Gerry, Shut the Hell Up

A "Letter to the Editor" in the Sun Times this weekend:

• I worked for the Chicago Police Department for 20 years, retiring last December. It’s a shame the way the David Koschman case has been investigated. The reason that the officers and state’s attorneys involved in the case were not disciplined was CLOUT! You basically can do what you want as long as you have a sponsor. The officers who don’t are the ones held to a higher standard.
  
  The police department and the city of Chicago was corrupt when my grandfather came on in the 1940s and was worse when my father came on in the 1960s. I experienced the same graft and cover-ups during my career.
  
  This department should be sanctioned by the federal government just like the Detroit police department has.
  
  Gerry Callahan,
  Edison Park

Really Gerry? Who was your "sponsor?" Your wife kept you out of so much trouble we can barely begin to describe the stink of clout that pervaded your entire career. You should have been fired for your antics any number of times, but phone calls were made, reports were ignored, investigations quashed. Here's some highlights of your illustrious arrest record - we understand if you can't remember most of it, seeing as how you were blind fucking drunk:

• A Chicago police officer who is alleged to have beaten up a couple at a Niles bar this weekend has a history of threatening violence and abusing alcohol, court and police records show.
  
  Chicago police officials tried to fire Officer Gerald Callahan for cursing and lunging at supervisors and refusing to take a Breathalyzer test after other officers reported smelling alcohol on his breath at work in March 2006. But last January, the Police Board voted 5-3 to suspend him for two years. Callahan returned to work in February because he had been suspended since the incident
  
  Callahan, 42, the son and grandson of former Chicago police officers, was cleared of another incident in 2004 when he was accused of threatening other officers in a locker room.
  
  But he served a 30-day suspension in early 2006 for being intoxicated while off duty in January 2004. In that incident, Callahan arrested a bartender who refused to serve him more drinks. The bartender sued and settled with the city for $15,000.
  
  On Saturday, Callahan was arrested a block from the Chambers Seafood Grille and Chop House in Niles on two misdemeanor battery counts for punching a 61-year-old Morton Grove man and a 50-year-old Niles woman. Over the weekend, Callahan said he was bitten by a police dog and mistreated by authorities, but Niles police disputed his claims.

This is who the Sun Times publishes to critique the department - a notoriously clout-heavy drunk who cost the city thousands of dollars in lawsuits and untold embarrassment every time he ended up in jail, yet thinks the Department needs oversight because people exactly like him get away with things that would get the unclouted canned in a heartbeat. We don't know which is the bigger joke - Callahan or the Slum Times.