CBS Libels the Blog

Once again, the media make a giant leap into the gutter and attribute nonexistent statements to the Second City Cop blog. First, for the CBS lawyers, a little Law 101:

• Defamation—also called calumny, vilification, traducement, slander (for transitory statements), and libel (for written, broadcast, or otherwise published words)—is the communication of a statement that makes a claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may give an individual, business, product, group, government, or nation a negative image. This can be also any disparaging statement made by one person about another, which is communicated or published. It is usually a requirement that this claim be false and that the publication is communicated to someone other than the person defamed (the claimant).

And the offending report from Mike Krauser at WBBM radio:

• There is a suggestion on a Chicago Police officer’s Web site for how officers can avoid citizen complaints during the expected street protests when the G8 and NATO summits come to town this spring.

  As WBBM Newsradio’s Mike Krauser reports, the Second City Cop blog published a headline,, “Your new G8 best friend” above a picture of a roll of electrical tape and says, “Use as necessary,” going on to say, “It’s not for securing anything,” and “Hint – it covers things.”

  Those “things” include officers’ badges and nameplates. But an Oakland, Calif., police officer recently learned that was a bad idea when this video was shot during an Occupy demonstration

We just reviewed the post. Nowhere, and we mean NOT A SINGLE FUCKING INSTANCE, does the SCC blog advocate covering name tags with tape. In fact, in the 60-plus comments that are published in the post, not a single commentator advocates the use of tape in concealing the identity of officers. We found instances of the following:

• people saying it's not a good idea to cover tags/badges;
  
• numerous quotes about the Oakland PD incident;
• stories of name tags and stars being ripped off as "trophies;"
• using fake name tags that say, "McCarthy" or "Rahm;"

But try as we might, not a single instance of advocating rule breaking or disobeying general orders, Department policy or disregard for the law. As a matter of fact, we are well aware that a large portion of our readers happen to be people not on the job. For that reason, we were actually imagining the following use for tape:

And if we think back far enough in our careers, we remember during the Bulls riots seeing most of our squad cars looking like this:

Tape protects you from splintering glass. It keeps the pieces in a manageable mass in case of, oh, we don't know, bricks, bottles, and other heavy objects spontaneously falling through windshields. Not that that would happen at a peaceful event like the G-8 or NATO conferences:

• Psssst - here's a YouTube link to all the nifty videos showing how peaceful these events can be

Unfortunately, we can see this being the beginning of a smear campaign directed at the blog. We've made too many people uncomfortable with revelations of half-assed and inadequate training, equipment shortfalls, manpower issues, piss-poor leadership and a myriad of other things. We're still waiting for the media to look into reports that the Federal Reserve is shutting down in May in anticipation of the protests, that dozens upon dozens of merchants are closing and boarding up their stores prior to the event and other businesses are laying in Y2K-type supplies in the event they have to keep their employees in locked buildings for their own safety. We guess if the message is the problem, it's easier to follow the Liberal playbook and attack the messenger than to actually address the problems brought to light.

In the meantime, we're looking for full apology and retraction from WBBM "Newsradio" 780.

We're also interested in a legal opinion of a libel suit against CBS, WBBM Radio and Mike Krauser specifically. Our post is Exhibit A and Krauser's reporting is Exhibit B. It's pretty straightforward. It would have to be a pro-bono or contingency-based endeavor and any damages recovered we would donate to various police charities.