almost two years because he copy/pastes the same word over and over and over about 15,000 times.

You don't have to wade through that crap because we do it for you. But the result is sometimes you get 200 comments thrown up in a short time frame. Sorry about that. It's what we have at the moment. And thanks to everyone for coming by - that's 6,000 visits a day when we're banned on Department computers (at least the ones that aren't at 35th Street - Hi Chief!)

UPDATE: Post corrected for hairstyling sequence - damn this pomade.