More Distractions

First up, you have "thousands" of cops being deployed this weekend:

• After a violent winter and spring, Chicago will start off the summer with “thousands” of officers deployed to city parks, beaches and neighborhoods, Police Supt. Eddie Johnson said Thursday.
  
  [...]
  
  “They’ll be thousands. I can’t give you an exact number,” Johnson said at a news conference on the campus of University of Illinois-Chicago.

Thousands we tell you....THOUSANDS! And Leo is getting in on the act:

• State Police Director Leo Schmitz, said his agency would have additional troopers on the roads, as well as fixed-wing aircraft circling Chicago area expressways. Chicago highways have seen 20 shootings so far this year, eight more than during the first six months of 2016, said Schmitz, a former Chicago Police Department commander whose district included Englewood.

Unless Leo has A-10's with missiles and authority to strafe the expressways, we don't see aircraft making a difference, but he might get some decent pictures if the city catches fire.

The media continues with the "press release" version of news:

• Citywide, the city has seen nearly 250 homicides so far this year, about 80 more killings than during the first five months of 2015. Johnson said the department has traditionally added officers for key weekends each year, and noted that homicides and shootings have declined after a steep upturn that began in December.

The city has almost never offered overtime for key weekends aside from 03/04 July aside from canceling tact team days off or deploying citywide units - units that don't exist and haven't existed for 5 years. Johnson is pretty much lying here.

This is the "decrease in the increase" the media eats up, despite the fact that HeyJackass.com points out that May already has 55 homicides, and SCC has pointed out that May 2013 had 44 murders, 2014 had 41 and 2015 had 48, a number long past. The "decline" is nonexistent. Chicago is on an upswing, and every killing since last week is obliterating Johnson's "decrease."

Additionally, IPRA is adding to the distractions by recommending the firing of Glenn Evans:

• In his first major test on discipline since becoming Chicago police superintendent, Eddie Johnson has so far refused to go along with a recommendation by the city's police oversight agency to fire a former police commander with a long history of excessive-force complaints.
  
  The former commander, Glenn Evans, now a lieutenant, was acquitted in December by a Cook County judge on charges he shoved his gun down a man's throat despite evidence showing the alleged victim's DNA on Evans' gun.
  
  At issue now is what discipline should be meted out to Evans after the Independent Police Review Authority found him at fault for pressing his fist into the nose of a woman who refused to be fingerprinted in 2011. A lawsuit brought by the woman, Rita King, alleged she suffered a broken facial bone.

It's enough to make you forget there's a testing scandal going on involving numerous exempt members.