More Nails in the Coffin

Policing is dead...again:

• Aldermen submitted an ordinance Wednesday intended to end what they said is racial profiling by the Chicago Police Department.
  
  Calling it a "crucial ordinance," lead sponsor Ald. Joe Moreno (1st) urged support for what would become the Stop, Transparency, Oversight and Protection Act. The measure would call on the police department to keep records of all "stop and frisk" incidents along with the race of the person stopped, and would also require police to give receipts to anyone stopped and not arrested.
  
  Aldermen insisted it was not intended to burden police officers, but instead would gather data to ensure police do not engage in "racial profiling," according to Ald. Roberto Maldonado (26th).

First of all Joe, there is no "stop-and-frisk" policy or directive of any kind in Chicago. Never has been. We perform street stops, and they are actually rather tightly regulated by the law of the land. "Articulable Suspicion" or what we used to call "a hunch" leads us to further weigh the facts at hand to see if an actual street stops is in order, warranted or required.

Then, we already keep records of the stops called "Contact Cards." The Contact Cards are supposed to be destroyed (or wiped from the computers" after 6 months, but as a result of numerous lawsuits filed by lawyers looking to get rich off the city taxpayers, these records are under court order not to be destroyed, meaning years and years of data is backed up.

Just two questions Joe:

1. what kind of ward to you represent? Is it one of the "super-majority" Hispanic wards? The one with solid lower and middle class families living cheek-to-jowl, not unlike the Micks, Wops, Polacks, and Bohunks did in years past before moving on to the outer city limits and suburbs?
2. what type of citizen would you expect the cops to stop in the neighborhood you represent? Because last time we checked, this city was one of the most racially segregated cities in existence. The media probably runs two or three stories a year on how far Chicago has to go before "true equality" is achieved. So white, black and brown coppers are mostly stopping Hispanics in your neighborhood, right? How is that profiling when they make up 90% or more of the population?

And another thing Joe - have you heard of the TSSS? The Traffic Stop Safety Study is the only piece of legislation to come out of Springfield bearing the name of a little known pinhead named Obama. It was supposed to run for two years and tracked every stop made by police. You know what it revealed at the cost of millions of dollars and tens of millions of man hours?

• Chicago Police don't racially profile. In fact, we don't think there is a Department in Illinois that can be credibly shown by any study to have racially profiled in the past 25 years.

This so incensed the legislature that they authorized the study to go on for an open-ended number of years - - it's still going on right now, something like eight or nine years. And for the life of us, we can't recall a single charge or allegation of racial profiling ever being brought before a court or a committee anywhere in Illinois.

So you know what Joe - you're correct in one thing. This won't be burdensome on us personally and many many other coppers either....because we just won't stop a damn thing. Too much of this job is useless paperwork already. The environmental cost in dead trees probably makes Al Gore blush. So we're going to do our part and not generate any paper that might endanger Mother Earth and we are going to encourage everyone else to do the same.

Acting Crazy

This is a bench trial, right?

• He started off in unintelligible mumbles and spoke in a tone so soft no one could hear.
  
  At times, Bryant Brewer seemed confused and repeated questions his attorney asked him about the afternoon he claimed he shot Chicago Police Officer Thor Soderberg in self-defense.
  
  But when the alleged cop killer was grilled Thursday about inconsistencies in his testimony and pressed about a possible beef he had with police, Brewer lashed out, hurling expletives and threatening to spit at a Cook County prosecutor.

It's an act, and anything less than life in prison would be a travesty.

As We Said...

That "turning your life around" doesn't mean shit if you keep turning to go 360-degrees:

• Chicago Police claim a man exonerated of a murder charge in 2012 after serving 17 years in prison was fatally shot by someone he was trying to rob Tuesday afternoon on the Near West Side.

The shooter is a real winner, too - thank goodness they both had properly registered and licensed handguns.

This Explains the Videos

The Department has been hammering the Pursuit Training videos that past few days at roll call - this must be why:

• Three men and a teenage boy who led police on an eight-mile chase late Monday and eventually crashed their vehicle in Chicago Lawn are facing a slew of charges for attempted robbery and carjacking.
  
  Officers responding to a call of shots fired near Kedzie and Carroll about 10:30 p.m. saw a minivan driving erratically southbound on Kedzie, according to Chicago Police.
  
  One of the minivan’s occupants then fired shots at another vehicle, and officers pursued the minivan until it ran a red light and hit two cars in the 5900 block of South Western, police said.

Everyone is edgy after the baby got run over in the stroller, but as we pointed out, if you can't chase offenders for murder, you're going to see a lot more murderers getting away.

This appears to be the same thing - on view carjacking and shots fired - why wouldn't the police chase and capture the offenders? The "Balancing Test" is to determine whether the necessity of apprehension outweighs the danger to the public. Call us silly, but the public is in a lot more danger that these animals will be out there jacking people over and over again unless they are apprehended at some point, and apprehension is going to mean a chase somewhere along the line.

That's what the City lawyers and Department egghead have bred into the criminal mind - if you run, Chicago won't chase. Don't believe us, believe what you're seeing with your own eyes. Hell, we wrote about this exact scenario a couple of times in the past ten years and it's happening exactly as we and our readers predicted.

Seriously Media?

This is an actual story that appeared on Fox 32:

• Police are warning Belmont Cragin residents about two teenagers robbing women at gunpoint in the Northwest Side neighborhood.
  
  The teens walk up to women, pull out a dark handgun and demand their cell phones, purses and cash, according to the community alert from Area North detectives.
  
  The robberies happened at 4:55 p.m. Monday in the 6100 block of West Palmer and at 2 p.m. Wednesday in the 6100 block of West Grand.
  
  During both robberies, the teens had a black handgun with white grips, police said.

What a great story - they almost describe the gun.....but not the offenders. So any woman walking in Belmont-Cragin who sees a teenager, better tighten their grip on the purse, unholster the mace, call the police and cross to the other side of the street.

And don't tell us the Department didn't release a halfway decent description of the offenders. They did.

How About a List?

A cop in Ohio was indicted for murder yesterday:

• The white University of Cincinnati police officer who shot unarmed black man Samuel Dubose during a traffic stop has been indicted on a murder charge, a prosecutor announced Wednesday, saying the cop "purposely" killed the motorist and "should never have been a police officer."
  
  In announcing the charge against officer Ray Tensing, Hamilton County prosecutor Joe Deters lambasted the cop over the July 19 death of Dubose, 43, saying the fatal shooting was "the most asinine act I've ever seen a police officer make."

Pardon us, but that sounds a bit prejudicial to the "fair trial" rule of law. We assume that Joe Deters has proof of the hiring process, the standards of Ohio for qualifying officers, and a list of "asinine act(s)" to compare this one to?

• "He wasn't dealing with someone who was wanted for murder, OK? He was dealing with someone who didn't have a front license plate," Deters said of Tensing, who joined the university force in April 2014. "I mean, this is, in the vernacular, a pretty chicken-crap stop, all right? And — I could use harsher words."
  
  He added that even if Dubose was starting to "roll away," the officer should have just let him go.

If this is such a.....how did he put it? "chicken-crap stop," then why did the legislature pass the law in the first place? Police are pretty much obligated to stop people who are breaking the law and maintain the standards set by the elected representatives. The words "Law" and "Enforcement" pretty much appear in the job description, unless they've been removed recently? And we imagine the prosecutor is going to regret uttering the thought that if someone starts to "roll away," officers should just let them go.

How about the states attorneys, prosecuting attorneys, or district attorneys in every one of the 50 states provide police a list of offenses that certain people don't have to obey or comply with? That would make everything simpler for everyone, wouldn't it? We wouldn't have these incident popping up with the potential for so much misunderstanding and violence when everyone is supposed to be equal before the law, right?

We'll even help start a list:

• strong armed robbery in Ferguson and not be stopped
• sell loose cigarettes in New York and not be stopped
• drive without a front license plate in Cincinnati
• loiter on street corners, flag down cars and sell dope or sex
• resist arrests, lawful or not, based on street lawyer experience or rap lyrics
• pretty much any gun offense on the streets of Chiraq

That being said and the unedited video not being shown by the media, an intelligent person cannot even make an educated guess as to what fully transpired. Yet the prosecutor has already condemned the accused to "purposefully" killing a motorist, claimed the entire hiring and training regimen suspect (thereby attacking all police officers of this department), and cemented this as the "most asinine act" in the history of policing, tainting any jury within a few hundred miles of Cincinnati.

"Railroading" doesn't even come close to describing this.

Cleared Killer Killed

Chalk this one up in the "not surprised" category:

• On the day he was finally released from prison after murder charges were dropped, Alprentiss Nash vowed he would use his freedom studying to become a chef, learning about antique cars and traveling.And in the nearly three years since, he kept true to his word, visiting New Orleans, Miami and Atlanta and learning to ski at a resort in Wisconsin.
  
  He also bought a Harley-Davidson motorcycle and a 1960 Buick Electra 225 and completed a culinary program.
  
  "He was really happy to be free, and he never talked about his time in prison," said Nash's mother, Yvette Martin. "He wanted to just get past it and be happy. He was overjoyed and excited about building a new life."
  
  But on Tuesday afternoon, Nash's second chance at life came to a tragic end as he was gunned down while leaving a currency exchange on the Near West Side, according to Chicago police and his family. A person of interest is being questioned, authorities said.
  
  Nash's family believes he was the target of an armed robbery.

Target? Hahahahaha.

• Two guns were recovered at the scene - his and the shooters.
• Preliminary reports are that this was a dope deal gone bad
• Word on the scene was this was the third time Nash has stuck up the detained subject and he finally got what was coming to him.

Not surprising at all.

Don't Lie?

No duh Garry Mr McCarthy:

• In an unusual move, Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy sent a letter to the rank-and-file Wednesday saying he will move to fire an officer for allegedly lying to investigators about his involvement in an off-duty shooting.
  
  McCarthy is asking the Chicago Police Board to terminate Officer Francisco Perez, who fired at the wrong car after witnessing a fatal drive-by shooting Nov. 5, 2011, according to investigators.
  
  Police sources said McCarthy isn’t seeking to fire Perez because of his mistake — but because he gave investigators false information.

If you are found to have deliberately lied during the course of an investigation, you have to be prepared to pay the piper. We get that. It's kind of spelled out in the Rules and Regulations. But it's also a fact that those Rules have been bent so many times as to be meaningless in so many situations and is applied unequally across the board.

We don't know why Garry Mr McCarthy is singling out this incident for the media to make hay out of. Something smells rotten here but we can't put our finger on it.

In the meantime, in the interest of truthfulness and not lying, a series of questions for a certain someone:

• What really happened in when your daughter got pulled over and called you back east?
• What did those streetlights ever do to offend you?
• Did you and your brother really yell the n-word at passing black motorists?
• Could you brief us on the White Eagle incident that Niles PD so quickly buried, not even generating a case report?

Don't lie.

Pin In Accident

Word of a squad car accident on the north side where the officer(s) had to be cut out of the car. Might be in the Old Irving neighborhood. We'll update when we hear more.

Soderberg Trial Continues

It began Monday with a ridiculous claim:

• The bench trial is underway for the man accused of murdering a Chicago police officer with his own weapon.
  
  Attorneys presented their opening statements just before noon at the Criminal Courts Building. Also in the courtroom is a group of uniformed police officers showing their support for their fallen comrade, Officer Thor Soderberg.
  
  Bryant Brewer faces 20 counts, including first degree murder and resisting arrest.
  
  Prosecutors say Brewer got into a fight with Officer Soderberg outside an Englewood police station, grabbed the officer’s gun and shot him several times.
  
  The defense during its opening statements said their client acted in self defense and that surveillance video from that day is missing 12 minutes of crucial footage that might better show what lead to the fatal shooting.

So pretty much the defense is making up shit because the city, in its never-ending quest for cheapness, can't maintain any type of video system - in-car cameras, body cameras, traffic cameras, blue light cameras, security cameras, etc etc., thereby leaving the defense an out to make up any story it likes.

Dramatic testimony Tuesday:

• Chicago police Officer Lynn Casey thought she heard fireworks exploding outside the front door of an Englewood police deployment center where she was working desk duty.
  
  She stepped outside on the hot July day in 2010 to discover a shirtless man covered in blood. She called out to him, asking if he needed help.
  
  What she didn't realize was that the man, Bryant Brewer, had just shot and killed Officer Thor Soderberg in the adjoining parking lot.
  
  Testifying Tuesday at Brewer's murder trial, Casey, now 55, said Brewer turned toward her, raised his right hand and began firing at her with what turned out to be Soderberg's service weapon.
  
  Dramatic video from a surveillance camera that was played in court Tuesday showed Casey taking cover on the driver's side of a squad car as Brewer chased her.

The trial continues today. There should be notices up if you're at 26th Street today.

What Matters Again??

Something matters....we just can't seem to remember what it was:

• The photographs went online earlier this month after a 27-year-old man was gunned down in South Los Angeles. One showed a man flashing a chrome handgun from his jacket pocket. In another, a young man held a pistol in each hand.
  
  “Better wake up,” one person wrote on Instagram. “It's a war goin' on.”
  
  “This area ain't safe right now,” someone else posted with a map showing a portion of South L.A.
  
  The warnings of increased gang violence intensified across social media platforms this weekend after more than half a dozen shootings in South L.A. left one man dead and 12 people wounded.
  
  The postings created an echo chamber in which it was difficult to determine what was a real threat and what was rumor. One of the most incendiary claims was that a gang had vowed 100 days of violence after the 27-year-old man was killed on July 17, sparking alarming hashtags such as #100days100nights and #PrayforLA on Twitter and other sites.

The Chief is downplaying the significance of the threats - what else is he going to do? But he met with his gang officers and extra patrols are in the affected areas. Based on how the cockroaches like Chief Queef and his crew get on social media and the number of murders that follow, you can't discount this stupidity.

No-lympics for Boston

This sounds so.....so.....familiar:

• It sounds impossible, but it's true. The Democrat mayor of Boston has ended his application for the Olympics because...of concerns that taxpayers would have to foot too high a bill for it.
  
  The mayor of Boston, Martin J. Walsh ... distanced himself from the bid completely. At a dramatic, hastily arranged news conference, he announced that if the U.S.O.C. demanded that he sign a host city contract by the end of the day Monday, he would not do so, acknowledging that this would kill Boston’s bid for the Games. He said he had wanted more time to conduct his due diligence on the guarantees required and a full review of a risk and mitigation package proposed last week.
  
  “I cannot commit to putting the taxpayers at risk,” the mayor declared. “If committing to signing a guarantee today is what’s required to move forward, then Boston is no longer pursuing the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.”

If only we had had a mayor who thought like this a few years ago, Chicago would only be 25 years from complete bankruptcy instead of 15.

So a Priest and a Rabbi...

Supporting our Chaplains Ministry:

• Join Rabbi Moshe Wolf and Fr. Dan Brandt for happy hour on Tuesday, 11 AUG, 5:30 - 8:00, at O'Brien's on North and Wells in Old Town.  FREE VALET PARKING!  RSVP needed.  A tax-deductible $50 donation to Police Chaplains Ministry gets you unlimited food/drink and goes to a great cause supporting our ministry and our work with Gold Star Families!  
  Speaking of Gold Star Families.... this Sunday (02 AUG) is a Blue Mass at Resurrection Parish (Nelson and Francisco in 014).  It's at 11:15 a.m., and right after Mass we will dedicate a newly-erected statue outside the church honoring St. Michael the Archangel, patron of police.  Join our Knights of Columbus, our CPD Honor Guard, the Mounted Unit, and hundreds of others in remembering our fallen officers.  Uniforms optional.
  More info at www.ChicagoPCM.org

See you there. We'll be the ones in disguise

Hey BGA

See if you can do some real journalism and put these pieces together:

• Rauner is looking to reduce prison population by 25% and gassing them isn't on the table, meaning he's going to release them back into society;
• Cook County has been trying to do their part by releasing anyone and everyone back into society with low bails and reduced sentencing, to the point of violating state laws by sending ineligible people to Boot Camp;
• CPD hasn't kept up with retirements for a decade now and we're 2,000 to 4,000 officers short of what we were when the 1990's were rolling along (depending on who's numbers you believe);
• CPD is currently running a number of overtime initiatives in distressed areas of the city - the same areas that many of these newly freed prisoners will be returning to...areas already known to have a high number of open air drug markets, felons with self control problems, guns and daily violence as a matter of course;
• the media fosters an anti-police attitude among the populace, even when such incidents are proven, time and again, to be illusory at best, lies at worst, even in the case of a mentally ill woman committing suicide.

Now go do some research and come up with something better than that piece of crap from the other day about how Chicago leads the nation in numbers of offenders killed by the police. It might actually look like you tried to be journalists.

Bad Idea

No punishment, no fear of prison = more crime, guaranteed:

• Prison population in Illinois is down, but the state’s facilities remain overcrowded.
  
  Latest figures from the Illinois Department of Corrections show prisons in the state contained 47,483 inmates in May. That was the lowest population since May of 2010, which was 47,150.
  
  The May 2010 numbers represent the beginning of a rapid rise in the number of prisoners flooding the system after former Gov. Pat Quinn cancelled a controversial early prisoner release program. The number of inmates peaked at 49,321 in January 2013.

That's because "early release" prisoners happened to be committing crimes as soon as they got out, in some cases, right after the bus ride downstate, they got walking papers and returned home the next day. Countless assaults, batteries, robberies, and more than a couple murders were directly attributed to Quinn's un-publicized program that essentially wrecked the justice system in Illinois.

Now, it's going to return in another form:

• However-state prisons are designed to house only 32,000 prisoners. That’s why Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner has asked a special committee to study how to reduce prison population. He wants a 25 percent reduction over the next decade.
  
  Rauner’s commission has already stated the need for a balance between sending too many people to prison and making sure the public is safe.

Here's the thing Brucie - if people are in prison, then they can't commit crimes against most decent people. It's true - we looked it up. Of course, if they're in prison, they can't vote for democrats either, which was one of the reason behind Quinn's secret program in the first place.

You want the public to be safe, you lock up the animals in cages and make them serve 100% of their sentence. If it's long enough, they learn not to do bad things. If it isn't, then you increase the sentence next time. Then they come out too old to be complete assholes anymore. If they are, they go back to prison and they die there. Three strikes.

Weekend Roundup

And the numbers are....typical....or typically ugly:

• Three teens and four others were killed across Chicago between Friday afternoon and Monday morning and 35 others survived gunshot wounds during the same period.

 And another six shot Monday evening.

Off Duty Shot at Side Job

This is the first we even heard of this:

• A man accused of grabbing an off-duty Chicago Police officer’s service weapon and shooting her in the leg was ordered held without bail on Sunday.
  
  Raphael Jordan, 48, was charged with attempted murder of a police officer in the July 23 shooting in the 2200 block of East 69th Street in the South Shore neighborhood. Judge Adam D. Bourgeois Jr. ordered Jordan to be held without bail.
  
  The officer, a 37-year-old woman who was wearing her Chicago Police badge on her belt, was working as a security guard for a construction company when she saw Jordan walking away from the construction site with a hammer drill owned by the company, Assistant State’s Attorney Barry Quinn said in court Sunday

Best wishes to the Officer for a speedy recovery.

Thanks Andy Shaw

Him and his miserable police hating BGA:

• Chicago police have fatally shot 70 people over a five-year span, tops among departments in the largest U.S. cities.

Big deal - 14 people (and folks) a year. While non-police shootings top 400 regularly.

• The Chicago victims were nearly all male. Most were black. More than half of the killings happened in six South Side police districts.

"victims"? The Victims were Chicago Police Officers you ass.

• No other police department in any of the 10 most populous cities killed more people from 2010 through 2014, but Chicago ranks fourth behind Phoenix, Philadelphia and Dallas when the numbers are adjusted for population, according to a Better Government Association analysis of data obtained through interviews and open records requests.

And there's the per capita adjustment. Chicago doesn't even finish in the money. How about Shaw and his "organization" track the last year? The last two years? Because then Chicago doesn't even appear on the radar.

This is as lousy a piece of yellow journalism as we've seen in a long time.

No More Nights Off

We take one night off and the city goes to hell:

• Three men have been killed and at least 16 other people have been wounded in separate shootings since Saturday evening across the city, police said.
  
  The 13 separate shooting incidents occurred in 12 different city neighborhoods, most on the South Side. Seven of those shootings occurred early Sunday morning.

Oh wait....it goes to hell whether or not we take a night off. Nearly twenty shot on a single Saturday night. CompStat this week is going to be another fun one.

We might take off another night in August, too.

MFF Applications?

Seems the Department is asking for applicants for the so-called "Mobile Field Force."

If we recall, this was kind of a "MSF-lite." People bought their own riot gear, got some training, and were "on-call" while working in the event of a major disaster - kind of like the "Incident Teams" we still run, but with riot gear.

All we see this doing is shorting the Districts in the event of a call-out downtown.

Taking the Day Off

SCC is tired, it's hot out, it's Sunday and we have a day we have to burn.

Open post for Sunday - we'll moderate comments sparingly, but you guys should take a day off, too.

Truth or Rumor?

We'd certainly hope that union officials weren't using their positions to collude with those they negotiated against during their tenure:

• Chairman Ed Burke called the Head of H. R. at the Chicago Park District. The Chairman ordered him to hire Marky Mark Donahue as the number three in charge of security for the Chicago Park District. I guess selling us out and supporting Ed Burke and the Dems paid off. The question is how does a union guy now order off duty cops around and moe importantly discipline then? Truly a Judas

Something like this might make someone think that their interests weren't ours, but rather their future employment prospects....kind of like Bill Nolan taking a 6-figure position at the jail, a spot he was qualified for how exactly? Oh yeah, selling out the membership to the Machine.

Another Shooting

And the deceased was just about to graduate school - obedience school:

• A Chicago Police officer fatally shot a pit bull Friday evening in the Chatham neighborhood on the South Side.
  
  About 8:30 p.m., the “aggressive” dog charged at the officer in the 8200 block of South Maryland, police said.
  
  The officer then shot the dog and killed it, police said. The officer was not injured.

And this is a Sun Times story why?

And Here's the Lawsuit

Remember, this was a car described as fleeing the scene of a murder:

• The mother of Dillan Harris is suing 20 police officers, the City of Chicago and the man charged in her son's death. The 13-month-old boy was in his stroller when he was struck and killed by a car fleeing from police.
  
  "The only thing I have to say is my son was innocent. And he should not have died," Shatrelle McComb said Thursday at a news conference to announce the lawsuit.
  
  Antoine Watkins, 21, is accused of driving the car that jumped the curb, struck the stroller and dragged it into a vacant lot in the 6300-block of South Ellis Avenue in the city's Woodlawn neighborhood on July 11.

If you commit murder in Chicago, there is an over-70% chance you get away with it. This lawsuit will push that percentage to over 85%.

Pension Changes "Void"

A big win for the pensions:

• A Cook County judge on Friday overturned the city's changes to two pension funds, declaring them "unconstitutional and void."
  
  In her ruling, Judge Rita Novak dismissed city arguments that the changes to the two pension funds amounted to a "net benefit" for retired workers because the city was guaranteeing the funds would be there.
  
  The state constitution, she wrote in her 35-page opinion, "removed diminishing benefits as a means of attaining pension stability." The city, under the state constitution, already is obligated to ensure pension funding because pension promises are "a contractual relationship between the employer and employee," the judge said.
  
  Novak also rejected the city's contention that because at least 27 of 31 affected unions agreed to the changes, it was a "bargained-for" change.

27 of 31 unions agreed to changes - and a judge overturned it.

Corp Counsel has already said they are appealing to the State Supreme Court, but the opinion cited at this level is taken directly from the previous Supreme Court ruling, so it's an uphill climb for Rahm.

$2.4 Million for One Block

Just one block in the 015 District (Austin) has received $2.4 million in State funding in five years. But you won't find it in street improvements. That might make sense:

• In just five years, the State of Illinois dedicated more than $2.4 million to the 4800 block of West Adams Street in Austin.
  
  But don't look for new developments or freshly paved roads on that stretch of street, because that's not where the money went. No, $2.4 million is the amount of money the state spent on incarcerating people for drug offenses from that block alone.

Holy Crap Batman.

DNAInfo.com has a link to the entire study of how much money is poured into the Department of Corrections based on incarceration rates. It's nothing we hadn't suspected before, but getting it all laid out in a spreadsheet and it's pretty impressive how much certain neighborhoods are a drain on society.

Stop Calling Him "Garry"

So, the meeting today was a ho-hum affair. Mr. McMcarthy has been released for street duty (post heart attack meds had kept him off the streets) and he will be making appearances at Roll Call, VRI, outdoor media circuses, hot calls and killings.

The hat-and-tat order is to be enforced mercilessly.

And if you see Mr. McCarthy eating breakfast, DO NOT call out, "Hi Garry!"

Yes, that was the big news. Mr. McCarthy objected strenuously to being addressed so while he was out dining recently. Familiarity breeds contempt and since Mr. McCarthy is from New York and already has contempt for the hicks in Chicago, he doesn't want any familiarity from the troops.

Now granted, we take liberties here with our sarcastic outlook, nicknaming just about everyone we can lay a glove on, but if we ran into the Supe off duty, or even on-duty as we have for awards, parades, shootings, NATO, etc, we're at the very least respectfully silent and if addressed or saluted and told "Congratulations" at a ceremony, we reply, "Thank you Sir," just because that's what you do. We save our vitriol for the bar ...the ice cream social.

....or the blog.

Biased? At IPRA?

This is amusing:

• A Chicago investigator who determined that several civilian shootings by police officers were unjustified was fired after resisting orders to reverse those findings, according to internal records of his agency obtained by WBEZ.
  
  Scott M. Ando, chief administrator of the city’s Independent Police Review Authority, informed its staff in a July 9 email that the agency no longer employed supervising investigator Lorenzo Davis, 65, a former Chicago police commander. IPRA investigates police-brutality complaints and recommends any punishment.
  
  Davis’s termination came less than two weeks after top IPRA officials, evaluating Davis’s job performance, accused him of “a clear bias against the police” and called him “the only supervisor at IPRA who resists making requested changes as directed by management in order to reflect the correct finding with respect to OIS,” as officer-involved shootings are known in the agency.

Now granted, WBEZ is National Public Radio, the most liberal and biased radio entity currently in existence, so their reporting is anything but impartial.

And the fact that they are championing Lorenzo, after his resignation from the Department in....well, let's just say the "cloud" over the Housing unit was more like a ground-level fog that airport spotlights couldn't cut through...is amusing to anyone who remembers the bad old days.

But the fact that IPRA (and previously OPS), an organization that is no friend of the Department and has never been headed by anyone who cared a whit for the police, finds that Lorenzo has "a clear bias against the police...." well, that is saying something since the entire organization is built on an adversarial relationship with the Department. He's too biased for them? Wow.

Dangerous Neighborhood

People getting shot over there all the time!

• A 19-year-old man was shot less than two blocks away from Chicago Police Headquarters Thursday night in Bronzeville.
  
  About 9:45 p.m., he was walking in the 3700 block of South Michigan when a vehicle pulled up and a gunman got out and opened fire, police News Affairs [...] said. CPD Headquarters is about two blocks north at 3510 S. Michigan Ave.
  
  The man was shot in the shoulder and taken to Stroger Hospital, where his condition stabilized....

They really ought to add some police to that 'hood.

No CompStat Today

Just a general ass-chewing from the Superintendent:

• SCC,
  
  All bosses coming in to HQ today. No CompStat, but rather a closed door session with McCarthy and his New York crew with all Patrol Division Gold Stars and all District XO's. Looks like the "crime is down" lie is falling apart as shootings are up hundreds and homicides are up three or four dozen.
  
  We'll let you know what we hear listening at the door.

We don't know what he expects. Shuffling the deck hasn't worked, cutting time off hasn't helped, adjusting hours and new shifts are burning people out and they're doing less with less.

Maybe cattle prods?

9mm Across the Board?

Well, not if you already had a .40 or a .45, but it looks like the Department has moved to only 9mm for all new hires and all striker-fired for new hires. Unless you had a bigger caliber pistol properly on record prior to Monday, you're out of luck.

Check the Admin fax messages for specifics. We think they're still offering transition courses, but only to striker-fired 9mm weapons, nothing else.

Englewood Shooting

Last night - cops okay:

• A man was shot by police early Wednesday in the Englewood neighborhood after he pointed a gun at officers when he moved away from a crowd gathered there and officers told him to stop, police said.
  
  About 1:40 a.m., officers on patrol saw a large crowd in the street in the 5600 block of South Morgan Street, according to a news release from the Chicago Police Department.
  
  The officers saw someone separating from the crowd and holding his side as if he had a weapon, according to Chicago police Deputy Chief Carlos Velez.
  
  The officers told him to stop, at which point he turned, pulled a gun and pointed it at the officers, according to police.
  
  The officers then shot him. He was placed into custody and taken to a hospital. A weapon was found at the scene and taken in as evidence, Velez said.

The usual ghetto bullshit followed:

• After the shooting, an agitated crowd surrounded the crime scene tape police used to block off a stretch of South Morgan Street. Dozens of people gathered along a sidewalk by a vacant lot, yelling and swearing at about 35 police officers stationed on the other side of the tape.
  
  “Y’all hiding behind your guns,” shouted a man in a blue shirt. “I’m mad as f---. I’m hurt. I’m hurt, bro.” A nearby man took him in his arms and tried to calm him down.
  
  An officer addressed a different man yelling on the other side of the tape: “Brother, stop it, the f---ing show’s over.” He was met with even louder shouted curses.
  
  Police officers widened the perimeter of the scene, stretching tape farther north on Morgan Street and farther west into the vacant lot.
  
  “Y’all going to stereotype the f--- out of him,” said a man in a White Sox cap. “Y’all got Tasers, for what? Y’all got mace, for what?”
  
  The crowd slowly grew smaller, but the man in the White Sox cap and the man in the blue shirt remained.
  
  “Y’all shot first!” shouted the man in the blue shirt.

No shit we shot first dumbass - show us a rule, ordinance or law that says we have to take incoming fire before returning and we'll personally sign over a years worth of paychecks to your unwashed, uneducated, unemployed ass.

Good job to all involved.

Nice Arrest

Tracked him down:

• Police in northwest Wisconsin arrested a suspect Wednesday afternoon in the July Fourth Chicago slaying of 7-year-old Amari Brown, police said.
  
  Rasheed Martin, 20, was arrested at a home in Superior, Wis., about 460 miles northwest of Chicago near the Wisconsin-Minnesota border, according to authorities. A warrant for Martin's arrest, charging him with first-degree murder, was issued Friday, according to Cook County court records. He is being held in the Douglas County, Wis., jail, and awaiting extradition to Chicago.
  
  Police believe Martin went to the 1100 block of North Harding Avenue about 11:55 p.m. on the Fourth of July and opened fire at a group of people, killing Amari and wounding a 26-year-old woman. At the time he was killed, Amari was with his father in the Humboldt Park neighborhood after spending the day at his grandmother's house for a July Fourth celebration, family said at the time.

Nice job to all the involved investigators.

More Debt for CPS

Another billion plus:

• Chicago’s newly constituted Board of Education voted unanimously Wednesday to authorize up to $1.2 billion in long-term bonds so the district can pay for ongoing capital projects, fees on past borrowing and some costs of refinancing old debt.
  
  That’s on top of the $1.1 billion the board approved last month in short-term lines of credit — and it won’t stave off about $200 million in cuts and 1,000-plus layoffs the district already announced.

You know what they say - if you owe the bank a million dollars, you have a problem. If you owe the bank a billion dollar, the bank has a problem.

That being said, you don't cure a money problem by giving the CPS more money any more than you cure an alcoholic by plying him with moonshine.

Again With the Detective UUWs

Didn't they try this a few years ago? Didn't everyone agree it was a complete waste of time?

• Heard they want the Det's to follow up on UUW's again. The last time was a pilot program in the busy districts. ATF was supposed to be involved to try to break up or charge the straw buyers but bailed immediately when they realized they didn't have the time/manpower to come out for the amount of guns brought in. The shit heads won't talk, a complete waste of everybody's time. Glad when it was cancelled.
  
  What, having the Detective involved makes it a stronger case? It is what it is

All we remember is that it took the Detectives away from solving their regular caseload and contributed nothing to the conviction/sentencing debacle that continues to make Cook County "justice" a joke.

The More Things Change....

This is a familiar name:

• A City Council panel has approved a former federal prosecutor as the new head of the Chicago Police Board reports WBBM [...].
  
  The City Council’s Police and Fire Committee is recommending lawyer Lori Lightfoot for president of the Police Board. She once ran the police department’s Office of Professional Standards.

An Office that no longer exists we might add. So if history holds, Lightfoot will drive the Police Board itself out of business within a few years. This might be a good thing.

Blago to be Freed?

Not likely say experts, but who knows?

• An appeals court vacated five convictions and threw out the sentence of former Ill. Gov. Rod Blagojevich on Tuesday afternoon. The rest of Blagojevich's convictions were affirmed by the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago.
  
  
• If Blagojevich chooses to appeal, he must tell the court within the next two weeks. But with five counts thrown out, the former governor will at some point be re-sentenced, and his attorneys will argue that his 14 years be dramatically reduced.

Remember, this is a case in which no money changed hands, yet Blago got far more than other's who have exchanged tens-of-thousands in bribe money - it's just that their tens-of-thousands didn't lead to the president-elect at the time.

"Blago the Loose Cannon" doesn't seem very likely, but maybe after the 2016 election.

Shooting

North side of the city:

• A Chicago Police officer shot a male wielding a baseball bat early Monday in the North Side Lincoln Park neighborhood.
  
  Officers working the CTA Special Employment beat were on patrol when a citizen told them there was a large fight in the 1500 block of North Clybourn, according to a statement from Chicago Police.
  
  The officers responded and saw a male striking another male lying on the ground with a baseball bat, police said.
  
  The officers announced their office and told the male to drop the bat, and he continued striking the victim, police said. One of the officers discharged his weapon, striking the male armed with the bat.

The second shooting in two days:

• A Chicago Police officer shot a robbery suspect who pointed a gun at authorities early Sunday in the Heart of Chicago neighborhood.
  
  The shooting happened at 3:45 a.m. in the 2300 block of West 21st Street, police said.
  
  The male, whose age wasn’t released, was taken to a hospital for treatment. His condition was not known. No one else was injured.

And someone commented that there was another shooting incident on the west side a few days back where someone shot at the police. Officers fired back but no was hit. We can't find media coverage on that one. Stay safe boys and girls - summer is definitely here.

10 Dead, 34 Wounded

Over forty people ending the weekend with more holes than they started with:

• At least 10 people were killed or found dead under suspicious circumstances since 3 p.m. Friday afternoon across Chicago.
  
  Among the dead were the decomposing bodies of a mother and her three children found in an East Chatham home with evidence of trauma and a fire that was never reported, and three men dead in a double-murder-suicide in the Mayfair neighborhood Friday afternoon.
  
  Thirty-five people were also wounded in shootings as far north as the Albany Park neighborhood and as far south as Roseland. Some of the wounded were in critical condition. No side of the city was without a shooting this weekend.

Granted, a few of these were "innies," and even the mighty J-Fled couldn't prevent a domestic from spiraling into homicide, but from what we can gather, Chicago is averaging in excess of sixty shot per week. Sixty. That's ridiculous. We're up hundreds of shootings from last year and dozens of homicides. The "crime is down" phrase is getting worn a bit thin as of late.

Another Crash

Officers in "good" condition, but the injuries we've seen described as "good" aren't always that:

• Officers are in good condition after a three-car crash involving an unmarked police vehicle in the Bronzeville neighborhood Monday night, police said.
  
  At about 8 p.m. near the intersection of 41st Street and South Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, a vehicle struck an unmarked police vehicle, which then crashed into another car, according to News Affairs Officer Hector Alfaro.
  
  Three officers were taken to area hospitals in good condition, and one woman was taken to Mercy Hospital and Medical Center, where her condition stabilized, Alfaro said.

Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

CR Lists Again?

Once again, we open the Department e-mail and once again, the Department is releasing lists of CR numbers:

1. Please be advised that on 23 Jul 2015, the Chicago Police Department (CPD) will release a list containing information related to complaints lodged against active sworn department members for the last four years.
2. Please be advised that on 24 Jul 2015, the Chicago Police Department (CPD) will release a list containing information related to complaints lodged against active sworn department members for the month of January 2013. 

Fishing expeditions. Why not just give the bottom feeders their own key date and they can go downtown and rifle through the files as needed?

How's This for Irony?

Anyone listening to the hourly broadcasts on all the radio zones about the Heat Emergency this weekend?

• the standard declaration of "cooling centers are open" and "check on the elderly, stay hydrated" reminders, every hour on the hour.

And then the great advice from the minds at HQ:

• wear loose fitting clothing and remember to take frequent breaks

Meanwhile, don't forget to cover those tattoos with long sleeves, and wear the required tie if you have the long sleeves, and by god, you better have the crown-hat-solar-heat-collector on your head if you appear in public.

Meanwhile, we're busy answering questions from the Watch Operations Lieutenant about why we're in the station every 90 minutes, trying to get a taste of air conditioning since our 123,000 mile jalopy hasn't cooled anything since 2012.

It's amazing that the Department doesn't follow the advice its giving out.

Again With the Cars

Stop messing with a man's ride:

• A Lawndale man is accused of shooting a man in the right calf after his son and the man argued about a car title, prosecutors said Sunday.
  
  Darnell Halmon, 41, of the 1500 block of South Ridgeway Avenue, faces one charge, felony aggravated battery with a firearm.
  
  A group that included Halmon’s son fought Friday with another group of people about a car title, said Cook County Assistant State’s Attorney [...], at a Bond Court hearing Sunday. The shooting took place in the 1600 block of South Ridgeway Avenue about 11:15 a.m., police said at the time.
  
  Halmon pulled out a semi-automatic gun and shot a 19-year-old man in the right calf, according to court documents.
  
  Police found Halmon shortly after, about a block away.

Damn those Concealed Carriers with their licenses and training classes and legally purchased handguns!

• He has 11 felony convictions,....

Um, what now? Eleven convictions? Eleven felony convictions? Golly, you know what we need around here? Another law, that's what!

Hey McCarthy, you want to add this one to your list of how the law is not being administered properly by the judiciary? Thanks.

Similar Stories

Saw this just a couple days ago:

• The daily fee to rent a Divvy bike will jump by more than 40 percent next week because of a deficit and escalating costs to run the expanding bicycle-sharing system, officials are set to announce Friday. The annual membership will remain at $75.

"deficit and escalating costs"? How can that be? Didn't Rahm just announce some sort of "grant" funded program to make Divvy's more affordable to the indigent? He did!

• Chicago residents who make less than $35,000 a year and do not have a debit or credit card will qualify for a $5 annual Divvy membership. The regular price is $75.
  
  The mayor's office said the program is made possible through a grant.

With Divvy losing money and hiking fees, this wouldn't seem like the correct time to be giving away memberships, even if it's funded by a "grant." Why, someone might be liable to think the "grant" is actually paid for by the increased fees.

And of course, this stirred the memory banks - remember that "free" City Colleges program? This popped up a little over a week ago:

• Many City Colleges of Chicago students are in line for significant tuition increases this fall under a budget trustees overseeing the seven-campus system approved Thursday.
  
  The board, which is appointed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, voted without dissent to raise tuition as part of a $696 million spending plan that includes no property tax increase. By raising costs for students instead, City Colleges can balance its budget without resorting to the politically painful broad tax hikes Emanuel is facing as he tries to deal with pension shortfalls and budget holes at City Hall and Chicago Public Schools.
  
  The tuition increase was announced to students in an email two days before the vote and after many of them had started signing up for fall classes. City Colleges Chancellor Cheryl Hyman defended the hike, saying it will make costs for students more transparent by eliminating extra fees. Hyman said the aim is to get more students to take full-time course loads of 15 credits each semester by making it less expensive to do so on a per-credit basis.

So City Colleges, which makes a majority of its money off of part-time students (60% of enrollment), is jacking up the fees on the part-timers, while Rahm has been pushing for a "free program." Call us cynical, but why penalize the working people who are attempting to improve their lot while holding down a job? Shouldn't those be the ones getting a break?

Is there a financial endeavor anywhere in this city that doesn't lead to bankruptcy?

Remember, CompStat Works!

It's why pencils have erasers:

• Officials in the nation's largest police department said Friday they uncovered dozens of instances of crimes misreported and wrongly downgraded by officers at a precinct after an anonymous tip to internal affairs and now 19 officers face departmental charges.
  
  The 19 New York Police Department employees — one lieutenant, eight sergeants, nine officers and one detective — worked at the 40th Precinct in the Bronx and face charges of misreporting during a four-month period last year. They face a loss of vacation days or possible dismissal from the department if they are found guilty.
  
  Commissioner William Bratton, who took over the 35,000-officer department last year, has made it a priority to ensure crime complaints are accurately reported.

"accurately reported." Hahahahahahahahaha. The the FBI still won't accept Chicago's numbers, Chicago Magazine did a three-part story on how CPD misclassifies crime, those New York professors, including the one who is a retired NYPD Captain who exposed CompStat....no one has noticed these shenanigans over the years?

Spotlight on the Problem

Finally, good move Garry:

• When Dani Asmaro was arrested with a gun last month, he was charged with a misdemeanor, posted $150 for bail and was a free man.
  
  Weeks later, he was back in court after the police said they saw him toss another handgun under a car in Rogers Park.
  
  This time, he was charged with a felony, and his bail was steeper — but his cousin posted the $4,000, and he was back on the street.
  
  The 23-year-old from Skokie is one of 12 people, including seven juveniles, who have been charged twice with gun possession so far this year in Chicago.

That's 12 people in 6 months. How many in the four years that Garry has been here? Because it's too many, and eachone is a lost opportunity to (A) prevent another crime, (B) prevent another shooting, and (C) humiliate and reform the system that allows this to happen.

How many years ago was it that judges were sending gun offenders to "boot camp?" Multiple charged gun offenders who were ineligible for alternative sentencing?

Stop picking on the law-abiding by making the law impossible to follow. Hammer the law breakers. This is exactly what Garry should have been doing all along, not showing up in town and making appearances at the St. Sabina minstrel show.

Good Move

Someone is thinking:

• A spokesperson for Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Saturday that Friday night's concert by Chicago rapper Chief Keef was postponed at the city's request.
  
  The show at Red Moon Theater was meant to benefit the family of Chicago toddler Dillan Harris, who was killed when a car struck his stroller last weekend.
  
  The city called Red Moon and requested they not host the concert, calling Chief Keef "an unacceptable role model" who "promotes violence."

These "Red Moon" assholes are the ones celebrating the deaths of 300 victims of the Chicago Fire while getting thousands of dollars in tax money. Now they're hosting Chief Queef's celebration of death and destruction? We guess those jabs about the Flight 191 Air Show Extravaganza and the SS Eastland Water Show weren't too far off the mark.

Sturgis

We know a lot of coppers take a trip to the motorcycle rally. We got this from one of our former Officers enjoying his retirement:

• Hi SCC,
  
  I am a long time reader and a former Chicago police officer, several years ago I left the force and it was the best decision I ever made, I actually cofounded a Chicago style hot dog stand called Chicago's Finest Inc. We currently operate in Alexander North Dakota in the oil fields, but we will be operating at the Sturgis Rally next month, I was wondering if you could set up a post and inform any of your readers who might be attending the rally, about us, and help this former police officer make his retirement. We will be set up at the Whitewood campground in Whitewood, South Dakota, there are still some camping spots available at this campground. But anyone interested in eating some good Chicago style food while they are at the rally please come and see us. This campground also has a stage set up where the Marshall Tucker Band will be playing, Lee Bryce, and more. Here's some information about us and the campground.
  
  Chicago's Finest Inc
  Facebook: Chicago's Finest Inc
  Website: Chicagosfinestdogs.com
  Email: Chicagosfinestdogs@gmail.com
  
  We will be operating at Whitewood campground, more info at,
  Whitewoodcampground.com

Stop in and say hi.

Again with the Drinking

Lecture time:

• An off-duty Chicago Police officer has been charged with DUI after a woman was struck by his vehicle and critically injured on the Northwest Side, according to Police News Affairs.
  
  Police say the 21-year-old woman was waiting to cross the street in the 7500 block of West Belmont when she was struck by a vehicle driven by the off-duty officer around 1:20 a.m. Saturday. She was taken in critical condition to Loyola Medical Center.

Hopefully, she recovers. Stop driving drunk. You will face the full weight of the law because you are the police. You will spend untold tens-of-thousands in legal fees. You will serve time in prison if someone dies - the last few are serving at least 10 years. You will be fired if you are not clouted up the ass. End of lecture.

Um...Qualifications Please?

This "reverend" was the first to endorse Rauner, so it looks exactly like what it is - a payoff:

• Corey Brooks, the “Rooftop Pastor” from Chicago’s South Side who endorsed Republican Bruce Rauner for governor, now has a paid appointed position with the Rauner administration.
  
  Gov. Rauner’s office on Friday announced Brooks, senior pastor at New Beginnings Church, will be a director on the Illinois Tollway Board, the Downers Grove-based authority that controls toll roads.
  
  Brooks was among a group of African-American religious leaders in Chicago who backed Rauner, a wealthy businessman, over incumbent Democrat Pat Quinn, saying Democrats had taken black political support for granted.

And this qualifies him for the job how?

Bad Start to Weekend

And the warm weather just arrived:

• A 34-year-old man was shot to death early Friday one block from his home while walking to work in Chicago's Irving Park neighborhood, according to police and the man's family.
  
  
• Three people were found dead in a home in the Northwest Side neighborhood of Mayfair Friday evening.
  
  
• Five men were injured - one critically - in a shooting in Chicago's West Garfield Park neighborhood around 5 p.m. Friday.

Word is that McCompStat is locked in his office, counting strawberries and has sent exempt staff out for a pair of "ruby slippers, size 11W."

8%?

Could Rahm get a loan-shark with better terms?

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel's decision to borrow for costs such as debt payments, bank fees and penalty payments on old deals gone bad — the kind of bills cities typically pay with operating funds — will cost Chicago more than $500 million in interest over the next three decades.
  
  Data released Thursday show the city is paying rates that approach 8 percent on the $743 million in taxable debt sold Wednesday. Chicago's borrowing costs have risen dramatically relative to other borrowers as its credit rating has deteriorated.
  
  The high interest costs — calculated by the Tribune using the value of today's dollars — are "punitive," said Richard Ciccarone, president and CEO of Merritt Research Services.

In 30 years, Rahm will be long gone - either in Washington or pretending to suffer from Fed-heimer disease like Shortshanks or dead. And hopefully, ranks of incontinent pensioners will be lined up somewhere waiting their turn.

Sounds Like CeaseFire

Is this some sort of requirement for groups that employ ex-felons?

• City officials have suspended operations of the Safe Streets anti-violence program in East Baltimore after police officers found seven guns and drugs stashed inside the Monument Street office.
  
  Police said a robbery investigation led them to the office, and two employees were among those arrested. The suspension sidelines the program's work in East Baltimore at a time when gun violence has been spiking.
  
  Safe Streets, a grant-funded program under the city's Health Department, uses ex-felons in an effort to stem crime. The program has been lauded for keeping violence at a minimum in the four neighborhoods where it operates, and some officials have urged its replication across the city.
  
  The program has had trouble in the past, with offices previously suspended in 2010 and 2013 amid criminal allegations against employees. It has also faced criticism over its recruiting practices.

Seems like everywhere someone is trying to "turn their life around," guns and drugs keep popping up. It must be some sort of conspiracy or something.

Copper Injured in Crash

Not life threatening:

• A Chicago Police officer was injured in a crash in Wrigleyville late Thursday.
  
  About 10:30 p.m., a man driving a private taxi was traveling west on Addison, trying to turn south onto Clark Street, police said.
  
  The taxi — which had six passengers in it — collided with a Chicago Police vehicle that was traveling east on Addison, police said.

"Private taxi?" Is that a fancy name for Uber or one of the ride-sharing services? Best to the Officer for a speedy recovery.

Silly Question

Before President Sparklefarts classifies this as yet another example of "workplace violence," we train these kids to drive tanks worth tens of millions of dollars, helicopters worth five times that and aircraft worth a hundred times that. We can't trust them with a pistol?

• The mayor of Chattanooga, Tennessee, Andy Berke, claims that a suspected terrorist on Thursday afternoon killed four U.S. Marines and wounded a Chattanooga Police officer during an attack on two military facilities in the city. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the shooting is considered to be an "act of domestic terrorism," but it's not known of the attacker is linked to any Islamic or white supremacist groups.
  
  During news conferences on Thursday held by local and federal government officials it was learned that the shooter, Kuwait-national Mohammad Youssef Abdulazeez, was also killed but he didn't say how he met his end. During the attacks at two separate installations, a police officer and others were also wounded.

We're going to go out on a limb here....don't ask us why...it's just a gut feeling we have...that this isn't a "white supremacist" attack. But hey, that liberal media has to cover all the bases - we're just surprised they haven't pinned it on the Tea Party yet.

Best wishes for a speedy recovery for the Officer and heartfelt sympathies to the families of the deceased.

Why is Crime Up?

A Los Angeles police officer who blogs under the pen name "Jack Dunphy" has some answers - a sampling:

• The Los Angeles Times reported this week that crime is on the rise in the City of Angels after a 12-year decline. “Crime surged across Los Angeles in the first six months of this year,” the story begins, “despite a campaign by the Los Angeles Police Department to place more officers on the streets and target certain types of offenses.” The only mystery about L.A.’s recent crime spike is why anyone finds it a mystery.
  
  Civic leaders have been at pains to explain the reversal. Mayor Eric Garcetti and Police Chief Charlie Beck have blamed a rise in gang violence and homelessness, along with voter approval in November of Proposition 47, which made many “nonviolent” felonies into misdemeanors. All of these have contributed to the increase, but conspicuously missing from their list is a factor both Mayor Garcetti and Chief Beck are surely aware of but are unlikely to address, at least publicly: officer morale in the LAPD is abysmal.

This is applicable across the board - New York, Baltimore, Cleveland, Chicago, St., Louis. And why is it abysmal?

• The death of Michael Brown last year in Ferguson, Missouri, touched off a national wave of anti-police hysteria. This despite the fact that every investigative body that examined the case—including the U.S. Justice Department under Eric Holder—concluded that Darren Wilson, the police officer who tried to detain Brown and a companion as they walked down a Ferguson street, acted in self-defense and well within the law when he shot and killed Brown. Wilson was nonetheless hounded from his job and forced into hiding as the “Hands up, don’t shoot” myth was propagated in the media and exploited by the anti-police industry.

And he touches on a topic close to home here in Cook County:

• The rise in crime is easily explainable if you proceed from the assumption that police officers and criminals are rational actors who constantly evaluate the risk-reward ratio of any decisions they make. For the criminals of Los Angeles, a good deal of risk has been removed from their calculations, especially now that so many felony property- and drug-related crimes are misdemeanors and the state’s 2011 “realignment” law has achieved its intended goal of easing overcrowding in the state’s prisons. The result has been fewer criminals behind bars and more on the streets without much in the way of a deterrent under the law.
  
  And not only do L.A.’s criminals face lesser penalties if they are arrested, they know that the city’s police officers are less inclined to arrest them in the first place. For the police officers’ part, they’ve seen only an increase in the risks they face. And in this I’m not referring to the risks to their mortal hides posed by some knife- or gun-wielding thug. Police officers, at least those who choose to work the streets, prepare themselves physically and mentally for these challenges. But while a police officer may keep himself physically fit and practice his marksmanship, there is no amount of training that can prepare him for the dangers that emanate from City Hall, the district attorney’s office, or the Justice Department if he should become involved in some controversial incident that has the mob calling for his head on a pike.

Bingo. Go read it all

More Cameras

We suppose this is probably a good place to have them though:

• As an increasing number of police officers nationwide now wear body cameras while on duty, public school principals in Iowa are also adopting usage of the small clip-on devices:
  
  Burlington Community School District in southeastern Iowa is taking the unusual step of recording parent and student interactions with administrators — a move district officials say will protect both sides.
  
  “It’s personal accountability,” Superintendent Pat Coen told The Des Moines Register. “Did we treat this person with dignity, honor and respect? And if we didn’t, why didn’t we?”
  
  [...] However, some disagree with the adoption of the cameras and see it as going a step too far:
  
  Ken Trump of the National School Safety and Security Services called it a “substantial overreach” by school leaders, one he wouldn’t want to see replicated in other districts. “They’re not in the dark alleys of local streets on the midnight shift,” said Trump, president of the Ohio-based consulting firm. “They’re in school with children.”
  
  He is also concerned about the legal question of private conversations being recorded.

So it's fine for the police to wear them but not school principals? Sorry, not buying that one. Plus, the Courts have sided with the schools time and again in minors having fewer Rights while on school property.

We can hardly wait until school cams come to Chicago - you thought dismissals were wild, wait until you see the classrooms.

More Baltimore Hijinks

Might this contribute a small measure of doubt to the supposed impartiality of the Baltimore State's Attorney?

• Marilyn Mosby, the Baltimore City State’s Attorney, catapulted to national fame when she decided in early May to prosecute six police officers for the death of Freddie Gray. In her remarks, Mosby used her family of Boston police officers as a shield against critics who said she could not fairly prosecute the case.
  
  “To the rank-and-file officers of the Baltimore City Police Department, please know that these accusations of these six officers are not an indictment on the entire force,” said Mosby. “I come from five generations of law enforcement. My father was an officer. My mother was an officer. Several of my aunts and uncles.”

Nothing like relying on your family's police credentials when announcing the indictments of six of Baltimore's officers. It shows that you have empathy, but by golly, you can't fix a broken system without breaking some eggs. But then someone did some digging:

• Mosby's mother, Linda Thompson, had nine disciplinary actions against her in her 20 years on the force.
  
  The Boston Police Department turned over a document that shows she violated the “substance abuse policy” in 2006. A source familiar with the incident said that Thompson tested positive for cocaine.
  
  [...] In 2003, Linda Thompson was suspended for “using profane language toward a superior” and for her “refusal to leave a restricted area.” Other records show she was suspended for two separate incidents in 1996 for not “reporting for duty” and “neglect of duty” -- among other charges.
  
  [...] Mosby’s father, Alan James, was fired from the Boston Police Department in 1991 on the same day he was acquitted by a jury for assault and robbery. According to an article in the Boston Globe at the time, the police commissioner fired him for "conduct unbecoming an officer.”
  
  Preston Thompson, who is Linda Thompson’s brother and Mosby’s uncle, was fired in 2001 for using cocaine. His record says he was on disability when he was charged with “substance abuse policy – two counts,” “conformance to laws - two counts” and “conduct - two counts.”
  
  According to Boston police policy, you get fired after the second time you test positive for drugs.
  
  Preston's brother, Harry Thompson, was also fired from the Boston Police Department. That uncle of Marilyn Mosby was terminated in 1991 after a hearing for three charges from the same event – “conduct unbecoming an officer,” “inaccurate reports” and “unreasonable judgment.” Sources familiar with the BPD polices say that violating these rules alone generally doesn’t get you fired.

Wow. Quite a family...and quite a record to use as a "credibility builder." This could be spun by any decent lawyer into a malicious prosecution suit by a States Attorney bent on revenge for imagined wrongs perpetrated on her family by the police culture.

More Debt

There's that flushing noise coming from City Hall again:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel's plan to manage the city's burdensome liabilities with more borrowing is moving forward.
  
  The city on Wednesday sold $745 million worth of taxable bonds to more than 70 investors, Chicago finance officials said. The deal will allow the city to pay back over decades expenses such as $170 million in debt payments coming due this year and more than $40 million in bank fees driven up by the city's deteriorating credit.
  
  Chicago is also using the bonds to postpone paying bills related to former Mayor Richard M. Daley's failed Olympics bid and his privatization of the city's parking meters, according to borrowing documents released last week.

The Legacy of Dick - more debt than anyone could pay off in two lifetimes.

Taxi Cameras

Just a warning from the Chief of Patrol's office.

All taxis are now equipped with cameras, most with some sort of audio recording feature. If you encounter a taxi, remember, there are your cameras, there are the city traffic cameras, there are the cell phone cameras everywhere, and now the taxi cameras.

Always be aware.

Such a Nice Boy

How did he ever wind up on the wrong side of the law?

• A professional boxer who made headlines five years ago when he was acquitted of murder has been arrested in connection with a beating over the Fourth of July weekend.
  
  Semajay Thomas, 22, was charged with battery and mob action after police say he punched a 22-year-old man in the mouth, knocking out some of his teeth, and also hit a 55-year-old man. He was ordered held in lieu of $350,000 bail July 7.
  
  
• Thomas was 17 when he was found not guilty of killing a Texas man who was found beaten to death in 2009 near Thomas' home in the 700 block of North Throop Street in Chicago.
  
  Members of the Satan Disciples gang reportedly told authorities that Thomas, already known as a boxer, had killed the man.

Gee, suspected of beating a man to death, so the defense will be the police profiled a boxer. And a very nice picture posted by the Tribune with the article with all his gang tattoos on full display, especially the 19-4 (s/d in the alphabet...spanish disciples). Way to advertise for the gang there Trib.

Chase? Pursuit? (UPDATE)

So the Tribune or someone else has scanner tapes regarding the death of the child in a stroller. We listened to them all, then promptly lost the link, but we're sure someone will post it in the comments. It appears that an off-duty Department of Aviation officer witnessed the shooting and was following the car as it fled the scene, calling it in to 911 and attempting to get CPD to respond to his location.There was a description broadcast and the time between the actual shooting and the crash appears to be lengthy.

So what constitutes a chase exactly? Merely being given a description of a vehicle and a last known location isn't a "chase" by any stretch. The lag time between the off-duty giving his location and it getting out to the units can be seconds or tens-of-seconds or minutes.

One of the audio clips has a portion of what may well turn out to be a pursuit, but the entire clip is over in seconds, with almost no time at all for a termination order to be determined and issued, given the severity of the crime and the "balancing test" to be applied.

Are we rapidly approaching the point where even a murderer is safe to flee the police because the danger to anyone outweighs the chance we might actually catch a criminal? This is the "balancing" we're supposed to administer - the ultimate crime (first degree murder) is just another report to be cut and no one is to be chased for any reason whatsoever?

The clearance rate of 30% will drop to 10% overnight. You will literally, be able to get away with murder, just by being in a car.

Here's the link to all the scanner audio. As you can see, they splice it together from a number of different zones and cut 20 minutes down to mere seconds.

Whoa, Bad Luck There CompStat

You hate when this throws off the curve:

• An Austin man died over the weekend from gunshot wounds suffered more than 15 years ago, authorities said.
  
  Anton Johnson, 36, was pronounced dead Saturday at 3:45 a.m. at West Suburban Medical Center in Oak Park, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office. Following an autopsy Sunday, the medical examiner’s office determined Johnson died from “remote complications of multiple gunshot wounds,” meaning wounds suffered a long time before his death.
  
  Johnson suffered gunshot wounds in an incident on April 11, 2000, a spokesman for the medical examiner’s office said Tuesday. The incident took place at or near his residence in the 1300 block of North Massasoit Avenue, according to the office.

Hey Garry, make sure you run a post-shooting mission over there tonight. Was that in the VRI box?

Now the Truth is "Regrettable"

When you can't rebut the argument, attack the message:

• Offering rare public comment on state politics, Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke said Tuesday it was "regrettable" that Gov. Bruce Rauner characterized the high court as untrustworthy and part of a "corrupt system" in remarks earlier this year.
  
  "Well, I think it's regrettable if he said that," Burke said after a speech at the City Club of Chicago.
  
  "I just have to tell you that my colleagues are outstanding legal educators. They've been in the law for their whole lives," she said. "They're good people. Honest, moral, ethical. And I can unequivocally say that isn't true."

We'll agree that Judge Bob Thomas is a "honest, moral, ethical" person, seeing as how he never tanked a kick that we had money riding on, but the rest of them?

This from a woman who is married to an aldercreature who has routinely "amended" the Council record after he votes on ordinances that might present a conflict of interest to his law practice. Can anyone tell us what brilliant legal opinions the honorably connected judge has authored or argued before the Courts?

Money Lost

Opportunity knocked....for SIX fucking years:

• Investment banks this spring paid $2 million to the city of Houston to settle claims they did not sufficiently warn city officials about the risks of the auction-rate bond market — the latest in a series of awards to governments damaged by auction-rate losses.
  
  No such award is coming to the Chicago Public Schools, even though CPS issued more auction-rate securities than any other school district in the country and more than most major cities. CPS did not file a claim with the relevant arbitration panel during its six-year eligibility period, a time span that included several years of Mayor Rahm Emanuel's tenure.
  
  It's not clear why the cash-strapped district decided not to pursue a claim — or even whether there was a decision at all. Under questioning from the Tribune, school officials acknowledged that they don't know whether CPS ever explored the option of filing a claim over its auction-rate losses. A Tribune series last year estimated those losses at roughly $100 million over the life of the deals.

Didn't Rahm make his pile in investment banks? Shouldn't he have had an inkling about this potential $100 million recovery of funds? You know, old contacts keeping him in-the-loop on certain facets of the industry and all that?

But you can bet that taxes will go up by many hundreds of millions shortly.

Mini Ice Age Coming

Remember that global warming from a few years ago? "The science is settled!" declared Al Gore as he rang up million of dollars in anti-global warming efforts while contributing a carbon footprint the size of Alaska to the world. Or all those scientists calling people who questioned the science "doubters" and troglodytes and all manner of low life rapers of Mother Earth? All of this in the complete absence of any sort of warming for seventeen years now.

Looks like the "settled science" is still a bit.....unsettled:

• You might want to reconsider boxing up your winter clothes for too long. A new study says the Sun's 'heartbeat' could slow down within 15 years, plunging the Earth into another "mini ice age."
  
  Professor Valentina Zharkova of Northumbira University presented her new model of predicting solar activity of the Sun to the National Astronomy Meeting in Llandudno on July 9, which predicts activity will fall by 60 percent during the 2030s to resemble conditions last seen during the Maunder minimum ("mini ice age") that began in 1645.
  
  According to the published findings by the Royal Astronomical Society, the Sun's activity varies over a cycle lasting around 10 to 12 years, and is colloquially known as a 'heartbeat.' But every heartbeat is a little different, says the RAS, and none of the previous models that looked only at the Sun's deep convection zone have had fully explained fluctuations.

And that's just the Channel 7 re-reporting of other stories. Here's Science Daily. Or The Daily Mail. These things run in cycles - you know, like lake levels?

• Government agencies say water levels in Lake Michigan have been replenishing at an unprecedented rate since hitting a record low two years ago.
  
  Experts say Lake Michigan has risen more than 3 feet since January 2013. The Chicago Tribune reports that the resurging waters mean relief for commercial shipping and recreational activities, but they also can contribute to erosion at beaches and shoreline properties.
  
  Some of the Great Lakes, the world’s largest source of freshwater, have experienced below-average levels for years. But much of the Great Lakes Basin recently has been rejuvenated by rain-induced runoff, higher amounts of precipitation, lower temperatures and ice cover from the past two winters.
  
  In addition to Lake Michigan, Lakes Superior and Huron also have seen significant gains.

Someone far wiser that us said recently, we'll start believing global warming is a big deal when the people screaming loudest start acting like it's a big deal. Anyone else noticed the distinct lack of 100 degree heat indices lately? In mid-July?

Hey, you know what else seems to run in cycles? Crime rates. Homicide numbers. It could be related to the sun....or incarceration rates. Has anyone checked to see if a whole bunch of persons predisposed to violence have been released recently? Or reside in a system where release is encouraged rather than stringent sentencing?

This Seems Low

But we suppose it's the new normal:

• Four men were killed and at least 18 other people — including a 12-year-old boy — have been injured in shootings across Chicago since Friday night, police said.

And of all people, pfather pfleger seems to have the correct numbers:

• In a post Monday on his Facebook page, longtime anti-violence activist the Rev. Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina Catholic Church ripped what he called the hypocrisy of the rapper's plans, telling Chief Keef to "man up" about his own alleged role in the city's gun violence.
  
  "Chief Keef is one of the reasons we have all this violence...he has been one of the encourager's of the Violence," Pfleger wrote. "...Instead of having a concert...why doesn't he Man Up and acknowledge it's time to stop this violence and Apologize for his part in it!!!! we don't need a concert...we need PEACE......7 DEAD and 24 SHOT this weekend and he wants to do a concert.....Chief Keef....SHUT UP!!!!!"

Whoa whoa whoa there rev. That's bullying. We've-already-forgotten-his-name's lawyer called out McCompStat about that stuff, now we're calling you out. Don't be calling out this "victim of society" by placing the blame at his doorstep - you being white and all. That's a no-no.