A Suggestion

Maybe Rahm ought to save some of that $15 million in NATO money for lawsuit payouts?

Just a suggestion.

If he hasn't spent it all on anti-teacher ads that is.

Quick Arrest

Nice job on this one:

• A 14-year-old boy on Saturday was charged with allegedly murdering an older teen who was walking with friends on the South Side earlier this week.
  
  The slain 17-year-old boy – identified by the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office as Dejuan Jackson – was shot once in the head at 7:07 p.m. Wednesday in the 4000 block of South Lake Park Avenue, police said.
  
  Jackson, of the 3900 block of South Lake Park Avenue, had been walking with friends when the shooter opened fire, police and officials with the Cook County medical examiner’s office said.
  
  He was taken to John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County, where he was pronounced dead.
  
  The 14-year-old, who police would not name because of his age, has been charged as a juvenile with one count of first degree murder, one count of aggravated discharge of a firearm and two counts of aggravated assault with a firearm, police News Affairs...

We wonder how they're going to spin this one - kids killing kids again. This pops up way too frequently in recent years.

Holiday Party Plans

Truth?  Or Rumor?

Word from HQ is no District holiday parties on Friday or Saturday nights.

We don't know about specifics, but some districts reserve dates at their venues literally a year in advance.  If so, then what?

And what makes Districts so much less special than Units?  Isn't Patrol the backbone?  The "go to" people?  Or is that just more smoke?

Comment Error

Evidently we didn't fix everything in the comment section and some 40 comments were inadvertently deleted.

So if you have left a comment yesterday afternoon, it may have gotten caught up in the purge.  Sorry about that - we are working on a fix.

Closed Post

Number 400?

And 401?

• The bodies of two males were found in the trunk of a parked vehicle this morning in the Brighton Park neighborhood on the Southwest Side.
  
  Police were called to the 2400 block of West 45th Street at 10:11 a.m. when they found the bodies in the trunk of a parked vehicle, said police News Affairs....

We aren't sure if these are homicides yet, but two fully grown men don't usually climb into car trunks voluntarily.

Someone also mentioned that the September 2012 numbers have now surpassed the September 2011 total.  Anyone at the bean counter office care to verify?

Hiring Debacle?

Can anyone over at the Academy confirm this one?  It sounds like a doozy:

• HR yesterday Wednesday the 26 after 1600 made calls to inform candidates that they had made it on for a class tomorrow Friday the 28th show time 0645. So these people exited and ready quit jobs on a days notice and for the ones that live outside the city probably spent the day trying to establish residency. But of course today after 1700 the night before they begin work, they have been called again and told sorry class starts next week Friday the 5th! 

So....what happened to giving your previous employer 2 weeks notice?  That courtesy has fallen by the wayside?  

And one day to establish residency?

And since the City seems to have canceled the class, all these people are without a paycheck for the next week?  We aren't ones to brag about the state of our financial affairs, but missing a week of pay would put a serious cramp in certain financial transactions. 

And why is the Academy starting a class on a Friday?

The List

We didn't post the list at first because it was still a work in progress thanks to the incompetence of one Human Resources director.

Then we didn't post it because we were hoping someone else would do the heavy lifting for us.

Then we ended up typing it ourselves.

Amended List:
Aguilar, Karina 005/142
Alvarez, Raul 620
Bailey, Thomas 002
Ciannella, James 193
Collazo, Elizabeth 017
DeMato, David 610
Devan, Brain 477
Dineen, Timothy 016
Fowler, Jennifer 630
Garcia, Salvatore 002
Glynn, Michael 011
Hanson, Kristen 015
Hawkins, Thomas 701
Henkels, Adam 017
Kadus, Andrew 025
Karpiel, Timothy 701
Keefe, Kevin 189
Lopez, Luis 014
Loughran, Kathleen 180
Martin, Dale 012
McClendon, Emmett 193
McHugh, Christopher 016
Molina, Joseph 012
Monaco, Angelo 016/213
Morse, Carlin 121
Muniz, Samuel 377
Murphy, John 314
Neris, Lourdes 025/606
O'Toole, Daniel 189
O'Carroll, Randi 341
Olijnyk, Bohdan 050
Paz, Franklin 010/192
Pendarvis, Tyrone 005/212
Pennix, Sidney 010
Perilli, Joseph 542
Rashan, Erich 004
Rigan, Keith 001
Romero, Angel 353
Roney, Brian 193
Ryan, Gerald 019
Smith, James 610/606
Sosa, Jaime 008
Spradley, Ernest 311
Svachula, Christopher 353
Taliaferro, Christopher 121
Tierney, John 014
Tully, Sean 008/193
Vencent, Maureen 007
White, Anton 007/606
Willingham, Russell 008

Late additions:

Fowler, Kenneth 012
Smith, Jarrod 079/606
Ramirex, Edward 004
Park, Kathy 189

Read Rahm's Lips - You're Screwed

Don't for a second believe a word out of this guy's mouth:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel says he’s decided to hold the line on taxes, fines and fees in his 2013 budget and count on rebounding revenues, continued cost-cutting and dunning deadbeats to erase a revised $298 million shortfall.
  
  “Through the reforms and cuts and efficiencies, we’ll be able to have a budget that’s balanced without any taxes, fines or fees that we control. The only tax that will be dealt with is the employee head tax—and that will be eliminated,” Emanuel said.

Evidently, Rahm has found a magical source of revenue that doesn't necessitate sticking his hands in taxpayers' pockets.  We're going to call this new source "cutting the crap out of everything."  We're going to bet on no police hiring, closing firehouses, shuttering schools, gutting Streets & San and an entire shitload of cameras coming on-line in short order.

We don't see aldercreatures being cut, aldercreature expense accounts being depleted, or aldercreature staff being laid off.  Imagine that.

What the F#$%?

He did what with who now?

• A veteran Chicago cop was ordered held in lieu of $100,000 bail Friday on charges he had sex with a prisoner he’d promised to release from the West Side lockup where the officer was stationed.
  
  Officer Nelson Stewart, 59, stood silently in court dressed in a red and white jacket and black pants as prosecutors detailed charges of custodial sexual misconduct, official misconduct and bribery, all felonies. He did not speak except to say he understood he could not have contact with the victim or witnesses if he is released on bond.
  
  Authorities said the incident occurred in early June in the lockup at the Harrison District police station, 3151 W. Harrison St., where the alleged victim was under arrest for prostitution.
  
  Stewart, a 24-year-veteran of the department, was in charge of the station’s male lockup facility when he approached the victim’s cell and offered to release him in exchange for a sexual “favor,” Assistant State’s Atty. Lynn McCarthy said.
  
  The officer then “relocated the victim to a different cell furthest away from the lockup keeper’s desk,” where the two performed sex acts on each other, McCarthy said. The victim later reported the incident to the district watch commander, who contacted the department’s Bureau of Internal Affairs. 

Anyone even vaguely familiar with what travels through an Area lockup has got to be appalled at this, simply from a disease point of view.  This behavior, if proven, is another issue and needs to be dealt with as harshly as the law allows.

Class Action Suit Coming?

As far as we can tell, the Department did everything correctly.  Then the Department members follow the policy as written and do a damn good job at it.  And one judge undoes it all while putting officers' personal assets at risk:

• In the latest legal fight between protesters and local authorities, a Cook County judge on Wednesday threw out the charges against 92 Occupy Chicago demonstrators arrested in Grant Park last year, saying the law used against them was unconstitutional.
  
  
  The city had arrested and charged the protesters last October for not leaving the park after it closed at 11 p.m.
  
  
  But Cook County Associate Judge Thomas More Donnelly wrote in a 38-page ruling that the curfew law violates the right of free assembly.
  
  
  In his ruling, the judge said the city treated the Occupy Chicago rally differently than the Obama 2008 presidential election victory celebration in Grant Park. The judge noted that the Obama rally also violated the curfew, but no one was arrested at that event.

So since no one was arrested at the Obama victory party, every action since then is a freebie in terms of closing the parks?

We guess that only follows as no one is arrested for murder 75% of the time in Cook County, therefore murder is legal in most cases and the numbers rise as a result.

This also means that arresting Obama supporters is kind of an obligation now if we ever want to take back the streets and parks.

Here's Where to Save Money

Another branch of government heard from:

• Chicago’s Inspector General is out with his latest list of options that could help the city reduce its nearly $300 million budget shortfall.
  
  [...]
  
  “They’re absolutely not recommendations in the sense that we’re endorsing any one or more,” Ferguson said.
  
  For example, he said the city could save more than $5 million by reducing the number of paid holidays for city workers.

That's a negotiated item - isn't (or shouldn't) happen automatically:

• He also resurrected an old, controversial idea – reducing the minimum staffing on fire trucks from five firefighters to four. That move could save $71 million a year, according to Ferguson’s report.
  
  “In many instances, the same level of safety and operational efficiency can be achieved with four on a rig,” Ferguson said.

Safe - except for the part about someone watching the equipment while everyone else is in the fire.  Or running the ladder while teams of two go in.   And after CFD gets gutted, guess who's next?

• .... The police side of the ledger – civilianizing positions in the various administrations of the Police Department – we estimate preliminarily that could save as much as $3.6 million a year,” Ferguson said.

You can tell the police side of things has been gutted pretty badly when the listed "savings" is around one-twentieth of what the CFD reduction is.  We're only burying forty bodies a month and patching up 140 or so, all directly attributable to budget cuts and no police.  And they still want more.

Epic Fail on Tap

Not good boys - you're giving the northsiders something to beat southsiders with:

• After dropping seven of their past eight, the Chicago White Sox need just to simply play better and not be consumed with the success of American League Central leader Detroit, which extended its lead to 1 1/2 games earlier Thursday.
  
  “If you need to be told what to do, or you need a pep talk right now, then you might as well walk out that door and ‘see ya,’ " Sox designated hitter Adam Dunn said before the Sox opened a four-game series against Tampa Bay.

In other sporting news, the entire NHL preseason has been canceled.

Ladner Caves

Evidently, someone explained the facts of life to this ignorant creature:

• Hey SCC, just got word that four officers excluded from the promotional class will be added in Thursday morning.  Hope they didn't miss too much so far.

Now someone can look into the disaster that HR has turned into under a political hack.

Crime Commission Says What?

How can this be true?

More cops? Harsher penalties? Golly, wherever could these heathens have gotten this idea?

The Law of Garry

Once again, crime is down, crime is down, crime is down:

• With Chicago’s murder rate capturing national headlines, Police Supt Garry McCarthy is on the defense, touting recent progress his department has made in the fight against crime.
  
  Still, headlines and news stories continue about murder after murder in Chicago, but are the numbers they telling the whole story?
  
  [...]
  
  On patrol Monday, McCarthy talked candidly about the bloodshed in Chicago that has drawn national attention.

And what happens as soon as McLookOverThere! opens his mouth?

• A man was killed and a person critically hurt in separate shootings on the South Side overnight, police said. The fatal shooting occurred about 9 p.m. Monday in the 8800 block of South Cottage Grove Avenue in the Burnside neighborhood, police said, citing early reports.  
• Patterson was walking home from a family get-together with her sister early this morning, and was passing Carter and other neighbors at Eggleston and 120th when a dark-colored car drove past and someone inside opened fire, according to family and police. Patterson, 25, was dead at the scene. Carter, 38, was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where he was pronounced dead.
• A former employee of the CeaseFire violence prevention program was fatally shot today in the Woodlawn neighborhood on the South Side, officials said.
• An autopsy conducted today determined that a man whose body was found by city workers in a garbage bag in Marquette Park Monday was shot to death.
• An autopsy today determined a 55-year-old South Loop man died Monday in part from injuries he suffered during an assault, authorities said. 
• A hooded gunman shot and killed a 20-year-old man on the street hours after another man was slain in the same South Side neighborhood, Chicago police said this morning.
• A 17-year-old boy was fatally wounded this evening in a shooting on the South Side in the city’s Oakland neighborhood. 

All in less than 48 hours since McTootMyOwnHorn gave his Channel 2 interview.  How about maybe Garry solves some of these?  Not one person is in custody for any of these crimes.

Hello? BGA?

Is it true that since switching to the new and improved color coded bread for prisoners, the Chicago Police Department is paying THREE TIMES the previous amount for sandwich makings?

The Better Government Association could file FOIA requests for the contract, determine who is greasing whose palm and figure out the cost to taxpayers while Rahm is raising rates, increasing spending and cutting services, couldn't they?

And then figure out why some toady at City Hall just couldn't run over to the Butternut people or Holsum outlet stores and get some of the "not quite perfect" loaves of bread for a buck.

Mafia? What Mafia?

The curtain shifts and guess who peeks out?

• Reputed Outfit lieutenant Rudy Fratto, nicknamed “the Chin,” was sentenced to about 1 year in prison today for a bid-rigging scheme at McCormick Place.
  
  Fratto’s family was visibly relieved when U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber announced the sentence.
  
  Federal sentencing guidelines called for Fratto to be sentenced to up to 2 years in prison, but federal prosecutors sought an even stiffer prison term, arguing Fratto used his association with organized crime to further the scheme. He is an alleged member of the Outfit’s Elmwood Park street crew.
  
  But Leinenweber ruled the evidence was unclear that Fratto was a made member of the mob and he couldn’t make a connection between Fratto’s wrongdoing and organized crime. He also noted Fratto’s age of 68.

Whoops!  Pay no attention to that Outift behind duh curtain.  Nuttin' to see here.  We wuz just gatherin' posies.

Once Again, Missing the Point

A number of people have accused us of defending the cop who told Henny Penny he hadn't written a mover in 7 years.  If they could just point that out to us, we'd appreciate it.  We doubt you'll find it as we didn't write it.

In the meantime, we have made no secret of disdaining quotas.  Quotas lead to bad police work.

We have no problem doing police work, but police work isn't a numbers game.  Unfortunately, that's exactly how it's being treated by too many bosses and politicians.  Today, it's contact cards.  A few years back, it was event numbers and missions.  Before that it was Search Warrants.  A few years before that, it was guns (the old SOS/Gun Teams/PSN teams/etc.)  And going back to when we started, it was "index numbers."  It's a joke.

Morons who have never ever produced a quota number attempting to tell police officers to fulfill some unwritten quota system so they can look good at meetings with other number crunchers is insane.  Especially one who hasn't been promoted legit once in her career, though she was demoted legitimately.  We won't even get into her disastrous personal baggage which would fill a post all by itself.

Anyone who thinks we "owe" the citizens movers, parkers and contact cards is drinking way too much kool-aid.  They get fleeced by Rahm daily, and before Rahm, by Daley.  We owe the citizenry prompt service, thorough investigations, common courtesy and proper enforcement when appropriate.  Unfortunately, in these less than stellar times, prompt service is out the window due to manpower considerations and the lack of detectives mean investigations are rare.  The breakdown of these first two elements leads to less courtesy and proper enforcement becomes nearly impossible after everything else breaks down, including a broken court system, vindictive prosecution of officer mistakes, financial endangerment of officer assets, deal making instead of prosecuting and a ravenous mayor who craves $$$ for more programs over everything else.  

Some of it may be coppers being "dogs," but way more of it is officers in survival mode.  You're going to risk it all on a spin of the Cook County Wheel of Justice?

Promotion Lawsuit

This story started appearing on WBBM-AM 780 earlier yesterday.  The only print version however seem to be in the Southtown Star, a Sun Times paper:

• Two Chicago Police officers are suing the city and Chicago police Supt. Garry McCarthy’s office, claiming a paperwork error has unfairly kept them from being promoted to the rank of sergeant.
  
  Kenneth D. Fowler and Jarrod L. Smith filed the suit Monday in Cook County Circuit Court. Both claim they were among the top 200 scorers among thousands of test-takers when the city last offered the police sergeants exam in 2006, according to the suit.
  
  They had been scheduled to take a five-week training class required to assume the rank of sergeant starting Monday, they claim. But neither is allowed to attend because they claim the city’s Human Relations Department lost their college transcripts, and refused to re-schedule them to take the class after they hand-delivered the documents Friday.

Again, Ladner is incompetent and going to cost Rahm money. The Department has too often had to amend class lists for mistakes, errors and omissions. This is no different.

And the Sun Times Group is once again stealing stories from the blog - that's twice yesterday.  You're welcome.

Crime Still Down

And by "down," we mean "up:"

• Two people were killed and two others wounded early Tuesday when the occupants of a vehicle opened fire into the car the victims were sitting in in the Far South Side West Pullman neighborhood.
  
  
  The shooting happened about 2:37 a.m. in the 400 block of West 120th Street, according to police News Affairs Officer Ron Gaines. The victims were sitting in a car when a dark-colored SUV pulled alongside and someone inside opened fire.

And as noted just below, CeaseFire lost an employee yesterday, too.  We can only imagine that this was his area of responsibility and since he was incapacitated (by which we mean "dead") this quadruple shooting occurred.

Misdemeanor? Really?

Someone ought to be looking at upgrades, eh?

• An off-duty Cook County prosecutor allegedly bit a man in the leg during a scuffle outside a lingerie shop over the weekend, and she was charged with misdemeanor battery and trespassing, authorities said Monday.
  
  
  Sarah Naughton, 31, of Chicago, will be placed on administrative duty and won’t be allowed to litigate while her case is pending, said Sally Daly, a spokeswoman for the Cook County state’s attorney’s office.
  
  
  Naughton and Bradley Gould, 31, were in Taboo Tabou at 854 W. Belmont at 7:25 p.m. Saturday, police said. Witnesses said they appeared intoxicated and were causing a disturbance, police said.
  
  
  They were asked to leave and were on the sidewalk outside the store when Gould allegedly shoved the manager of the next-door store, the Blue Havana cigar lounge. Then, Naughton allegedly bit the Blue Havana manager in the leg, breaking the skin.

Didn't Anita approve "aggravating felony charges" against some cop or cops for a fight outside a bar, claiming that it was on the "public way" and therefore eligible for the higher charge? Granted, the broken skin on the manager's leg from the human bite is an aggravating factor also. Does anyone have any idea why Anita isn't following past practice as well as Illinois law?

Frank Main posted his Sun Times article almost 7 hours after we broke this story and Channel 2 was 12 hours behind. Maybe they could do some follow up as to the charging discrepancies - you know, like reporters might do.

Isn't This Ironic?

CeaseFire suffers a casualty:

• A former employee of the CeaseFire violence prevention program was fatally shot today in the Woodlawn neighborhood on the South Side, officials said.
  
  Marlon Lee, 36, was driving when his car came to rest on the 6100 block of South Woodlawn Avenue at about 10 a.m., police said. The Cook County medical Examiner's office said he was shot on the 1200 block of East 65th Street.
  
  Lee of Chicago Heights, was found shot in the back and was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 10:45 a.m., according to police and the Cook County medical examiner's office.

Must have been out there on the front lines, right?

Ladner Screws Up Again

At least two of the names on the Sergeants list were removed for supposedly not having the college.

Both parties claimed to have provided transcripts to the Department upon testing years ago and have provided additional copies of their transcripts and diplomas to Ladner's people at Human Resources and she has since refused to enter them into the Sergeants class.  Now there is a lawsuit in the courts.

The trouble for Ladner here is everyone can cite half a dozen instances of class sizes changing prior to graduation due to errors, oversights and other mistakes by the city (failing to contact people who had refused the promotion once before, yet were still eligible).

Yet another snafu by Ladner and her incompetent office staff.  We'd suggest that a few of them get as far away from Ladner as possible seeing as how they are going to be dragged in, named and then thrown under the proverbial bus once Ladner is called on her bullshit.

And to any boss or politician smart enough to see what's coming - she's about to cost you MONEY.  That is Rahm's unforgivable sin in these trying economic times - only Rahm can waste money on authorized construction contracts, not silly police department lawsuits where a copper might actually make money.

The lawsuit (with pertinent attachements) can be located under Docket Number 12CH35981

UPDATE: Chancery Court number corrected.

Drunk and Disorderly

Let's see if Anita takes appropriate action against her own:



Amazingly good job by the cops involved.

Brilliant

Those who can, do.  Those who can't, teach.  Looks like Captain Trahanas is at it again:

• OT- but hilarious. My buddies work in 020 and were ordered to get contact cards by the end of their shift. They were told if they did not get any they were to drop a TO-FROM if they did not. At the end of their tour the Sgt was upset and said drop paper.
  
  Now I don't remember what was written on the to from but it was something like, show me where there is an order where R/O has to write a contact card and where is the quota?. The Sgt takes it and Trahanas-sp, gets ahold of the paperwork. She flips out and goes to roll call and goes off on the P.Os. She tells on of the P.O.s, "I looked up your activity for the year, you have not written a mover all year, is this correct?' Officer says, "No, I have not written a mover in 7 years".
  
  She then tells them that she is going to ride with them that night and show them how to get contact cards and movers. You can't make this shit up. It is freaking hilarious. Sounds like the Sgt was trying to bully that watch into getting contact cards and was called on his bluff. And then penny to actually go out and ride with them?  

First, check out a cage car.  Second, make sure Penny articulates reasonable suspicion and probable cause for every stop, lest you get sued.  We certainly hope that Henny Penny fills out the paperwork properly.  Then she goes to court to testify properly.  Then appears at Federal Court regularly for once again coming up with a "quota." And finally, maybe everyone can go to church with Penny and jump around like their pants are on fire.

Rahm Stretches for More $$$

Free internet for everyone!

• Dangling the use of light poles, streets, alleys, freight tunnels and unused city-owned fiber, Mayor Rahm Emanuel tried Monday to jump-start his predecessor’s failed plan to establish high-speed Internet access to under-served Chicago neighborhoods, industrial corridors and public spaces.
  
  Emanuel hopes to succeed where former Mayor Richard M. Daley failed by leveraging his plan to rebuild Chicago’s crumbling water and sewer system and by dividing the city into 15 commercial corridors with a separate competition in each zone.
  
  Free wi-fi is already available in Millennium Park, thanks to an agreement quietly reached with Chicago-based SilverlP Communications.

Because bringing your laptops and iPad devices out in the thriving communities won't result in anything bad happening, right?  After all, it's "free wi-fi."

"Take it to the Alley" Plot

Given the state of "rat control" in the city alleys (nonexistent), and Rahm's pleas for gangs to take their disputes "to the alleys," some loyal readers have finally noticed the evolving plot:

• Plague and rat-borne disease will decimate the gang banging elements, thereby driving down crime

It will probably work as well as anything else the Department and city have tried.

An e-mailer also speculates as to the emergence of a genetically modified "super-rat" that might work it's way up to an apex-type predator that attacks stray cats, dogs and finally gang bangers in the next few years.  The only trouble with this is it might eventually start cutting into Rahm's voting base.

...and Another Shooting

Great Pat Camdem quote here:

• Chicago police shot and wounded a man who, according to a police union official, advanced an officer while wielding a tire iron late Sunday night in the South Austin neighborhood on the city's West Side.
  
  
  No officers were injured in the shooting that occurred just before 11:30 p.m. in am alley in the 200 block of North Lockwood Avenue, according to Chicago police and the Independent Police Review Authority.
  
  
  Officers assigned to violence reduction in the area stopped to question four men in an alley near Fulton Street and Lockwood Avenue when two of the men ran away, said Pat Camden, a spokesman for the Fraternal Order of Police, which represents the department's rank-and-file officers.
  
  
  As the officers chased after the fleeing men, one of the cops hopped a fence to search a nearby alley when he was accosted, according to Camden.
  
  
  "All of a sudden the bad guy jumps out of the bushes with a tire iron in his hand," Camden said.
  
  
  "Needless to say, he got shot," Camden said.

All officers are OK.

Thank Goodness for Downtown

If we didn't have HQ, how would we ever have survived without directions like these?

Did you know you could freeze bread to keep it fresher longer? We had no idea, and neither did a few of our ex-wives. Who knows what would have happened if our prisoners had to actually eat bread that was over 10 days old. Amnesty International might have gotten involved.

And that "color coding" thing? Genius! We would probably have just taken a sharpie and written an "arrival date" on the bottom. Thank goodness they closed our lockup and we don't have to deal with these logistical nightmares any more. Can you imagine if they had a "bread requisition form" and you actually had to send someone to an area or Equipment and Supply to get a loaf of bread?  Mayhem!

Helicopter Gets Five

Imagine if these guys were up all the time:

• Officers hovering overhead in a Chicago Police helicopter spotted a band of suspected burglars breaking through the roof of a retail clothing store on the far South Side Saturday, prosecutors said today at their bond hearing.
  
  
  The five men allegedly cut a hole in the roof of J Bees Sports & Casual Wear, 1301 E. 87^th Street, shortly after midnight  intending to make off with merchandise, according to court documents. That’s when the patrolling police helicopter spied the alleged burglars and radioed for backup.
  
  
  Leaving a bolt cutter, pick axe, sledge hammer, pry bar atop of the building, the men hid in the building’s basement until they were found by police and arrested.

Good job, but we still think unmanned UAV's are the wave of the future.  Armed with napalm.

Messy Weekend

Let's see, a quick scan of the headlines shows us:

• a couple of stabbings;
• a drowning;
• more traffic fatalities than we care to count;
• a dozen shot;
• half a dozen dead;

Too much to enumerate here.  Who has the gory totals?

Bears By 7.5

Not if they don't shore up the left side.

Cutler may be a baby, but he's got a a legit beef with the poor protection on that side.  Of course, if the receivers weren't getting free, how long can the pocket be expected to hold?

Rats

Story we missed a while ago - way to cut the budget Rahm:

• Blame it on the weather. Chicago's rat problem appears to be scurrying right along, thanks to the mild winter.
  
  The number of Chicagoans calling the city to complain about rats is up 28 percent, according to a Chicago Tribune report.
  
  Since July, the city's 311 center has received almost 15,900 calls from residents, compared to the 12,000 over the same period last year. Residents can also file rat complaints online at cityofchicago.org and request city crews visit properties that provide conditions susceptible to rats. Crews can then issue "rat stoppage tickets" to owners.

Would it be wrong to hope the plague makes a reappearance?

Comments to Return Shortly

We think we've figured out the comment issue.  

We hope to have everything up and running in time for Monday.

Open post - hopefully, we can catch up this afternoon.

Technical Difficulties

Blogger has gone and changed the platform again.  Not anything that the reader would notice very much, but the behind the scenes stuff is a wholesale revision of how we've run things in the past.  Evidently, Blogger wasn't serious when they said they were looking for suggestions to improve the blog functions as they pretty much suck.

We're having trouble moderating comments at the moment.  We're still able to post, but comments might be delayed for a bit.

Apologies to the readers - bear with us as we figure this all out.

Can We Fire Some Aldercreatures?

Saw this article a few days ago.  It raised some interesting suggestions among the group:

• Four months after Chicago’s failure to repair a crumbling downtown viaduct — despite a task order generated by a call to 311 — cost taxpayers $450,000, Mayor Rahm Emanuel is implementing a tracking system to make certain it won’t happen again.
  
  The technology upgrade will make the process of calling 311 — to get a pothole filled, a tree trimmed or a broken streetlight replaced — like using FedEx to send a package, under the plan reported by the Chicago Sun-Times last spring.
  
  The “service tracker” feature will allow people who call 311 for 14 of the most requested city services to track their service requests from the time they are submitted and receive an email when the issue is resolved. 

Since so much of the aldercreatures' job has been automated, including the "follow-up" calls that take up most of everyone's time, knocking out 25 aldercreatures seems like the next logical step. But does Rahm have the balls to pull the trigger on such an obvious move?

$1 Million to Rebrand

Evidently, this is what happened to the $1 million Rahm gave CeaseFire:

• I have exciting news to share with you. Thanks to your support, Cure Violence has worked tirelessly for 12 years to stop shootings and killings in cities around the world. By approaching violence as a disease that can be stopped, we charted a new way that uses the same science-based strategies used to fight cholera and AIDS.
  Treating violence as a disease is more than a metaphor or a model. It is a movement that changes how people think about violence.
  That’s why I am so pleased to announce today that CeaseFire is becoming Cure Violence.

They have a fancy new website, no doubt paid with extorted tax dollars.  They still haven't deployed a single interrupter or stopped a single shooting.  They appear to be waiting for the cold weather to do their "job" for them.  

Then Rahm will give them another million that the city doesn't have.

Sergeants List Today (UPDATE)

Rumor mill exploded this morning.

Anyone have an early look at the list?

UPDATE: Sergeants list out.  Then canceled ten minutes later.  No word on a reissue yet.

Tracey Ladner strikes again - she can't even run a crooked promotional process right.

UPDATE: List out again.  The one people have been sending us turns out to have a number of people without college and maybe one facing a 30-pending allegation.  Someone needs to fire Ladner since she seems entirely incapable of handling a promotion - this is the second time in as many lists they've taken it down within minutes of issuing it.  This is what happens when you take capable people out of the mix and let idiots run things.

Safety and Security Fee

Another brilliant idea from the mind of Aldercreature Cardenas:

• Chicago should impose a “safety and security fee” — as high as $5 a month on homes and businesses — to generate the $70 million needed to hire 700 additional police officers, an influential alderman said Thursday.
  
  
  Ald. George Cardenas (12th), chairman of the City Council’s Health Committee, said Chicago desperately needs a surge in police hiring to ease a severe manpower shortage that has hamstrung the city’s ability to stop a surge in homicides and shootings.
  
  
  If a $5 “safety and security fee” was tacked on to the monthly electric bill of Commonwealth Edison’s one million residential and 170,000 business customers and remitted to the city, it would generate the $70 million needed to bolster the force by 700 officers and bolster community policing, Cardenas said. 

So.....what happens when the citizens (and "citizens") of the south and west sides argue that they are neither "safe" nor "secure" in light of a 30% increase in homicides, a sizable rise in shooting numbers and burglaries through the roof?

And we're sure Com-Ed would just love to be the conduit for all this money.  How much of a "service fee" are they going to charge the city for being the bag-man....we mean middle-man?

Missing In Action

It would seem that the ERPS mini scandal is wrapping up:

• The Chicago Police Department was unable to locate a “significant volume” of evidence and property found or seized by its officers because the 2.2 million items are being inadequately protected, documented and stored, the city’s inspector general has found.
  
  
  During a seven-month audit that ended on July 20, Inspector General Joe Ferguson found that police employees “could not locate” 2.8 percent of items sampled from inventory records, nor could they find documentation for 3.8 percent of physical inventory sampled.
  
  
  “Therefore, we conclude that [police] internal controls failed to ensure that evidence and property were adequately protected, properly documented and readily available when required,” the audit states.

And this part is truly hilarious:

• A Police Department edict requires desk sergeants to ensure that all property approved for transfer to the Evidence and Recovered Property Section be sent there within seven days.
  
  

  But on April 11, the IG  found that 38,394 of 41,302 items already  approved for transfer had either not yet arrived at either of the two facilities or had been improperly logged by section employees.
  
  
  Chicago Police Department spokesperson Melissa Stratton said CPD worked “in partnership” with Ferguson to conduct the audit and has developed “rigorous new procedures” in response to its findings “to ensure the integrity of our facilities and any ongoing investigations.”

Since the Department got rid of "desk sergeants" almost 10 months ago it would seem they're in violation of a whole bunch of protocols. And evidently, Stratton has moved on from violating everybody's civil rights to commenting on crap she has no idea about.

Kilt Run Saturday

Final reminder:

• This year's Chicago Kilt Run benefits the Police Chaplains Ministry and the Fire Chaplains Ministry.
  
  Starting at 10:00 a.m. this Saturday from Trinity Pub at 5943 N. Northwest Hwy in Chicago, come run / walk 5K through Norwood Park with countless folks dressed in traditional kilts.  (If you don't own a kilt, don't worry!  Any outfit is fine.)
  
  Party continues all day and into the evening with bands, food and other entertainment right back at the pub.
  
  This event, while held in/outside of Trinity Pub, IS FAMILY FRIENDLY with kids' attractions, kid-friendly food and soft drinks, face painting, and clowns like Sgt. Neal McLoughlin strolling around.
  
  Hope you can make it for at least part of the festivities!

Info here.

JJJr B.S.

Why do they even publish this tripe?

• U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr.’s political future again came into question on Wednesday after the revelation that he and his wife had put their four-bedroom Victorian home in Washington, D.C., on the market for $2.5 million.
  
  A Jackson spokesman initially could not elaborate on why the South Side Democrat was putting his house on the market, but Jackson’s office later issued a statement blaming mounting medical bills, presumably from his recent bout with bipolar depression, as the reason behind the sale. The Jacksons took out a $400,000 loan against the house just two years ago.

As one wag suggested, $400,000 is a pretty good retainer for a defense attorney. Seeing as how JJJr has the platinum health care benefits of a member of Congress, we don't see the $400,000 as necessarily for "health care" costs.

5K Reward

Let's get the word out there:

• Police are offering a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and prosecution of those responsible for breaking into a police stable and injuring several horses last weekend. 
  
  
  Late Sunday night, officers assigned to the mounted stable unit arrived on the grounds of the South Shore Cultural Center and found 27 horse out of their stalls, [...]
  
  
  The horses were circling inside the stable’s arena and were shaking. The officers discovered that a rear window was used to get inside the facility in the 7000 block of S. South Shore Drive...

Beating up helpless animals is bad enough.  Beating up living memorials to our deceased members makes it personal.

Casper Lauer Run

Short notice:

• Named in honor of “Casper Lauer” one of the first Chicago Police Officer to be “killed in the line of duty” and dedicated to all Police Officers in the nation killed serving their communities All Police and Civilian motorcyclist of any manufacture and all non motorcyclists are welcome to be our guests, as we remember and celebrate the lives of Police Officers through out the Nation, “killed in the line of duty” and support their survivors. American Knights M/C of Chicago All proceeds will be donated to the Gold Star Families and the Chicago Police Memorial fund. Line up begins and 10am run starts at 11am. Food, Drinks, Music, -$20 donation.

Integrity Check?

From a reader:

• Today at Midway Airport CPD was called to a unattended suitcase on the baggage claim belt. The person who got the call opened the bag and along with a few articles of clothing was a couple thousand dollars in plain view. All the cash was in bundles of 50's and 100's. No ID of any kind inside or outside the luggage. Every penny was inventoried. SCC, this has happened a few times in pasts years Where something very similar was found in homes and other areas where police received some kind of call. I have no doubt this was all a setup to nail a copper. Please post a warning. Don't want anybody getting caught up in a sting. Things like this would convince even the most honest cop stash some in their pocket.

One would hope we didn't have to warn people about the reasons for doing the right thing in all circumstances at all times.  And at some place like Midway Airport where the entire building is under all sorts of camera surveillance and there are literally a million-and-one places to hide a camera and a team of IAD/FBI agents, you should know you are never truly alone anywhere.  But there are still those who might figure, "Who's going to miss $20 for lunch?" or similar such BS.

Please spare yourself the problems and spare everyone else the disgust.  Stings still happen.

Nicely Done

Remember, we're operating with out a contract, but every day someone is running toward the sound of gunfire:

• Chicago police chased down and arrested a gunman who shot and critically wounded another man on the city's West Side, authorities said.

  The shooting was one of at least four late night shootings occurring across the city.

  Officers saw the unidentified man open fire on the 33-year-old victim at about 10:20 p.m. in the 4300 block of West Madison Street in the West Garfield Park neighborhood, police said, citing early reports.

  The victim, who was struck multiple times in the back and abdomen, was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital in critical condition, police said.

  The officers quickly chased after the gunman finally taking him into custody. Police hadn't determined the motive for the shooting, saying that suspect wasn't cooperating with investigators.

Big surprise there.

And once again, either by accident of by design, the Tribune reveals the crime increase that Rahm and Garry insist isn't really there:

• As of Sunday, Chicago had 79 more homicides than it did through the same time last year, according to preliminary police statistics. The city has also experienced 177 additional shootings this year.

All crime is down....except killings....and shootings....and car thefts, those are up, too because the insurance companies say so.....and arson....and bank robberies set a new high again the other day...and thefts from buildings, because we wouldn't want to classify those as burglaries.....which are up, too....and the FBI still won't take Chicago stats into their national accounting of crime. Other than that, crime is down.

Contract Negotiations

We find it amusing (again) that the FOP and Fire Departments stand by their contentions that they won't negotiate in the press due to a "gentlemen's agreement" with the City. We again say such an agreement has power only when the people you are negotiating with are actually gentlemen.

We're pretty sure the teachers made similar noises in the past, yet all we recall from the past weekend are the anti-teacher ads littering the airwaves of both radio and television. You only have to scratch the surface to find connections to Rahm's political contributors.

The Tribune and Sun Times have behaved in what can only be described as slanted coverage. And their editorial pages? Even Mope-rah was beyond ridiculous the other day - her spine looks like a pretzel.

Now we're seeing a steady drumbeat of anti-police and anti-firefighter stories popping up in the Sun Times. Anyone else get the impression that these avenues are being pushed by the "gentlemen" across the table from us? As long as they have their lapdogs and proxies flinging crap at their request, the city can pretend their hands are clean while we fight a two-front war. And sorry to say, it looks like we'll fight it poorly.

People Are Still Taking Money?

Allegedly.

This one doesn't sound good:

• A Chicago police officer was arrested today on suspicion of accepting a bribe of several thousand dollars in exchange for fixing a traffic case, according to sources.
  
  The 45-year-old is assigned to the Southwest Side’s Ogden District and works as a field-training officer who instructs rookie cops fresh out of the police academy.
  
  City records show he is an 18-year veteran of the department.

Eighteen years? And an FTO? Look for the entire "screening process" to be called into question. And anyone trained by this guy? Well, hope you like answering questions...a lot of questions.

Disability Hit Series

The Sun Times continues to do Rahm's bidding with Fusco and Novak contributing something like four separate stories of disabled cops and firefighters with questionable injuries. We aren't going to link to the stories themselves because they're pretty one-sided.

No one here is doubting for a second that there is the potential for abuse of the disability system and there likely is abuse going on as we speak. But the scorched earth solution Rahm is looking for does nothing except screw the legit cases.

So how about this - the FOP, the Memorial Foundation, someone start posting stories about cops or firefighters who qualify for disability. Officers who will never be physically whole. Firefighters with lung damage. Guys and gals missing digits, limbs, eyes. People who will never hold their child again. Or walk.

Those stories are there and they aren't being told.

Horses Attacked

We guess J-Fled's "station security" evaluation didn't include the stables.

Second, is this place unattended overnight? Or evenings? Or what?

Third, what sort of animals treat horses like this?

• Two horses belonging to the Chicago Police were injured when someone broke into a stable kept by the department's Mounted Unit on the grounds of the South Shore Cultural Center, authorities said.
  
  Officers assigned to the unit returned to the stable around 11:15 p.m. Sunday and found that the two horses and 13 others had been let out of their stalls, police said. Tissue paper was strewn inside the stable and outside.
  
  A horse named J.R. suffered chemical burns to the face after being sprayed with a fire extinguisher, and a horse named Schott was cut on the back of its right let and suffered another injury to its left hoof, police said. No other details were available on their condition.

The assholes who did this need to be made to shovel out the stables for a few years to start. Then let the horses have them for a few hours of kicking. Assholes.

Everyone Hates Mondays

Especially if you manage to get shot on one:

• One man is dead and at least six other people were wounded this afternoon in four shootings on the South and West sides, officials said.

And over the weekend, something like 7 killed and nearly 30 wounded.

Crime is down!

A Speech About What Now?

This is great. The International Association of Chiefs of Police is having their Annual conference in San Diego this year 29 September through 03 October. There are speeches,symposiums, workshops, all sorts of stuff. If you search the conference schedule on 01 October you might just happen to see this little item:

• Preventing Homicides and Gun Violence

And a description of the conference:

• This workshop will provide an introduction to the training curriculum developed in Milwaukee, based on an interdisciplinary approach to violence reduction and showcase how it is now being adapted and implemented in other urban areas with support from the COPS Office.

Milwaukee? Didn't they just run into some problems with their version of CompStat downgrading serious assaults and similar crimes? And check out the list of featured speakers:

• Garry McCarthy
  John Markovic
  Mallory O'Brien Ph.D.
  Ronal Serpas
  Steve Conrad

Whoa whoa whoa. Hold everything. Who?

And our homicide rate is up how much this year? And total shootings are where again? And he's giving a speech on "reducing" them? Now we've seen everything. Well, maybe not quite, but this does take a large slice of the cake.

Hiding the Homicides

Check out this Sun Times headline:

• 5 dead, 20 wounded in shootings since Friday night

Then the opening sentences:

• Five men were killed and at least 20 people were wounded in gun violence in the city from Friday night to Sunday.

  The fatal shootings include one man who was fatally shot and two others who were wounded by police in two separate incidents this weekend.

Are we counting police shootings in the "killings" category now?

But the phrase Sun Times uses is "gun violence." Hope over to the Tribune site and you can find these two stories without even trying today:

• The body of a "young male" found by firefighters after a South Side home fire on Saturday died from multiple stab wounds, officials said today.

  The body of the male, who remained unidentified, was found in the front room of the home and his death has been classified a homicide, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office. The office said he died of multiple stab and incised wounds.

Whoops - not "gun violence," so don't look over here.

• A man in his 30s who was robbed in Little Village early Sunday morning died after he was hit by a car following the attack, authorities said.

  Police are investigating whether the robbers – four or five men in a white Ford Taurus – ran him down and hit him. The car that hit the man and the car carrying the robbers – which may be the same car – left the scene.

Ah, ah, ah....not "gun violence" so probably doesn't even rate a mention. But if they ever find the car and the driver (a big "if" at this point), or the robbers who chased him into traffic (another "if") they'll be charged with homicide.

Numbers being twisted.

Kill The Messenger

As with all tyrants:

• Alderman Carrie Austin was featured in the Sun-Times about two weeks ago saying that she wanted Louis Farikan's Fruit of Islam troops patrolling her ward.
  
  Carrie Austin, Sandi Jackson, Toni Foulkes and the rest of the (fill-in-the-blanks) are responsible for McKnucklehead coming in and ruining this department and for letting manpower decline to levels which make us ineffective.
  
  But they will get their "Box Missions" around their houses now so it will be all right.
  
  Here is something from the fly on the wall from HQ. When an Alderman complains to McKnucklehead, as sometimes they do, about the low manpower what happens. McKnucklehead call the District Commander and slams them for letting on that there is a manpower problem.

How can anyone not know there's a manpower issue? Retirements far out pace hiring, there is no way the Department is going to keep up again this year unless 400 more suddenly appear out of thin air, the Time Due restrictions continue apace, meaning that there just aren't enough personnel to grant what was previously available. Even Stevie Wonder could see there just aren't enough coppers around.

And ANOTHER Police Shooting?

The increase of the increase (or something) continues:

• Fraternal Order of Police Spokesman Pat Camden said an Area South Gang Team responded to a 911 call that gave a "detailed description" of someone standing on the corner of 77th Street and Wolcott Avenue holding a gun.

  A police department source said the teen was among a group of people standing near the corner of 77th Street and Wolcott Avenue when officers approached and the teen took off running.

  “Gangs South responded and there’s about 10 people on the corner, there’s a makeshift memorial there for someone who got shot god knows when, and they see a guy matching the description perfectly of the 911 call," Camden said.

That Camdem is worth his weight in oranges. Easily the best money FOP has spent in years.

Good job by the officers, too.

Scared Aldercreatures

This is priceless - the people representing the most violent and back-ass-ward wards are frightened of their constituents:

• For Ald. Carrie Austin (34th), the violence that’s gripped Chicago this year is personal.

  Over Memorial Day weekend, a college freshman home for the summer was shot to death just five doors down from Austin’s sturdy A-frame home in Roseland on the city’s South Side. He was a friend of her grandson.

  “People say, ‘Well, you know they’re not gonna do all that around the alderman’s house,’ ” she says. “Yeah, you wanna bet?”

She's not the only one:

• Ald. Sandi Jackson (7th), whose South Side ward includes an area known as “Terror Town,” says she always double-checks to make sure no one with a gun is lurking before she backs into her own driveway.

And she moved her entire family to Washington DC.

• In Austin, Ald. Emma Mitts (37th) says she tries not to let fear get the best of her but knows that’s hard for her mother, who lives with her. So she hurries to get home before the streetlights come on at night to keep her mother from worrying.

But this one is the best:

• From her front stoop, Ald. Toni Foulkes (15th) points to landmarks from her childhood.On that sidewalk she learned to ride a two-wheeler.

  Under the street lamp she and her friends used to stretch a net across the street to play volleyball at 2 in the morning.

Really? Who in their right mind thinks that stringing a volleyball net over the street at two in the f#$%ing morning is normal? The cognitive disconnect is amazing.

And remember, these are the fools who think disarming everybody is the answer. They can't even begin to protect their constituents and neighbors from the thugs, so they figure the best way to deal with it is to make it impossible for anybody to resist the thugs. Huh?

Casualty Count Rises

The two dead, five wounded has been amended by the Tribune to three dead and eight wounded for Friday/Saturday night. The best line of the night?

• Butler and his cousin were in the 900 block of North Drake Avenue after 1 a.m. Saturday, police said. Their attacker approached on a bicycle and fled the same way. Butler lived across the street from where police found him.

  [...] Police described Butler's surviving cousin as "uncooperative" and said he told responding officers "you're the police, you figure out what happened" when asked for details about the shooting.

Don't worry dumbfuck, we'll put our best people on it right away. Enjoy your shortened lifespan by the way, because we're pretty sure you've got next, one way of the other.

And the mayhem continues Saturday into Sunday night:

• A 17-year-old boy was shot blocks from where police shot a 17-year-old boy hours earlier in the Gresham neighborhood Saturday night.

  The boy was among at least four people wounded since Saturday morning in a small section of the city’s south side bordered by 67th and 79th Streets on the north and south and Ashland Avenue and the Dan Ryan expressway on the east and west.

It's about time to rename 79th Street since so many bad things happen around there. Something light and happy sounding. Maybe something like Rainbow Valley Road or Sparkly Glitter Way or Rahm's Colon.

NHL Lockout

Well this sucks for Blackhawks' Fans:

• Unable to figure out a way to divvy up revenue in a sport that produced $3.3 billion last season, the NHL has undergone a lockout.
  
  There were no negotiations between the league and the players' union Saturday and when the clock struck 11 p.m., the current collective bargaining agreement expired and the owners' lockout of players commenced.

This makes it doubly important for the Bears to step it up, because we get bored quickly if they suck.

Chalkie Returns

With a vengeance evidently:

• A man was killed on the Far South Side and another person killed on the West Side in shootings Friday night and Saturday morning, according to police.

  Five others, including a 13-year-old boy and a 15-year-old boy, were shot on the South and West sides.
  

Combined with the police shooting (see below), Friday definitely started with a bang. And ABC is still in town filming? Oh boy.

Assailant Killed in 005

All police are OK:

• Chicago Police killed a man in his 20s and shot at another after the men allegedly pointed handguns at officers responding to a Roseland neighborhood block party Friday night.

  The shootings took place in the 200 block of West 110th Street, police spokeswoman Amina Greer said.

  Greer said no officers appeared to have been injured, but Independent Police Review Authority spokesman Larry Merritt said the man was fatally shot by police.

  The incident happened after 9:30 p.m., when the two armed men showed up uninvited to a large block party, Fraternal Order of Police spokesman Pat Camden said.

  Both men allegedly took off running after party-goers called 911 and pointed the men out to responding officers, Camden said.

  An officer chasing one of the suspects on foot fired but missed after the man turned and pointed a handgun at him, Camden said. That suspect was taken into custody uninjured.

  Another officer in a police vehicle drove after the second suspect, then continued chasing him on foot. That suspect, a man in his 20s, also allegedly pointed a handgun at the officer, who then fatally shot him, officials said.

  “It’s a pretty simple equation. You point a gun at an officer, he’s gonna defend himself,” Camden said. He said both officers announced themselves as police before the suspects pointed guns at them.

Now before grandmama and the three or four mothers of the dead thug's unborn children start squawking about how the police gunned down the former altar boy who was just about to turn his life around by filling the Lil Jojo vacancy, notice how the article states "police were responding to" a call from party-goers AND the suspects were pointed out by the same party-goers." The police had little if any reason to be there until called, so once the wailing starts up, remember how the police ended up there.

Funny Stuff

Crime is down!!!

• Finally some good news! ...as reported from THE ONION
  
  "Chicago Public Schools Celebrate Fifth Straight Day Without Any Student Violence"
  
  "CHICAGO—Jubilant Chicago Public Schools officials announced Friday that, for five straight days now, there has not been a single act of student violence in any of the city’s 675 public schools. “Our classrooms and hallways are safer now than they’ve ever been,” said CPS chief executive Jean-Claude Brizard, happily noting that there have been no reported instances of beatings, stabbings, sexual assaults, or shootings in any of the city’s public schools this week. “We’ve had no incidents of weapons being brought onto school property, nor has anyone had to break up a fistfight between students. We’ve all had to work together for this, but it’s paid off. Let’s keep it up!” At press time, a gunfight on Chicago’s South Side had reportedly claimed the lives of three 16-year-old boys."

McLookAtMe says "Ribbons for everybody!"

Waste of Money

This is just plain dumb, annoying and stupid:

• Family, friends and gang members on Friday bid farewell to slain teen rapper Joseph “Lil JoJo” Coleman in a gangster rap funeral that was tainted by tension and fear, and ended with cops confiscating a loaded .45-caliber pistol.

  While some mourners prayed in the Jones Funeral Home parlor — others smoked weed in the parking lot.

  As family members paid their final respects, a crowd of young men eager to take a last look at Lil JoJo’s body surged toward his casket, nearly knocked it to the floor and pushed family members out of the way.

We've seen this sort of behavior in Third World countries. And now we can say we've seen it here....again:

• The music stopped.

  Lil JoJo’s mother, Robin Russell, screamed into the microphone, “Get the f--- out.”

  Minutes later, Chicago police cleared the funeral home at 79th and Kedzie in the Ashburn neighborhood.

  Outside, young men and women — some wearing “RIP JoJo” t-shirts and others flashing gang signs and exchanging gang handshakes — danced and sang along with Lil JoJo’s first song, “3HunnaK.”

  The song taunts a violent street gang and may have lead to his murder, police say.

How many hundreds of man hours wasted here? Open law breaking, at least one gun at a funeral for someone who glorified gun violence, and it didn't stop at the wake:

• While the funeral procession meandered south to Mt. Hope Cemetery in the Morgan Park neighborhood, police got calls of shots being fired from a white car near 115th and Kedzie. Others called to report someone waving a gun out of a car window.

A funeral procession "meander[ing]?" Even traffic laws and common courtesy mean nothing.

A dump truck, a backhoe and a front end loader would solve a lot of these problems instead of wasting money and police time on someone who gave nothing to society but another bill for tens of thousands of dollars that can never be recouped.

No One is Asking Questions?

Anyone see this?

• A 13-year-old girl plunged through a skylight and fell 25 feet onto a pallet at a Northwest Side building but escaped serious injury, police said.
  
  The girl was on the roof of Mohawk Electric Construction Company in the 5500 block of West Montrose Avenue with a 13-year-old boy who lives nearby when the accident happened at 5:40 p.m. Thursday, police said.
  
  She stepped onto a brittle plastic skylight, shattering it and plunging 25 feet onto a wooden pallet, police said.

  She was able to get up and unlock the door as the boy called his father, who called 911, police said.

A couple of commentators noticed the questions that weren't asked (or answered):

• Was just over at Fibune's breaking news site. They're running a story titled "Police: `One lucky little girl' survives skylight fall"
  
  Shouldn't it read "Burglary interrupted by the law of gravity"??
  
  9/14/2012 12:52:00 AM
  
  
• I was thinking the same thing. What was she and another kid doing on the roof to begin with. That is the real story.
  
  Next will be the lawsuit like with the kid that broke into the old Ravenswood Hospital and fell.

  9/14/2012 07:54:00 AM

Criminal Trespass at the very least, right?

Cop Injured

We have an issue with the phrasing of this:

• A Chicago police officer was injured this morning when he was struck by car that then sped off on the South Side, authorities said.

  The officer was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn for treatment of non-life threatening injuries, police said.

  The officer was standing outside of his police car, conducting a street stop in the 7900 block of South Wabash Avenue in the Chatham neighborhood around 12:30 a.m., when the car hit him...

One of our commentators related that the officer was dragged almost 100 feet by the car. News Affairs is stating "non-life threatening injuries" if the media reports are accurate. That's all well and good that we aren't attending a funeral and all, but Densey Cole ended up suffering what turned out to be "non-life threatening injuries" and he might never walk unassisted again. The officer shot a few weeks back in the leg was also "non-life threatening," but reports since suggest he has undergone and will undergo additional surgeries for knee damage that will leave him with a limp forever.

"Non-life threatening" seems to downgrade the injury to the extent it slips under everyone's radar and fades from memory awfully quickly. We're guilty of it ourselves though we try to verify seriousness before posting. Can we come up with a better description that might convey the seriousness of the injury and the life altering impact many have on cops careers and quality of life?

Dude, Where's The Rest of My Car?

(photo from WGN):

• Charges have been filed against a suspected car thief who led Chicago police on a high-speed chase through the West Side and down the Eisenhower Expressway.

  Harvey Green, 24, managed to elude police but then crashed after taking the Sacramento exit off the Eisenhower Wednesday morning, sheering off the rear wheels of the car he had stolen, police said. He remains hospitalized this morning.
  
  Green, of the 1100 block of South Francisco Avenue, was charged with possession of a stolen vehicle and aggravated fleeing, both felonies, police said.

Looks like he was just headed home and needed a set of wheels. That's a crime now?

That's going to leave a mark

Firefighter Injured

Just pointing out that while the police and fire departments operate without a contract, they're still out there doing the job day after day:

• Two young children and a Chicago firefighter suffered minor injuries in an early morning fire in the Little Village neighborhood on the West Side.

  The fire began in the basement of a two-story home in the 2800 block of South Kedvale Avenue sometime before 3:30 a.m., according to the Chicago Fire Department.
  
  Using three lines, firefighters extinguished the blaze by 4 a.m.
  
  A 7-year-old girl and a 10-year-old boy were taken to St. Anthony Hospital in good condition. A firefighter was taken to Rush University Medical Center with a back injury, also in good condition, authorities said.

Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

CompStat

Was that Diane Sawyer walking into HQ to film the CompStat meeting?

What media monstrosity is about to be unleashed with this little show?

UPDATE: So they spent time at E&RPS, too? Interesting. We're guessing something about guns.

Da Bears

Short turnaround for the Chicago Bears and an early season trip to Green Bay to boot. We hear the fall colors are especially attractive this year.

Looking back at the preseason, one wonders if Lovie was keeping the receiver corps under wraps and then just having them peek out a bit against Indy, all in anticipation of Green Bay in Week Two. Cutler actually has targets to throw at and the passing game opens up the running options.

Bears are still 5.5 point underdogs. Might be a fun night though.

Aggravated Battery?

Shooting up north:

• A 16-year-old boy was seriously wounded early this morning in a shooting on the North Side in the city's Uptown neighborhood.

  About 1:41 a.m., the youth told police he was walking from his residence on the 4600 block of North Winthrop Avenue when he heard shots and soon after felt pain in his leg, said Police News Affairs [...].

  The boy asked for help from an unknown bystander who drove the youth to Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center where his condition was stabilized, [police] said.

  The boy suffered wounds to his leg and groin area, police said.

Poor guy. Shot in the leg and groin. Ouch.

Uptown Update gets to the bottom of it pretty quickly though:

• So it all sounded really peculiar. That's why it wasn't a surprise when we got an email from someone who's in the know (who requested anonymity):
  

  The inside scoop on this morning's "shooting"... The bullet had a downward trajectory and the "victim" had powder burns on his clothes. He was tucking a gun in his waistband and accidentally shot himself.

  We're guessing he was inside an apartment or house and that's why no one heard the noise of his gun going off.
  
  So it's scary that a 16-year-old kid, who has a 10pm city curfew, was tucking a loaded gun into his pants as part of his going-out-on-the-town ensemble at 1:41am.

Pardon our laughter. Anyone know if the "main stream media" has amended their report yet? And CompStat? We're betting that they couldn't wait to unload this one from the totals.

The Streak Ends

Evidently, we had been on a run of almost four days without a homicide.

That isn't to say there wasn't mayhem - we've been building up to it for a day or so:

• 15 shot in the last 24 hours
  1 each in 005, 006, 015, 019, 024, 025
  2 in 004
  3 in 007
  4 in 009

The south side finally broke though with a number of shootings, but only one dead:

• A man was killed and at least four others were wounded, including two teens this evening, in shootings on the city's South Side, officials said.

  [...] An hour earlier, a man was killed and another man was wounded in a shooting in the Washington Park neighborhood, authorities said.

September seems to be running about average with just over a killing a day. Anyone have the year-to-year comparison and year-to-date totals? The Tribune let slip again that shootings are UP over 160 year-to-date. Why Rahm keeps letting them publish that number we have no idea. We thought he had a lock-down on that shit.

Gee, A Repeat Offender

Imagine that:

• A man once convicted of threatening a police officer was charged Wednesday with firing a shot at a police car attempting to make a traffic stop, prompting an exchange of gunfire early Tuesday in the North Center neighborhood.

  Luis Zapata, 21, of the 2900 block of North Seeley Avenue, was charged with two counts of aggravated assault of a police officer, two counts of aggravated discharge of a firearm, one count of unlawful use of a weapon by a felon and one count of unlawful possession of a firearm by a street gang member, police said. He has been arrested numerous times, most recently in February for aggravated assault of a police officer, according to police.

  Zapata had previously been arrested for aggravated assault of a police officer, police said.

Quarter million dollars bail for a repeat offender who likes to threaten and evidently, shoot at the police. Not nearly enough.

Another Mixed Message

Rahm and the City Council continue to defy federal law:

• Undocumented immigrants who witness crimes or are victims themselves would have nothing to fear from Chicago Police--and no excuse to avoid cooperating with them--under a mayoral plan approved by the City Council Wednesday.

  [...] Emanuel added,"We are a city of immigrants. Always will be and always have been...As the grandson and the son of an immigrant, this is true to who we are as a city. I'm glad the city of Chicago led the nation in setting down a clear path as it relates to how we welcome all immigrants to the most American of American cities."

  The so-called "Welcome City" ordinance would prohibit police from detaining undocumented immigrants unless they are wanted on a criminal warrant or have been convicted of a serious crime.

Because you know Rahm's family didn't go through all the tedious hassle of applying for passage, following the rules, taking citizenship tests, etc. They just appeared one day and ....what? They didn't? They followed the rules? Hmmmm. Imagine that.

But then this appears on Channel 7 the exact same day:

• Thirty-seven convicted criminal aliens were arrested in the Chicago area and Northwest Indiana in a three-day sweep.

  U.S. immigration officials say the 31 of the fugitives had convictions for crimes ranging from battery to murder. Twelve had been ordered to leave the country but failed to do so; and six had been deported before by re-entered illegally, which is a felony.

  The fugitives, all male, are from four countries -- 34 from Mexico and one each from Poland, Guatemala and Trinidad.

So the feds are still doing their thing, but we can't assist in any way. It's all so confusing.