Preemptive Closing

We'd just like to get ahead of the news cycle and help out Rahm and Garry by pre-announcing the closure of the North Avenue Beach for Friday:

• Whatever you do Friday, do not: Take a hot bath to de-stress; get stuck in a glass elevator; decide to have a marathon baking session in your studio apartment for an upcoming 4th of July picnic.

  Do not do these things, or anything else taxing, because it’s forecast to reach 100 degrees Friday, according to the National Weather Service.

  In fact the weather service is calling the sizzling heat an “extreme heatwave.”

Since a mere 88 degrees on Memorial Day resulted in a single beach being closed for "heat" reasons, we can't see any purpose in having that same beach open when it's actually going to be 12 degrees hotter.

That would be silly, silly we say, just plain silly. Or just pointing out another lie.

Strouse Memorial

A bunch of people have mentioned this one:

• On Friday, July 1st a memorial service will be held for 012th District Police Officer Brian Strouse who was killed in the line of duty on June 30th, 2001.

  The service will be held at 6 p.m. at 18th Place and Loomis.

Very hard to believe that this has been ten years now.

Jack Dunphy Article

Jack Dunphy is the pen name of an LAPD copper who writes on police issues for various websites. We've linked to his articles before and they are almost without equal in our opinion. Wednesday, he took on the national embarrassment that our superintendent has managed to create. You can read the entire posting here, but the best part of the article comes at the very end where Dunphy quotes an NYPD Captain:

• For more insight on McCarthy, I turned to an old friend, a captain on the NYPD who, for reasons that will soon be obvious, wishes to go unnamed here. His comments:

  It should be noted how counterfeit and disingenuous McCarthy is. This is a man who has spent his entire professional life in an extremely aggressive, no-holds-barred crusade to put as many black men as possible in prison. He has vigorously advocated the wholesale arrests of black men for the smallest of infractions or violations with not a care as to how such actions could hamstring or effect their futures. He has publicly castigated (and humiliated in some cases) other police executives when they failed to pursue this crusade with the same zeal that he had.

  This man is one of the architects of the “Stop, Question and Frisk” policy that the ACLU, the New York attorney general, newspapers, and civil rights activists have condemned as racist. For him to now climb up on stage and tell a black audience that he cares about them and that the problems in their neighborhoods are the fault of “gun laws” and some mystical governmental action is bizarre.

  Garry knows what the real problem is but he is shamelessly prostituting himself in an effort to get a high approval rating and establish his liberal bona fides.

Seriously, go read the entire article. It is a masterpiece of a takedown.

Venue Change plus Original Article

The judge is moving the Selvie trial to Room 606 today.

A few readers asked about it and one of our commentators located the news report on the shooting incident:

• The brother of the man charged in the death of the bodyguard for Chicago Bears lineman Terry "Tank" Johnson was charged Wednesday with trying to kill a Chicago police detective, police said.

  Bobby Selvie, 22, is accused of attempted murder in the shooting of a police detective shortly before 1 a.m. Monday in the 800 block of West 50th Place in the Back of the Yards neighborhood. Bobby Selvie's brother Michael, 34, was charged in December with killing Johnson's bodyguard at a Near North Side nightclub, according to sources.

• Bobby Selvie, in a statement he allegedly made to another person, admitted shooting a Wentworth Area detective who was chasing a fellow gang member near the Selvies' home, sources said.

  The detective, who was shot in the lower back, was reported in serious condition Wednesday. Investigators have been unable to question him.

A real family of winners there.

The trial continues today in Room 606.

Cop Killer Dies in Prison

And his wife and step-son want to thank their supporters over the years:

• Hello my name is Bob Peloza, I am the son of Chicago Police Officer Robert F. Wenzel Killed-In-The-Line-Of-Duty 13 Jan 1973. Today I received news that his killer died in Statesville prison Sunday June 26 2011. This is a great day for my mother and I, we no longer have to go to parole hearings or do petitions. This is such a joyous day, we are so happy. For the first time in a long time, I cried tears of joy... Finally my father can rest in peace knowing his killer will rot in hell..
  
  Quote from my mother: Good morning everyone. This is to thank each and every one of you for anything you ever did to help me keep the murderer of my Bob in prison. It is finally over. HE IS DEAD. As of Sunday. No more parole hearings, no more petitions. He is on his journey to HELL. FINALLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  
  Thank you
  Rose
  
  On behalf of myself and my mother thank you to everyone who thought of us, helped us and signed petitions to help keep him in prison

On behalf of the crew here at SCC, may the death of this murderer bring you and your mother peace at last.

Citizen Calls BS on City Reports

An almost lone voice, but a refreshing turn of events:

• A Chicago woman who played witness to a beach melee on Memorial Day weekend wants Chicago police and officials to come clean about what happened along the lakefront in May.

  On May 30, city officials closed North Avenue Beach because of excessive heat, but Amy Schwartz says no one is talking about the excessive violence that prompted her to call 911 that day.

  "There's a fight breaking out on the beach because there's nothing but animals covering this beach today," Schwarz phoned into the police. "What the hell is going on.

  Schwartz said she was walking from Oak Street Beach toward North Avenue Beach on Memorial Day when she witnessed a woman being beaten by a gang of people on the beach.

Once again, a case of "Who are you going to believe - the authorities or your own goddamn lying eyes?" In the case of Ms. Schwartz, she appears to be believing her own lying eyes and not the smoke, mirrors, lies and obfuscation put out by the politicos and talking heads.

Where there's one, there are others. Many others in this case.

Quick Hits

Couple of stories to cover. First up, the heat must be getting to Burke:

• When Ald. Edward Burke arrives at City Hall, it's in a city-owned car driven by nattily dressed bodyguards, complete with Secret Service-style earpieces.
  
  It's been that way for decades, even as the racially charged Council Wars era that once made Burke such a controversial and perhaps targeted political figure has faded into history.
  
  Now, at a time of tight budgets and a police shortage, the alderman with $8 million in his campaign fund finds himself defending the bodyguard contingent, which takes four full-time officers off the streets.

Maybe instead of bodyguards, Burke could get a sign that says, "I'm important!"

-------------------
Next up, an arbitrator makes a good decision:

• Chicago Police officers have won the right to a 24-hour cooling-off period from the time they shoot someone to the time they must speak to an independent investigator.

  The Independent Police Review Authority last year insisted on speaking to officers within two hours of a police-involved shooting.

The feds get at least 48 hours and LAPD gets three days. The reasoning for 24 hours seems specious - it gives an officer a “proper sleep cycle,” but seriously, who's going to get a decent night sleep after a gunfight? It's a step in the right direction though.

-----------------------
Lura Lynn Ryan passed away:

• The former Illinois governor, imprisoned for his crimes, persuaded a federal warden in Terre Haute, Ind., to let him out for a few hours Monday. He made it back to his wife's bedside at a Kankakee hospital. Just before 11 p.m., she was taken off a respirator and died, following a long battle with cancer. She was 76.

----------------------
And guess what's still happening downtown?

• Chicago Police are crediting the “diligence” of a commander for approaching a large group of teens outside Water Tower Place Monday night, leading to the arrest of a man who had a loaded handgun.

  [...] Near North District police Sgt. Kenneth Angarone was deploying his officers on foot patrol about 6:45 p.m. Monday in the 800 block of North Michigan Avenue when he noticed a big group of teens leaving Water Tower Place....

We're sure the honor student was just headed to a gun "turn-in" at the local Make Believe church when accosted by the police.

Photoshop Phollies

We've got some talented readers:


Hey?!? Where's Rahm's other hand?

A Note From Beth Johnson

From the comment section:

• In 2007, my husband was shot in the line of duty. Today was the first day of his trial the People vs. Bobby Selvie. At 12:45 pm I turned at looked back in the court room and saw only one Police Officer, our good friend Tom McDonagh. I thank all of our good friends that came and showed support but by 12 45 the courtroom was completely empty and it was scary. Scary to know that this defendent already thinks he is calling the shots, not taking deals offered to him, scary to think that the police don't come out in force to say, Heh this is enough. If you are in court tomorrow, please come to room 602. Don't come for me, don't even come for Pat, come to show bad guys that they don't run the show, they don't call the shots, they can't continue to get away with shooting the police

Room 602 today and continuing until further notice.

Another Piece of the Puzzle

Chicago has always been a political town, trading on favors and taking care of the connected. In that way, the supernintendo seems like a perfect fit. In fact, the beginning of this tale is mysteriously similar to J-Fled's actions to protect the FBI following a whistleblower allegation that the agency had failed to heed warnings and take precautions prior to 9/11.

The entire comment can be read at this link here at 6/27/2011 01:34:00 AM. We'll summarize the interesting parallels below:

• [...] McCarthy had lied previously and denied reports that he had been reprimanded by the NYPD after he had gotten into an physical altercation with a off duty NYPD Sergeant at a cop bar in the Bronx on City Island the night he was appointed deputy commissioner a few years back. On a separate incident McCarthy who was also out drunk again on City Island one evening was shooting out street lights with other police officers one of whom was McCarthy’s brother whom is a New York State Trooper. When McCarthy was confronted by an NYPD Sgt concerning the shooting incident McCarthy had retaliated against the officer later on especially when the Sgt. insisted on pursuing the shooting incident as a criminal matter. Needless to say the incident was quietly swept under the rug by the NYPD Raymond W. Kelly let Garry McCarthy skate after the New Jersey incident
  
  So Gary was back up to his old tricks again. He involved himself in another car stop, this one involved the arrest of a relative in Manhattan for DWI. When a cop on the midnight tour of the Manhattan North Task Force pulled the relative over, the relative telephoned McCarthy but the cop refused to speak to him. Interestingly enough almost identical to his daughter Kyla's incident. Instead, after consulting with his Sergeant and Lieutenant, the cop arrested the relative of McCarthy. McCarthy was not happy. He began calling the borough commander, Assistant Chief Raymond Diaz, to have the cop, Sergeant and Lieutenant transferred. Behind-the-scenes negotiations with a union trustee ultimately produced a back-door apology.
  
  Only a few months ago McCarthy again involved himself in the Manhattan North Task Force car stop. This time, it involved a friend of his who was summonsed by a cop for talking on his cell phone while driving. When the cop asked McCarthy’s friend why he had been talking while driving, the friend answered,“Because I got a fucking phone call.” Again, McCarthy was not happy, he attempted to have the cop transferred. The cop, however, comes from a police family. A relative is an inspector. So far there have been no transfers. Neither McCarthy nor the Task Force Captain, William Crossan would comment on the case.
  
  [...] Ray Maitland, FL

So going after people who register complaints against his behavior? Check!

Try to have underlings transferred when they write his relatives? Check!

Attempt the exact same thing again if they attempt to write his friends? Check!

Having his behavior covered up again and again and again where he learns nothing and repeats the same embarrassing nonsense? Check!

Haven't we lived through a few of these scandals already? Where all the warning flags were up, people in power knew what was coming, incidents were minimized, hushed up, covered for, and in the end, the Department suffered irreparable harm at the hands of problems that should have been dealt with years previously?

Yeah, we can think of a few incidents ourselves right off the tops of our heads. How about the readers?

No Coverage

The papers didn't cover it. If it was on TV, we missed it. The major news radio station was mysteriously silent. But it's something everyone in a position of power ought to be thinking about:

• The head of the Chicago police union says the city is not ready to host two major summits that would bring both international leaders and protestors. [...], the president of the Chicago police union, said summits like the G-8 and NATO bring a "bunch of wild, anti-globalist anarchists."

  Protestors notoriously clashed with police officers in Seattle and Pittsburgh at previous political summits and [he] says Chicago's police force doesn't have the manpower needed to deal with thousands of potential protestors.

  "The City of Chicago needs to take a serious look at how much revenue they're going to allocate immediately for new hirings because we are not ready prepared for a large summit such as this," [some guy] said.

If the stories out of recent parades are true, along with the 010 District melee and all the recent wilding/gooning/flash mob incidents downtown, then the dreaded "manpower" issue is going to be front and center very quickly. Academy classes ought to be started in very short order to make up the steadily declining numbers, because we can name a dozen people who will retire before May of next year just to avoid this thing.

Guess Who SHOULD be Going to Jail

Are we doomed to have this corruption rubbed in our faces for all of eternity?

• A Chicago venture capital fund whose projects paid more than $1.2 million to former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s son has been taken over by the federal government, which says the fund owes taxpayers $21.4 million.

  Cardinal Growth L.P. — which was run by attorney and former federal prosecutor Robert Bobb Jr. and accountant Joseph McInerney, a close friend of Daley’s son, Patrick Daley — borrowed nearly $51 million from the U.S. Small Business Administration over the past decade but has been unable to repay $21.4 million, court records show.

  U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald filed the civil lawsuit on behalf of the federal agency on June 15. The SBA is seeking to liquidate Cardinal Growth L.P. because of mounting losses that threaten the fund’s ability to repay the taxpayer money it got from the agency.

So everything Patrick Daley touches either turns to shit or manages to evade all the so-called "ethical safeguards" put in place to prevent exactly this sort of profiteering by connected individuals from the public monies.

But remember, greedy teachers and coppers are the cause of all financial problems.

Look Who's Going to Jail

Honestly, when we saw Blago on TV again, we thought he was being processed out of the Terre Haute prison and headed back to town. We were getting ready to see if he was taking up his old job of delivering pizzas on the north side.

Two governors in a row going to prison. Really classy.

Here's a link if you're interested, but we just happen to be Blago-ed out.

This Might Explain Sabina Speech

This was pointed out by an astute reader of the NYPD blog, THEERant

• FROM NYPD RANT:
  HYPOCRISY ON HIGH: I'm sure Police Officer Garry Francis McCarthy sure felt that very same way back on that St. Paddy's Day in the 46 Precinct, when off-duty and in the bag, he and his brother, Jimmy, (NYSP Trooper - also off-duty and in the bag) allegedly started a near riot by allegedly shouting the ‘N’ word at the locals while allegedly attempting to shoot out the street lights while allegedly being “intox” to the point he (they) almost couldn't stand.
  
  Yep, Garry, that sure was a dozy of a 10-13(CPD 10-1) that you allegedly started that night with that mostly black crowd.
  
  Shame on you for playing the race card for political gain! - Mike Bosak

Another NYPD commentator replied:

• NYPD PBBX said...

  1:16 PM
  
  McCarthy and his brother were shooting out streetlights in the 45th Pct.(NOT the 46th Pct.) after they left Rhodes, a cop bar on City Island in the Bronx.

No wonder he hates guns. They get used to shoot out streetlights.

No wonder he has to go to Pfleger's church to pander to the masses. He's got to work off some of that guilt he feels.

Last one in Chicago, please turn out the lights.

Street Brawl Injures Cops

Ridiculous:

• Five Chicago Police officers were injured early Sunday during a brawl while responding to a complaint of loud music on the Southwest Side, police said.

  Thirteen people, including two women, were taken into custody after the fight in the 2800 block of West 25th, police said.

  Officers arrived to find more than 30 people in the alley and some immediately began throwing bottles and debris at the cops, police said. Some even threw cans of food.

  When others began fighting with police, officers called for additional help.

  One officer required three staples after having a glass bottle thrown at his head, O’Brien said.

Gee, if only we had a mobile force of a hundred or more officers that could target a certain out-of-control area and lock up every single jagoff around for a few weeks.

Tough Times?

Nice going Quinn:

• Gov. Pat Quinn’s budget office spokeswoman will be making nearly 50 percent more money after receiving an additional job title this spring.

  Kelly Ann Krapf, a former broadcast reporter who uses the name Kelly Kraft, received a salary boost from about $71,000 to more than $105,000.

• Last year, an Associated Press analysis revealed that Quinn had given 43 salary increases averaging 11.4 percent to 35 staffers over the previous 15 months. The raises were handed out at the same time Quinn was proclaiming a message of “shared sacrifice” and calling for deep spending cuts because of the state’s financial crisis. A Quinn spokeswoman said half of those salary increases were the result of a promotion or a change in job title with an added workload.

But hey, enjoy that income tax hike, corporate tax hike and double digit unemployment Illinois! And you better not even think about owning a gun for personal protection, you dirty serfs. Don't be getting ideas above your station in life.

Ah Summer

And seriously, it was a pleasant night last night. Not like at the end of a string of 90 degree days such as we might be experiencing shortly:

• At least 14 people were shot in separate incidents around the city, beginning with a violent half hour on the South Side.
  
  Between 10:39 p.m. and 11:01 p.m. in the Back of the Yards and Englewood neighborhoods, five people were shot and taken to area hospitals, police said.
  
  At 1:40 a.m. in the South Shore neighborhood, a 45-year-old man was driving when he suffered a gunshot wound to his shoulder...
  
  [...] At 1:50 a.m., five people were shot--all in the same incident--in the Lawndale neighborhood.
  
  [...] In the Logan Square neighborhood, at least three people were shot near the intersection of North Springfield Avenue and North Harding Avenue...

So how is Rahm's plan of making sure the neighborhoods are as safe as the lakefront working out now? Seems like the citizens of the west and south sides were onto something when they complained that if it doesn't happen downtown, no one cares. In fact, we find ourselves not caring right now, but that might be because most of us are on furlough right now.

Enforcers Win National Title

Congratulations to the CPD Enforcers on their National Public Safety Football League Division II Championship:

• After six years of trying, it was the first championship for Chicago’s finest — known as the Enforcers -- during the game inside Brother Rice High School’s football stadium on the Far Southwest Side.
  
  The 24-13 victory over the Philadelphia Blue Flame team was mostly a bonding experience for the officers on both sides of the ball, a time to unwind away from the crime that puts their lives at risk every day.

Again, congratulations to the entire team. You did a great job this year.

Private Security?

What's this?

• The officers working Operation Protect Youth, which is a joke anyway, are being ordered to follow 5 food trucks all day long to the ghetto to watch them hand out free lunches. That's 5 two man cars and a Sergeant down for 8 hours a day five days a week for the whole summer to be private security for a program initiated by Michelle Obama and her friends. My guess is it is costing taxpayers $25000 a week Couldn't these officers be used for something better? Especially if we are so short on the street.

Can anyone confirm? This isn't what the OPY Program was initially conceived to do, but then again, that program started in Chicago ever ends up being anything but a monumental waste of time, man-hours and resources?

Another Obliteration Ahead

We can't play favorites, so some gang is going to have to get obliterated now:

• A 7-year-old girl was shot in the leg when gunshots rang out Saturday following an argument in the Back of the Yards neighborhood.

  Police are questioning a “person of interest” in the shooting, which took place in the 5700 block of South Hoyne Avenue and also left a 45-year-old man wounded.

  Two people were arguing when one pulled a gun and began firing, striking the 7-year-old girl in the leg and the man in the back, police said.

How long until we're spread so thin we can't even blow-up the corners any more? Or are we there already?

Get the I-Bond book ready.

Ten Shot, Stabbed, Bricked

Another fun weekend as the temperatures climb:

• At least ten people were injured overnight in separate violent incidents around the city, police said.

This list of mayhem from Friday into Saturday can be found at this link. Looks like Tommy Skilling might be in line for another award as rain moves in to tonight keeping the violence at an ebb. But the rest of the week?

Another Mob Incident

In case you were distracted by everything else going on, Rahm's promise that downtown is safe and adequate manpower is available to preserve law and order? It's working just great!

• The teenage robbery mobs are at it again on North Michigan Avenue.

  Some 50 young people barged into a Walgreens at Michigan and Chicago on the Magnificent Mile on Tuesday afternoon. They took bottled drinks and sandwiches off the shelves, then ran off, CBS 2′s [...] reports.

  A police report says authorities were able to nab three of the thieves.

Must have been a test run for the Taste.

McNutty?

We still haven't settled on a nickname for the Supe and the comment sections are alive with half a dozen monikers. This is a good response from the Illinois State Rifle Association though:

• In a blistering counterpunch, a leading pro-gun advocate Friday called Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy’s racially loaded attack on the National Rifle Association as “too nutty to dignify with a response” and denigrated the city’s new police chief as a “political hack.”

• “As much as we wouldn’t expect to hear McCarthy speak in opposition to gun control, it is equally certain that few of us were prepared to hear what actually came from McCarthy’s mouth when he spoke to the St. Sabina’s congregation,” said Richard Pearson, executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association.

  “After several minutes of gratuitous self-promotion, McCarthy launched into a racially charged tirade in which he accused the NRA and law-abiding gun owners of participating in a government-sponsored program to kill black people. Like most of you, we believe an assertion such as McCarthy’s is too nutty to dignify with a response,” Pearson said in statement posted Friday on his group’s website.

• “But, then again, any suggestion that McCarthy is a law-enforcement officer is a sham. Rather, McCarthy is merely another in a long line of political hacks who have resided in the office of police superintendant,” Pearson said. “McCarthy’s job description has nothing to do with law-enforcement and everything to do with enforcing the political agenda of his boss, Rahm Emanuel.”

The department spokes-weasels cower in their holes:

• A statement issued by McCarthy Friday did not address Pearson’s criticisms nor the St. Sabina flap, other than offering a toned-down assessment of the scourge of illegal guns on Chicago’s streets.

Oh, illegal guns? But there are already rules against those, right?

WLS AM spent a good portion of their morning show on this story. All the networks, too. Even the Drudge Report and the NRA themselves picked up on this embarrassing display.

Does anyone know if ISRA's Richard Pearson is running for anything? Because that was a Class-A pasting he just gave McCarthy.

FOIA Falls Short (UPDATED)

Evidently, there are no real reporters left in Chicago if they have to keep coming here for ideas, hints and clues. They spent most of Friday reporting on the Department's response to the 911 tapes:

• In a statement released late Thursday evening, police officials said the release of the calls changes nothing, and maintained that the decision to close the beach was made "in the interest of public safety and public health."

As one of our commentators suggested, how about looking at the radio traffic tapes? The calls show what people phoned in and we have no doubt the City was happy to release those because they can spin them. They just made the media jump though hoops because they can and time works in their favor now. The radio tapes would be the damning evidence needed to really give Rahm a kick in the shorts and show how inadequate the manpower has become.

But they're only required to keep those available for 30 days unless a hold is put on them, right? Tick tock. Tick tock.

UPDATE: We didn't notice, but a sharp eyed reader did. Of the 20 or so calls covered by the media, not a single one of them dealt with a medical emergency or heat-related illness. They were all about crime at the beach. So once again, the "in the interest of public safety and public health" excuse must be code for something else.

The Taste Begins

It used to be they touted all the great restaurants, the great family atmosphere, the fireworks extravaganza. This year there are no fireworks, so what's the draw?

• Following a series of police incidents in recent weeks on North Michigan Avenue that have led to anxieties about crime downtown, city officials also employed one more noticeable change: more police.
  
  Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy announced earlier this week that there would be more plainclothes officers in and around the Taste this year, working at “choke points” such as train stations near Grant Park.
  
  In addition, uniformed officers and private security guards would be stationed around the festival to ensure a smoother food-sampling experience than in years past, when some Taste events have erupted in violence, McCarthy said.

WBBM Newsradio 780 actually had a piece about how "you and your family will be safe this year" playing this past evening. But hey, everything is under control. Nothing bad here. What gang problem? If it gets bad enough, we'll just blame the "heat" and close down a single beach because those damn paramedics can't answer a call that they've handled every summer for 100 years.

Columbo Dead

Although we prefer, "Serpentine Shel! Serpentine!"

• Peter Falk, the gravel-voiced actor who became an enduring television icon portraying Lt. Columbo, the rumpled raincoat-wearing Los Angeles police homicide detective who always had "just one more thing" to ask a suspect, died Thursday. He was 83.
  
  
• The show often made light of Columbo's lack of fashion sense. Taking note of the detective's tatty attire, a suspect once asked him, "Are you undercover?" Replied Columbo, "No, underpaid."

Monument for What?

Remember when Heroes used to get parades and statues? Monuments are supposed to be grand things. Large, sweeping, majestic pieces of architecture, statues, fountains, etc. designed to inspire and memorialize heroic deeds, sacrifices or individuals. They should move us. Washington DC is filled with shining examples of such: The Washington Monument, the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, the National Law Enforcement Memorial.

Chicago has its share of monuments and memorials all over downtown and in most of the larger parks. Sculptures, statues, fountains.

Now someone wants this?

• Chicago attorneys and activists are planning a monument to memorialize the victims of police torture.
  
  The group is asking artists to submit proposals for the monument.
  
  Group members say their goal is "to honor the survivors of torture, their family members, and the African American communities affected by the torture."
  
  The launch for the project is set for Tuesday at the Hull House in Chicago.
  
  The launch will include attorneys who have represented police torture victims and a man who says Chicago police tortured him into confessing to murder.

Has anyone actually looked at who these "victims" are? Lifelong scammers and criminals, many of whom were released on technicalities, manufactured evidence and "foggy" memories that surfaced decades after the fact. Many were backed by a university professor who has been accused of offering better grades to students who could come up with "evidence" or witnesses to clear convicted offenders, using a young co-ed as eye-candy to at least one inmate, and who recently resigned his tenured position due to his questionable tactics.

More than a few of their "innocent torture victims" have already returned to a life of crime and are headed back to prison. One of their more famous releases was the subject of a parallel outside agency investigation that concluded he probably did set the fire that killed seven people, including children.

These are to be the subjects of a "memorial" to uplift and inspire us? All we're inspired to do is take a leak on this thing.

The inmates are truly running the asylum.

The Wall of Lies Crumbles

Gee, who'd have thunk it? A Chicago mayor lying and his handpicked supernintendo keeping the public in the dark?

• A number of emergency calls on Memorial Day could pose a credibility problem for Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his new police superintendent.

  The official word from city officials has been that North Avenue Beach was closed that holiday due to concerns for public health. But calls made by beach-goers to Chicago's Office of Emergency Management and Communications seem to support claims that gang activity was also at play.

  "There's a fight breaking out on the beach, because there's nothing but animals covering this beach today," one caller is heard saying in recordings obtained by WLS-AM radio through a Freedom of Information Act request.

  "You can't even walk along the bike path or ride along the bike path. There's the crowd control. What the hell is going on?" the caller fumes.

"What the hell is going on" indeed. Go through the last couple of years of our archives and it will explain quite a bit of what's "going on."

And the bigger the lie, the bigger the rush to defend it:

• In a statement released late Thursday evening, police officials said the release of the calls changes nothing, and maintained that the decision to close the beach was made "in the interest of public safety and public health."

  Indeed, with temperatures in the 90s, about a half-dozen people at North Avenue Beach were treated for heat exhaustion. Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said ambulances could not get to victims.

CFD has been responding to the beaches for at least the past 100 or so years, probably even longer than that, so McCarthy's excuse holds as much water as his Sabina speech. And since the Department is now labeling gang fights as "public health" matters, maybe there's some CDC funding we could tap into to alleviate the $500 million deficit Shortshanks left Rahm?

War is Hell

And this is how we blow it up:

• Police Supt. Garry McCarthy declared war on the Maniac Latin Disciples after two young girls were shot in a Northwest Side park earlier this month.

  The shooter was a member of the gang and was gunning for rival Latin Kings when the girls, ages 2 and 7, were wounded on June 8, prosecutors said. The younger girl was grazed in the head and the 7-year-old was seriously wounded in the back.

  “We’re going to obliterate that gang,” McCarthy told a roomful of police supervisors shortly after the shooting. “Every one of their locations has to get blown up until they cease to exist.”

  Two weeks later, 120 Maniac Latin Disciples have been arrested and seven guns recovered in what police are describing as phase one of their effort to cripple the gang of 300 to 500 members.

The count so far?

• Of the gang members arrested since the shooting, 19 remained in jail while the others posted bond.

  About five have been sent back to prison for parole violations such as testing positive for narcotics

We certainly hope this is the basis for a longer conspiracy-type investigation with hard prison time at the end for some people, because we have our doubts that one-hundred-one I-Bonds are going to "cripple" these jagoffs, but it's a good start on short notice.

Video Gains Traction

05 June, the superintendent gives a speak so chock full of bullshitty goodness, it attracted the attention of a number of our commentators. The blog was in the middle of the sudden media interest of downtown "flash mobs/wildings" so we deferred the story for a few days. We covered the story on 11 June before knowing the Sabina tape existed, then more in depth on 20 June, then the attempted hiding of the video on 21 June before it was unveiled again on Shaved's site.

Now it's the top story on Channel 5 news, eighteen days later:

• The pervasion of illegal guns in America's black and Latino communities is a result of "government-sponsored racism," akin to "slavery, segregation, black codes [and] Jim Crow," Rahm Emanuel's new police chief, Garry McCarthy, told parishioners at St. Sabina's Church earlier this month.

  "This is sensitive. You know, because everybody’s afraid of race. Have you noticed that? Everybody’s afraid of race. I'm not afraid of race," said McCarthy, who told of growing up in the Bronx with guns, gangs and drugs plentiful.

  "Let’s see if we can make a connection here. Slavery. Segregation. Black codes. Jim Crow. What, what did they all have in common? Anybody getting scared? Government sponsored racism."

We'll just point out that his list was part and parcel of the democratic party platform for years, so besides being just plain dumb and a panderer of the highest order, he's historically ignorant.

And his speech sucked on many levels, especially describing walking through a crime scene destroying evidence. How does that sound to the greenest rookie in the field who knows better than to wander into a scene and start kicking over things. It sounds like bullshit.

And the Palin crack? She wasn't there because law abiding citizens don't usually hang out at crime scenes they have no connection to. And in case you forgot, those shows are taped weeks and months in advance. So you seeing her hunt caribou in Alaska probably happened a long time before your evidence destroying rampage.

Honest to pete, this speech gets dumber every time we see it. And it's not just us - the comments on the NBC site are shocked, amused and disgusted, too. A great impression being made.

Uh...What Now?

This is rich beyond words:

• The new chief of Chicago Public Schools wants teachers to visit students at home, even in violent neighborhoods.
  
  WLS-TV in Chicago reports that Chicago Public Schools CEO Jean-Claude Brizard said at a Thursday news conference that "our students go there every day. Why can't we?" Mayor Rahm Emanuel also was at the news conference.
  
  Brizard says teachers and staff should each be assigned about ten home visits to students each year. Chicago public schools have about 430,000 students.

Is this guy truly that much of a dumbass?

First up, the teachers aren't going to do this for free. Their time is worth money, perhaps not as much as they think it is, but it's certainly worth something. Many teachers don't live in the neighborhoods they teach in, but you want them to burn extra gas on their days off to "home visit" certain students? If we recall correctly, your School Board just voted to disregard contractually negotiated raises while jacking up executive compensation. You're also wanting them to work longer school days this coming year. Anyone else see the danger ahead?

Second, how can we put this politely Jean-Claude? There are certain neighborhoods where some of these teachers are going to stick out like a sore thumb. And if they stick out, they are going to get hurt. Some might even get hurt badly. There are neighborhoods in Chicago where we wouldn't even think of wandering without a gun, a partner and a radio. And you expect teachers to just show up there on their own time? Are you insane?

Home visits and the like are no substitute for poor parenting and outright neglect. It's almost like this asshat and the mayor are deliberately provoking the teachers into a job action. Even old man Daley wasn't that dumb. Teachers aren't like auto workers, truckers, dockworkers or any other union members. Teachers are sympathetic strikers and they end up affecting large voting blocs.

Video Resurfaces

Nothing ever truly dies on the internet. A bunch of readers pointed to the Google cache and Shaved had this video up all day. For those of you who missed it previously, here it is in all its glory:



After you watch the nonsense, make sure you click on the NRA and ISRA buttons in our right hand link page and join up.

Residency Waiver?

Either the rules apply to everyone or they apply to no one. Unless you're in Chicago politics:

• Chicago's school board is expected to decide today if it will grant a waiver allowing its new chief administrative officer to live outside the city.
  
  Mayor Rahm Emanuel has endorsed the two-year waiver so that Tim Cawley, the third-ranking CPS executive, can continue to live in Winnetka.
  
  CPS grants waivers for teachers in high-need areas like special education and math, but this would be a first for an administrator, district officials said. And the waiver would come at a time when the district has been vigorously enforcing the residency rule.

Rules are for peons, not big politically-connected individuals who stand to make hundreds of thousands in tax payer money from being in Rahm's good graces.

And this is going to provoke a strike shortly:

• More than 1,000 angry teachers encircled the Chicago Board of Education Wednesday, chanting “Rahm Emanuel has got to go,” just before Emanuel’s hand-picked school board members voted to approve raises for top executives a week after they rejected raises for teachers.

  The throng — as many as five deep — wound around the entire block, stopping morning traffic and urging drivers with their signs to “honk if you support teachers.” As a result, blaring car horns often accompanied chanting protesters.

For being so pro-union, all the screwing around these here parts seems to be done by democrats.

Let's See the Order

We're surprised some enterprising reporter hasn't filed some kind of FOIA to get a copy of the supposed Burke court order.

As a number of our commentators pointed out, even Orders of Protection come with expiration dates and fall under a semi-regular reevaluation process. Can anyone else imagine a court order lasting in excess of 25 years without any sort of review, adjustment or evaluation?

But the media eats up the bullshit excuse and Rahm says he's "not focused" on the issue:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel said today he's not focusing on the size of Ald. Edward Burke's bodyguard detail, which he suggested during the mayoral campaign would need to be cut in the spirit of shared sacrifice.

  Emanuel said he's concentrating on getting large numbers of police officers back on the street rather than whether Burke, 14th, should continue to have six Chicago police officers assigned as his guards.

  "My main goal wasn't about the six officers related to Ald. Burke, but the 650 officers we put into the streets. And now the commanders have the resources to do what they need to do," Emanuel said.

The 650 officers, 500 of which came from street units and were returned to the streets they were already patrolling. Right.

Remember, this is going to be a "transparent" mayoral administration. The lies certainly are transparent so far. Stevie Wonder called and asked what the hell is gong on in Chicago. And being aided by the willful blindness of the media doesn't hurt matters any.

WANTED!

From a fan:


With a $310,000 per year salary, the $76,000 vacation buyout raises J-Fled's asking price to a cool million over the span of the now expired contract.

A government employee paid with taxpayer funds...that contract ought to be public record, right? But funnily enough, it never was. Or if it was, the media did a wonderful job of not looking for it and publicizing it.

NATO Coming to Town

5A and 5B furloughs just got a bit more desirable:

• World leaders will gather in Chicago next spring to assess the situation in Afghanistan and discuss the future of the war effort there, President Barack Obama will announce in an address from the White House tonight.
  
  The NATO summit will serve as a chance to review goals laid out by the security alliance in Lisbon last fall, when leaders agreed to begin transition to full Afghan responsibility for security in 2014, a senior administration official said.
  
  The summit, to be held between May 15 and 22 of next year, will coincide with another international meeting in Chicago as the Group of Eight industrialized nations convenes to focus on global economic issues.

Rahm's already begging for money to pay for the security arrangements for the back-to-back conferences. We'd hope there are going to be plenty of hire-back opportunities.

Flyover Englewood

At first, we were hoping it was a helicopter gunship or strafing run. This sounds almost as good:

• The state signed a deal Wednesday with the Norfolk and Southern Railway to build the long-awaited “Englewood Flyover” that would clear up delays on the Rock Island Metra line.

  The $133 million project should begin this year and be completed in two to three years, according to the Illinois Department of Transportation.

"Flying over" sounds like a good idea. In fact it sounds so good, they ought to look into relocating every major street, highway and thoroughfare so it can pass directly over Englewood without stopping, passing Go, or collecting $200. Then they can look into doing the same thing with the west side.

Scam!

This stinks to high heaven:

• Former Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis walked out with a $76,308 check for accrued vacation days when he resigned his $310,000-a-year job on March 1 — a lump-sum payment for 64 unused days that’s raising eyebrows at City Hall.

  His former $168,438-a-year chief-of-staff Mike Masters left police headquarters with a check for $30,448. That’s the equivalent of 54 unused vacation days

Masters Masters Masters strikes again, along with J-Fled. And look at this:

• Weis’ lump-sum payment — for the equivalent of 56.2 percent of his allotted total — raises eyebrows for several reasons.

  For one, he started work on Feb. 1, 2008, but still claimed 25 vacation days that year when he was eligible for none. The former superintendent also got 25 vacation days in both 2009 and 2010, even though civilian employees are only eligible for 13 vacation days.

And the biggest insult of all:

• In June, 2010, after entering the final year of his three-year contract, Weis made a policy decision that increased his vacation payment even more.

  He changed the policy governing vacation carryover to allow “command staff members” including himself and Masters to carry up to 39 unused vacation days from one year to the next “when circumstances prohibited the use of current and prior year’s allotments.”

  [...] Copies of Weis’ so-called “command staff vacation carryover requests” obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times show that Weis and Masters took full advantage of the policy change—by carrying over 39 unused vacation days from 2010 to 2011.

  Both men used identical wording to justify the request: “Unable to use due to operational needs.”

So he (and Masters) directly benefited from a policy change decision that originated on J-Fled's own desk? There's a word for that, too. And we're pretty sure people have lost jobs, positions, promotions and maybe even gone to jail over decisions like that. This reeks of impropriety at the highest levels of government.

That must have been a helluva contract Shortshanks signed with J-Fled. Someone must have had Daley dead-bang on some dirty paper or a wiretap.

Details Safe for Now

Guess who runs it?

• New Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s campaign trail idea of taking away Ald. Ed Burke’s security detail to put a few more Chicago police officers on the streets won’t be coming to fruition.

  The mayor’s handpicked police superintendent, Garry McCarthy, said today that he can’t pull back Burke’s police bodyguards.

  “It's mandated by a court,” McCarthy said. “So I don't have the authority to change a court decision.”

What court was this? A court can order up police details? Based on what? Threats from 30 years ago? And that other threat that just happened to pop up after Rahm initially made noises of cutting the Burke detail? That was awfully convenient and predicted here weeks in advance of the actual occurrence.

Oh wait - it must have been Judge Ann Burke, right?

Imaginary Smoke

When you're reduced to claiming 500 additional officers on the streets by disbanding two street units and putting them "back" into the exact same districts they already worked in, making up imaginary officers is easy as pie:

• The city plans to increase the number of undercover officers patrolling the upcoming Taste of Chicago to head off problems before they start, Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy announced on Tuesday.

  The move comes in the wake of recent mob attacks downtown — and the possibility that those roving groups of young men could head to the Taste — which runs Friday through July 3.

  “We’re deploying the same number of uniformed officers we’ve used in the past, [but] we’re deploying more undercover officers,’’ McCarthy said a news conference at Buckingham Fountain. “We’re not going to tell you the numbers [of officers] because that would be imprudent for us to do that.”

"Trust us."

"The check is in the mail."

"We're going to have lots of undercover officers at the Taste, but you might not see them because they're undercover!"

And where are these officers coming from? The Department has already stripped the units, front offices, desks and lock ups. We aren't hiring. The D-unit isn't in uniform. Tact teams are already scheduled for their days off. We haven't heard they're doing Special Employment. We'd certainly like to see these people.

This sounds like more robbing Peter to pay Paul:

• Sources said that 40 probationary police officers will be reassigned from Michigan Avenue to the Taste on Thursday. The officers-in-training — who have completed two of their three required training periods in police districts after graduating from the police academy — had been assigned to Michigan Avenue in wake of the high-profile mob attacks. Their reassignment raises questions about who, if anybody, will take their place on Michigan Avenue.

  “They’re out to give people the illusion that there are a lot of police officers on Michigan Avenue,” said one 18th District police officer, who asked to remain anonymous. “They don’t even have enough radios for these guys.”

  McCarthy, asked whether Michigan Avenue was losing its beefed up police presence, declined to talk specifics, but said: “We’re going to be covering everything, that’s what it boils down to.”

What is that smell? Did we step in something?

Hopefully, they'll dress up a few cops as clowns and they can blast a few assholes back to kingdom come.

No CHA Drug Testing

The one good idea to come out of that agency in forever:

• A controversial proposal to require all adults who currently live in, or apply for Chicago public housing to be tested for drugs — including senior citizens — is dead, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.

  Also, the agency decided to keep the so-called “innocent tenant defense” for residents, referring to evictions initiated when a drug-related or violent crime has been committed by a relative or guest of the leaseholding tenant — without the tenant’s knowledge or involvement.

• “CHA is not making any changes to its ACOP regarding the proposed drug testing policy and the proposed revision to the tenant defense,” CHA spokeswoman Kellie O’Connell-Miller confirmed. “The CHA received a tremendous amount of feedback during the public comment period, and simply, the result of that is that CHA will not move forward.”

Where did all that "input" come from? Because everyone we talked to thought it was an extremely good idea. Of course, we spoke to taxpayers, people with jobs, people with houses and kids in schools, people who haven't been on the public dole for three, four, five or more generations. In other words, people not beholden to the government for their every need.

Double the Cameras

But not double the officers watching or riding the trains:

• The Chicago Police Department has boosted patrols on the CTA by deploying officers alongside commuters, and plans are under way to double the number of cameras at train stations, CTA officials said Monday.

  Officers formerly assigned to schools have already begun riding trains in highly visible “Wolfpack” teams of four to six members to deter crime, Lt. John Wittenberg said.

  The increase in security also includes plainclothes officers who will concentrate on preventing the theft of electronic devices, CTA President Forrest Claypool said as he unveiled the summer initiative.

Initially, school officers not assigned to summer school sessions will be augmenting the police presence. The Department and the CTA declined to say what would happen when school was back in session, but we have a small idea - the force will be scaled back in the hopes that the trouble makers will be in school.

This little tidbit was on the WBBM Newsradio 780 report:

• CTA President Forrest Claypool says more cameras will catch more thugs in the act of committing crimes.

But the cameras will only bear silent witness to the attacks seeing as how they can't actually arrest anyone. Which should be comforting to the victims as they recover from their injuries.

Brilliant F#$%ing Plan

Way to go Schenkel:

• After a five-month post-mortem about the Blizzard of 2011 fiasco, Chicago’s top emergency officer was asked Monday how he intends to prevent another shutdown on Lake Shore Drive.

  Gary Schenkel’s answer had nothing to do with the 12-page report’s proposal to install cuts in median planters along the Drive to provide access for emergency equipment and give stranded motorists a place to turn around.

• “We’re gonna pray a lot and hope that God doesn’t dump another 40 inches of snow on us,” said Schenkel, executive director of the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications.

Wow. We supposed praying will save a bunch of money, but you're going to run into problems with the atheists and the different religious factions claiming their god is best.

And this is just ignorant:

• Asked whether anybody needs to be taken to the woodshed for what happened on Lake Shore Drive, Schenkel replied, “Absolutely not.”

  In fact, if he had it to do all over again, Schenkel said he would “probably not” close Lake Shore Drive before the storm hit. Instead, he would “wait for the situation to develop” as his predecessor did on Groundhog Day.

Then you're probably an idiot who took lessons in disaster prevention from Henny Penny. Prayer? Anyone working that zone could have told you after the first spin-out that the Drive had become impassable. Any plow driver could have told you they weren't keeping up with the drifts, winds or lake effects. But no one wanted to admit to Shortshanks that his neglect of the snow removal plans had led directly to being unable to cope with a large amount of snow. If you promote nothing but "yes-men," then one day, you're going to get bitten in the ass by piss poor planning and lack of preparation, like this past February.

So Who Did It?

Within 9 hours of our posting about the Supernintendo's anti-gun, anti-NRA, pro-government conspiracy speech at Pfather Pfleger's Pfchurch, the video is down and listed as "unavailable."

Did Pfleger the Pfaker pull it on his own, realizing what a political boondoggle it was?

Did McCarthy call to have it removed, realizing what an ass he looked like?

Did Rahm have it pulled since it isn't going to play well when he runs for president in 2016?

Regardless, you'd think one of these big three thinkers would have the balls to stand by such a decision or the words spoken or the ideas presented.

Actually, no you wouldn't. And neither would we. We're not idiots, even though these jackasses think we are. Typical Chicago spineless politicos.

Guess What?

Another police shooting:

• Police shot a man and three officers suffered minor injuries Sunday near Father’s Day celebrations at a South Side park, officials said.

  The man was critically wounded after he allegedly shot at police in the Grand Crossing Park at 76th and Ingleside, police said. The officers, who were not shot, were taken to a local hospital in good condition, fire officials said. It is unclear how they were injured.

Good witnesses, all saying the gunman was armed, shooting in the air and at the police without regard for anyone before being shot. Three officers were also injured in the ensuing chaos.

But guess what else?

No comments open. Even when the police do good work, have the support of numerous witnesses quoted in the article, and are injured in the performance of their duties, the Tribune Company can't find it in their liberal makeup to open the comment sections to a tiny bit of praise from the citizenry. But you can bet they'll have them open the instant there's even a tiny question about police actions. You can bet the house on it.

Sickening

Hopefully, you have a high speed internet connection. This video file is rather large. Plus, you'll want to skip ahead around the 62:00 minute mark.

• The place: St Sabina
  
  
• The date: 05 Jun 2011
  
  
• The featured speaker: Supernintendo McCarthy

This is the "The NRA doesn't like me" speech. It's nauseating. He riffs on guns, throws in a nonsequitur about Sarah Palin hunting moose (attempting to equate legal hunting with a rifle to the bloodbath thugs perpetrate on the streets of Chicago), and claims a government conspiracy against brown and black people. In short, exactly the sort of bullshit you'd expect in Pfleger's church, but not from a superintendent who's supposed to be concerned for the public safety of all citizens.

What a joke. But it seems a good time to remind everyone to join the NRA and the Illinois State Rifle Association. Links are in the right hand sidebar.

More Tribune Nonsense

What's the difference between these two stories?

• Story #1 -The groups predict the cost of wrongful convictions will rise because 16 civil lawsuits filed by exonerated individuals still need to be settled or go to trial, including some by men who allege torture by officers under a decorated former Chicago police lieutenant.

  Former Lt. Jon Burge was convicted last year of federal perjury and obstruction of justice charges for lying about torture. Suspects for decades had alleged that Burge and his officers tortured them into confessing to crimes ranging from armed robbery to murder.

  Burge reported to prison in March to begin serving a 4½-year sentence. He was fired from the Chicago Police Department in 1993 over the alleged mistreatment of a suspect, but he never was criminally charged in that case or any involving alleged mistreatment.

• Story #2 - Some of the last words Adelina Najera spoke to her 16-year-old son Freddy were warnings that he shouldn't stay out late with friends.

  Just hours later, however, Freddy Najera was one of three teens killed in a Prospect Heights crash that ripped the car in two. A fourth passenger in the car – an 18-year-old man – was hospitalized and is expected to survive, according to police.

  As her niece translated from Spanish. Adelina Najera said today that she asked Freddy around 10:30 p.m. not to leave their apartment with his friend, who was over for the night. But after she went to sleep, the teens did leave the apartment and were picked up by the two girls who were also involved in the crash, she said.

Story #1 is about taxpayers paying out damages for wrongful convictions, to the tune of $214 million so far. Burge plays a prominent role in the story.

Story #2 is about four teens out joyriding in a stolen car at 3:30 AM, wrecking and killing three of them.

We'll give you two guesses about which one the Tribune has the comment section open for, and the first guess doesn't count. Remember, only one story is worth reader input. Colonel McCormick is spinning in his grave.

This is a Bright Idea

Brain surgeons:

• Three north suburban men face charges of pointing a laser beam at a Chicago Police helicopter Saturday night, police said today.
  
  Arrested were Alvin Kang, 25, of Northbrook, Jeremy A. Smith, 24, of Skokie, and Mark P. Lawrence, 25, of Winnetka. The three face misdemeanor charges of unlawful use of a weapon -- pointing a laser at a police officer, according to a release from Chicago Police News Affairs.

Um, dumbasses? It's a helicopter. It doesn't have to circle around for another flyover to pinpoint your exact location. It kind of stops, hovers and picks out your location. A laser has two ends if you've forgotten - one on the "target" and one at the source.

Too bad we didn't get the Hellfire Missile package with the chopper, but Shortshanks thought that might be intimidating.

Thank You Readers

The comments in the "One Bad-Ass Clown" thread have had us laughing for hours. We haven't had that much amusement in quite a while.

Use this as an open thread for Sunday.

"Test of Nerves"

Sounds like a neighborhood under siege:

• For years, the neighborhood has been terrorized by rival gangs battling over open-air drug markets, said a retired gang investigator for Chicago Police.

  Since 2007, there have been 70 crimes that involved guns — rape, robberies, unlawful possession of a handgun, aggravated battery and murder — around one block of Kildare and Hirsch.

Sounds like there ought to be more police there....oh wait:

• An officer safety alert warning that cops are at a heightened risk of being shot in the area has since been put in place, police sources said.

  On Friday night, dispatchers had been instructed to send two beat cars to all calls for service in that part of town.

So even though they're under siege from gang banging pieces of crap, the cops are going there en masse because you know it's all the polices fault.

Time to stop the fest. Actually, the time was probably 20 or 30 years ago, but no better time than the present. Have Rahm plead poverty, we can't afford it, unwise use of resources, etc. It's outlived its usefulness.

One Bad-Ass Clown

Off duty cop disarms and kills a teen with his own gun:

• An off-duty Chicago police officer dressed up as a clown for a South Side fundraiser shot and killed a teen who held him at gunpoint tonight after the event, authorities said, citing preliminary information.
  
  The officer, who is assigned to the Near North police district, was in his clown outfit for a fundraiser for a day-care business, attended by about 50 children near West 87th Street and South Damen Avenue.
  
  At 10:10 p.m. after the event ended, the officer went to his car and a teen approached him, asking him for money, authorities said. When the officer said he had no money, the teen pulled a gun on him, authorities said.
  
  During a struggle with the teen, the officer grabbed hold of the gun, opened fire and killed him.

Who's laughing now!!!! We mean, seriously. Who the hell tries to rob a clown at a charity event? Aside from the car, what's he going to take? The squeaky shoes? The red nose? A few balloon animals?

A damn fine job Officer.

Humboldt Park Chaos?

Our comment section started lighting up just before 9 PM, but there doesn't appear to be any coverage on the networks, radios or websites.

We're getting unconfirmed reports of stabbings and massive gang fights across the entire park. Supposedly, Tact, Gang and Response Teams are being called out from districts across the city to go to the Puerto Rican festival in full riot gear, even gas teams being assembled?

Anyone have the actual story? We can't imagine anyone missed this one coming. Its been building for days and the weather is only going to aggravate it.

UPDATE: A couple of veterans saying it was normal behavior for the fest, just a couple of larger half-assed fights, mass dispersals and the like. They say it looks worse because we're undermanned and won't fill the wagons.

Warm Weekend Begins (UPDATED)

Here it comes:

• Four people were wounded in two separate shootings this afternoon on the West and South sides, officials said.
  
  Three people suffered minor wounds when someone fired a shotgun in the West Side's East Garfield Park neighborhood, striking them with pellets, said police.
  
  That shooting happened a little before 1 p.m. on the 700 block of North Trumbull Avenue. There was no information available on the ages or exact conditions of the wounded people, but police described the victims as two males and a female.
  
  An 18-year-old man was shot in the arm this afternoon in the Washington Park neighborhood on the South Side, police said.

That was Friday afternoon. Who knows what Friday night might bring.

UPDATE - Here's part of what it brought:

• Two men were wounded in separate shootings on the West Side this morning.

  At 12:35 a.m. in the Humboldt Park neighborhood, a man was found shot on the street in the 2600 block of West Haddon Avenue, according to a release from police News Affairs.

  He was taken in serious condition to Norwegian-American Hospital.

  About the same time in the Lawndale neighborhood, a 29-year-old man was shot in the 2100 block of South Pulaski Road, the release said.

And of course, it wouldn't be the weekend without someone shooting at the police:

• Several people were arrested after shots were exchanged with police in the West Pullman neighborhood on the Far South Side, police said.

  At 11:05 p.m., police exchanged gunfire with people in the 300 block of East 117th Street, according to police News Affairs [...].

  No one was hit....
  
  Several people were taken into custody

Hotter on Saturday and Sunday.

Thank You CFD

Working to save one of our own:

• As Engine Co. 117 and Tower Ladder 14 roared toward the still and box fire in the 4900 block of West Concord Place, the report over the radio said there were multiple calls about people trapped inside one of the burning bungalows.

  Upon arrival, Engineer Paul Strubee barged into the front door of the 1 1/2-story bungalow at 4928 W. Concord, finding a woman in her 40s collapsed in a front room, suffering from smoke inhalation after apparently trying to make it to the front door. Pushing deeper into the thick, smoke-filled rear of the home, firefighter Jason Risley would find a victim worse off.

  The firefighters and paramedics who responded to the fire that broke out about noon on the West Side Friday are credited with saving the lives of the woman and a 63-year-old, retired Chicago Police sergeant who lived there.

The sergeant is going to owe a lot of beer to that firehouse. Thanks CFD.

Worth 1,000 Words

Remember all the denials about the supposed gang involvement of the two recently departed souls in the vicinity of Hirsch and Kolin? Once again, we've taken some heat in the comment sections, some of which never made it to publication based on the bullshit and nonsense contained within. If the liberals in the crowd would care to explain this, we'd be most appreciative:


That's both the dead individuals practicing some nifty little hand moves. Maybe they shoot marbles with that or flip tiddly-winks or something? Channel 9 was kind enough to run the entire picture during their coverage - something the editors at Channel 7 felt they had to blur out for some reason.

You wonder why cops are cynical bastards? Stop believing the neighborhood bullshit and start listening to the guys and gals who work in the shit every single day.

Describe a Mushroom

"Something you keep in the dark and feed horseshit all day long."

It seems that the Superintendent was surprised to find out that all his plainclothes have been in uniform for the past month plus. When he asked why this was, no one had a good answer and no one was willing to throw the person signing off on the order under the proverbial bus.

The order was countermanded immediately and the teams are going back to CD. Good decision. Now how about demoting the mope who signed off on the order? In any event, the current command staff appears to have not related (by accident or by design) all of what's going on in the field. One might believe that the current gold stars are pretty much a collection of political hacks and incompetent double, triple and quadruple "merit" promotees.

Also, there is a new order to be released today stating that Tahoes will not be used in car chases. Ever. The Tahoe will be like a squadrol evidently, even though the Tahoes have been purchased with a police performance package. We are torn on this decision for a number of reasons:

• Anyone being stopped by an officer in a Tahoe now has an incentive to flee;
• Of the 300 or so Tahoes out there, all are camera equipped. By taking them out of pursuit business, you've now denied officers the video evidence needed to justify pursuit actions. We're going back to a system of "he said, he said," and we all know how the cases are going to go once they reach the Traffic Review Board - "here's your suspension and driving school."
• On the other hand, one only has to look at the Densey Cole crash. McCarthy says he lost two officers to SUV crashes, so we can appreciate his concern for the dangers posed by crashes in the trucks.

Debate in the comments.

Camera House

This citizen has been in contact with us for a little while now. His house was just featured on the Channel 2 News because he's wired the exterior with security cameras due to increased gang activity in his Humboldt Park neighborhood:

• A long time Humboldt Park resident is increasingly worried about gang activity in his neighborhood and is doing something about it. He’s set up live video surveillance around his property and hope the next time there’s trouble, he’ll have the evidence.

  [...] As he walked through his neighborhood, Bruce Barnes said, “We’ve had 15 shootings, we’ve had four people killed or injured within 15 blocks of this house. There’s no excuse for that.”

• Last year he photographed dozens of apparent gang members congregated outside his house during the annual Puerto Rican Day Festival. He says a Chicago Police detective “admitted that this intersection and the Puerto Rican Festival are a magnet for gangs all over the country. It’s a Disneyland for gangs in Chicago each year.”

He's offered his camera feed to the 014 District and the 911 Center in an effort to head off what might be a bloody festival weekend. WBEZ, Channel 7 and Channel 2 are receiving video updates all weekend.

We're posting this to make all officers aware that there are outside cameras filming at all times. Mr. Barnes seems genuine in his support of the police, but has expressed quite a bit of frustration dealing with our bureaucracy. No surprises there.

He's also a fan and has mentioned the blog to Commander Flores, who promptly flipped her shit:

• I told her I already has a small video surveillance system and would be expanding it this year. I also offered to make a feed available for CPD's use as there was nothing close to that intersection. During our conversation the subject of your blog came up and she was so unhappy that I knew about it that she started to literally fly across the table at me - almost threatening me for bringing your blog up stating that you were totally wrong in your statements and criticisms of CPD's leadership.
• The Channel 2 news item, which can be seen at http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/06/14/camera-house/, has so thoroughly pissed off the District Commander, Flores, that she has commanded a meeting with the homeowner tonite - after 16.30 hours - with a 3 hour window - depending on how busy she is.
  
  She will probably bring her gang of enforcement thugs with her - the same ones who were present at the meeting with the homeowner in the 014 conference room, last November - when she finally responded to the homeowner's complaint about 19 June, 2010.

So you see, citizens are to be summoned by their police masters when they dare to rock the boat in regard to completely legitimate criticisms raised by those same citizens. Now imagine actually working for this psycho. Perhaps this could be addressed at the next CompStat meeting?

Wildings - With Guns

Remember Rahm's bold statements from four days ago?

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel says he’s confident the city has a plan to prevent any more mob attacks this weekend.

  [....] “But I'm confident in the public safety of our city regardless of what neighborhood you live in. And that we have a strategy of putting more resources, of putting police on the street which is where we need to put those resources. So I am confident as it relates not just to this weekend, but during the week and every weekend in every neighborhood."

Meanwhile, back in the real world....:

• A 15-year-old boy was mugged at gunpoint and struck on the head by a group of teens near the Ogilvie Transportation Center in the West Loop on Tuesday evening.

  The incident happened about 6:30 p.m. near an alley at 101 N. Clinton St., according to police News Affairs Officer [...].

  The victim was approached by a group of seven male teens,....

  One, who was armed with a handgun, approached the victim and demanded his money, according to police. A second teen struck the victim on the back of his head,....

  The group got the boy's cell phone, cash and a bus card, police said.

Rahm had another press conference:

We're betting he drops that "f-bomb" any day now.

Getting Safer Every Day

At least, that's what we assumed:

• Chicago police today released a community alert warning of the attempted kidnapping of a jogger on a lakefront bike path.
  
  The 30-year-old woman was jogging Friday on the path at about the 3500 block of South Lake Shore Drive when the attacker grabbed her from behind in an attempt to pull her to an unspecified location, police said in the alert issued Wednesday night.
  
  After a brief struggle the woman broke free and escaped, while the attacker fled northbound on the bike path, police said.
  
  The alert describes the attacker a black, 19-21 years old, 5-foot-11 to 6-foot tall, 200 to 210 pounds with a dark complexion, He was wearing blue jeans with blue boxer shorts, and no shirt.

Holy Crap! A description? By the Tribune Company? But race doesn't have anything to do with the crime, right? Asshats.

Any bets on (A) the return of Summer Mobile or (B) the return of a Lakefront Overtime Initiative? Or is Rahm just going to pull one of these out of his hat?


You just wave it over your head Rahm - like the French Army.