Hey Look - Charges

The horse coming after the cart as it were:

• Seeking the first official discipline in the 22 months since a Chicago police officer shot Laquan McDonald 16 times on video, police Superintendent Eddie Johnson on Tuesday moved to fire four patrol officers and a sergeant he accused of lying about the shooting.
  
  Though the October 2014 shooting led to aftershocks that have shaken the Police Department from top to bottom, the city's first move for formal discipline focuses largely on street officers.

Nice to see the procedure has finally caught up with the findings.

Yes, that was sarcasm.

003 Questions

A few readers have mentioned suspicious discrepancies in the Rhymefest story:

• An unexplained 2 hour gap in time of occurrence to time of reporting;
• How he managed to keep his watch and cell phone;
• Why not call 911 from the scene?
• A book bag he suddenly remembered missing a day later;
• Passing two other police stations after being held up in 002;
• The video beginning with no explanation at a time that conveniently paints the police in a bad light;
• An unconfirmed report that Rhymefest cut in front of three other people already waiting for reports;
• If his statements after the fact are to be believed about not wishing to prosecute, why bother involving the police at all? It was just $3 since he didn't remember the book bag at first.

What popped to the front of our mind was, "How convenient he had a new tune ready to go in just a few hours after having a less-than-pleasant experience with the CPD." Curious timing to say the least.

To be clear, this doesn't excuse the behavior experienced at the desk. That falls on the Desk personnel, DSS and Watch Lieutenant. There's a disciplinary process in place - use it, and not Rahm's posturing.

But without a full accounting of the entire event, and not just what Rhymefest, the media, the cheating lieutenants, and the frightened exempts want everyone to concentrate on, questions about the incident will continue.

Hey Look - Suspensions

This came out earlier this month and slipped through the cracks:

• Fourteen Chicago Police officers have been cited for failure to record audio and video or for misuse of equipment since the first of the year.
  
  Internal Affairs records, released to NBC5 through a public records request, detail the allegations which call for penalties ranging from reprimands and suspensions.
  
  [...] In addition, from January until the end of June, five officers have received one-day suspensions, while seven officers have been reprimanded.

The first two officers mentioned got 15 days each and are named in the original report, but the FOP has said all the suspensions are being looked at.

Who's the "Top" Officer?

Trump has talked to the greatest minds on this Department. And he knows how to solve crime:

• The Chicago Police Department denied Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's claim this week that he met with a "top" Chicago officer and argued the city's violence would not be solved with "tough police tactics."
  
  "We've discredited this claim months ago," CPD spokesperson Frank Giancamilli said Tuesday in a statement. "No one in the senior command at CPD has ever met with Donald Trump or a member of his campaign."
  
  Trump said in an interview Monday that he believed Chicago's violence could be stopped using "tough police tactics," telling Fox News' Bill O'Reilly that he met a "top" Chicago officer who reportedly said he could "stop much of this horror show that’s going on" within a single week.
  
  Trump added that he knows officers in Chicago who would put an end to violent crime "if they were given the authority to do it," a claim that Giancamilli refuted.

So Trump was here one day for a rally that got cancelled. Who could he have met with - out-of-sight of Rahm's handlers of course - to come up with this bold statement?

Well, the rally was on the Near West Side. And who was the "top" person in charge of the disastrous security that resulted in many dozens of attendees being assaulted, battered, and suffering numerous property losses and damages. The Department is putting a lot of effort into discrediting Trump's statement, no doubt at the behest of Rahm, who can't have his police supervisors actually having opinions or meetings with Republican candidates.

Who's Running the Show?

Wasn't Rahm just bragging the other day about how it was Special Ed's show? That he'd support any decision Special Ed made regarding the coppers stripped over the McDonald shooting?

It's a good thing Rahm is letting Special Ed make the BIG decisions, because it sure looks like Rahm is making the little ones for Special Ed:

• Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said the officer who handled hip-hop star Che "Rhymefest" Smith's robbery report over the weekend will face discipline.
  
  "There will be disciplinary action taken," Emanuel said Monday. "This is an example not just for the officer but for everybody. He is coming in to report robbery, being held up, and you can’t respond that way."

So it seems Rahm is running the day-to-day stuff while Special Ed just deals with the bigger issues - like how people of the "community" feel they can better relate to officers of the same race....ummmmmmm....oops.

Well. in defense of 003, we're sure that they have an extensively experienced upper tier of supervisors who will promptly crack down on the unprofessional behavior. Let's just look at the personnel roster....

Yup, we see the #1 scorer on the most recent lieutenant exam - a perfect 100% (allegedly) - is assigned to 003. And golly, the #3 scoring lieutenant also works there. Along with the three-time "merit" promoted commander, they should have the whole situation well in hand....if Rahm says so....and tells Special Ed....who makes all the decisions with Rahm's unwavering support, of course.

Anyone want to make any guesses on the next decision Rahm leaves all to Special Ed?

COPA! Copacabana

Apologies to Barry:

• The new agency charged with investigating police wrongdoing will be called the Civilian Office on Police Accountability, aldermen were told Monday as they haggled with the mayor’s office over final language.
  
  Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd), leader of the City Council’s Progressive Caucus, said he was generally pleased with the draft ordinance he was shown Monday. But there are several points of contention.
  
  COPA, the new agency that will take the place of the soon-to-be-abolished Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA), will not have the authority to hire its own independent counsel, Waguespack said.
  
  Nor would the new agency have a guaranteed percentage of the city budget to prevent the new COPA chief from going hat-in-hand to the mayor and City Council for additional resources, Waguespack said.
  
  The new inspector general in charge of public safety would be chosen by Inspector General Joe Ferguson after a process that includes a nationwide search, the alderman said.

With all these direct connections to City Hall, what could possibly go wrong? Oh, and they're also empowered to investigate Taser usage, so we've got that going for us, too.

If anyone thinks that this isn't set up to (A) fire coppers and (B) fire coppers, we've got some beachfront land to sell you in Death Valley.

Anyone See an Issue Here?

Red light camera scammer gets 10 years:

• With hope of restoring trust in city government that erodes with “every bribe that’s taken, every kickback that is tendered,” a federal judge sentenced an ex-City Hall insider to 10 years in prison Monday for rigging Chicago’s red-light camera program.

Hooray for justice!

Then this little kerfuffle a few weeks ago:

• A federal judge on Tuesday upheld Rod Blagojevich’s 14-year prison sentence on corruption counts, setting aside pleas for leniency by the former Illinois governor’s wife and daughters during his resentencing.

That was for essentially soliciting a bribe - no money ever changed hands. In the first story, the guy was actually dealing in large amounts of cash.

Then you have this:

• Darwin Sorrells, of the 7500 block of South Wentworth Avenue, served three years in state prison for 2013 convictions of receiving, possessing or selling a stolen vehicle and for unlawful use or possession of a firearm by a felon, according to Illinois Department of Corrections records. He was paroled in early February.
  
  He was convicted in 2011 of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon. He was sentenced to five years on that charge. He also has felony convictions from 2007 for aggravated battery in a public place and aggravated battery causing great bodily harm.

That's what....five felonies since 2007? Violent felonies, four of them with illegally obtained weapons used on human beings. And he's currently up for murder with his brother - another felon.

While a briber gets 10 years and Blago rots for 14 years.

Might all the current outrage be better pointed another direction?

Violent Month You Say?

Golly, it must be true if the Tribune is writing about it:

• Tavon [Tanner] was among more than 400 people shot in Chicago this month. There have been at least 78 homicides, marking August as the most violent month in the city in almost 20 years, according to data provided by the Chicago Police Department. And there are two more days to go.
  
  The city hasn't seen a deadlier month since October of 1997, when there were 79 homicides. For the whole year, the count was 761, according to department numbers.

Only 78? HeyJackass.com has the total at 85, and we don't even know if they've counted the 6 arson-related deaths that can only be called "homicides" no matter what the Medical Examiner, Chief of Detectives and CompStat call them. Probably another set of "death investigations" which are approaching 40 this year - another bit of "smoke" in a smoke-and-mirror world.

Safety Warning

Just when you thought it couldn't get much lower, Kansas City shows us a new basement:

• Kansas City Police Officers had just shot an armed suspect on Sunday morning when a crowd began to gather around them. Gunshots started getting fired at the officers, who were forced to take cover with the man that the officers had just shot.
  
  The incident happened early Sunday morning in a parking lot at 72nd Street and Wabash Avenue. Officers were on patrol when they heard gunshots and observed a large crowd in the parking lot. Officers approached and confronted a man who was armed with a handgun. There aren’t many details about the confrontation, but one of the police officers shot the suspect.
  
  The police officers were administering first aid to the suspect when they got surrounded by the large crowd. One of the men approached the officers aggressively and refused to back up, interrupting officers who were trying to provide first aid. The man was tased as he was coming at officers, and then taken into custody.
  
  Numerous shots then started to get fired at officers, forcing them to take cover along with the shot suspect and the other suspect in custody. None of the officers were shot.
  
  A gunshot victim later arrived at the hospital, who is believed to be the likely victim of the man that the police officers has shot.

So not only was the subject armed (and his gun recovered), he had just shot someone else. And the cops had to Taser someone else, then take cover when the unruly crowd started taking shots at them. Sounds like the other day on the south side where someone started shooting in an alley to distract cops from their scene.

Or like this maybe?

Someone shooting nearby to distract the coppers from the loaded rifle and pistol in the hopes of stealing them back? Hopefully, there's a Department-wide evaluation underway on how to protect and process crime scenes, seeing as how it's gotten that much more dangerous. Perhaps some of the new Lieutenants can bring their vast years of street skills to the table and assist the brass?

Watch your backs. And fronts.

Arrests in Murder

And once again, the only thing Special Ed that has said that makes sense, rears its head again:

• Derren Sorrells, 22, and Darwin Sorrells Jr., 26, were charged Sunday with first-degree murder and attempted murder. Cook County Judge Adam Bourgeois Jr. ordered both held without bail, saying they were a danger to society.
  
  [...]
  
  Both Sorrells brothers are convicted felons who were on parole at the time of the shooting — prime examples of the judicial system's inability to stop habitual offenders, Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said at a Sunday news conference.
  
  "This tragedy isn't just noteworthy because Ms. Aldridge has a famous family member," Johnson said. "Rather, it shows that the cycle of arrests, convictions and parole isn't changing the behavior of those who repeatedly commit crimes.

And what had they been charged with that led to their early release?

• Darwin Sorrells, of the 7500 block of South Wentworth Avenue, served three years in state prison for 2013 convictions of receiving, possessing or selling a stolen vehicle and for unlawful use or possession of a firearm by a felon, according to Illinois Department of Corrections records. He was paroled in early February.
  
  He was convicted in 2011 of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon. He was sentenced to five years on that charge. He also has felony convictions from 2007 for aggravated battery in a public place and aggravated battery causing great bodily harm.
  
  Derren Sorrells, of the 6000 block of South Indiana Avenue, served four years in state prison for 2012 convictions of possession of a stolen vehicle and violating the terms of his electronic monitoring. He was paroled Aug. 12, according to the IDOC website.

Gee, someone on parole again?

Someone posted in the comment section that this was Darwin's SIXTH gun arrest. And the "day-for-day" credits that result in a mere 50% of a sentence being served really has to stop. Repeat gun offenders should be headed to Federal Court at every opportunity with no exceptions, with a floor of ten years in prison and a third strike provision resulting in a life sentence.

And Special Ed uttered the second truth of his tenure:

• When asked about the difference in solving Aldridge's killing within days compared with the overwhelming majority of homicides that don't end in arrests, Johnson pointed to the community as being more cooperative because of to the high-profile nature of the case.
  
  "You know why we captured them right away? Because the community helped us with it," Johnson said. "Police officers very rarely witness crime, especially murder or aggravated battery with a firearm. … We take every death in Chicago seriously, but we need the community's help to bring these cases to a successful resolution."

Nice job to all involved.

Eighty in August

After a messy weekend (at least 9 dead, 47 maimed), Chicago has done something unseen in decades.

Eighty dead in a single month.

Congratulations, we guess.

Next stop - 500 dead reached by September.

More NY Brilliance

Why didn't our brain trust at HQ think of this?

• The NYPD has a message for revelers taking part in Brooklyn’s J’Ouvert festival next weekend: Don’t shoot.
  
  The 71st Precinct in Crown Heights posted fliers Thursday warning festival-goers to refrain from violence during the annual predawn Labor Day celebration.
  
  “This community will no longer tolerate this violence,” the fliers say. “Do not shoot anyone. Do not stab anyone.

NYPD coppers are greatly amused:

• Speaking of the posters, a police source said, “I guess this is the de Blasio crime prevention program.
  
  “I found this absolutely hysterical. It’s just incredible. We’ve come to the point now where we’re asking people not to shoot one another. As if this doesn’t come naturally?
  
  “If they really want to reduce the crime here, they should be enforcing the law and restricting the permits.
  
  “This will have zero impact, of course. What a waste of paper, though I don’t want to put the graphic artist out of business.”

Has anyone downtown, maybe Special Ed himself, just said, "Why don't we ask them not to shoot?"

Hey, since New York started it, you know someone here is going to steal it.

VRI Boycott Provokes Response

Just out from the Bureau of Patrol:

• Days off Cancelled for All District Tact Teams, Area Saturation Teams, Gun Teams, Gang Enforcement Teams and Summer Mobile for the Labor Day weekend
• Additionally, PEZ Zones will be covered by District personnel because the VRI numbers are so low

So the FOP point is being made - the Department is dangerously shorthanded and the only way to adequately man the streets is to cancel days off and force people to work.

Question

Anyone want to explain why the only posted openings for next Police Period were all in 003? Fifteen openings, yet the Department posted a few dozen PPO's coming off of their probation into Area North last month - into spots that in reality, they wouldn't be able to catch a whiff of for five or six years.

They couldn't all be that connected, could they?

Does the Department want to keep all the unhappy, old, grumpy, coppers locked into undesirable spots for some reason? Or is this another ploy by Rahm?

Trib Prints Crap

In their ever increasing efforts to stay relevant and stir the pot of anti-police sentiment, the Tribune comes up with this "exhaustive" study:

• Every five days, on average, a Chicago police officer fired a gun at someone.
  
  In 435 shootings over a recent six-year span, officers killed 92 people and wounded 170 others.
  
  While a few of those incidents captured widespread attention, they occurred with such brutal regularity — and with scant information provided by police — that most have escaped public scrutiny.
  
  Now, after months of struggles with Chicago police to get information through the Freedom of Information Act, the Chicago Tribune has compiled an unprecedented database of details of every time police fired a weapon from 2010 through 2015.

"...brutal regularity..."

Um, hyperbole much?

They break down all sorts of stuff by race, because that's the only measure that matters to the lib-tarded media and their followers.

Here are a few questions that might lead to another "exhaustive" Tribune study:

• This year, HeyJackass.com says that shootings happen an average of every two-hours-and-three minutes. A killing happens every twelve hours (two a day). Could the Tribune "reporters" calculate those types of totals over the same 6 year period? (hint - it'll be close to three THOUSAND dead and well over ten THOUSAND wounded.)
• Maybe the Tribune could do an analysis of how many "Shots Fired" calls are made to 9-1-1, how many go out over the police radio daily, and how many were actually legit?
• How many shots total were fired? We can't recall a scene in the past six years that didn't have at least five or six shots, counted by witnesses or shell casings we picked up. Most scenes were ten or more though. Some really messed up scenes were thirty and forty at a time. We're betting those totals would be in the hundreds of thousands of rounds fired.

And after all of that "exhaustive" research, if the Tribune "reporters" break it down racially so that if Eric Holder comes to town, we can have that "frank discussion" he was always going on about.

Rumors of Hiring

This has popped up in e-mail and comments:

• Anonymous said...Rumor from R&D that the budget for SGt and LT has been raised. They are adding 100 new LT's and 250 Sgt.

We've heard the same thing with slightly lower and higher numbers. We've also gotten word that the uniform stores across the city have been told to pre-order equipment for a hiring wave of 1,000 starting early next year. And all of this is before any mention of a Detectives class or the DOJ final report, which everyone knows is going to call for increase supervisory ranks.

So with the "55 and out" provision expiring next year, does anyone have definitive number of people leaving? The lowest number we've heard is 600, the highest at just around 1,000. So this hiring "wave" is, once again, barely going to cover retirements.

Trib Prints Truth

We've seen this far too many times in person. We're surprised it actually got published:

• Three gunshots cracked the air close to where police were investigating a West Englewood shooting early Friday.
  
  “Run, b----, run!” a young shirtless man shouted as officers sprinted down an alley to check out the gunfire. Then, with mock concern, he added: “Hey, there’s somebody dead in the alley!”
  
  There was no one dead in the alley. Police suspected the shots were a prank by a group of young men who had been heckling them for about an hour at the scene of a shooting that wounded a 22-year-old man in the 7100 block of South Paulina Street about 12:50 a.m.
  
  Standing in a line not far from the crime tape, they had been alternately threatening and teasing the officers.
  
  “You a traitor! You a traitor! You bogus as hell!” one of them said early on, focusing on the only black officer nearby.

So where's the DOJ? Where's the phony pfather? Where's the training for the "community" to (A) let the police do their job, (B) stop race baiting one of their own (who has actually made something of himself, and (C) start acting like certain lives matter instead of shooting each other at 12:50 in the morning?

Don't these healthy young adults have a job to go to in the morning? What could possibly possess them to stand around a shooting scene, running in and out of the crime scene tape, taunting the people trying to solve what ails their "community," and daring the police to Taser them so they can be YouTube famous and maybe score some Rahm-cash?

Oh yeah, the complete lack of anything resembling discipline, family structure, pride of self and community.

Again, we're surprised the Tribune even let this go to print as it paints an actually accurate picture of what we've been seeing for tens of years.

Trooper Wounds Gunman

ISP getting busy again:

• A state trooper shot two men in the back seat of a taxi Thursday night on the South Side when one of them pulled out a gun, according to Illinois State Police.
  
  State troopers were conducting an unrelated traffic stop about 8:30 p.m. near West 77th Street and South Vincennes Avenue when a cab pulled up, and the driver flagged down the troopers saying his passengers refused to pay their fare, according to a statement from state police. A source said the two passengers were accused of robbing the driver.
  
  The troopers walked up to the cab to talk to the passengers and saw “what appeared to be a gun” in one of their pockets, state police said. The man “did not listen to any of the Trooper’s commands and then pulled out a gun from his pocket,” and one trooper opened fire after telling him “numerous times to drop the gun,” state police said.
  
  The 25-year-old man accused of holding the gun was shot twice in the lower torso, police said. He was taken to Stroger Hospital in serious-to-critical condition, according to the Chicago Fire Department. He remained hospitalized early Friday with wounds that weren’t thought to be life-threatening, police said.
  
  The other man, 23, was shot in the toe and released into police custody after being treated at St. Bernard Hospital, authorities said.

A trooper went to the hospital, but he wasn't wounded by gunfire. Nice job Trooper.

Can You Taste the Irony?

Filming a video for black lives matter....and gets lit up by....black guys!

• Chicago rapper King Yella broadcast the aftermath of his own shooting in an Englewood underpass Tuesday evening.
  
  King Yella, 26, whose real name is Cemone Lewis, said in videos posted to social media that he was shooting a "Black Lives Matter video" when a hail of bullets left him with a gunshot wound in his arm and a graze wound in his side.

And the black disciple twitter feed (who knew they had such a thing?) claims credit for the shooting. The video is at the link.

What was it that mattered again? We keep hearing one thing, but then reality knocks on the door and we see something else.

New Oversight!

It's here! It's finally here!

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel's top aides on Thursday gave a group of aldermen a broad outline of his plans for revamping the city's much criticized police oversight system, but City Council members who attended said they were withholding judgment until they see a concrete proposal.
  
  Aldermen were told that a new agency to investigate police misconduct would be set up with more powers than the current one. It would be guaranteed minimum annual funding to prevent the mayor and aldermen from reducing its power through budget cuts. And a new Police Department inspector general would report to the city IG.
  
  But it remained unclear how the new investigative agency chief would be selected and what role the mayor and aldermen might play in making that pick. That's because the administration has yet to start drawing up plans to create a new civilian oversight board. Such a board might recommend a chief or pick one itself, aldermen said.

So, pretty much.....nothing. No details, no direction, lots of aldercreatures questioning what the end game is here. We trust the FOP is ensuring that this soon-to-be-appointed board dots the "i's" and crosses the "t's" in regard to all protections being due to American citizens - things like the Due Process that was blatantly ignored recently. After all, there are more than a few elections coming up shortly.

RIP Mr. Dennis

Funeral yesterday:

• The son of a Chicago police officer killed by gunfire last week was laid to rest on the South Side.
  
  Friends and family, Chicago police officers and Mayor Rahm Emanuel were all among those remembering Arshell Dennis III.
  
  He was killed while in town to visit his ailing mother before returning to college in New York.
  
  A $13,000 reward is now being offered for information leading to his killer.

RIP

Lightfoot Speaks Crazy Talk

She thinks Due Process has been circumvented?

• Police Board President Lori Lightfoot on Wednesday sympathized with the police union’s claim that the Chicago Police Department is violating the due process of seven officers it’s seeking to fire for allegedly covering up the police shooting of Laquan McDonald.
  
  Lightfoot and Fraternal Order of Police President Dean Angelo are unlikely allies.
  
  Not only does she preside over the Police Board that will decide whether to uphold the firings recommended by Police Supt. Eddie Johnson and has fired 12 officers in the last year.
  
  Lightfoot also co-chaired the Task Force on Police Accountability that released a scathing 190-page report last spring that Angelo denounced as “biased” against police officers because it portrays them as racist. The report also complains about a police contract that turns a “code of silence into official policy.”
  
  But that didn’t stop Lightfoot from acknowledging that Angelo had a point when he argued that the seven officers targeted for firing have not been treated fairly.

So what exactly is she going to do to ensure fairness?

Nothing. She blames the Department, specifically Special Ed:

• Lightfoot was asked whether that should have happened already and whether, in his haste to solve a political controversy, Johnson may have put the cart before the horse.
  
  “In the normal course, that would happen. Typically when an officer is stripped, they’re given specific allegations. They’re given access to information. In something this serious, yeah. It should happen. I can’t account for why it sounds like it hasn’t happened in this instance. But, I’m hoping that circumstance gets rectified shortly,” she said.

So is Special Ed being set up for a fall? Get a load of this second article where Lightfoot says the Contract and promotional process is all wrong:

• Police Board President Lori Lightfoot argued Wednesday for increased training and changes to both the police contract and to the way police supervisors are chosen to restore public trust in the Chicago Police Department shattered by the police shooting of Laquan McDonald.
  
  [...]
  
  She homed in on a system of choosing police supervisors that “makes no sense whatsoever because they are not tested or selected for their ability to actually supervise.”
  
  “Sergeants who, on a day-in, day-out basis, touch more officers than anybody else in the department — they are the backbone of the department. They are the key to cultural change. And they have to be selected in a way that makes sense. They have to be supported with training and follow-up, so they can do their job effectively,” she said.
  
  “You’ve got to think about internal legitimacy and external legitimacy. Those are not things that the department currently tests for. If you collect people on a set of criteria that isn’t really consistent with the realities of the job, you’re setting them up for failure.”

So....the ability to be given and remember the answers to a promotional exam isn't a good way to select supervisors? And people who were granted "merit" bumps, probably shouldn't be scoring 1, 2 and 3 on the exam, when all three of them work in the same Unit? And one is married to the First Deputy? And another is sleeping with the Chief of Patrol? And (if the rumors are true) scoring a perfect 100%?

So what criteria would be appropriate for promoting supervisors we wonder.

Detectives Down a Third

Thanks to everyone who sent this one in:

• In a city with as many as 90 shootings a week, homicides this year are on track to hit their highest level since 1997.
  
  Chicago's murder clearance rate, a measurement of solved and closed cases, is one of the country's lowest, another sign of problems besetting police in the third biggest city in the United States.
  
  Over the past 10 years Chicago has consistently had one of the lowest clearance rates of any of the country's 10 biggest cities, according to data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Chicago Police Department.
  
  Last year, Chicago police had 480 murder cases and solved 223 murders that had been committed in 2015 or before, for a clearance rate of 46 percent, according to Chicago police figures.
  
  That is well below the average national rate of 63 percent, and the average rate of 68 percent for cities with populations of more than 1 million in the past decade, according to FBI figures.

New York and Los Angeles have a Detective rank that is approximately 15% of their total manpower.

Chicago - 8%, and falling. And the clearance rate (according to HeyJackass.com) has dipped below 21%.

Anyone seen the result of the Detective test yet?

Nice Street Rahm

Once again, that 4200 block of North Hermitage is a hotbed of criminality:

• A woman had her computer bag snatched from her hand in the 4200 block of N. Hermitage yesterday afternoon—the same block that is home to Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his 24/7 police personal police force.
  
  No one is in custody.
  
  The woman was walking near Emanuel’s home shortly after 1PM Tuesday when a teenager jumped out of a “very old black Cadillac,” grabbed her computer bag from her hand, and then fled in the same vehicle. She was not injured.
  
  Police describe the offender as a black male teenager wearing a white tank top and black cargo pants.
  
  The crime has been classified as a theft.
  
  The mayor's home is protected around the clock by at least eight police officers who are assigned to patrol our 19th district. The force includes at least two cops in front of Emanuel's home, at least two more in the rear of his home, a sergeant, and "roving units" that make circles around the block.

We suppose it doesn't matter - the thief fled in a car, so he would have gotten away clean regardless.

Sorry about your computer, here's your report. Never mind those eight coppers within 300 feet of the scene. We guess none of them or their squad cars had active cameras either.

Double Digit Increases

Sam Kinison had a comedy routine back in the 1980's making light of the Ethiopian famine. It went something along the lines of, "...live where the food is! You live in a f@#$ing desert! Move to where the food is!"

Guess where crime is up double digits this year? Where the police aren't - kind of an "anti-Kinison" explanation:

• A wave of violent crime is washing across the North Side this year as Chicago police officers face increasing threats and scrutiny.
  
  Through July 31, violent crime reports are up in every lakefront neighborhood from the Loop to Edgewater.
  
  Reports of the most serious crimes—homicide, criminal sexual assault, robbery, and aggravated battery—are up as much as 61%. Uptown saw the smallest increase in our study, with 15% more violent crime this year.
  
  And virtually every area is also seeing an increase in total crime. Only North Center showed an overall crime drop through July 31, with a 4% reduction compared to the same time last year.
  
  The Loop has seen crime jump 26% overall this year, the most of any area. Near North is up 15%. Lincoln Park and Edgewater have both seen 11% overall crime increases.

That's pretty bad. But as the pressure is brought to bear on the hood, the hood goes where the pressure isn't as great and the hunting is extremely....lucrative, shall we say?

And Eddie, via Rahm, just whistles along with the violin as Rome burns.

Not Guilty Plea

So...trial or plea agreement to misdemeanors?

• A Chicago activist pleaded not guilty Wednesday to charges he assaulted officers during protests last month over police shootings.
  
  Ja'Mal Green, 21, made his first court appearance before Judge Charles Burns, a former Cook County prosecutor who was randomly assigned the case by computer Wednesday.
  
  A day earlier, Green's attorney moved to substitute the first judge assigned the case, Judge Maura Slattery Boyle, also a former county prosecutor.

BAd luck going from one former prosecutor to another. But then, it's Cook County, so there's no telling which side of the fence they'll land on. After all, they have to please their political masters, too.

Three Years

We confess to not having much use for media people. For the most part, they're liberal tools with an agenda. There are a few who make the effort to see both sides, but they're rare nowadays. Janssen at the Sun Times did the old one day media course at the Academy and came out with an understanding of what cops do. Kass shows flashes of the old newspaperman instincts.

But this piece by Nickeas in Chicago Magazine is the culmination of three years working nights at shooting scenes and fires and fights and all sorts of crap, citywide. He was outside the tape for most of it, but he was there, doing his job and watching cops do their jobs.

He doesn't paint a pretty picture either. It's ugly. It leaves scars. The last portion of the article is how he found it hard to relate to normal life after seeing three years of shit:

• For three years, I’d inhabited a world separate from the one my friends lived in. On the train into work on summer Fridays, the other passengers dressed up for a night out in Wicker Park or Lake View, I’d sit there preparing for my shift, checking Twitter to see where people were getting shot or where people were calling in gunfire. I’d vacillate between wishing I were out with my wife and just wanting to start working.
  
  There’s not a relationship in my life that is stronger now than it was when I started covering violence. I don’t remember when I stopped giving honest answers when people at dinners or parties asked, “How’s work?” The truth is a conversation ender. I’d start a story, see things getting awkward, then power through it, apologizing at the end. It’s an isolating job. Part of leaving nights has been learning to move past that, or deciding whether to even try. Maybe it’s not healthy, but writing about violence feels like what I should be doing. It feels normal. It’s what I want to do. I want to help the city understand a little. That’s important to me.
  
  The winter after I’d finished working overnights, Erin and I were sitting on our couch, drinking wine, catching up. I was trying to explain to her how that three-year stretch had felt like a fever dream, an otherworldly odyssey, and how the world had throbbed around me while I learned to keep my eyes open. For three years, I hadn’t been home on weekends, and when I was home, I was in a fog. The closest to alive I felt during that time was in moments of fear and stress. That had become life.
  
  I said all this to Erin, telling her I’d packed a lot of living into those three years.
  
  She looked at me and asked, “But what kind of living?”

Now imagine making a career out of it.

[Disclaimer - some of our number have met Nickeas on a few crime scenes. He's a personable guy. We've gotten his card a few times as he passed through.]

[Also, Nickeas is not related to the copper of the same name. We've seen this comment numerous times in the past.]

Sounds Like an Admission

In open court no less:

• A Far South Side man accused of shooting at a Chicago Police officer lashed out at a Cook County judge in court Tuesday, saying he should have just “smoked his a ‑ ‑” after being ordered held without bail.
  
  “Chicago Police shot at me first,” Kentrell Pledger, a reputed [b]lack [d]isciple gang member, pleaded with Judge Adam Bourgeois Jr.
  
  As sheriff’s deputies led Pledger away, his protests grew louder: “He shot at me first. So get your story straight, dog. And for that, I should have smoked his a ‑ ‑.”
  
  Pledger then told Bourgeois, who is African-American, “You ain’t black, you’re white, b ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑ ‑.”

Hopefully, going away for a long long time.

Did someone hear about shots fired at the police again Tuesday? We can't find mention of it in the media.

Establishment Expands

Politics makes strange bedfellows:

• Following a path blazed by countless city snow plows, Kim Foxx found her way recently to the three-story, fortress-like home of powerful Ald. Ed Burke and his wife, Illinois Supreme Court Justice Anne Burke.
  
  The rooftop deck of the Burkes’ 5,600-square-foot home on the Southwest Side was the site of a campaign fundraiser on Aug. 16 for Foxx, the Democratic nominee in the November election for Cook County state’s attorney.
  
  Ed Burke had been a major supporter of State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, who was unseated by Foxx in the bitterly fought primary last spring.
  
  Neither Burke nor Foxx wanted to talk about their budding alliance. A spokeswoman for the 14th Ward alderman and City Council Finance Committee chairman did not return calls seeking comment Tuesday. And a Foxx aide declined to answer questions about the fundraiser, instead emailing a one-line statement.

So Prickwrinkle and Burke are playing footsie. And Mike Madigan was listed as "co-host." Funny how the media reports it yesterday when it was held on 16 August - a full week ago. If that doesn't tell you investigative journalism is dead in Chicago, we don't know what would.

By the way, anyone looking to contribute to the Republican running against the establishment candidate, you can donate to Christopher Pfannkuche here.

You Want What Now?

So, two people get shot a memorial for a 14-year-old gang banger who was killed the other day. One of them was 8:

• Eight-year-old Jamia Barnes was playing Sunday evening on a front lawn near a vigil for a teenage boy killed hours earlier when she saw a man in a car arguing with a woman outside.
  
  "Somebody had the gun in their lap ... and he got it out and started shooting," recounted the soft-spoken third-grader, fiddling with the bandage on her right wrist and pulling at her hair.

It's always tragic when an innocent gets shot. Not the 14-year-old. He was just following in his grandmother's footsteps, who has her own record for dealing dope. But the 8-year-old didn't make life choices that lead to being shot.

Mope-rah quoted grandma in a column Monday (no link for Mopey):

• “In the 1980s, there was a War on Drugs. Now there has to be a War on Guns. Police are going to have to pull over these young men in these cars with tinted windows, Davis said.
  
  “Police ride right past, instead of pulling over these guys with these big shirts where they are hiding guns. They need to kick in some of these doors. The guns are right here under your nose. How do you get the guns off the street,” she asked rhetorically.
  
  “You ride around and stop these guys.”

This is grandma who's done prison time for dope. And she's giving the Department "street lawyer" advice to pull people over, kick in doors and stop folks based on......

Sorry, we stopped listening to what we were typing for a second there.

What was it we said back on 30 July?

• It's over boys and girls. Until there is a wholesale shakeup in the political order, the loud and lawless have won. Let them sort it out.
  
  One day, they'll demand and scream at the police to "do something!" And we'll whisper from our retirement home far away from here, "no."

That day is arriving faster than we expected....retirement we mean. The other thing, well, we've been responding to calls, cutting paper and leaving to make notifications.

Welcome to the world you created grandma.

Due Process?

That doesn't apply to the police, does it?

• Fraternal Order of Police President Dean Angelo on Monday accused the Chicago Police Department of violating the due process of seven officers who stand to lose their jobs for allegedly covering up the police shooting of Laquan McDonald.
  
  In his long-awaited response to a scathing report by Inspector General Joe Ferguson, Police Supt. Eddie Johnson has moved to fire the seven officers for allegedly violating Rule 14.
  
  That’s the “If you lie, you die” rule that prohibits officers from filing false reports or lying under oath during the course of an investigation.
  
  Angelo complained that none of the seven officers have been told how they lied. That, he said, is a violation of due process.
  
  “They committed a Rule 14 violation based on what? What specifically did they do? What did they say? What did they write that puts them in that category? I don’t know. They don’t know,” Angelo said.

Did you know that you can't even put a prisoner in lockup without telling him what he's charged with? It used to irritate us a long time ago when the lockup keepers would ask jagoff, "Do you know what you're charged with?" It's like they didn't trust us. And the fact was, they didn't trust us, because they had been burned before. So now, their routine was to ask everyone. Once we worked lockup a few times, we developed the same habits...and tried not to work the lockup - it made us cynical.

To be hammered with 15 or 20 Department charges and not even be able to adequately prepare a rebuttal or assist your lawyer in mounting a proper defense is unconscionable. But then again, so is having a shooting ruled "justified" by eight or ten exempts who haven't even seen the inside of a beat car in decades, and then get dragged into a political maelstrom where the same guy who said "justified" months ago is suddenly driving a bus over your back.

More Cameras

Remember, you're always on camera somewhere:

• Dear SCC,
  
  I am informing you that a Department of Revenue ticketer came in my Northside neighborhood and as we spoke he stated he was equipped with a small covert body camera which he showed me. To this individuals credit he thought it was BS and wrong for him to do that. He stated that they have been instructed to activate this device if a city worker tries to get out of a ticket, argues or intimidates them. Look like the good old City of Chicago is trying jam even more coppers and city workers!

Nice how the sole instruction is to activate the camera "if a city worker tries to get out of a ticket, argues or intimidates them." Not other citizens who can't be suspended or fired, thereby saving Rahm pension money. Just city workers.

Do yourself a favor and park legally. Because the first one caught be these cameras is almost certainly going to be a copper parked by Traffic Court or at a bar or somewhere just "for a second" and the parking vultures are going to swoop in and the copper will be on the news and in front of the Board on some easily avoidable Rule violation.

Sorry, but we're cynical nowadays.

Please No

Rumor the other day:

• Tina Skahill is back in some capacity

Someone please tell us this isn't so.

Who was the Chief of Patrol?

This article came out in the midst of all the crap last week:

• Even after Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson decides whether to fire 10 officers accused of covering up the police shooting of Laquan McDonald, Inspector General Joe Ferguson’s investigation will continue to determine whether police brass were part of a code of silence.

Investigating the brass? Interesting:

• On Oct. 21, 2014, the day after the shooting, an executive committee comprised of police brass watched the video. They saw Van Dyke empty his weapon, even though McDonald apparently posed no threat, with many of the shots fired while the teenager was already on the ground.
  
  Then-Police Supt. Garry McCarthy presided over that meeting, with members of his executive staff including then-First Deputy Superintendent Al Wysinger, then-Chief of Detectives John Escalante, then-Deputy Chief David McNaughton, the incident commander on the scene the night of the shooting who abruptly retired earlier this week, and others. Escalante also announced his retirement this week.

Gee whiz, that's quite the line-up. McCarthy (gone), Wysinger (gone), McNaughton (gone) and Escalante (gone).

The thing is, we can't believe that only four exempts participated in the meeting. When brass meet for something big, there's always eight or ten attending. It's usually the entire chain of command. If we remember correctly, it'd be something like this:

• Supernintendo (McCarthy)
• First Deputy (Wysinger)
• Chief of Patrol
• Deputy Chief of Patrol
• Chief of Detectives (Escalante)
• Area Chief Patrol
• Area Chief Detectives
• On Scene Incident Commander (McNaughton)
• Commander of involved member

Guess what just hit the comment sections?

• *This is just a rumor again* SCC, this is unf#ckingbelievable how this is unraveling in just days. CPD gets a message from the OIG saying to fire Gene Roy. CPD releases a statement announcing Gene's "age-related" retirement that same day. Too little too late. Last week Gene Roy was interrogated by the OIG. Friday Dan Herbert got an order from a judge to turn over the transcript of the interview. Roy was given a copy of a list of attendees at the post-shooting briefing after this incident and asked what each attendee said. It was an easy answer. Each attendee was asked by the chief of patrol and each attendee said "This shooting is justified." Eddie Johnson was an attendee. I REPEAT: EDDIE IS ON RECORD AS SAYING THIS WAS A JUSTIFIED SHOOTING. How the F%CK does this guy fire officers who did nothing more than appear on scene to appease the mayor? He thought this would save his girlfriend? F%CK YOU EDDIE. YOU ARE DONE. Hope you had a good time with the shortest term of a superintendent ever you dipsh*t. *This is just a rumor again*
• Holy shit Eddie is F$&&@d! Sworn testimony from multiple sources that Superintendent Johnson as Deputy Chief determined after viewing the video Van Dyke was justified. Either Eddie fires himself or this just went off the rails.

Oh yeah....the Chief of Patrol is always involved in these meetings.

Always.

And who was the Chief of Patrol?

So Roy and Special Ed were at this meeting, too? And they gave the shooting a "justified" rendering? Anyone see a tiny little problem here? Or is everyone seeing a giant f#$%ing issue with this?

Lovely Weekend

HeyJackass.com is still totaling the body count, but as of this evening, it stood at 8 dead and 48 wounded with about two hours to go.

We're thinking that those 200 arrests the Department was making missed a few of the bad guys.

Good Question

Missed this one earlier last week, but it's a fair question:

• The lawyer for the Chicago police officer charged with fatally shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald fired his first legal salvo at the prosecution case, asking Cook County prosecutors Thursday to specify how his client acted "without legal authority" when he shot McDonald 16 times.
  
  In the filing, attorney Daniel Herbert noted that the law gave Officer Jason Van Dyke "the authority to use force, including deadly force, in situations including but not limited to making an arrest and preventing escape."
  
  Herbert also asked prosecutors in the filing to identify "the particular shot or shots which killed Laquan McDonald."

As we understand it, this could make the First Degree murder charge to be invalid, something legal experts, lawyers and court watchers have said is probable, given the lack of premeditation.

This gives rise to the very real possibility we're seeing a Chicago version of Baltimore - overcharge to a political end to defuse a heated situation on the streets.

Chicago also risks a Baltimore-like backlash.

ISP Shooting

In Chicago, after a stolen car tried to hit a trooper:

• An Illinois State Police trooper shot and wounded a teenager in a stolen car Saturday evening after its driver attempted to run the trooper over, according to state police.
  
  Troopers on Saturday evening had been pursuing the vehicle, which was reported stolen at gunpoint in Chicago earlier in the day.
  
  The chase lasted until about 6:50 p.m., when the vehicle stopped in traffic on the Chinatown feeder ramp.
  
  State police approached it, at which point the driver attempted to run over a trooper, according to police.
  
  The trooper fired shots at the vehicle, which continued to drive away. The trooper was "fearing for his life," according to a statement from state police.

Some "good Samaritan" spotted the young 15-year-old scamp fleeing the scene and offered him a lift to Stroger where he was arrested. Two weapons were also recovered.

There are going to be a bunch of comparisons to the recent CPD shooting, but remember, these are two different agencies. We don't know the ISP policy and if it is more in line with State Law as opposed to being more restrictive as CPD is.

In any event, nice job by the trooper.

VRI Threats

So, anyone eager to work VRI?

• I really screwed up and want to explain what happened. I have just under 6 years on the job. I put in to work for VRI Labor Day weekend forgetting about the FOP asking us not to work. I called to cancel the day I was given (never got one before). I was told I would be suspended from the program for 6 months and a CR issued. I was told the City implemented this policy for only the Labor Day weekend. Is this for real or a scare tactic. No one from FOP called me back yet. If I end up working I plan to donate all my earnings for the day to the Chaplains Ministry.

A six month suspension for canceling with more than adequate notice? Sounds like the city is changing the rules in the middle of the game. Again.

Is there a way to grieve this so officers can get suspended for the six months, grieve it, win it as an unfair labor practice, then get paid for six months of VRI (three days per month, 18 days at time-and-one-half) for all the days you should have gotten? That would be a bit over $5,000 for not even working a single day.

SSL Fails

The "Heat List" doesn't prevent murder?

• Struggling to reduce its high murder rate, the city of Chicago has become an incubator for experimental policing techniques. Community policing, stop and frisk, "interruption" tactics — the city has tried many strategies. Perhaps most controversial and promising has been the city’s futuristic "heat list" — an algorithm-generated list identifying people most likely to be involved in a shooting.
  
  The hope was that the list would allow police to provide social services to people in danger, while also preventing likely shooters from picking up a gun. But a new report from the RAND Corporation shows nothing of the sort has happened. Instead, it indicates that the list is, at best, not even as effective as a most wanted list. At worst, it unnecessarily targets people for police attention, creating a new form of profiling.

Profiling?! Profiling??? We can't have that!

In the defense of the eggheads, we don't think the "heat list" was intended to prevent murders. But it was twisted to that end. It was nothing a dedicated and intelligent officer didn't do back in the day - know the players, know the game. Some of the best coppers we knew had networks of snitches, knew who was due for a violation, and kept track of the bangers so closely, they knew when someone's grandma was in the hospital - and they made sure they asked after her, too.

Then the gangs fractured. The old order went to jail and the young kids started running out of control. The city disbanded the gang unit and it got too complicated for single specialists to keep track of twenty different splinter groups. This "heat list" is just the natural outgrowth of trying to do more with less and calling it "efficiency."

It might have been efficient, too - if they left it alone. But they didn't.

• CPD wasn’t shy about touting the importance of the list, later rebranded as the Strategic Subjects List, or SSL. In 2014, the CPD official in charge of the program, Commander Jonathan Lewin, told The Verge: "This will inform police departments around the country and around the world on how best to utilize predictive policing to solve problems. This is about saving lives."
  
  But the study from RAND, which was granted extraordinary access to CPD when it launched the list in 2013, found that the program has saved no lives at all. The RAND researchers were allowed to view the list, sit in on internal meetings, and generally observe how the tool was being used. They discovered that CPD wasn’t using the list as a way to provide social services; instead, CPD was using it as a way to target people for arrest.
  
  "The individuals on the SSL were considered to be ‘persons of interest’ to the CPD," according to the report. "Overall ...there was no practical direction about what to do with individuals on the SSL, little executive or administrative attention paid to the pilot, and little to no follow-up with district commanders."

How many people got promoted exploiting this "heat list"? More than a few.

Getting a Jump on Labor Day

When in doubt, arrest everyone....and hope County keeps them for the next two weeks:

• Chicago police arrested more than 100 people on mostly felony drug and weapons charges, the latest in a series of raids since May as the city continues to struggle with a surge in violence.
  
  The operation was about six weeks in the making, police said. Officers from the Police Department's Bureau of Organized Crime made arrests from about 5 a.m. Thursday through Friday morning, targeting 15 gang factions selling narcotics and having illegal guns.
  
  The 101 arrests took place in 15 of the city's 22 police districts, mostly covering crime-ridden portions of the South and West sides.

And 100 more arrests are planned - not that this is a quota or anything. No, no, no.....this is a targeted effort! Pinkie swear.

No word on how many might be on the SSL list.

No Bail Money? No Problem

"Fundamentally transforming" the criminal justice system:

• Holding defendants in jail because they can't afford to make bail is unconstitutional, the Justice Department said in a court filing late Thursday — the first time the government has taken such a position before a federal appeals court, NBC News reported.
  
  It's the latest step by the Obama administration in encouraging state courts to move away from imposing fixed cash bail amounts and jailing those who can't pay.
  
  "Bail practices that incarcerate indigent individuals before trial solely because of their inability to pay for their release violate the Fourteenth Amendment," the Justice Department said in a friend of court brief, citing the Constitution's guarantee of equal protection.

So now what? A national I-bond system? Just proving again that democrats are soft on crime and eager to embrace the criminal element.

How it Went Down

From someone wired in:

• There were 7 people stripped yesterday: 4 officers, 1 detective, and 2 sergeants. The detective walked out of the room and resigned on the spot. One of the sergeants and one of the officers are most likely resigning too.
  
  That leaves 1 field sergeant and 3 coppers from 008 to fight for their jobs. IAD informed all that were stripped that this has been fast tracked to the Police Board and separation was being sought for all and that they should expect to be in a no pay status as soon as next week.
  
  Most involved were served by IG's office with upwards of 15-30 allegations and see little hope in gambling with their accrued CU which in a few instances is several thousand hours which cannot be touched once placed in no pay status and will be forfeited if the police board upholds the separation.
  
  The sergeant from 008 was never interviewed by the Feds, states attorneys, or brought to the grand jury. He was ordered 8 hours later to approve a case report without a narrative and review TRRs so the Deputy Chief could approve them. Four weeks ago the IG decided to serve him with 20 allegations alleging he took part in a cover up. Now he is stripped and facing separation.
  
  It's important that we stick together and keep this story alive so that we will not continue to be used as pawns in Rahm's sick game of chess. Also, it is highly likely that all will be charged with Official Misconduct by the Special Prosecutor, especially now that the department has branded this a cover up and tainted all involved as liars and co conspirators.

Sure looks like a lot of reversible error there, along with more than a little misconduct regarding the railroading....we mean the "investigation."

And all just to distract the media so nearly half-a-dozen cheaters from IAD can get away with stealing a promotion. Amazing that reporters never ask the questions that might show how corrupt the entire organization actually is - the watchers are the ones steering the ship with one hand while they loot the place with the other. They cover for the clouted and get "promoted" so they can keep covering for the future clouted.

It's the "Circle of the Connected Life."

Dart's Jail

Another great job by Tommy-Boy:

• Savage Life is what they call themselves — a gang of about 30 Cook County jail inmates.
  
  The sheriff’s office is trying to get them under control.
  
  Brad Curry is the Corrections Bureau Chief at the sheriff’s office. He deals with the inmates who call themselves Savage Life.
  
  “The name kind of says it all. The name is what their goal is: to have a savage life,” he says at the jail’s Division 9.

And this from a Cook County tipster:

• In a recent FOIA request the Sheriff's office admits 27% of staff/officers from division 9 are on Injury on Duty status.

So 30 jagoffs in a "secure" facility have somehow managed to injure nearly 30% of the staff that are supposedly in charge of the wing. That sounds like a pretty big problem.

And Dart's isn't just losing control of the jail - you heard about that judge letting a lawyer sit in and run her courtroom?

• A veteran Cook County Circuit Court judge allegedly allowed a lawyer who is running for election to the bench this fall to wear a robe and hear cases at the Markham courthouse late last week, a breach of judicial ethics as well as a potential violation of the law.
  
  The move prompted the county's chief judge, Timothy Evans, to remove the judge from the bench Wednesday until further notice.

You'd think someone would notice the judge wasn't sitting on the bench. A clerk. The State Attorney. Maybe a Deputy.

Oops, a Deputy did notice. And reported it. And was ignored:

• Sheriff's office attempted to cover-up Judge scandal at the Markham Courthouse. Numerous sources saying a Deputy wrote a memo stating Judge was allowing her friend to wear a robe and play Judge on the bench. The Deputy's memo was never reported by the Sheriff's office. The Sheriff's office is now claiming they did not know if Judge was running a "training" exercise. Numerous sources say this is a lie cause Sheriff Dart blew a gasket today in his office as he just learned the Deputy documented the incident.

Tommy "Wants to be Mayor" Dart.

Sgt Dumps?

Rumor out of Area Central:

• Boy o BOY
  
  all AREA central violent crime sergeant sent to HQ ALL day on 2nd watch!SHHHHH secret
  
  Heads will roll... Certain Sergent stripped calling in OLD favors from past SUPE(chubby).
  certain Sergeants have delicious files regarding previous cases.
  
  Special Ed receiving calls from Hilliard and Cline asking for clouted to be spared.
  Special Ed given script by Emmanuels Office of affairs.
  
  You didnt think you cane fire everyone did you eddie?

These are heavy people - people who know people....and things.

Separation Effort

And the last part of the "rumor" falls into place:

• Chicago's police superintendent has recommended that seven officers be fired for lying in the aftermath of the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald in October 2014.
  
  McDonald's death was captured in a video that contradicted the accounts of officers.
  
  Superintendent Eddie Johnson emailed police Thursday morning, telling them that he had recommended seven officers be fired for making false statements. He also stripped the officers of their police powers.
  
  Johnson's move came in response to Inspector General Joseph Ferguson's recent report on the shooting in which he recommended that 10 officers be fired. But Johnson wrote that he thought the evidence against one of the officers was insufficient to recommend termination.

This after all the gold stars were given adequate warning to line up six-figure jobs and retire with their pensions intact. Amazing how that happens.

So now, the Department is firing people for statements contradictory to the video? Were the officers allowed to review the video prior to signing statements? Were statement even signed or were Detective summaries of interviews used to "justify" this travesty?

Here's a neat little graphic:

What a video camera records from a fixed spot is different from what an officer may see ten feet to the left, twenty feet to the right, from behind cover, from a moving vehicle, from across the street. That doesn't make it wrong and it certainly doesn't make it criminal, let alone an offense deserving of separation. Johnson is playing politics with seven coppers lives while three or more exempts skate into secure futures.

Re-Arrange the Dick Chairs!

No, that headline isn't a misprint.

Lots of changes Thursday:

• Cmdr of Patrol Area Central - Frank Valdez
  Cmdr of Patrol - Area South - vacant
  Cmdr 002 - Crystal King
  Cmdr 005 - Varrick Douglas
  Cmdr 006 - Bill Bradley
  Cmdr 007 - Ken Johnson
  Cmdr 008 - Ron Pontecore
  Cmdr 010 - Jimmy Sanchez
  Cmdr 011 - Kevin Johnson
  Cmdr Vice - vacant
  Cmdr Public Transit - Cindy Samm
  Cmdr Detectives Area Central - Brendan Deenihan
  Cmdr Detectives Area South - Rodney Blissett
  Cmdr Airport - Thomas O'Brien
  
  Deputy Chief of Detectives - James Jones
  Deputy Chief of Patrol - George Devereux
  Deputy Chief of Organized Crime - Dana Alexander
  Deputy Chief of Patrol Area South - Lawrence Watson
  Deputy Chief of Special Functions - Eric Carter
  Deputy Chief of Detached Services - Steven Georgas
  Deputy Chief Street Operations - Terrence Williams
  Deputy Chief Street Operations - James O'Donnell
  Deputy Chief Street Operations - Kenneth Angarone
  
  Chief of Detectives - Melissa Staples
  
  First Deputy Superintendent - Kevin Navarro

And no demotions?

Everything must be going great!

Did we miss any?

What's Your SSL?

Oh wait, this isn't the Strategic Subject List. It's just something that bears close attention:

• In two Loop office buildings about eight blocks apart, a pair of University of Chicago research teams are analyzing big data to answer a thorny question that has become especially charged in recent months: Will a police officer have an adverse interaction with a citizen?
  
  The team from the university's Crime Lab is in the first stages of working with the Chicago Police Department to build a predictive data program to improve the department's Early Intervention System, which is designed to determine if an officer is likely to engage in aggressive, improper conduct with a civilian.
  
  The other team, part of U. of C.'s Center for Data Science & Public Policy, is expected to launch a data-driven pilot of an Early Intervention System with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department in North Carolina by the end of the summer. The center is working on similar efforts with the Los Angeles County sheriff's office and the Nashville and Knoxville police departments in Tennessee.

All of your interactions have been reduced to a cipher, a number, and that number will determine how the Department handles you, even absent any sort of concrete evidence.

They tried this years ago, and if we recall the number of clouted names on the "naughty" list scared the bosses so badly, they canned the program. You can't have the anointed ones stepping in shit - or being predicted to step in shit. That might short-circuit a lot of careers.

Keep an eye on this. The eggheads that came up with the SSL thing manage to hit a few homeruns....every-so-often - but if we had a list of 1,500 names with no oversight, we'd be in the Hall of Fame, too.

Horseshit Headline

We had no idea this was a requirement nowadays:

• Two of the Chicago police officers who were stripped of their police powers over the controversial killing of Paul O’Neal last month each have less than four years on the job and had never before fired a gun at a person while on duty, the Tribune has learned.

And? So?

We guess cops get a freebie before we're allowed to shoot at anyone? We know coppers with 30 years who have never ever fired a gun at a citizen, a foreigner or even a dog. We're going to imagine they're going to be a little pissed off.

We have a list - would that be inappropriate?

Does anyone know if the late offender had ever tried to steal cars before? Flee and elude police? Run over cops? All fair according to the Tribune.

How Many?

Fifty-one.

Fifty-one homicides in eighteen days.

Amazing that anyone down at HQ still has a job.

FOP Steps Up to the Phone

Someone (allegedly) called the FOP Wednesday and got this response:

• I called FOP today and I was asked, "How was I harmed?" The woman on the phone said that Dean is waiting for a call from Office of Legal Affairs. What a joke! More proof that Dean is in-bed with the Dept.

So from this, we can deduce that your private life can be dragged through the mud, your reputation besmirched, your career dead-ended or worse, and then, after the horse is out of the barn, the FOP step in and protect you from harm.

Um, what? We certainly hope this isn't true.

This was the Tribune on Wednesday:

• Chicago police officers' emails discussing the Laquan McDonald shooting can't be kept secret even though they were transmitted privately, a state official has decreed in what open-records advocates say is a solid step toward transparency on an issue that has roiled Illinois and reached as high as Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
  
  The binding opinion last week by Democratic Attorney General Lisa Madigan follows quickly on a May Cook County Circuit Court ruling that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's emails about separate issues aren't automatically exempt from disclosure even though sent on private devices.

That's because Rahm was (allegedly) conducting government business on private devices. So was Hillary. That's a no-no. But back to the subject, what e-mails? Who said there was e-mail? What evidence is there that any e-mails were composed, sent, received at all from this scene? Are there affidavits verifying any of these speculations?

If the investigators want to grab all Department generated e-mail, have at it. It's a government site with government addresses saved on a Department server. As far as we're concerned, it's government property. Same thing with in-car camera videos, same thing with body cameras, same thing with GPS - it's government property and the government is entitled to know where and what their property is doing. So is the taxpayer. We came to terms with that long ago. So did the Courts.

This is nothing more than an attempt by CNN among others to locate a "conspiracy" based on no evidence. Fishing.

But a private device? Well, you better have a bit more than "It was on the scene." If we tried this, in Court or in an investigative capacity, we'd have been fired years ago.

We've seen a whole bunch of debate going on the comment sections:

• It's evidence

Evidence of what? If that's your argument, what's to stop the police from confiscating every cell phone on a scene and inventorying it until such time as it can be unlocked and "evidence" downloaded? We'll bet those pesky cameras everyone is pointing at us will show a lot more "evidence" than we get talking to the "no snitching" members of the "community." The clearance rate might actually go up ten or twenty percent. But it's still fishing.

• Leave it in your locker

A department locker is government property and they're entitled to search it at any time without reason, cause or a warrant. Look it up. There's tons of precedent. And everyone signed a form when you were given a locker in your Unit

• They're going to get it anyway

Really? You're going to roll over? Even if you don't have anything substantive on the phone, you're just going to surrender your Rights to some asshole boss demanding your phone? What next, DNA sampling of all officers - after all, you might do something evil in the future, right?

Everyone has their limit, and sorry, but this one is ours. We lost our phone, we left it at home, we don't own one, prove it was on scene, etc. We've got a dozen explanations ready to go. If we contacted a lawyer, priest, doctor or spouse, we're pretty sure that all of that is privileged. How can anyone be sure it stays that way?

What is the ACLU's opinion? We can't even speak to or touch a citizen on the streets without jumping through hoops and documenting it, but Lisa Madigan can create policy out of thin air, based on laws written twenty or thirty years ago and the Department is going to try to stick this on the working copper? Let's see the ACLU attorneys argue for the police for once.

The FOP and PBPA should stop reading the Obama playbook and start leading from the front - this is a serious issue and deserves serious attention and action.

This Asshole Again?

Just weeks ago, this asshat was railing against what he called the "self-appointed" Friends of the Parks for daring to criticize a multi-billionaire who wanted to build an Ego Monument to himself on our lakefront. The billionaire was shoveling money at the bought-and-paid-for asshole solely for his bully pulpit.

Now once again, he wants to negotiate a labor contract, in effect "self-appointing" himself to this position in place of elected officials and in essence, having zero standing at all:

• Activist priest Father Michael Pfleger is calling for an overhaul of Chicago police contracts and for someone outside the Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration to represent the public in negotiations with the Fraternal Order of Police union.
  
  "We must make sure this bargaining agreement being done now does not protect the bad cop," Pfleger said Tuesday.

How, pray tell, does any contract protect the so-called "bad cop"? Guaranteeing due process? Protecting them from the lynching? Ensuring that Rights are not trampled by politicians catering to the whims of the mob?

• With Rev. Jesse Jackson at his side, Pfleger called on Emanuel to include public representatives - aldermen perhaps - in negotiations with the police union.

Oh lordy, someone wheeled Jesse out of irrelevancy. Guess the #blm people were busy commuting to/from Milwaukee instead of stealing Jesse's microphone like last time.

• How Chicago police are investigated and disciplined is largely governed by past labor agreements negotiated by city lawyers.
  
  "The community is the one that suffers if the union agreement is something that protects bad officers," Pfleger said.
  
  "Make the rules transparent for the people. I hope the mayor will hear our moral appeal," Jackson said.

And the officer suffers if the rules aren't applied equally and fairly across the board. Has this happened in the past? Nope, that's why there's a Contract - the City always operated (and continues to operate) in bad faith. If everyone operated on the up-and-up, there would be little need to spell out exactly how an investigation is expected to proceed. But that doesn't happen, so lawyers have to walk the City through the proper procedures.

• The activists said the union contract not only makes it difficult for citizens to complain about police misconduct, but it also does not allow the department to reward police officers who act as whistleblowers. Additionally, under the current union agreement most officer disciplinary records are destroyed after five years.

Um...difficult how? By placing your name to a Complaint and swearing that it's true? That's kind of a requirement to get any sort of conviction in Criminal Court and a regular occurrence in Civil Court when giving testimony. So the "community" doesn't want to swear to tell the truth? How odd.

And if these assholes haven't been paying attention, that "destroyed after five years" bullshit? Yeah, the City violated that part of the Contract nine ways to Sunday - they've been releasing CR files dating all the way back to the 1960's just last month - long before we were even born. And the Courts just issued an injunction barring any/all destruction of files due to the D.O.J. inquires and investigations, but you can't expect the media to actually pay attention to facts.

Someone needs to put this cockroach in his place. Someone representing the rank-and-file. Something along the lines of:

• "The FOP negotiates with the City representatives and lawyers, not some "self appointed" windbag who sells his voice to the highest bidder. The negotiated contract is submitted to the duly elected representatives of the City of Chicago, who receive input from their constituents via normal channels and then the entire package is voted upon by the City Council."

Then someone can call Blase and remind him about the separation of Church and State and minding his flock.

Cell Phone Arrives

Word from the Districts:

• ...went into work today and guess what was sitting in the Lt's office? If you said a bright, shiny, brand spanking new cheap ass flip phone marked [...] Watch Operations Lieutenant Phone, you win a prize!
  
  These basic little numbers were delivered to all the districts and the BOP says they are for use by supervisors in the field. ONE cell phone.
  
  [...] On the days when there is no field lieutenant, a sergeant is supposed to get the phone.

Golly.

One whole phone.

Anyone knows what happens when there are, say, two shootings? Happens all the time lately, even up north. Running the Department on the cheap again. Don't expect any quick information bosses - CPIC and all their house-mice are going to have to wait for the information.

Don't Blame CFD

They aren't the ones asking for CPD assists on everything:

• I've been reading SCC since nearly the beginning, and this question has routinely popped up....
  
  The average beat copper needs to understand that the great majority of the time that it is not a fire suppression company or ambulance on the street making the request.....
  
  911 calls are answered by OEMC calltakers on the police side first, then if fire/ambo is needed they'll transfer the call to a fire calltaker.....
  
  The PD calltaker typically stays on the line and waits for the fire calltaker to get the information....after the call is completed, the PD side will ususally ask if they want CPD to ride on the call....of course, the fire calltaker will want to CYA and say yes....
  
  There has been many a time a car shows up and asks why we called, and other than a note with a CPD cross refenence number, we usually have no idea if you're coming or not...
  
  I would hope that somewhere along the line that they would change the priority as it's dispatched on the PD side to indicate if the call came from a company that is on scene vs the CYA from the calltaker......
  
  We know how much BS you respond to, and do not want to add to the chaos on your end.....vests or not......

The OEMC protocols are hopelessly outdated. We've said this time and time again - as have our readers, as have the CFD visitors, as have citizens who stumble in on occasion. 9-1-1 is sending out too many calls that don't require the police.

Some are caught by supervisors, but in this age of "sue everyone," and "liability!" we're still getting calls about junior won't go to school, somebody needs to be put out (evicted), burglaries discovered days later, suicidal pigeons in the roadway, etc. All these calls do is build on the backlog, and we've already beat the "manpower" thing to death. Help isn't coming, and the help that is here is stretched to the breaking point.

If some useless gold star wants to make some sort of impact on the Department that might actually do some good, revamp the 9-1-1 call taking. We're so far gone from OW Wilson's mantra "every call gets a police response." We need to start telling people, "Solve your own damn social problems" and streamline the 3-1-1 non-emergency system.

This Makes Sense

In Bizarro World:

• Chicago Public Schools has 1,000 teaching vacancies to fill before the 2016-2017 school year begins on Sept. 6. The district held a career fair Wednesday at the South Shore Cultural Center....

But just twelve days ago, this was the headline:

• Chicago Public Schools is laying off more than 500 teachers and another 500 school-based staff members, the district said Friday.

We understand some of it is due to enrollment changes and staffing arrangements, but it seems like a giant waste of paper, man-hours and of course, money...always in short supply around the schools.

Officer Wounded

Shooter was.....wait for it.....a parolee!

• A man out on parole for armed robbery shot at and grazed a Chicago police officer investigating a possible carjacking Tuesday night on the Far South Side, authorities said.
  
  The man was driving a car that matched one reported stolen earlier in the evening when the officer and his partner spotted him in the 600 block of East 100th Place just after 10 p.m., police said.
  
  The officers tried to stop him, but the man stuck a gun out the window and fired shots at the squad car, according to a statement from the Chicago Police Department. One bullet struck the squad car and grazed an officer in the face, it said.
  
  Officers in another car returned fire, and the suspect fired several times at the second police car, police Superintendent Eddie Johnson said.
  
  [Johnson immediately stripped all the officers involved and confiscated their cell phones.]

We may have added that last part.

Officer is having his face attended to. Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

Cell Phone Judicial Order

You know how the bosses are screaming for all the shooting information from a scene? The DSS, the Watch Lieutenant, downtown - everyone wants everything ten minutes ago so that more paperwork can be generated and everyone in the chain of command can look important.

This came down just this week:

• Please let the troops know that a judicial order was entered yesterday granting access to the PERSONAL CELL PHONES of ALL officers on the scene of the Paul ONeil shooting.
  
  Let me be clear: access was granted for the ENTIRE PHONE, not just for cell phone records. In addition there was no restriction placed regarding time parameters to include the time up to and just after the incident. Basically, if so ordered, the officer must turn over the phone and all its contents including pictures, texts, etc.
  
  Tell the officers to make notifications over the air or on a department cell phone or landline. There should no longer be a need for speed.

This isn't the first time cell phones have been subpoenaed in police shootings - the baseball bat shooting in 011 resulted in some embarrassing messages being revealed that were sent TO, not BY the officers.

This is ridiculous. We need a Search Warrant to go through a jagoff's phone, but ours is fair game just because it happened to be on the scene? No Reasonable Articulable Suspicion? No Probable Cause? No Warrant? What if we texted a lawyer? The spouse? Those are privileged communications.

We've stated this many times - police are not above the law, but we aren't under it either, and this seems to be a complete overreach on the part of a single judge regarding something that (in this political climate) may turn into a criminal proceeding. Not acceptable.

First up, the FOP and the PBPA ought to be filing injunctions against this immediately.

Second, no one should be making any sort of notifications from any scene. If the DSS or the Lieutenant need info, they can come to the scene and get it or they can wait until the paper car gets to the station.

Third, since we're all going to be checking out body cameras shortly, we should check out a Department issued cell phone. That way, all the pertinent communications are on a government owned device and can be archived in existence with Department regulations - like Hillary kept track of all her e-mails.

We'd like an iPhone 6 or better.

UPDATE: They're grabbing private e-mails too:

• Chicago police officers' emails discussing the Laquan McDonald shooting can't be kept secret even though they were transmitted privately, a state official has decreed in what open-records advocates say is a solid step toward transparency on an issue that has roiled Illinois and reached as high as Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
  
  The binding opinion last week by Democratic Attorney General Lisa Madigan follows quickly on a May Cook County Circuit Court ruling that Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel's emails about separate issues aren't automatically exempt from disclosure even though sent on private devices.

These are your personal e-mails, so that racy joke you thought was so funny? Discoverable. That sexist picture you e-mail blasted all over the place? Discoverable. That hot date you were describing to someone? Yeah, discoverable, too. And every automatic notification or mailing list you get from the gun companies, the dating sites and social media - which opens another can of worms.

Your electronic life has just become an open book to the government and to plaintiff attorneys. You only get a pass if your last name is "Clinton."