This Would Seem Important

As the Ferguson shooting recedes into the forgotten regions of the national memory, an innocent copper rots in prison based on.....

What? You mean there hasn't been a trial yet? There hasn't even been a Grand Jury yet? The investigation is ongoing? But we thought it had already been settled. "Gentle Giant" and all that media hooey. Case is set in stone, nothing to see here, cops are racist, move along, immigration, ISIS, Russia invades Ukraine, climate change! We've moved on, right?

Anyone see this story in the national news?

• Journalist Charles C. Johnson of Got News confirmed earlier this month that he was told by multiple St. Louis area authorities that Michael Brown had a substantial criminal record as a juvenile – including a second-degree murder charge.

 Golly. So a lawyer is now suing the State of Missouri to follow the laws of the State of Missouri and unseal the juvenile records:

• “What we’re arguing is that since he is deceased, those documents revert from being confidential,” Johnathon Burns said, “they revert back to the public sphere. Missouri common law applies, and under Missouri common law, court records and virtually all other documents are open to the public.

And there's precedent:

• Johnson wrote that, as part of the suit to gain access to Brown’s records, Burns is citing another case that bolsters his claim. In 1984, he explained, an 18-year-old was beaten and ultimately died after stealing a pack of cigarettes. During a subsequent wrongful death lawsuit, the victim’s parents pleaded for the court to keep his juvenile record private to no avail.

Imagine that. The investigation continues and isn't wrapped up in a neat little package like on TV. And the mainstream media, now that they're done savaging the cop's childhood, his parent's failures, broadcasting his address, the address of his girlfriend and at least one location that he might be seeking refuge, aren't interested at all in disturbing their carefully constructed narrative that conceals a giant, rage filled, strong-armed robber with impulse control problems who, in the not so distant past, seems to have collected a second-degree murder charge to go along with his gang membership.

Sorry "Pastor," It Ain't Working

"Pastor" Corey Brooks spent days...weeks even...asking gangbangers to put down their guns over the long holiday weekend. WH Thompson at HeyJackass.com informs us that this seems to have been a miserable failure:

• Pastor Brooks tweet of "72 hours No Murders the clock starts now!!!!! Projecthood.org" went out at 5:20p. The first shooting occurred at 7:05p and the first homicide was at 10:45p.
  
  For the bettors in the crowd, last Labor Day weekend (Fri 12p - Tues 6a) tallied 12 homicides and 27 others shot and wounded.

Gee, not even two hours. And the tally for Friday into Saturday?

• Two men were killed and at least 10 other people were wounded in shootings across the city since Friday evening.
  
  A man died Saturday, about five hours after he was shot and critically wounded on the Far South Side.

Two more nights to go.

Welcome to Chicago

Someone want to warn the tourists?

• Green Bay Police are waiting for more information from Chicago Police, about a Green Bay officer who was robbed while in Chicago.
  
  Lt. Paral, a Shift Commander with Green Bay Police, confirm the robbery happened in the uptown neighborhood of Chicago, when the officer’s car was broken into.
  
  Paral said the officer’s badge and gun were stolen from the car.
  
  Police say they're waiting to get the official report from the Chicago Police Department.

Burglary-to-Auto actually, downgraded to Theft via CompStat. Garry is trying to figure out how to blame this on Concealed Carry as we speak.

Blood in the Streets! Bodies Everywhere!

Remember when Garry said that Concealed Carry was going to lead to more death? That the answer wasn't "more guns"? As Bugs Bunny would say, "What a maroon!"

• Chicago’s crime rate dropped as concealed carry permits in the city have sky rocketed, The Washington Times reported. The number of robberies leading to arrests in Chicago declined 20 percent since last year’s police department statistics were released. Since July of 2013, residents with a clean background check and appropriate training all over Illinois could begin carrying concealed in the state.
  
  Despite Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy’s prediction that making Concealed Carry legal in Chicago would adversely affect the Windy City, the number of robberies that have led to arrests in Chicago has declined 20 percent from last year, according to police department statistics.
  
  “When people say concealed carry, I say Trayvon Martin,” McCarthy said to host Cliff Kelley on Chicago’s WVON-AM radio, a reference to the unarmed 17-year-old who was fatally shot last year by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman in Florida.
  
  McCarthy went on, “I say Trayvon Martin, because the answer to guns is not more guns, and just simply putting guns in people’s hands is going to lead to more tragedy.”

Chicago has had some tragedies to be sure. The nine-year-old that was buried today with nary a peep from the White House or the usual race hustlers, the young lady killed at a sleepover - again, not a single White House staffer in attendance at her funeral. But "more tragedy"? We aren't seeing it. McCarthy is touting the low homicide rate, so the number of "tragedies" is lower even with shooting victims up a bit. No Trayvons attacking people and getting shot. No cops gunning down Concealed Carriers as McCarthy threatened.

You can take it to the bank that Garry and Rahm won't be drawing any direct correlations to their CompStat numbers falling with increased Concealed Carriers on the street. That would defeat the narrative you know. Guns aren't the answer - unless you aren't asking the right questions (which the media never seems to).

And in case anyone in the media was thinking of listening to the usual "improved" policing strategies, better training, yadda yadda yadda, we'll tell you that we've received no additional instruction, seen almost no difference in patrol strategies, observed not a single change in deployments (aside from blowing through the entire overtime budget by May) and yet "Crime is (allegedly) Down" is the headline every month. In fact, we'll bet it's the the prime topic of the press conference Tuesday.

Stop Shooting! Please?

Well, let's see if this works - we've tried just about everything else:

• Prominent South Side pastor Corey Brooks is calling on Chicagoans — and especially gangbangers — to put down their guns and stop the shooting this Labor Day weekend.
  
  Brooks and promoters Asa Powell and Victor Woods said they talked with gang leaders for three weeks to try to assure a violence-free Labor Day.
  
  “Our hope and our goal is to make sure that this weekend if filled with nothing but peace, celebration and love,” Brooks said during a rally in Pioneer Court, after walking with 125 people from Roosevelt Road and Michigan Avenue to Tribune Tower.

"...especially gangbangers..."? We weren't aware that anyone else was leaving a trail of maimed and dead bodies across the city.

Hey, you! Doctors and lawyers! Put that shit down. Don't you know you're not supposed to shoot this weekend?

Hey!? You damn Concealed Carry advocates! Haven't you caused enough pain and bloodshed?

And gosh darn it! Haven't you wine-besotted housewives learned anything from watching reruns of the Oprah show? Put down the guns!

That ought to do it.

In the meantime, any bets on the over/under?

Test Run for the Real Thing?

Asymmetrical warfare or lone asshole:

• A man who had an ISIS flag waving from his vehicle is facing several charges after he threatened police with a bomb Wednesday morning when he was pulled over on the Southwest Side.
  
  Emad Karakrah, 49, was charged with felony counts of disorderly conduct and aggravated fleeing; and a misdemeanor count of driving on a never-issued license, according to Chicago police. He was also issued three traffic citations.
  
  Someone called police after seeing a “suspicious person” driving a silver Pontiac southbound in the 7700 block of South Kedzie at 9:18 a.m. with an ISIS flag waving out the window, according to a police report.
  
  Officers attempted to pull over the vehicle, but the driver took off, according to the report. The officers called for assistance, and another officer pulled the vehicle over after it went through several red lights.
  
  The man told police during his arrest that there was a bomb in the car and he would detonate it if they searched the vehicle, according to the report.

Unfortunately, exactly what we're going to be dealing with on a regular basis for the duration of our careers.

Posting Delayed

One of those things that gets in the way every so often in this line of work.

Give us a moment.

Open post for the time being.

Anita Blames ISP

Not content with just pandering and such, Anita goes for "blame" as a political strategy:

• Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez said Thursday that a backlog at the Illinois State Police crime lab was responsible for a nearly one-year delay in processing key DNA evidence that has led to charges against a Chicago Police commander for allegedly putting a gun in a suspect’s mouth.
  
  Glenn Evans, commander of the Harrison District on the West Side, allegedly put his .45-caliber pistol “deep down” the suspect’s throat last year. Evans also allegedly held a Taser to the man’s groin and threatened to kill him unless he led officers to the gun he was allegedly carrying.
  
  Evans, 52, one of police Supt. Garry McCarthy’s most trusted commanders, was charged Wednesday with official misconduct and aggravated battery, both felonies. He was released Thursday without having to post bond and was able to avoid reporters when he was allowed to go through a ceremonial door rarely used at the courthouse.

Hasn't County learned from the last time someone was allowed to sneak out a back door? Monique Bonds said the State Police testing process was normal and nothing in the paperwork indicated that there was a "rush" on the testing kits, thoug she admitted a "rush" job means 3-to-4 months anyway.

That All-Call Message

Has everyone been hearing the all-call being broadcast for the last 4 or 5 days on all channels every few hours?

It involves an attempted kidnapping of a young girl on the south side. The girl fought of/avoided capture by an unknown/masked individual who then left. The girl describes another girl, early teens, bound with tape and tied to the floor of the van.

Has anyone tied this "other girl" to an existing missing case? We're curious and a letter writer brought it to our attention that nothing in the all-call mentions the girl taped up as anything but a vehicle identifier. It's odd.

Another $10 Million Gone

He just keeps finding money:

• As he prepared to speak alongside gubernatorial challenger Bruce Rauner on Thursday, Gov. Pat Quinn announced $10 million in additional spending for Chicago Public Schools’ Safe Passage program, allowing for 600 more hires of yellow-vested workers around 27 more schools later this fall.
  
  The added millions will bring annual spending on the program to more than $26 million; the money pays community members to usher CPS children along routes leading to 133 elementary and high schools.
  
  Quinn, under fire for his now-defunct Neighborhood Recovery Initiative, declined to comment on the timing of the extra money coming from the cash-strapped state.

Pay no attention to that money behind the curtain! No, you can't use it for the pension funds. That would deny Quinn the pleasure of purchasing votes with it.

The Hammer Falls

As suspected, this was in the works for a month or so:

• One of Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy’s most valued commanders was charged Wednesday with official misconduct and aggravated battery for allegedly putting his gun in a suspect’s mouth last year, officials said.
  
  Cmdr. Glenn Evans, who has been in charge of the Harrison District on the West Side, was stripped of his badge and gun earlier Wednesday.
  
  Evans is scheduled to appear in bond court on Thursday on the charges, which are both felonies.
  
  In a statement Wednesday night, McCarthy said: “The alleged actions, if true, are unacceptable to the both the residents we serve and to the men and women of this department. As soon as we were made aware of the charges Commander Evans was relieved of his police powers, pending the outcome of this matter. Like any private citizen, the commander is innocent until proven guilty and we need to allow this case to proceed like any other. We will cooperate fully with prosecutors.”

Well, that's not quite true - WBEZ had this report up weeks ago. This has been simmering since January of 2013 according to the IPRA file. Again, it's two or three levels of discipline. An Officer would have been sitting at callback months ago.

And guess who's having a field day with this misstep?

• Evans was in the news in March when he and Ald. Jason Ervin (28th) got into a heated confrontation that ended with a warning for the alderman to leave the Harrison District’s parking lot or be arrested.
  
  [...] Ervin released a statement saying that Evans needs to be replaced immediately.
  
  “I am apprehensive about McCarthy’s selection process,” he said.

Yeah, we've had the same complainant about the aldercreature selection process, too. In any case, another bit of drama to make the Department look bad.

Protestors March for "Lil Crack"

This is just fucking priceless:

• About 500 people marched on the West Side this evening to protest a police-involved shooting that claimed the life of an 18-year-old man on Sunday.
  
  Roshad McIntosh, 18, was pronounced dead at Mount Sinai Hospital after being shot by police at about 6:30 p.m. on the 2800 block of West Polk Street in the Lawndale neighborhood, officials said.
  
  Tonight, a crowd of people marched to the Harrison District headquarters, 3151 W. Harrison St. and then ended their journey through the neighborhood in a vacant lot right next to the two-story apartment building where McIntosh was shot.  Police said he was armed.
  
  Organizers rallied the crowd from one of the back porches with chants through loudspeakers like "WHO ARE WE! WE'RE CHICAGO!" Tio Hardiman, the former head of the anti-violence group CeaseFire Illinois, was one of the speakers.
  "This is not about no personalities or no individuals," Hardiman exclaimed through loudspeaker. "This is about unity...It's time for a change in our community."
  
  [...] They carried balloons and several posters including a poster referring to the man by his nickname, "RIP Lil' Crack" to the building where a memorial was set up on the building's rear porch.

It's bad enough that they're all marching for an armed felon with a rap sheet as long as your arm, but his street name was "Lil Crack," a reference to what exactly? Oh yeah....the "rocks" he was selling in the 'hood. This is their hero. Fucking pathetic.

Officers Injured

At a "demonstration" of some sort:

• Eight people are in custody after a disturbance in the Avalon Park neighborhood left several officers with minor injuries Tuesday evening, police said.
  
  The disturbance broke out about 7:10 p.m. at a demonstration in the 7900 block of South Avalon Avenue, Police News Affairs [...] said.
  
  Several officers were struck by thrown objects and received minor injuries, Gaines said. Police declined to release the number of officers injured.
  
  Two officers were also hurt when their squad car crashed as they responded to a 10-1, an alert broadcast over the air indicating that officers at the disturbance needed help.

As someone commented earlier - "a demonstration of ignorance" it would seem. Best wishes to the injured Officers.

Quick Hits

All sorts of minor nonsense that people are talking about. Remember this drunk?

• Despite the video, Sarah Naughton was acquitted in a criminal trial. However now, she is facing a different judgment – this time from her peers.
  
  People might remember the viral video of then-Assistant State's Attorney Sarah Naughton outside a Northside lingerie store in 2012.
  
  Store employees called police after they said a heavily intoxicated Naughton caused a commotion in the store, flashed her badge and then bit a security worker.
  
  Inside the police car, Naughton is caught on camera wriggling out of her handcuffs, slamming her foot against the window and taking a swing at an officer.
  
  Despite all the video evidence, a Cook County judge acquitted Naughton and her boyfriend of all charges a few months later -- a move that stunned the police who handled the case.
  
  Naughton was set to return to her job as a Cook County prosecutor until FOX 32 obtained the police car video. State's Attorney Anita Alvarez fired her the same day.
  
  Now, FOX 32 has learned Naughton is facing another legal hurdle.

Well, when daddy is a Machine connected lawyer, all things are possible, even an acquittal in the face of incontrovertible video evidence. Hopefully, the ARDC people are from downstate and more than a little unimpressed with a loud-mouth politically-connected moron with a cannibalistic streak who can't hold her liquor.

----

Recovery? Yeah, it's leaving Illinois further behind:

• The unemployment rate fell in all of Illinois’ metropolitan statistical areas in July, according to a press release from the Illinois Department of Employment Security. In fact, unemployment rates have fallen in all metro areas for four consecutive months, which seems like welcome news. But these numbers are only encouraging at face value.
  
  As is the case with the superficial state unemployment drop, we can get the true picture these areas’ economic health by comparing them to areas in other states and expanding the time frame.
  
  The fact is, Illinois’ economic recovery is severely lagging.

Read the whole thing. Illinois is a dead-state walking.

----

And just to drive home the point in the above story, another big corporate name is bailing on Illinois:

• Reports have surfaced indicating that Baxter International Inc., a biotechnology giant that has been based in Illinois since the 1930s, is looking to make a move to Boston.
  
  According to the Boston Business Journal:
  

  “Local real estate sources have confirmed that the international biotechnology company seeking to relocate its corporate headquarters to a major office and laboratory complex in Cambridge — a stealthy effort known locally as Project Tiger— is in fact Baxter International Inc.”

  Baxter announced in March that it is in the process of splitting its business into two separate arms: one focused on biopharmaceuticals and the other focused on the sale of medical products, according to the Boston Business Journal.
  But when the company made that announcement, the stated plan was to have both headquarters remain in Deerfield, Ill., according to the Chicago Tribune.
  
  The Boston Business Journal’s sources, however, reported that Baxter is seeking up to 200,000 square feet in Cambridge, Mass. This space will reportedly be home to Baxter’s executive team and other corporate workers. The company will also be adding an additional 200,000 square feet of research and laboratory space by mid-2015.

So not only are they leaving Illinois - they're leaving Illinois AND expanding. Way to go Quinn - Illini-wreck is going to be an understatement by the end of this year.

Vallas Goes Full Scare Tactics

How far the reformer has fallen:

• Gov. Pat Quinn’s running mate Wednesday predicted “devastating cuts” to education across Illinois, including an $882 million hit to Chicago's public schools, if Republican Bruce Rauner’s tax-cut plan is carried out.
  
  
• Vallas' analysis showed Chicago, with the state’s largest school system, would face the most sizeable reduction in funds under Rauner’s plan – a loss that the Chicago Democrat said almost certainly could lead to more crippling school closures across the city, though Vallas would not specify a number.
  
  “It means more school closings. It means major teacher layoffs. It means huge class sizes. It means more school consolidations. It means an elimination of curriculum, of supplemental educational services. It means, at the high school level, a dismantling of vocational technical education, early college programs, school-to-work programs,” Vallas said.

You mean....like the closings and layoffs that Rahm has been presiding over? Those cuts? It continues to amaze all thinking people that democrats seem to be the cause and solution to all Illinois' problems.

HeyJackass.com Counts 'em Again

You want the accurate numbers, you go to this site here:

• W.H. Thompson said...Hey SCC - We set a couple of records on Sunday, yet there wasn't too much press about it - Sunday saw the most shooting incidents for a single day this year – 28 (one more than July 6th's disaster) – and the most homicides in a single day – 8 (including 2 police-involved shootings).
  
  Illustrating Chicago Crime, Murder and Mayhem at heyjackass.com

We don't count the police shootings, but other than that, this weekend was truly an embarrassment to the "Crime is Down" meme.

Guilt by Association

You want to see a media slime job, check out what the Washington Post is doing to Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson:

• The Washington Post has convicted Police Officer Darren Wilson, who shot Michael Brown, of guilt by association with a former troubled police force in a different town in a prior job than the one he held in Ferguson, MO, and of having parents who were in trouble with the law.
  
  Seriously.
  
  There is nothing, zero, nada, in the WaPo story linked below that shows Darren Wilson ever did anything wrong himself. In fact, to the extent his own conduct is even mentioned, it’s in the context of staying out of trouble.
  
  But that does not stop WaPo from trashing Wilson by association.

The people over at Legal Insurrection have an amazing story here, outlining the step-by-step bias in the trashing of this officer:

• WaPo goes into great detail on another shooting of a black women by a Jennings police officer, with no claim Wilson was involved in any way. Just the opposite, WaPo, deep down in the story admits:
  

  Robert Orr, the former Jennings police chief who retired in 2010, said of Wilson: “He was a good officer with us. There was no disciplinary action.”

  The entire tale of Jennings and the shooting of the black woman is meant to smear Wilson as a racist by association, which is precisely how the media is playing the WaPo story.

They even trash his divorced and dead parents:

• There were problems at home. In 2001, when Wilson was a freshman in high school, his mother pleaded guilty to forgery and stealing. She was sentenced to five years in prison, although records suggest the court agreed to let her serve her sentence on probation.
  
  She died of natural causes in November 2002, when Wilson was 16, records show. His stepfather, Tyler Harris, took over as his limited guardian, which ended when the boy turned 18.
  
  A family friend, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of threats, said Wilson sought out a career in law enforcement as a way to create a solid foundation in his life that he’d been missing.

And exactly how much have we heard about the dead offender? His troubled home life? His criminal record? His lack of completing school? His parents divorce and their criminal records?

We'll give you a hint - it's approaching zero. This isn't reporting - it's character assassination and polluting any chance of a fair hearing is the entire state and surrounding states as well.

Crown Prince Arrives

Balcer says he wasn't "forced out," but we all know how the game is played:

• Four years after Mayor Richard M. Daley announced he wouldn't seek another term, the door has opened for his nephew to try for a Chicago City Council seat from the family's ancestral home in Bridgeport.
  
   Patrick Daley Thompson made it known Tuesday that he's running for the 11th Ward seat now held by longtime Ald. James Balcer, who said he's retiring and insisted no one forced him aside to make way for a favorite son.
  
  “I've been here 17 years,” Balcer said. “The rumor had been, ‘He's warming the seat.' The seat's on fire. I have been here that long. And as far as being forced out, never. ... This was a private decision I made with my wife and family, which was No. 1 to me, and health issues.”

He was told not to run, simple as that. Anyone who has been here any length of time knows the slating committee told him his services were no longer needed - they have their guy ready to run. Their guy was slated for the Water Department to get his feet wet and now the 11th Ward thinks he's ready.

UPDATE: Water Reclamation District, not Water Department 

McMissingInAction Resurfaces

Hey Gar...missed ya:

• As Michael Brown was laid to rest in Missouri, the Chicago Police superintendent said it’s important to understand differences between policing styles in Chicago and Ferguson in Missouri, reports WBBM [...].
  
  Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said Ferguson tactics in dealing with crowds are exactly what Chicago Police are trying not to do.
  
  “With flashing lights and tear gas, helmets and rifles on the front line in armored cars, so as far as the tactics go, we would do it differently here,” McCarthy said.
  
  McCarthy also said that in 2011 there were 80 incidents of police firing their weapons on duty. He said now, after extensive training, the number of police firing incidents is down to 45, year to date.
  
  McCarthy says the independent police review board is investigating the shooting of two young men by police on Saturday. He said in both cases, police recovered guns from active shooters at the scene.

The main difference might be that Chicago has just under 10,000 coppers while Ferguson has something like 53. Your options are a bit more varied.

Now, we hear that aldercreature Jason Ervin had to be escorted out of the shooting scene where he was "investigating" with his retired sergeant driver. Both of the former assholes (now worm-food) had weapons that were recovered and numerous witnesses verify that guns were pointed at the police, so there really isn't much for agitators to hang their hats on. Granted, this won't usually stop hard-core fools, but when the neighbors say that "asshole got what he deserved," it's a bit more difficult.

Seriously?

This is the parade route?

These aren't astronauts. Or war heroes. Or lord knows what - they're kid ball players. Hell, even the Sox, Bears and Blackhawks parades were miniscule compared to this. And it runs over 100 blocks, which the city estimates they'll cover in an hour. Are we talking about half-a-dozen buses flying up Halsted or what? We realize Rahm and Illini-wreck have to get their glad-handing in, but geez.

This Isn't Going to Make You Friends

You don't get to call out the Machine while they are systematically cutting off your balls:

• Out of money and stripped of power to investigate campaign finances, the City Council’s handpicked inspector general took his fight for survival directly to Mayor Rahm Emanuel Monday — by questioning the mayor’s commitment to ethics reform.
  
  Faisal Khan ripped Emanuel for ignoring Khan’s year-long demand for more money after the legislative inspector general exhausted his $354,000-a-year budget with four months to go in 2014.
  
  Khan’s semi-annual report also accused four aldermen and three of their chiefs-of-staff of wrongdoing, without naming names.
  
  With Emanuel’s backing, aldermen are now working behind-the-scenes to build support for a plan to zero out Khan’s budget and transfer the power to investigate aldermen and City Council employees to the city's Inspector General Joe Ferguson.

This guy has evidence that 4 aldercreatures have broken laws? We imagine it would be his civic duty to turn over all of this info to the Attorney General, the State Police, the feds and the media. Truth is an affirmative defense against charges of slander/libel. And if Rahm and his merry minions are zeroing out your budget, you aren't going to be around next fiscal year - what have you got to lose?

Maybe this guy can run as a reformer.

Police Shooting - 011 (UPDATE - 2 for 2)

Police are okay at last report:

• Officials said a person was shot in a police-involved shooting on the near west side this evening.
  
  The shooting was reported at about 7:20 p.m. near the intersection of California Avenue and Polk Street, said Pat Camden, spokesman for the Fraternal Order of Police.
  
  The officer was not injured and the condition of the person who was shot was not immediately available.
  
  The circumstances leading to the shooting were not immediately known.

Stay safe people.

UPDATE: A second police shooting overnight:

• As officers walked south toward 80th, they saw the group starting to disperse, Camden said. One male ran through a gangway and two officers chased after him, he said.
  
  Two officers on Ingleside heard gunfire and saw a male, thought to be 17 or 18, standing over another male who had been shot, Camden said. The male still standing turned and pointed a semi-automatic handgun at police, who then shot him. He was dead at the scene. The other male was listed in critical condition.

In both instances, the poli8ce are unhurt and the bad guys are going to the morgue. Very well done Officers.

"They're Picking on Us!"

The city is cracking down on a certain nightclub - gotta be racist you know:

• A Chicago nightclub is saying enough is enough.Nouveau Tavern was already vandalized with the N-word, but managers say the city is also harassing them, and they’re suing.
  
  Planters decorate the front of the 400 North Ontario apartment building, which was replaced after cell phone video from last weekend captured workers sweeping up broken planters and witnesses explaining who did it: two Caucasian males.
  
  The next night, Nouveau filed a police report when a manager parked in front of the apartment building and found her car covered with raw eggs. And then Thursday morning workers were greeted by racial slurs sprayed across the front of the building.
  
  The club has filed a lawsuit against the city for, among several allegations, pulling the club’s liquor license for a weekend; “conducting unfounded over-crowding investigations”; and using tactics “clearly meant to harass, intimidate.”
  
  The lawsuit specifically names Ald. Brendan Reilly.

Problems establishments create their own problems and overreaction from the neighborhood is bound to occur if the problems are unaddressed...or appear to be unaddressed.

And then this happens:

• Four men were shot — one fatally — at a lounge early Sunday in the South Side Auburn Gresham neighborhood.
  
  The men were inside the lounge in the 8300 block of South Halsted about 2:40 a.m. when someone inside a passing vehicle fired shots into the club, police News Affairs [...] said.
  
  A 30-year-old man was shot in the chest and taken to Christ Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead about an hour later, authorities said. His name and home address were not being released Sunday afternoon.

So...can we expect a civil discourse regarding this club? Or will the neighborhood react the same? Differently? Might we have a serious discussion at some point? Or is someone else going to sue the city because their clientele just can't behave?

Nice Run Guys

Jackie Robinson West fell one game short:

• Jackie Robinson West was looking to make history its story Sunday when it faced Seoul, South Korea for the Little League World Series championship.
  
  But the team from Chicago's South Side fell short in an 8-4 defeat in front of an announced crowd of 28,671 at Lamade Stadium, which is nestled in the mountains of the Little League capital of the world.

That's a bigger crowd than Blackhawks and Bulls games and far more than the Sox have seen in years. They also went farther that the Cubs have been in a century-plus. Very nicely done to everyone involved.

Bye Bye Twinkies

And these are union factory jobs - the kind that Quinn like to accept lots of contributions from:

• Hostess Brands said Wednesday it will close its Schiller Park bakery, where Twinkies and other iconic sweets have been produced for 84 years, affecting about 400 employees.
  
  Union officials said they were notified of the closure on the same day they were set to start negotiating a new labor contract. About 280 of the workers had voted to unionize in May.
  
  The plant, among only four remaining Hostess bakeries in the country and the last left in Illinois, is expected to close Oct. 19. Twinkies were invented in the Chicago area in 1930.

So we'll be importing Twinkies from Indianapolis of all places - somewhere that Hostess isn't closing a factory for some reason. Chief Illiniwreck continues to fail at even maintaining the simple factory jobs that some of Rahm's illegals might called upon to do one day.

More "No Snitching"

Even when a child gets shot:

• The police said they were questioning a “person of interest” Saturday evening after a 3-year-old West Side boy was shot in the head the night before.
  
  The gun may have been accidentally fired either by the boy himself — identified by family as James Jenkins — or a playmate, according to the police.
  
  James was taken in critical condition to Mount Sinai Hospital after the shooting, which happened around 7:30 p.m. Friday in the 4300 block of West Monroe.
  
  The police have been trying to determine who owns the gun, which has not been recovered, and who might have left it where the children could get it.
  
  “Everybody is just in shock right now,” said Annette Garvin, James’ aunt. “We are trying to put everything together.

But not so shocked that they didn't have the presence of mind to hide the gun so no one gets in trouble. We wouldn't want actual responsibility assigned to a crime, would we?

Airport Openings

Openings up north. Openings at the airports.

Anyone have the complete list?

Lake Shore Drive Shooting

Not a story Rahm wants to see:

• A man was shot early Saturday while driving on Lake Shore Drive in the North Side Lincoln Park neighborhood.
  
  The 24-year-old man was driving southbound on North Lake Shore Drive about 12:20 a.m., when a light-colored car pulled up alongside his vehicle and someone inside fired shots, police said.
  
  He was shot in the left side of his face, exited Lake Shore Drive at Fullerton and called police, police said.
  
  The man was taken to Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where his condition had stabilized, police said.

Crime might be down - but the perception of crime? In Lincoln Park? On Lake Shore Drive? All we need now is a "Lake Shore Drive VRI" program.

Chicago a Target?

Evidently, there's some specific intelligence out there hinting that, "Yes, Chicago is a target."

• Over the past six years, Chicago has become a top potential target for international terrorists, a top security expert said Friday, making the posting of a veiled threat by Islamic radicals on Twitter a higher cause for concern.
  
  “Many terror organizations refer to Chicago as Obama Town,” said [...] security expert Ross Rice, a former FBI agent in Chicago. Under President Obama, the U.S. took out Osama bin Laden, and used repeated drone strikes to weaken terror networks.
  
  In the meantime, the U.S. government on Friday issued a security bulletin to all U.S. law enforcement in light of the overall threat posed by Islamic State, commonly known as ISIS or ISIL.

Granted, this is all on twitter, a notoriously over-hyped and dramatic form of social media for short-attention span types. But it never hurts to be reminded that there are thousands of people out there willing to do you and us harm, simply because of where we live. Be cautious and careful and aware - it hurts less than the alternative.

Again with the Parolees

No wonder these types think the entire judicial system is a joke:

• Two convicted felons have been hit with a slew of criminal charges, accused of shooting two police officers and taking eight people hostage in south suburban Harvey earlier this week.
  
  
• Both Jordan and Williams have lengthy criminal records, and were on parole at the time.
  
  Williams’ record includes multiple stints in prison for weapons charges, hijacking, and concealing a homicide.
  
  Jordan was sentenced to 35 years in prison for the 1990 murder of a Chicago cab driver, but was released on parole in September 2013, and was on electronic monitoring, but was unaccounted for for several hours before an arrest warrant was issued Tuesday night.
  
  By the time a warrant was issued, the hostage standoff was 10 hours old. From Tuesday night into Wednesday morning, the pair held six children and two women hostage in a Harvey home.

Multiple felonies, including a homicide, yet here he is walking around with other people, home invading, shooting cops, raping and pillaging.

Someone is Flipping

Who is he going to give up?

• The alleged bagman in a $2 million bribery scandal over Chicago's red light camera contract is cooperating with federal authorities and has testified in the ongoing grand jury investigation, the Tribune has learned.
  
  Martin O'Malley, 73, the Chicago-based consultant for Redflex Traffic Systems Inc. since the contract began in 2003, has admitted that much of the $2 million he was paid by the company was used as payoffs to a top city manager who oversaw the traffic camera program from the beginning, according to sources familiar with the investigation.
  
  Asked about O'Malley's cooperation agreement in an interview this week, his attorney acknowledged that O'Malley has testified before the grand jury and admitted his role in the alleged decadelong conspiracy. O'Malley, who is charged with one count of conspiracy to commit bribery, is expected to eventually plead guilty in the case.

Seventy-three and looking at the remained of your life behind bars far from home refreshes a lot of memories and loosens the tongue. Besides, confession is said to be good for the soul. So who is he sweating?

Street Sign Dedication

Remembering their sacrifice (click for larger view):

Can't Miss That Tee Time

After a guy with a British accent cuts off an American reporter's head, this is what the British Prime Minister does:

• “U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron cut short his summer vacation to return to London and chair urgent meetings on the threat posed by ISIS in Iraq and Syria, calling the video ‘shocking and depraved.’”

The British citizen wasn't harmed - he was doing the head chopping. Over on this side of the pond?

• President Barack Obama got down to business Wednesday afternoon, flooring it to the golf course after giving a speedy statement on the beheading of an American journalist and a threat from the Islamic State to spill more blood.
  
  Obama sported a grin the size of Mount Rushmore as he sat behind the wheel of a golf cart in Martha’s Vineyard, where he’s currently vacationing.

Laading from behind we suppose.

This Sounds Familiar

Where did this idea come from?

• Illinois needs to cut penalties for marijuana use and boost them for gun offenses if it's really going to curb street violence, according to Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez.
  
  At a hearing of a special legislative panel today, the county's top prosecutor conceded that what she called "a shift in philosophy" might not be popular with everyone, but is needed if officials are to keep neighborhoods safe with limited resources.
  
  "Our criminal sentencing policies should target those illegally carrying firearms who pose the greatest safety threat to our communities, and right now our unlawful use of a weapon penalties do not go far enough," Ms. Alvarez said.
  
  “Gang members themselves tell us that our gun laws are 'a joke'. They are not a deterrent, and if we do not take action those criminals will continue on the path of gun violence and retaliation that has unfortunately become the norm in too many neighborhoods."

Oh, she got the idea from gangbangers. That's cute.

Meanwhile, nine years of posts and comments by the readers of SCC pointing out that the penalties for murder are around five-to-seven-years on average and gun charges result in boot camp have no impact on anything.

Cue the Outrage in 3...2...1...

Wait a minute - where's the outrage?

• A 9-year-old boy was killed and four others were wounded in separate shootings on the city's South and Northwest Sides, officials said.
  
  ...... [the] 9-year-old boy was shot on the 1200 block of East 71st Street in the city's Grand Crossing neighborhood, said police.
  
  The boy was in a backyard near train tracks when he was shot in the chest, hands and arms, police said.
  
  The boy was taken to Comer Children's Hospital in critical condition where he was later pronounced dead, said police.

"...chest, hands and arms..." Anyone want to bet that this was a message? Nine-year-old don't get perforated to this extent unless they were deep into some crazy shit.

And no, Eric Holder isn't on the way to town.

Anyone Heard of "Due Process" in MO?

A funny thing happened on the way to the railroading:

• "...a vigorous prosecution must now be pursued." MO Governor Jay Nixon (D)
  
  
• "...change is coming," Eric Holder (D)

Yesterday's revelations include multiple threats by the "New Black Panthers" to murder police officers and the the astounding fact that the person conducting the autopsy for the family doesn't even hold a medical degree - he's a secretary who takes the doctor's notes and he's presenting "magic bullet" theories to the press (who prints 'em):

• “I am a forensic pathologist assistant and medical investigator,” Parcells told FOX 4’s Shannon O’Brien.
  
  However, that’s something of a dubious title according to forensic pathologist Dr. Erik Mitchell.
  
  “That is a degree that does not exist in my knowledge, except in the mind of Shawn Parcells,” Dr. Mitchell said.
  
  Dr. Mitchell takes issue with Parcells’ title. “You cannot claim the title, because it is a formal, licensable position. You can assist somebody; in this way I can say, for instance, I have paid my taxes, so I am an assistant President of the United States,” Dr. Mitchell said.

This is turning into a farce that no decent police officer should be standing for. It's past time for the National FOP and related organizations to step in, start making statements and initiating action.

We have stated time and again here that cops aren't above the law - but we aren't under it either. This guy isn't just under the law, he's under the bus, and it's time to stop.

Brutal Takedown of a Suckass

The Missouri State Trooper Captain "in charge" in Ferguson, MO is on record turning on a fellow law enforcement officer without the benefit of any sort of investigation what-so-ever. Gulf Shores, AL Chief Ed Delmore, himself a former St. Louis area Officer, rips the shit out of this jackass:

• I have to call you out.
  
  I don’t care what the media says. I expect them to get it wrong and they often do. But I expect you as a veteran law enforcement commander—talking about law enforcement—to get it right.
  
  Unfortunately, you blew it. After days of rioting and looting, last Thursday you were given command of all law enforcement operations in Ferguson by Governor Jay Nixon. St. Louis County PD was out, you were in. You played to the cameras, walked with the protestors and promised a kinder, gentler response. You were a media darling. And Thursday night things were better, much better.
  
  But Friday, under significant pressure to do so, the Ferguson Police released the name of the officer involved in the shooting of Michael Brown. At the same time the Ferguson Police Chief released a video showing Brown committing a strong-arm robbery just 10 minutes before he was confronted by Officer Darren Wilson.
  
  Many don’t like the timing of the release of the video. I don’t like that timing either. It should have been released sooner. It should have been released the moment FPD realized that Brown was the suspect.
  
  Captain Johnson, your words during the day on Friday helped to fuel the anger that was still churning just below the surface. St. Louis County Police were told to remain uninvolved and that night the rioting and looting began again. For much too long it went on mostly unchecked. Retired St. Louis County Police Chief Tim Fitch tweeted that your “hug-a-looter” policy had failed.
  
  Boy did it.

And Delmore is just beginning the ass-whipping at this point. That's not even half of the letter.

Go read it all at this link. Then get in line to buy this guy a drink next time he's in town.

Assailant Shot, Killed by Police

Cops are all fine:

• A 21-year-old man was fatally shot by police on the Far South Side on Tuesday night, authorities said.
  
  Officers from a Calumet District tactical team had tried to stop the man for questioning when they saw him riding a bicycle in the 13300 block of South Forrestville Avenue about 9:45 p.m., according to Pat Camden, a police union spokesman.
  
  When officers trained a spotlight on the man, the man pointed a gun at the unmarked squad car, Camden said.

That was his second mistake. No word on scheduled outrage, rioting and looting yet. We'll update you if we get word. Well done Officers.

Harvey Cops Wounded

Hostage-Barricade incident leaves two cops wounded:

• Two police officers have been shot in south suburban Harvey and two suspects are holding a woman and five children hostage at the scene this afternoon, officials said.
  
  Harvey Mayor Eric Kellogg said one officer suffered a graze wound to the arm and was treated at the scene. The other officer was wounded in the elbow and taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where his condition was stabilized, the mayor said.

Best wishes to the injured Officers. City or suburbs, something can blow up in a second. Stay safe.

Looting as a Tourist Destination

More from Missouri.

• Cop was confronted and attacked in his vehicle, shoved back into it, may have suffered orbital fracture(s), offender had marijuana in his system, offender charged back at officer, all shots to the front of offender's body.

It's amazing how all these facts start appearing once an investigation is allowed to proceed. Now Holder is flying out to Missouri to "direct" the investigation after ordering a THIRD autopsy on the offender.

And just when it couldn't get any weirder, agitators from Chicago arrive and so do looters from out-of-state:

• Some of the men are from the area — Ferguson or surrounding towns also defined in part by the gulf separating the mostly white law enforcement agencies from a mistrusting African American public. Many others — it is hard to quantify the percentage — have arrived by bus and by car from Chicago, Detroit, Brooklyn and elsewhere.
  
  They will not give their names. But their leaders say they are ready to fight, some with guns in their hands. “This is not the time for no peace,” said one man, a 27-year-old who made the trip here from Chicago.
  
  He spoke after a small group of fellow militants held a meeting behind a looted store, sketching out ambitions for the days ahead.
  
  “We are jobless men, and this is our job now — getting justice,” he said. “If that means violence, that’s okay by me. They’ve been doing this to us for years.”

We're sure Holder is taking all these factors into play when making the decision to railroad the wounded cop who was attacked not once, but twice, Three times if you count the town. Four if you consider the State Police boss talking out his ass. Five including the media.

And St. Louis police killed a knife-wielding assailant a few miles away from Ferguson today. Look for riots there shortly.

Old Time Ward Boss Rips Rahm

We hadn't thought about Ed Kelly in years, but he had the measure of any number of Chicago politicians, seeing as how he slated them for office much of the time. He speaks to domestic abuser Steinberg on a number of subjects - growing up in Chicago, serving in WWII, Richard J, Jane, Harold. He doesn't criticize Shortshanks (maybe he only speaks of those who can't fire back?) but he saves his harshest criticism for Rahm:

• I feel sorry for Rahm, I really do. Rahm had no idea what he was getting into. Rahm’s not a Chicago guy. He’ll never be a Chicago guy. He’s not a street guy. He’s trying to be, but he’s not. He’s a suburbanite. He’s not a Chicagoan, he really isn’t. He’s smart, very smart. I think what he inherited is going to continue on, he’s going to find out more problems, money problems and things.

From a guy who not only knows where the political secrets are buried, but who probably helped rub them out, moved them in his trunk and dug the holes to bury them, this is a telling bit of insight. Rahm laughs it up in a follow-up interview:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Tuesday laughed off former Chicago Park District Superintendent Ed Kelly’s simple but pointed analysis for why the mayor is having trouble connecting with Chicago voters: because he’s a “suburbanite” who will “never be a Chicago guy.”
  
  “My grandfather came to Chicago in 1917 fleeing the pogroms. My uncle was a police officer here in the city of Chicago representing the 17^th District. My father had a practice here. I was a congressman from Chicago,” the mayor said, reciting his familiar family history.
  
  “And the [Illinois] Supreme Court has even ruled on this decision.”

Ed Kelly got it right we think. The old Machine would have chewed Rahm up and spit him out. A smarmy arrogant carpetbagger like Rahm never would have been allowed near the levers of power in the old days.

This is an Amusing Turn

The thing keeping most people out of public office is that's is just so damn expensive to run. Rahm has a war chest of several million raised from all sorts of sources in and outside of Chicago. Someone else just tapped into a pool of cash though:

• The head of the American Federation of Teachers says the national union is ready to spend $1 million to help Karen Lewis unseat Mayor Rahm Emanuel if the Chicago Teachers Union president decides to run.
  
  “I did say privately to Karen and at our executive council meeting that if Karen was to run, we would be all in,” AFT leader Randi Weingarten told the Chicago Sun-Times in an interview Tuesday. “In a race like this, spending $1 million would not be unprecedented for the AFT.”
  
  Weingarten said Emanuel “has shown a deep disrespect for what public education is all about.”

Might this be the boost that pushes Lewis into the race?

Cops Shoot Dog, No One Snitches

This is tragi-comedy:

• A South Side family is angry because police shot their dog and then failed to catch an armed robber even though he was hiding out just feet from where they were standing, reports CBS 2 [...]
  
  “I said why’d you shoot the dog?,” said neighbor Aaron Thompson. “He said I didn’t shoot the dog, the assailant shot the dog.” The dog is Castro, an Italian Mastiff who’d been in the Taylor household for ten years.
  
  “It’s like I lost a family member…very difficult,” said Terry Taylor, the dog’s owner.
  
  The assailant is an armed robber who had held up a man early this morning in Washington Park. Police responding to the 911 call spotted the suspect and chased him until they believed they lost him in the yard.
  
  “The police ran in my yard, opened the gate and shot my dog,” Taylor said.

OK. Bad timing. Dog does what it's supposed to do, cop kills dog, one of those things that everyone regrets but a minor tragedy nonetheless. Then it got a bit frightening:

• But it turns out the robber never made it into the yard. Taylor’s son found that out some three hours later when he got the surprise of his life.
  
  “He came from under the porch. He had the gun in his hand, he was backing up talking to me like this, and he is telling me ‘I apologize for the police killing your dog, I seen the whole thing.’ He put the gun back on his hip proceeded down the street,” said DeMarkus Southern.
  
  But not before the robber ditched his clothes in the garbage can and abandoned his baseball hat under the stairs.

Great. Gun-in-hand, the robber turns up mere feet from where the coppers were standing. This could have been bad on any number of levels. Very bad.

And finally, it gets......typical:

• What makes the story even more bizarre is that Southern says while they were all sitting on the stairs his sister pulled up in a car. She saw a man through a crack underneath the stairs with what looked to be a hammer in his hand. That hammer was the gun.
  
  The sister didn’t say anything because everyone seemed so calm she just assumed the guy was actually working on the stairs and had no idea he was an armed robber hiding from the police who were just steps away.
  
  “It was shocking because it had been three hours,” Southern said. Now Southern is just glad he and his family members weren’t hurt.
  
  Southern says the armed robber is now free because the police botched their investigation. He was last seen getting on a bus with the gun in his waistband.

Riiiiiight. The sister saw the guy under the stairs, assumed it was a "worker," but in the absence of hearing any hammering and seeing police standing feet away, just kept her mouth shut? Sorry, we call BULLSHIT on this one. Once again, "no snitching" rears its head and of course, the police are supposed to be mind readers with x-ray vision so it's all their fault.

We're left trying to decide if Channel 2 is really this ignorant (likely) or they posted this story to get a chuckle out of everyone else who actually reads between the lines. We don't think they're that deep - they just want to rile up everyone because the cops shot a dog and left a suspect under a nearby stair.

Um...Based on What Exactly?

Another biased media poll:

• A new poll reveals that Illinois' new concealed carry law, introduced in January, makes a majority of Chicagoans feel unsafe.
  
  According to the Chicago Tribune, 55 percent of poll-takers said they felt "less safe" with the law permitting licensed gun owners to bear hidden weapons in public. Meanwhile, 15 percent said they felt "more safe" and 30 percent said they were indifferent.

If you read the rest of the article, there isn't a single reason given, a single question that was asked, a single statistic quoted that might cause anyone to believe Concealed Carry weapons have made anyone "unsafe."

But the media (and Rahm) want you to feel unsafe, so they come up with this poll to tell you just how unsafe you are - without any reasoning or proof. And Rahm has McPuppet out there touting a drop of 22 killings over last year as the results of the greatest crime fighting strategy ever developed and by golly, isn't Chicago safe as can be?

We'd counter that the drop of nearly two dozen homicides coincided directly with the implementation of Concealed Carry, therefore Concealed Carry works wonders. We offer no proof since NBC and Rahm offer none to their reasoning and everyone knows statistics don't lie and numbers can't be fudged.

Concealed Carry Holder Arrested

An asshole slips through the cracks:

• A concealed carry permit holder and another man burglarized and shot up a home in south suburban Dolton, police said today.
  
  Aaron Whirl, 22, of south suburban Riverdale was charged with home invasion, aggravated discharge of a firearm and residential burglary, said Dolton police Chief John Franklin.
  
  Whirl, who had a concealed carry permit at the time of the Aug. 11 incident, was ordered held in lieu of $300,000 bail Aug. 14, according to Franklin and court records.

Just for shits and giggles, what does this pillar of society have in his background?

• In 2012, Whirl pleaded guilty to resisting a police officer, a misdemeanor, and was sentenced to 12 months court supervision which he successfully completed and was ordered to pay a $199 fine.

And what about Quinn's and Madigan's vaunted safety net that supposedly allows Dart to put the kibosh on those of "questionable character" from obtaining Concealed Carry permits? Especially those with instances of ... oh, we don't know ... fighting the police? Wasn't that one of Dart's demands? And Garry's?

We imagine that they'll be answering lots of questions from a curious media about how they're falling down on the job. Right?

Hey Look - Corruption!

Looks like the feebs stumbled into something:

• Contractors facing scrutiny in an ongoing federal investigation of Concept Schools have been paid nearly $1 million over the past three years for work at three Chicago Public Schools-funded campuses run by the Des Plaines-based charter operator, records show.
  
  In June, the FBI raided 19 Concept Schools locations in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, including the group’s Des Plaines headquarters. Search warrants showed they were seeking records concerning Concept’s use of the federal “E-rate” program and companies hired under that program, which helps pay for high-tech upgrades.
  
  The agents also were looking for records regarding top Concept officials, the Chicago Sun-Times reported last month.
  
  No one has been charged. The FBI has said only that the investigation is a “white-collar criminal matter.”

Keep digging.

History tells us you won't - Greylord, Silver Shovel, Gambat, etc. None ever went farther than scratching the surface, otherwise we'd have as many mayors in prison as we've had governors lately and the number of judges behind bars would rival City Council members by at least double. The worst secret in Illinois is you guys were told to pull the wire on Blago before it got something bigger.

But try for once.

Whoops Again

If the neighborhood around HQ isn't safe, is there anywhere safe?

• Chicago police say a 33-year-old woman was robbed around 1:45 a.m. on the 4200-block of North Hermitage, the same block on which Mayor Rahm Emanuel lives.
  
  Police said the woman was approached by a man who took her purse in a "strong arm robbery."
  
  Police said the offender fled in an SUV. The investigation is ongoing.

Let's see - two man car in front, two man car in back, roving patrols, heavy weapons car nearby, people just walking down the block have been stopped for Field Interviews, yet someone can park an SUV in the hood, strong arm a victim, get back to the vehicle and escape with nary a trace.

Hopefully, they didn't take the tomatoes.

At Least 32 Shot

Five of those deceased as we head to post time (UPDATE - 7 dead now):

• Five people have been killed and at least 27 others wounded in weekend shootings across Chicago.
  
  Police said a 16-year-old boy was found with a gunshot wound to the head around 1:15 a.m. Sunday in the city’s Humboldt Park neighborhood.
  
  Police were responding to a report of a person shot in the 900 block of North Karlov Avenue and found the teen on the sidewalk. He was transported in critical condition where he was later pronounced dead.

Among the casualties:

• Early Saturday, a 16-year-old girl was fatally shot in a possible drive-by shooting in the city’s Englewood neighborhood.
  
  Police said the girl was standing outside around 12:45 a.m. with a man when a car drove by and someone inside fired shots. She was shot in the head and was found unresponsive at the scene and a 20-year-old man was shot in the back and taken in stable condition to Advocate Christ Medical Center, according to Chicago Police News Affairs Officer Janel Sedevic.
  
  Family members said the teen girl, identified as Shaquise Buckner, was a “straight A student” and planned to become to a doctor. She was expected to start her sophomore year of high school this week.

Mr. Sharpton? "Rev" Jackson? Hello? Is anyone there? Bueller? ECHO Echo echo....

How very odd.

Darwin Again

Another assist for natural selection:

• A Park Manor man who prosecutors say sped away from police before crashing his car Thursday night, killing a teen riding in the back seat, was ordered held today on $1 million bail.
  
  Gabriel E. Johnson, 18, of the 6800 block of South Champlain Avenue, faces a felony reckless homicide charge among others in connection to the incident, which took place in the 600 block of West 80^th Street and ended in the death of 16-year-old Wally Flex, who was riding in the back seat of the Monte Carlo that Johnson was driving, according to court records.
  
  Dontrell Reese, 20, who prosecutors say was in the car’s passenger seat at the time, faces an unlawful use of a weapon by a felon charge and was ordered held on $100,000 bail today in Cook County Bond Court.
  
  
• Reese, of the 7500 block of South Eggleston Avenue, was holding a gun and attempting to climb out of the passenger window as police approached, he said.
  
  Reese dropped the revolver and police recovered it, according to Mack.
  
  Johnson was trapped in the driver’s seat and had to be extracted from the car by the fire department, he said.
  
  A loaded handgun was found in Johnson’s waistband as he was being extracted, Mack said.

Two guns recovered, two in jail, car totaled and one in the morgue. Now that's a good night.

Super-vouchers Ending

But not for a year:

• Chicago Housing Authority voucher recipients will no longer receive enough assistance to place them in the city's most luxurious high-rise buildings under a new policy, the agency announced Sunday.
  
  The policy targets "super vouchers" that allow low-income recipients to receive up to 300 percent of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Fair Market Rent, which for the Chicago area is $826 for a one-bedroom apartment. The new limit will be 150 percent, according to the release.
  
  [...]The new policy will affect about 260 families, the CHA said, and all of them will have a least one year to move.

Crain's Chicago Business had this original story. Well done exposing this corrupt use of tax dollars. Now if only the rest of the media would pitch in. Crain's and The Reader can't carry it all.

Whoops

Now they'll have to draw a Violence Zone around HQ:

• A man was shot and killed about one block away from the Chicago Police Department Headquarters in the Bronzeville neighborhood Friday night.
  
  Walter Neely, 25, was found shot in the abdomen about 11:35 p.m. in the 3400 block of South Indiana, according to police and the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office.
  
  Someone had approached on foot and fired at him, police said.
  
  Neely was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he was pronounced dead at 11:55 p.m., authorities said. His home address was not known Saturday afternoon.
  
  The shooting happened about one block east of police headquarters at 3510 S. Michigan Ave.

Maybe some enterprising boss can count the people walking to Starbucks as "foot patrol."

It's the Crime Stupid

As we've said so many times, it isn't the crime stats per se - it's the perception of crime:

• Violent crime in Chicago has been on the decline for two decades, yet as Mayor Rahm Emanuel looks to re-election next year, the scourge of shootings and gang murders still defines the conversation in many neighborhoods across the South and West sides.
  
  Part ugly reality, part perception, the rate of violence in impoverished, mostly black areas of the city has helped shape negative impressions of the first-term mayor as ineffective when it comes to problems afflicting the urban poor, a new Chicago Tribune poll has found.
  
  Voters disapprove of Emanuel's job performance on crime by a nearly 2-to-1 ratio — 30 percent approve, while 57 percent disapprove. That's a drop in support of 15 percentage points from a year ago, when 45 percent approved of the mayor's efforts and 47 percent disapproved.

Crime might be down according to McNumberFudger's bullshit reclassification schemes, and homicides are trending down (2012 being the outlier). But the appearance of crime in formerly "safe" areas of the city and the deliberate media blackout on crimes of opportunity (wildings) downtown lends itself to a perception of "unsafe." Combine that with the more brazen child murders this year and Rahm isn't looking like a law-and-order mayor by any stretch of the imagination.

Stop-and-Frisks Down - Shootings Up

This keeps popping up in the New York media as if it's some big surprise or something, and we guess it is - to New York liberals:

• Cops in two of the city’s toughest precincts recorded 99% fewer stop-and-frisks during the first half of the year — part of a staggering decline in the polarizing police tactic from the same period just three years ago.
  
  Officers assigned to the 75th Precinct in East New York and the 73rd Precinct in Brownsville stopped just 126 people in the first half of 2014, compared to 10,540 stops between January and June of 2011.
  
  The nearly eye-popping decrease is no misprint — and it comes as shootings in those neighborhoods are on the rise.
  
  Shootings are up in East New York from 34 to 43 through Aug. 10, a spike of about 27% compared to last year. In Brownsville, shootings are up from 38 to 56, an increase of about 47% over the same time period.

Cause-and-effect is completely lost on these folks.

Guess What Message We're Hearing?

Cop shoots "unarmed" teen in Missouri. Media runs with it.

Riots ensue. Four days worth. Sharpton et al arrive to stoke the fire.

Teen turns out to be a 6'04" 300 pound behemoth and had committed a robbery minutes before. "Anonymous hack-tivists" get involved.

At least one shot fired inside the squad car.If one of the holes in this offender has powder burns around it, then there was obviously a struggle over the gun. Copper is identified by name.

Now the Missouri State Police have "relived" the local cops of their jurisdiction and some are marching with the crowds, whether or not under orders, we have no idea.

You know what we're hearing, loud and clear?

• Don't get out of the car. Ever. Indianapolis Metro Police Deptarment be damned, if you get out of the car, the media will run half-truths, the community will riot, the brass will turn their backs and the politicians will run the bus over you, again and again and again in a constant loop.

In the urban centers, police work is done and the Law of the Jungle prevails. Protect yourself and your job. We never thought we'd have to type that.

More Safe Passages

To the tune of an additional million bucks:

• A group of parents and community members gathered in the quiet auditorium of Penn Elementary School on the West Side Friday to hear how Chicago Public Schools officials are going to work to keep their kids safe this upcoming school year.
  
  After all, a man was shot in May across the street from the North Lawndale school.

During school hours? In front of school children? No? Because we recall the schools and department bragging about how no one was shot, maimed or killed on a safe passage route all of last year. Just a student raped and strangled within sight of a Safe Passage route, but again, the city doesn't count anything that's "near" a parade route, why count a crime?

So as predicted, this idea is expanding this school year. Rahm can't afford to have a single child catch a bullet before the election. And if it costs a million additional taxpayer dollars, who are we to argue against it?

Quinn Fires Lottery Firm

Too bad it took three years and an almost half-a-billion dollar shortfall to get to this point:

• Bowing to a lackluster bottom line, Gov. Pat Quinn’s administration moved Friday to terminate the state’s contract with Northstar Lottery Group, the private vendor that manages the Illinois Lottery. “The administration has had serious concerns with Northstar’s performance. The governor demands every state contractor be held accountable for their performance,” Quinn spokesman Grant Klinzman said.
  
  The company is running $238 million short in projected earnings it had promised the state this fiscal year.
  
  And during the past three years, the company has underperformed by roughly $480 million, prompting calls from some lawmakers for the Quinn administration to pull out of what had been a 10-year contract with the company to run the day-to-day operations of the state’s $2 billion lottery.

Chronic mismanagement.

All the Economy's Fault

Remember, the Sun Times isn't carrying water for Rahm:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Thursday blamed the economic squeeze on the middle class for his 35 percent showing in a Chicago Tribune poll that also shows him trailing Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis.
  
  The Tribune’s findings are similar to the results of a Chicago Sun-Times poll that showed the mayor with 29 percent support overall and only 8 percent from African-Americans. The Sun-Times also did a more recent head-to-head poll that put Lewis in the lead in a one-on-one race.
  
  “There’s tremendous economic stress in people’s lives, which is why I’ve pushed for the minimum wage, which is why I’ve pushed for policies to make sure our small businesses have a fair chance and an equal chance with big companies,” the mayor said.

So Fran takes a Tribune poll and uses it in the Sun Times for Rahm to blame the economic squeeze for his shitty poll numbers. Fran was one of Richie's biggest cheerleaders for years. We suppose to maintain that all important "access" to City Hall, she has to give Rahm some sort of platform to attempt to salvage his reelection try.

Whatever happened to the supposed independent media? Have the Trib and Times finally merged?

All Daley's Fault

Remember, the Tribune isn't carry water for Rahm (paywall warning):

• Far more Chicago voters believe former Mayor Richard M. Daley is more responsible for the city's ongoing financial woes than his successor, according to a new Chicago Tribune poll.
  
  At the same time, a strong majority of those surveyed continue to believe the city is about the same or worse off under Mayor Rahm Emanuel than it was when Daley ran City Hall.
  
  Daley remained a popular mayor for much of his record 22 years leading the city. But his popularity fell during his last term, in part because of dissatisfaction with a controversial lease of the city's parking meters. Since Daley left office, criticism of his financial stewardship has only grown.

The Trib and the Times were kind of quiet during Shortshanks' days of heavy spending. Seldom a discouraging word was spoken. But now that Rahm is in trouble, they can't wait to blame Daley for years of mismanagement. But if they had been doing that through the 1990's and 2000's, maybe Chicago wouldn't be on the verge of default.

Disgusting Allegation

We don't even want to link this crap, but then some will accuse us of ignoring the story. Then others will jump in and accuse us of rushing to judgement. 

• Click here if you want - we aren't even going to quote the article.

Something bad happened. A cop is involved somehow. We have no use for dirty cops. We have less use for short-eye predators. Innocent until proven guilty applies, but dear lord, what the hell?

More Feebs

But remember - we're at FULL STRENGTH!

• Sneed has learned that the feds plan to dispatch 65 FBI agents to the streets in high-crime areas on the South and West Sides in an all-out battle against gang crime.
  
  The 65 feds are part of a group of 100 Chicago agents already assigned to curb gang and violent crimes.
  
  “This is a new tactic the FBI is using in fighting crime,” an FBI spokeswoman said, “by working in a concentrated area and a concentrated time on the street — although the FBI has been working hand in hand and day in and day out with the police department."
  
  A top police source tells Sneed the FBI agents, who will be working in tandem with the Chicago Police Department, will be assigned to do gang suppression missions on Thursdays and Fridays for at least the next three to four weeks.
  
  “It’s mind-boggling,” the top police source said. “It’s almost unheard of.”
  
  “I thought the mayor and the police superintendent had said they don’t need more police on the streets,” the source added.

Always remember, a feeb will give 20 gangbangers a pass to jam up one police officer. Be aware ladies and gents. Be very aware.

Firefighters Sue

This will be an interesting one:

• A group of Chicago firefighters has hired a lawyer in anticipation of a possible legal challenge to a city hiring policy that will give graduates of Chicago public high schools an advantage in an upcoming Fire Department exam.
  
  The firefighters say the preferential hiring practice that will affect the December exam should be extended to all Chicago residents, including those who, like the children of many firefighters and city workers, attended private high schools. Their legal fight is funded by a $20,000 donation from Firefighters Union Local 2.
  
  The situation points to the competing political constituencies Mayor Rahm Emanuel faces as he approaches his re-election bid in February. Emanuel doesn’t want to anger firefighters, especially so soon after announcing a new contract with the union that was passed overwhelmingly by rank-and-file firefighters and the City Council. He also is loath to pick a fight with voters who choose private schools for their children, among them many of the city workers who are required to live in Chicago.

You mean city workers like....Rahm Emanuel? Those kinds of people sending their kids to private schools? It's kind of weird how democrats always want to punish the people who are doing okay for themselves, yet never notice the beam in their own eye as they keep their progeny as far away from the common-folk as possible lest they become tainted by those who work for a living.

More Red Light Indictments

Heaven forbid they actually shut this thing down completely until all the lawsuits/indictments/crooked contracts are straightened out:

• The ex-CEO of Redflex Traffic Systems and the former head of Chicago's red light camera program were indicted today on conspiracy charges in an expansion of the federal investigation into an alleged $2 million bribery scheme.
  
  Prosecutors accused the former CEO, Karen Finley, of agreeing to enrich former city manager John Bills in exchange for his help securing the Chicago contract and growing it into the largest red light camera program in the nation. Bills was charged with bribery in a May criminal complaint.
  
  Bills' longtime friend Martin O'Malley, who was hired by Redflex as a Chicago consultant, was also indicted Wednesday on a charge that he served as the bagman for some $2 million in Redflex payments, much of it intended for Bills.

Business as usual, except someone must not have greased the correct palms.

CompStat LA

Guess what they've uncovered in the City of Angels?

• Once police had Nathan Hunter in handcuffs, they tended to his wife.
  
  She was covered in blood. She told the officers Hunter flew into a rage that night in February 2013 because she hadn't bought him a Valentine's Day gift. He beat and choked her before stabbing her in the face with a screwdriver and throwing her down a flight of stairs at their apartment in South L.A., according to police and court records.
  
  Hunter, 55, was convicted of felony spousal abuse and sentenced to six years in prison.
  
  Under FBI rules followed by police departments across the country, the beating should have been counted as an aggravated assault because Hunter used a weapon and caused serious injuries.

Can you see it coming? Can you feel the tingle? The anticipation?

• That's not what happened. The Los Angeles Police Department classified it as a simple assault — a minor offense not included in the city's official tally of serious crimes.
  
  It was no isolated case. The LAPD misclassified nearly 1,200 violent crimes during a one-year span ending in September 2013, including hundreds of stabbings, beatings and robberies, a Times investigation found.
  
  The incidents were recorded as minor offenses and as a result did not appear in the LAPD's published statistics on serious crime that officials and the public use to judge the department's performance.
  
  Nearly all the misclassified crimes were actually aggravated assaults. If those incidents had been recorded correctly, the total aggravated assaults for the 12-month period would have been almost 14% higher than the official figure, The Times found.
  
  The tally for violent crime overall would have been nearly 7% higher.

And there it is. CompStat has now been exposed as a fraud in the three largest metropolitan areas of the country. Chicago Magazine had their two part series on the falsification of the numbers. New York has two professors, one of them a retired NYPD Captain, who published a book on how the numbers get changed, and now the LA Times has uncovered a pattern of lies that shows a double-digit reduction in crime that is pure fiction.

Can we stick a fork in this crap yet? Can we finally end the careers of these morons who perpetrated this fraud on not one or two hick towns, but on entire cities across the nation. New York, Chicago, LA, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Newark, the list goes on and on. This is ridiculous.

Angelo Reads the Blog

The FOP and Trooper Lodges are bucking Rahm on his recent announcement:

• Police union leaders on Monday urged Mayor Rahm Emanuel to modify his plan to assign 40 state troopers on 30-day loan to Chicago to serve fugitive warrants to get known criminals off the street.
  
  Dean Angelo, president of Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7 representing Chicago Police Officers, and Mike Powell, president of the FOP’s Illinois Trooper Lodge No. 41, said it makes more sense to assign state troopers to traffic duty to free Chicago Police officers for the “real police work” chasing fugitives.
  
  “You’re taking troopers from rural areas out of their element and thrusting them into the big city. There should always be concern about that. That’s just a matter of geography,” Powell said.
  
  “The Chicago Police Department knows the city. They know some of the folks they’re looking for. They recognize them. They’ve dealt with them. [Using them to chase fugitives] would be a smarter, better use of resources.”

Rahm isn't budging - it's his idea and his election year. So there. But here's the story we and our readers have been pointing out for a number of years now:

• Emanuel balanced his first budget by eliminating more than 1,400 police vacancies.
  
  Although the mayor has more recently done enough police hiring to keep pace with attrition, Angelo argued Monday that the Chicago Police Department is “anywhere from 1,500 to 2,500 officers down from where we should be manpower-wise.”
  
  Pressed on where the money would come from to bolster police hiring, Angelo said, “We have 50 aldermen. A lot of people would argue that’s too many. I took a pay cut. Maybe that’s something other people should do.”
  
  Angelo also set his sights on the $66 million-a-year aldermanic menu program that gives each of the 50 City Council members $1.32 million to spend on neighborhood infrastructure projects of their own choosing.
  
  “If everybody is so concerned about crime, let’s go to the City Council and ask, `Who wants to give back half of that money to hire more police and make our neighborhoods safer, and if they’re not, why aren’t they?’ You can't have it both ways,” Angelo said.
  
  “Let’s track some of that money. Is it all going to street lights, potholes and sidewalks? Or is it picnics, parades and T-shirts? If $1.3 million in every ward is really going to neighborhood improvements, God bless. Our streets should look like the Autobahn. And we know that’s not happening.”

Let's see....1,400 vacancies - CHECK. Too many aldercreatures - CHECK. Aldermanic menu program of $66 million - CHECK. golly, we could have written this platform three or four years ago - oh wait, we did. But this time, the media actually printed it. We don't know who fell asleep at the presses, but it's about time this saw the light of day.

UPDATE: A couple people are asking why we aren't praising Dean Angelo to the heavens for his statements.

• First up, it's his job. We're glad he's doing it instead of what happened the last three years.
• Second, if he ran for office solely to get praise from the blog, he's in the wrong business.
• Third, as we listed in the last paragraph, none of these things are new to the readers of the blog - our readers and we have been saying this for years now. One of our readers even ran a table showing the proportional representation of Chicago ought to be about 17-to-18 aldercreatures, tops. Our people have done the research, Dean is merely using our stats.
• Fourth and finally, we've told everyone that the FOP calls press conferences more often than you know. The media, with the able assistance of the mayoral press office, decides whether of not to send a camera and/or a scribe to take down the information. Most of the time, they don't, ergo no coverage.

So again, we're glad to see it in the media for however short a time and good for Dean for being Johnny-on-the-spot with the ready quote, but let's not pretend it was anything but what it was.