Start Counting

Tomorrow is 01 July. The Department has already offered the opportunity to everyone who is RDO on 01, 02, 03 or 04 July to work their assigned shift in their assigned District for OT pay.

But it's also time for the Sun Times to start up the "Shooting Tracker," the Tribune to fire up the "Homicide Map," and for the blog to set the over/under for persons shot/killed.

Last year was a particularly messy year - 10 dead, 55 maimed. And last weekend was a particularly bloody event, clocking in at 7 and 42. June is about to close with 70 homicides.

The weather is projected to be clear, even if not overly hot. This isn't looking good for Rahm and Eddie.

For the weekend, beginning 1700 hours on Friday 01 July through 2359 hours Monday 04 July, the following mayhem is predicted - 11 dead, 68 wounded (79 total shot). As usual, only the HeyJackass.com numbers will be accepted. They helpfully post the times on their site, so anything prior to 1700 hours Friday will not count.

Be careful boys and girls.

Job Opportunity!

From the AdminFax messages:

Anyone know where they're going to get any lieutenant, possibly with IAD experience, to apply for ..... oh.... wait, nearly 20% of a recent Lieutenant class was from IAD. Nevermind.

Who's That?

The website "GunsSaveLife" has been linked on the right hand side of the blog now for many years. They're a go-to site for positive gun studies and stats that the mainstream media often buries. They recently linked back to our post about how Rahm is using smoke-and-mirrors to pass off a graduating class of officers as an "increase" when it's actually treading water.

They also use this linked photograph as the lead-in to their article. Oops. Probably not the picture you want out there, seeing as how she's currently under investigation by the Inspector General.

After this, she will probably be under investigation by the Department of Justice, too:

• Last night LIE-tenant Fenner/ Eddies girlfriend was working VRI at 61st.
  
  She addressed the sergeants before they went downstairs to pass out the radios.
  
  She said, "Tell your people they BETTER come in with activity. They are working for time and a half."  

Correct us if we're wrong, but isn't she working for....time-and-one-half, too? So what activity did she generate as an example to the officers? Did she hop in with a sergeant and roll through the zones? And just to satisfy our curiosity, what kind of "activity" did she generate down at 35th Street for the past how many years?

And if this is true, there will be yet another investigation shortly regarding the Chicago Public School that allowed this #1 test scorer to graduate:

• Hey lt.fenner! Remember the debate we all had in the acadamy [sic] trying to convince you that the city of Milwaukee was not a state as you believed?? Even as we proved it to you with a map of the United States, you still could not except [sic] it! Good god,you are still an imbecile!

Our "leaders." The mind boggles.

UPDATE: Nice "side eye" by the guy next to her - it's like he knew something.

No "Right" to Mayoral Detail

The judge played it exactly as it had to be:

• A federal judge found no politics at play Wednesday in the selection of Rahm Emanuel’s security detail after he became mayor in 2011.
  
  U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber’s ruling ended a bench trial that lasted a little more than a week. He found that a group of former bodyguards to ex-Mayor Richard M. Daley “failed to prove by clear and convincing evidence” that they were removed from the mayoral detail because they sat on the bench during the 2011 campaign.
  
  The judge also found that then-interim Police Supt. Terry Hillard and Cmdr. Brian Thompson were not motivated by politics when they detailed and appointed officers who volunteered on Emanuel’s campaign to plum security specialist jobs protecting the new mayor.

::cough cough bullshit cough cough::

Everything is politics where the mayoral detail is concerned. Everything. And everyone knows it.

But the judge can't say that - that might be improper. But the fact is, a cop isn't entitled to that spot any more than we're entitled to be Superintendent. We'd be way better (and way cheaper) than the current tool in charge, but we aren't connected. And if your guy decides it's time to go, you better get your favors before he's gone.

So the judge said what he had to say to make it pretty, but did what had to be done to reinforce the lesson that Clout Rules the Roost.

Hiding Stats Again

And of course, it's during the Pride melee:

• The city's false narrative about Sunday’s Pride Parade continues to melt away as more and more videos of the parade aftermath emerge and the Chicago Police Department’s claim of only “seven” arrests has been proven to be 17 arrests shy of the truth. There were 24 arrests according to CWB Chicago reporting. We've posted all 24 mugshots, names, and arrest information.
  
  Today, CWB Chicago learned through a source that one of the battery victims after Sunday’s parade was none other than 19th District Police Commander Robert Cesario.
  
  Yes, the alleged offender was arrested. No, his arrest was not included in the publicly-released tally of “seven” arrests.
  
  For the second weekend in a row, police had to close Halsted Street to vehicles between Addison and Belmont when large crowds overtook the street and disturbances broke out in the traffic lanes Sunday evening.
  
  According to a source, Cesario was battered while he tried to break up a large disturbance at Halsted and Roscoe.

Good job by CWB for uncovering these blatant lies. We guess that part of "counting crime" didn't leave with McJersey.

HQ Car Stolen? (UPDATE)

An unmarked?

Right from the lot?

Has it been recovered?

Isn't someone sitting in the booth?

No one watching the cameras inside?

UPDATE: Come on...seriously?

• 002 Tac said...
  
  It was an unmarked dodge van with "M" plates that the honor guard uses. Recovered at 3500 Lake Park Avenue. The shitbirds ran it outta gas then cleaned the van out.... Flags, rifles etc. all gone. What HQ doesn't want you to know is that the goofs left it running when it was taken, and it WASNT taken out of HQs lot. Rumor is Rule 14 violations in the works for falsyfying a stolen vehicle report, etc. Lets see how heavy the clout babies in this unit are.

Dean Goes to Bat

Nice to see some coverage:

• The Chicago police union president decried an unprecedented "level of disrespect" faced by officers on the street and called for more vocal public support of police, saying, "There's a deafening silence out there right now."
  
  In a speech Tuesday to the City Club of Chicago, Dean Angelo Sr. complained that officers' hands are being tied by "anti-police correctness" and warned that as a byproduct Chicago is headed back to the days of 900 homicides a year.
  
  Citing a national report, the Fraternal Order of Police president said attacks on police are on the rise, but he complained that the news media play videos of incidents involving officers "as if it's a Super Bowl-winning touchdown."
  
  "It's played over and over and over again until it's embedded in the audience's mind," Angelo, whose union represents the department's 12,000 rank-and-file officers, told several hundred civil leaders at the luncheon gathering.

We'd certainly like to see a list of these "several hundred civil leaders." And maybe see who they like to hang out with...or contribute to. It's good to see Dean out there speaking, but the "deafening silence" is not an accident - it's being directed.

No, we aren't paranoid. Just well versed in what does and doesn't happen in Chicago.

Getting the VRI Straight

Some conflicting info is clarified:

• Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson said Tuesday that beat officers will now have to work overtime shifts in their “home districts” where they’re assigned — a change he hopes will make them more productive.

Sure, because the high seniority guys on days will be eating up this OT. And the high seniority guys on days are all go-getters setting the world on fire.

• In the past, a beat officer in one district might work OT in a high-crime district across town.
  
  Starting on July 1, district officers will work overtime in one of 25 high-crime zones — up from 19 zones — in their home districts.

These would be the Districts where people (or folks) don't trust the police, because the police don't look like them, right? And the folks (or people) there think the police can't "relate" to their experiences, so they don't snitch out the criminals, but will video every traffic stop in the hopes of sharing in a payout.

There is also this admission of spreading the OT around "phone call" units:

• But if the department can’t fill an OT shift in a particular high-crime zone, officers in special units that roam larger sections of the city — or the entire city — will be invited to participate, Johnson said.

And here again is the admission that the Department is understaffed at levels approaching criminality:

• [Johnson] said OT is cheaper than hiring additional officers and paying the benefits a full-time job carries with it.

Frank Main makes the only logical leap:

• The Chicago Sun-Times reported earlier this year 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.
  
  [...] The changes unveiled Tuesday appear to be less about controlling the amount of overtime and more about altering who will get the overtime and where those officers are assigned.

We're surprised Rahm let him say it.

This Explains A Lot

Money makes the Pfleger go around:

• Churches and other houses of worship need money just like all of us do, if only to keep the lights on and try to help some people cope with their own problems.
  
  We also like to think our religious leaders always preach what they honestly believe is true, no matter who’s supporting their ministries.
  
  It surely was no small thing when St. Sabina Church, a Roman Catholic parish in mostly black Auburn Gresham, got $200,000 from the George Lucas Family Foundation in 2014.

$200 grand sure buys a lot of support from Pfleger:

• Since Lucas declared the museum plan dead last week, Pfleger has upped his attacks on Friends of the Parks, the nonprofit group that blocked the hopes of the billionaire filmmaker and Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
  
  Pfleger told me he has no regrets for likening Friends of the Parks to the Gangsters Disciples because they boss the lakefront just as street gangs on the South and West Sides claim turf.
  
  “Nobody has ever elected them,” Pfleger says. “They simply appointed themselves.

You mean like, say, a renegade "man of the cloth" who appointed himself spokes-asshole to attack a non-profit that stood in the way of the mayor's wish to give away land he had no right to give, to a billionaire who could have built his private art repository in any of a thousand vacant lots all around St. Sabina. Which, coincidentally, would save the black and brown children his multi-millionaire wife worried about, tens of thousands in bus fare to come see art that had nothing to do with Star Wars (a wholly owned subsidiary of Walt Disney Corporation).

Here We Go

Why are they asking questions they already know the answer to?

• The Chicago Police Department’s Internal Affairs Division is investigating whether the third-highest ranking member of the Chicago Fire Department received favored treatment after crashing his city-owned SUV near Lake Shore Drive in Lincoln Park.
  
  Sally Daly, a spokeswoman for the Cook County state’s attorney’s office, disclosed the existence of an Internal Affairs investigation after revealing that former Deputy Fire Commissioner John McNicholas would not be charged with DUI — even though he had a blood-alcohol level nearly twice the legal limit nearly four hours after the April 20 crash.

Must be nice - blow two-times the legal limit four hours later and no charges whatsoever. Even though there are all sorts of charts, research and papers that will tell you EXACTLY what your B.A.C. was working backwards. He certainly wasn't under .16 unless he somehow continued drinking on scene. And the paper is laying all this one on the cops:

• The Breathalyzer was administered by the Chicago Fire Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau. Chicago Police officers were on the scene of the crash on LaSalle Street just off Lake Shore Drive for about two hours but never administered a field sobriety test.
  
  Unlike Illinois State Police, Chicago Police officers do not carry Breathalyzers in their squad cars. If a Breathalyzer is administered, it has to be done at the district station. That was not done in McNicholas’ case.

Which, of course, plays into Rahm's hands:

• The failure by police officers to administer either a field sobriety test or a Breathalyzer to McNicholas has raised questions about whether McNicholas was given preferential treatment by police.
  
  [...] Internal Affairs will attempt to determine whether that code of silence extends to the Fire Department.
  
  “It’s pretty much standard practice,” said a source familiar with police handling of accidents involving firefighters and paramedics. “As long as nobody’s hurt, they let the [fire] department handle its own business.”

We're going to bet that "standard practice" is about to get tossed under the Rahm bus, and rightfully so.

IAD knows what happened here - IAD has been covering for connected drunks for years. And if this case moves forward, all those skeletons might come tumbling out of the closets they've been shoved into. IAD is the nexus for any (and every) so-called "code of silence." Think about it - IAD "investigates" everything and decides if it goes forward or not. IAD is the superintendent's investigative arm. IAD seems to get an awful lot of "merit" bumps for the investigators who make things "better."

Nowadays, IAD gets the answers to promotional tests. Coincidence?

New VRI (UPDATE)

This sounds hinky:

• Work requirements remain the same;
• so-called "impact zones" reduced from 20 to 15;
• three "tiers" for being assigned:
• if you work in the affected district, you get first pick
• phone call units get the next openings
• anyone else gets the leftovers
• Michigan Avenue detail is increased to be "Summer Mobile Foot Patrol"

Did we get all that? Not sure how this is going to run or what the purpose is - if they want people to bid to high-crime districts, this doesn't seem like the way to do it. Why not start up the old "PRIDE" program where you could work your day off in your District on your watch? We know FOP can't do anything until someone has been "injured" or "deprived" of just compensation, but this sounds like it needs some explaining.

UPDATE: This came out in the Tribune:

• But in the revamped version of the program, there will be seven additional impact zones and officers already assigned to patrol districts that fall within these zones will be the first allowed to volunteer to work there on their days off,

So there's an issue already - reduced to 15 zones per the Admin Fax message or increased via the press release...and therefore, no savings at all.

Lawyer Gets it Wrong

Once again, the police taking the blame for doing everything by the book:

• The son of a slain Lawndale woman filed a lawsuit Monday alleging authorities failed to safeguard his mother by letting her boyfriend be released last summer from Stroger Hospital shortly after he had an apparent mental breakdown and threatened officers at knifepoint.
  
  Steven Taylor's mother, Vanessa, was found strangled in her apartment last June 30, a day after her live-in boyfriend, James E. Thomas, had been let go by the hospital following a mental evaluation, according to the lawsuit filed in Cook County Circuit Court. He was charged with her murder a few days later.

A little background can be found at this post we put up a year ago:

• SCC,
  
  I work in 011 and on 28 June, the third watch had a call of a Mental fighting everyone in the house at 4311 W. Flournoy. The subject barricaded himself in the house, armed himself with a sword and numerous knives, cut the gas line in the house and threatened to blow everything up. Coppers made entry with a family member's keys, tasered the guy and took him to County for a 72-hour hold for mental evaluation. Everything was done properly under RD# HY-319903.
  
  End of story?
  
  No. County doctors released him in direct violation of the 72-hour commitment law. 30 June at 0230 hours, 011 District personnel got a well being check at 4311 W. Flournoy. They arrived, made entry through an unlocked door and found the subject, again armed with knives menacing the police. He was tasered again and taken into custody. A search of the house located his girlfriend, strangled to death with an extension cord under RD# HY-321511. Chalk up a completely preventable homicide to the fine doctors at Stroger who can't be bothered to obey the law that mandates a 72-hour hold and treat the mentally ill we deal with on a daily basis!

But the lawyer figures it's all on the cops:

• About 24 hours after being abandoned by the police, Vanessa Taylor was murdered by Thomas, an outcome that was, sadly, a predictable and likely consequence of leaving her alone with her violent, mentally ill domestic violence tormentor," the suit said.
  
  Dvorak also said Thomas at least should have been arrested on multiple felony charges relating to the first incident on Flournoy. Court and police records do not indicate why this did not occur.

What a crock of shit. No Counselor, we aren't permitted to lock up the mentally ill. We can't bring guns into the secured mental treatment areas of the hospital, so we commit them, involuntarily, for a period of 72 hours. That's the law. And a doctor at County decided he couldn't be bothered, so he sent the mentally ill subject home within 36 hours to go home and kill his girlfriend, not the cops. CPD did everything possible and all the records indicate this.

Think about this one - the 011 District cops would have been 100% completely justified in killing this guy as he was armed with a knife and a bayonet. But they didn't. They went above and beyond and a Stroger Hospital doctor killed this woman as much as the mental.

Now, after McDonald, you have everyone screeching the cops need more training and Eddie bragging about how CPD has trained hundreds of cops in Crisis Intervention to handle mentals, none of which would make a damn bit of difference if a doctor is still going to release him to kill.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. This is why Shakespeare said, "First, we kill all the lawyers."

CPS to Pay Pension....

....and then they're out of money?

• The Chicago Public Schools will make a $676 million payment to the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund due Thursday even though that massive payment will leave the nearly bankrupt school system with just $24 million in the bank.
  
  “Chicago Public Schools will make that pension payment. . . . In the last two years, the city of Chicago has made more pension payments to the Chicago Teachers Pension Fund than the preceding 15 years. Payments weren’t made by Springfield or anybody else, and that was wrong,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Monday.
  
  Emanuel said CPS would “not have a financial challenge” if Chicago taxpayers were not paying twice — through property taxes for the pensions of their own teachers and through income taxes for the pensions of teachers outside the city.

So now what? Everyone is playing chicken, but they're doing it on a high-wire with no safety net. The first one to swerve falls into the abyss.

Was This the Straw?

The one that broke the camel's back?

• Years from now, it might be seen as the moment Chicago might have been saved but wasn’t. “They could have changed things,” people will say. “They could have stood up to the people bringing the city down.” But as it happened, there is little to do but wait to see how far into the deeper and darker abysses of Hell Chicago will descend.
  
  [...] Playing the pivotal role in our sad tale is one Shaquille O’Neal. No, not the former NBA star; the Shaquille O’Neal of our story is 23 years old and a recent parolee from prison. On June 13, plainclothes police officers saw O’Neal engaged in what they took to be a drug transaction. When they tried to stop him, he ran, only to be caught in the 3900 block of West Grenshaw Street. Several people sympathetic to O’Neal were there, some of whom filmed the altercation on their cell phones. One of those videos was soon posted to Facebook. (Warning: coarse language.) What happened next followed the same tiresome script we have come to expect: Neighborhood thug gets caught breaking the law, resists arrest, gets roughed up on video, then is hoisted onto the martyr’s pedestal to be hailed as a hero and a symbol of the continuing black struggle against institutional racism and on and on and on.

This is from an article by Jack Dunphy, the alias of an LAPD copper who writes for many national publications and he isn't buying the "poor Shaquille" narrative spouted by the mainstream media:

• Do not be fooled. There was nothing illegal or even remotely improper in the way O’Neal was subdued at the end of the foot pursuit. Let’s examine the video. As it begins, a lone officer is atop O’Neal in the middle of the street. As the two struggle, several people can be heard shouting their encouragement to O’Neal and their condemnation of the officer. (And it’s interesting to note that the video, like so many others like it, shows only the most inflammatory portion of the incident.) A second officer then arrives in an unmarked SUV. As he exits the car he can see that the fight is at an apparent stalemate and that the greater threat is posed by the approaching crowd. He orders the crowd to get back and calls for backup, but when he turns around he can now see that the fight has suddenly shifted in O’Neal’s favor. O’Neal, who seconds earlier appeared to be under control or nearly so, now has his arm locked out with a firm grip on the officer’s neck. The second officer then delivers a single kick to O’Neal’s head, essentially ending the fight – and beginning the circus we’ve come to expect.

Mr. Dunphy thinks (and we agree) this is the exact moment proactive policing died in this neck of the woods:

• In short, a good arrest and a reasonable use of force – nothing that the brass of the Chicago Police Department couldn’t have justified to the media if they but had the courage to do so. What happened next provided a vivid example of the moral inversion that grips America, nowhere more egregiously than it does in Chicago. O’Neal was released from jail without charges, and the officer who kicked him was stripped of his police powers and placed on desk duty. A local rabble rouser known as Ja’Mal D. Green boasted on Facebook that he had called Chicago P.D. Superintendent Eddie Johnson, who informed him of the pending action against the officer.
  
  Reaction among Chicago’s cops was swift and blistering. A post on the matter at the Second City Cop blog garnered nearly 300 comments, most from cops expressing their disgust and their diminishing desire to do the kind of police work required to lower Chicago’s appalling level of crime. Upon his release, O’Neal celebrated with his family and other supporters, all of whom must have had visions of the riches soon to be lavished upon O’Neal as compensation for his suffering. He has hired an attorney, of course, who surely must be dreaming of his own substantial payday.

Someone sent us this General Order the other day - a visual rebuttal of Johnson's and De-Escalante's insistence the officer involved didn't follow procedure:

But these goofs supposedly "passed" at least two promotional exams, both of which had that particular Order on the reading list and presumably a few questions pertaining to it. Must be nice being able to run around with stars on the collar and not have any idea what you're talking about.

$30?

Remember back in the day, to get to certain units, you had to undergo a financial background check? It was to make sure that you weren't a risk for taking money due to a bad financial situation. Now we get this:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel has submitted a proposal to completely scrap a $30 fee to take the initial police exam in a bid to broaden Department diversity by removing a "potential financial hurdle."
  
  Emanuel submitted the proposal at Wednesday's City Council meeting. It would simply eliminate the $30 fee for the police entry exam. Other city fees "relating to each entry-level examination" would remain the same: $30 for firefighters, $10 for various professional positions and $5 for others.

Seriously? If $30 bucks is a "financial hurdle," how high do you think they'd rank on the "bribery potential" chart?

Florida Mayor Jacked

Sounds like a dangerous hood:

• The mayor of a central Florida city was carjacked while standing outside his home, according to police who said Sunday they were hunting for a third suspect.
  
  The incident unfolded in Sanford. The city made headlines in 2012 after George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin at a gated community there.
  
  Mayor Jeff Triplett was outside around 2:15 a.m. Saturday when three men approached, pointed a gun at him and stole his car keys, police said. They told reporters the suspects also stole Triplett's wallet before driving off in his Mercedes.

Maybe the mayor should get a driver. Or a gun.

Incident Team Drill?

Rumors abound!

• FYI Second and Third watch on Sunday be prepared for the District callout teams to be mobilized for the first time in 22 years. There is a plan to call out Incident teams from every district tomorrow for the Gay Pride Parade, both as a test and to cover manpower needs if things go up for grabs, as usual. Last time they tested this was 1993, I was there when everyone was called to Soldier Field. Last unit got there 3 hours after the callout.....

Actually, they did this more recently - maybe 6 years ago? And they did another drill with just the tactical teams as recently as two years ago.

The thing is, this should be done monthly - one month midnights, one month days, one month afternoons. And it should be done in different day off groups to expose the maximum number of officers to what an Incident Team Call Out entails. That way every watch has a quarterly drill. And it should be at different locations - Soldier Field, Midway, O'Hare, Jackson Park - that would give the brass a feel for how long it takes people from 016 to get south or 005 to get to Soldier Field.

But that would actually make sense, so don't look for it to happen. Someone would probably wreck on the way and the bean-counters would put an end to the training.

We have no city-wide unit anymore to handle something bad - mass shooter incident, police shooting, riot, protests, etc. The Districts are on their own until reinforcements arrive, and based on the lack of actual data and zero training, it'll be hours before someone gets there.

Ride to Remember Sign Up

That time of year again - sun, fun, motorcycles:

• The Annual Area 4 Ride to Remember Memorial Motorcycle Ride is July 31, 2016.
  
  When: Sunday, July 31, 2016 - 9:00 a.m.
  
  Where: Former Area Four Detective Headquarters, 3151 W. Harrison - Harrison and Kedzie - West Parking Lot, Chicago, Illinois 60612.
  
  Registration: 7:30 - 8:30 a.m. sign in and line up. Online registration is available for a small convenience fee.
  
  Pre-Registration: Register by July 15, 2016 to ensure t-shirt delivery on day of ride.
  
  Registration Fee: Rider $30.00& Passenger $30.00
  
  After July 15, 2016: Rider $35.00 Passenger $35.00

See you all there.

Body Camera Lawsuit

As predicted here and elsewhere:

• Ten police officers in a Chicago suburb are suing the town, claiming the body cameras they wore never turned off and recorded them using the restroom and changing clothes.
  
  The lawsuit filed Thursday in federal court says one of the officers in Round Lake Park, Dominick Izzo, discovered the problem while reviewing video from his camera in May.

This after someone discovered the "off" button wasn't actually turning the cameras off. The Department claimed it was a technology issue, the manufacturer claimed the Department asked for the feature so officers couldn't sabotage cameras. A major privacy issue.

Make sure you're paying attention when these things go on.

Make Up Your Minds

You'd think that after Orlando, the alternative lifestyle types would be happy about more police:

• The stepped-up security surrounding San Francisco's LGBT pride celebration has caused two honorary grand marshals and a health clinic that serves sex workers to withdraw from the event's signature parade.
  
  The executive director of the Transgender, Gender Variant, and Intersex Justice Project, Black Lives Matter and the St. James Infirmary said Friday that they are pulling out of Sunday's parade to protest the heavy police presence and metal detectors that will be present weekend.
  
  The security measures were put in place following the massacre of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando two weeks ago.

And in Houston, Texas of all places, the parade organizers have declared the entire route "gun free!" That'll stop moose-limb terrorists!

You can follow the mayhem in Boystown today on the CWB blog, linked on the right side of the blog. There will be plenty of stories we're sure.

Hot Weekend on Tap

And the Sun Times has activated the Live Shooting Tracker Map - available at this link here:

• Shooting Tracker 24-27 June.

When the Sun Times activates the Map, you know it's going to be a violent weekend.

Museum Gone

Good riddance:

• During his decades in politics, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has shown strength in a number of roles.
  Backroom deal cutter? Check.
  
  Prolific campaign fundraiser? Definitely.
  
  Bulldozing mayor who gets his way? Most of the time.
  
  Salesman and consensus builder? Not so much.
  
  But Emanuel had little choice but to take on that last role in his bid to land billionaire "Star Wars" creator George Lucas' $734 million museum for Chicago.
  
  It wasn't a great fit, as Lucas left it to Emanuel to persuade Chicagoans — and park activists — to back a museum with a bizarre design and a mysterious art collection on a prime piece of protected lakefront property. The two-year sales pitch came to an end Friday when Lucas pulled the plug on the project and turned his attention back to his native California.

An arrogant billionaire is just the type of ass that Rahm would like to kiss, and kiss it he did, loudly and publicly. Which makes this museum fail so much more damaging to the Rahm brand.

If you are so inclined, here's a link to Friends of the Parks. Consider throwing them a donation for their good work.

Go Summer Mobile!

Hilarious if true:

• SCC,
  
  Summer Mobile is operating as 4400 units, and they're working the west side tonight - 011, 015, 010. No beaches there, so all this noise about "more cops to keep the beaches safe" turns out to be BS.
  

So the Summer Mobile Force isn't going to be anywhere near the beaches? They stripped every District/Unit of 2 Officers to create a reaction force of eighty cops? Amazing.

Arrest for Murder by HQ

The one where the dispatcher got killed at the 35th Street Starbucks as Eddie's presser about how crime isn't going to be tolerated was letting out:

• A 16-year-old boy was arrested Friday in last month's killing of a city of Chicago dispatcher, who was shot as she left a coffee shop near police headquarters by gunfire intended for a man who is gang member, authorities said.
  
  Yvonne Nelson, 49, of Chicago, who had recently finished her 14th year with the 311 Center, was shot in the chest as she walked out of a Starbucks at 35th and State streets May 20. The intended target was shot several times and injured.

And surprise surprise, a repeat offender:

• The boy was put on probation in 2015 for multiple robberies he committed in 2014 using a BB gun.

And the BLM/St Sabina march begins in..... oh wait, there isn't one. Never mind.

Excellent job by the detectives though.

Arrests in Shots Fired

From the night before last:

• Two people were taken into custody after shots were fired at Chicago police officers early Wednesday in the Brighton Park neighborhood on the Southwest Side.
  
  Officers in a squad car responded to a call about gunfire in the 2400 block of West 34th Street around 2:10 a.m. when they saw a group of attackers who then fired shots in their direction, said Officer Ron Gaines, a police spokesman.
  
  The bullets damaged the squad car, but no officers or anyone else were injured.
  
  A weapon was recovered at the scene, Gaines said.

Eddie immediately suspended the officers for their own safety. De-Escalante said there is nothing in the orders that says officers may use a squad car as cover.

Again, Not Guilty

Give them more room to destroy:

• A Baltimore judge acquitted the police officer facing the most serious charges in the death of Freddie Gray on Thursday, delivering a broad rebuke of a case that he said lacked evidence.
  
  Officer Caesar Goodson Jr., 46, drove the transport van in which Gray sustained fatal injuries. He is the second officer cleared in the high-profile case. Four other officers could still face trial.
  
  After an eight-day bench trial, Circuit Judge Barry Williams found Goodson not guilty on charges that included second-degree depraved-heart murder and three counts of manslaughter.

This was the top charged officer - and if the prosecution couldn't prove this one, there's pretty much no hope for the rest. A railroad job, through and through, but essential to the liberal narrative of a nationwide police problem. You can tell because neither Chicago paper had this on their main pages a few hours ago.

Residency Gone!

No no no....not here - Milwaukee:

• The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in a 5-2 vote Thursday that Milwaukee city employees are now allowed to live outside city limits and cannot face disciplinary action.
  
  Prior to this ruling, the city says employees who failed to relocate inside city limits within the first six months of employment were terminated.
  
  However, terminating employees as a result of the city's former residency restriction was put on hold in 2013 when litigation surrounding the policy began.

When this goes to a court, the employees always seem to win over the cities. Except here. But it deserves constant consideration seeing as how formerly safe neighborhoods are becoming less so and it's only a matter of time before cops are attacked at their homes - Eddie himself had some sort of short-lived police detail at his house last week due to his odd choice in allies against his own Department.

You think every cop is going to get that for their house?

Look! Reasonable People!

This happened at the DOJ "community briefing:"

• Protesters on Wednesday repeatedly shouted down members of the Justice Department team investigating civil rights violations by the Chicago Police Department during a raucous public hearing on the South Side.
  
  During a 90-minute meeting at Kennedy King College, Justice Department attorneys were at pains to explain the scope and potential impact of the probe of the Chicago Police that began six months ago, over jeers from about half the members of an audience of about 100 people. The meeting was the second of four planned by federal investigators as they prepare a report on the Chicago Police Department, a likely prelude to a court order that will mandate federal oversight of the city’s police.
  
  Minutes into the meeting, a handful of demonstrators hooted over Justice Department attorney Cynthia Coe as she tried to explain how the federal investigation could lead to sweeping reforms. In a bid to restore order, moderator Rev. Torrey Barrett grudgingly began a question-and-answer session.

These people (or folks) are the epitome of "reasonableness" in the community, no doubt.

• “Chicago Police Department is a racist department,” shouted one woman. “There is no court order that can erase racism. Defund Chicago Police Department … and we will patrol our own communities.”

We would gladly buy tickets to that shit-show. One good (or bad) weekend, tops and she'll be singing a different tune.

Rahm's Memory Loss

So sad to see a man in the prime of his life cut down by early onset Alzheimer's:

• When a group of lawyers finally got Mayor Rahm Emanuel under oath this week, he said the words “no idea” 12 times.
  
  Occasionally, he said “I don’t remember” or “I can’t recall.” And he referenced his last job — chief of staff to President Barack Obama — on at least four occasions during a rare deposition Wednesday afternoon at City Hall.
  
  But Emanuel also explained to lawyers for 11 jilted Richard M. Daley bodyguards that he put then-interim Police Supt. Terry Hillard in charge of picking his security detail after he became mayor-elect in 2011. He said he told Hillard to simply “make it smaller, and make it as diverse as the City of Chicago.”

We'll have to see if the media tears him a new one for all his memory lapses the way they do when a cop doesn't have instant, total, perfect recall after undergoing the trauma of a shooting situation. They'll say the two incidents are roughly comparable - a near-death experience versus putting together a bodyguard detail from political campaign workers.

Off-Duty Attacked, Injured

Wrigleyville:

• An off-duty police officer who intervened in a disturbance is hospitalized this morning after being knocked unconscious by an offender who then went through his pockets as he lay on the corner of Clark and Addison early this morning.
  
  Two people are in custody, but the primary offender remains at large, police said. The entire incident was captured on a Chicago Police Department pod camera at 12:41AM.
  
  CWB Chicago has independently secured a recording of the attack that, incredibly, reveals that one of the people the cop tried to help repeatedly urged her boyfriend to leave the unconscious cop lying on the street:
  
  Based on our review of the recording, a disagreement develops on the street between a woman and a man who said that the woman’s boyfriend had “disrespected” him. The boyfriend arrives on the corner and the situation quickly escalates. Soon, a voice can be heard repeatedly shouting “STOP! Off-duty police!”
  
  About 15-seconds after the off-duty officer arrives, he is blindsided and knocked unconscious by a punch to the head. Video reviewed by CWB Chicago editors shows the intersection of Clark and Addison bustling with traffic at the time of the attack.

The transcript is something else:

• The recording reviewed by CWB Chicago shows that the girlfriend repeatedly tried to get her boyfriend to leave the scene and abandon the off-duty cop as he lie on the street.

You can read it all at the link up top. That entire area is notoriously under-policed, which led the aldercreature to sell his vote to Rahm's budget in an effort to boost the numbers, and it still wasn't enough. Wrigleyville is rapidly becoming a dangerous place, with the wildings, group batteries, so-called "scalpers" who, instead of selling you tickets, drag you out of camera view and pretty much strip you of everything you're carrying.

The report from the Crime in Wrigleyville/Boystown blog says two subjects are in custody, but not the primary battery offender. Hopefully, the officer heals in short order.

Cop Grabs Shooter

Following a shooting, just being aware leads to the capture of an armed robber:

• A female Uber driver is hospitalized after being attacked and shot at gas station early Wednesday morning in the Homan Square neighborhood on Chicago's West Side.
  
  Relatives say Leashia Allen, 55, is still recovering after she was shot by a would-be robber.
  
  [...] Allen was shot around 4 a.m., just moments after she dropped off a fare. The Chicago resident had just pulled into a BP gas station in the 600-block of S. Independence to fill up when witnesses say a man came out of nowhere, pulled out a gun and told her he was going to rob her.
  
  Allen's mother says her daughter told her things turned violent when she refused the gunman's order to give up her keys and get into the car.
  
  "I think she didn't know exactly what was going on until he shot her," Ollie Allen, the victim's mother, said.
  
  The man then ran away after the attack, but was caught by a Chicago police sergeant who was on patrol in the area and noticed the gunman trying to get away.

Someone just trying to make a living gets shot for her trouble.

Copper was in the right place at the right time. Nice job.

Days Off Canceled?

Rumors that all teams will be on deck for the long 04 July weekend.

No word yet on the upcoming Pride debacle that's brewing up north, including all the before and after parties.

You know, if you aren't on Tact, then you have a better chance of avoiding this nonsense.

Pot, Kettle, Pfleger

Someone sent us this after it was posted on pfather Pfleger's Facebook page regarding the Friends of the Parks objecting to the Lucas "museum" that Rahm wants to pollute the lakefront:

• I just don't understand how a SELF APPOINTED group called Friends of the Park have the power to decide what is right for Chicago...I thought that is why we elected Alderman and a Mayor....can any group in any part of the City simply say we take control of this area....Who does This?.....It's time for someone to remind the Friends of the Parks...they were not elected or appointed......a self Appointed group of Downtown zealots should not have this kind of power....

Well that's rich, coming from a self appointed agitator and race-baiting "priest" who attempts to demonize gun owners and assorted businesses whose politics he objects to.

What about those other groups that "take control of [an] area" with the sole purpose of selling drugs?

How about that "group" that took over the recent Police Board meeting with the sole purpose of imposing the will of a vocal, misguided minority who support, not the rule of law, but the law of mob rule. None of them were elected or appointed last time we checked - they just happened to be the loudest and most ignorant of a group of ignoramuses.

A "self appointed group" shouldn't have this kind of power.....whoa, that sounds sooooo familiar.

Smoke, Mirrors

The media keeps slurping up whatever the Department releases:

• The Chicago Police Department will add nearly 100 new officers to the force Tuesday, and Chicago needs the help.
  
  The murder rates surpassed 300 over the weekend -- only halfway through the year -- compared to 480 homicides in all of 2015. The new officers will hit the streets following yet another very deadly weekend with a tally of 13 murders and 46 people wounded between Friday evening and Monday morning.
  
  The latest police graduation will add 97 new officers and 88 new sergeants to a force struggling to fight deadly violence.

Psssst, media? Here's a dirty little secret - these 97 "new" cops have already been on the street, some for more than a few months.

You see, Rahm is a busy man, and he can't be bothered to take time out of his schedule every time a class of recruits graduates. So they hold off on "graduation day" until Rahm's schedule opens up. Then they pull 97 cops off the street, disrupting District schedules across the city, court appearances in a few cases, and sleep patterns of officers working first or third watches so Rahm can get his face on the news with all these "new hires" that have already been on the street. Essentially, Chicago was short 200 officers yesterday for a photo op.

Same thing with the 88 sergeants. They've been in the Districts for nearly a month on all the different watches. But everyone has to drop everything and dress up and smile for the mayor's press releases.

And you want to know the silliest part of it all? Where did the 88 sergeants come from? If you said "from the ranks of Officers," give yourself a pat on the back. 97 new officers, minus the 88 promotions means a net gain of.....9 officers!

Wow! That's going to solve everything! The homicide rate is going to drop off to near zero with these 9 additional bodies! Thank goodness no one retired between the time these new Officers hit the streets and the time Rahm needed a positive press release.

Mope-rah Said What?

Does she (or her "editors") have an idea how stupid and vapid this makes her look? (no link for More-rah):

• If police officials had the names of 1,400 ISIS terrorists whom they were convinced would attack people in the Chicago area, what do you expect to happen?
  
  Very few people would argue that police should round up all 1,400 individuals and lock them up. But most people wouldn’t want these terrorists roaming the streets until they were caught attempting to kill people, either.

First, you build up a straw man.....

• Police here have a “strategic subject” list with the names of about 1,400 people who are allegedly driving the city’s homicides.
  
  [...]
  
  Not even one of the 1,400 on the watch list should be able to take a breath of air without a police officer seeing it.
  
  In fact, the Chicago Police Department should have as much intel on these individuals as FBI officials have on ISIS sympathizers.
  
  Will some of these officers run afoul of civil liberties? Probably.

Ass-sphincter says what? Seriously? Now she wants the police to violate Civil Rights? Mope-rah herself couldn't even be bothered to sign complaints on the over-exuberant youths who stole her car, and she wants the police to watch 1,400 individuals on a secret list so closely that they shouldn't "...be able to take a breath of air..."?

Has she discussed this with the taxpayers who might be fronting the payouts to 1,400 Civil Right litigants? Or pfather Pfleger? Or Jesse? Or the ACLU?

Three-hundred-eleven homicides and counting - anyone want to bet who the next talking head is who starts to beg the police to start violating Civil Rights?

At Least We Aren't NYPD

A couple of top cops indicted:

• Two high-ranking New York Police Department officers were arrested Monday on charges they took over $100,000 worth of free flights, prostitutes, expensive meals and other bribes in exchange for providing a "private police force" for local businessmen.
  
  Deputy Chief Michael Harrington, Deputy Inspector James Grant and a third defendant, Brooklyn businessman Jeremy Reichberg, were charged with conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud — the latest development in a series of overlapping public corruption investigations coordinated by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. David Villanueva, an NYPD sergeant assigned to the gun license bureau, was arrested on charges of conspiring to commit bribery.
  
  In exchange for the bribes, Reichberg and others "got a private police force for themselves and their friends," Bharara said at a news conference. "Effectively, they got 'cops on call.'"

Not surprisingly, the mayor is involved in this up to neck, regarding speeding up gun licensing, disappearing tickets of all sorts, providing police escorts with road closures and extra security for events.

Nothing about cheating on an exam though.

The Definition of Insanity

Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results:

• Fresh off another violent weekend in Chicago, police Superintendent Eddie Johnson stuck to familiar themes during a panel discussion Monday at the City Club of Chicago, lamenting the rocky relationship between his department and minority communities beset by violence and the need to hold repeat gun offenders more accountable.
  
  The crowd of civic and business leaders at a downtown restaurant moaned when Johnson said that an average of one illegal gun has been confiscated on Chicago's streets every hour of every day this year.
  
  "So when you think about that, it's completely unacceptable," he said. "We have to do a better job of holding people accountable."

Sticking to Rahm's script, even when it has obviously failed time and again. Does anyone think Rahm feeds his minions kibble treats when they do his bidding?

Send in the Clowns!

You know you've fucked up when you have to send in the commanders:

• Supe sent the commanders into roll call to explain the reasoning. You know they fucked up when commanders are in roll call at 7am on a Saturday morning trying to play "damage control." Our commander literally said "he seems to be within the parameters of the use of force model but I think the dept in this day and age is in the business trying to keep the community peaceful." So you're flat out admitting that you removed an officer from the street and put him in call back for doing nothing wrong because we need to appease the criminals in the community so they don't riot? HOLY FUCK this city is a joke. That officer needs to get a lawyer and sue the city ASAP. This shit is bullshit.

Not only that, but we have De-Escalante demonstrating he knows ZERO about the Use of Force model:

• Escalante addressed roll call. He said there was nothing in our use of force model that allows an officer to kick someone in the head.
  
  What a spineless merit hack.

John must have missed a few Use of Force lessons years back. And forgotten what the Use of Force order said when he took (and supposedly passed) promotional exams. And how the order has been changed recently.

Rahm Poisons Children

Just following the media lead, blaming someone else for a problem that has been ongoing for years, but because it's politically expedient, saddling the police the mayor anyone else for the problem:

• As Chicago Public Schools prepared for its first of seven public meetings about lead in school drinking water Monday night, the district announced lead problems in one more elementary school on the West Side.
  
  The addition of Spencer Elementary Technology Academy brings the total to 27 schools with high lead levels in drinking water of 93 schools whose test results have been made public.

If it hasn't happened already, we're sure someone is blaming the lead for generations of problems on the south and west sides, ignoring (as they did in Flint) that the entire system is and has been run by democrats for 50 or 80 years.

No T.P.

True? False? Any sheriffs care to tell?

• SCC, you might want to talk with some of your Cook County Correction friends and ask them about the toilet paper scandal going on over at 26th. Apparently the wise Sherrif is no longer supplying toilet paper to these officers while at work. They must bring in there own personal toilet paper to use during there shift. A supposed budget cut UN FFFFIING BELIEVEABLE. I have heard from one family member and several friends that this is going on right now. Yet the inmates have no problem using the washroom and are provided toilet paper to wipe there criminal behinds. Talk about a slap in the face to the men and women working on the tiers babysitting these animals.

Sounds about right for a Dart-run operation.

This after the jail was locked down on 19 June because 400 deputies called off Sunday.

Shooting - Humboldt Park

Cops are okay:

• A Chicago police officer shot and seriously wounded a person who allegedly pointed a gun at him Sunday evening near the Puerto Rican festival at Humboldt Park.
  
  The incident occurred around 9 p.m. in the 1600 block of North Washtenaw Avenue near the border of Logan Square and Humboldt Park neighborhoods, according to police.

Ah yes....a "festival"

• Officers approached the male suspect, whose exact age was not immediately available, to investigate but he fled from the officers, Roy said.
  
  The officers then saw that the suspect was carrying a handgun in his hand and ordered him to drop his weapon several times, police said.
  
  The suspect went around the corner of North and Washtenaw. At that time, (he) turned toward the officers with a gun in his hand,” said Roy as he stood outside the crime scene Sunday evening. “An officer discharged his weapon at least once, wounding the offender.”
  
  The suspect was hit in the lower extremities and dropped to the ground. An officer then administered emergency first aid and applied a tourniquet on the suspect.

And what happened after all of this?

• A second suspect who was trying to get the officers off of the first suspect was also taken into custody, according to police.

Behavior like this is very.....concerning.

Good job by everyone though.

F#$%&ing Embarrassing

Hey Rahm, you want to look over this way for a second?

One-hundred-seventeen shot. In seven days.

And not one commander, deputy chief, chief, first deputy or superintendent loses their job.

With Eddie throwing an officer under the bus for defending his partner, an act that an actual judge decided was worthy of a $1.1 million bond for the offender, you think this is going to get any better? Eleven days away from the three-day-weekend covering the Fourth of July?

We have a feeling that the sixty-four shot over Memorial Day weekend is going to look pretty tame in two weeks.

Watch Your Backs

Not just from the superintendent we mean:

• A teenage boy was fatally shot by someone brandishing an assault rifle Sunday afternoon in the Back of the Yards neighborhood, according to police.

No, not that. You should expect that. We mean this:

• After the attack, a large group of community members gathered at the scene.  As officers were getting there and investigating, someone made comments to them, causing an extra-heavy police response which included a Special Operations Response Unit....
  
  “Threats were made that they would harm officers on the scene,"

So some gang bangers shoot another (alleged) gang banger, then the police, who are trying to solve the crime so more people don't get shot, are threatened by the "community." This is considered "normal" in the community. And acceptable.

Rumor is that Eddie stripped the E.T's processing the scene.

Nice Job Officers

As the Department moves away from enforcing the law, hopefully we'll see more stories like this, because it's all the media will be able to report:

• It's always nice to see an act of kindness, and on Friday, a few Chicago Police officers performed a great one, lending a helping hand to a young girl in need.
  
  Around 3 p.m. Friday, officers were on a routine patrol through the Northwest Side 14th District when they came upon a traffic accident in the Logan Square neighborhood....
  
  A car had crashed into a parked vehicle, so officers stopped to make sure everyone was okay. No one was injured [...], but they found a teenage girl in tears.
  
  When the officers asked her what was wrong, she told them that she was upset because her family was getting ready to go to her commencement ceremony when their car was hit. She said the accident was going to cause her to miss her own graduation.
  
  The officers offered to bring her to the ceremony, so she grabbed her cap and gown and hopped in the squad car. She made it to North Grand High School with just minutes to spare....

Nice job Officers, you certainly made her day.

Testing "Scandal"

Heaven forbid the media cover 117 people shot last week. Instead, let's focus on people passing a civil service test:

• Despite decades of legal battles and special efforts to increase the number of minorities and women promoted to high-ranking jobs in the Chicago Police Department, white men have gotten more than half of those promotions since 2006.
  
  White men got more than 61 percent of the 913 promotions that were based strictly on test scores to fill the positions of detective, sergeant or lieutenant over the past 10 years, department records obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times show.
  
  During the same period, police superintendents also filled 396 detective, sergeant, lieutenant and captain slots with so-called merit promotions — a system Mayor Richard M. Daley created two decades ago to promote more minorities and women. And white men got 40 percent of those promotions, more than any other racial or gender group, the records show.

Well gee, that would be blamed on who again? Oh yeah - the politicians putting their people in for promotion, not the fault of guys and girls of whatever ethnicity preparing, studying and passing a test.

Here's some interesting information that no one has ever heard before though:

• Fourteen black women have been promoted to lieutenant over the past 10 years, including three promoted this year based on test scores. Those three women — including Johnson’s fiancee Nakia Fenner — took part in a study group that is the focus of an investigation by City Hall Inspector General Joseph Ferguson after someone accused the women of cheating. The other women are Lt. Davina Ward and Lt. Maryet Hall, whose husband Al Wysinger is retired from the department’s No. 2 post — first deputy superintendent.

Imagine that - who needs "merit" when you can just cheat your way to the top of the list? How about the media concentrate on that a little bit more since the "merit" people (multiple "merit" in many cases) are the ones driving the Department into the ground.

High Bond - Thanks Judge!

The cop strangler got a good high bond Saturday:

• The man seen in a Facebook video choking a Chicago police officer and then apparently being kicked or stomped in the head by a second officer last week made his first court appearance in connection with the case on Saturday.
  
  Shaquille O'Neal, 23, of the East Garfield Park neighborhood, appeared at the Leighton Criminal Courts building after being charged with aggravated battery to a police officer and aggravated battery by strangulation, as well as possession of a controlled substance.
  
  The charges stem from his arrest and the altercation Monday, which was captured on video and posted on Facebook. Cook County Judge Peggy Chiampas on Saturday set bail for O'Neal at $1 million.

That's the Tribune report. The NewsRadio 780 report (which isn't online yet) stated that Judge Chiampas viewed the entire video, start to finish, and when the defense insisted that the assailant was knocked unconscious, Chiampas told him bluntly, "No, he wasn't," and set the $1 milllion bond.

If a judge can see it, why can't the superintendent? Someone could point out the numerous potential assailants threatening the police. Then they could get one of those pretty Use of Force printouts in full color and explain the bigger words to Eddie. Then De-Escalante could slip him the answer sheet that explains how unconscious people can't latch their teeth into an Officer's arm and he just lost the trust of the entire Department over a heroin dealer.

Missing Camera Footage

So where is all the body-cam footage of Eddie and John meeting with Officers to attempt to justify the stripping of an Officer who saved his partner from being choked to death? The State's Attorney saw enough on video to justify charging the felon with Aggravated Battery by Strangulation, so Eddie's excuse that he "didn't see any choking" is obviously bullshit.

And where are the filings of FOIA notices for the phone/text/e-mail records of Eddie to see what type of contacts and conversations the "community" is having in regard to directing the day-to-day operations of the Chicago Police Department?

At Least We're Not Oakland

One of California's liberal Paradises:

• Oakland lost its third police chief in eight days Friday as it struggles with allegations that a number of officers had sex with a teenage prostitute and exchanged racist text messages.
  
  Mayor Libby Schaaf said acting Police Chief Paul Figueroa was on the job for two days before stepping down but said his decision was not connected to the two scandals.
  
  However, she denounced the department’s “toxic, macho culture” and vowed to root out “the bad apples.”
  
  “As the mayor of Oakland, I’m here to run a police department, not a frat house,” Schaaf told a news conference Friday evening.
  
  Schaaf said she will not immediately appoint an acting or interim chief. Instead, the command staff will report to City Administrator Sabrina Landreth, who will be responsible for personnel and disciplinary decisions.

Teenage hookers? People need to be in prison for that crap. Text messages? On duty of off? Department phones/e-mail/Blackberries? Pay attention to this one people - you have less protections on the clock.

Three Chiefs in three days though - if the cheating scandal ever breaks into the mainstream media, along with a complete cessation of active police work and a homicide count well above 600, Eddie could be the shortest reigning supe in Chicago history.

Again, the Media is Shocked?

Can someone translate this for us?

• Four people were killed in an unbroken streak of fatal shootings from Friday night to Saturday morning, a deadly stretch of seven hours in the middle of a violent night.

So....what's an "unbroken streak of fatal shootings"? Is the writer attempting to say that four shootings in a row were fatalities? Is this a "Big Deal" of some sort? We're confused.

According to HeyJackass.com, someone gets shot in the city on average every two hours, twenty minutes. Someone gets killed on average every thirteen-and-a-half hours. That means in a fifty-five hour weekend (1700 Friday to 0000 Sunday night/Monday morning), just using the averages, you're going to get twenty-four shot with four dying. Every so often, you're going to get a string of fatalities as the hitters get a hot hand. Not really worthy of an "unbroken streak."

Here's a guy who a flair for the dramatic though:

• One bystander on Hastings after the shooting compared Chicago to "The Purge," a movie in which crime is legal for 12 hours and citizens must survive the chaos.
  
  “That’s bulls--t,” he said. “This is The Purge.”

If only....

Holy Cross Update

From the comment from a post a few days ago:

• FYI: This nurse has put in her resignation and is no longer an employee of HCH.

Hopefully true. And hopefully, the licensing board is looking into it, too.

"Pastor" Threats

So what are the bosses (and the States Attorney) doing about this?

Those are very overt threats - against cops and their families.

3....2....1.....(UPDATE: Liftoff!)

HeyJackass.com Official Number:

• Year to Date
  Shot - Killed: 266
  Shot - Wounded: 1481
  Total Shot: 1747
  Total Homicides: 297

Is Rahm still out of the country?

UPDATE: That didn't take long - before sunrise today:

• Year to Date
  Shot - Killed: 271
  Shot - Wounded: 1490
  Total Shot: 1761
  Total Homicides: 302
  

Congratulations to Eddie, Rahm, the media and the ACLU for all their hard work.

The Best Medicine

That time of year again:

• You have the right to remain laughing at this night of "all-cop comedy" hosted by Tom Dreesen (The Tonight Show). Laugh Patrol is open to Chicago's finest in all 23 districts. During the evening, over a dozen officers will have 3-5 minutes on the world famous stage to serve up some laughs for the community. All of the night's proceeds will go towards 100 Club of Chicago. Contestants will be judged by a panel of professionals...
  
  Featuring Tom Dreesen and more comedians to be announced!

20 June, 8:30 PM

3175 Broadway St. Chicago, IL 60657

(773) 327-3175

So There Are These Rules...

Interesting reading:

• Rule 31 - Publicly criticizing the official actions of another Department member, when the result of such criticism can reasonably be foreseen to undermine the effectiveness of the official working relationship of the member within his assigned unit. All such criticism should be made and reported to the Department.
• Rule 41 - Disseminating, releasing, altering, defacing or removing any Department record or information concerning police matters except as provided by Department orders.

So, would those Rules be violated by a member of the Command Staff, specifically the Superintendent, giving out his cell phone number to, answering calls from and disseminating information concerning an internal police investigation, namely an Officer's use of force against an assailant?

By the way, Eddie's on some sort of Apology Tour the last few nights. He appeared in 022 last night to "explain" why he stripped an Officer for defending his partner who was being choked by a resister who had narcotics on him in the midst of a hostile crowd of at least eight individuals, many of whom threatened to kill the Officers. According to one commentator, Eddie says he stripped the Officer "...for his own safety." Huh? What happy horseshit is this?

• Superintendent "BLM" EJ had a quick meeting with one tact car from every district in the 010th district today. He attempted to do damage control and failed horribly. He admitted to given his personal cell phone number to the idiot activist who announced via Facebook the Officer's were being stripped before it was announced to anyone else. He attempted to justify why he stripped the Officers but only made himself look like an idiot justifying it to a bunch of PO's. EJ you fail, do not pass go, you sir can go fuck yourself! Oh ya, he talked about the blog, and stated, "Nothing we talk about here leaves the room." My bad Bro!

That's a "Sustained" finding on Rule 41 - FOP, you want to file the charges?

And De-Escalante is covering the Districts that Eddie can't:

• The 1st Deputy was doing roll call marathon today trying to explain the actions of EJ. He tried to explain that it was okay because EJ called the officer first and explained why he was going to strip him before he actually stripped him. That's like telling someone you're going to punch them in the face and saying it hurts less that way. (Analogy cleaned up for pickin viewing)

 Boy, Rahm sure can pick some incompetent leadership, can't he?

Police Board Meeting

You have to read the entire article to find it:

• Thursday night's Chicago Police Board meeting was a contentious one as the audience expressed its outrage at the video of O'Neal being stomped.
  
  During Thursday night's meeting, which was attended by about 100 people, some people in the crowd swore and badgered at officers, most of whom were standing calmly as they protected police board members and Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson.
  
  But the meeting intensified when a few attendees got into shoving matches with officers.
  
  Activist Jedidiah Brown was detained after he clashed with several officers. The officers had to restrain Brown, bringing him to the ground before escorting him out of the meeting room.
  
  The pushing and shoving between the attendees and police continued until attendees were quickly escorted out of the building's South Michigan Avenue exit.
  
  About a dozen officers then stood in a line next to one another to prevent people from returning to the building.
  
  "Kick me in the head!" one attendee shouted to the officers.

It's kind of amazing the types of "heroes" the community is embracing - a convicted felon and dope dealer who decides he doesn't have to follow the laws of civilized society - and he's the latest poster boy of the community.

Just imagine the fun when these types are at the civilian "review board" conducting their "investigation" and demanding officers appear to give statements.

We're going to request, once again, a list of rules, ordinances, and laws that certain groups aren't required to follow, just to make it easier on the police and give the "community" the police force they obviously desire.

Sense Taking Hold?

Probably not. Just political posturing to make the police think things aren't that bad:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel is hitting the brakes on his plan to abolish the Independent Police Review Authority to solicit public input needed to “repair the relationship” between citizens and police.
  
  The mayor had originally planned to introduce the ordinance at Wednesday’s City Council meeting. Top mayoral aides have been holding closed-door briefings that raised more questions than they answered, aldermen said.
  
  Ald. Anthony Napolitano (41st), a former Chicago police officer-turned-firefighter, has raised concerns about people with no background in either the law or policing exercising multiple layers of oversight over police officers already in a defensive crouch.
  
  “You’re pretty much sending `em out there to go on kind of a witch hunt for police officers,” Napolitano has said.

People like this Ja'Mal character who has the superintendent's actual cell phone number and brags on Facebook about how a police officer is going to get fired (without there being any sort of investigation by the way) because Eddie Johnson told him so? You think he isn't lining up to be on this "citizen review board"? That's a witch hunt for sure.

But this part of the article made us laugh out loud:

• On Thursday, Aldermen Ariel Reboyras (30th), chairman of the City Council’s Public Safety Comittee, and Budget Committee Chairman Carrie Austin (34th) wrote a letter to the “Coalition to Follow Up on the Police Accountability Task Force” outlining plans for a pair of “subject matter hearings” on July 6 and 7.
  
  The purpose is to solicit public input and take testimony from “subject matter experts” that will “inform the crafting” of ordinance language and “make the reforms even stronger.”

Subject Matter Experts - like the ones that fixed the Lie-utenant Exam for the girlfriends, wives and significant others of high ranking police exempt members?

This is going to be a clusterfuck of unimaginable proportions.

Remember....

Police are the problem:

• Students leaving McNair Elementary School in the South Austin neighborhood carried science projects and walked hand-in-hand with staff members who ushered them out a side entrance to waiting parents and buses on Thursday after a Chicago Public Schools' employee was killed outside the school’s main entrance.
  
  The school was locked down and parents received calls informing them of the shooting and that nobody would be allowed in or out of the school until dismissal at 2:30 p.m.

Police are always the problem - everywhere:

• A man was found fatally shot in the North Lawndale neighborhood Wednesday night, and a video circulating online appears to show the moments just before and after he was shot.
  
  [...]
  
  On the video, he is drinking from a plastic bottle and looking around. He sees a car drive by once, then return.
  
  The video clearly contains the sound of gunshots. The camera falls to the ground, then is raised again to catch a fleeting image of the car driving away. It falls to the ground again, coming to rest in what looks like bloody grass. The screen goes black, though people can be heard in the background screaming and calling for an ambulance.

And what else were they screaming?

• "Someone call the police!"

Seriously.

Politics Wins Out

If you get out-clouted, you're shit out of luck:

• A federal jury quickly ruled Thursday against eight white or Hispanic Chicago police officers who contended they were victims of racial discrimination after being transferred off Mayor Rahm Emanuel's elite security detail.
  
  The jury deliberated only about 30 minutes before deciding not to award the group any damages after the officers sued for millions in back pay and lost wages.
  
  The decision came Thursday evening after four days of testimony.

"Elite" security detail? The only thing elite about it is the paycheck. And when the next guy or gal takes over, the current crop will be back writing crash reports or typing up search warrants or looking for that elusive I.S.R.

Re-Arrested

Well this is just dandy:

• Chicago Police on Thursday arrested a man who was captured on a video-gone-viral getting kicked in the head by an officer as he struggled on the ground with another officer following a foot chase earlier this week.
  
  Shaquille O’Neal, a convicted felon, was arrested on a warrant on charges of felony resisting arrest, aggravated battery by strangulation and possession of a controlled substance, said [...] a spokesman for the Chicago Police Department.

Unconfirmed reports are that he again resisted and this time, got Tasered for his behavior.

The Officer remains at Call Back.

The Department has to be bullied into doing the right thing...after doing the wrong thing - Stay Fetal Brothers and Sisters.

RWOC

Released without charges:

• A suspect seen choking a Chicago police officer and then apparently being kicked or stomped in the head by a second officer in a Facebook video has been released without charges pending further investigation, police said Wednesday.
  
  The officer seen kicking the 23-year-old suspect in the video was relieved of his police powers as authorities investigate the video, which was posted Monday on Facebook. The suspect was released late Wednesday afternoon, one of his attorneys said. The man and his attorneys were expected to hold a news conference later Wednesday.

So who is actually running this Department nowadays? Evidently, this guy:

Ja'Mal D Green has Eddie's cell number and called him as the video hit Facebook. About three hours later, the Officer was relieved of his police powers and sent to Call Back after Eddie (allegedly) visited a known felon, caught with heroin, who had just attempted to defeat an arrest by force/choking a Chicago Police Officer.

Eddie Johnson has lost the Department. Period. End of story. FOP should be organizing a "no confidence" vote. The Lie-utenant ExamScam should be front and center of their campaign. Tact teams should be un-volunteering en masse tomorrow before the 04 July weekend, when their days off are sure to be canceled and OT will be mandatory, but god forbid you attempt to lawfully overcome resistance by a felon.

Eddie has let the mask slip. The inmates are running the asylum.

Even Johnny says "Police work - it's over."

Testify Rahm! Testify!

Can we get an "Amen?"

• In a rare move, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has been ordered to testify in an ongoing federal trial over a lawsuit filed by eight Chicago police officers who say they were dumped from the mayor's security detail for political reasons after he took office five years ago.
  
  But while Emanuel will have to give answers under oath, the ruling Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Harry Leinenweber does not mean the mayor will have to take the witness stand in court.
  
  Instead, Emanuel will likely sit for a deposition taken in private by attorneys in the case. The transcript would later be considered by the judge as far as one allegation of the lawsuit — that the city violated the so-called Shakman ban on political hiring when officers who had volunteered for the mayor's campaign were placed on his new security team in 2011.

This is a ridiculous lawsuit, we've said so time and time again. They got their positions as a result of politics, plain and simple. Regimes change and new clout arrives. You aren't entitled to a clout spot once your clout disappears. These guys got D-3 (E-3) pay - sergeant salary - without taking an exam, without getting a promotion, without anything but a phone call and maybe an interview with Shortshanks (or his designee). Not only that, but they got to work Special Employment at the higher rate, racking up untold tens of thousands of dollars based on nothing but politics.

Even the Sergeants in charge got bumped up to Commander pay for running a political detail. And now the out-clouted are suing for a political appointment. Amazing.

Don't expect to see Rahm on the stand though - he'll buy his way out of it again, with our tax money.

Anyone Seeing a Downside Here?

Businesses taking it "on the chin:"

• Companies that use “forced arbitration clauses” to resolve disputes with employees and consumers would be prohibited from doing business with the city of Chicago under an ordinance advanced Wednesday over fierce opposition from the business community.
  
  Ald. Edward Burke (14th) pushed the ban he championed through the City Council Finance Committee he chairs, but he agreed to hold the ordinance in committee after Mayor Rahm Emanuel raised “serious concerns” about the impact on city operations and spending.

And then this:

• It happened one day before the business community is poised to take yet another financial hit: an ordinance requiring Chicago employers large and small to provide their employees with at least five paid sick days a year.

Someone who actually studied (and passed) Econ 101 thinks this is a no-so-good idea:

• “In the past 14 months, they’ve passed a higher minimum wage, the largest property tax increase in Chicago history — paid disproportionately by the business community — and a plastic bag ban, to say nothing of a recent Cook County sales tax and hotel tax increase and all of the uncertainty in Springfield,” said Mike Reever, vice president of government relations at the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce.
  
  “These policies do have a cumulative impact. . . . You’re layering one policy on top of another and all of those costs are being paid for by the employer community,” he said. “Once again, it’s putting Chicago on an island. That’s a competitive disadvantage for employers.”

Tie all of this into the "Sticker Shock" post the other day:

• It's not just homeowners who are likely to raise eyebrows when second installment property bills arrive (the first installment was due March 1). Owners of business properties with the current average market value of $896,000 will see their bills increase about 10 percent, to $41,000.

A 10% increase just to do business in the City of Big Shoulder Wounds? On top of everything else?

That "death spiral" everyone mentions - you're witnessing it in real time here.