ISR to Change?

We aren't holding our breath, but desperate times require desperate promises to make the police think that Rahm has their backs (nevermind all those knives sticking in them or those tire tracks up and down your bodies):

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel has asked for a “look into” the new detailed reports officers must fill out when they stop people — after a cop told him similar forms in the suburbs are “half the length as those in Chicago.”
  
  The Fraternal Order of Police and rank-and-file cops have complained that officers must fill out far more information on the new “investigatory stop report” that replaced the department’s old “contact card” system on Jan. 1.
  
  Officers say they’ve conducted far fewer stops this year because of the new reporting system. Meanwhile, crime has shot up.

Gosh. Cops are complaining. No real surprise there, we do it, too - but that doesn't mean there isn't a basis behind the complaints. We aren't bitching to bitch, we're bitching because the system is seriously fucked up:

• Under state law and an agreement with the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois, Chicago officers now must report far more information about stops — including whether they frisked the person and if an arrest was made.
  
  A retired federal judge will review the Chicago reports to ensure the stops are passing constitutional muster.

Does everyone recall what these reports entail? School information, employment information, all vehicle information (even if no tickets are written), potentially three different narratives. Seventy-something boxes to complete...per person stopped. On a good day, that's 20 minutes per report, twisted in a unnatural sitting position to type on a screen smaller than a standard laptop. Draw your own conclusions.

Remember, here's what the mayor supposedly wanted according to rumors the other day:

• Heard through a little birdy that Mr. 9.5 flipped out the other day when he got the numbers from the month of January. Supposedly he started demanding answers as to why no one's doing ISR's and when told that no one wants to do a 2-page report that the ACLU is getting their hands on, he demanded that R and D fix it and fix it immediately.

And here's what the ACLU says:

• "We are pleased that there are going to be fewer stops."

So who are you going to put your trust in? A mayor that has repeatedly thrown the Police Department under the bus and driven it over everyone including the supernintendo whose back he had not even 48 hours before firing, or the ACLU who has made no secret of its institutional hatred of police?

This is part of what the PAX 501 from the boss says:

• The Department has not relinquished any control of our policies and procedures to the ACLU. The agreement does not provide the ACLU with any role whatsoever with respect to individual officers' compliance with the Department policies.

Except for the fact that the ACLU gets copies of every single ISR report - that isn't a "relinquish[ing]" of anything, right? Who are you shitting John? At the FOP meeting Tuesday, it was discussed that the ACLU is mailing surveys (and has created a flyer) for persons stopped by the police. They have also contacted stopped persons at home, are asking leading questions, and providing guidance to the CR process in order to get complaint numbers on officers. No reporter will touch on that - the ACLU, a private organization, is getting data collected by government agents (the police) in order to sue the government collecting the data.

The fact is that the ACLU is getting these files and is reviewing them for reasons to sue the Department and individual officers, and anyone who says differently, from the mayor, the Acting Superintendent and on down the line, is lying - plain and simple.