80 for June

With a day to go, Chalkie blew past last year's total of 76 in style.

The year is still down a few homicides, but the heaviest totals are the next two months before throttling down for the Back to School gang recruitment drives.

We aren't sure how to estimate the 04 July "weekend" seeing as how the Fourth is on a Tuesday. HeyJackass.com has their counter up and running - last year was a mere 6 homicides, but over 60 shot. That's well within striking distance of this year's trends, but we don't want to give Chicago a full 5 days to cover.

Hiring Lull

There's almost no chance Rahm is going to hit his "100 a month" goal.

There's even less of a chance that the media will call him out on it.

The Academy is almost vacant due to the run-up to training the entire Department in a three-month span on the new Non-Use of Force. And prospects for hiring aren't looking good once the training is over:

• Rahm claimed that 15,000 people signed up for the latest police test, touting minority outreach and recruitment;
• Final tally? Only 7,437 tests were graded.

That's under 50% participation, even with the City waiving the fee in many cases. From past experience, 

• around 60% pass (down to 4462)
• half of that total don't bother with any further testing (2231)
• 25% fail background and drug testing (1673)

Unless Rahm is lowering the bar completely, this list is done by winter.

Murderer on Electronic Monitoring?

Kind of looks like it:

• 2017-0606001 Kennedy, Keanna K 07/12/1985
  BK Female 505 212
  Booked Date 06/06/2017 DIV17-SFFP-SFFP-General
  *NO BOND*
  Charges
  720 ILCS 5/9-1(a)(1)
  MURDER/INTENT TO KILL/INJURE
  
  Next Court Date Court House Location
  06/26/2017 Markham
  Markham
  
  Isn't SFFP the furlough program aka EM? I may be wrong because I don't work for the county.

SFFP is the Sheriff Female Furlough Program. And reading through the comments, she got a $75,000 bond for murder, someone posted the 10% and she's out with a ankle bracelet. Amazing the lengths Dart will go to in order to empty the jail.

And speaking of the jail, another Corrections Officer was attacked and will be needing reconstructive surgery. Attacks on guards have totaled over 400 this year alone and Dart is getting ripped to shreds on underground blogs. This needs to go public in a big way.

When the Money Dries Up...

At least we'll have these:

Cheaper than gas.

Sanctuary!!!

Wait...that's wrong. We meant, "Limited Immunity!!!"

• A judge ruled Wednesday that statements Chicago Officer Jason Van Dyke made to a detective investigating the shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald could be used against him at trial.
  
  For the first time, Van Dyke, 39, took the stand. He testified for 45 minutes during a pre-trial hearing at Cook County courthouse that aimed to determine whether comments he made to Det. David March and Cmdr. David McNaughton, both retired, could be used.
  
  Both March and McNaughton were granted limited immunity for their testimony, which cannot be used against them in any other legal proceeding.
  
  The judge determined that comments to March, who was indicted Tuesday with two other officers for obstructing the McDonald investigation, could be admissible, but ruled against comments made to McNaughton.

The judge is playing with Garrity Rules here and the unions representing all officers better be paying very close attention to this. Compelled testimony is banned in US Courts. It's also specifically stated in the Constitution that one cannot be compelled to give testimony against oneself. If Van Dyke believed his statements to the Detective were "compelled" and "under duress," then he has a Right to have those statements looked at and judged in the most beneficial light to his defense and his state of mind.

It seems obvious that the prosecution, rightly fearing an acquittal or hung jury, is looking to flip any officer (or exempt) by threatening them with Official Misconduct or pension forfeiture, by means of violating Garrity protections for all members, now and in the future.

This Sounds Familiar

But how could that be? The article describes a completely different city:

• Baltimore's police union expressed their frustration on Wednesday that the city doesn't have a plan to crack down on crime.
  
  The Baltimore City Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) issued a release that unleashed searing criticism toward the city for not really doing anything after FOP warned about the Baltimore Police Department (BPD) being "critically understaffed" as crime soared in the city.
  
  "In reaction to this surge in violence, and in particular the recent six homicides in a 24-hour period, Police Commissioner Kevin Davis cancelled leave and placed our officers on 12 hours of duty in order to stem the violence," the release stated. "This, however, is merely a stopgap measure and not a long-term plan of action, a plan to fight crime that the Baltimore Police Department still doesn't have in place."
  
  The release added that stretching out the understaffed police's hours has caused the officers to be "fatigued and morale continues to decline."

Very very familiar.

Good Point

Paging through our most recent FOP newsletter/magazine, we find this point made in the President's column:

• "Take a close look at the Inspector General's report. On one hand, the report cites the fact that officers are accumulating comp time, something that costs the City too much, he argues. But at the same time, officers throughout the City complain they can never get time off."

This is especially timely in light of the list of cancelled and/or restricted time off for the next few weekends. The Department is racking up OT at an amazing clip once again. We've been offered OT last week for Pride weekend, from 01 July through 05 July for the holiday. We fully expect to be offered even more in coming weekends for various festivals and parades.

But god forbid we even try to extend on of those weekends for a family event. The IG is trying to have Rahm's cock cake and eat it, too.

Start (massive) hiring or quit bitching when you're making up the shortages on our backs.

More Pension Questions

This article is from actual accountants:

• Chicago City Wire recently published a story projecting that the pension fund for Chicago police would run dry in several years, absent new taxpayer subsidies.
  
  Reacting to the story, a police union representative reportedly sent an email to union members that included “This is not true. Current actuarial projections prepared for the pension fund do not include a time at which the fund has depleted all assets. The media failed to mention that Illinois law mandates that the pension be funded at 90 percent by the year 2055.”
  
  Let’s take a look at some of those actuarial projections, shall we?

And their look at the numbers isn't promising. We're certainly concerned, as all members should be, especially as the State teeters on the brink of insolvency and Chicago is right there, too. We'd like some guarantees from the elected representation - not statements of "Trust Rahm and State Law."

Grievance?

Anyone know if the boys and girls at the Gun Lab have a grievance with the Department farming out evidence collection and analysis of brass? Especially when the Federal van has to return to Homan Square anyway to use city electricity to run their gamma spectromoeters, gas chromographs, nuclear accelerators, etc.

It certainly would seem to be grounds for some sort of concern.

Foxxx Jumps In

SCC EXCLUSIVE. MUST CREDIT SCC.

As part of the Rahm, Durbin, Special Ed crime fighting initiative, SCC has learned that Kim Foxxx is deploying County assets to assist the new ATF Van:

It's already been seen on the south side, awaiting a tow truck.

What Cops Know Redux

We always liked this book:

It didn't inspire us or move us. We liked it for a single reason...or many single reasons if you want to be specific.

We knew these guys.

Not all of them, but we met with and worked with more than a couple. A few were guest speakers at the Academy. We met many others via old-timers and family gathering and mutual friends. Some were our bosses. We heard a lot of these war stories before they ever saw print and it was kind of cool to see them again, years later, wearing the same uniform that they wore.

Reporter Peter Nickeas, no relation to the Nickeas on the job, has done an updated version to the original book, taking a much smaller sample and no biographies the way Fletcher did at the end of every chapter of her book. It's amusing to see how much has changed....and how much hasn't.

UPDATE: This particular story amused us to no end:

• One cop I know had a gambling problem. We would not let him handle money for the golf outing ’cause it wouldn’t turn out right. We didn’t want him on a search warrant. If we did, we had to fucking hold the money ourselves. So, yeah, I was actually surprised they made him a commander.

They never did get that money back from Bubblehead, did they? One of McCompStat's biggest promotional errors ever.

Witch Hunt Continues

Not unexpected, but obviously a scalp-hunting expedition:

• In a historic move sure to be watched nationwide, three current or former Chicago Police officers are facing criminal charges in an alleged cover-up to protect Officer Jason Van Dyke, who fatally shot 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.
  
  Special prosecutor Patricia Brown Holmes on Tuesday announced a three-count grand jury indictment charging patrol officers Joseph Walsh and Thomas Gaffney and detective David March with conspiracy, obstruction of justice and official misconduct.
  
  Holmes accused the trio of allegedly filing false accounts of the October 2014 shooting to keep Van Dyke from being accused of any wrongdoing. She also said the three failed to interview witnesses who might have contradicted their faulty version of events.

That last line really get us:

• ...the three failed to interview witnesses who might have contradicted their faulty version of events.

In what world are officers interviewing "witnesses" involved in a shooting that they might also be witnesses in? Highly unlikely under any circumstances.

Second, aren't the aldercreatures, mayor, political cronies and assorted bad activists insisting that officers NOT be allowed to view any sort of video before giving statements to IPRA/COPA? On one hand, they want to trick-bag every copper they can by getting instantaneous statements and then firing them all for Rule 14 violations. And on the other hand, they're indicting coppers for not interviewing witnesses that might assist recollections which could be characterized as "witness intimidation" by hostile attorneys should memories be different.

Still not a single question of the exempt panel that cleared the shooting as "justified." Who was on that panel again? Oh yeah....Special Ed. The rest retired with full pensions somehow. And how about the political actor who hid the tape for a year and pushed a $5 million dollar settlement before a lawsuit was even filed? Some 9.5 fingered hobgoblin.....what's his name?

More Questions Than Answers

We're not saying that to be smart asses as we were when Special Ed spouted his nonsense before driving the bus over some officers. We're truly confused as to the entire series of events that led to two unnecessary deaths:

• A high-speed collision that killed an off-duty Chicago cop and a woman on the West Side began when police tried to pull over the officer's Jeep because it resembled one that had been involved in a carjacking, authorities said.
  
  Officers in an unmarked police car tried to stop the off-duty officer around 1 a.m. Tuesday at Roosevelt Road and Independence Boulevard, according to chief police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi. But the off-duty officer fled and collided with a car at Roosevelt and Kostner Avenue, less than a mile away.
  
  The officer's SUV rolled on its side, and the other car was crushed by the impact. Both the officer and the woman driving the other car were killed.

Sympathies to the 010th District on the loss of their co-worker. Prayers for his family. And condolences to the family of the woman killed in the collision.

Idle speculation will be deleted out of hand.

Help is On The Way!

This is some sort of a joke, right?

• Six months after President Donald Trump threatened to "send in the feds" to combat gun and gang violence in Chicago, the city is finally getting new federal crime-fighting resources, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced Monday.
  
  Emanuel, U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin and Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson announced that the Department of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms had deployed a high-tech van in Chicago that can immediately test guns and shell casings at crime scenes throughout the city, according to a statement from the mayor's office.
  
  "I'm glad the feds have arrived," Durbin said at the press conference at the Deering police district headquarters.
  
  The van first hit Chicago's streets three weeks ago, and is scheduled to remain in the city until the end of July — but Emanuel, Johnson and Durbin said they would ask Attorney General Jeff Sessions to allow the van to stay until Labor Day.

Did you know that the CPD has the exact same equipment that's in the van? It's over at the gun lab at Homan Square, 3rd floor, above the "black site." In fact, the lab can run the same tests and comparisons that the van does, in the exact same amount of time, it's just that you have to transport the evidence to the lab - which is the job of the undermanned Evidence Techs.

The van has the same equipment - except it runs on a 220 volt line....which the van doesn't have. So guess what it has to do? If you guessed "Drive back to Homan Square and hook into a 220 volt power source," well, you're smarter than Rahm Emanuel, Dick "Turban" Durbin and Special Ed who are running a sleight-of-hand number on the press, who are eating it up.

Did anyone ask what use it is to run these tests without the gun used? It might be impressive to match bullets and brass from multiple crime scenes to a single firearm, but without the gun and a shooter to connect it to (and you know Kim Foxxx isn't going to charge anyone without (A) multiple eyewitnesses and (B) a confession on video) then this is just a great big expenditure that will do nothing to reduce crime.

This is Interesting

Retail establishments have some odd policies. In many cases, they won't employ security people, and even if they do, the "loss prevention" people aren't allowed to actually prevent losses, and routinely get fired for violating "store policy." So this isn't surprising at all:

• The family of an Uber driver who was hacked to death while on the job has sued Walmart, where authorities said the driver's teenage attacker stole weapons — a machete and knife — moments before the killing.
  
  Grant Nelson's family filed suit in Cook County court Monday against Walmart and two companies that handled security for the retailer's Skokie store. Authorities allege that 16-year-old Eliza Wasni stole the machete and the knife from a Walmart about 3 a.m. May 30, then got into Nelson's car and hacked and stabbed him to death moments into the ride.
  
  The wrongful death lawsuit said Walmart's security contractors were negligent because they failed to stop Wasni, question her or ask her to show a receipt as she allegedly left the store carrying the weapons.
  
  According to the lawsuit, two Walmart employees or contractors were standing immediately in front of the door as Wasni exited, passing within feet of them.
  
  Walmart said in a statement that its associates "acted properly."

"Act[ing] Properly must mean "let a shoplifter exit the store with a pair of edged weapons and make zero effort to stop her or hurt her feelings in any manner, regardless of the fact that she went outside to stab a man to death."

If someone can just walk into any location, take what they want, and walk out, then the entire economic system and social construct fails. Which is being demonstrated on a daily basis here in town we guess. It also doesn't seem to be a socially responsible corporate policy.

Trust City Government?

This is a misstep by the FOP:

• The Fraternal Order of Police Lodge No. 7, the Chicago Police Department union, responded to projections estimating the Policemen’s Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago will require a taxpayer bailout to pay for retiree benefits in four years.
  
  Local Government Information Services (LGIS), which owns this publication, released estimations that the police pension fund will experience a major loss in funding by the beginning of 2021 because of higher wages and promises of higher pensions.
  
  “The lodge has received many inquiries regarding the status of the pension fund in response to media claims that it is in danger of running out of money in the near future,” FOP #7 President Kevin Graham wrote in an email to members. “This is not true. Current actuarial projections prepared for the pension fund do not include a time at which the fund has depleted all assets. The media failed to mention that Illinois law mandates that the pension be funded at 90 percent by the year 2055.”
  
  FOP No. 7 declined to comment further for this story.

The City hasn't made the correct actuarial adjustments to the pension contribution in over two decades. What makes Graham think they're going to start now? A silly little thing like a state law?

If the money isn't there, it isn't there. Rahm is spending money on everything except pensions. We still haven't seen an inch of progress on a supposed casino. The Contract expires in a few days and we don't see the City budging much on the financial end of things...not without major disciplinary concessions, which thankfully, the FOP has so far refused to discuss. And oh yeah, the State itself is on the verge of three years without a budget, meaning hundreds of millions earmarked for Chicago aren't available.

And Graham thinks the best idea is to trust a state law Rahm has shown no intention of following?

Hang Up

Imagine if we instituted this in Chicago - crime would really start to drop off:

• A former 911 operator in Houston has admitted hanging up on emergency calls "because she did not want to talk to anyone at that time."
  
  Supervisors at the Houston Emergency Center discovered that operator Crenshanda Williams, 43, had been involved with thousands of calls lasting 20 seconds or less. The incidents occurred between October 2015 and March 2016, reports KPRC.
  
  Williams has been charged with a misdemeanor for interference with an emergency phone call. If convicted, she could face a year in jail and a $4,000 fine for each count.

They've connected her to at least one death and countless other non-answers by police due to her just hanging up on 911 callers. Seems like she fit into Rahm's and Special Ed's style flawlessly.

Police as Firefighters

This has been discussed here on occasion, more as a joke than anything else, but someone actually took it seriously:

• Do you lie awake at night in constant fear a fire will break out and nothing will be done to put it out?
  
  For the 99% of the population not suffering from pyrophobia or a similar neurosis, the answer to that question is “no,” even though firefighters aren’t patrolling the streets in their big red trucks. They still manage to arrive at the scene of a fire within minutes of an emergency call.
  
  Why can’t police departments be run the same way?

We're of the opinion that a sizable portion of the Department has already self-initiated this course of action. Arrests are down, tickets are down, interactions with the public are down, supposedly, lawsuits are down. The progressive vision of a regressive police force has become reality.

The link to the Huffington Post is full of the usual liberal tripe, mis-characterizations and lies. But one shocking conclusion will end up giving liberals the vapors:

• Here’s the catch: you can’t have a free society where this “protection” occurs in advance. The federal and every state constitution assumes the government can’t and shouldn’t do anything to prevent a crime. The Fourth and Fifth amendments were written to keep the government from even trying. They assume the government is powerless until a crime has already occurred, the Fourth in particular providing further restraint on how the government investigates after the fact.
  
  Defending oneself while a crime is occurring is left to the citizen. It’s not a responsibility of the police. Even the Supreme Court agrees. Protecting oneself is what the Second Amendment is all about.

Imagine that -someone who is beginning to understand the reasons behind the Constitution.

Car is NOT a Weapon

Never ever ever:

• A Chicago police officer and a woman were injured in a hit-and-run on the South Side Sunday morning and a person of interest is in custody, police said.
  
  Police said officers were handling a possible domestic dispute at about 2:20 a.m. when a maroon-colored vehicle came speeding down the 6800-block of South State Street and struck a 43-year-old officer and a 24-year-old woman who he was interviewing in the street. The driver then took off, police said.
  
  The officer was treated and released from the hospital Sunday afternoon, while the woman remained hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries.

Best wishes to the Officer for a quick recovery. And if someone could forward this link to Special Ed and the other morons rewriting the Non-Use of Force police who think cars are harmless, we'd appreciate it.

Good News!

Chicago isn't a cauldron of bloodshed and mayhem!

• It’s common knowledge that Chicago is one of the nation’s most dangerous cities when it comes to gun violence. But that’s only because it has one of the highest populations.
  
  A non-profit news outlet that focuses on gun coverage called The Trace, found that in gun violence per capita, Chicago isn’t even in the top 10 — or the top 15.
  
  Miami, Washington, D.C. and other metro areas are worse. And here are the absolute worst: New Orleans is on top, followed by Detroit, St. Louis, Baltimore and Oakland.
  
  You have to go all the way down to number 18 to find Chicago, right behind Pittsburgh.

We're sure that's a great comfort to the 320 or so dead in Chicago this year, and the 800 last year.

• The report points out that Chicago does have the most homicides but its murder rate per capita is one third as high as New Orleans.

Oh, that. Numbers can mean anything if you torture them enough.

More Money

Anything to relieve parents of actual responsibility for their spawn:

• Chicago Public Schools is serving up free lunches for kids during summer break.
  
  Starting Monday, children 18 and under can stop by 96 locations across the city for a meal as part of the CPS LunchStop summer meal program.
  
  Locations will be open Mondays through Fridays between 10:30 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. until Aug. 25.

Remember this when Rahm is claiming the city is broke and the CPS needs to raise their portion of the property taxes their maximum again. FOP, are you taking notes?

Well Done Officer

Right place, right time, quick thinking:

• A Chicago man is grateful to be alive after collapsing on a basketball court.
  
  Doctors say he’s only alive because of the actions of a heroic Chicago police officer who says, he’s "always on duty"

Read the whole article for specifics, but very well done Officer. Around 10 full minutes of CPR is exhausting, but it saved this man's life.

Ethics Time!

Once again, it's time for the unfailable test that everyone is required to take, but only aldercreatures can ignore. In fact, there seems to be an entirely new section in the test that allows aldercreatures to accept World Series tickets, free of reporting requirements, should that happy occasion ever arise again.

In honor of the IAD non-cheating scandal, we got this handy study guide from someone identifying themselves as "GWilliams:"

• I - yes, no, yes, yes, yes, no
• II - no, yes, yes
• III - no, yes, yes, yes
• IV - no, no, yes, yes

Good luck - you'll have no problem scoring 100% with this assistance, just like "lieutenant" Hall.

Not a Chase

But you can bet police will be blamed somehow:

• A woman was killed in a crash early Saturday in the Englewood neighborhood when the driver of an SUV collided with her car while speeding away from a police stop.
  
  About 1:05 a.m., officers on patrol heard gunshots and stopped a white Kia SUV as it came out of an alley in the 5700 block of South LaSalle, according to Chicago Police.
  
  A passenger in the SUV, identified as 29-year-old Richard Johnson, was told to get out of the vehicle while the officers investigated, police said. When Johnson stepped out, the male driver of the SUV sped away south and crashed into a Ford Focus in the 5900 block of South LaSalle.
  
  The driver of the SUV ran off after the crash and has not been located, police said.

Barely enough time to secure the passenger and maybe radio a description out? And then it's over. Blame the criminal this time - please. It would be a welcome change.

Repeat Gun Offender Law

Discretion seems to be still left to the judges:

• Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner and Democrats orchestrated a brief reprieve from their fighting Friday as they touted a new law to crack down on repeat gun offenders.
  
  Rauner inked his approval to the legislation at a hastily arranged signing ceremony in his Capitol office, a day after his staff accused Democrats of holding onto the bill in order to deny the governor a chance to celebrate the political accomplishment.
  
  The governor called lawmakers to Springfield for a 10-day special session, during which Democrats have cast the governor as unwilling to negotiate and incapable of completing a political deal.
  
  The new gun law was long sought by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, whose relationship with the governor also has been strained. Emanuel and Chicago Police Department Superintendent Eddie Johnson pushed the measure as a way to help reduce crime in the city.
  
  The legislation changes gun sentencing laws so that instead of a range of three to 14 years for some repeat gun crimes, judges would hand out sentences of seven to 14 years. If they want to depart from that guideline, they will have to explain why.

So will Foxxx's people be allowed to ask for the maximums? And will judges actually assign the maximums? We highly doubt it.

Cops Injured in Crash

The west side blew up - Friday night, who would have guessed? And there was a crash:

• A crash involving a Chicago Police vehicle Friday night on the West Side sent four officers and another person to hospitals.
  
  About 9:20 p.m., officers turned on their vehicle’s emergency equipment in the East Garfield Park neighborhood when they saw a vehicle in the 3000 block of West Madison that was wanted in connection with an investigation, according to Chicago Police.
  
  As the officers were traveling south on Sacramento, a black SUV traveling east on Madison struck the police vehicle on the passenger side, police said. The SUV then hit another vehicle that was stopped in traffic.

From this preliminary story, it appears the officers were riding four-deep in the squad, which again goes to show how notoriously short of even the most basic equipment the Department is.

Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

Econ 101 Again

The Cook County Soda Tax is about to take effect, and so will another demonstration of Economics 101 to ignorant politicians.  Toni Prickwrinkle was on the news yesterday talking about how she had surveyed other places that a beverage tax had been implemented and "discovered" soda consumption was down, thereby improving the public's health. The trouble is, consumption wasn't down - people shopped elsewhere where the tax wasn't as onerous, but that doesn't fit her busybody government narrative.

It ties into a question we asked around a week ago - has anyone in the media even tried to research what effect the Gun and Ammo tax had on crime? Or how much was actually collected? Here's a story not getting much coverage:

• When the City of Seattle passed a tax on all sales of guns and ammunition, the measure was hailed as a way to defray the rising costs of gun violence.
  
  But since the tax took effect, those costs have only risen as gun violence in the city has surged. And the tax has apparently brought in much less than city leaders projected it would.
  
  [...] Seattle City Councilman Tim Burgess introduced the tax in 2015. It puts a $25 tax on every firearm sold in the city and up to 5 cents per round of ammunition. The measure easily passed and took effect January 1, 2016. Comparing the first five months of 2017 with the same period before the gun tax went into effect, reports of shots fired are up 13 percent, the number of people injured in shootings climbed 37 percent and gun deaths doubled, according to crime statistics from the Seattle Police Department.

That is almost exactly the same tax scheme Prickwrinkle put into effect - and the crime increases are similar, too. And how much revenue did it produce in Seattle?

• In selling his gun tax to the public, Burgess predicted it would generate between $300,000 and $500,000 annually. The money would be used to study the root causes of gun violence in hopes of reducing the costs to taxpayers.
  
  Seattle officials refuse to say how much the tax brought in the first year, only giving the number “under $200,000.” Gun rights groups have sued to get the exact amount.

So Prickwrinkle probably has a hole in her budget from over-estimating the "violence" tax and is about to have another one from the soda tax. Shortshanks did the same thing with his bottled water tax - sales plummeted in the city and skyrocketed in the suburbs, costing the city probable millions at a dime per.

And once again, the media isn't doing any sort of follow-up.

2017 Ties 2016

Via HeyJackass.com

• A cool and wet May helped tamp down the stupidity a bit which was good enough for “at least it’s not as bad as last year”. Now a warmer and therefore more violent June has been running up the score and as of this post, 2017 has now once again tied 2016. Of course this is “unacceptable” and we’ll be on the lookout for new strategies, including but not limited to further depletion of police manpower from the non-warzone parts of town and accelerated development of a supervillan weather control device. 

June will have to finish with a bang (haha) to maintain the pace of last year, but we've noticed the usual cries of "crime is down" from the HQ IP addresses have been mysteriously silent this month.

Nice Neighborhood Headed South

This time, the victims were cops:

• Two off-duty Chicago police officers were involved in a fight with three male strangers as they left a club in the city's River North neighborhood early Friday morning.
  
  The two officers, ages 32 and 25, and a woman were leaving the club in the 400-block of North LaSalle Drive around 2 a.m. when the argument began. It turned physical and the older officer sustained injuries to his face, police said.
  
  The 32-year-old officer was transported to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he was treated and released. The 25-year-old officer was not visibly hurt in the fight and refused medical treatment, police said.
  
  The woman, who was not involved in the fight, fainted at the scene and was also transported to Northwestern, where police said her condition stabilized.

Luckily the injuries weren't serious. But even cops looking for a night of relaxation with friends run the risk of becoming victims in Rahm's Chicago.

Any Truth to This?

The 3-year-old beaten to death in Little Village - the rumor has surfaced that the murderer was ::gasp:: an illegal alien who had a previous INS Detainer lodged against him for a Domestic Violence arrest, but which Sheriff Dart refused to honor.

Is this another one of those "Chicago values" Rahm is spouting off about? Beating children to death?

Rahm Pandering to Whom?

Black people can't wait to leave Dodge:

• Cook County in 2016 again recorded the largest black population of any county in the U.S., but it carries that title with less conviction than previous years as more African-Americans move to outlying suburbs or warmer states in the South and West, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
  
  Between 2015 and 2016, more than 12,000 black residents left Cook County, an increase from the previous year when about 9,000 residents left. The greater Chicago area, which for the census includes parts of Indiana and Wisconsin, has lost nearly 46,000 black residents since 2010. That exodus is larger than in any other metropolitan area in the country.

This might explain why Rahm is pandering to the Hispanic community as hard as he is. But then this might make those voters take a hard look at what Rahm is all about:

• Gunfire interrupted three Little League baseball games on the West Side on Wednesday night during an event meant to build connections between two neighborhoods that grapple with violence.
  
  Teams from Little Village and Near West Side were playing at Altgeld Park at Harrison Street and Washtenaw Avenue when at least nine shots were fired around 6:45 p.m. No one was hit, but the fields were cleared.
  
  [...] The two leagues play each other every Wednesday. DeMateo said it's an opportunity for Latino kids from Little Village to play with black kids from the Near West Side.

Unfortunately, what should be a decent opportunity to find common ground via sports turned into a demonstration of what else ties these troubled communities together.

About that Gang Party

This comment appeared in yesterday's post about that gang party:

• I don't blame CPD for being disgruntled, if I were a cop I would probably be in jail for killing every asshole that looked at me wrong, but to label everyone in the neighborhood as anti-cop SJW liberals is fucking retarded and even if they were, it shouldn't stop you from your job of keeping the people that live there safe.

 Really? Well then Citizen, perhaps you'd like to tell us how 50 cops (tops) can pacify/disperse a crowd of 1,000 without water cannons, flash-bangs, gas, etc. We're all ears.

Remember when we had citywide units? A few hundred cops that the Department could call out for situations exactly like this? This event isn't a secret - it's been going on for years. Units like the old Task Force morphed into Gangs morphed into Special Operations, Targeted Response or Mobile Strike Force. Three-hundred cops who could have days off canceled at a moment's notice along with District Gang/Tact teams gave the Department a force of 500 or so to deal something like this - a "reunion" that is just an excuse for the old gang bangers to relive the misery they used to bring to a neighborhood that moved on.

Now CPD has 25 cars show up? For a crowd numbering 1,000? A crowd that's been drinking and smoking all night without any interference from authorities? With (we're betting) a few hundred guns? And nothing has been done for years? In a city that has abandoned the rule of law? What exactly are the police supposed to do?

DNAInfo did the only real reporting on this whole incident (again) and the picture they paint isn't pretty at all. They link it all to a particularly violent stretch of the weekend:

• While the party itself sparked a few fights caught on camera, six people were shot on the Near West Side Sunday. One of the shootings, injuring a 29-year-old man, occurred at 11:10 p.m. on Adams Street, just a block or two west of the park.
  
  Minutes later, two more men were shot standing in the 2500 block of West Jackson Boulevard, a half-mile away from the park, police said.

And while cops were handling the double on Jackson, three more got shot right up the block. All connected? Probably, but you'd be hard pressed to see the media link it all together. And it isn't going to get any better.

Not Chicago

We're sensing a bit of animosity toward Rahm and Chicago for some reason:

• Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a new plan Tuesday in which 12 cities will receive more federal manpower to combat violence in their communities.
  
  "Turning back the recent troubling increase of violence crime in our country is a top priority of the Department of Justice and the Trump administration as we work to fulfill the president's promise to make America safe again," Sessions said at the beginning of the Justice Department's two-day summit on crime reduction.
  
  The first round of cities chosen for the new initiative, the National Public Safety Partnership, are Baton Rouge, La.; Birmingham, Ala.; Buffalo, N.Y.; Cincinnati; Houston; Indianapolis; Jackson, Tenn.; Kansas City, Mo.; Lansing, Mich.; Memphis, Tenn.; Springfield, Ill.; and Toledo, Ohio.

Conspicuous by their absence:

1. Baltimore
2. Chicago

There's the promise of more cities being added in the future, but the two cities leading the charge to the bottom aren't getting much. A few dozen extra prosecutors at some point to take some cases federal, but no money. Well played Rahm - you are a master of politics...if you're sucking democrats' asses.

What is the City's Share?

You know this isn't going to be free:

• Tiger Woods’ design firm on Wednesday released final designs for a multimillion-dollar plan to merge the Jackson Park and South Shore golf courses into PGA-caliber links, a vision met with cautious optimism as city officials presented the idea to South Side residents.
  
  The city, Chicago Park District, TGR Design and Chicago Golf Alliance showcased the proposed course layout at the South Shore Cultural Center, the first in a series of public hearings to gather community feedback on the “South Lakefront Framework Plan,” a revamp that includes the course and the Obama Presidential Library.
  
  What remains to be seen is how much the golf course project will cost — and who will foot the bill.

Oh, we have a whole bunch of ideas who will end up footing the bill:

• The Chicago Golf Alliance has said merging the courses will cost about $30 million, with $24 million coming from private donors.
  
  But infrastructure improvements around the courses — including two new underpasses, at 67th Street and South Shore Drive, and at 66th Street and Jeffery Boulevard — could at least double that price tag, critics say, and it’s unclear where that money would come from.

Add in the usual Chicago cost "overruns" and certain parties getting their beaks wet, we're betting on yet again, Rahm finding a magical money tree that produces money only for pet projects and none for contractually obligated payments to assorted pension funds.

Parade Debt

Is this something?

City ACCT 77721 HOLDS 1237 N California on Scribd

If this is correct, the PR Parade Committee owes nearly $40,000 to the City dating back to 2015 and possibly even more for 2016 and 2017. Amazingly, the parade was allowed to go on and produce some fifteen attendees with extra holes in their bodies and a middle-aged guy who won't ever go home again.

But if you're a minute late with your sticker, water bill or anything involving a city fee, you'll catch a suspension, late fees and garnishment of wages. Perhaps we should all register as "Parade Committees."

Pension Bankruptcy Looms

Not good:

• Without a taxpayer bailout, Chicago’s police pension fund won’t have enough money to pay benefits to retirees in 2021, according to a projection by Local Government Information Services (LGIS), which publishes Chicago City Wire.
  
  At the end of 2020, LGIS estimates that the Policemen’s Annuity and Benefit Fund of Chicago will have less than $150 million in assets to pay $928 million promised to 14,133 retirees the following year.
  
  Fund assets will fall from $3.2 billion at the end of 2015 to $1.4 billion at the end of 2018, $751 million at the end of 2019, and $143 million at the end of 2020, according to LGIS.
  
  LGIS analyzed 12 years of the fund’s mandated financial filings with the Illinois Department of Insurance (DOI), which regulates public pension funds. It found that-- without taxpayer subsidies and the ability to use active employee contributions to pay current retirees, a practice that is illegal in the private sector-- the fund would have already run completely dry, in 2015.

We have more retirees that ever before and the 55-and-out provision seems almost designed to ruin the pension. Aside from killing off every single retiree (a difficult task given that most are armed and willing to shoot back), a day of reckoning is fast approaching.

Another article here about Illinois' nearly three years without a budget and Comptroller Susana Mendoza complaining about the unpaid bills (after she gave Herbie a $1,000 and herself and staff new cars).

Pitchforks and torches time fast approaching.

I'll Look Down and Whisper "No."

Back in the mid-80's, there was a comic book published that ended up on a list of Top 100 novels. The limited series was called, "Watchmen" and we've paraphrased a telling quote from it a couple of times. A few readers caught the reference, but most don't recognize it:

• This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face. The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown.
  
  The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout "Save us!"... and I'll look down and whisper "No."

Unfortunately, Chicago, Cook County, Illinois seems to be right there, staring into the abyss. Here's another symptom of the downfall:

• A raucous and "very dangerous" gang party that brought 1,000 people to a Near West Side park late Sunday was so out of control, Chicago police struggled to shut it down, one alderman said.
  
  Despite calling for police and politicians to address notoriously loud and sometimes violent gang parties for years, neighbors living near Touhy-Herbert Park report that this weekend's massive all-night party that spilled over into the streets was worse than ever.
  
  The footage of the post-Father's Day party, captured in photos and on video just two blocks west of the United Center, shows hundreds of people crowding the streets, drinking, smoking and at times, fighting. As music is blasted over car stereos, women illuminated with floodlights dance on the hood of cars, and the blue lights of police squad cars flash in the background.
  
  One area neighbor called the out-of-control party "Armageddon."

We're pretty sure Armageddon will be much bloodier, but for people not accustomed to seeing what cops have seen, this is a shocking wake-up call to just how far the city and this Department has fallen.

DNAInfo pulls no punches - a rarity in the media:

• The neighbor said he personally called 911 and met with about eight officers in his alley about 3:30 a.m. Monday as the mayhem continued.
  
  "They proceeded to tell me every reason they couldn't do their job, from not having enough resources to not visually seeing illegal activity to not wanting to escalate a situation," he said. "There are laws being broken all the time, and they are not being enforced."
  
  After the party went on for hours Sunday, one officer who arrived on the scene did take action to clear the streets, according to a neighbor who has lived in the area for two years.
  
  "One of the cops finally took out his rifle and said, 'C'mon, we've gotta clear out these streets,'" she remembered.
  But the group of more than 1,000 people was defiant, the neighbor said.
  
  "They know the cops aren't going to shoot them, especially with all the cellphone videos," she said. "The crowd just stands there knowing that they can't do anything. They just stand there, mocking them."

This however, is pure fantasy:

• Burnett said neighbors need to be able to rely on police to quell violence and illegal activity on the Near West Side. The alternative is frightening.
  
  "They're going to force people in the communities to be vigilantes to protect themselves," Burnett said. "We need to be able to rely on the police."

Reliance is a two way street there Wally. Where is our backup? Where is our support? Where is our pension money? Where are our defenders?

• .....all the whores and politicians will look up and shout "Save us!"... and I'll look down and whisper "No."

Get used to it.

No Cheating, but.....

This is fucking ridiculous:

• Chicago's top watchdog has found no evidence that several well-connected police command officers — including Superintendent Eddie Johnson's fiancee — cheated on a promotion exam, but he also recommended that the department tighten its testing procedures.

And what exactly did he recommend be "tightened?"

• Inspector General Joseph Ferguson said in a report released Wednesday that investigators found no proof to support allegations that a former top-ranking officer who helped develop the 2015 lieutenants exam had leaked elements of the test in advance and coached cops to higher scores.
  
  Ferguson, however, criticized the department's testing procedures. He suggested that the department hire an outside company or person to finalize tests to eliminate the possibility that parts of exams will be leaked. He also suggested that officials who develop tests should be required to disclose any personal relationships with those taking the test.
  

So, the exact allegations of cheating are the things that Ferguson recommends be "tightened." Are you fucking kidding us?

We know for a fact via IAD sources that the allegations of cheating were well founded. An investigator went to the specific locations and found secret study groups on more than half-a-dozen occasions. The "study group" thought they were being sneaky by switching rooms and the investigator found them every single time - because they were using Department e-mails to communicate. But Ferguson can't find a single e-mail?

And "Subject Matter Experts" should disclose personal relationships? Gee, you think? Husband/wife teams scored exactly the same, SME's married to people scoring in the top 25, people who work in the offices of SME's scoring high enough for first class seniority, the list is near endless.

Ferguson was bought and paid for, and we end up working for multiple-"merit"-morons.

Carry a Taser? Or Don't?

Even when do the right thing, you'll be sued:

• The city of Chicago has agreed to pay $9.5 million to settle a federal lawsuit filed by a man who was severely injured when a police officer jolted him with a Taser and he fell and hit his head on the pavement, court records show.

So what did the Officer do?

• Jose Lopez was injured in July 2011, as officers were aiding paramedics who had been called to the Little Village neighborhood, where Lopez was experiencing chest pains. Lopez repeatedly refused medical treatment and officers alleged that he took a swing at them before Officer [...] tased him, according to court records.

The officer was cleared by the Department - no discipline whatsoever - because he acted in accordance with training, using a tool supplied by the city, using the level of force appropriate for the situation. And a group of jurors bought the story sold by the plaintiff attorney that an assailant is somehow deserving of money because of the Law of Gravity.

How about you don't do drugs, and don't attack paramedics/police? Why bother taking a taser out? If you use it, you get sued anyway.

Great Job Maldonado

It was a brilliant idea to not only allow beer and wine at the PR fest, but also distilled spirits this year. What could possibly go wrong?

• Thousands of revelers descended on Humboldt Park for this weekend's Puerto Rican Festival and Parade — but the weekend also saw an uptick in shootings, including one that left a 33-year-old man dead.
  
  Ald. Roberto Maldonado (26th) did not respond to requests for comment on the violence, but said in a statement that he'd spoken to Kevin Navarro, the first deputy superintendent for Chicago Police, "to express my deep concern about the recent increase" in crime in the area.
  
  Maldonado said he told Navarro police staffing had dropped in the area, and that there was a "clear need" for more police.

Shootings nearly doubled. The number shot tripled.

The first rule about "manpower" is that you don't mention "manpower." Ever.

Second, are you dense? You've been approving the budget for how long? You've seen the closing of how many police stations? The disbanding of how many units? The cutting of over 1,200 budgeted police positions? And suddenly you see a "clear need"?

Tell us, what was your first clue? Was it this?

Because that was all weekend from what we heard, even if the lame-stream media didn't cover it. DNAInfo did, and they're the only ones doing any real reporting lately.

Maybe they'll pick up on your desire to drive over crime scenes soon?

That's $50 Kass

This was suggested in our comment sections a week ago:

• Illinois is like Venezuela now, a fiscally broken state that has lost its will to live, although for the moment, we still have enough toilet paper. But before we run out of the essentials, let's finally admit that after decade upon decade of taxing and spending and borrowing, Illinois has finally run out of other people's money. Those "other people" include taxpayers who've abandoned the state. And now Illinois faces doomsday.
  
  So as the politicians meet in Springfield this week for another round of posturing and gesturing and blaming, we need a plan. And here it is:
  
  Dissolve Illinois. Decommission the state, tear up the charter, whatever the legal mumbo-jumbo, just end the whole dang thing. We just disappear. With no pain. That's right. You heard me.

We like the "Venezuela of the Midwest" thing, it's a great visual. So we'll knock the SCC finder's fee/Chaplain donation down by half - $25 to the CPD Sky Pilots.

Imagine That

Cop shooter flees the country:

• Police suspect the 17-year-old reputed gang member who investigators believe sprayed an unmarked police van with bullets from an assault rifle last month – hitting two cops – has fled to Mexico.
  
  “He has family in Mexico,” a law enforcement source said Wednesday. It’s the job of the U.S. Marshals office to work with law enforcement from Mexico to collar the teen, the source said.
  
  “It’s on ongoing investigation, so I can’t comment,” U.S. Marshals spokeswoman Belkis Sandoval said Wednesday. “But I can say this case is a priority. And we investigate all leads, even if there in other countries.”

In this case, we'd like to defer to Mexican justice....if it was guaranteed. It might certainly be a bit more than anything Foxxx may dish out.

With What Manpower?

Someone isn't paying attention:

• Downtown Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) has made an “urgent request” for more overnight police patrols on the Lakefront Trail, the downtown Riverwalk and in Streeterville after a 25-year-old Lawndale woman was shot and killed in his ward early Sunday.
  
  Reilly has also requested more surveillance cameras, better lighting and the overnight shutdown during warm weather months of an underpass at Ohio and Lake Shore Drive used to access the beach, the Lakefront Trail and Navy Pier.
  
  It was near that underpass in the 500 block of East Ohio that 25-year-old Raven Lemons was shot in the head and killed around 2 a.m. Sunday. It was the first downtown homicide reported this year, but violent crime has been on the rise, along with the temperatures.

Has Brendan not been paying attention? We're short - have been for years. Rahm's promises don't amount to a hill of beans anyway.

Rats!

No, we mean literally. How old is the 001 District building?

Rat traps - not in the alley, not in the garage. In the building. The men's room to be exact. Rats walking around, bold as brass, like they own the place. 

We heard that some watches have started naming the rats. Then they had to start numbering them because the rats were all named Rahm.

Car Jumper Death

Play stupid games....

• A man fell off the top of a vehicle and died Sunday afternoon in the West Side Austin neighborhood.
  
  About 3:30 p.m., the 26-year-old jumped onto a vehicle in traffic in the 5100 block of West Chicago Avenue, according to Chicago Police.
  
  The driver accelerated out of fear and struck the man, police said.

Excuse us for a moment.....

• Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

Does anyone know if he was doing this? (video from Atlanta)



Someone jumps on our car like that, squad or personal, well, who knows what they're up to?

Congratulations Chicago!

Three hundred homicides already this year:

• Chicago recorded its 300th homicide over the Father's Day weekend, just like it did last year.
  
  The somber milestone was reached around 2:30 a.m. Monday when a 33-year-old man was gunned down during a burst of violence that saw four people killed and 13 others wounded over just five hours Sunday evening through early Monday, according to data kept by the Tribune.
  
  At one point, officers working a double-shooting on the Near West Side late Sunday night had to duck for cover when shots were fired blocks away.

According to HeyJackass.com, the final tally was 13 dead and 56 wounded for 2017. Last year it was 13 dead and 46 wounded, so the maimings are picking up the pace.

That double shooting described in the last paragraph that ended with officers taking cover? It was a triple shooting just up the block, so you know that the shooters just don't give a shit if officers are even down the block.

FOIA Request Anyone?

The tape is out there, but will the media even ask to see it?

• Alder-scum Maldonado is at it again. He's the one that was written a ticket and claimed the police were racist. He tried to drive through a shooting crime scene to get home and when he was stopped pulled out his cell phone camera and started taunting the Sargent [sic]. He demanded to be allowed to drive (while obviously impaired) through shell casings so he could get his kids home. Now he is demanding a meeting with the Commander or else. Stay tuned to see him run to the media with this one too. Only difference is this time his antics were caught on dash cam and body cam.

There's video of Bobby Rush being a dick at a traffic stop, making allegations of wrong doing that weren't supported by anything but Bobby's overactive imagination. In fact, the video shows officers being completely polite, professional and cutting Bobby a break - and he still slandered the officers.

Rush should have been sued over that one. Sounds like Maldonado should be sued, too.

No Herbie Designs

It seems that Herbie "ain't in no gang" Pulgar is currently in prison:

• ADMISSION / RELEASE / DISCHARGE INFO
  
  Admission Date: 05/09/2017
  Projected Parole Date: 02/08/2018
  Last Paroled Date:
  Projected Discharge Date: 02/08/2020

Five years for PSMV and Burglary, served concurrently. Look at those "Projected Parole" and "Projected Discharge" dates - nine months in prison, two years parole. Amazing.

We've got $100 says he violates parole within 6 months of release.

Fire Brass Resignations

Well, they did it:

• Thirty-two members of the Chicago Fire Department’s brass resigned their exempt positions Monday and returned to rank-and-file status in a fight over pay and benefits that will cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.
  The bosses will return to their career service ranks of battalion chief and, in one case, paramedic field chief, but will continue to “act up” in their exempt positions.
  
  That means the 32 will now be eligible for overtime, holiday pay, duty availability, hazmat and other forms of supplemental and specialty pay afforded to members of the rank-and-file.
  
  They resigned en masse at 8 a.m. Monday. They represent more than half of the brass on the fire suppression side of the Chicago Fire Department but just one of roughly a dozen bosses overseeing emergency medical services.

What's the solution? Bankrupt another pension system:

• ...the state pension code doesn’t allow exempt fire officers to earn pension benefits based on their current salary. Instead, their pension benefits are based on the lower salary of their most recent union-covered job.
  
  All of that can result in a loss of thousands of dollars in pay each year for exempts — sometimes $20,000 or $25,000, sources say.
  
  Pending state legislation known as a “brass bill” would allow exempt fire employees to earn a pension based on the pay for their current jobs.

We all see where the CPD brass is draining the pension at a massive rate due to political promotions - they did nothing to earn an exempt pension except exploit the right connections, sleep with the correct person, or be part of the lucky sperm club. Now CFD brass want the same thing - a pension based on political considerations rather than earned.

We were actually hoping that the CFD system would be forced on the CPD brass.

Dart Follies

From a regular contact and e-mailer:

• Information we have obtained from numerous sources is that the current administration of the Cook County Sheriff's Department cannot account for over 300 subjects (various reports place this number as high as 500) who have been released on electronic monitoring.
  
  These subjects include highly violent repeat offenders, which the admin of the CCSD does not have knowledge of their whereabouts.
  
  Furthermore, information obtained is that the officers in the electronic monitoring unit are so severely understaffed that they have a near 9 month backlog of work to complete.
  
  Sheriff Tom Dart has not hired a Deputy 11 years despite his budget expanding nearly 200 million in that same period. The court deputy division is down over 700 officers since 2006... Dart however, found funding for 244 'Shakman Exempt' political hires

So somewhere between 300 and 500 subjects, many arrested for violent crimes but released as part of the "empty jail" initiative, running around without any sort of tracking. Fucking brilliant. But he hires media spouses, siblings, progeny, etc., so they don't write bad stories about him.

More Number Fudging

Quite the spread among the media outlets:

• Tribune - Three people were fatally shot and 22 others were wounded across the city during 18 hours from Saturday to Sunday, according to police. Of those shot, eight were wounded in two separate quadruple shootings on the West Side. 
• Sun Times - A woman who was shot to death in the Gold Coast neighborhood was among eight people shot early Sunday. In total, 3 people have been killed and 36 others have been wounded in gun violence across Chicago since Friday evening.

And the only numbers that count - HeyJackass.com:

• 9 dead, 44 wounded (numbers may change - at least two on life support at last report)

The Tribune helpfully includes a previously under-reported category, no doubt part of Rahm's anti-gun agenda - rifle shootings.

This makes us wonder if there might be something to the suggestion in the comment section about an armored bus tour of some of Chicago's more exciting neighborhoods. Bullet-resistant vests and Kevlar helmets for the tourists, steel plated bus with reactive armor, run-flat tires and Lexan window ports. You'd probably still have to use a closed circuit television system as the bus would automatically become a target and losing a tourist might ruin business.

Anyone want to run with this business opportunity?

Nothing to See Here

Remain calm! All is well!

• A West Side woman was fatally shot while standing on the street near Ohio Street Beach early Sunday, police said.
  
  About 5 a.m., the woman was standing with an acquaintance in the 500 block of East Ohio Street when someone shot her in the head, police said.
  
  The woman was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital where she was pronounced dead.

Just another Saturday night/Sunday morning in Chicago.

017 Manpower

Don't worry - we're fully staffed:

20 blocks by 40, almost 12.5 square miles.

One beat car down, no rapids, no wagon.

Sixteen cops....if you're lucky.

Good thing it's slow.

More Photoshop

We're sensing a theme here:

It's a happy theme it would seem.

Quick Work

Nice job:

• One adult and two teens have been charged in connection with the shooting that wounded two young girls outside an elementary school in the city's Pill Hill neighborhood Friday afternoon, Chicago police said.
  
  The three suspects have been charged with two felony counts of attempted first degree murders, two felony counts of aggravated battery and one misdemeanor count of criminal trespass to a vehicles.

We're surprised Foxxx approved multiple felonies without multiple previous convictions - that goes against her entire post-election ethos. These kids were just in high spirits....over-exuberant scoundrels engaging in end-of-school-year shenanigans. Now they're going to miss significant portions of summer vacation prepping for trial.

Latest Design

This one incorporates many "Chicago values:"

The blood, the duct taped mirror, the bullet holes.

Very Chicago.

The "Algorithm"

We make it a habit not to link to the New York Times, but even good habits get bent sometimes. This article goes into the mysterious algorithm that runs much of the Department operations via the SSL - Strategic Subject List - and which is currently the subject of a number of FOIA requests:

• Gun violence in Chicago has surged since late 2015, and much of the news media attention on how the city plans to address this problem has focused on the Strategic Subject List, or S.S.L.
  
  The list is made by an algorithm that tries to predict who is most likely to be involved in a shooting, either as perpetrator or victim. The algorithm is not public, but the city has now placed a version of the list — without names — online through its open data portal, making it possible for the first time to see how Chicago evaluates risk.
  
  We analyzed that information and found that the assigned risk scores — and what characteristics go into them — are sometimes at odds with the Chicago Police Department’s public statements and cut against some common perceptions.
  

The article drills down into the working of the violence equations, mostly by working backwards from results and what limited information they derive from Department and City press releases. The FOIA request may reveal more of the methodology, but regardless, it's an OK read from a left-leaning anti-American "progressive" rag.

Happy Anniversary!

Though we guess it wasn't really a happy occasion:

• In 1812, Chicago was not a city, but rather a frontier settlement occupied mostly by French-Canadian and American traders as well as soldiers and Native Americans. It was the home of Fort Dearborn, the site of the famous battle that would take place that same year.
  
  But Fort Dearborn’s history was bloodied even before it became known for the battle that bears its name. Just two months earlier — on June 17 — it was the site of Chicago's first documented murder.
  
  The murderer was John Kinzie. In history, he is sometimes referred to as "Chicago's first citizen," but Haiti-born Jean Baptiste Point du Sable is widely considered to own that title today. (Du Sable built a cabin just north of the Chicago River near Lake Michigan — approximately where the Tribune Tower is today — in 1779, where he established a trading post. That same cabin was later purchased by Kinzie in 1804.)
  
  The victim was Jean La Lime, a French trader who also served as an interpreter among the settlement's inhabitants and the Native Americans. La Lime first purchased du Sable's cabin and later sold it to Kinzie.

It's nice to know that even 205 years ago yesterday, Chicago was beginning a tradition that would culminate in tens of thousands of dead in the ensuing decades.

7 and 13 (UPDATE: and 78)

Rahm is embracing this crisis, because it doesn't endanger a democratic States Attorney...yet:

• Khia Shanks, an eighth-grader who graduated Thursday, was making water balloons for the big water-balloon fight — a normal occurrence at end-of-year school picnics across the country.
  
  But this end-of-year event at Warren Elementary on the Far South Side ended up being anything but normal.
  
  Instead of balloons flying, there were bullets.
  
  “The kids were running around the playground playing with water balloons,” 14-year-old Khia said. “I went outside and saw a black van drive by and someone fired about five shots.

Special Ed is "sick:"

• “This makes me sick that kids are having an end-of-the-year picnic and they have to get shot at,” Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson said at a press conference outside the school.

Rahm is angry:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel, was meeting the victims’ families at Comer Children’s Hospital, Claypool said.
  
  “I’ve known the mayor for 30 years and I have never seen him so angry,” Claypool said.

Why is he angry? It's Rahm's playbook leading to this mayhem. Why doesn't he fire someone? That'll make him happy - someone to blame. We suggest the head of the Department.

UPDATE: Another one that Rahm can pretend to get angry about:

• The gunfire sounded like a small firecracker. Shot from a small-caliber handgun pointed out the window of a silver car, the bullet struck 78-year-old Gene Gordon two blocks from his South Side home on a muggy Thursday afternoon.
  
  Gordon fell to the pavement, bleeding from his head and struggling to move. His right eye swelled. He couldn’t speak. He was dying.
  
  A 19-year-old man who had been sitting on the curb — and was the shooter's intended target — scampered away unharmed, Chicago police said. The silver car sped north on Hermitage Avenue, from 68th Street toward Marquette Road. No one has been arrested.

These are innocent people getting shot and/or killed. And the shooters are whom Rahm and Kim and Toni are catering to.

C'mon Downtown!

It's safe! We promise:

• People thought they heard fireworks as they strolled near Millennium Park and the Art Institute of Chicago on a warm evening Thursday.
  
  But it was gunfire, a man in his 20s shot in the abdomen at Monroe Street and Michigan Avenue. It was the second shooting at that intersection in nine months.
  
  "This is like something off of 'Law and Order,'" one woman said as she gawked at the scene before crossing Michigan.
  
  “Welcome to Chicago,” another passerby said.

If our honor students don't kill you first, the taxes will.

By the way, the picture accompanying this Tribune article shows a bunch of tourists outside the crime scene tape taking pictures. Does anyone think these were all uploaded to social media within seconds? And shared a few thousand times within hours? And that Chicago tourism is going to take a hit?

Illinois Bankruptcy?

Well, yeah. Pretty much:

• Illinois residents may feel some solidarity with the likes of Puerto Rico and Detroit.
  
  A financial crunch is spiraling into a serious problem for Illinois lawmakers, prompting some observers to wonder if the state might make history by becoming the first to go bankrupt. At the moment, it's impossible for a state to file for bankruptcy protection, which is only afforded to counties and municipalities like Detroit.
  
  Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection could be extended to states if Congress took up the issue, although Stanford Law School professor Michael McConnell noted in an article last year that he believed the precedents are iffy for extending the option to states. Nevertheless, Illinois is in a serious financial pickle, which is why radical options such as bankruptcy are being floated as potential solutions.

An interesting read, becoming more interesting by the day.

Beaches Story Changes

That story fell apart quickly:

• A group of bystanders at North Avenue Beach prevented the escape of a man who stabbed someone nine times, then tried to flee Tuesday, prosecutors said Thursday.
  
  Pablo Sosa, 35, has been charged with aggravated battery and attempted murder. He was ordered held in lieu of $750,000 bond Thursday.
  
  [..] Other people with the man thought Sosa was acting strangely and told their friend to look out for him, Scaduto said.

And what was that story that the Department was spreading?

• Police initially said that Sosa and the man with the bottle were engaged in a mutual fight over a domestic dispute. That account was contradicted by prosecutors’ account Thursday.

So is anyone from News Affairs getting re-assigned for making the brass look like they have no idea what's going on? Is the alternative lifestyle community going to express their displeasure at being used as scapegoats for what turns out to be a mentally disturbed individual randomly stabbing people on the lakefront?

Yeah yeah, we know....they were covering up for Rahm's allowing the crime on the beaches to spiral out of any semblance of control.

Another Design

Keep sending them:

This one is leading the pack so far.

Media Trolls "Discover" Story

And the Tribune owes the Chaplains another $50 for taking a story from the blog without attribution:

• Citing a lack of personnel, the Cook County state's attorney's office plans to stop prosecuting certain traffic offenses, a top county official said.
  
  Under a policy expected to take effect later this year, the state's attorney's office will not prosecute people accused of driving on licenses that have been suspended or revoked for financial reasons — such as failure to pay child support, tolls or parking tickets.
  
  Instead, individual cities will have the option to prosecute those violations.

And then the Tribune touches on other items we've covered extensively:

• The move comes as State's Attorney Kim Foxx, elected in November, has pushed in other ways to change how her office handles low-level, nonviolent cases. In December, she dramatically raised the bar for felony charges related to shoplifting. And this week, she said that prosecutors could recommend that judges to release nonviolent defendants charged with low-level crimes without any cash bail, pending the resolution of their cases.

All of this without properly going through the State Legislature - the only body authorized to alter criminal penalties, but the Tribune won't point out an elected democrat failing to do the job she was elected to do.

We're going to call this one an even $100 to the Chaplains.

Speaking of Taxes

Is there a reporter anywhere who is investigating Prickwrinkle's last tax hikes that were supposed to prevent "gun violence"?

• $25.00 per gun
• $0.05 per center fire round
• $0.01 per rim fire round

How much was actually collected as opposed to how much was used in her budget figures? And better yet, how much violence was prevented and how many hospital bills were paid?

We'll bet there isn't a single investigative reporter combing the public records or their own media archives.

Too Risky to Operate in Illinois

Has this ever happened to any other state?

• The popular Powerball lottery and Mega Millions games will drop Illinois at the end of June without a budget agreement, Illinois Lottery officials said Thursday.
  
  Concern over the state’s fiscal condition prompted the Multi-State Lottery Association to drop Powerball in Illinois, according to internal Illinois Lottery communications obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times.
  
  Mega Millions also plans to drop the state unless a budget agreement comes together, state officials confirmed. Without a budget in place, the state isn’t authorized to make payments to Mega Millions or the association.

The media has run occasional stories about lottery winners not being paid promptly due to Illinois being broke and budget-less. Now with Mega and Powerball leaving, how big an additional hole is that blowing in the state budget? At least we can still drive over the border and get lottery tickets with our gas, soda, and fireworks.

Great Save

010 District in the news:

• Two Chicago Police officers were able to save a premature newborn’s life Monday by using CPR.
  
  The officers, Mark Palazzolo and Maritza Bautista, were called to a house near the 2300 block of South Lawndale Avenue, where a 26-year-old woman had called 911 to say her baby was not breathing after she gave birth in the 34th week of pregnancy.
  
  The woman, whom Bautista said “was horrified,” gave birth to the baby in her basement, and the umbilical cord was still attached, the officers said during a news conference Tuesday afternoon at the Ogden Police District. When Palazzolo called Chicago Fire Department paramedics about the unresponsive infant, the officer was told to remove the umbilical cord before performing CPR.
  
  [...]The officers did CPR on the baby girl for four minutes until fire rescuers arrived and took her to Mount Sinai Hospital, where her condition has stabilized, Palazzolo said.

Very well done Officers.

More Squad Designs

A few to brighten your day:

Those are Happy Designs.