Like Clockwork

The robbery on the Orange Line is falling perfectly within McCompStat's script:

• high profile event occurs;
• powers-that-be acknowledge the brazen event;
• counter with statistics that crime is really down

And right on schedule:

• Orange Line rider Jennifer Carter said she’s been frightened ever since she heard two armed men robbed a train car on that line earlier this week.
  
  Kathleen O’Donnell has instructed her teenage daughter to ride with friends and to keep her eyes open.
  
  But Luis Gaspar isn’t worried about more crime on the train line, which goes from the Loop to Midway Airport.
  
  “It’s not really frequent on the Orange Line,” he said. “This is uncommon.”
  
  Crime data shows just that.
  
  In the past 12 months, compared to the 12 months before that, overall crime on trains and at stations has been down on the Orange Line south of Roosevelt Road, according to Chicago Police Department data.

We're sure that's a great comfort to the riders who had a gun stuck in their faces along with the woman who got pistol-whipped. And the media (aside from Chicago Magazine) just accepts these numbers at face value despite knowing that the CPD numbers are pretty much pulled out of someone's ass.

We don't really care what they think McLiarLiarPantsOnFire says the numbers were last year. This year, two assholes climbed on a train and stuck it up between stations. And why did they feel so safe doing it? Because they rode the trains for a few hours, figured out where the cops weren't and pulled off the brazen holdup. No cops, no heat, no danger to them. Great system.