The Latest Miscast Issue

Brought to you by the Sun Times:

• If you need a cop in an emergency, it routinely takes the city’s 911 center more than three times longer to dispatch a police car in some parts of the South Side than it does downtown and in much of the North Side, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis has found.
  
  It takes the longest to dispatch officers in three South Side police districts: Grand Crossing, South Chicago and Calumet, according to a review of data for 911 calls involving the most serious crimes. Grand Crossing and South Chicago are in the city’s southeast corner. The Calumet district includes Roseland.
  
  The Jefferson Park and Albany Park districts on the Northwest Side posted the quickest average dispatch times in 2011 and 2012, and again were among the five fastest in the city last year.
  
  The findings mirror a 2010 Sun-Times review that found high-crime districts on the South Side and West Side were most likely to face a situation in which police weren’t available to respond to 911 calls.

And of course, we all know what the ACLU says:

• Harvey Grossman, the ACLU’s legal director, said the data obtained by the newspaper “clearly establishes that the delays and inequities continue to the present.”

"...inequalities..." = "racism!" Anyone else tired of this bullshit? Yeah, that's what we figured.

You'll never guess where they want cops pulled from - 016, 017, 022. Districts where crime is low, but property crimes are on the rise due to fewer police. Brilliant!

Test Result Rumors (UPDATE)

Here they come:

• The Sergeant test scores were made available to the city on Friday and there is a HUGE problem. Turns out that the first 300 are overwhelmingly white and male. Over 90%.
  
  No one wants this list to be public and it looks like the new list will be kept on the shelf for the foreseeable future. Look for at least three more big classes from the existing sergeant list before the current list is mailed out.

As someone else pointed out:

• I am shocked. Nothing like this has ever happened before.

Exactly.

UPDATE: You people bitching about "rumors" being spread on the blog and asking "Why do you publish stuff like this," don't you read the title? It said "RUMOR" right in the title. Some days there just isn't that much to write about and sometimes there's an event that affects something like 4,000 people and they deserve to hear when we think something is a rumor. Maybe you missed the response to the original rumor? It's right underneath:

• I am shocked. Nothing like this has ever happened before. 

That guy got it. But you didn't for some reason. 

Amazing?

Not that amazing if you think about it:

• I find it continually amazing that these 'alleged' journalists and investigative reporters can always find someone at a police shooting that swear he was an altar boy and yet they can't find anyone to indicate Daley, Madigan, Quinn etc. are crooks. 

The media isn't about to bite the hand that feeds them, pets them and pats them on the head after they finish their dirty business.

Look at That Crime Rate Fall

Can you hear it? It almost sounds like "bang bang bang!"

• Two people including a 13-year-old boy were shot this afternoon in separate incidents on the South Side, bringing the total number of shootings since Friday to 15, officials said.

It's a damn good thing the weekend ended just now. We wouldn't want to add in Sunday's totals as the temperature climbs to the 60's and probably stays there through Monday.

Especially with a long winter's worth of grudges to settle up this week.

Police Shoot, Kill Armed Assailant

Family of the gunman and potential murderer act out:

• A 20-year-old man who allegedly pointed a gun at a police officer was fatally shot by a police Saturday morning after a foot chase on the South Side, officials said.
  
  Raason Shaw, of the 7800 block of South Merrill Avenue, pointed a .40-caliber handgun at an officer who was running after him in the 6200 block of South Rhodes Avenue in the Woodlawn neighborhood, officials said.
  
  According to a statement issued by police, a Glock semi-automatic handgun with a laser sight and extended high-capacity magazine was recovered at the scene.

Then of course, the family saw the potential for acting out, getting some camera time, and maybe a payout from the Chicago money tree:

• “He was going to the family house, and they shot him,” said Sherrell Harris, Shaw’s sister, standing on 63rd Street not far from where the shooting happened. “They shot to kill.”
  
  “He was going to the family house, and they shot him,” said Harris, standing on 63rd Street not far from where the shooting happened. “They shot to kill.”

Um, yeah. That's the point. We don't really "shoot to tickle."

• Raekwon Harris said his cousin was shot in the back.
  
  “He had a warrant out, but it ain’t worth getting shot for,” Harris said. “That don’t give them no right to shoot him.”
  
  Harris said Shaw saw the police and ran and that an officer fired several times.
  
  “I pulled in to the alley, and the officer was in the back yard standing over him with his gun down,” Harris said as his cousin lay face-down on the ground. “So when I got there, he said, ‘Get back, get back, I will shoot.’ I’m like, ‘You gonna shoot? You just shot him. You gonna shoot somebody else?’”

Maybe you should be telling that to the recently deceased? We mean....just a thought. Nobody said he got shot for the warrant. He got shot for pointing the gun - at the police. And if he pointed the gun at the police and another cop saw it and sot him from another angle, i.e. "from the back," well that isn't illegal - it's good tactics. Read the law Raekwon....if you can find a law book that is. And know where a library is. And read, too, come to think of it.

Off Duty Shoots Home Invader

Only hit the one, but two are in custody and a third in the wind:

• Two people are in custody after an off-duty Chicago Police officer shot one of three men who tried to break into his home Friday afternoon in the Far South Side Roseland neighborhood, police said.
  
  The officer was at home in the 9600 block of South Princeton Avenue about noon when the suspects tried to break in, police News Affairs said in a statement.
  
  After one suspect pointed a handgun at the officer, the officer, fearing for his life, fired at him, police said. Two of the men, including the one who was shot, fled in a stolen vehicle, but were halted near 89th Street and Yale Avenue and arrested.

His 7-year-old daughter was home with him. Nicely done Officer.

"We Are One" Falling Apart?

We aren't sure who belongs to this organization, but it sure looks like everyone is jockeying for their own deals lately:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration is closing in on a pension deal with unions representing building trades and white collar employees that could strengthen his hand with police and fire, City Hall sources said Thursday.
  
  Neither the city nor the unions whose members draw their retirement checks from the Municipal and Laborers pension funds would discuss details of the framework, for fear that it could fall apart before the Illinois General Assembly has a chance to approve it.
  
  The Chicago Teachers Union was “within hours” of a pension deal with the Chicago Board of Education, only to see it “fall apart at the last minute,” the sources said.
  
  But sources said the talks between the Emanuel administration and unions representing building trades and white-collar employees heated up earlier this month after Moody’s Investors dropped Chicago’s bond rating another notch, citing “massive and growing unfunded pension liabilities” that “threaten the city’s fiscal solvency” without “major revenue” and budget cuts in the near term and for years to come.

So if these unions opt to make a deal with the devil, have they effectively removed themselves from the constitutional battle that is sure to follow any "reform" that reduces agreed to benefits? Andif these groups were part of the "We Are One" coalition, what happens when it becomes "We Are Many Disparate Interests Selling Out Each Other?"

Suspended Animation

An interesting concept:

• NEITHER dead or alive, knife-wound or gunshot victims will be cooled down and placed in suspended animation later this month, as a groundbreaking emergency technique is tested out for the first time.
  
  Surgeons are now on call at the UPMC Presbyterian Hospital in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to perform the operation, which will buy doctors time to fix injuries that would otherwise be lethal.
  
  "We are suspending life, but we don't like to call it suspended animation because it sounds like science fiction," says Samuel Tisherman, a surgeon at the hospital, who is leading the trial. "So we call it emergency preservation and resuscitation."
  
  The technique involves replacing all of a patient's blood with a cold saline solution, which rapidly cools the body and stops almost all cellular activity. "If a patient comes to us two hours after dying you can't bring them back to life. But if they're dying and you suspend them, you have a chance to bring them back after their structural problems have been fixed," says surgeon Peter Rhee at the University of Arizona in Tucson, who helped develop the technique.

This has other implications (interstellar travel), but there's the issue of most gunshot and knife-wound victims aren't always the type of people who need saving, (i.e. dope dealers) who would be saved only to inflict more pain and misery upon a community that doesn't really need any more of that.

Lieutenant List Out? (UPDATE)

Word is that they want to save time and money on promotional celebrations again, so a class of lieutenants is scheduled to graduate in conjunction with the recent class of sergeants.

Someone said it came out last night. Someone else said today. Who's got it?

UPDATE: Here it is:

• 006 HOLT, Elgin
  008 McMAHON, Terrence
  012/116 ZAHN, David
  014 PEABODY, Robert
  016 COWIN, Raymond
  017 BEAZLEY, Thomas
  019/177 GILTMIER, Beth
  019/211 ANDRUZZI JR, Joseph
  019/213 RYLE, James
  020 HEINICHEN, Walter
  024 JASKI, William
  024 NATELSON, David
  025/261 BAIO, Antonio
  124 DOSS, Darren
  126 CAMPBELL, Jackie
  161 WILLIAMS, Teresa
  189/192 DOUGLAS JR, Varrick
  193 BRENNAN, Joseph
  213 RECKARD, Jonathan
  313 SKIPPER, Karen
  393 TANNEHILL, Martin
  610 DOWD, John
  610 ELLISON, Jacquelin
  610 KENNEDY, Michael
  630 CRAWFORD, Patrick
  630 RIOS, Juan
  630 STUART, Staphanie
  630/193 GILLESPIE, Patrick
  630/610 PETRENKO, Joseph
  701 MACIEJEWSKI JR, John

A lot of Units there - 8 out of 30 from Patrol.

Porter Case Still Ongoing

The so-called "Innocence Project" debacle that released hardened killers back into society when a college professor used lies, manufactured evidence, lib-tarded "reporter" Eric Zorn, and offered female journalism students as "favors" to criminals lives on. Anita's people actually transported the guy serving Porter's time back to Chicago for interviews:

• Cook County prosecutors are scheduled to interview the man whose video confession led to one of the state’s most pivotal wrongful convictions, indicating a reinvestigation of the Anthony Porter case is moving ahead, sources said today.
  
  Prosecutors from the Conviction Integrity Unit plan to interview Alstory Simon on Monday after he is brought to Chicago from the Jacksonville Correctional Center, where he is serving a 37-year prison term.
  
  The interview with Simon is a crucial part of the reinvestigation into the 1982 murders of Marilyn Green and Jerry Hilliard at Washington Park on the city’s South Side. Porter, who was convicted of the murders and sentenced to death, came within days of a lethal injection, but his execution was delayed after his lawyers raised questions about his mental competency. He was exonerated in 1999 following an investigation by David Protess, then a Northwestern University journalism professor, several of his students and a private investigator.

Simon has disavowed his confession for a decade now, and the recently released book by CPD Officer Martin Preib "Crooked City" touches heavily on the mistakes, errors and deliberate manipulation of fact by the involved parties to release Porter from Death Row and the homicides he certainly committed.

On a side note, Simon is serving a 37-year sentence, but due for release in August 2017 -  half of the listed sentence. You'd think that after alleging that Simon kept Porter behind bars (and on Death Row) for 17 years by not coming forward, prosecutors would have wanted to ensure the right guy spent all that time plus more behind bars. Nope - Devine's people just wanted someone in jail and didn't look to closely at all the holes in Simon's confession and in Protess' so-called "investigation."

Cozart Countdown

It's only a matter of time now:

• No arrests have been announced in a shooting at the home of the manager of rapper Chief Keef, and officials in north suburban Northfield are seeking to reassure nervous residents that police “are doing everything in their control to resolve this situation.”
  
  The 18-year-old rapper, whose real name is Keith Cozart, was questioned by police about the shooting and then released.
  
  [...] An attorney for Cozart, Leah Starkman, confirmed Cozart was in the home when the shooting occurred.

Odds are now about dead-even that Chief Queef Keef is dead before summer is over. If they're following him to the burbs and lighting up houses he happens to be in, you can just about bet the house that the clock is ticking. McCarthy is praying he gets wasted out of town lest the homicide rate climb once again.

Elkhart Cops Cleared

Well gee, thanks. We had no idea this was an issue when someone pointed a gun at cops, especially after that same person just killed two people and took a third hostage:

• An Indiana prosecutor has decided police were justified in the fatal shooting of a young man who had killed two women at a grocery store in Elkhart in January.
  
  Shawn Walter Bair, 22, walked into Martin’s Super Market on Jan. 15, and shot and killed 20-year-old Krystle Dikes, a store employee; and 44-year-old Rachelle Godfread, a customer at the store.
  
  He then shot at another employee, and took the store manager hostage as police arrived at the store. When he turned his gun on the two Elkhart police officers who responded to the attack, they shot him several times.
  
  WBBM Newsradio [...] reports Elkhart County Prosecutor Curtis Hill concluded the police officers were justified in their actions, and will not seek charges against them.

And it took 70-plus days to come to this conclusion?

An ACTUAL Investigative Report

Pam "the troll" Zekman actually scores one here:

• The CBS 2 Investigators and the Better Government Association have been warning about an apparent shortage of Chicago ambulances and paramedics. The result: dangerous delays for patients needing emergency care.
  
  So far, it seems the city is trying to cover the problem up instead of fixing it. In the meantime, the response times for ambulances are just getting worse.
  
  “Anybody available downtown that can take a run,” a dispatcher’s voice crackles through the scanner speaker.

And she even manages to put a spotlight on city efforts to cover up the shortage:

• But now, city officials apparently don’t want the media or anyone else with a scanner to hear some of those transmissions asking for help. They are asking dispatchers to watch what they say.
  
  CBS 2 and the BGA obtained a copy of a memo written by a supervisor at the Office of Emergency Management. It called shout-outs for any available ambulances: “not an acceptable practice.”
  
  The memo instructs dispatchers to, “Avoid terminology like we have no ALS (advanced life support) ambulances available,”….particularly when they have to send a basic life support ambulance to the scene and a fire engine with a paramedic on board. Basic life support ambulances do not have paramedics and the same equipment as advanced life ambulances.
  
  Dispatchers should use ambulance numbers to instruct staff in the field on what to do in those cases, the memo said, adding, “Hopefully we can get the message across without highlighting the fact that no ALS unit is available.”

This isn't a fluff piece, and it's odd having to actually salute a media outlet for doing their jobs properly instead of sucking at whatever appendage is available from a Chicago mayor, but this is a good start. Now how about some follow-up? One-and-done isn't going to cut it when lives are on the line. And after that, maybe a few more pieces on what a cesspool of corruption exists here - we're sure our readers and our archives contain years worth of pieces.

Guess Who Was Lying?

It's crap like this that makes us wonder how anyone votes for Quinn in the first place We mean, everyone knew Quinn was lying when he said "temporary increase," right?

• Gov. Pat Quinn has done it once before, and he’ll be doing it again in 2014 as a Democratic incumbent campaigning as the lead cheerleader for a tax the vast majority of Illinoisans dislike.
  
  Quinn’s announcement Wednesday that he intends to push for a permanent extension of a temporary income tax he enacted in 2011 represents a huge political Achilles’ heel for him in his campaign against Republican Bruce Rauner.
  
  But will it be fatal?

Quinn's only saving grace at this point is he isn't Rauner, and that isn't much of a recommendation. In this anti-incumbent mood and with the president being a drag on every national race, is this enough to push blue state voters to either stay home or toss support to Rauner? Quinn is jacking up taxes and not even spending the money on propping up the bankrupt pensions. Rauner want to kill the system and won't have a compliant Legislature to roll back the "temporary" tax increase in any case.

New Jersey Haunts McJersey

Ghosts of Departments Past:

• For all we know, Mayor Rahm Emanuel based his choice to lead the Chicago Police Department entirely on Garry McCarthy’s credentials. But it couldn’t have been lost on a politician as image-conscious as Emanuel that McCarthy looks like the top cop sent by Central Casting.
  
  McCarthy shares the marquee of CNN’s ongoing documentary series “Chicagoland” with his equally resolute-looking boss and a young female high school principal.
  
  It’s a role McCarthy reprised for the makers of “Chicagoland.” Their cameras also loved him at his previous job leading the Newark, N.J., police department, when  they featured him in their acclaimed 2009 documentary series about Newark called “Brick City.”
  
  More recently, though, there was some news out of The Brick City that could cast McCarthy’s tenure there in a different, much less reverential light.
  
  The U.S. Department of Justice has decided a federal monitor must run the Newark force, according to the Newark Star-Ledger. A Newark city government spokeswoman said Tuesday that the monitor’s appointment was not yet finalized but was the “likely” outcome of a federal probe of the department that focused on McCarthy’s tenure there.

Not the best line to have on your résumé, that's for sure. And you can bet letters of recommendation are not coming from Newark.

Drivers Are Learning

And while Rahm's unelected school board is spending $5 million on new furniture, another hole magically appears in the budget:

• Drivers appear to be hitting the brakes at red lights — leading to a big drop in tickets issued by red-light cameras, city officials said.
  
  For the fifth year in a row, Chicago’s red-light camera program has seen a significant decline in the number of tickets issued.
  
  The city’s 384 red-light cameras issued 579,460 tickets last year — 32,619 fewer than in 2012, representing a 5 percent decline, according to data obtained from the city’s Finance Department.
  
  In fact, the data shows red-light camera tickets have been falling steadily since 2009, when 722,935 tickets were issued, a record at the time after a dramatic expansion of the program a year earlier. The 140,000-ticket drop represents a 20 percent decline since the peak five years ago.
  
  Fewer tickets issued means a potential drop in fine revenue. At $100 a ticket, that translates to an estimated $3.2 million drop in fines issued between 2012 and 2013 and a $14.3 million drop in total fines issued since 2009.

Thanks to the Expired Meter for this story.

Close Schools - Buy Furniture

Classic disconnect from the bureaucracy:

• Less than a year after CPS closed dozens of schools and laid off thousands of employees, it’s getting ready to spend millions on an office move.
  
  CBS 2 [...] reports questions are flying about how the supposedly broke system can afford it.
  
  It’s been a tumultuous year for CPS, filled with protests and anger about the shuttering of schools, teacher cuts and program cutbacks. Imagine the reaction to news that Chicago Public School officials are ready to spend $5 million on new headquarter offices and planning to ask the board to amend an existing $4.5 million contract with Staples, an office supply store.
  
  “I don’t think they can justify it all,” said 2nd Ward Alderman Bob Fioretti

They'd actually have to justify it if Chicago had an elected school board, but that referendum went by the wayside when Rahm had a taxi fare hike, an unenforceable magazine ban and another gun "issue" on the ballot that filled all three spaces. Now we have to rely on a rubber stamp city council to do a job they have proven time and time again incapable of doing for at least 100 years.

Nothing Up Our Sleeve.....Presto!

Reclassified before your very eyes!

• Chicago police are investigating the death of a 58-year-old woman in the Bronzeville neighborhood who may have had a heart attack during a domestic dispute this afternoon.
  
  Police were called to the 400 block of East 46th St. at 3:54 p.m., said Police News Affairs [...].
  
  The woman, had what was believed to be a "fatal cardiac event" during a domestic incident, Sweeney said. Detectives were conducting a death investigation, [News Affairs] said, correcting earlier information that detectives may have been conducting a homicide investigation.

Veteran detectives we know can cite at least two instances where officers who were chasing/wrestling with offenders and suffered fatal heart attacks, the offender was then charged with their murder. A "fatal cardiac event" in the commission of another crime is a "homicide" then, isn't it? But if the Department counts it, we'll definitely be over the March 2013 totals.

That Didn't Take Long

The CTA is still cutting the derailed train into pieces and the lawsuits are already flying:

• How safe is the design of the CTA’s O’Hare Blue Line station if a train was able to vault the tracks and climb an escalator at one of the busiest airports in the world?
  
  That’s among the questions at least one attorney said he will be trying to answer as he pursues one of three negligence lawsuits filed Tuesday against the CTA involving Monday’s Blue Line crash.

The station has only been in existence for 25 or more years without incident - it MUST be a design flaw! What would we do without lawyers?

Retired Sgt Dies After Home Invasion

Never awoke from sedation following surgery for his wounds:

• A retired Chicago police sergeant who was shot in the neck during a home invasion robbery earlier this month has died, his wife said Monday.
  
  “He was a wonderful father and husband,” said Mary Ann Brown of her husband, Elmer Brown. He was 73. Mr. Brown — a policeman for 38 years who was legally blind and suffered from diabetes — died early Monday at Advocate Christ Medical Center, Mary Ann Brown said.
  
  “He was completely out of it,” Brown said. “He was heavily sedated because of where his wounds were.” Holding back tears, Mary Ann Brown said her husband had been unable to communicate in any way since the attack, which occurred March 10 about 11:45 p.m. at the couple’s home on 115th Street, fewer than five blocks from the Indiana state line.
  
  Two men with hooded sweatshirts drawn tight around their faces burst inside the couple’s home, and one of the men shot Elmer Brown in the neck after the two inquired about a safe in the home. After 10 minutes of the men ransacking the home, they ran out the house, seemingly empty-handed, she said.
  
  No one was in custody Monday.

A God-awful shame that a retiree can't even be safe in his own home after almost 4 decades of serving the city. RIP Sergeant.

Harris Funeral

Yet another funeral on a cold clear day:

• A funeral was held today for Chicago Police Officer David Harris, killed as he headed home from work early March 14 when his car was hit by one driven by a woman allegedly trying to escape Calumet Park police.
  
  [...] Family members, friends and scores of Chicago police attended Harris's funeral service today at the Living Word Christian Faith Church, 7600 W. Roosevelt Road in Forest Park.
  
  Harris, 42, had just finished his shift as a member of a special "saturation" team assigned to patrol some of the city’s most dangerous blocks and was about 15 minutes from home when the crash pushed his Lexus against a light pole, authorities said.

Harris leaves behind a wife and two young boys. He will be missed most of all by them. Godspeed Officer.

CPD v CFD Hockey this Sunday

Another of the friendly rivalries between First Responders:

Many good times are had at these events - bring the family.

And Another Lawsuit

As predicted here months ago - like the rising of the sun in the east:

• The family of an 11-year-old boy who was killed when a car thief fleeing from police crashed has filed a lawsuit against the Chicago Police Department.
  
  Donovan Turnage’s death on Dec. 21 was an “entirely preventable” tragedy that would have been avoided if police hadn’t given chase on a crowded street in the middle of the day, an attorney for the Turnage family said Monday.
  
  Turnage, a student at Morrill Math and Science School, was thrown from his father’s SUV in Englewood when it was hit at 55th and Halsted by a stolen car that police say was being driven by serial offender Rockie Douglas.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

You might remember this as the offender carjacked three different vehicles at gun point across the city, fled after a crash, and was eventually apprehended in a drive-thru up in Wisconsin. Oh yeah - and he was white.

If we recall, the original call was an on-view armed carjacking. That isn't the sort of call that officers just blow off. If word got around that police won't chase you when you're committing armed carjackings, then you're going to get a shitload more armed carjackings. In fact, based on personal experience and personal knowledge, that's exactly what we've observed happening over the past few years - no fear of a chase leads to.....more fleeing/eluding!

And that's not even getting into the twisted arguments that will arise, "If you chase in the black community, but not in the white community, isn't that (insert racist conspiracy theory here)."

Society in general and the Department specifically, is going to have to come to terms with the fact that criminals flee. If they flee, the police are going to chase. And during a chase, people sometimes get hurt, most times by the person fleeing, who then bears the legal blame (except in narrow cases of deliberate disregard). But who ends up bearing most of the supposed liability? The police and by dint of being the "deep pocket," the city. This is unworkable. We'd rather see the FOP came out with a statement along the lines of...

• "We cannot in good conscience tell our members to chase criminals due to fact that they are placed in unreasonable jeopardy of losing their jobs, their homes and their very freedom should they engage in enforcing the laws of the State of Illinois, Cook County, City of Chicago. Until such time as the state legislature, county board and city council indemnify officers to the degree that good faith actions taken on the part of officers will not jeopardize their livelihood, you're on your own Chicago. Call Rahm, call Preckwindle, call Madigan. And get a gun - you'll need it."

...and let the political shitstorm erupt.

What happened to Donovan Turnage was a tragedy of unspeakable proportion. But to reflexively blame the police for the actions of a criminal is only going to embolden the next criminal. And the next. And the next. It's happening already if you look around.

Time for "Discovery"

The inevitable conclusion approaches:

• Nanci Koschman used to lie awake at night, unable to sleep, because the police blamed her only child, David Koschman, for his own death.
  
  Now, she can’t sleep because she’s angry since learning the police lied to her.
  
  So angry that she has decided to file a federal lawsuit accusing the Chicago Police Department of violating her son’s civil rights.
  
  The Mount Prospect widow says she made that decision after reading the 162-page report of special prosecutor Dan K. Webb. In it, Webb described how police and prosecutors twice botched investigations — in 2004 and 2011 — into her son’s death, never charging Richard J. “R.J.” Vanecko, whose uncle Richard M. Daley was mayor during both of those investigations.
  
  “It just felt like they didn’t take David’s rights into consideration at all,” Koschman said in an hourlong interview Friday with the Chicago Sun-Times and NBC5. “He was like a non-person. They were so busy trying to cover up what wasn’t done properly that they forgot that David existed.

We predicted a few years ago that the Police Department was going to take the brunt of this and the interview linked to this post doesn't dissuade us from that prediction one iota. The D-unit is going to take a public flogging over this one along with the brass. But there is plenty of blame to lay in the States Attorney's office and City Hall's reflexive defense of the "royal family" that has set in motion the destruction of Chicago and the State of Illinois.

Weekends Now Only 30 Hours

Counting the weekend totals before the weekend is even done - McCompStat has to stop the bleeding somehow, so why not declare the weekend over?

• One person was killed and at least 16 others have been wounded in shootings across the city since Friday night.
  
  The fatal shooting happened Friday night when two men were shot in the West Garfield Park neighborhood.
  
  The men – ages 52 and 53 — were standing in an alley in the 4300 block of West Jackson about 7:20 p.m. when a maroon-colored minivan pulled up alongside the two, police said. A male in the van started talking to them and eventually pulled out a handgun and opened fire.

The final totals will be hidden in a blizzard of other news - missing Malaysian airliners, Ukrainian invasions, more Obamacare intrigue...oh wait, no one is talking about that one.

In the meantime, 23 days of March 2014 have matched the March 2013 entire month totals. That means homicides are up in February and will be up in March, meaning the trend (if you follow the CompStat manipulation) is upward once again, no matter what Rahm and McCarthy claim about crime in general.

Rugby Event

Raising money for The 100 Club of Chicago:

This is a great chance to come out and try to learn about Rugby. It will be an evening match under the lights in the football stadium which should make it a little more interesting then a forest preserve or public park.

ALL money made from the match will be given directly to the 100 Club and they will be on site to sign up anyone interested in joining.

Another Shooting

We confused this one with the previous shooting, but they appear to be separate incidents:

• A 19-year-old man who pointed a gun at officers during a South Side chase Saturday night was charged this morning with aggravated assault with a firearm, authorities said.
  
  Junior Adziwonou of the 8900 block of South Normal Avenue was charged with one felony count of aggravated unlawful use of a loaded gun, three counts of aggravated assault of an officer with a firearm and one misdemeanor count of possessing a firearm without a valid gun card, said police. He was ordered held on a $50,000 bond in bond court Sunday.

A shot fired by the police missed the gunman who was treated for cuts and abrasions he received during the chase. Be careful out there boys and girls.

Mass Transit "Realignment?"

Someone has been posting this a couple of times.

Troll? Or is something in the works?

We saw that the Department posted a notice for resumes and letters for people wanting to go to the airport last week. That means they're going to have a major influx of manpower - last time we think it was 25 bids and 25 phone calls. It was the biggest movement to the airport in history and you needed something like 22 years to even come close.

Crime is Down!

Pay no attention to these weekend headlines:

• Man, 61, held on $75K in fatal East Garfield Park stabbing of home health aide
• Police: Man fatally shot in Englewood, 2 others shot
• Shootings leave 1 dead, 5 hurt
• 3 stabbed, 1 fatally, in South Shore neighborhood
• $5 million bond for man charged with strangling neighbor
• Man shot in leg in West Pullman

And that's just part of Friday evening into Saturday afternoon. There's still all of Sunday to go, but a rough count is eight wounded by gunfire, two dead by gunfire, four stabbed - two of which died, and a strangulation - 5 dead, 10 wounded? In under 36 hours? Yeah, McCarthy has a handle on everything.

Do the bloggers at HeyJackass.com have a March 2014 v 2013 comparison up?

And as a side note - 22 days, and not a single legal gun owner has had to answer questions in a criminal investigation, nor shot down innocent passersby, nor committed any overt act that might be considered questionable.

"Crooked City" Author Interview

Fellow police blogger Rue St. Michel has an interview up with CPD's Marty Preib, author of the book "Crooked City."

We've had links up for the book once or twice now and the interview gives a bit of insight into how the book came into being and how the media still studiously ignores the connections between the radical SDS Weathermen group and the Innocence Project that put convicted murders back on the street with a combination of lies, misinterpretation of the evidence and an exploitative media.

Swing by Rue's site and give it a read.

St. Baldrick's Thank You

From one of the organizers:

• St. Baldrick's 2014 is in the books and what a chapter we had this year! We combined efforts with CFD for the first time and both departments stepped up to the plate. The final figures won't be in for about two weeks, after all of the cash and checks turned in at the event get counted, however we stand at over $108,000 so far and should close out at about $120,000, thank you to everyone who made our event so successful.
  
  The biggest news of the year was the fact that Chicago First Responder events, in just seven years have raised over $1,000,000 to help fund research to find a cure for this terrible disease. A ceremonial check was presented to Heather Kash from St. Baldrick's along with Adam Sanchez, son of Brenda Valadez, and a cancer survivor who has taken on his brain tumor with more strength than many of us could even imagine. On behalf of all of you that have helped over the years it was an honor to meet Brenda and Alex and to be a part of the presentation. There is no way to have reached this milestone without the help of each participant, volunteer, and donor over the years so to all of you, THANK YOU!
  
  It's impossible to list everyone that helped us get to this point, but I would be remiss if I didn't thank Anne Zamzow and Bill Murphy and their respective crews for all they do at the 022 and 025 events, and Rory Ohse who started the CFD events and Tom Murphy who picked up the banner this year for CFD. And thank you SCC for helping with getting the word out every year.
  
  Until we find a cure,
  
  Bill O'Reilly

"Health Problems"

Evidently, child porn qualifies as a "health problem" among the political set:

• Federal investigators seized computer equipment from former state Rep. Keith Farnham's district office in Elgin as part of a probe into child pornography, according to a federal search warrant released late Friday by the Illinois House.
  
  Farnham, a three-term Elgin Democrat, abruptly resigned earlier this week, saying previously undisclosed health problems were behind his departure.
  
  But Farnham, who has not been charged, had his offices in Springfield and Elgin searched on March 14th by the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement division, which removed several pieces of equipment.

Upon conviction, we'd hope his fellow inmates also "remove[d] several pieces of [his] equipment."

Ain't This the Truth?

From a commentator who's obviously a budding philosopher.....or pundit.

•  To Democrats, a "millionaire" is anyone who has a job.

We've certainly noticed this in our tax rate and withholding lately, even though Obama, Quinn and Rahm claim it's all either "free" or "for the children."

Officer David Harris Arrangements

The arrangements for the services are as follows:

• Wake is 3pm to 9pm on Sunday March 23rd at Blake and Lamb Funeral Home, 4727 W 103rd St, Oak Lawn, Il. 
• Funeral service is 11:30am on Monday March 24th at Living Word Christian Center,  7600 W Roosevelt, Forrest Park, Il. Burial to follow after.

Please Keep his family in our thoughts and prayers.

McCarthy to Box?

This might be something worth watching:

• Say what you want about McCarthy, but he just signed up for this years Battle of the Badges. This should be interesting with a long line of wannabe contenders. The city could make money by selling raffles to have a chance to box the Bronx Bomber !

If true, we assume that he'd be boxing a fireman, not a copper.

Also, if true, good for him. We know that it'd take us a bit of time to get into fighting shape - boxing is a rather labor intensive pursuit.

Send us a poster and we'll promote it.

Ladner to County

From a number of writers, it seems disgraced director Ladner has landed a new job at Cook County.

We would certainly hope that someone had given County the heads-up as to her corrupt hiring methods, her unbelievable prejudice against police and military backgrounds and her nonexistent office management skills, but then we realized that each of these would be considered an asset at County. Besides, it's not like any one over there will be paying for her malfeasance - that's what taxpayers are for.

Sergeant List is Out (UPDATE)

Post it if you got it.

UPDATE: Got it

• 001 Carol BURNS
  001/543 Thomas POLICK
  002 Brian GUNNELL
  002/166 Virginia BUCKI
  002/211 Julio GUEVARA
  004 Eduardo AGRON
  004 Elise PADILLA
  006 Corey WALKER
  006/212 Michael CAVANAUGH
  007 Patrick FELMING
  007 Steven SABATINO
  008 Christian GAAL
  008 James JOHNSON
  008 Gerald TROGLIA
  008/211 Rafael MARTINEZ
  009 Kelly CUSACK
  009 Timothy MORIARTY
  010 Jose BAUTISTA
  010 Ildefonso LARA
  010 Ruben MARTINEZ
  010 Sonia RIOS
  011 Joel HOLLER
  011 Tina LIPINSKI
  011/115 Jacquelyn FRAUSTO
  014 William BERNATH
  014 Kenneth MESCALL
  015 Ross LESLIE
  015 Todd REYKJALIN
  015 Robert SEKERA
  016 Jerome HERNANDEZ
  016/213 Christina FICO
  016/213 Joseph LISNOWSKI
  017 Phillip COLLINS Jr
  018 Richard HAINZL
  018 Edward HURLEY
  019 David RODRIGUEZ
  024 Robert CREETH
  024 Mary HEIN
  024 Edward RANZZONI
  024/124 Tracy WALCZAK
  025 Nicholas ORLANDO
  189 Clark EICHMAN
  189 Robert JURCZYKOWSKI
  189 Isaac SHAVERS Jr
  191 Patrick LEE PALMER
  312 Matthew MALLOY
  313 George MELANIS
  313 Chris SOPIKIOTIS
  610 Cullen MURPHY
  610 Joseph SULLIVAN
  620 Regina HIGHTOWER
  620 Victor MEDINA
  620 Thomas SIMON
  630 Stephen CZABLEWSKI
  630 John HANIACEK
  630 Michael KOLASA
  543/140 Kimberly WOODS
  630/079 Athena MULLEN
  630/606 Xavier DELGADO
  630/606 Miroslaw DOBEK

Sixty names if we counted correctly.

UPDATE: List corrected - probably because Ladner fucked it up and put the wrong "meri-clout-orious" person in a spot.....again.

What Media Bias?

Here's the headline from the Tribune:

• Teen injured in police-involved shooting in Englewood

Damn those police, shooting happy-go-lucky teens in search of fun.

Now from the Sun Times:

• Officers shoot suspect who fired at them in Fuller Park: police union

Oh, you mean the altar boy had a gun? And he shot at the police? Well, yeah, he did:

• Chicago Police shot and wounded a man who allegedly fired a gun at officers Thursday evening in the South Side Fuller Park neighborhood.
  
  Police shot and wounded a person in the 4400 block of South Princeton Avenue about 6:45 p.m., said Larry Merritt, a spokesman for the Independent Police Review Authority, the city agency responsible for investigating all police-involved shootings.
  
  Paramedics took the unidentified man to John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County, said Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford. His injury was not thought to be life-threatening.

Kind of makes a difference, doesn't it?

Roundabout Justice

They got Capone on tax evasion and he died a broken syphilis-ridden wreck. In this case, we'll take it:

• Drug dealer Jason “J-Rock” Austin was locked up in Cook County Jail for allegedly killing an off-duty Chicago cop and his female friend while they sat in an SUV on the West Side.
  
  But that didn’t stop the feared gang leader from reaching out to his family and friends on jail phones, the feds say.
  
  And one by one, witnesses who pointed to Austin in the 2008 murders of Roberto Soto and his friend, Kathryn Romberg, suddenly changed their stories.
  
  The triggerman wasn’t Austin at all — but a drug-dealing rival, some of the witnesses said.
  
  Others said the cops beat them to lie about Austin, even going so far as to sue the Chicago Police Department.
  
  Some got rides to the grand jury from Austin’s brother, Bubba, who wasn’t shy about showing off his gun.
  
  And one woman who didn’t change her story got punched with a padlock by one of Austin’s girlfriends.
  
  “You better stop trickin’ on J-Rock,” she warned, the feds say.
  
  As the witnesses’ accounts collapsed, the prosecution fell apart, and Austin walked out of jail a free man less than a month after his arrest.

Now the feds have this piece of excrement convicted dead-bang on dope charges that will get him 40 years if the judge follows the recommendations. This one was a long time coming. One thing that would make it better was if everyone who participated in the intimidation got a few years in the pen, too.

Citizens Begin to Revolt

Under McJerseyShore, anything over one incident is considered a pattern. This qualifies a pattern, an outbreak, a flurry, and a wave:

• The saga of Chicago's contentious parking meters has taken a turn toward criminal damage of property.
  
  Someone has been breaking parking meters' the display glass, credit card readers, and display brackets with a blunt instrument, according to an alert released by the Chicago Police Department on Thursday afternoon. The damage has caused at least a dozen parking meters, owned by the company LAZ Parking, to malfunction or shut down.
  
  The offenders are unknown, officials said, but they have apparently been working all over the North Side.

Thirteen locations have had the parking boxes so badly damaged that they cannot distribute receipts for parking. To the vandals involved, we have only one thing to say - shame shame. If you keep doing this, we're going to have to wag our finger at you and mutter "tsk tsk" under our breath. And then, a strongly worded letter will be put in your permanent file, you know, just like Obama did to Putin.

Locations for free parki....oops. we mean damaged boxes can be found at the link up top.

Should this continue, we might match Detroit in another category:

• Restructuring consultants have recommended that Detroit increase its parking fines and crack down harder on people who don't pay to boost revenue for the bankrupt city, which currently pays $32 to issue and process a $30 parking violation.

Now that is a microcosm of a complete basket case of a bureaucracy.

Quick Hits

A few stories of interest. Louis is (hopefully) in trouble again:

• Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Chicago is under review by the House Ethics Committee, which did not spell out why but promised to reveal more by May 5.
  
  Gutierrez's spokesman, Douglas Rivlin, said the committee is looking into annual payments of about $50,000 over 10 years to a contractor, The Scofield Company, whose senior partner is Doug Scofield, Gutierrez's former chief of staff.

If only it were possible for all of Louis's sins to catch up with him all at once. He'd burst into flame and continue burning for at least 10 days.

Heliport in Bridgeport?

• Eleven years after former Mayor Richard M. Daley demolished Meigs Field under cloak of darkness, Chicago will soon have two places where helicopters can take off and land.
  
  The Chicago Plan Commission made sure of that Thursday by clearing for take-off a plan by Wheeling-based tour company Chicago Helicopter Express to build a $12.5 million heliport on the south branch of the Chicago River.

The article doesn't mention any public funds being used in construction. But we imagine the elder Daley is spinning in his grave.

When the US Supreme Court opens a door, trust a democratic Illinois Dupreme Court to go charging through it and take things to illogical extremes:

• Jennifer Bishop-Jenkins says she long ago forgave David Biro, who was a teenager in 1990 when he shot her pregnant sister and brother-in-law to death at the couple’s Winnetka home.
  
  But that does not mean Biro should ever be released from prison, said Bishop-Jenkins, who has been a high-profile advocate for murder victim’s families in the years since her sister’s death.
  
  To her dismay, Biro’s release from prison is now a possibility.

Eighty convicted murderers, sentenced to life in prison under the law, have a shot at walking free to the dismay of the co-workers, friends and families of the deceased.

And we thought Madigan was smarter than this - guess not:

• Illinois Democrats went all-in Thursday with their election-year class warfare theme as Speaker Michael Madigan pitched the idea of asking voters to raise taxes on millionaires, Senate President John Cullerton advanced a minimum-wage increase and Gov. Pat Quinn compared wealthy opponent Bruce Rauner to TV villain Mr. Burns.
  
  [...] The powerful Democratic speaker said the tax hike on millionaires is a way to generate more than $1 billion for elementary and high schools. Madigan based his calculations on what he said are roughly 13,675 millionaires that lived in Illinois in 2011, brushing aside a question about whether such a tax hike might drive them out of the state.
  
  “Well, if they’re in Illinois today, they’re probably so much in love with Illinois that they’re not going to leave,” Madigan said. “We’ve done this because we feel that the millionaires in Illinois are the ones that are better equipped to support education than others.

Maybe he missed the reports, but Illinois ranks second only to New Jersey for people leaving their state. Raising the tax rates to confiscatory levels on the people most easily able to leave will result in them doing exactly that. Econ 101 again, but of course, that sort of thinking is alien to Illinois democrats.

Spot the Racist

Here's an interesting exercise.

Paul Ryan, United States Representative from Wisconsin and possible presidential candidate has run afoul of the leftist media and their handlers, being accused of racism for a statement made recently. We're going to post it here among some other quotes and see if you can pick out the Paul Ryan quote:

1. “Fewer young black and Latino men participate in the labor force compared to young white men. And all of this translates into higher unemployment rates and poverty rates as adults.
   
   
2. “In troubled neighborhoods all across this country—many of them heavily African American—too few of our citizens have role models to guide them.”
   
   
3. “We know that more than half of all black children live in single-parent households…. We know the statistics—that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; nine times more likely to drop out of school and twenty times more likely to end up in prison.”
   
   
4. “We have got this tailspin of culture in our inner cities, in particular, of men not working and just generations of men not even thinking about working or learning the value and the culture of work.”
   
   
5. “We know young black men are twice as likely as young white men to be ‘disconnected’—not in school, not working.”

Can you spot the racist statement? If you picked number 4, give yourself a pat on the back. Shame on Paul Ryan for noticing the culture of the ghetto where hard work is a slur and success is to be avoided like the plague. For shame!

By the way, statements 1, 2, 3, and 5 were all uttered by the same individual, using words like black, Latino, African-American, (lack of) role models, poverty, single parent households, and "disconnected."

The speaker was Barack Obama.

Thanks to AceOfSpades for this article.

It's Me! It's All Me!!! Look At Me!!!!!

Here we go again:

• Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said Tuesday that the city’s strategy to reduce gang violence is “clearly taking root,” pointing to a major decrease in gang-related shootings.
  
  Those types of shootings have fallen sharply over the early months of this year compared with the same period of 2013, according to the department.
  
  They now represent less than half of the total number of shooting incidents in Chicago.
  
  “It’s not an accident, it’s not the weather — it’s a trend,” the superintendent said in an interview.

And once again, we have to roll out this reminder:

What were the snow totals this season? The average temperature was how low? Who was it who was actually saying that the inclement weather was actually helping keep the violence down (hint - he kills streetlights)? But of course, it was politically convenient to claim a "trend" at this point in time.

Runoff Politics

We've been a bit heavy handed in the comments lately. We'd just like to say that we've never seen a dirtier, lower and mean-spirited election that the one going on now. A few people (yes, we can tell they're the same person Rich) seem to have nothing better to do than motherfuck one candidate or the other, spew all sorts of stories about physical maladies or lack of the same, scams, misappropriations, backroom dealings, etc etc etc.

Even the stuff about with a grain of truth is blown completely into something it isn't. There was a fluff piece in the Southtown covering the current Acting president, a statement was made about retirees getting shifted to Obamacare:

• Police officers between the ages of 55 and 64 who retired used to get their health insurance paid for by the city until they reached Medicare eligibility.
  
  Starting last month, they were phased into the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, to save the city money.
  
  “I understand the city needs to save money and Obamacare may turn out to be a good option,” Dougherty said.

One or more enterprising people have twisted this to be a blanket endorsement of the city's move. It isn't. If you read the next two paragraphs, Bill waffles like all politicians do:

• “But right now, we don’t know what the future of Obamacare will be. It could disappear in a couple of years and our retirees will be left without health insurance coverage.
  
  “We would just like some time to see how this plays out. The additional cost to our retirees is about $400 a month, and that’s not something they planned for.”

$400 extra a month certainly isn't something that a retiree budgets for. And that $4,800 a year is a far cry from Obama's promise of a $2,500 savings per household. Maybe Bill will want to amend his "see how this plays out" statement - it has played out, and it sucks. This would qualify as a legit point of contention and not the hysterical "Bill loves Obamacare!" hysteria we've been deleting for days now.

Again, we have already stated that we aren't voting for anyone whose name appears on the inside of the current FOP Book, and that includes the runoff. We aren't really happy about the current choices and believe the better candidate didn't make it into the runoff. But when you only have something like 101 eligible candidates from a labor organization of 10,000 active and 6,000 retirees, well, that speaks volumes in and of itself of the state of the Lodge.

You're welcome to disagree and make cognizant arguments for or against that.

UPDATE: To the troll who keeps twisting our words to make it look like we slammed the Angelo supporters - we are disgusted by both sides.

Another $60 Million Discovered

More money for pet projects, but not for statutorily required pensions:

• A notorious bottleneck along the lakefront path near Navy Pier that has created a dangerous free-for-all between cyclists, joggers, skaters, pedestrians and motorists is about to be eliminated — finally.
  
  Construction on the 1.5-mile, $60 million “Navy Pier Flyover” will begin Monday, triggering the temporary closure of the right lane and shoulder of northbound Lake Shore Drive between Illinois and Grand. The exit ramp at Illinois will be reduced to one lane.

That's $40 million per mile. It's also 50% more than the estimated cost from just a few years ago:

• It was publicly unveiled in 1999 and incorporated the following year into then-Mayor Richard M. Daley’s Bike 2000 Plan.
  
  In 2011, it was finally approved by the Chicago Plan Commission. At the time, the price tag was $40 million -- $20 million less than it costs today.

All this spending just makes us feel warm and fuzzy and near-homicidal with rage.

Lots for Sale - $1

But only if you already own property in "the 'Wood:"

• It’s been done in Gary. Now it’s time for the South Side of Chicago.
  
  If approved by the Chicago Plan Commission Thursday, homeowners and nonprofits in Englewood will be able to buy city-owned vacant lots for $1.
  
  In Gary, the program offers vacant homes owned by the city. In Chicago, the hope is to use more than 5,000 vacant lots for something other than litter.

That noise you just heard is the sound of dozens of ghost corporations, shell companies and make-believe churches being incorporated across the city. These schemes always seem to involve an aldercreature, a connected "church," or a ward-heeler who will profit immensely at some point in the not-too-distant future.

How about the FOP buys a house nearby and snaps up a few hundred, maybe a few thousand of these lots at $2 a piece? We'd be out a few thousand bucks at first, but the potential payout could pay for a few additional failed presidencies.

100+ Years

A small measure of justice:

• The gunman in the fatal drive-by shooting of Chicago Police Officer Alejandro “Alex” Valadez was sentenced to 105 years in prison Wednesday while his co-defendant received a 120-year prison sentence.
  
  Christopher Harris, the shooter, and Kevin Walker, who was behind the wheel when the bullets fired, were convicted in October of the June 1, 2009, killing in a vacant Englewood lot.
  
  Before Harris’ sentencing, Valadez’s police officer sister, Brenda Valadez, talked in court about how she and two of her siblings became cops because they wanted to make a difference.

RIP Officer Valadez.

Sentencing Hearing Today

Barring a last minute delay, the sentencing for the murderers of PO Alex Valadez is today:

• Sentencing hearing for Kevin Walker and Christopher Harris, both found guilty in the murder of P.O. Alex Valadez 9534 EOW 01 June 2009 will be tomorrow, Wednesday 19 March 2014. 26/Cal. 1100hrs Room 207 - Judge Alonso.

If you're in the building, or if you have the time, stop in and show your support for the family.

Ladner Gives Two Weeks Notice?

Rumor popping up.

Is our long nightmare finally over? Did the FOIA request for "merit" picks finally seal her fate? Or was it just time for her to get on her broom and fly away to ruin another government office?

Will we finally get a legit hiring list that doesn't penalize military people or the families of Officers?

Somebody better frisk her on the way out the door - she might be smuggling out all the "merit" lists no can seem to produce.

Englewood Gunman Shot

Wanted a "suicide by cop," got shot:

• Chicago police shot a man they said had been walking around the neighborhood waving a gun and was found standing on a balcony with a gun to his head.
  
  An officer shot the man, in his mid-20s, about 10 p.m. just north of 61st Street on Sangamon Avenue in the Englewood neighborhood.
  
  He was on a balcony with a gun to his head when an Englewood District sergeant tried to talk him down, Fraternal Order of Police Spokesman Patrick Camden said.
  
  The man told police they'd have to shoot him if they wanted him to drop the weapon and started lowering it toward the sergeant, Camden said.
  
  A separate officer who set up opposite the sergeant opened fire, hitting the man in his side, Camden said. Camden said the man told police that he didn't need help getting into the ambulance or to wear handcuffs, since he had been shot before.

Cops are all okay.

Suburban Officer Killed in Wreck

On duty crash:

• An Oak Forest police officer died Monday night, hours after he was involved in a car crash while on duty, according to authorities.
  
  The crash happened at 160th Street and Cicero Avenue about 2:15 p.m.
  
  Officer James Morrissy, 62, died at Advocate Christ Medical Center at 8:02 p.m., a spokesman for the Cook County medical examiner's office said.
  
  Details about the crash weren't immediately available.

Deepest sympathies to our suburban Brothers and Sisters and the Officer's family. Godspeed Officer.

FOP Debate?

We got this in an e-mail, allegedly from Acting FOP President Bill Dougherty:

• Dean,
  
  I have been out at roll calls this past week and have received numerous requests for the two of us to debate. I think it would be a good idea for us to express our views in a public forum. Obviously we are working with a very limited time frame, so could you please get back to me ASAP? Once we have a date/time set, I am thinking we could use the FOP website, our respective websites, Facebook, and hopefully the blog if they are willing to publicize it (hence the cc). I would propose Brock Merck as the Mediator, though I am open to any suggestion you might have. We could hold the debate as early as after the General Meeting or as late as Saturday at the FOP Hall.
  
  Thank you.
  
  Bill Dougherty
  

If this is a legit letter, we're more than willing to publicize it. Here you go. Mandating attendance (by the membership) is another story. All unit reps should be showing up so as to spread the news as far and as wide as possible. YouTube is another option.

Candidates? Readers? Is this desirable, workable, or possible?

Primary Election Day

Today, we figure out who will be in the fall election for the privilege of destroying our golden years. We have the following suggestions:

• If you want to stop Rauner, who is on the record as wanting/willing to work with Rahm, end all public pensions and restrict the Constitutional Rights of gun owners, then you have to do something that many of you have never done before in your life - pull a Republican ballot. You'll notice right away how short it is. Republicans have not fielded candidates for a vast majority of the offices up for a vote this November. At least that will save you time. None of the Republicans/republicans running are optimal candidates, but we recommend Kirk Dillard. He's willing to work to actually reform the system, not jettison it. He isn't lying when he says there will be some pain on both sides, but at least he isn't Rauner.
  
  
• If you are so brainwashed as to have to pull a democratic ballot, you are going to be in there for a while. You are going to be voting for the same people, the same ones who have been misspending your tax money, giving it to connected companies, professional victims and assorted others. While we recommend voting "NO" or "Hell No" on every single judicial candidate, there is a website that has a pretty comprehensive background on the candidates. If you're going to vote for judges, at least be informed about it.
  
  
• If you sit home, don't come here bitching about it.

That is all.

$960

Ridiculous:

• McHenry County taxpayers are subsidizing the incarceration of former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s nephew, who asked to serve his 60-day sentence at their jail rather than at the Cook County Jail for killing David Koschman.
  
  The $16 a day that Daley nephew Richard J. “R.J.” Vanecko is paying to do his time at the McHenry County Jail is 81 percent less than the $85 a day that McHenry County charges the federal government to house people facing deportation.
  
  McHenry County officials say Vanecko isn’t getting special treatment. They say the $16 rate was set by a judge in 1997 but that they hope to raise it.
  
  Records show Vanecko paid his full tab of $960 with a money order issued Feb. 12 — two days before he began his sentence.

Gee, maybe if he had doubled the $18-per-day, he could have cut down on his sentence.

And what a comfort it must be to Mrs. Koschman that Vanecko is out almost a grand in addition to the 60 days. Hard time out in McHenry.

Memorial Week

We got word kind of late and we hear the hotel situation is a bit tight. Here's some helpful info though.

Here's a link to some of the hotels that offer discounts and have rooms set aside.

And retired Sergeant Al P has once again posted a pretty thorough "how to do Washington DC" file on the Sergeants Association website (FOP didn't). More hotels (including discounts), airports, a schedule of events, and all sorts of extras. We can't recall a more comprehensive listing.

So if you're getting ready for DC, don't forget these links.

Barricade Job on the Drive

Homicide suspect from Georgia, comes to Harvey and gets chased into Chicago. By the time you read this, the job might be over, but it's been going on since early Sunday afternoon with Lake Shore Drive shut down for hours:

• Police this afternoon fired on a car driven by a former Chicago-area man wanted in connection with his wife's killing in Georgia after police pursued the car from suburban Harvey to North Lake Shore Drive, where a standoff closed the drive, authorities, witnesses and the man’s sister said.
  
  Henry County, Ga., police had contacted Harvey police about the location of a vehicle wanted in connection with a murder and police located the car about 12:24 p.m., but the car fled and was pursued to near Fullerton Avenue and Lake Shore Drive, according to a statement from Harvey.
  
  [...] The standoff shut down Lake Shore Drive from near downtown to Lakeview, snarling traffic throughout downtown and the North Side.

Word earlier was a CPD OFficer got hurt during the chase, whether from a crash or gunfire, we haven't heard. Hopefully, the killer is neutralized one way or another.

Best wishes to the injured copper.

UPDATE: Job ended just before 2200 hours. Offender in custody is what we heard.

$10 Million Bond

Outstanding:

• A Calumet Park woman was ordered held on $10 million bond Sunday after she was accused of leading police on a high-speed chase before running a red light and plowing into a Chicago Police officer’s car as he was heading home, killing him.
  
  Shanell Terrell, 31, was charged with the first-degree murder of 42-year-old Officer David L. Harris. She allegedly was found to have cannabis in her system after her arrest early Friday and was driving without a license, authorities said.

$10 million sends a message that you aren't getting out before trial.

According to one report, her companion was observed tossing nearly a dozen pounds of weed out of the wrecked vehicle and another few pounds was still in the wreck when it was towed.

Does anyone have the arrangements for the funeral yet?

Speed Camera Fail?

Rahm's budget people predicted (there's that word again) that speed cameras would bring in $70 million for all sorts of "children's programs." Guess how much they've brought in so far?

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel is counting on speed cameras installed around Chicago schools and parks to bankroll $70 million worth of children’s programs this year.
  
  But he’ll have a tough time getting there, thanks to motorists hitting the brakes, winter driving conditions that forced them to slow down or a combination of the two.
  
  The 92 speed cameras installed near 43 schools and parks have generated just $3.7 million in fines, and only $1.5 million of that has been collected. That’s after churning out 758,176 warning notices and 42,568 tickets since the first camera was installed at Gompers Park in August.

So that's like 2% of projected revenue? And even that is only 40% of what the cameras have captured - fully 60% of the supposed revenue has gone uncollected. The article doesn't say if that's because people aren't paying or plate data isn't available. And of course, the money is already spent, leaving a hole in the budget:

• One the one hand, [Rahm] budgeted for a $70 million windfall that, aldermen feared, was a low-ball figure. On the other hand, the mayor has insisted his plan to put cameras in up to 300 locations is about saving lives, not raising sorely needed revenue.
  
  Unless there’s a dramatic turnaround, Emanuel’s words are likely to prevail.
  
  That would blow a hole in the city’s 2014 budget at a time when cash-strapped Chicago can least afford it. City Hall has already plowed through a $20.5 million snow removal budget that was supposed to cover this winter and the start of next.

Amazing - Rahm tries to grab a boat load of money, spends the money before he has it, Chicagoans wise up to the scam and slow down to such an extent that Rahm is going to have a massive shortfall, and now he falls back on the throwaway line that this "was always about safety" that he was lying about to get the aldercreatures to vote in the camera law in the first place.

If it was about safety, why spend what had to be non-existent money in the first place? But he'll claim victory anyway.

Snow Escrow

All this "sturm und drang" about the massive snowfall blowing through the city budget, and it turns out everything was already paid for?

• A “snow escrow” salted away in anticipation of a brutal winter will allow Chicago to absorb $33.2 million in snow removal spending — $12.9 million over budget — without raising taxes, a top mayoral aide said Friday.
  
  Mayor Rahm Emanuel set aside $20.3 million for snow removal for all of 2014 assuming that would be enough to cover this winter and the start of next.
  
  Instead, he had already spent $33.2 million through Thursday after a storm this week that dropped another six inches on parts of Chicago.
  
  That includes: $19.3 million on salt, $7 million on labor, including countless hours of overtime; $5.3 million on equipment and $1.6 million on private trucks hired to pick up salt after a Morton Salt Co. barge got stuck in ice on the Mississippi River.
  
  That has fueled speculation about a supplemental appropriation to cover snow removal costs that would either be covered by borrowing or by a mid-year tax increase.
  
  On Friday, Budget Director Alex Holt put those dire scenarios to the rest.
  
  Holt said there’s a $12 million surplus in the motor fuel tax fund that covers snow removal and bridge repairs that will be “carried over into 2014 to offset” the extraordinary costs incurred during this brutal winter that just won’t quit.

Of course, this info was released on a Friday afternoon after 1630 hours - the place where all important news goes to die. We even missed it until just now. Funny how money always seems to appear when Rahm needs it for something that isn't on a deadline - like a balloon payment to the underfunded pensions. We certainly hope the people over at "We Are One" have been keeping track of all this over the past few years of Rahm's administration.

Sell Back - Hard Check

From the comments:

• FAX message is out:
  
  Sell back days will be in the form of a check.. available for pick up after 0900 from 35th street.
  
  Payroll is fucked up probably because they were overworked from adding up the sergeant's retro last week.

That makes three recent checks that have been hard checks instead of direct deposit:

1. Sgt DSS Grievance;
2. Sgt retro;
3. department sellback

Anyone else getting a funny feeling about this? Direct deposit means everyone gets their money at once. A hard check on a Friday afternoon means most people aren't going to be depositing it until the following Monday. Even if they got it to the bank on a Saturday, no downtown bank is going to process it until the following business day - Monday. And Rahm just borrowed a shitload of money for day-to-day operating costs.

Is Chicago broke?

Lot (un)Secured

Thieves are getting bold:

• There was a especially brazen incident the other night in the Parking lot in 025. The private tow driver put a policeman's car on the back of his tow truck and was about drive off with it, when another police officer saw what was going on, and stopped the driver before he could leave. There is pretty clear evidence that this was no honest mistake. Driver was arrested, Felony charges denied by the state. Another example of poor facility security.

"Security" and "Chicago Police Facility" aren't words you generally see in the same sentence, thought, or territory. Nice job by the alert copper who actually took the time to see what the hell was going on.

A New Nickname

Rahm has a lot of designations here at SCC.

• 9.5
• Rahmbo
• Rahmballina
• Tiny Dancer

There are other variation on these, but we have new favorite someone put up in the comment sections:

• 9-digit midget

You guys are the best readers a blogger could have. Thanks for making us laugh at least as much as we try to make you laugh, too.

Off Duty CPD Killed

Sad news this morning:

• An off-duty Chicago police officer was killed early this morning on Chicago's South Side when his vehicle was struck by a van that had been fleeing police officers from Calumet Park, police said.
  
  About 12:55 a.m., a vehicle exited the Dan Ryan Expressway at 87th Street after a pursuit involving police from the south suburb, Police News Affairs Officer [...] said.
  
  The fleeing vehicle, a white van, struck the vehicle of an off-duty Chicago police officer at the corner of 87th and South Lafayette Avenue, authorities said. The officer, a a 42-year-old man with 10 years on the force, died on the scene.

Two assholes in custody. No word on the Officer's unit of assignment yet.

RIP Officer.

Double Property Taxes?

He's really pushing for "one-term:"

• Illinois has one of the worst pension messes in the nation as the cost of government employee benefits is sending state, county, and local governments into bankruptcy crises all across the state. No place has more trouble than Chicago, prompting Mayor Rahm Emanuel to warn that property taxes will have to double to serve that spiraling debt.
  
  In 2015 Chicago faces a looming financial disaster with a municipal pension system that is in worse shape than that of any other major U.S. city. Chicago is under the gun for a whopping $1.07 billion balloon payment on its $19.4 billion pension debt for city employees. Chicago's mayor is struggling to figure out how to pay the balloon payment, which is equal to one third of the city's entire budget. According to The Wall Street Journal, the balloon payment alone could pay for the salaries of the Chicago Police Department's entire 4,300 officer force or for the re-paving of all 16,000 blocks of roads in the city.

So now we're down to 4,300 officers? Okay, that part is obviously a mistake, but Rahm is pushing hard to alienate every single government worker from the citizens who we're supposed to be serving. Here's an ugly graph showing what's up:

Not pretty at all.

Another Vanecko Gets Away

His name pops up along with Patrick Daley in someone else's sentencing:

• A former Mississippi sharecropper who landed millions of dollars in contracts from the city of Chicago was sentenced Thursday to 17 months in prison for his role in a minority-contracting scandal that involved sewer deals held by a company whose investors secretly included then-Mayor Richard M. Daley’s son and nephew.
  
  Jesse Brunt, 77, the owner of Brunt Bros. Transfer, had pleaded guilty more than a year ago to mail fraud, admitting the trucking company’s role in the city deals was a sham.
  
  The black Chicago businessman admitted Brunt Bros. acted as a minority front in sewer deals with City Hall beginning with Kenny Industrial Services, owned by the clout-heavy Kenny family, and continued when their business was taken over in 2003 by a company owned in part by Daley’s son Patrick Daley and nephew Robert G. Vanecko.

So this guy gets 17 months and Patrick and Robert were never even interviewed before skating. Nearly untouchable.

Oh Dear God, No

Not much of a chance of this, but the chattering classes have to have their fun:

• The recent Conservative Political Action Conference provides a forum for big names. But it’s also a platform for the murmurs and asides from political strategists who’ve been everywhere and done everything, and like to speculate. Such is the case when the potential presidential candidacy of Hillary Clinton was parsed by a pair of insiders.
  
  Would she run? Maybe, if her health and vigor remain strong. But is she holding a place for someone else? Could be. The take-away suggestion: Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel is seriously being groomed as a White House contender.
  
  “Maybe in the lead role, maybe the running mate. Hey, he’s already been in the White House anyway,” one strategist said to the other.

"...he's already been in the White House anyway."

Big fucking deal. So he knows where the shitter is. He also knows where the naked Congressweasels hang out and has an "in" with the local fishmonger. He has baggage out the wazoo and no shortage of people willing to stick that knife in his back should they be offered the opportunity. And his Chicago connections should prove to be an anchor around any ambition outside of Illinois for the foreseeable future.

Detroit Again

At this rate, everyone should be hoping that we end up emulating Detroit in this manner:

• While gun control activists are still trying to convince the American people that guns are never used in self-defense but only in mass shootings, yet another intruder has bitten the dust after being faced with an armed homeowner ready to protect his home.
  
  In fact, this is the 5th time in just two weeks that a Detroit homeowner has used lethal force to protect his home and family. You can read our other recent stories on Detroit homeowners defending their homes with firearms here.
  
  In this case two men broke into the Detroit home on Thursday at 12:30pm, in broad daylight. The homeowner grabbed his gun and fired at the suspects, hitting one of them. While the one suspect got away the other collapsed in the driveway and died on the scene.

Detroit's crime rate had no where to go but down, but we're glad to see it so ably assisted by law abiding gun owners defending themselves and their own.

Lombard to Save Junkies

One question comes to mind - why?

• An upsurge in heroin deaths means all Lombard, IL, police will begin carrying Narcan misters to counter the effects of heroin overdoses.
  
  Coroner Richard Jorgensen said heroin overdoses killed 46 across DuPage County last year. Lombard Deputy Chief Tom Wirsing says heroin overdoses are a community issue, affecting everyone.
  
  Chief Wirsing says police often beat paramedics to an overdose scene and will be able to tell from the victim’s symptoms, companions and surrounding paraphernalia if heroin is the victim’s problem.

Why bother at all? Junkies contribute to all sorts of crime. They carry diseases. When apprehended, they suck up tax dollars for their incarceration and when released, they relapse at an incredible rate. Like it or not, an overdose is a net positive for society.

If families want to keep paying for their relatives, they're entitled to spend that money any way they see fit. But when they get tired of buying grandma a new TV every year or so when hers gets stolen or that nice piece of jewelry that's been in the family for generations disappears after Uncle Junkie comes to visit, maybe they'll wake up and realize supporting bad habits only gets them more of the same.

We speak from personal experience here, so don't lay any crap on us about "...if it was your family member...." It was, and we have zero sympathy for the years of problems he brought to our doorstep.

"Merit" Lists to be Released

This comment popped up the other day. We figured it was once again, someone trying to get some traction on a rumor and ruffle some feathers:

• No joke: The superintendent has decided the list of merit promotions for the past 6 years are not private. They are being released to numerous news media who have been requesting them from him and will be made public this week. I bet their will be plenty of stories for the Suntimes on that list.

Guess what? It isn't a joke.

From what we can gather among our sources, a lawsuit or lawsuits have compelled the Department in general and Tracy Ladner in particular to produce the so-called "merit" lists, possibly dating all the way back to the beginning of the "merit" process - the early 1990's.

This is going to lead to a lot of fun. We have no idea if the sponsors of the "meri-clout-orious" will be revealed, but for starters....

• everyone who denied ever being "merit";
• multiple bites at the "merit" apple 

We can start an entertaining game of "What Merit Picks are on the Merit Board!" and maybe, just maybe, the genetic makeup of what makes a "merit" pick can be isolated and reproduced, leading to a race of Sooper-Cops.