NPR On-Views Gunfire

This is amusing. NPR was doing another one of those feel-good stories they're famous for, this time on how to fix-up Englewood. No word if bulldozers or carpet bombing was mentioned, but during the interview...:

• An NPR interview in Chicago included an all-too-real example of the city's violence when a burst of gunfire erupted down the street from where NPR's David Schaper was conducting an interview Wednesday. He had been speaking to a neighborhood activist when a gunman opened fire nearby.
  
  David was reporting a story on efforts to reclaim and repurpose community eyesores when the shots were fired. The radio story that aired on today's is jarring, as a talk about community engagement is suddenly overcome by shots that rang out shortly after kids had gotten out of school.

The reporter's description is one of shocked disbelief:

• "About 30 or 40 yards away, a man is standing outside a car firing a large semi-automatic rifle at a target around the corner we cannot see.
  
  "Asiaha pushes the little girl indoors and some people duck down and scurry, while some of us just watch in bewilderment — while the shooter gets back into his car and drives down the street right in our direction."

Go to this link here and listen to the interview. The gunfire starts just after the 1:00 minute mark. No word if this rifle might have been one of those that disappeared from the train yard recently.

Cop's Sister Caught in Crossfire

Once again, an innocent bystander pays the price:

• Betty Howard was just going to be a minute. She left the hazard lights of her car flashing as she dashed into a real estate office along a busy stretch of East 79th Street in Chatham to drop off some paperwork at her second job.
  
  As she talked and laughed with co-workers inside late Thursday afternoon, a gang dispute erupted on the street. Bullets tore through a wall, one grazing Louis Hardy, 58, who dived to the floor before noticing Howard lying nearby with a gunshot to the head.
  
  “My mind is racing, I’m trying to decide how best I could help her,” Hardy recalled today.
  
  Howard's eyes were wide open, as if she were pleading for help. Hardy said he bent down and told her, “Hold on. Help is on the way.”
  
  Howard died minutes later.

A decent responsible woman, a teacher with a second job selling real estate, gone before her time. Sympathies to the family of Ms. Howard.

Bring Out Yer Dead

Illinois has the healthiest dead people in existence:

• Cook County has long been ridiculed for allowing dead people cast votes, but the state may have just garnered a new distinction.
  
  It paid $12 million in health care for people who were already dead — including in one case, for a person who had died in 1989.
  
  A new financial audit released by Auditor General Bill Holland’s office on Thursday found that the Illinois Department of Health and Family Services had 8,232 people still on Medicaid rolls qualifying for benefits, even though they were dead.
  
  The state paid monthly premiums totaling almost $7 million for 561 people who had already been dead for an average of nearly two years before they were enrolled in a state managed care program.

The oddest part is that the last 561 people on the list were enrolled automatically by the government, who probably should have known they were dead, seeing as how they were in the Illinois Medicaid program.

But hey, Illinois is cracking down on bake sales and lemonade stands!

• Illinois is renowned for our incredibly corrupt politicians. I've lost count how many of them have ended up in federal prison. This group of individuals is now trying to regulate little kid's lemonade stands and fund-raising bake sales.
  
  We have SO many big issues to deal with in this state, and today, at around 6:20pm, the bill HB5354 passed in both houses. The link I provided is for the most current information on the Illinois General Assembly's website concerning this bill.
  
  However, just before the vote tonight, the bill was amended again. It all happened so fast, that Illinois Senator Dan Duffy had to vote against it solely because he didn't have time to read it.

Be prompt with those taxes people - Illinois politicians are hungry.

A Constitutional Scholar?

Can you believe this guy supposedly "taught" constitutional law?

• President Obama is taking a swipe at the Founding Fathers, blaming his inability to move his agenda on the “disadvantage” of having each state represented equally in the Senate.
  
  At a Democratic fundraiser in Chicago Thursday night, Mr. Obama told a small group of wealthy supporters that there are several hurdles to keeping Democrats in control of the Senate and recapturing the House. One of those problems, he said, is the apportionment of two Senate seats to each state regardless of population.
  
  “Obviously, the nature of the Senate means that California has the same number of Senate seats as Wyoming. That puts us at a disadvantage,” Mr. Obama said.

No, that puts government at a disadvantage, which was the Founding Fathers intent. They had just finished a war against a despot.  But Obama can only see the disadvantage it puts him at.

Twice Decorated

We didn't see this one the other day - we don't even recall it being on the front page of the Tribune website:

• It wasn’t the first time Chicago Police Officer Jameka Sherrod had a gun pointed at her head.
  
  The first time she was answering a call about a domestic dispute and shot the gunman dead.  The second time, three years later, she wrestled with a gunman who wounded a partner.
  
  On Tuesday, the 8 ½-year veteran was honored with the department’s highest honor for the second time in her career – the first time that has happened in the more than the half century that the Police Medal has been handed out.

Very well done to Officer Sherrod and all of the other honorees at the Annual Police Recognition Ceremony this past Tuesday.

Maintaining the "8-a-day" Totals

May is going to turn out to be a bloody month, even with that stretch of "42 hours without a person shot" that McLookAtMe! was starting to brag about:

• Wednesday - At least eight people were wounded–one critically–in shootings across the city on Wednesday.
  
  The most recent shooting happened about 11:45 p.m. in the 7100 block of South Escanaba Avenue, where a 21-year-old man was driving when someone opened fire, striking the man in the face and back, police said.
  
  
• Thursday - A 58-year-old woman was killed and two others were injured in a shooting in the Chatham neighborhood on the South Side, several hours after a man was shot and seriously wounded near a Lawndale school this afternoon, officials said.
  
  In addition to the woman's fatal shooting, two other men were killed and nine others were injured from gunfire during daytime incidents on the south and west sides, police said.

Now if someone besides Chicago Magazine will report on "actual people with extra holes in their body" instead of "Rahm 'n' Garry's Shooting Incident Numbers," we're betting that well over 200 people have been shot so far this month.

$500 per iPad?

From one of our regular readers:

• No doubt it's an inside job. The thieves didn't just make a lucky guess those iPads were sitting there, someone tipped them off. But this is the part of the article that got my attention: ..........'The school’s assistant principal told police 141 iPads valued at $70,500 had been stolen.'
  
  Now I don't know who does the purchasing at CPS, it's irrelevant. But that info from the Asst Principal tells one all you need to know why the CPS is goddamn broke!!
  
  Some asshole at CPS or the school paid $500 a fucking piece for the iPads -- which is OVER the fucking RETAIL price!! Best Buy is selling these: 'Apple - iPad 2 with Wi-Fi - 16GB - White: $399.99. That's brand fucking NEW to anyone who walks in off the street.
  
  So whatever asshole paid $500.00 fucking dollars each for a BULK PURCHASE should be in fucking jail! (Dammit to hell, fuck them!)

We've pointed this out occasionally in the past - the markup on run-of-the-mill items through "approved vendors" is astounding, and we are amazed year in and year out that no one in the media ever picks up on it. It accounts for tens of millions of dollars a year, maybe even more, and maybe even Outfit connected. A quick example:

• Copy paper - you can find it all over the internet and brick-and-mortar stores in a variety of packages and prices. In a quick five minute stretch, we found 5,000 sheets for $45.99 at Staples and $25.97 at Wal*Mart. For 2,500 sheets, Amazon has it for $28.61, Office Depot for $27.29 and CostCo for $18.99. These are house brands, nothing fancy. What do you think the Department pays for a box of paper? The boxes we currently see have no labels at all - generic paper. CostCo special? Or Staples specials? No idea, but it comes through an "approved vendor" who tacks on his "fee." Per case. You think it's cheap? Why not open a corporate account at Wal*Mart?

And that's just paper. We know for a fact that all sorts of office supplies and Department material is obtained through a vendor who has a Madison Street address on the west side. It's a blank storefront, chained and locked, never open, but dozens upon dozens of contracts are funneled through this address. Forward the building phone to an answering service and you don't even have to set foot in the bad part of town....but your address is in the heart of homicide central.

Literally, tens of millions is siphoned off to connected companies or individuals, no one says a word and the media doesn't seem to want to connect the dots. It probably wouldn't even take an FOIA request - the City budget is online, City bidded contracts are online, we assume the media still has interns, bicycles and cars.

But hey, what's a few tens of millions of dollars flushed down the toilet? It's not like there's a $600 million pension balloon payment looming on the horizon.

Justice of a Sort

Too bad he bent up so many cars:

• A man fleeing from police died after crashing into four vehicles, injuring four other people on the West Side Thursday afternoon, police said.
  
  Police responded to the intersection of Homan Avenue and Lexington Street at 12:54 p.m. on a call of a man with a gun, police News Affairs [...] said.
  
  Officers located the man, who drove away and crashed into four vehicles near the intersection of Hamlin and Jackson boulevards....
  
  Four civilians were hurt and taken to hospitals in “stable” condition....

No coppers hurt. No word on how CompStat is going to count this one.

Missed This Story

About a month ago:

• Police were warning some lakefront residents to be on alert, after someone shot out windows at a North Side high-rise at least three times in the past 10 days.
  
  CBS 2 [...] reports someone has been shooting some type of projectile at windows at the Harbor Point condo tower at 155 N. Harbor Dr. – twice late at night, and once just before dawn. At least five windows have been shattered.
  
  The latest incident was Monday night, around 11:30 p.m. Windows also were shot out Sunday night and just before dawn on April 20.
  
  Detectives would not say if a gun was used, or if it was some other type of projectile such as a slingshot.

Just in case you were keeping track at home, it was a gun. We got word from someone outside the Department who has been staying on top of this one in light of the media embargo on all types of downtown mayhem, and they confirmed that someone shot at the building on three occasions.

Was there an arrest?

New City Stickers

We kind of missed the Herbie "Herb Dilla" Pulgar Memorial City Sticker competition this year. Fortunately, some of our readers forwarded us the submissions for this year. There were two.

The runner-up:

But the winner was even better:

Truly a rainbow of casualties. Well done to both contestants.

There Go the Arson Numbers

Good thing McCompStat stopped counting arson as an index crime for Rahm:

• When Turhan Ice woke up at his South Side home early this morning, he was jolted when he looked out to find his 1999 GMC Yukon SUV in flames.
  
  The man was getting ready for his job as a plumber and when he called firefighters he was told they were already on the way. His next thought was wondering what he possibly could have done to make someone so angry they would destroy his work truck.
  
  "It was engulfed in flames," said Ice, 46.
  
  It turned out his vehicle was only one of 14 vehicles that were torched as they sat parked on streets in the Englewood and West Englewood neighborhoods on the South Side overnight, officials said.

We seem to recall some other stories about cars being torched for general amusement. Where was that again? Oh yeah, the banlieue riots across France. The worst of it was in autumn 2005 when 9,000 cars were burned. But on New Years Eve of 2014, "only" 1067 cars were burned by un-assimilated minority youths - Algerian muslims mostly.

Thankfully, CompStat had already migrated across the Atlantic and this was touted as a 10% reduction over New Years Eve 2013.

Leaking Sewage Produces Infestation

Remember this?

Well, it produced this:

• Remember the piss and shit water that sat in the 1st district men's locker room for days a week or so ago, well now the building is infested with sewer flies. It is so bad in the lock up processing room that its impossible to work in there without them getting in your eyes, ears or nose. Third world conditions for sure!

Someone else  had a pretty good idea:

• Sewer flies are like bee's. Capture a horde of hornets and release them in the building. They will take out the sewer flies quickly. Try leave raw meet on counter', they will feast there and the hornet' will eat them. 

We're in..;purely for the entertainment value. Send pictures if it happens.

More SOS Fallout?

Scandals never die in Chicago - they go through seven acts and half-a-dozen encores:

• Last week, a federal jury took the unusual step of ordering the five Chicago Police officers named in the lawsuit to pay $96,000 in punitive damages out of their own pockets. The verdict said the city must pay an additional $796,000 in compensatory damages. The judge previously found Padilla’s civil rights were violated.

Truthfully, the sentence should read "....four former and one current Chicago Police officer..." but Frank Main has never let the truth get in the way of a good jab.

Herrera's name pops up and he owes the lions' share at $50,500. That's a lot of used cars to sell. We have a sinking feeling that this scandal is going to be around as long as Burge.

Write More ANOVs!

Evidently, that article-in-progress from The Reader is making Rahm sad:

• Sneed has learned that Mayor Rahm Emanuel is ordering top cop Garry McCarthy to explain why misdemeanor marijuana possession means one thing on the North Side — and a very different thing on the South and West Sides.
  
  ◆Translation: Rahm, who is running for re-election, wants to know why police are choosing to arrest rather than ticket misdemeanor marijuana violators in African-American communities.
  
  In a recent Sun-Times poll, only 8 percent of African-American voters surveyed said they would vote for Emanuel.
  ◆Buckshot: Unhappy with the statistics, the mayor is giving McCarthy 30 days to ensure the law is applied evenly across the city.
  
  ◆Backshot: Since the city ordinance was enacted almost two years ago — allowing officers to ticket or make an arrest — recent reports show officers have chosen to make an arrest 9 out of 10 times.

Darn you Officers - choosing to lock people up 9-out-of-10 times. Sneed closes with this quote from Sarah Hamilton, Rahm's communications director:

• “Every arrest results in cops off the street processing a low-level drug offense, rather than on the beat fighting serious crime.”

Another know-it-all who's never even seen a weed arrest versus a weed ANOV and certainly hasn't put a stop watch on it.

Clout Prevails Again

The Machine takes care of its own....even when the tool becomes dull and useless:

• Prosecutors dropped gun charges against former Ald. Sharon Dixon (24th) Tuesday, but she has agreed to seek treatment in a 90-day inpatient program.
  
  Last year, a Cook County judge ruled that Dixon was unfit to stand trial on charges alleging she approached Chicago Police officers outside the 10th district with a loaded gun in the spring of 2013.
  
  Dixon, 51, was charged with unlawful use of a weapon and possessing a firearm without a license for the May 4, 2013 incident.
  
  She was remanded to the Illinois Department of Human Services for an evaluation.

Remember, this is the aldercreature who drove drunk over hoses at a fire then berated the coppers who stopped her with the usual "Don't you know who I am?" bullshit as if she was going to get around parked fire apparatus. She got a pass on that somehow, too.

She was also (in)famous in 010 for getting a well-like officer removed from his car when he refused to do her go-fer work and insisted on serving the citizens of North Lawndale. She ran her political office out of her mother's basement and there were questions about expenditures on required political filings.

After being voted out, she ended up wandering into the 010 District with a loaded handgun. No one ever determined what she was intending to do, but we recall asking whether or not she had a valid FOID card or was claiming aldermanic privilege to carry a firearm despite not holding that office any longer.

Lo and behold, the entire linked article above makes no mention of revoking an FOID card for (A) being committed to Mt. Sinai Hospital for an evaluation nor (B) revoking an FOID card for "treatment in a 90-day inpatient program." This is assuming that an FOID card existed in the first place - which we have major doubts about in any event.

Wilding Popping Up Again

The media has embargoed this stuff, but our readers strive to keep everyone aware:

• If anyone listened to zone 4 last night they would have heard that the boyfriend of a young couple was hospitalized after getting the shit beat out of him at Van Buren and State by a couple "urban" youths. That multiple car and store windows on North Michigan Ave were smashed by "urban youths". That there was a massive fight between "urban youths" on the Red Line platform at State and Lake that shut down the line. That there were multiple thefts of purses, laptops, phones, etc. by groups of "urban youths" celebrating the holiday.
  
  Golly gee, those "urban youths" sure know how to have fun. Rahm, you've done a wonderful job of making the downtown area so family friendly and inviting. I can't wait to bring my friends and family down to experience the great urban culture that is Chicago!

One might argue that their own neighborhoods are locked down, so they come downtown to commit their mayhem. However, we see where 007, 011 and 015 are leading the city in homicides, so it can't be locked down that tight.

Eight More Wounded Tuesday (UPDATE)

The weekend just keeps rolling along:

• At least eight people have been wounded today in separate shootings on the city's Northwest, South and West sides, said police.
  
  The latest shooting happened about 5:15 p.m. in the city's Humboldt Park neighborhood, said police.

And that's only before dinner on Tuesday - the night is/was young.

UPDATE: 1 dead 11 wounded.....on a Tuesday.

Hey Look - Burge Was Right Again

Once again, someone tied to Burge freed for questionable reasons, ends up back behind bars:

• A convicted felon who said he was forced to confess to a pair of murders because he was tortured by former Area 2 Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge’s underlings was back behind bars Tuesday for allegedly failing to register as a violent offender.
  
  Victor Safforld maintained his innocence when he was released from prison in 2010 even though he pleaded guilty to one of the 1990 gang-related murders.
  
  Safforld, now 43, said he only admitted to killing Curtis Sims so he could start a new life as a free man as soon as possible.

So he pled guilty to one count so he could get a free skate on the others? That's just great.

But he's been on the straight and narrow since then? All clean?

• Judge Peggy Chiampas ordered Safforld held in lieu of $750,000 Tuesday for failing to register as a violent person.
  
  However, the judge also ordered him held without bail for violating conditions of his bond for a pending forgery case in Cook County.
  
  Safforld also has a pending forgery case out of DuPage County, Molesky said.

Well, it's good he found a trade while he was spending time in prison we suppose.

Ban Falling Objects!

Not only do you have to look left, right, front and back around here, now you have to look up:

• A 50-year-old man was killed Friday morning when a car he was working under slipped off a jack and fell on him in the city's Archer Heights neighborhood.
  
  The man was working under a car on the 5200 block of South Archer Avenue when it slipped from a carjack and fell on top of him, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office. He was pronounced dead at 8:22 a.m. at the scene.
  
  
• A Chicago man died Saturday afternoon in Grant Park when a commercial-grade coffee machine he was setting up fell on him during preparation for the Bike the Drive event.
  
  
• A deer slams through the windshield of minivan filled with kids, and everyone walks away OK. CBS 2 [...] spoke to the mom behind the wheel.
  
  Heidi Conner and her four kids made it through an eight-hour road trip with only one stop — until something stopped them.
  
  “I’m driving, everything was fine. Boom, and I have a deer lying next to me in my car,” she says.

Hopefully, we don't start seeing attacks from alligators or mole-men.

Bodies Continue to Pile Up

6 more dead:

• Six people were killed and at least 20 others have been wounded in shootings across the city since Saturday afternoon.
  
  In the most recent fatal shooting, a 33-year-old man was killed in the Austin neighborhood.

Who's leading the homicide race anyway? We haven't seen a District breakdown recently.

Inside Job?

No one was watching this stash of expensive computer equipment?

• Burglars smashed windows of a West Side elementary school and nabbed 141 iPads valued at more than $70,000 early on Memorial Day.
  
  It happened just before 1 a.m. at Charles Hughes Elementary School in the 4200 block of West 15th in North Lawndale, according to police.
  
  Police were told at least two people shattered the glass of a window on the south side of the building. Police found another shattered window in a second-story room with safes strewn about, according to a police report.

"...safes"? As in multiple safes? And a pallet of unattended iPads? Something fishy here - where were the motion detector alarms that are always going off when a large cockroach runs down the hallway? And the remote cameras that CPS Security is always calling in when they can see the burglars running room to room? And these thieves had time to ransack multiple safes and spirit 141 boxes out a window?

Stop Making Sense

Here's an State's Attorney without much of a future ahead of him:

• A southwestern Illinois prosecutor says motorists along a stretch of Interstate 64 don't need to pay speeding tickets resulting from law-enforcement cameras because the fine-collection process isn't legal.
  
  St. Clair County State's Attorney Brendan Kelly tells the Belleville News-Democrat he doesn't have qualms with the cameras being used in East St. Louis to catch speeding motorists.
  
  But Kelly says the citations don't conform in format, size or content to Illinois Supreme Court requirements. And he isn't sure why the alleged infractions are classified as non-moving violations.

Follow the rules? Where does this guy think he's working? Rules are for suckers. And Illinois is full of suckers you know. Mr. Kelly ought to be careful lest he get drafted to run for higher office and actually try to straighten out this crooked state.

Memorial Day

Remembering the Fallen.

Be safe today ladies and gents.

Michael Myers Meets CPD

Paramedics respond to a call of a person stabbed - and happen upon the offender:

• A Chicago Police officer shot and killed a man threatening paramdics and police with a knife Saturday night in Englewood, Chicago Police said.
  
  Officers responded to an emergency assistance call from the Chicago Fire Department about 11:25 p.m. in the 7200 block of South Racine Avenue after paramedics were confronted by a man wielding a knife, according to a statement from police.
  
  When the officers arrived, 62-year-old Michael Myers charged at the officers with the knife, and an officer shot him, according to police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

Michale Myers is susceptible to bullets? Haddonfield, Illinois could have avoided a lot of trouble if they had just lit him up back in 1978. Of course, that would have ended the particularly profitable film series prematurely.

California Shooting Myths

The leftist trolls are out in full force, here and elsewhere, posting their anti-gun screeds after a psycho ran amok once again. Here's a few things they aren't telling/posting to any site that will listen:

• he killed 7 people - if you count him;
• he killed sorority girls - actually, he killed 4 men and 2 women;
• he shot everyone - fact is he stabbed his 3 housemates, all guys.
• he needed psychiatric care - he was under the care of one of California's top head shrinkers.
• there were no warning signs - there were plenty. His parents even had police come out to the house and interview him, they were that worried. He wrote in his manifesto that he thought at that point the gig was up and he was about to be committed. Didn't happen and his planning continued.

There are also persistent rumors that he suffered from Asperger Syndrome, depression and was using similar medications to other mass murderers. We're sure that will be explored at greater length as the investigation continues. Also, he filled his down-time with ....wait for it.... violent video games (the next scapegoat of the nanny state).

California is touted as having some of the strictest gun laws in the country. They also have very specific laws that involuntarily commit people who are adjudged to be mentally unstable and force them to take medications. Yet this asshole passed three different background checks when he bought his three guns and broadcast his intent weeks or more in advance via YouTube, but no one stopped him.

So to any and all trolls surfing this way, stop. Your posts aren't going to see the light of day here. Do you really want to make this guy your poster child? Have you even read his rantings?

• “the ultimate evil behind sexuality is the human female.”
• women “think like beasts” and “should not have the right to choose who to mate and breed with.”
• felt that he should be Earth’s “divine ruler,” where he would quarantine all women in concentration camps and then starve them to death.

Sounds to us like more women need to be armed for the next asshole like this who comes knocking.

From the "...as predicted..." File

Pardon our laughter:

• North Carolina restaurant The Pit was robbed at gunpoint on Sunday. Normally, local crime stories like this wouldn't merit a Townhall post, but this one is different: The Pit has a "no weapons" sign displayed prominently on its door declaring the restaurant a gun-free zone, and bans patrons from carrying concealed weapons.

This is just the latest in a string of robberies at businesses displaying "no guns" signs:

• In the two weeks since Jack in the Box told customers they weren’t welcome inside the fast-food restaurants with their legally carried firearms, robbers carrying guns for illegal purposes have burst in to rob three of the eateries.
  
  Just this week, four armed men held up a Houston, TX Jack in the Box, also robbing individual patrons of their personal belongings, according to police.
  
  The two other incidents? A second in Houston, a third in Tennessee, where people were reportedly shot by gun-wielding criminals.

It's a good thing Chicago doesn't have any Jack-in-the-Box restaurants - it saves McStreetlights having to lie about the robbery rate some more.

Some People Just Don't Get It

Touching on a few of the comments left in the "Wait...We Worked...For Free?" post yesterday:

• We're routinely deleting the nonsense about "scabs" and "VRI whores" now. We've explained the definition of scab, and very few people are in any position to dictate how/why people spend their days off working extra - the opportunity is there, do what you will.

Then we have a few like these:

• Expel them from the union? You're nuts.
  
  
• Yeah SCC... Let me give up $300 to "punish" the city... And then get dumped by the FOP? Does that mean I get to keep my dues? Win/Win

Well. let's see - you've already given up the $300 to the city. They aren't paying you for 30 days. What if the next fuck-up is remedied in 60 days? 90 days? When is enough enough? When does the city live by the rules that you are expected to follow without fail? Remember, if you fail, you have to pay with comp time or a suspension, and in very short order.

As to the expulsion threat, how would you do it? This department has become splintered. It's been said here for years - no one sticks together. Everyone has their own interests, we get that. However, when something like this comes up, something that the city could use (is using?) in a less than benevolent manner to fuck with people, there has to be a line drawn somewhere. This is the perfect opportunity to draw that line and get everyone on board. How else do you enforce "party discipline" on the rank-and-file? The only thing stopping us is us, so why not force the issue?

Another "Free Ride"

Might as well get 'em started early:

• A measure to help Chicago school children get a free ride to and from school if they live in special Safe Passage routes through high crime areas is gaining steam at the Capitol. Sponsoring Sen. Kimberly Lightford, D-Maywood, said the legislation would set up a system to provide parents with a reimbursement to pay someone to drive the children.
  
  Reimbursements could go to a driver, such as a parent or neighbor, willing to take neighborhood children to schools, Lightford said.

Great. Free breakfast, free lunch, toss in the free rent, free utilities, free phones, free money. Why not free rides to school, even though the article admits there hasn't been a single incident on an actual Safe Passage route? The only thing the media can even remotely connect to Safe Passage is an Aggravated Criminal Sexual Assault that happened blocks away in the early morning hours before Safe Passage was even in effect. But why should that stop a broke state government from giving away more nonexistent money?

Thank Goodness!

We wondered when some politician was going to do something about this out-of-control criminal activity!

• Arguing that there are “a lot of weirdos roaming around,” Chicago aldermen moved Friday to close a local legal loophole that opens the door to an insidious practice known as “upskirting”: using a cellphone camera to secretly take video or photographs up a woman’s skirt or down her blouse.
  
  The Finance Committee approved the crackdown at the behest of two powerful aldermen—Finance Committee Chairman Edward Burke (14th) and Education Committee Chairman Latasha Thomas (17th).

What would we do without the Finance Committee stepping up to the plate? This needs IMMEDIATE attention you know:

• Thomas acknowledged that she knows of no “specific instances” of upskirting in Chicago. But she’s not about to wait around for it, either. Not with entire websites devoted to the term.
  
  “I was shocked to have state supreme courts saying you don’t have a privacy right when someone takes a picture under your skirt. Just to make sure there’s no question in Chicago, we went on and did that,” Thomas said.

Nothing like anticipating the problem and doing something about it - even in the absence of a problem...or a single instance of the problem. And pay no attention to this contrary article by the Tribune:

• But an Illinois state law that went into effect in 2005 makes it a crime punishable by jail or prison time to videotape or transmit live video “under or through the clothing” of another person “for the purpose of viewing the body of or the undergarments worn by that other person without the person’s consent.”
  
  The ordinance proposed by Burke and Thomas has identical language, but instead of carrying potential time behind bars only allows for a fine of up to $500.

So the aldercreatures write an identical law for something that might happen one day and drop the penalty from prison to $500 bucks.That's fucking BRILLIANT!

Now how about passing something concerning Chicago's inability to pay its pension obligations, which by the way, are required by Ordinance, Contract and State Law.

Wait...We Worked....for Free?

Well, maybe not "free,"but something isn't right:

• It has come to [the FOPS's] attention that members who worked the Chicago Park District Overtime Initiative were not properly compensated for dates worked during the month of April. The Lodge is aware of the problem and is actively working with the Department and the City of Chicago to rectify this issue as quickly as possible. We will post an update to the website once there is any type of resolution to this unfortunate situation. In the meantime, we ask you to retain record of any and all dates/times you have worked this program.

And the resolution appears to be, "We're sorry, it'll never happen again. We pinky swear!"

• The Chicago Police Department contacted the Lodge this morning to notify us that the Officers that were not compensated for the Chicago Park District Overtime initiative can expect to be paid on 22 June 2014. We at the Lodge understand the frustration this has caused our membership and have already begun a dialogue with the City to ensure this unacceptable oversight will not occur again.

So everyone will be paid a month late. Great.

Now how about sanctions against the City for fucking up? Some sort of penalty so they remember the importance of paying people on time. Because we all know what would happen it one of us "forgot" to pay a ticket or sent in a rubber-check for a water bill. We'd be looking at a bit of time to catch up on yard work on no-pay status. But the City can fuck us with impunity and suffer no consequences? Hello FOP??

Here's a bright idea - demand double pay for everyone who missed a check. Or better yet, have the FOP declare no members can work VRI until the City make whole the missed checks. It's not a job action because this is voluntary special employment. Someone works it anyway, expel them from the Lodge. No one working VRI for a week and the CompStat computers might just explode along with Rahm's head.

HeyJackass.com Comes Through

Ask and you shall receive:

• W.H. Thompson said...You're right on SCC.
  
  April: 8.8 shot per day
  May: 8.5 shot per day
  2014: 5.2 shot per day 

We thought it felt like an 8-a-day-May.

Someone else posted that murders were down double digits for May 2014 vs May 2103, so prepare yourself for the inevitable back patting a week from Sunday. Then go read those Chicago Magazine articles earlier this week and realize that McCarthy and Rahm tout the stat that makes them look best - homicides are down, but no mention of 8 people a day getting lit up. Major crime indices are down, but we're counting Burglaries as Thefts and Sex Assaults as Simple Batteries. Pay no attention to the men behind the curtains!

Darwin Strikes Again

Remember that guy who ran into a lamppost while attempting to escape and ride the lightning at the same time? He proved you can't:

• A man has died two weeks after police used a Taser on him as he was arrested in the Old Town Triangle neighborhood.
  
  Dominique Franklin Jr., 23, who had lived in the 21000 block of Olivia Avenue in Sauk Village, was pronounced dead at Northwestern Memorial Hospital at 4:49 p.m. Tuesday, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office.
  
  Franklin was taken to Northwestern in critical condition on May 7 after a police officer used a Taser while trying to arrest him for retail theft about 12:10 a.m. in the 200 block of West North Avenue, authorities said.
  
  Witnesses said Franklin had just broken free after a struggle with the officer on the sidewalk and was starting to run away when the officer used his Taser. Franklin fell against a light pole after the officer Tased him, three witnesses said that morning, each declining to give their names.
  
  He was taken by ambulance to Northwestern and later charged with two counts of resisting a peace officer and one felony count of retail theft. Franklin was also arrested on a warrant.
  
  An autopsy is scheduled for today.

Stupid is as stupid does. A record a mile long, an outstanding warrant, and now a poster child for Amnesty International, the ACLU or some other such lefty organization with any sort of anti-police bias. Now pardon us while we snort into our beer.

Oh, and the latest Tribune headline for this waste of space and oxygen?

• Man dies after Chicago police use Taser during arrest

Again, the Taser didn't kill him and neither did the police. Bad judgement and physics ended his pathetic existence. Post that you media jagoffs.

CFD Shortage, Too?

What kind of world do we live in where you can't even suspend paramedics?

• Neighbor stated that CFD paramedics are so short he and others are working every other day and all disciplinary penalties are not being enforced until the end of the year. 

Gee, it's almost like 8 people a day are getting shot or something.

It's Official - We're Shorthanded

And it only took a lawsuit to discover this:

• Far from the hustle and bustle of Chicago, the Illinois Supreme Court considers a constitutional challenge of the legality of red light cameras.
  
  At Wednesday's hearing, plaintiffs say Chicago City Hall began using the cameras before the Illinois General Assembly gave it the legal authority to do so. At issue: red light cameras are only allowed in eight counties- not the entire state and plaintiffs wonder if a camera's still photo can replace a cop in issuing moving violations.

And the testimony by a City Attorney?

• "The law enforcement resources for addressing those red lights is not up to par," Kerrie Maloney Laytin, Chicago Asst. Corporation, said.
  
  "Did the attorney for the city really go on the record to say the City of Chicago doesn't have enough cops to enforce its traffic laws? Twice she said that," Don Brandsford, Citizens to Abolish Red Light Cameras, said.

Well....can we get down to hiring now?

How Many per Day?

Once again, it seems we're averaging about 8 shot per day:

• One man is dead and seven other people were injured in separate daytime shootings today, police said.

Of course, this was only during daylight Wednesday. Perhaps our buddies over at HeyJackass.com can run an average per day for April and May 2014? Maybe it isn't quite 8.

DUI Checkpoints Go VRI

This certainly doesn't seem like the intended purpose of a DUI mission:

• Per Deputy Chief Georgous (pardon spelling, no idea who this guy is),the DUI Saturation overtime cars have been assigned "zones" or "boxes". Per the Deputy, we must stay in this box at all times and basically have the same rules as VRI.
  
  This program is funded by the State of Illinois with the hopes of numerous DUI arrests each night. I am all for time and a half, the Deputy just made my job that much easier. Just hope the funding remains as the DUI's plummet.

So Illinois is inadvertently funding a portion of VRI by paying officers to sit in boxes all night.

We suppose it isn't the Department's fault if there aren't any busy streets with taverns nearby to actually hunt DUI's on and it certainly can't be the Officer's fault that they're nailed to a certain location and not out actively hunting drunk drivers.

We'd certainly like to see who picked the spots the DUI Team is supposed to be working - are these spots known for drunk driving accidents? Or just shootings?

Vice Copper Stripped

From that video people are talking about:

• Chicago police placed a veteran officer on paid desk duty on Monday -- the same day a security video was made public allegedly showing him striking a female manager of a massage parlor during a vice raid last summer.
  
  Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy, who made the disclosure Tuesday, defended the department’s training but promised to hold officers accountable for misconduct.
  
  “It’s obviously behavior that we do not condone and we’re not going to tolerate in this department,” McCarthy said at a press conference on an unrelated topic.

Well, we're not going to tolerate it after it's been made public after nearly a year, is what he means.

Once again, someone acting like it's the 1970's, 60's or 50's and cameras aren't everywhere. This sort of thing should have stopped after Abbate. Or Cozzi. Or Howard. One slap, mistake or not, in the heat of the moment or not, is going to sink your career and tarnish the reputation of the Department for years to come. Over what is essentially a "rub-and-tug" joint. Brilliant.

Silly Job, But Still Part of the Job

Would you answer the door?

• SCC,
  
  Your not gonna believe this but SWAT has been handed lists of Persons of Interest on the west and south side and we have been ordered to knock on the gang bangers door and basically tell him that we are concerned for his well being. I won't do it. It's a violation of the poor gang banger 's civil rights. All of SWAT has been told to patrol the ghetto. I wonder if the terrorists are going attack Englewood.

Is this an efficient use of manpower? No, not really. It doesn't pay to have SWAT personnel and their equipment doing "house checks" on gang bangers just to show we care. That's more of a job for exempts, like Barb West, to do.

However, SWAT is an arm of the police department. If McCarthy and his pack of trained monkeys decide that this is what SWAT will do, then SWAT will do it, period. We've seen SWAT on Safe Passage routes and we've heard they're under orders to generate some kinds of numbers for whatever reason. It is what it is, no one got drafted for SWAT. There's always a beat car to push if it's that hard to follow orders.

Darn Those Cameras

Guess who else doesn't appear to obey the law?

• In an Eyewitness News exclusive, another high profile politician's SUV is caught by Chicago's speed cameras. It comes after we first revealed Mayor Rahm Emanuel's motorcade racked up nearly two dozen red light and speed camera tickets.
  
  The I-Team tracked Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle's vehicle and went to the city's website to see whether the president's personal protectors follow the same rules as the rest of us. Her vehicle has been cited for speeding more often than the mayor's cars. His cars had more red light tickets. And like the mayor, her official vehicle has so many violations, it's eligible for the boot.

Unlike Rahm though, Preckwinkle's people actually paid two of the tickets. Two! That must mean she's eligible to be mayor.

Part Two of Chicago Crime Stat Coverup

Chicago Magazine has posted the second part of their series on how the Chicago Police Department manipulates statistics to make it appear that crime rates are falling faster than is actually possible.

Part one dealt with (mis)counting homicides.

Part two deals with lesser crimes - break-ins, car thefts, muggings, sexual assaults and such. The article cites numerous instances of "reclassification" by name, date and/or instance, mostly occurring in the 019 District. The article is precisely like part one, lengthy, detailed and damning. The amount of crime "washed and rinsed" is incredible.

Eli Silverman and John Eterno, authors of the 2012 book The Crime Numbers Game: Management by Manipulation, make a couple appearances in the article. If we recall correctly, Eterno was a Captain in the NYPD and part of the team that created CompStat. Silverman says, “It’s like they wrote the script here [in New York], and you guys [in Chicago] took it.” The article also cites Chicago's long history of falsifying crime stats, from the 1920's to the Crime Commission hearings of the late 1950's to 1982's Pam "not a troll" Zekman's report on "Killing Crime."

We can't even sample this article. As large as it is, it would be a disservice to the writers who have done an excellent job once again, compiling and dissecting the tidal wave of numbers coming out of 35th Street and City Hall that do nothing but distort and obscure reality. The math alone in this piece....tens of thousands of crimes wiped off the books....it's jaw dropping. Even we had a hard time believing the blatant lies being foisted on the citizens, and we've been receiving bits and pieces of it in our comments, e-mails and posting for almost nine years now.

Chicago has a crime problem. It was being reduced, maybe 2 and 3% a year for the past decade. Then economic realities came to the fore and hiring stopped, promotions froze, a new mayor came in and a reduction in force was inflicted upon the Department. It is now clear that numbers probably crept upward a bit, but all the "statistics" coming out the politicians were of "double-digit" reductions month after month after month. We joked about "owing crime to the future." This article shows it wasn't a joke at all, but a deliberate attempt to achieve a political end and innocent Chicagoans are paying a price.

Arrests versus ANOV's

Stories in both papers yesterday about how weed ANOV's just aren't taking off like politicians hoped they would and how Cannabis arrests are still more likely than a ticket being issued:

• Sun Times - Instead of giving out tickets, Chicago police more often than not arrest people for possession of a small amount of marijuana, according to a study released Monday by Roosevelt University’s Illinois Consortium on Drug Policy.
  
  Researchers found that 93 percent of misdemeanor marijuana possession violations in 2013 resulted in arrest in Chicago.
  
  That despite the city’s 2012 ordinance that allows for tickets to be issued for small amounts of marijuana possession.
  
  
• Tribune - Two years after marijuana possession became a ticketable offense, arresting people with a few grams of the drug remains a bad habit for law enforcement, drug policy researchers said Monday at a Roosevelt University symposium.
  
  Cook County has the highest rate of marijuana arrests anywhere in the U.S., according to a study released Monday by Roosevelt’s Illinois Consortium on Drug Policy. In 2013, there were nearly 16,000 arrests in Chicago for possession of marijuana and only 1,100 tickets issued.

These reports preempt an upcoming article in The Reader that will show that will show Cannabis arrests disproportionally affect ...wait for it....black people! That's right - Cannabis arrests are racist. This also explains the orders from downtown that have turned entire Tactical Teams into ANOV generators in an effort to blunt (pun intended) the numbers by writing....wait for it again....MORE black people! This will even out the numbers of white folks (or people) who manage to get ANOV's instead of spending hours in the lockup.

The entire ANOV process is cumbersome and keeps you off the street longer than a regular weed arrest does, but McCompStat wants ANOV's, so that's what is being pushed.

Expensive Chickens

Are there any adults in Springfield at all?

• Our cash-strapped state government has found a new use for its fleet of aircraft – flying birds into Illinois.
  
  [...] State aircraft are flying to Kansas and transporting prairie chickens back to the Land of Lincoln.
  
  And at a time state lawmakers are looking at raising the state income tax, Illinois state employees have been hiking across Kansas trapping these chickens.
  
  [...] State pilots have flown between Illinois and Kansas not once, not twice but 14 times this year taking prairie chickens to downstate Jasper and Marion counties.

And how much is this costing Illinois taxpayers?

• The feds are chipping in $337,000 toward the program and the state will pay $117,000. Some of the cost to state government may be offset by private fundraising done by the Audubon Society, Simpson said.
  
  That puts the total cost of the program at $455,000 for the next three years.

And they've relocated 91 birds total - that's $1,166 per bird. Birds that could be lured back to Illinois by setting up protected habitats....they could even fly themselves here. Meanwhile, there's no money for important things, like pensions.

2 and 24

Pending any further updates:

• Two men were killed and at least 24 other people have been injured in shootings across Chicago since Friday night.
  
  The most recent fatal shooting happened about 11:30 p.m. Saturday in the East Garfield Park neighborhood on the West Side.

So 26 total shot - how did the Cubs base runners do? We heard they won a couple games, but we were watching other things. How did the Sox do? Maybe combined they came close to the shooting totals?

Fathers' Day Mass

Once again, the Chaplains making that special effort for our fallen fathers:

• CPD FATHERS' DAY MASS AT GOLD STAR MEMORIAL AND PARK - 10:00 A.M. SUNDAY, 15 JUN 2014
  
  ALL ACTIVE AND RETIRED CPD MEMBERS, CHAPLAINS MINISTRY SUPPORTERS AND FAMILIES ARE WELCOME
  
  Mass will be finished by 10:30 a.m. for the sake of on-duty worshippers
  
  While this is a Catholic Mass, ALL are welcome to come and honor dads whose names are inscribed on the walls of the memorial
  
  Bring lawn chair / blanket ... and if you wish, food for picnic lunch after Mass
  
  IN CASE OF INCLEMENT WEATHER, call Fr. Dan Brandt, CPD Chaplain, at 773/550-2369 for status
  
  Ample free parking adjacent to site
  
  Fr. Dan Brandt
  CPD Chaplain

Mark the date.

Hydrants for Scrap

There has to be an easier way to make a living:

• Two Chicago men face felony charges after they were caught trying to steal fire hydrants Saturday morning in the Gresham neighborhood, prosecutors said today.
  
  Ned D. Carradine, 50, and Russell L. Mack, 51, each face criminal damage to government property and theft of government property charges in connection to the incident, which took place in the 8500 block of South Loomis Boulevard, according to Cook County court records.
  
  Police responded to a theft in progress call and found Carradine, a South Shore resident, and Mack, of Longwood Manor, in the process of attempting to put one of the hydrants in a vehicle, according to court records.
  
  The two already had “unauthorized control” of a second hydrants, court records state.

Scrap iron goes for about $0.08 per pound, meaning a typical 500 pound hydrant (that retails for about $2,000) will get you $45 tops, if you can find a yard that will take an obviously stolen piece of city equipment.

More Sergeants?

Once again, Tracy Ladner strikes.

It seems that Ladner had her people purge the Personnel Files downtown. And part of the purges included college transcripts showing people were eligible for promotion. Why someone would remove those portions of the Personnel Files - essentially your "permanent record - is beyond us.

Ladner presided over a system that had a bad habit of flagging people with military backgrounds and police family backgrounds as being "psyched off" of the hiring lists. This has been or is currently the subject of at least one lawsuit that we heard of, maybe more. And we've gotten rumblings of the same "coincidences" happening over at County where Ladner currently is hiding.

One has to wonder if these Officers were passed over for any of the recent classes due to Ladner's incompetence (or deliberate efforts), thereby missing out on months, even years of seniority and raises. That's provable damages and, once again, throws the entire testing processes into doubt.

Congratulations to the seven names on the amended list, and we certainly hope that someone is looking into this entire process to ensure that seven, ten, a dozen or many dozen more haven't been affected by the blatant incompetence on display once again - incompetence that we and our readers railed against and pointed out more than once before all of this hit the fan.

Outfit Connections?

In Chicago? In politics? (Tribune password needed - or Google the headline)

• John Bills fits right in to the world of colorful characters who do the heavy lifting for Chicago politicians every election — raising donations, knocking on doors and delivering all of the vote.
  
  But in Bills' case, the colors have often been a bit brighter. A South Side native, his family history is dotted with connections to organized crime. A huge White Sox fan, he got a job with the club, celebrated the World Series victory on the field with players and still sports a replica championship ring.
  
  A veteran political worker for House Speaker Michael Madigan, he earned a reputation as a top fundraiser and vote-getter in the vaunted 13th Ward Democratic Organization who fell in and out of favor with his boss and with fellow precinct captains who turned to him when they couldn't make their numbers.
  
  Federal investigators last week painted another picture of Bills, as the linchpin in a decadelong corruption scheme that brought red light cameras to Chicago.

Gee, the Outfit-involved connections in politics and connected companies making money off taxpayers. The Tribune is careful not to say that the Mob is actually running Chicago as a sideline to their other "legitimate" businesses, but they are definitely pointing out that yet again, another person on the periphery of the Organized Crime circles seems to be in a position of ...maybe not actual power to direct things, but certainly close enough to nudge or steer things to benefit other figures who can keep the light out of the shadows. Friends of Friends perhaps.

Sleeping on the Job

Not a good way to be a burglar:

• A burglar who broke into the Norwood Park home of a Chicago Police detective was heard talking to the family's dog before responding officers found him sleeping in the ransacked living room clutching a broken Kindle Fire, prosecutors said.
  
  Wondale Collier, 30, broke into the detective's Norwood Park home early Friday morning, according to a police report.
  
  The detective was not home, but his wife awoke to the sound of a strange man's voice talking to their dog, prosecutors said.

And in case anyone north side readers were thinking this was someone just passing through, nope - he's local:

• [...] Collier, of the 5900 block of West Eastwood Avenue in Jefferson Park, appeared briefly in court Thursday and was ordered held in lieu of $100,000 bail.

Section 8? Another one of Daley's legacies - scattered site ruination of stable neighborhoods.

Interesting Question

One of the cards in the comment section had a humorous question:

• Will there be more Cubs left on base this weekend or people shot?

Well, we'd have to count a weekend as three games (Fri/Sat/Sun), just to make it fair - 30 base runners in a weekend isn't that rare for the Northsiders.

Yesterday, the Cubs had a big number to live up to:

• A 32-year-old man was fatally shot this afternoon in afternoon shootings that left nine others wounded across the city today.
  
  All except for two shootings happened between 70th and 79th streets on the city’s South Side, and the people shot ranged in age from 15 to 50.

Well, at least McCompStat knows where the violence boxes ought to be next week.

Hey Look - Snow

Not the latest snow on record, but close:

• April showers are supposed to bring May flowers, but Friday morning it was more like May flurries.
  
  Snow was reported in “too many towns to count” in the northern and northwestern regions, including Hoffman Estates, Wonder Lake, Lincolnshire and Lake Zurich, National Weather Service Meteorologist Amy Seeley said.
  
  The flakes started falling about 5 a.m., thanks to a combination of cool overnight temperatures in the 30s and 40s and a low-pressure system, the weather service said.

And does weather affect crime?

• Chicago police have launched a homicide investigation after a 38-year-old man was found dead in an Austin alley of apparent head trauma. In addition there were at least five other people shot in the city Thursday into Friday morning, officials said.

Evidently, it just slows it down a little bit.

A New Disease

Is there anything medical science can't do? Or diagnose? Or excuse?

• In the inner city, a health problem is making it harder for young people to learn. The Centers for Disease Control said 30 percent of inner city kids suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
  
  The CDC said these children often live in virtual war zones. Doctors at Harvard said they actually suffer from a more complex form of PTSD that some call “hood disease.”
  
  Unlike soldiers, children in the inner city never leave the combat zone. They often experience trauma, repeatedly.

Once again, it's nobody's fault - society is to blame!

Obama Getting Ripped Off

Someone ought to mention this to the prez:

• President Barack Obama lists assets worth between $1.95 million and $7.15 million, of which $1 million to $5 million were in Treasury notes, according to financial disclosure forms released on Thursday.
  
  [...] The president reported a 30-year mortgage of between $500,000 and $1 million on his Chicago residence at a 5.625 percent interest rate. He has retirement plans from the Illinois General Assembly and the University of Chicago.

And the vice-president::

• Vice President Joe Biden reported assets of between about $230,000 and $850,000. He is entitled to a $230,700 salary.
  
  [...] Biden's liabilities include a mortgage of between $500,000 and $1 million at a 3.375 percent interest rate and a home equity line of credit of between $250,000 and $500,000.

The VP is paying two-and-a-quarter points less on his mortgage rate than the president? This has got to be some bogus bank racism of some sort. Hasn't anyone explained how easy it is to re-fi the Obama home? Is Tony Rezko available to handle/fix this obvious oversight?

Well This is Gross

Once again, a new(er) police station with "top-notch" construction that in any other city, would result in the building inspectors and health department shutting it down and declaring it "uninhabitable."

Welcome to the First District:

Yes, that's sewage and human waste. According to the letter, these plumbing problems have been ongoing for months, the building smells, and lord knows what's growing on the floors and dripping down the walls below. The FOP has been out taking pictures and preparing a safety grievance, but so has Facilities Management who has been notified on multiple occasions but who merely puts up a sign and waits for things to dry out.

Here's another picture that might get someone moving on this since they City doesn't seem to care about coppers working in these conditions:

QUICK!!! The prisoners are in danger of having human waste dripping on them from the coppers' bathroom! It's almost like the police are torturing the prisoners!!! Call Amnesty International!!! Brutality!!!!!

Hey? Maybe JJJr could clean up here as part of his sentence - he's getting pretty good at this we heard (see post below this one.)

Term Limits versus Money

Madigan had his own attorney file a suit to stop a referendum on term-limits from appearing on the ballot. God forbid that Illinois voters actually have a voice in ending the ingrained corruption of this cesspool.

Now comes word that in case the lawsuit fails, Madigan is going to bump the term-limit referendum with a blatant play that flies in the face of economic realities:

• House Speaker Michael Madigan has teed up a proposal that would put on the November ballot an advisory referendum that would ask voters whether the state’s minimum wage should be increased to $10 an hour by Jan. 1, a move that could help drive Democratic voters to the polls.
  
  Both Gov. Pat Quinn and President Barack Obama have called for increases in the minimum wage. It’s an issue that provides a stark contrast for a re-election-seeking Quinn and other Democrats this fall as they get behind helping low-income workers while Republican Party standard-bearer, multimillionaire Bruce Rauner, has stumbled on the topic.
  
  A big vote in favor of the increasing the state’s current $8.25-an-hour rate also could stiffen the backbones of lawmakers who fear business opponents who argue the price tag is too high.

Madigan's purpose here is two fold - get the "low information" voters to the polls who don't understand Economics 101 and save the jobs of career politicians by bumping a referendum that has a better than average chance of passing. The fact that it would further damage the Illinois economy by jacking up prices across the board and driving out thousands more jobs doesn't seem to concern him in the least.

Great Job JJJr

At least he's learning a skill:

• Disgraced former congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. can’t be accused of having idle hands while he serves his prison sentence for corruption charges. Jackson has become quite adept at scrubbing toilets, showers and sinks, according to a letter from a fellow inmate obtained by NBC 5.
  
  The letter was part of a package sent by Jackson to the Obama administration seeking pardons for all ex-offenders. John Karoly, a former attorney from Pennsylvania who served time with Jackson at the Federal Correction Center in Butner, N.C. before Jackson was transferred to an Alabama prison in March, wrote Jackson did a “fastidious job” making that porcelain shine.

While one could make the case that the sins of the father (Jesse threatening to cut off Obama's nuts) are visited upon the son in this case, it's amusing that JJJr is pinning a large part of his hopes for redemption on that very same individual. You missed a spot Junior.

Honor Guard in DC

Looks like the CPD Honor Guard is bringing home a trophy from Police Week in Washington DC:

Very well done Officers and congratulations.

Rahm Welcomes Dissent

Hey Lt. DH - take note:

• Contrary to recent allegations by several Chicago Public Schools principals that they’re being silenced, Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Wednesday that he welcomes ideas and even criticism from principals.
  
  Emanuel said he has even implemented some of their ideas, responding to the latest complaints that his administration tries to control the message. Blaine Elementary School principal Troy LaRaviere accused Emanuel’s administration of silencing principals in an op-ed published in the Chicago Sun-Times on Saturday. Several of the hundreds of CPS principals have signed their names to comments on LaRaviere’s blog, troylaraviere.blogspot.com, and at www.Catalyst-Chicago.org, expressing similar concerns.
  
  “If a principal has a concern or an idea, [schools chief Barbara Byrd-Bennett’s] attitude, my attitude is, ‘We want to hear about it if there are concerns,’ ” Emanuel said at an unrelated announcement in Bronzeville, where he he took reporters’ questions for the first time since Saturday.

We would assume that Rahm's love of "ideas and even criticism" would apply equally to all members of City government. As this blog has suggested and achieved more than a few fixes for things, it can be concluded that we're fulfilling Rahm's wishes on some level.

So instead of trying to "get rid of the blog," why don't you waste time on something else? Like the out of control property crime rate, the rising number of shootings and keeping the homicide rate from topping last year by hiding a few more.

What Part of "Broke" Don't You Understand?

Knowing Rahm, he'll probably approve this:

• An ambitious $177 million proposal to overhaul the lakefront from Olive Park to North Avenue Beach includes creating a new offshore island, straightening the S-curve and burying part of Lake Shore Drive underground.
  
  The plan, presented at a community meeting in Streeterville earlier this week by architecture firmVOA Associates, also calls for expanding beaches at Ohio and Oak streets and adding 60 acres of parkland to the lakefront.

Maybe if the FOP asked for a brand new ten-story building, a 500-car parking garage, a small stadium and a double-decked Washington Blvd., Rahm would approve it and the FOP could skim the $600 million off the construction contracts via short pours and ghost loads of asphalt to pay for our pensions.

Crooked Poilitics? In Chicago?

Who'd have thunk it?

• Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown’s husband has been hit with a federal subpoena asking him to appear before a grand jury as part of an investigation into a state anti-violence program.
  
  [...] It’s a sign that federal authorities, who already have requested documents from two state agencies regarding Gov. Pat Quinn’s troubled Neighborhood Recovery Initiative, are taking a closer look at Cook’s role in receiving grant money from the program.
  
  It’s the second, ongoing probe into Cook that is also looking at how monies were dispensed from the $54 million anti-violence program.
  
  The other is a state grand jury investigation that is in part looking at a piece of property Cook and Brown received for free from a Brown political donor, then sold for $100,000.

Two investigations? Looks like Dorothy Brown has outlived her usefulness to the Machine.

And an actual indictment for the red-light camera scam:

• The former City Hall manager who ran Chicago’s red-light camera program was arrested today on federal charges related to the investigation of an alleged $2 million bribery scheme involving the city’s longtime vendor, Redflex Traffic Systems.
  
  A federal complaint filed in U.S. District Court today accused John Bills of taking money and other benefits related to the contract with Redlfex. Mayor Rahm Emanuel fired the company amid the bribery scandal.

So....who can this guy throw under the bus to spare himself up to 10 years in the penitentiary? No honor among thieves and all that - this guy appears to be an outsider who hired a Chicago friend/consultant who actually ran the bribery scheme (an un-indicted co-conspirator so far) and funneled the $2 million around. Ten years is a lot of incentive even if his lawyers says he won't cooperate. And the feds don't lose these cases.

Crime Will Be Down

Twelve shot last night in a short stretch:

• At least a dozen people were shot between Monday afternoon and early this morning on Chicago's West and South sides, including four men wounded in the Little Village neighborhood, police said.

That's a sizable number for a Monday night. But don't worry - Tommy Skilling says we'll be in the 50 degree range for the next few days.

Not that weather has anything to do with crime.

High 60's - low 70's for the weekend though.

Car Jackings in Streeterville

Isn't this considered a nice part of town? Affluent even?

• Chicago police are searching for two men suspected in a string of carjackings in Chicago’s Streeterville neighborhood.
  
  The latest incident took place around 8:30 a.m. Monday in the 300 block of East Illinois Street.
  
  A man told NBC Chicago he had just gotten into his Jeep Grand Cherokee to head to a meeting when a man with a ski mask and a gun began hitting his window.

Luckily he got a good look at the carjacker:

• “Something inside me told me to run after him,” he said. “Somehow I caught up to him, window down, ski mask off, and got a very good identification of the man. I feel confident that I would be able to pick him out if I needed to.”

We guess that it must be a secret though, because reading the entire Channel 5 article, there isn't a single description of the suspect who pistol-whipped the victim and threatened to kill him.

This is a Stretch

Someone trolling for publicity, hmmmm?

• It is a disturbing scene: an abandoned building where a longtime community activist and crime fighter says teenage girls were held against their will and forced into prostitution.

Oooooh, a crime fighter! Discovering an abandoned building where crime is taking place.

• Andrew Holmes is at many crime scenes but he’s especially passionate about this.
  
  He says teenage girls — runaways — were held captive and forced by pimps to have sex.
  
  How did he discover it? Holmes works for Morrison Investigations, a private detective agency. They got a tip about illegal activity that Holmes says points to human trafficking.

A tip? A clue! We didn't realize that when people see crime, they call a private (read "for profit") detective agency instead of the police. And this guy immediately leaps to the conclusion that Human Trafficking must be occurring!

• The agency did surveillance, and Holmes says last January he spotted a young girl dropped off at the abandoned building near 63rd and Kedzie.
  
  Holmes says by the time he walked through the other girls were gone.

Pro bono surveillance even - this must be a full service detective agency that can afford to do charity work on the side like this. This almost sides like an airtight case - one girl dropped off near an abandoned building, no one else even mentioned, no interviews done, no evidence collected. And everyone conveniently disappears like they never actually existed.

• The building owner, James Zar-Hall, says he had no idea it was happening, though he insists he checked the property at least once a month.
  
  “You can’t be somewhere 24/7,” he tells Williams.
  
  Zar-Hall was working to make the building more secure.

OF course he wants to make it more secure - you can't have accusations of Human Trafficking flying about without doing something to make your building more secure, you know? Thank goodness the police are involved!

• Holmes says the one girl was returned to her mother. No arrests have been made. Chicago police tell us they have no reports of such activity at the building but are reaching out to Holmes for more information.  

One girl. That no one knows the name of. Who hasn't told her story to authorities to rescue all these other girls missing and prostituted. In an unidentified building that could be within a few hundred yards of one of the busier intersections in the city. And no one else has noticed a thing.Or reported it to police, who have absolutely no record of anything of the sort.

This passes muster over at Channel 2 as "reporting."

Priceless

From the "Totally Predictable" file:

• The grandmother of a 15-year-old boy slain in the West Pullman neighborhood on Mother’s Day said her grandson died just like his father four years ago: gunned down on a Chicago street.
  
  “He went just like his father. He got shot twice,” Corliss Holeman, the boy’s paternal grandmother, said Monday in a telephone interview as she fought back tears. “I don't believe this. On Mother's Day.”

Sorry Grandma, your protestations of disbelief are a bit of a stretch. He was shot twice? After the first time, we could tell he was headed to an early end.

And guess who shot him?

• Witnesses thought the boy might have been shot by an occupant of a passing car that drove off heading east on 115th Street. But police said Monday evening that a 15-year-old boy who was standing outside with Holeman and fired shots at the vehicle was responsible for the fatal shot that struck him.
  
  [...] Police said Vaughn had pointed out the vehicle to the 15-year-old who then fired shots at the car, and one of the shots struck Holeman, said police.

Oops. Friendly fire.

Englewood, Oh Englewood

Always entertaining:

• A Good Samaritan rescued a 3-year-old boy from an SUV just before it burst into flames after crashing into a building in Englewood.

A good Samaritan in Englewood? Unusual enough in itself, but thank goodness he was there, otherwise, this kid burns to death.

Then it gets ...not funny, but typical Englewood-ish:

• The 3-year-old boy was riding in a stolen SUV that crashed into a vacant building in the 2000 block of West 59th Street shortly before midnight Sunday night.

Of course it was. We're pretty sure that most cars that crash into buildings at midnight are stolen. There really ought to be a study done.

Obviously, the 3-year-old wasn't driving - where was the "responsible" adult?

• Police said the driver fled the scene after the crash, leaving the boy to fend for himself inside the vehicle.

And mommy dearest?

• Officers have since located the child’s mother, and determined the SUV had been stolen. Police said she knows the person who took the SUV, but no one was in custody as of Monday morning.

Always let "dad" take junior out in a hot ride after midnight, run into buildings and then leave junior to take the heat..

Pick Your Numbers

Obviously, McMiscount can't tout the shooting numbers for April since they surpassed 2013 already. May isn't looking too good either. What's a number-spinner to do?

• Police Supt. Garry McCarthy will announce today that police have recovered more than 2,000 illegal guns in Chicago this year.
  
  McCarthy frequently touts the gun recovery efforts while reminding Chicagoans that he and Mayor Rahm Emanuel continue to press unsuccessfully for state lawmakers to enact the tougher gun laws they contend will help reduce violent crime.
  
  Gun violence in Chicago has garnered national attention during Emanuel's first term, and the mayor often makes the case that relatively lax Illinois gun laws are much of the problem.

"lax...gun laws?" Have either of these idiots read the law? Have they tried to purchase a firearm? Have they seen the paperwork Dart is trying to have everyone fill out tracking all gun sales - even private person-to-person sales and inherited firearms? Lax is the last thing we think of involving Illinois gun laws. In fact, didn't the Supreme Court recently strike down a few Illinois laws for being overly strict in violation of the Second Amendment to the Constitution? We're pretty sure they did.

But they can only tout the number that they think makes them look good. Even if it's a nonsense number.