Investigation Update

Anyone else find this ""interesting"?

The media, which has been howling for weeks/months now about how the Department is "out of control," "racist," or "fetal," and will spend hours of coverage about this, yet not a peep about how a completely corrupt examination has promoted inept, incompetent and clout-heavy people into positions they don't deserve, can't perform and essentially stole from other test takers?

Is this not Theft? Corruption? Scandal? What the media supposedly thrives on?

Don't they see that this is directly tied into their supposed findings by Rahm's Task Force? The Department leadership is rotten to the core, and only DNAInfo is keeping this thing alive:

• City Inspector General Joseph Ferguson has notified Chicago Deputy Police Supt. Eugene Williams and two lieutenants that they are the subjects of a probe into allegations of cheating on the police lieutenants promotion exam, sources told DNAinfo.
  
  The city watchdog's investigation advanced this week when a Police Department employee signed his name to an official misconduct complaint alleging Williams shared privileged information in a study group about the most recent test used to promote sergeants to lieutenants, sources said.
  
  Police union contract rules state officers are not required to answer questions about administrative misconduct allegations made by anonymous Police Department employees.
  
  The whistleblower, who had been anonymous, agreed to be identified in the complaint at the urging of investigators who told him the probe would otherwise die.
  
  DNAinfo is not naming the officer who signed the complaint; he has asked for anonymity because he fears reprisal from the department's top brass.

We also have independent confirmation that there are three lieutenants (not two) who have been notified of the investigation along with Gene Williams. We have read here and heard other places that damning e-mails are already in the possession of the Inspector General with actual files of the test attached; that charges of Rule 14 violations are almost a certainty; that a civil action might be forthcoming due to the breach of contract involving certain Subject Matter Experts sharing confidential material; and the biggest bombshell, that this investigation may shortly turn criminal in nature due to the allegation of money changing hands.

And it's tied directly to one of Lori Lightfoot's finalists (Williams) and Rahm's hand-picked former First Deputy (Wysinger) and his hand-picked Superintendent (Johnson), along with one of the most prestigious (and connected) ethnic organizations of police.

But the mainstream media remains silent. Why?

Animals?

Trigger warning!

The below article contains words that might trigger "boo hoo" feelings in those with thin skin:

• A DePaul University student was brutally attacked for her iPhone on a CTA Blue Line train on Thursday, and she said witnesses stood by and did nothing to help her.
  
  Jessica Hughes, 19, was left with a black eye, bruises to her head, and a bite mark on her hand.
  
  Hughes said she was riding the Blue Line just after 10 a.m., heading home to Berwyn. Most of the passengers on her car got off at the UIC-Halsted station, but one man moved to the seat in front of her, and looked her in the face, and she knew something was wrong.
  
  “He jumps up from his chair, and goes on top of me, and asks me for my phone, but my phone was in my pocket, and I had my headphones on, so he was yanking at my headphones, and then he pushed me to the floor, and then started beating on my head,” she said. “He bit me on my left hand.”

Two supposed "men" were on the train and did nothing to assist her as she was beaten and bitten...even knowing it would have been two-on-one, they sat by and didn't do a thing.

And what do you call a "human" who bites another? The victim's dad knows:

• “I just pray that they find these animals,” [her father, Richard] Amador said.

And guess what's missing from Channel 2's "report"? If you speculated that it was any mention of what the attacker looked like, along with his female accomplice, give yourself a pat on the back.

Rumor I is Addressed

From the comments:

• It's all true. P.O.'s to be replaced by civilians on the desk and other administrative duties in the station. Commanders will be allowed to retain a P.O. secretary and one other P.O. in the office. Audits will be forthcoming and Inspectors will be monitoring administrative personnel in districts to ensure no one is hiding. They've tried this a number of times in the past but this time they're playing for real. I believe one (1) P.O. will be retained for desk duties / watch secretary on each watch. Most of the time it didn't work before is because they couldn't find enough civilians to fill spots like timekeeper, etc. Now they do. It will take almost a year to replace P.O.'s but they're full steam ahead with this one.

We've heard this song and dance before. Let's see how it plays out.

Bad Luck....Or Good Luck

Don't play the lottery Officer - you've used up a lot of luck:

• A suspect fleeing police tried to throw his gun onto a roof, but it hit a wall instead and went off, hitting an officer in the shoulder, prosecutors said Thursday.
  
  The officer's partner kept chasing Rafael Martir-Ubiles, 25, Monday afternoon and cornered him in a gangway in the 2300 block of South Trumbull Avenue, where the officer used a Taser twice to subdue him, prosecutors said.
  
  Martir-Ubiles appeared in court Thursday, charged with aggravated battery to a police officer, aggravated assault of a police officer, resisting an officer and unlawful possession of firearm by a gang member, police said.
  
  Judge Peggy Chiampas ordered him held without bail.

Thank you for the no-bail Judge. It's greatly appreciated.

And now we can see where a taser would be appropriate if the partner saw the gun being tossed.

But how much freaky bad luck is that? Dude half-ass pitches a gun and you still get shot? Thank the Fates, Lady Luck, Dame Fortune, whoever, that a cheap pistol didn't end up costing us an Officer's limb or life. Speedy recovery Officer.

Rumors III

Seriously?

Actually, this could work...for a little while at least.

Rumors II

This one has been popping up for months. Now a resolution to part of it?

• Speaking of ninnies . . .. while we are getting our collective asses handed to us by the media and Rahmbo has his bus parked on our heads. Nothing to see here. . . FOP State Lodge has agreed to pay Shields $100,000 to get out from under his lawsuit. The battle with Lodge 7 continues. So that's 100K of our money paid by the State (wasn't it the State Lodge President that removed him?) and now how much more from L7??? I think the members should at least be informed about what is going on with this and who admitted to what!

Anyone?

Rumors I

From the comment section:

• So, I'm not sure if anyone else's district has had this yet, but we were surprised yesterday by the sudden arrival of a civilian employee working behind the district desk without fore warning, handing out radios, being trained on AIRA, having I-clear access, not to mention the equipment, old shotguns, rifles. This person has access to all of our computer systems, employee information, leads, ect. All the access we have. No badge, no oath taken. A 3 week stint in the academy. Doing more with less I guess. Did they not learn their lesson three years ago when police officers homes were being burglarized and weapons taken, turns out the source was a civilian with login credentials?! In this current era of no accountability and police hatred, we now have people that have unabated access to not only the computer systems, but the actual police station. Un-fucking believeable.

Anyone care to chime in? We haven't heard about any sort civilian class going through the Academy and we assume that's where there would be some training.

And there would be more than a little noise from displaced bid personnel. Those are Contractual spots that will be manned by sworn officers. So while Rahm might cream of such a thing, we're calling bullshit on it.

Redefining "Use of Force"

We had a bunch of fun with the term "deescalating" earlier this year. It gave rise to the "De-Escalante" nickname foisted upon the interim Supernintendo.

Then we heard Eddie "Never saw nuthin" Johnson praising the officer who used a Taser to take a police shooter into custody. If the officer was aware that the subject had dropped his weapon, then the Taser would be a viable option, but you better be damn sure to have a copper with a gun backing you up to drop the assailant if he wasn't following directions.

But then this was brought to our attention. A concerted effort to rewrite the entire Use of Force paradigm, starting in that bastion of leftist thought and action - California:

• Government is looking at a proposal for creating a statewide “use of force” policy for law enforcement. The creator of this project is talking to politicians and the media, special interest groups—but REFUSES to talk to law enforcement officers, to hear their concerns. This is an attempt to politicalize law enforcement—to make them an arm of the State instead of protection for the public.
  
  “Ironically, one key PERF’s proposal on use of force calls for peace officers to “consider how the public will view the action” before deciding to employ force. Let’s apply that PERF concept to our invitation for Mr. Wexler. “How will rank-and-file peace officers view Mr. Wexler’s refusal to discuss the PERF guidelines before audiences of rank-and-file deputies and police officers?"

That underlined portion right there - that is going to get police officers killed. And PERF (the Police Executive Research Forum) is obviously a bunch of ninnies who pretty much never spent any more time on the street than they had to. Otherwise, they'd be taking input fro the people who are going to have to live, or die, with their stupid uninformed crap.

More Political Correctness

Never to be actually called by their proper name:

• In an effort to help young people involved in the justice system find jobs and housing, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) today announced $1.75 million for Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) and nonprofit legal service organizations to address the challenges justice-involved individuals face when trying to find work and a place to call home.

"justice involved individuals"

Not troublemakers. Not hoodlums. Not miniature gangsters, delinquents, punks of ruffians.

We've even moved beyond juvenile delinquents and "Y-numbers."

God forbid you use the term criminal.

Nope - justice involved individuals.

Ramsey's Parting Thought

Back to retirement:

• Three months ago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel defended the $350-an-hour fee he had agreed to pay Charles Ramsey to help guide the Chicago Police Department through a federal civil rights investigation triggered by the police shooting of Laquan McDonald.
  
  The Justice Department investigation is expected to drag on deep into 2017. But the show will go on without Ramsey.
  
  After billing the city for $37,490 in consulting work, Ramsey is bowing out as a paid adviser.
  
  “Chief Ramsey originally agreed to act as a consultant on a limited basis, but because of his own commitments can no longer play that formal role. However, he has agreed to continue serving the new superintendent as an informal adviser free of charge,” newly-appointed Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson was quoted as saying in an emailed statement.

Free of charge? That's a bargain then, after $37,000.

But this paragraph made us laugh out loud:

• Ramsey could not be reached for comment.
  
  But sources described Ramsey as troubled by the degree to which the mayor’s office attempts to micromanage the Chicago Police Department — so much so that he urged top brass to “man up.”

You mean like not stripping officers for clearly reasonable actions five years ago as a political favor to a mayor who suppressed an politically inconvenient video? Or providing cover for the wives, girlfriends and significant others of assorted exempt members? That kind of "man[ning] up"?

Don't hold your breath.

Promotions

Just before the summer rush.

Eighty-eight sergeants.

Thirteen Lieutenants.

And how many from IAD this time?

Please Identify

If you know any of the parties involved, please contact Eddie Johnson immediately so he can strip and suspend them ASAP:

311 will direct your call to his office or voicemail.

Police Like a Samurai

Since they don't want us actually using guns, why not this?

• A newly translated 19th-century book, written by samurai, describes martial arts techniques designed to help police officers of the time. The highly guarded practices included how to tie suspects up using paper string and fighting techniques that allowed officers to defeat suspects without killing them.

Sounds perfect!

• The book, which contains illustrated instructions, was published in 1888, a time when the samurai class had lost many of its privileges and the formally secretive martial art schools that taught the samurai were willing to divulge their secrets.

Ropes instead of handcuffs. A primitive form of CPR taught to resuscitate drowning victims.

We won't mention the swordplay though.

Lost in the Shuffle

The "Hey look over there!" strategy means everyone has already forgotten about this:

• Six people were killed and at least 39 were wounded in shootings across Chicago in one of the more violent weekends the city has seen since last fall, according to police.
  
  Among the victims were five people who were on a porch in West Englewood when someone fired shots from a vacant lot across Damen Avenue on Sunday night. Two men were pronounced dead on the scene. Three others went to area hospitals.
  
  It was the third attack in less than a week that wounded four or more people in Chicago.

You have to love the writer - "...one of the more violent weekends the city has seen since last fall..." No mention of the warm weather. No mention that it's still April, merely springtime. No mention that Lord only knows what going to happen when school is out for good, the temperatures soar and the killing season gets fully underway.

Gee, What Could it Be?

Something strange going on here:

• Davon Barrett gathered at a home in West Englewood on Sunday to celebrate and remember. A friend had just gotten out of jail, and it was the birthday of his younger brother — who was slain seven years ago, according to family and police.
  
  As he sat on the porch in the 2000 block of West 68th Place, someone fired shots from a vacant lot east of Damen Avenue shortly after 11 p.m., police said.
  
  Barrett, 38, was hit in the head and died at the scene. Another man, 26, was hit in the chest and killed. Three others were wounded and taken to hospitals, where they were stabilized, according to police.
  
  Police sources said some in the group on the porch may have returned fire. It was the third attack in a week in Chicago where four or more people were shot. Police reported no one in custody.

How many of those four were shot by the police again?

We don't recall anyone ever doing a scientific study on the propensity of certain neighborhoods to celebrate the birthday of someone who was killed in gang violence.

And the habits of those "celebrations" being marred by gunfire.

Not to mention the genetic disorder that causes certain families to have an unexplained attraction to lead.

A Suggestion for Readers

From our e-mail, from someone who knows the system: 

• SCC?..please ask your readers to get themselves an account so they can file witness slips to oppose these screwed up anti police bills put forward in Springfield. Its easy as hell. Any time a bad gun rights bill comes up, Illinois Carry sends out an urgent request to file witness slips either opposing or supporting bills. Here is a link for people to create an account. Once you log in and find the bill or amendment you can file a witness slip. Time to start organizing the troops to stop some of this shit.

Seems pretty straightforward. We don't think you actually have to appear in Springfield - the Witness slip is your "appearance." But it lets Springfield know that you're following something closely, and the more witnesses, the more weight that is given to their consideration.

At least, in theory. A bought politician is probably going to stay bought. But others, not so much.

Officers Shot, Cut

010 District:

• A Chicago police officer suffered a gunshot wound and another suffered a cut to the hand in the Little Village neighborhood Monday afternoon, authorities said.
  
  The Ogden District officer who was shot about 4:15 p.m. apparently was hit by a bullet that went through the shoulder, and he was expected to survive, an official said. He was shot near Trumbull and 25th Street while chasing an armed suspect, said Anthony Guglielmi, a police spokesman, said in a Tweet.
  
  It was not clear how the other officer cut his hand. A gun was found at the scene and was being taken into evidence, a source said.
  
  The two were being taken to area hospitals for treatment, according to the Chicago Fire Department. Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson was expected to make a statement about the shooting later Monday evening at Stroger Hospital.

Hopefully, Johnson isn't going there to strip them of their police powers. Maybe he'll slip them the answers to the Detective exam instead?

Best wishes to the injured for a speedy and full recovery.

Well, Fuck You Very Much

Anyone see this little quote from the "Deputy Chief" of 011?

• Perhaps surprisingly, the deadliest jurisdiction is patrolled by the least experienced officers. Seasoned and better-connected officers tend to work the safer neighborhoods on the North, Northwest and Southwest sides. This is the result of an unusual “bidding” system negotiated by the police union in 1980, which allows officers to use their seniority to claim shifts with better hours or in low-crime neighborhoods.
  
  Approached at a police-community meeting, the commander of the 11th, Deputy Chief James Jones, acknowledged that the deployment of the least experienced cops in the most dangerous neighborhood is a problem. “They know how to play video games, they know how to tweet, they know how to Facebook,” he says. “They don’t have any personal skills. They never learned.”

But they just learned a hell of a lot about their supposed "leader," didn't they? Young coppers who don't have any seniority to leave the west side just got kicked in the teeth by their "boss."

We're told this jackass has got the personality of a wooden door and during his previous stint in the 011th District as Tact Lt, he called the entire team a "bunch of savages." Needless to say, he didn't last long in that spot as numbers dropped off, but it didn't stop him from commanding three different Districts.

Fuck up, move up we suppose. This is supposed to be a leader, yet he denigrates the entire District. You think this tool has anyone's back? That he'll support you if a citizen complains? Or if you justifiably shoot a gunman who confronts you in an alley?

Or will he talk shit about you behind your back and to the media? Like now.

A Real Chief Rips Agenda Media

A little background: (Note: VIDEO LINK IS NOW DEAD - seem the media was shamed into taking it down given the Sheriff's epic dismantling of the media.)

• Three habitual car thieves with extensive records, continued their crime spree in Florida recently. They were pursued in a stolen car and missed a turn, plunging into a pond where all three juvenile females drowned. Poetic justice. Video was released and the media there began making hay out of it, claiming the deputies argued about whether or not to rescue the miscreants or let them drown.
  
  This blatant misreporting has inflamed the low-information segment of society and the usual bottom-feeders are popping up making noise.

Now here's how a real police chief dismantles the media trolls - Ed, take some notes, you might learn something instead of giving Rahm that reach-around and fucking decent coppers:

Bravo Sir.

Victim Supports Police

An unbelievable piece from Channel 7, actually supporting the police:

• A day after dashcam video of a violent confrontation between a woman and Chicago police in 2011 was released, a woman who witnessed the robbery who led to the confrontation spoke publicly with ABC7.
  
  Martha Osborn was in a McDonald's in the Portage Park neighborhood on May 25, 2011 when Floyd May allegedly robbed the restaurant. He then jumped into a vehicle driven by Tiffani Jacobs.
  
  Osborn then called police and gave them a description of the vehicle.
  
  Police pulled over the vehicle driven by Jacobs and dashcam video shows the officers throwing her to the ground as they arrest her.
  
  CPD Supt. Eddie Johnson called the arrest "concerning" and has ordered a new review of the two officers, who were previously cleared of wrong-doing five years ago. The officers have been relieved of duties pending an investigation.
  
  Osborn said police did the right thing. In recalling the robbery, she said that May grabbed her to use her as a pawn while he robbed the McDonalds, telling the cashier "If you don't give me the money I'm going to shoot her." She said he had a gun in the left side of her back and said, "Gimme the money, gimme the money, the cash, the cash in the drawer."

She also comes up with this amusing quote:

• Meanwhile, Osborn is reliving the robbery and is haunted by the image of the man who robbed her.
  
  "The girl had a gun, my wallet and the money from this restaurant when she was stopped," Osborn said. "Her mother is spoon feeding a banquet full of bologna to the general public."

Ms. Osborn is too kind describing it as "bologna." We would have said it was a heaping steaming pile of horseshit, but the other media outlets are eating it up with two hands because Rahm told them he needs cover for the cheating scandal that might ensnare most of his current command staff.

A commentator raised an interesting point - why isn't the Superintend-tool out telling everyone what exactly is "concerning" about the video? What policy was violated? What law was bent? What training is necessary to correct some perceived transgression of the Use of Force paradigm that necessitated the stripping of two officers FIVE YEARS after being cleared?

Shouldn't this be an educational opportunity, not just for the public, but for officers as well? Or is the lesson being taught something along the lines of "Don't do shit lest Rahm and Eddie stick in up your ass to cover for a lot of exempt girlfriends and IAD cheaters."?

What the Hell is This?

That didn't take long - Eddie has shown he is Rahm's tool to completely destroy the morale of the Department in order to deflect the spotlight hitting uncomfortably close to his bedroom and the bedrooms of all sorts of other cheating promotees.

This is a bullshit move:

• When Chicago police officers stopped a Lincoln Town Car suspected of being used in a McDonald’s robbery in 2011, the female driver allegedly tried to run over one of them at a gas station on the West Side, police said at the time.
  
  The officer fired twice, hitting the woman in the chest and side, but she kept driving and came to a stop on an adjacent street. When she got out of the car, she was thrown to the ground, Tasered and handcuffed.
  
  On Friday, police Supt. Eddie Johnson released a video of the incident recorded by a dashboard-mounted camera. Although the shooting was deemed justified, Johnson is launching a reinvestigation to determine whether officers used excessive force during their arrest, said a department spokesman.
  
  In a statement, Johnson called the video “concerning.”

No Ed, what's concerning is your complete lack of something resembling a spine. Did the operation hurt?

This criminal attempted to kill police officers with a car for which she was justifiably shot. That she pulled over almost immediately has zero bearing on the officer's actions. She failed to follow verbal direction and was taken down with a move taught to each and every police officer currently on the job - the "emergency takedown." Any and every piece of clothing or limb or even hair is fair game, especially in a life-or-death situation on the street, to enforce compliance with lawful verbal direction given to an offender.

You can see her kicking and failing to submit to handcuffing, which means she was justifiably tasered. It's right there in the Use of Force model and in keeping with the training and directives taught to every officer currently on the job. She pled guilty to 12 years and her accomplice got 25 years.

The video is "concerning"? No, your willingness to reopen a five-year-old case already adjudicated as "Justified" to satisfy the political whims of a mayor who suppressed a video for his own political gain is concerning. There is nothing "concerning" in the video and quite frankly, it ought to be used as a training aid to show the immense restraint of the officers involved. But you're willing to put them in the Rahm-trick-bag in order to remove media attention from the promotion of your girlfriend and her buddies at IAD?

You're worse than a tool. You're an asshole.

The Reader Does Journalism

Here's what happens when someone actually reads the "Task Force" report - they discover there's a lot of bullshit in it:

• A statistic recently cited from coast to coast: 74 percent of those shot by Chicago police from 2008 through 2015 were black, although black people make up only a third of the city's population.
  
  It's from the report by the Police Accountability Task Force, published last week. The statistic "gives validity to the widely held belief that the police have no regard for the sanctity of life when it comes to people of color," the report asserts.
  
  The New York Times agreed with that assessment in an editorial the day after the report was published. "The sense of injustice and grievance that pervades the black community . . . is borne out by the police data," the editorial said, citing the shooting statistic. The Associated Press News Service cited the stat in its story, which was headlined, "Report: Chicago police have 'no regard' for minority lives." Atlantic Cities ran virtually the same headline over a story that cited the "devastating" shooting disparity.
  
  The task force had to realize that its "no regard for the sanctity of life" assertion about Chicago police would dominate the initial media coverage and drown out most everything else that the 190-page report offers. And it offers a lot. But the report doesn't quite connect the dots on what else may be behind that shooting statistic.
  
  Poor black neighborhoods in Chicago are "ravaged by violent crime," the task force report acknowledges. In the west-side Austin neighborhood, there were 3,341 violent crimes in 2013 and 2014, including 67 homicides, 219 nonfatal shootings, and 725 armed robberies with guns. In such neighborhoods, there are bound to be far more stops, arrests, and confrontations with police than in more affluent neighborhoods where violent crime is much rarer.

All of which we've been pointing out for the past week and our readers have been saying for years now. But you don't even have to believe us - HeyJackass.com has a running counter of crime victims and offenders broken down by race for the past few years, and guess what it shows? Minorities are the vast majority of crime victims, perpetrated by a vaster majority of minority offenders.

But it's easier to blame the police that actually look in a mirror.

In any event, the Reader beats the mainstream media all to hell in the article. They quote major university studies, and what is allegedly happening in Chicago is no different than anything happening in anywhere else, even New York City. What's the word we're looking for again? Oh yeah - journalism.

End of the Sworn Affidavit?

In Springfield, right now:

• Amends the Uniform Peace Officers' Disciplinary Act.. Provides that a sworn affidavit or other legal documentation is not required to file a complaint against a peace officer (currently, a sworn affidavit is required). Removes a provision referring unsupported complaints containing false material information to the State's Attorney. Effective January 1, 2017.

So no sworn affidavit, a completely sane provision that cut down on false accusations by magnitudes.

And no referral of False Complaints to the State's Attorney for prosecution under the perjury laws.

The usual cast of police hating Chicago democrats are writers, sponsors and co-sponsors.

If it passes, any scumbag can level any accusation against you and IPRA will be investigating it, and when they "Not Sustain" a few, you'll be placed into the Personal Concerns program anyway and you'll have to do counseling, see a shrink, answer all sorts of questions because of the "red flags" put in place to dissuade you from doing anything proactive.

Is everyone getting the message yet?

Check Your Ammo

From the comments - an explanation why all qualifying has been cancelled at the moment:

• All p.o's after you qualify with your weapon check every bullet you are given in the box. Officers are finding defective and rusted bullets in what we are issued. from what we hear that is why qualifications have stopped. These bullets can misfire, jam or not go off at all.at this writing there is no special memo or explanation for this from our department

Old ammo? Improperly stored? Something to do with the steel (or nickel steel) cases instead of brass?

Or crappy manufacturing?

UPDATE: A few Range guys have written to say it's was manufacturing problem. Seems a portion of the side of the cases were actually bent into the case, causing a sharp edge that could hang up a bullet upon ignition of the powder. They explained that this would be a very bad thing. Like very very bad.

Um, Duh?

Everyone knows the answer:

• The Chicago Police Department struggled Friday to explain why the third-highest ranking member of the Chicago Fire Department was neither tested for alcohol in his system nor charged with drunken driving after crashing his city-owned SUV this week near Lake Shore Drive in Lincoln Park.
  
  The Chicago Fire Department has concluded that John McNicholas, who ran the Fire Department’s Bureau of Operations, was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the accident.
  
  But the Breathalyzer test was administered hours after the crash happened, at Fire Department headquarters at 35th and State, by the Fire Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau.
  
  Chicago Police officers were on the scene of the accident on LaSalle Drive just off Lake Shore Drive for up to two hours but never administered a field sobriety test or Breathalyzer test, sources said. Four squad cars were dispatched to the scene and were there from 30 minutes to two hours.

Anyone else think that there are a couple careers about to be sacrificed in order to give Eddie Johnson credibility as a "reformer"? You know he isn't going to take any action on the cheating scandal that involves his betrothed. That would point the spotlight at too many people in the past who "assisted" their minions into positions of power - the same minions who are currently picking the next generation of "merit" fuck-ups who will continue to drive this department into the ground.

Rahm has to be jumping up and down with glee - his handpicked superintendent who was already under a cloud for his proximity to this stinking exam scandal, is now obligated to hammer the involved officers, a sergeant or two, maybe even a lieutenant if one showed up. Voila! Reform! Burnished by a couple of hefty suspensions and/or firings.

And to the inevitable trolls who are going to blame the blog for this seeing the light of day, this was all over the Fireside Chat blog almost immediately after it happened - McNicholas is roundly despised among the CFD - and the interested parties had already e-mailed this with numerous photographs to every news outlet they could find. We were at the bottom of a long list of e-mails, so spare us the whining.

Questions

This story should be simple to check out:

• McNicholas was driving his Chicago Fire Department SUV west on La Salle Drive just off Lake Shore when another vehicle cut him off, police said. The SUV swerved to avoid a collision, went over a curb and struck a utility pole. No one was hurt, but the vehicle was heavily damaged.

With all the cameras at LaSalle and Lake Shore Drive, it should be immensely simple to verify the presence of this mysterious black vehicle.

Here's another tidbit that ought to worry a lot of people:

• Instead of calling 911 and having the conversation recorded, sources said McNicholas called a “black phone” at the 911 center that is not recorded.

Wow.

Actual verifiable proof of a mechanism in place to grant connected people a way to circumvent and bypass the protocols that are supposed to in place to prevent exactly this sort of thing from happening. The media should be having a field day.

This scandal has the potential to expose a shitload of the blatant corruption that has been part-and-parcel of this city since its founding.

Is the DOJ taking notes? You want patterns and practices? Here it is, gift wrapped.

Aldercreature Smacked

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy:

• Chicago Ald. Walter Burnett Jr. was attacked as he was entering his office on the Near West Side Thursday night.
  
  One of his staff members said a man approached Burnett and punched him square in the face as he was arriving for "Constituent Night". The alderman suffered a cut but declined to be taken to a hospital.
  
  According to that staff member, the alleged offender had threatened the alderman earlier in the day. He came into the office and said he was going to kill Burnett as well as Mayor Rahm Emanuel. It's unclear what he was angry about.
  
  Burnett is currently serving his sixth term as alderman of the 27th Ward, which covers parts of the North and West sides.

You think Chicago might be short police now Wally? Or does a lack of police make it easier to get away with armed robbery, something we recall you have some sort of experience with.

1,000

Here's the article we referenced yesterday marking the 1,000th shooting victim this year:

• The number of people shot in Chicago so far this year has already passed 1,000, a grim milestone as gun violence in the city continues at a pace not seen since the 1990s.
  
  The city reached that dubious mark Wednesday, six to nine weeks earlier than in the previous four years, according to data compiled by the Tribune.
  
  The day saw one 14-hour stretch in which 13 people were shot, including a 4-year-old boy hit in the foot as he walked with his mother in the Lawndale neighborhood on the West Side. In the nearby Austin police district alone, four people were injured in three shootings during the day.
  
  The 1,000th gunshot victim appeared to be a 16-year-old boy who was wounded in the knee shortly before 4 p.m. near 131st Street and Champlain Avenue in the Altgeld Gardens public housing complex on the Far South Side.

An unsubstantiated rumor says the guys over at HeyJackass.com had a cake delivered to Altgeld early this morning.

Fire Oops

A crash and....a resignation?

• The third-highest ranking member of the Chicago Fire Department resigned Wednesday after crashing a city-owned vehicle near Lake Shore Drive in Lincoln Park.
  
  John McNicholas, who ran the Bureau of Operations, was involved in a crash off Lake Shore Drive near North Avenue early Wednesday, according to an emailed statement from Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford.
  
  He was driving a CFD vehicle westbound on La Salle Drive just off Lake Shore at 12:50 a.m. when another vehicle cut him off, according to Chicago Police.
  
  The CFD vehicle swerved to avoid a collision, went over a curb and struck a utility pole, police said. No one was hurt.

The vehicle:

It sure looks like that pole did everything it could to jump dead center of the hood. Luckily, none of the occupants of the city owned vehicle were seriously injured. 

Quinn Wasted Money???

Report from a few days ago, not getting wide play though:

• A state agency at the center of a scathing audit vowed it would follow through on findings that showed "significant breakdowns" in how it doled out anti-violence grants and oversaw spending.
  
  The auditor general on Tuesday released the 200-page audit that focused on the third and fourth years of the program overseen by the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority. In 2014, state auditors released a highly critical report that covered the program's first two years.
  
  Auditor General Frank Mautino, a former Democratic lawmaker, noted that the latest audit shows many of the problems continued with little accountability.
  
  "These are all very important programs," Mautino told the Tribune, adding that "you can't really show whether (the initiative) achieved the goals that it was supposed to do."

Um, if you can't measure the goals, then is it anything other than a waste of money?

It's surprising that no one pointed this out as Quinn shoveled money out the door by the wheelbarrow full in the waning days of his administration in a futile effort to buy the election. We mean, if someone like Tio Hardiman was running around with millions in unaccountable funding, someone should have said something then, right?

Oh yeah, we did. But no one listens to us, and the press just ignores corruption when it's Illinois democrats doing it.

Back to Bedlam

One of the better pieces of journalism we've read in awhile, and we don't toss the "journalism" label around very often:

• Will the anti-cop Left please figure out what it wants? For more than a decade, activists have demanded the end of proactive policing, claiming that it was racist. Pedestrian stops—otherwise known as stop, question, and frisk—were attacked as a bigoted oppression of minority communities. In March 2015, for example, the ACLU of Illinois accused the Chicago Police Department of “targeting” minorities because stops are “disproportionately concentrated in the black community.”
  
  Equally vilified was Broken Windows policing, which responds to low-level offenses such as graffiti, disorderly conduct, and turnstile jumping. Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King launched a petition after the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, demanding that Attorney General Eric Holder “meet with local black and brown youth across the country who are dealing with ‘Zero Tolerance’ and ‘Broken Windows’ policing.”
  
  Well, the police got the message. In response to the incessant accusations of racism and the heightened hostility in the streets that has followed the Michael Brown shooting, officers have pulled back from making investigatory stops and enforcing low-level offenses in many urban areas. As a result, violent crime in cities with large black populations has shot up —homicides in the largest 50 cities rose nearly 17 percent in 2015. And the Left is once again denouncing the police—this time for not doing enough policing. King now accuses police in Chicago of not “doing their job,” as a result of which “people are dying.” Stops in Chicago are down nearly 90 percent this year through the end of March, compared with the same period in 2015; shootings were up 78 percent and homicides up 62 percent through April 10. Over 100 people were shot in the first ten days of 2016. King scoffs at the suggestion that a new 70-question street-stop form imposed on the CPD by the ACLU is partly responsible for the drop-off in engagement. If American police “refuse to do their jobs [i.e., make stops] when more paperwork is required,” he retorts, “it’s symptomatic of an entirely broken system in need of an overhaul.” This is the same King who as recently as October fumed that “nothing happening in this country appears to be slowing [the police] down.”

Ms. Mac Donald has written a book, out this June, titled "The War on Cops" and if it's as good as this article, it'll be on our wishlist in short order.

In a completely unrelated matter, we were told that Chicago passed 1,000 people shot for the year yesterday - if so, a hearty congratulations to the ACLU for driving this new record. And a salute to Rahm - one fingered - for caving to these jagoffs.

CFD Being Looked At

This is being portrayed as a "double payment" as CFD has a uniform allowance in addition to a commissary system - a system that operates with 99.9% efficiency according to Ferguson:

• Chicago taxpayers are shelling out $5 million-a-year to provide a uniform allowance to firefighters and paramedics that’s more like an “automatic cash bonus” because it’s “completely unmoored from any determination of actual need or use,” Inspector General Joe Ferguson concluded Wednesday.
  
  Four years ago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel took aim at treasured union perks that included the clothing allowance; holiday and duty-availability pay; pay grades; premium pay; non-duty lay-up coverage; a physical fitness incentive and a 7-percent premium paid to cross-trained firefighter-paramedics.
  
  The mayor subsequently backed away from all of those concession demands in a pre-election contract that won him the surprise endorsement of a Chicago Firefighters Union Local 2 that had endorsed mayoral challenger Gery Chico over Emanuel in 2011.
  
  [...]
  
  In the audit, Ferguson examined 58,257 transactions valued at $1.7 million over a one-year period ending on June 30, 2015 and found that 99.9 percent of those transactions adhered to department policy and management practices.

As we've stated here before, things like this were negotiated items in the CFD contracts. These were instituted instead of pay raises because pay raises are pensionable and Shortshanks didn't want to have to pay a larger pension bill. As it turned out Shortshanks (and Rahm) ignored their own accountants and actuarial reports and screwed the pensions funds for decades anyway. This was just a sop to the public sector workers for their endorsements and votes. And now they're looking to take it away.

You know if the city is going to claim the CFD Commissary is operating at 99.9% efficiency, then they're going to try to force it on the CPD and take away the uniform check.

Inevitable Lawsuit is Filed

And guess what the basis is?

• The family of a 16-year-old boy fatally shot by Chicago police during a chase on the West Side last week has filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit alleging the department's long-standing racist practices "result in the unjustified deaths of people of color."
  
  The lawsuit filed Wednesday alleges police had no justification to shoot Pierre Loury on April 11 and conspired with one another to give "false, misleading and incomplete versions" of the incident to make it look like officers were in imminent danger.
  
  The suit, brought by Loury's mother, Tambrasha Hudson, also cites a report by Mayor Rahm Emanuel's Police Accountability Task Force that found inherent racism in the department and an accountability system that is broken.

The usual "conspiracy" theories, no justification, despite all the pictures the dead jagoff posted on Facebook of him actually having a gun.

But the lawsuit actually quotes and bases its main argument on a completely flawed and biased report just released last week claiming "inherent racism." Nothing that a court of law would actually call proof, just allegations made by a committee of axe-grinders.

Well done Rahm. Hope your crackerjack legal eagles over at Corp Counsel have a rebuttal all planned out for this. If any offer of a settlement is made, proffered or instigated, remember, it's on Rahm's doorstep, not the CPD.

Brotherhood in Ohio

The Brotherhood of the Fallen in Columbus, Ohio for another funeral:

• COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH)–“We’re brothers and sisters that take the same oath.”
  
  Those were words spoken by Chicago Police Officer Steven Vidljinovic outside of St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church in Westerville.
  
  “Our job is dangerous,” Vidljinovic said. “When the worst of the worst happens, we want to be there for anything that they need from us.”
  
  Vidljinovic is one of three Chicago officers not only representing his department, but also the Brotherhood for the Fallen at Columbus Officer Steve Smith’s visitation and funeral.
  
  The Brotherhood for the Fallen has chapters in Chicago, in New York, and in Aurora, Colorado. Each chapter sends at least two members (police officers) to the funerals of every officer killed while serving his or her community.

Unfortunately, a lot of travel this year for the organization. RIP Officer Smith.

Economic Success Story

Just about the only consistently successful sector of the economy for the past seven years:

• The gun industry has boomed over the past eight years resulting in a massive increase in gun-related jobs throughout the country.
  
  The number of full-time jobs in the firearms industry increased from about 166,000 in 2008 to nearly 288,000, according to a new report from the National Shooting Sports Foundation, or NSSF. That represents a 73 percent increase.
  
  In 2015 alone, the gun industry went from 263,223 jobs to 287,986, an increase of nearly 25,000 jobs.
  
  The NSSF estimates that the gun industry currently has a total economic impact of nearly $50 billion. That’s up 158 percent from $19.1 billion in 2008. Wages in the industry rose 126 percent over the same time period. The average industry worker now receives $50,180 between wages and benefits.
  
  The gun industry has also generated record amounts of tax revenue for both the federal government and state governments in the past eight years. In 2015, the federal government collected $3.7 billion in tax revenue, an increase of 144 percent since 2008. State governments saw nearly double the tax revenue over the same period. Excise taxes are also up 92 percent.

The best gun salesman ever. If only he could expand this to the entire economy.

Irony is Heavy Here

Who would have thought that the rap music business was so dangerous?

• Damond Dawson was "goofing around" with his brother and other relatives and friends, rapping and shooting video in Foster Park when two gunmen opened fire early Tuesday, killing Dawson and wounding four others, according to police and relatives.
  
  “Basically like an ambush," said Dawson's aunt, Angela Mathis-Tate, 44. “One coming west of the park and one coming south."
  
  The shooting happened around 2:20 a.m. as Dawson, 23, and a small group were “rapping around (taking) selfies with their phones” at Foster Park at 1440 W. 84th St., according to relatives.

So where was the Park Car? Aren't parks closed at that time?

• “They were very close,” Mathis-Tate said. “It was like they were all brothers. They just hung out together, go to parties together, go to clubs.”

And maybe had jobs together? Car-pooled to work? Maybe after graduating college at the same time? Or trade school?

• Some witnesses said the group was staging a party scene for a video titled “Two Tecs and a 50 Shot,” but Mathis-Tate said they were just having some fun in the park.
  
  “He was really, you know, just goofing around, playing like he could rap a little bit,” she said. “He wasn’t no rapper. He was a newcomer just trying to say some lyrics.” He sometimes went by the name “Thugga,” according to family and friends.

Golly, a rap piece titled "Two Tecs and a 50 Shot." Whatever could that mean? Tecs? Maybe video technicians? Or technical drawings like blueprints or schematics for a new heart/lung machine? Are we getting close? "50 Shot"? Like a really big novelty bottle of scotch? Or something else? And a nickname like "Thugga." No idea what that could mean....maybe one of our readers could clue us in?

• “People out here (are) just shooting people, other kids, for no reason,” she said. “It doesn’t mean anything to them but ‘oh yeah, let’s get this person.’ … They don’t have no concern for life anymore.”

Those damn police, not a concern in the world. You know what this place needs? Another march or something.

Check Admin Fax Messages

A reminder to ensure your educational records are current.

Promotional class on the way.

Sergeants at least, so they're on the street before summer.

Lieutenants, so there are three per watch per the DOJ "recommendations."

A final Detectives class? No one knows.

So....are they hiring anyone?

The Other Losses

Illinois isn't just bleeding millionaires. It's bleeding factories:

• When Marty Flaska moved his forklift-manufacturing business to Illinois 18 years ago, he didn’t think to look at the cost of operating in other states. In 2014, out of curiosity, his son ran the numbers.
  
  “I didn’t believe him,” said the elder Flaska. His son told him that a short drive east would save the business $2 million a year.
  
  Thus began the journey of Hoist Liftruck to greener pastures in Indiana; a move that resulted from policy mistakes that have made the Land of Lincoln a laggard state when it comes to forging well-paying manufacturing jobs.
  
  On March 31, Flaska cut the ribbon on a massive facility in East Chicago, Ind., the new home of Hoist. The Indiana factory will house nearly 300 manufacturing jobs transplanted from Bedford Park, as well as 200 new jobs Flaska plans to create. The average salary for one of those positions is $55,000.

The entire article is an eyeopener....if you've had your eyes shut for the past few years we mean. Those of us who pay attention and work(ed) the blighted areas of Chicago, have seen manufacturing fleeing for years now. Anyone traveling south has seen abandoned suburban properties as light industry (and heavier industry) left Cook County, then northeastern Illinois and finally the state itself. And until Illinois becomes more business-friendly, expect this trend to continue.

Anyone Know About This?

From the comments:

• Off topic: SCC can you address the fact that there have been a sudden large number of people stripped and that maybe it coincides to the report that requested IPRA be replaced. I would hate to think that IPRA is merely trying to justify their existence through an overuse of their power and using working police as their pawns.
  
  ===============
  
  37 people stripped in the past week and a half. All told they are being taken off the street until the pending investigation is closed. Smoke and mirrors at thr cost of guys thinking they are gonna get jammed up but in reality they are being used as "numbers". 99 percent of these people will be back on the street in 6 months but they still have to sit at call back which is not cool just to prove a point to the media and reverinds

Are these the reopened DOJ investigations? Or just IPRA rattling chains?

Stop Digging

Three days ago, this report was in the Tribune:

• Illinois' public school districts are roughly $20 billion in debt, a staggering figure fueled in part by decades of special deals in Springfield that have given districts exemptions so they can keep borrowing beyond limits set by law.
  
  Today, that debt exceeds long-term school borrowing in most other states. It equates to about $10,000 for every Pre-K to 12th-grade public school student in Illinois, a Tribune investigation has found.

So what do you think that Forrest Claypool recommended for Chicago Public Schools? Maybe a reorganization? Some renegotiation of certain crooked contracts? A reevaluation of spending practices? Maybe draconian austerity measures?

Hahahahahaha....No! You silly sheep. He's a democrat.....so he said "borrow more money!"

• Chicago Public Schools CEO Forrest Claypool on Monday said the district would have to borrow more money to stay afloat, even as he pressed the teachers union to accept a four-year contract recommended by an independent fact-finder.
  
  The district's need for more borrowing goes beyond having to cover a new deal with teachers, Claypool said. "What I'm saying is, to keep the doors open," he said. "Not just to fund the contract."

One certainly has to wonder at the state of his (and others) personal finances where he recommends borrowing when the wolves are at the door.

The Price of Rahm's Ego

$1.2 billion...and that's just to start:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration on Monday unveiled the details of its last-ditch plan to put "Star Wars" filmmaker George Lucas' museum along the lake, a lift so heavy the mayor might have to learn to summon The Force to make it happen.
  
  Not only would Emanuel have to persuade state lawmakers and the governor to let the agency that runs McCormick Place to borrow an additional $1.2 billion, they'd also have to go along with five future tax hikes. In an election year. At a time when they can't even agree on a budget amid a partisan impasse the likes of which Springfield has never seen.
  
  Against that political backdrop, the mayor gamely continued the sales pitch on his complicated backup plan for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, one that would see McCormick Place's Lakeside Center torn down, the futuristic-looking museum built in its place and a new convention building added west of Lake Shore Drive.

But remember - the city is broke. Rahm can't afford to pay our pensions. Chicago needs an extra few decades to pay legally owed debts. So let's hand out more crooked construction contracts and a sop to a dying convention business as crime spirals out of control and predators roam the downtown streets mugging tourists. Makes perfect sense!

First Warm Weekend

And the body count climbs:

• The nicest weather weekend of the year thus far brought violence into focus once again in Chicago, leaving 3 dead and 28 injured in shootings across the city by Sunday evening. The victims included a 1-year-old girl wounded while riding in a car, a father of two killed outside his childhood home, and a police officer injured by a pellet gun.

The NBC count stopped around 5 PM, so there's still the potential for more mayhem. Plus, this is Spring Break for CPS, so it might be an interesting week.

Public Service Announcement

As a condition of our Community Service hours, we present the answers to the 2016 City of Chicago Ethics Exam. This training is meant to make sure everyone is following the rules, to enure "good government" is taking place across our fair city, and no one is taking bribes or gifts or benefiting from connected contracts being thrown in their laps.....unless you're an aldercreature, ward boss or sleeping with a Subject Matter Expert before a promotional exam is given:

• Part 1 = yes no yes yes
• Part 2 = yes no yes yes no
• Part 3 = no yes no no
• Part 4 = no yes no yes

Remember this test is impossible to fail - if you get a wrong answer, the program kicks you back to the question until you get it correct. There doesn't seem to be a section on "Cheating on Exams," but maybe next year.

Entrance Exam Count

With all the hullabaloo over all police being racist and Rahm running the Department into a 3,000 man shortfall and the Entrance Exam deadline being extended an extra month before the test was given this past Saturday, you'd think the media would have had a few interns at the testing site actually counting those who went in to take the test and maybe interviewing some to see what their impressions were.

We've had a few comments and e-mails stating that a 50-to-60% turnout was the norm in certain testing rooms, but it might have been worth it for an actual Investigative reporter to go out and do some legwork to figure out what's what.

But then we remembered that they just republish whatever Rahm tells them to and don't actually, you know, fact check anything.

BB Gun Shooting

Play stupid games, win stupid prizes:

• A 16-year-old boy has been charged after a Chicago police officer was shot with a pellet gun late Friday on the West Side.
  
  The boy, who is not being identified because of his age, was charged as a juvenile with felony aggravated battery in a public place and aggravated assault, a misdemeanor, according to police.
  
  Three other people in custody were released without being charged, police said.
  
  About 10:30 p.m., the officer was working a vice operation near Madison Street and Cicero Avenue when the officer was wounded with a pellet gun, police said.
  
  During the incident, two officers, including the wounded officer, returned fire but missed, police said. A pellet gun was recovered at the scene, police said.

This is how fast a shooting might go down.

• A cop sees a gun, hears a pop or a hiss or some sort of report and feels an instant of pain.
• The copper might yell out "I've been hit/shot!"
• Not being regularly familiar with what a gunshot would might feel like, the officer and their partner return fire until the threat is removed/isolated/eliminated.

All in the span of what? Two seconds? Three? And while we have heard that the officer will recover physically, can you imagine the outcry if the officers had actually killed this jagoff?

Best wishes for a speedy recovery Officer.

The Future of Dispatching

Referenced many times in our comment section:



It's what everyone wants.

Cheating Scandal Grows

Now the Tribune jumps on board:

• The city of Chicago's inspector general is investigating allegations that three recently promoted police lieutenants, including the fiancee of Mayor Rahm Emanuel's hand-picked superintendent, were coached by a high-ranking police official who helped develop the qualifying test, sources said.
  
  The official is Eugene Williams, who oversees the department's administrative activities and was one of the three finalists for police superintendent passed over by Emanuel, according to the sources.
  
  Williams helped develop the lieutenants' exam and, before it was administered in August 2015, led a study group with several clouted sergeants who ended up being promoted after posting high exam scores, according to complaints filed with Inspector General Joseph Ferguson and the department's Internal Affairs Division. The Tribune obtained copies of both complaints.

The Tribune is naming names, too, and pointing out the relationships between Subject Matter Experts and promotees - at least the well known ones. There are others that will eventually come to light, even from past exams. Anyone in the media wondering what a few well placed FOIA requests might reveal? A few good kicks and a whole shitload of careers start collapsing.

Solution in Search of...

....what exactly?

• The Chicago Police and Fire Departments will make the switch from a paper-based time-keeping system to an electronic system that uses biometrics, as part of a citywide crackdown on absenteeism with a $10 million price tag.
  
  The Chicago Sun-Times reported last week that the Police Department spent a record $116.1 million on overtime in 2015 — up 17.2 percent from the previous year — to mask a manpower shortage that has mushroomed under Mayor Rahm Emanuel, with police retirements outpacing hiring by 975 officers.
  
  On Thursday, Budget Director Alex Holt acknowledged that both the Police and Fire Departments, where overtime has also been a problem, are still using a paper system for tracking hours worked.
  
  That’s about to change, thanks to changes recommended by an “absenteeism task force” tied to Emanuel’s tax-laden 2016 budget.

Um, the overtime isn't about "absenteeism." It's about a massive manpower shortage. Remember? The media wrote about it for about ten seconds a week or two ago - cutting twelve-hundred spots from the budget and retirements outpacing hiring by another thousand.

Judging by the "variances" the CFD complains about semi-regularly, their manpower shortage is about as acute as ours, and their overtime runs 24-hours at a time.

But Rahm is going to nickel-and-dime public safety departments while cost overruns at every single construction project you can think of is off the charts, aldercreatures earn 6-figures for a part time job with a unaccountable "menu" that tops $1 million per ward, and crooked contracting continues apace.

Cops Shoot Baby in the Head

Wait, what? It wasn't the racist police?

• A 1-year-old girl was shot in the head while riding in the back seat of a car in the 5400-block of West Le Moyne with her aunt and niece Friday afternoon in Chicago's Austin neighborhood.
  
  Neighbors say they heard several shots Friday afternoon.
  
  Police say the girl was in the back seat of the car around 4:45 p.m. when someone in a silver vehicle drove past and began firing shots at the car. The bullets went through the trunk and back seat and hit the girl in the head.

How the hell does this happen in a city where nearly 1,000 people have been shot, 168 killed, every single one of them by the heartless, racist police? Haven't the dwellers of the Austin neighborhood heard what matters?

Interesting CompStat Meeting

From one of our many readers:

• I attended Compstat yesterday and two things stood out. Eddie got up to speak, and one of the first things he addressed was the Blue Ribbon Report. He said he'd really like to respond to it, but it seems as though the newspapers got a copy of the full report before he did. As of yesterday, he still had not been given a copy. He had an interesting message about the report though. He said, "no matter what is in that report, it does not define us. We need to see what's happening now, and move forward not look back". I thought that was pretty stand up.
  
  The next thing out of his mouth had to have a few sphincters tightening. He talked about how the contact card numbers were basically bullshit and how you can't compare them to ISR numbers. He said the ISR thing would "work itself out" over time. In the meantime, and I quote, "With that said, I better not hear of anyone in this room threatening to split up partners or dump people off of their cars for not writing ISR's". I looked over at Kulbida and his head snapped down. Escamilla looked like he wanted the floor of the multipurpose room to open up and swallow him. I know Johnson and Kulbida have a history. No doubt in my mind that Johnson has heard about Kublida and Escamilla's antics. The man made a statement. You'd have to be stone deaf not to have heard it.

So obviously, Eddie knows that McCarthy's Contact Card numbers were bullshit from the get go and attempting to maintain that sort of public interaction in the current environment is an invitation to numerous dates at Federal Court. We are still amazed at the number of lieutenants, captains and commanders who haven't gotten the message yet.

If anyone want to let the Supe know what has already happened in 025 and 012, post it. His people are obviously reading.

How About Something Big?

Deano is taking a stand, but is he thinking big enough? In replying to the Task Force contention that the Collective Bargaining Agreement is an impediment to their desire to railroad as many officers as possible, Dean stakes out a decent position:

• Angelo said changes to the rigid process that must be followed to discipline wayward officers are possible, only after the five-year union contract expires on June 30, 2017. And changes will happen then, only if the city gives the union something in return.
  
  “Anybody who wants to discuss the contract or impact the language that’s in there right now will have to come to the process of negotiations…When we start negotiations in June 2017, I’m sure the city will come to us with a list of items, and we’ll also have a list of items,” Angelo said.

You want to put Rahm in a bind? You want to make waves that will sweep far and wide?

Residency.

Yes, we know it's state law (home rule and all that). But every single police union that has sued has won in the courts. Courts overturn improper laws all the time, and numerous existing precedents give the FOP a better than average chance of vacating the residency law and putting dent in the "home rule" exemptions that gives Chicago pols all sorts of leeway in circumventing what the rest of Illinois has to follow.

Large swaths of Chicago don't want us around and the safe areas are becoming smaller and less safe daily. Fine. Throw the threat of a lawsuit on the table and make Rahm negotiate it away. You know he isn't going to play fair and his negotiators are going to attempt to gut every protection we currently have to make us less-than-citizens. The whole thing is going to arbitration anyway. What have we got to lose?

Dart Jumps In

No complaints, no allegations, just Dart looking to make a name for himself:

• Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, who oversees one of the nation's most crowded jails, voluntarily released video Friday that shows half a dozen incidents of excessive force by deputies at the county jail, saying the public has a right to see it.
  
  The videos show violent encounters between jailers and inmates, including one in which an inmate is dragged through hallways by several officers, thrown into a cell and left with blood spattered on his shirt. Another shows two officers pushing a detainee to the ground with one of the jailers kicking him in the shoulders or face. Thirteen officers were fired or otherwise disciplined over the incidents.

But then this came to our e-mail:

• Union Poll conducted Shows 96% of Sheriff officers have 'No faith' in Sheriff Dart to provide a safe and secure working environment.
  
  [A] Cook County Division 10 Correction officer was pulled into a cell last week by three inmates and severely beating needing facial reconfiguration surgery. Teamsters local 700 is demanding the release of that video.
  
  Teamsters Local 700 received calls today from both ABC Channel 7 and NBC Channel 5 regarding the Cook County Department of Corrections videos that were released to the media. We wanted to share this with the membership so you can see what we submitted versus what they actually use in the news segments, which will air today at 5 p.m.
  
  Teamsters Local 700 sees this as nothing but a political move by Tom Dart, who is clearly seeking a public office position other than being Sheriff. After several years as in his current position, Dart has now decided to be transparent concerning these alleged excessive force incidents which makes us ask more questions:
  
  Why are the inmates faces blacked out and not the officers?
  Why doesn’t he show all the videos of incidents where inmates are attacking officers?
  Where are all the videos of inmates sexually assaulting our officers?
  Where’s the video of the Division 2 altercation last week where nearly 100 detainees rioted and our officers had to do everything in their power to stop it?

Let's see how much play that side of the story gets, or is it just the anti-police agenda.

Dean Counters

A mild counter to be sure:

• The president of the largest Chicago police union on Thursday blasted a new report that recommends broad reforms within the department, calling the report one-sided and unfair to officers.
  
  Dean Angelo Sr., president of the Fraternal Order of Police, said he thinks members of Mayor Rahm Emanuel's hand-picked Police Accountability Task Force made up their minds about police before studying the issues. The report, written in occasionally scalding language, cites statistics and historic events as it calls out the department for alleged racial bias and indifference to the problems of residents.
  
  [...] "I believe they had an agenda or a built-in bias going in," Angelo said. "And I don't see the need to do that when the Department of Justice are the subject matter experts, not the task force."

"subject matter experts"? Was that a zinger thrown in at new supernintendo Eddie Johnson, the crooked lieutenants test and the largish number of Subject Matter Experts who have sexual relationships with a sizable portion of the "top score" promotees? If so, nice one Deano!

• The report, which encourages the dismantling and replacement of the city's police oversight agency, focuses heavily on changes that could be made to union contracts. Those suggested changes include allowing anonymous complaints against officers and removing the right of police to amend their statements after reviewing video or audio recordings during the investigative process, according to the report.

Aha, here we go. Let's strip away contract protections. You know, those things that guarantee officers due process and Rights and protections to politically charged prosecutions, and make it so difficult to railroad cops for political reasons.

In this second article Dean points out that you haven't seen the worst of the ACLU effect yet:

• A “biased” report that portrays the Chicago Police Department as racist will cause already low police morale to take another nosedive, the police union president said Thursday.
  
  Dean Angelo, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, also ruled out immediate changes to a collective bargaining agreement that a mayoral task force says turns a “code of silence into official policy.”

Yeah, smart move there Dean, as you'd be out of office by the close of business the following day and the FOP would be disbanded by the following week.

He also counters the Task Force's blaming the Collective Bargaining Agreement:

• On Thursday, Angelo made it clear that changes to the disciplinary process won’t come without a fight. He dismissed anonymous complaints as “generally baseless.”
  
  “Our contract protects all of our members and secures just cause in the process of discipline and separation and any other type of internal or external allegations. Those protections are there because of abuse that has occurred in the past discipline-wise,” he said.
  
  “Affidavits are there to protect officers from unfounded or just arbitrary allegations. If you and I are working in a gang-infested area and we’re constantly locking people up for narcotics and guns and confiscating money, their way to get back at you is to complain. If you don’t have a process in place where you have to identify yourself and actively participate in allegations you’re making against an officer, you could just speed-dial complaint after complaint to IPRA. You could complain nonstop.”
  
  As for the rule giving officers 24 hours before they have to give a statement about a shooting, Angelo said it’s not unusual. He noted the federal government has a 72-hour time-out for officers involved in shootings. Other big-city police departments have a 48-hour waiting period.

And giving credit where credit is due, Dean even addressed the elephant in the room:

• “If you look at crimes and murders, gun, narcotics and homicide arrests ward by ward, the top 10 wards in the city are over 80 percent African-American. That’s where the officers are assigned and that’s where more contact occurs. Officers aren’t responding to neighborhoods of color. They’re responding to neighborhoods of crime.”

So when the Department of Justice concludes that the CPD deployment into areas where the violent crime is centralized is found to be sound policing, are the men and women of the CPD going to get an apology from these jagoffs painting us all with the broad brush of "racist!"?

The Future of Policing

Here it is:

CLICK HERE

It's Facebook, but we viewed it without being a user, so hopefully this works. If anyone gets it as a YouTube or downloadable video, we'll post it here.

UPDATE:

Another Dumb Idea

If you drive a car, I'll tax the street,
If you try to sit, I'll tax your seat.
If you get too cold I'll tax the heat,
If you take a walk, I'll tax your feet.

The Beatles

Yet another reason to pack up the car and leave Illinois:

• There's a new push to tax you based on the number of miles you drive.
  
  Gas tax revenue has fallen in Illinois, so this would be a way to make money off everyone, including hybrid and electric car drivers. But some critics worry about how the government will monitor the miles you drive.
  
  [...] State Senate leader John Cullerton is pushing for a 1.5 cent per mile tax to fund road repairs, saying with more people driving fuel-efficient vehicles and electric vehicles, gas tax revenue is on the decline.

Has any politician in Illinois ever some up with a plan that doesn't involve raising taxes? Because we can't think of one, and even the "temporary" tax raises they push through Springfield have a nasty habit of turning "permanent" in short order.

Almost Down the Memory Hole

But the Tribune actually has an editorial writer mentioning it again:

• Two weeks ago, the Chicago Teachers Union hosted a rally designed to gin up support for a potential teacher strike.
  
  The rally included closing remarks from a teacher — not a union member because she teaches at a private school — who yelled into the microphone, "F--- the police, f--- CPD, f--- the FOP. F--- the police and everybody f------ with them."
  
  Yes, a rally hosted by educators and attended by many children who were out of school that day ended with an important lesson. One fool can cast a long shadow.
  
  The remarks drew immediate rebuke from the Fraternal Order of Police, the union representing police officers, along with many Chicago Public Schools teachers who support CTU's broad agenda but not its radicalization.

As we said almost two weeks ago, it's going to be a cold day in hell before Karen Lewis addresses or refutes any portion of this asshole's statements. Already it's a distant memory to most people. Funny how that happens whenever leftists get caught doing the things that they would castigate the right for doing, even if those things are imaginary in most cases.

Raise Your Right Hand

No, your other right hand.

Nice job there Ed. We're already off on the wrong foot.

Legally, doesn't this make the entire oath invalid?

All Racist, All the Time

So a bunch of people with spines made of jello, full of inflated self-importance, kow-towed to a political wind, blowing from the political left:

• The Chicago Police Department must acknowledge its racist history and overhaul its handling of excessive force allegations before true reforms can take place, according to a scathing draft report from the task force established by Mayor Rahm Emanuel following public unrest over the Laquan McDonald video.
  
  The Police Accountability Task Force's report — which is scheduled to be released as early as this week — blisters both the Police Department and its primary oversight agency, blaming them for a "broken" system rooted in racial bias and indifference. It also targets the collective bargaining agreements between the city and police union for turning the "code of silence into official policy," according to a draft of the executive summary obtained by the Tribune.
  
  The 18-page executive summary recommends abolishing the Independent Police Review Authority, which investigates allegations of officer misconduct, and implementing a citywide reconciliation process beginning with the "superintendent publicly acknowledging CPD's history of racial disparity and discrimination."

So the head of the Department has to prostrate himself on the altar of political correctness and offer up a knife with which these tools will gut him, otherwise, they'll continue to howl, rant and pretty much act like a six-year-old denied a cookie.

As suspected, the Executive Summary is the usual mishmash of lib-tarded bullshit with numbers being squeezed so hard, they scream for mercy:

• The task force amassed data that shows the extent to which African-Americans appear to have been disproportionately focused on by the police. In a city where whites, blacks and Hispanics each make up about one-third of the population, 74 percent of the 404 people shot by the Chicago police between 2008 and 2015 were black, the report said. Black people were the subjects in 72 percent of the thousands of investigative street stops that did not lead to arrests during the summer of 2014.

Pardon our questioning tone, but so what? Sometimes you catch the criminals dirty, sometimes they outsmart you. How about you give us the rates of criminal behavior for these populations? The rates at which people (or folks) in this most racially segregated city commit crimes? If blacks account for one-third of Chicago's population, how come they're 75%-plus percent of the murder victims, while hispanics are 20% and whites under 5%?

The offender numbers are eerily similar for some "unknown" reason.

And of the 404 people shot, what were they doing, because we have a feeling (call it a hunch) that it was a lot of people engaged in criminal behavior with extensive criminal records.

But cops are racist. Obama's two-year "TSSS Study" is entering its second decade and it still hasn't located a single instance of racial profiling.

Tell us this Oh Mighty Task Force:

• While those 404 people of all colors were being shot by the Chicago Police over a seven year time frame, how many people (or folks) were shot by other folks (or people) of color? The homicide numbers alone are over three-thousand. The shooting numbers are ten-or-fifteen-thousand.

That works out to what? Thirty-or-forty times more likely to be shot by a gang banger than a cop? And as this year's numbers climb, guess who's going to be complaining that the police "ain't doing enough"?

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. But if you "don't" then you're more likely to stay out of the spotlight....and stay employed.

More D-Unit Info

So the mainstream media picked up on the reopening of the old Area 4:

• In what would be a reversal from four years ago, Chicago police are considering posting violent-crime detectives out of a West Side police facility as homicides and shootings rise sharply in nearby neighborhoods.
  
  Since the old Harrison Area detective bureau was shut down for budget reasons in 2012, detectives have had to travel from the Area North bureau to investigate violent incidents on the West Side.

But the alternative media has already figured out what this all means:

• The Chicago Police Department is set to announce that virtually every detective who is currently assigned to work murder, rape, robbery, burglary, and most other high-priority investigations will be moving out of the Area North Headquarters at Belmont and Western on Monday morning. Their new base of operations will be more than five miles south—at Harrison and Kedzie in a building that served as headquarters for the now-defunct Area 4.
  
  [...] Under the new assignments, every homicide, robbery, rape, and burglary detective in the city will be based south of the Eisenhower Expressway. [emphasis added]

This might be an overstatement, but anyone who has worked for the Department any length of time can see that about zero thought went into this process....which is exactly as much thought as went into closing two Areas four years ago.

Just Once...We Swear!

By hook or by crook, Rahm got the guy he wanted and made Lightfoot look like an ineffective tool. He also got the City Council to stifle its rebellious streak:

• A Chicago City Council panel took action Tuesday to temporarily change the process for selecting the city's top cop and fast-track Mayor Rahm Emanuel's choice for new police superintendent.
  
  After a mini-debate over whether to bypass the Chicago Police Board, the Chicago City Council Public Safety Committee held what amounted to a confirmation hearing for superintendent-to-be Eddie Johnson.
  
  [...] Johnson did not apply for the superintendent's job, but was tapped by Mayor Emanuel after rejecting the three candidates nominated by the Chicago Police Board after a nearly three-months-long, half-million-dollar nationwide search.
  
  The council's public safety committee debated whether to temporarily suspend the law requiring the mayor to select from police board recommended candidates so Johnson can get the job.

Remember, this is the same body of politicos who "suspended" another law to allow Dick Mell (and only Dick Mell) to re-register a bunch of guns he "forgot" to renew the permits for a number of years back. Now they're allowing Rahm the same sort of "one-time" leeway.

It must be nice to be so arrogant as to alter the law to throw Rahm a life preserver.

Altar Boy Photos

Let's make a thug into a saint!

• Karen Winters knows how easily boys are drawn to a life of violence in the Homan Square neighborhood.
  
  But she still can't understand how her 16-year-old nephew ended up shot to death after allegedly threatening a Chicago police officer with a gun during a brief foot chase Monday night.

Um, by pointing a gun at the police auntie.

• A woman who said she witnessed the shooting told the Tribune the teen was shot as he was scaling a fence.
  
  "They shot him in the air," she said. "His pants leg got caught on the fence and he hit the ground. If he hadn't gotten shot, he would have cleared the fence."

So....you're cheering for hte thug to get away? So he can shoot someone else? Someone you care about maybe?

• The woman spoke on condition of anonymity, saying she feared backlash from police. She said she had denied to police that night that she had seen anything.

We aren't getting this - she lied to protect.... the police? Or she's lying now to protect the possible payout by the city? This is part of that "no snitching" thing, right?

Let's put one of the typical ghetto rumors to rest, courtesy of the Tribune of all places:

• An autopsy showed the teen suffered a gunshot wound to the chest. 

Which means he was facing the officer when he got shot.

• Winters said she found reports of her nephew carrying a gun hard to believe and described his past brushes with the law as "small, minor incidents."

Oh....so these pictures are...what exactly? (Facebook users can find more if you search for "Pierre Santana Chicago Illinois" according to the e-mailer who sent us these and about 20 more - there are hundreds of pictures they claim)

And all those other kids suffering from arthritis so early in life.

And the west side has embraced this criminal to it's bosom, marching on the police station and shutting down the Eisenhower overnight in support of someone who contributed exactly what to society again?

Until the community collectively rejects this type of behavior, instead of supporting it by their words and actions, then they can expect massive payouts of taxpayer money at the hands of the mayor, city council and...... wait a minute..... This IS Bizarro-World!