Crime is Up

After years of Rahm bragging about CTA crime being down, "suddenly" it's up:

• More than 90 percent of the serious crimes reported on CTA L trains and buses and at stations in Chicago go unsolved.
  
  Serious crime overall on the CTA in the city went up 16 percent last year — mostly thefts of cellphones and other items.
  
  And the CTA doesn’t keep statistics on crimes that take place in the suburbs aboard its buses or trains or at stations.

So it's undoubtedly even higher than reported and the clearance rate rivals the clearance rate for homicides. Almost like closing two detective areas and allowing the total number of detectives to dwindle might have had some effect on the numbers.

Not that it matters as Kim, Tommy, Toni and Tim continue to empty the jail and courtrooms....which might somehow have something to do with the burgeoning crime rate.

Crime is Down

It's just more....concentrated:

• More than 90 casings littered a Heart of Chicago block after two people were shot there early Sunday.
  
  As residents near the 2200 block of West 18th Place woke up to walk their dogs, officers placed more than 90 evidence markers at the crime scene. Many evidence markers were placed next to what appeared to be rifle casings, and a law enforcement source later confirmed at least some of the casings were from a rifle or rifles.
  
  An officer placed evidence marker 93 next to a bottle of alcohol that had been left on the road.
  
  In addition, an officer guarded casings that were found on Western Avenue near 15th Street.

It's a good thing that someone had the forethought to order crime scene markers past the number "50."

Ride to Remember

Went off without a hitch - we didn't get word about it until it hit the news or we would have given everyone a heads up:

• An estimated 900 motorcycle riders came out Sunday morning for the Chicago Police Memorial Foundation’s 13th annual Ride to Remember.
  
  Off-duty or retired police officers from the city and suburbs, and their supporters, hopped on bikes and rode from the old Area 4 Police Headquarters on the West Side to the Gold Star Families Memorial along the Lakefront.

It was a great day for a ride.

Another Parolee

Though is seems that this one might not be Foxxx's fault:

• A 29-year-old West Side man, on parole for robbery, has been charged with having a loaded AK-47 assault rifle at the Belmont Red Line station yesterday morning.
  
  CWBChicago was first to report the details of Saturday’s arrest.
  
  Jordan Watkins was arrested around 6:30 a.m. after a witness reported seeing a man with a large gun on the southbound platform. Arriving officers found Watkins with the Kalashnikov strapped around his neck, a police source said.
  
  He is charged with one felony count of unlawful use of a weapon by a felon and one felony count of being an armed habitual criminal.

And his record doesn't instill confidence that any sort of justice operates in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois:

• State records show that he was sentenced to six years in prison for armed robbery and one year for narcotics in 2013. He has been free on parole since last August.
  
  Before that, he was sentenced to 2-1/2 years for narcotics in 2008 and three years for possession of a stolen motor vehicle in 2007.

Seems like he ought to still be in jail for a few of those offenses.

Underwood Hearing Tomorrow

So tomorrow, there's going to be some sort of announcement at Court about the Underwood v City lawsuit that gives some form of Healthcare to anyone hired before 2003. The latest FOP newsletter has an extensive explanation of the classes of covered employees and amounts.

One question though:

• If the City is going to be allowed to go back to the 1985 rules and payments, then shouldn't the officers be allowed to go back to the 1985 payments also? After all, what's fair is fair, right?

And if we recall correctly, the Officers share in 1985 was....zero.

Save Us Rough Cookie!

Will the Mystery Guest please step forward?

• President Donald Trump on Friday repeated his claim that he last year identified to Mayor Rahm Emanuel a mystery Chicago cop who could solve the city's crime problem in "a couple of days."
  
  But the president told an audience of cops on Long Island, N.Y., that he never heard back from Emanuel — a claim disputed by the mayor's spokesman Adam Collins, who said Emanuel never received the name.
  
  Trump, who made a campaign issue out of Chicago's crime problem, said the Chicago cop was a "rough cookie" who was part of a volunteer brigade of motorcyclists who escorted his campaign in Chicago last year. When Trump stopped to pose for a photo with the off-duty cops, the "rough cookie" told him Chicago's problems could be "straightened out," he said.

And has Rough Cookie got a plan - the plan of all plans!

• "And I said, 'How long would it take you to straighten out this problem?' " the president added. "And he said, 'If you gave me the authority — couple of days.' I really mean it."

A couple of days, a few extra-judicious executions and any number of well placed truck bombs - that might do the trick.

But if Rahm has the name, he's certainly keeping it quiet. There are only what? A dozen? Twenty? Certainly under twenty-four cops who do the motorcycle detail. It can't be too hard to figure out. A few drops of honey, maybe a "merit" promotion offer.

Of course, the same offers could be made to Rough Cookie to not step forward and therefore Rahm has an foil he can poke Trump with as his own "revenge" since Shrillery lost, costing Rahm an ambassadorship at the very least. Someone ought to keep an eye on any "merit" picks coming out of the motorcycle ranks in future classes.

Carnage Continues

You're with a woman? Child? Doesn't matter:

• A woman was killed and two people were wounded, including a 4-year-old boy, in a shooting Friday evening in the West Side Austin neighborhood.
  
  The shooting happened at 5:19 p.m. in the 5200 block of West Kamerling, police said. The circumstances were unknown.

Nice hood - and the city "officially" hit 400 this weekend - three days ahead of last year:

• A man was shot to death early Friday near the former Cabrini-Green public housing projects on the Near North Side, according to Chicago Police, marking the city’s 400th homicide so far this year.

This is, of course, yet another lie by the statistic keepers, desperately attempting to stave off the "March to 700" two years in a row. HeyJackass.com, the only site with actual real numbers, has Chicago at 411.

Academy Plans Move Forward

This might be a real thing....might be:

• The $95 million public safety training campus ​in West Garfield Park ​that will replace Chicago’s police and fire training academies will be bankrolled in part by proceeds from the sale of a valuable fleet facility site near the Chicago River on the North Side, city officials say.
  
  Mayor Rahm Emanuel is fleshing out financing for the long-awaited ​West Side project after entering into ​a letter of intent to buy the 30.4-acre site at 4301 W. Chicago Ave.
  
  Developer Sterling Bay agreed earlier this year to pay the city $104.7 million — $133.53 per square foot — for the lucrative site near the Chicago River, where city vehicles now are maintained. The deal also requires Sterling Bay to build a new city maintenance facility in Englewood.
  
  Now, city officials say the mayor is planning to use “at least $20 million” from the North Side sale to buy land for the new public safety training campus and “get work started.”
  
  The remaining $75 million to build it is to come from “the sale of other surplus property,” officials say — including the antiquated police and fire academies the new campus will replace.

Knowing the crooked land deals of years past, it'd be interesting to see whom scratching whose back with all this property changing hands.

Lucy!

You got some 'splainin' to do!!!

• Thirteen years ago, William Stewart Boyd, a Cook County judge, drove to a South Side church to turn in a handgun his late father had owned.
  
  The Chicago Police Department was accepting guns as part of a buyback program meant to take weapons off the streets and help make the city safer.
  
  Boyd, who hears domestic relations cases, brought them his father’s .38-caliber Smith and Wesson revolver, serial number J515268. He remembers handing it to plainclothes officers who wore their badges and service weapons on their belts. Under the buyback program, they, in turn, gave him a prepaid Visa card. It was for less than $100.
  
  The police recover thousands of guns every year, many of them through buyback programs like this, as well as by confiscating weapons seized during arrests — more than 5,000 guns so far this year alone.
  
  The guns are supposed to be destroyed. But the gun Judge Boyd took in somehow wasn’t. Instead, it turned up eight years later next to the body of a young man who was shot to death by a Cicero police officer.

We remember when over a hundred VCR's went missing from ERPS, long before this blog even existed. The Department shelled out thousands of dollars to the owner of an appliance store who had gone to claim his property after a burglary trial and was amazed the Department couldn't account for the equipment. It was about that time that every Watch Commander's office in the city suddenly had a new VCR and every Roll Call room had another one for "training tapes."

But guns disappearing and reappearing on the street? The article says over 130 guns couldn't be accounted for and 4 other guns appeared at other crime scenes, hinting at a bigger problem. But if you keep putting "merit" hacks and bad political actors in positions where trust can be abused and rules aren't even suggestions to the morally bankrupt, well...you see what happens.

Don't expect IAD to do a legit investigation - they're too busy covering up for crooked test takers.

This Asshole Again?

We guess he's here to finally have that "conversation about race" he was always spouting off about:

• Ka-ching.
  
  It’s all about the money.
  
  • Translation: Count former President Barack Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, among Cook County’s legal eagles labeling our bail bond system broken because it violates the rights of the poor.
  
  Retained pro bono by Cook County Public Defender Amy J. Campanelli to assess Cook County’s bail bond practices, Holder and his law firm, Covington and Burling, contends “it’s highly likely Cook County’s wealth-based approach to pretrial release violates the U.S. and Illinois constitutions as well as state law.”

Oh, so it's not about race - it's about money. Seems like someone want to get a big payout from the City, County and State governments. "...highly likely..." In his fucking dreams.

• Issued five days before Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans unveiled his plan, hatched in 2016, to get nonviolent people out of jail, Holder also argued the state’s pretrial detention system is unconstitutional because it largely jails people based on their inability to post bond.
  
  On July 17, Evans ordered his bond court judges to steer away from a cash-for-bond system — which can violate the rights of the poor — and to release all defendants who pose no criminal danger to the public.

Cash is used to secure appearances in court - if the defendant doesn't have a reason to appear (and money is a great motivator), study after study shows that they don't bother showing up. And if they get re-arrested on a "bond violation," well, that's just another "non violent" charge....and they're released again, with no motivation to show up again.

But here's Holder, looking for some sort of payoff, handout, settlement because the system is "unfair" to the poor. It isn't - and if it's "unfair" to the criminal, well boo-fucking-hoo, cry us a river.

Ambushed in Indiana

Responding to a roll-over accident, your primary focus is usually assisting the injured:

• An Indiana volunteer police lieutenant responding to a traffic accident was gunned down Thursday by one of the injured occupants of an overturned car, officials said.
  
  The officer was identified as Lt. Aaron Allan, 38, a six-year veteran of the Southport Police Department who had 20 years of law enforcement experience. Allan was the department's officer of the year in 2015 and was known by his nickname, "Teddy Bear," The Washington Post reported.
  
  [...] Jason Brown, 28, was one of two suspects taken into custody in the shooting and is facing a preliminary murder charge, according to a police report obtained by FOX59. Though a motive was not immediately disclosed, Hendricks County court records reviewed by The Indianapolis Star showed Brown had been convicted of misdemeanor marijuana possession in 2014 and was sentenced to 30 days in jail. The Indianapolis native, who remained hospitalized Friday in good condition, also had been issued three traffic tickets in Marion County and another in Greene County since 2009.

The assailant was shot by other officers but survived. But it is truly a sad day when officers are responding to what looks like a traffic accident to assist injured people and end up in a gun fight. RIP Officer.

Seriously Ed?

Another great idea from the brilliant minds of the City Council:

• Parents who fail to stop their children from getting their hands on a gun could be punished under a measure introduced by Ald. Ed Burke (14th) and Ald. Ray Lopez (11th.)
  
  Parents aware that one of their children younger than 17 possessed a firearm and failed to make a "reasonable effort" to get the weapon away from them could be sentenced to community service or forced to attend social service programs, according to the measure introduced Wednesday.
  
  "We need to step forward and put in place a system that holds parents accountable while providing them with support services," Burke said.
  
  The measure does not define "reasonable effort."

Of course it doesn't define "reasonable effort." Ed is the big sponsor of "feel-good" legislation that sounds great and doesn't accomplish shit. Foie gras banning, trans-fat banning, among others.

Ed and Ray are expecting an awful lot from assholes raising the next generation of assholes. First, they're assuming there are two parents - pardon our laughter. This after how many years of "no snitching" and teaching their spawn that police are the enemy and cooperating is a no-no.

Second, how many parents know everything their kid is up to all the time? We consider ourselves involved parents. But did your parents know where you were 24-7? Did they know you were sipping off the liquor bottle from the basement? How about that cigarette your buddy snuck off his older brother? The kid whose parents were away for the weekend? Yeah, we thought so.

You know what dissuades kids, teens and adults? Punishment. Lots of it. A pointless threat that everyone knows won't be enforced is useless, which describes most of what comes out of the City Council anyway.

Firefighter Injured

How about CFD refuses to go to these neighborhoods for a few weeks?

• Firefighters who responded to a car crash on Chicago's South Side early Thursday morning wound up having to take cover after someone shot at their fire truck.
  
  The crew was responded around 2:30 a.m. to a two-car crash at East 79th Street and South Yates Boulevard in Chicago's South Shore neighborhood and an argument between two people involved in the crash broke out in front of the fire truck.
  
  A person involved in the crash allegedly called a man to come to the scene. Police said that man grabbed a handgun from his car and started firing shots into a crowd.
  
  A bullet struck the windshield of Fire Engine 126 and at least one firefighter was cut by flying glass.

The gangs are already firing at "dads" walking with their kids. Now they're shooting in the direction of the people most responsible for saving their miserable hides in accidents, in fires, after being shot. How about Fire refuses to respond to any scene until secured and cleared by CPD? That would drive the response times through the roof - and the homicide numbers up around 1,000 for the year.

5,000 Guns

All bought completely legally and with background checks run by the FBI, right?

• It was another violent weekend on Chicago streets. Six people were killed and there were more than three dozen hurt. But the Chicago Police Department said they've hit a big milestone in their efforts to get more guns off the street.
  
  About 5,000 guns, that’s an average of 24 guns per day, were taken off the streets, but the murder rate is still high.
  
  There have been 391 homicides this year, four more than this time last year.

Five thousand guns - sounds impressive. Until you run the yearly totals ten and fifteen years ago - CPD was taking ten thousand, twelve thousand guns a year out of circulation. Now we know that many of these "seizures" wouldn't fly under current law, but back then it was a pretty big deal. It certainly would be interesting to run those totals against crime trends and the neighborhood of seizure. Maybe get a clue as to why so many guns are being located on the streets of certain zip codes.

Not a Dime Rahm

Not one fucking dime:

• The fiancee of a 25-year-old man fatally shot by Chicago Police last year in the Mount Greenwood neighborhood has filed a lawsuit against the police department and two officers involved in the shooting.
  
  Joshua Beal was shot Nov. 5, 2016 during a traffic dispute at 111th and Troy streets near a Chicago Fire Department fire station, authorities said.
  
  The suit, filed by Ashley Phifer as Beal’s next of kin, and on behalf of herself and their two children, disputes the events leading up to the shooting and seeks more than $100,000 in damages.

First up, we don't think she has standing as they weren't married and quite frankly, the prospects were dim at best.

Second, what's the basis of the lawsuit?

• Just before the shooting, Beal and family members left a funeral and were on their way to a hospital to visit a relative, according to the suit. Beal’s family members told the Chicago Sun-Times last year that the argument began when an off-duty officer tried to run one of their relatives off the road.

Exhibit A your Honor:

This is typical of these "funerals" running through that neighborhood. If anyone was trying to "run someone off the road," we doubt it was someone living there.

• The lawsuit disputes that narrative and says Beal was a legal gun owner with a FOID card who was in fear for his life and for the lives of others.

As we recall (and we actually checked), his family claims he had a concealed carry license from Indiana. Illinois recognizes exactly ZERO permits for Concealed Carry issued by other states. and this....:

....ISN'T carrying a weapon concealed in any case.

And as we pointed out, and we're reasonably sure no media outlet followed up on this one, the late Mr. Beal had a bad habit of pointing guns at people:

Rahm better not send a single taxpayer dime to this creature exploiting the stupidity of a known gangbanger and felon (who was threatening numerous First Responders and endangering countless citizens) for profit. Fuck her, her family and her lawyer.

10,000 Jobs, But Not Here

You want to get rich in Illinois? Get a government job:

• Illinois is broke and continues to flirt with junk bond status. But the state’s financial woes aren’t stopping 63,000 government employees from bringing home six-figure salaries and higher.
  
  Whenever we open the books, Illinois is consistently one of the worst offenders. Recently, we found auto pound supervisors in Chicago making $144,453; nurses at state corrections earning up to $254,781; junior college presidents making $465,420; university doctors earning $1.6 million; and 84 small-town “managers” out-earning every U.S. governor.
  
  Using our interactive mapping tool, quickly review (by ZIP code) the 63,000 Illinois public employees who earn more than $100,000 and cost taxpayers $10 billion. Just click a pin and scroll down to see the results rendered in the chart beneath the map.

Go to the Forbes site and check it out.

But hurry, because this is happening a lot more:

• Foxconn Technology Group on Wednesday pledged to invest $10 billion to build a display panel plant in Wisconsin that could employ up to 13,000 workers and draw up to $3 billion in subsidies from state taxpayers — a deal that could ripple through the economy and 2018 elections.

Nice to see some states still know how to attract business.

Brilliant

What passes for normal thinking in Minnesota:

• State Representative and Minneapolis mayoral candidate Raymond Dehn is calling for major policing changes, proposing to take away guns from the majority of officers.
  
  Dehn is one of several candidates running to beat current Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges in the fall.
  
  He recently won the support of voters at the Democratic Farmer Labor convention and now his call to disarm police of their side guns is garnering major attention.
  
  "I'm not saying they don't have access to that, just like they have access to more lethal weapons in their cars, I would believe they would still have access to their guns in their cars," said Dehn.

The day that order came down should be the day the entire Department resigns. If they could get away with it here, they would

Lawyers Get Richer

And of course, the taxpayer gets shafted:

• Red-light and speed cameras that Chicago motorists love to hate will finally be generating something other than $100 tickets.
  
  The City Council on Wednesday gave final approval to a $38.75 million settlement that will offer 50 percent refunds to 1.2 million motorists denied due process when the city failed to send them a second notice of violation required until May, 2015 and imposed $100 late fees four days too soon.
  
  [...]
  
  Ald. Anthony Beale (9th), chairman of the City Council’s Transportation Committee railed anew about the fact that $11.7 million will go to attorneys.
  
  That’s nearly one-third of the settlement — standard for class-action lawsuits. But, Beale called it galling.
  
  “That money should be reimbursed to the people — not the lawyers. The lawyers found a loophole in this system, filed a lawsuit against the city and now they are getting that pot of gold,” Beale said.

EXCLUSIVE FOOTAGE OF BEALE'S REACTION - Must credit SCC:

We're sure more than a little bit of that settlement money will find itself into campaign coffers, bundled by assorted law firms, partners, and assorted third parties.

Scholar Picks up 2 More

Additional charges against the future UNC student:

• Prosecutors have charged recent Lincoln Park High School graduate Bryce McGill with two more robberies in our area. The 18-year-old, whose public defender infamously (and erroneously) told a judge this month that McGill had a full ride scholarship to the University of North Carolina, is now charged with seven robberies.
  
  McGill was arrested Friday morning when he showed up for a routine hearing at the Belmont and Western courthouse.

Wait...the lawyer lied? What sanctions is he facing? Oh, wait...Cook County....none.

And guess who's out on bail again?

• McGill is now charged with one additional count of aggravated robbery-indicating presence of a firearm and an additional count of robbery.
  
  A judge set bail on the new charges at $50,000, which was posted by a family member.

Must be nice to have a relative who can come up with the previous $15,000 bail and then an additional $5,000 at the drop of a hat - that $20,000 would pay for almost half a semester at UNC.

Foxxx "Stunned"

The headline should probably add "...Again:"

• Touching on an issue often raised by police when discussing Chicago's ongoing problem with gun violence, Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx said Tuesday that she was "stunned" to learn how few gun cases that go to trial result in convictions.
  
  Foxx, in an interview with the Tribune's editorial board eight months into her job, said her office is working with law enforcement officials to collect better intelligence and build stronger cases against gun offenders.

Really? Because we can name three cases right now where officers brought in a convicted felon, apprehended with a firearm, who were RWOC at the direction of Felony Review when the ASA made the case status "Continuing Investigation."

What's there to investigate? They were caught with a gun. It's pretty self explanatory. So Foxxx has to resort to the typical song-and-dance routine:

• Foxx also pledged to be more transparent than her predecessors in leveraging community involvement and data-driven approaches to help reduce crime. She said officials from her office will meet with Chicago police on a monthly basis to share the data on cases and strategize how to build stronger cases.
  
  "What we realized is there's a big disconnect — police finish, they clear their case, they drop it off and they move on to the next. We have our cases, we either win or lose and we move on to the next," Foxx said.

This is what happens when you elect people for offices that operate waaaaaay beyond their competency zones.

Rat Problem Grows

Remember when democrats decided the death penalty was a bad thing? They drilled that down into how urban centers stave off disease by granting "rights" to rats:

• “Don’t feed the rats,” cries the city’s newest attempt to combat rat complaints as numbers have risen and the old method for extermination has been halted.
  
  Previously, the city of Chicago was using dry ice as a means to exterminate a large number of rats at a single time, but that method has been put on indefinite hiatus, according to DNAinfo. The hiatus is a result of federal rules as the method was not approved by the federal Environmental Protection Agency as a way to safely control the rat population, Streets and Sanitation spokeswoman Sara McGann told DNAinfo.
  
  As a result of the hiatus, the city is using a new plan to try to get the number of complaints down seeing as they have increased by 30 percent since this time last year. Part of the new approach includes a new poster design depicting a more realistic image of a rat than previous posters had.

We're surprised the Green Party didn't complain that dry-ice was releasing harmful greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

You know what was even more effective that dry-ice though? Poison. Lots of it. Very effective and reasonably cheap, Daley drove the rat population to depths not seen in a century. If you saw a rat and called the Ward office, they baited the alley before the end of the week.

You know what they're doing now?

• Chicago has tried just about everything to control a burgeoning rat population fueled by a construction boom and a mild winter. None of it has worked in a city seemingly overrun by the rodents.
  
  Now, City Hall is trying something old and something new: A poison designed to make rats infertile, and dry-ice that produced promising results in parks and medians before the city was forced to stop the rat-suffocation experiment after learning the dry ice had not been approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
  
  The poison is called Contrapest. It will be tested for six months at a waste transfer station at 34th and Lawndale, where 25 bait boxes will be installed, each equipped with feeding tubes that encourage rats to take poisonous bait.
  
  If it works as advertised — by rendering rats infertile unable to breed — the poison could become a “regular method used in other enclosed and contained areas” that serve as breeding grounds for rats.

Next up - fitting rats with tiny condoms and IUD's. It's the only humane way.

Imagine That

Remember that "college counselor" lie Rahm was spewing a few years back when his son got "mugged"? One of the "counselors" seems to be having trouble turning his life around:

• After pleading guilty to robbing Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s teenage son and apologizing in court, Phillip B. Payne got a break.
  
  Cook County Judge Lori Wolfson sentenced Payne to three years of probation, telling him she thought he “is not a violent person” and is “capable of doing well.” She also ordered him to stay away from gangs and drugs.

"not a violent person." After a mugging/strong armed robbery. Right.

• But since his sentencing earlier this year, the wiry 18-year-old known as “Peejay” hasn’t managed to do that, according to interviews, court records and his own social-media posts.
  
  An admitted gang member, he’s now being held in Cook County Jail after a turbulent spring and summer in which he was arrested twice, accused of dealing cocaine and driving a stolen car.
  
  In between, he grieved the loss of his older half-brother — a fellow gang member who was shot and killed in April, a casualty of what appears to be a North Side gang war.

Interesting career choices for a "college counselor." We guess muggings were a "gateway crime" for bigger and better things? But don't worry - we hear there's a "peace circle" in this dumbass's future.

Hey Goudie, That's $100

The Chaplains ought to be getting another check shortly:

• For more than a full day last weekend police in Chicago and hundreds of law enforcement agencies across Illinois were unable to access LEADS, the primary database of criminal information operated by the Illinois State Police, the I-Team has learned.
  
  The Law Enforcement Agencies Data System is the gateway to suspect background checks, stolen car reports, sex offender history, fugitive files, orders of protection and missing persons notices for police departments, prosecutors, courthouses and county jails.

Just to refresh Chuck's faulty memory:

• ...every story that the media lifts from our comment sections, they contribute $50 to the Chicago Police Chaplains Ministry. For every story that the get from the main page (by which we mean we post it more than 12 hours before they do), the Chaplains get $100.

Pay up you thief.

Whoa Whoa....What's this?

Are these guys running for office?



Calling out the democratic Machine? About time.

New Statues

Ever since the "Cows" thing, someone connected must have a fiberglass fabricating factory somewhere. We can't say we're displeased with the chosen animal though:

• The 54-inch-tall fiberglass dog statues are part of the K9s for Cops campaign to pay tribute to the canine unit, honor fallen Chicago police officers, provide financial assistance to families of those wounded or killed in the line of duty, and raise money to support the spay and neuter program offered by PAWS Chicago.
  
  The statues are sponsored by local companies or individuals and designed by local artists — including three Chicago police officers. One sculpture is of a dog with holes in its body and wearing oversized black glasses like Harry Caray. The art piece will be on display at Water Tower Place, home to the Chicago Sports Museum operated by Harry Caray's Restaurant Group. Another statue features a mosaic of dogs and cats that have gone through the adoption process at PAWS.
  
  The pieces are being installed this week and will remain on display through Labor Day. Then they'll be auctioned off on eBay with the goal of raising $250,000 in proceeds, Cline said. Seventy percent of the proceeds will go to the Chicago Police Memorial Foundation and 30 percent to PAWS Chicago, Cline said.

Have they done one of these for fallen firefighters yet?

Free SCC suggestion - dalmatians, even though there probably isn't a firehouse in the city with an actual dalmatian any more, it'd be a nice gesture to the Fire side of things.

Pursuit Wreck

An "officer" injured in a pursuit:

• A Chicago police officer was among three people hurt in a crash late Saturday after pursuing a car believed to be involved in an earlier shooting.
  
  The incident occurred around 11:33 p.m. near the intersection of W. Roosevelt Rd. and S. Union Ave. in the city’s University Village neighborhood, according to police.
  
  Authorities said on-duty officers in an unmarked squad car saw a vehicle believed to have been used in a nearby shooting. The officers attempted to curb the vehicle, which then fled, according to police.
  
  The unmarked police car was then involved in a collision with another vehicle, officials said, injuring one officer and two civilians.

That's an unusual color for an unmarked car....black....pretty clean, too.

That's because it was the 011th District Commander. In a pursuit. In 012.

Fortunately, no one was seriously injured. Best wishes to all for a speedy recovery.

Two Down

One to go:

• Chicago Police still are looking for a gunmen who shot a female officer Friday during a harrowing foot chase following an attempted robbery of a Back of the Yards cellphone store.
  
  On Monday, two men charged in the botched heist and the ensuing shootout were ordered held without bail, but Assistant Cook County State’s Attorney Jennifer Bagby said that a third suspect, who fired the shot that struck the officer in the leg, remained at large.

Since there is no bail, Dart is probably going to release them early tomorrow when no one is looking. Then Foxxx will drop the charges down to misdemeanors. Then Special Ed will strip everyone involved. Rahm will write a check to the aspiring altar boys. A "peace circle" will be assembled and everything will be all right.

Don't bet against it.

UPDATE: Unverified - shooter in custody?

Wait....Another Rahm Lie?

Yet another game of TIF money being shifted to things it was never intended for:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration signed off on an elaborate financial shell game that obscured payment of $55 million for renovations at Navy Pier with tax dollars reserved to fight urban blight, records show. The bookkeeping jiujitsu appears to violate the spirit, if not the letter, of the controversial tax-increment financing program, which critics say has been widely abused and not used for its intended purpose of spurring development in or near economically disadvantaged neighborhoods.
  
  A joint investigation by the Better Government Association and Crain's Chicago Business finds that the administration began filtering the money in 2014 through a hotel project at McCormick Place, capitalizing on its Near South Side location as a rationale for tapping funds reserved for struggling communities.
  
  Emails and internal documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act show that officials at the city as well as the governing body of the lakefront convention complex knew the planned 1,205-room Marriott didn't need the financing. But they also knew that Navy Pier, 3 miles away and a vast distance from any urban blight, did.

We don't understand all the specifics, but none of it seems remotely proper...and very well may be illegal. Some of the experts quoted are appalled at the flagrant abuses. Go read it all.

Underwood Ruling

From our e-mail:

• Judge Cohen will be issuing a ruling in the Underwood retiree healthcare case. July 31 Daley center Room 2308 at 10:30.
  
  The FOP will have a bus leaving at 9:45 from 1412 W Washington.

Which lawsuit is this one? Again, anyone with info, post it up in the comments section.

Again with the Lakefront

And curiously absent from the newspapers:

• A gang-related shootout on the lakefront left Lakeview golfers stunned, but nobody injured Sunday morning at the Sydney Marovitz Golf Course parking lot, according to witness reports and police sources.
  
  No one is in custody.
  
  Gunfire between rival gang members erupted around 8:10 a.m. apparently after one man approached another and asked for his affiliation.
  
  Multiple witnesses reported that one man fired a shotgun and the other fired a handgun in the conflict which unfolded at the east end of the parking lot. Shell casings were recovered at the scene.
  
  A policeman on scene stated that “there was definitely a handgun and a shotgun and they fired back and forth.”

Some stops were made later, but guess what?

• About 30 minutes after the gunfire, golfers summoned police to the course after seeing two men who were in the area of the shooting ducking in and out of brush Marovitz’s east fence line.
  
  A carload of men was stopped nearby, but the city’s link to a national crime database was offline, and officers could not verify the occupants’ identities, gang affiliations, or warrant information, according to an officer.

The LEADS system has been down for two or more days now, rendering the entire Department incapable of running plates, verifying licenses, checking names. And no word on when it will be back.

Squeezing Toothpaste

Guess what happens when you bring resources to bear on a crime problem? The criminals just give up their illicit activities, surrender their guns and go home to a future filled with gainful employment?

Oh wait, that's liberal fantasy land.

• Beat 1011 — an area of just .45 of a square mile — takes the crown of most dangerous police beat in Chicago from neighboring, slightly larger Beat 1133, just on the other side of dividing line Roosevelt Road. Beat 1133, in the department’s Harrison District, held the unwanted title for 2016.
  
  So the police took steps to address that. They put in place or expanded technology-based initiatives to fight the violence north of Roosevelt Road — including ShotSpotter gunshot sensors and what they call Strategic Decision Support Centers. These allow analysts from the police department and the University of Chicago Crime Lab to review gunfire data and better target where officers need to be deployed.
  
  And when they did all of that, the shooting shifted to the other side of Roosevelt Road, the Sun-Times analysis found. The number of shootings has dropped dramatically in Beat 1133, records show. At the same time, the toll of shootings has surged in Beat 1011 next door.

No shit. You know what happened when the Department put up "blue light cameras"? The dope dealing moved around the corner, out of the camera's line of sight. And if the camera got moved, the dealing moved again. The Department is far more reactive than proactive. That comes from being shorthanded - which isn't going to be corrected short-term.

And then there's this little tidbit:

• From January through June last year, 329 people were killed.
  
  The city is slightly ahead of that pace this year. In the first six months of 2017, 333 people were killed citywide.

It's still going to be difficult to maintain this pace for almost two years straight. Last year, August averaged over three murders a day (98 dead). That's asking a lot of our criminals, but you never know. 700 is well within reach again, and Beat 1011 is just going to have to grin and bear it.

Kumbaya Kumbaya

Granny Clampett's spirit lives on:

• A new Cook County court in the North Lawndale neighborhood on Chicago's West Side aims to bring victims of nonviolent crime face-to-face with the offenders to hash out a resolution, officials said Thursday.
  
  The Restorative Justice Community Court, the first of its kind in the state, is slated to begin operations next month. Under the guidance of community members and a judge, defendants, victims and their neighbors will agree on solutions to hold defendants accountable for their crimes.
  
  "This is truly the people's court," Judge Colleen Sheehan, who will preside over the new court, said at a news conference. "It is the community that has the wisdom and the humanity to do this."

Right. We've seen what Foxxx is re-classifying as "non violent" and what Dart is allowing to bail.

And why do we suspect Granny Clampett had a hand in this?

• The approval of victims is required, and defendants must then agree to accept responsibility for the crime.
  
  Restitution agreements will be hashed out in a confidential "peace circle" in which the victim, the defendant and community members will participate. If the defendant follows through on the agreement, the charges can be dropped and the arrest expunged.

Accepting responsibility for anything would be a step up for the North Lawndale "community." Peace circles though - we see a lot of spontaneous dice games breaking out.

606 Still a Crime Magnet

And still, next to no patrols:

• Armed thieves on The 606 have knocked people off their bikes to beat and rob them twice this weekend, and Chicago Police are warning users to watch out.
  
  Three incidents this month on the trail, a former elevated railroad line, were the subject of a police alert Sunday evening. The robberies happened July 2 and then on Saturday and Sunday.
  
  Police said the men knocked the victims from their bikes as they rode on The 606. "In the first two incidents, the victims suffered injuries when they fell off their bikes. In the latest incident, the offenders were armed with a small black handgun and the offenders beat the victim and demanded his belongings," police said in a new release.

Remember when there used to be "decoy missions" and armed robbers of pizza delivery drivers or snack delivery trucks used to end up air-conditioned?

More Chases.....or Else

Make up your damn minds liberals:

• Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn has just seven days to amend a policy to allow officers to chase more suspects -- or he could be fired. Flynn says those changes will mean more innocent deaths.
  
  The message from Milwaukee's Fire and Police Commission (FPC) to Chief Flynn is clear: allow officers to chase more suspects on Milwaukee's streets or you may be fired. Under current policy, Milwaukee police do not chase suspects, unless they believe the vehicles are connected to violent crimes.
  
  Critics say bad guys are exploiting the rules, leading to an explosion of vehicles who refuse to stop.

No kidding? Who could have predicted that?

Oh yeah, any cop with more than a day on the street. But no one listened to them when the policies were changed to protect the criminals.

More Corrupt Aldercreatures?

Not in Chicago?!??!

• The former landlord of the shuttered Double Door music venue has filed a federal lawsuit alleging Ald. Proco Joe Moreno (1st) violated his civil rights by using threats and political intimidation against him in a vendetta over the club’s eviction.
  
  The suit, filed this week in federal court, also names the city of Chicago and the Committee on Zoning, Landmarks and Building Standards as defendants.
  
  The landlord, Brian Strauss seeks more than $9.6 million in damages, according to the filing.

There's some entertaining video at the link that we think we've pointed out before. Proco Joe and Maldonado are so crooked, they don't even care when they're on tape - they just carry on with their theatrics and unethical behavior.

It's about time that aldercreatures start wearing body cameras as they are far more corrupt than anyone else currently wearing a camera. They are doing the peoples' business 24/7 where cops are only on the clock for 9 hours. They also go to jail at a higher rate and therefore shouldn't be trusted by any decent human beings.

Soda Tax Decision This Week

So are we going to continue shopping in the suburbs so as to deprive Rahm of sales taxes or are we going to make a slightly longer trip outside of Cook County so Prickwrinkle loses food, gas, alcohol and other assorted items?

• Cook County's sweetened beverage tax will remain on hold at least another week.
  
  Cook County Circuit Judge Daniel Kubasiak said Friday that he would rule July 28 on the county's motion to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the penny-per-ounce charge, which was set to take effect July 1.
  
  The Illinois Retail Merchants Association and several grocers filed a lawsuit last month seeking to block the tax, which they argue is unconstitutional and too vague. Kubasiak granted a temporary restraining order June 30 that has prevented the tax from being imposed.
  
  Many retailers oppose the tax, which would apply to a wide variety of sugar- and artificially sweetened beverages. They argue that, under the Illinois Constitution, similar objects should be taxed uniformly. Under the sweetened beverage tax, drinks in bottles, or from fountain machines, are taxable. But on-demand, custom-sweetened beverages, such as those mixed by servers or baristas, aren't subject to the tax.

Sugar-free drinks are taxed as being sweetened somehow. Not to mention that the supposed "health benefits" lie is front and center of Prickwrinkle's layoff threats. And the people (or folks) whom Prickwrinkle is so concerned about assisting with their "health" don't even have to pay the tax.

Gunshots Cost How Much?

Our readers have been pointing this out for eight or ten years now - but now someone is figuring it out?

• The charges started racking up the moment Annette Johnson arrived at Mount Sinai Hospital with a gunshot wound to her left forearm. Doctors sliced open Johnson's arm and installed a $500 metal plate to shore up her shattered ulna, securing it with numerous bone screws that cost $246 apiece. There were morphine drips to quell pain, tetanus shots to prevent infection, blood screens and anesthesia.
  
  Two years earlier in a different part of the city, Leo Leyva arrived at a North Side hospital with a gunshot wound to his back. His last memory before going under anesthesia was a nurse telling him they were going to take good care of him and to count up to 10. As the 18-year-old drifted off, the emergency room team at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center went to work to save his life, starting IV lines and X-raying his chest and abdomen before performing an emergency surgery to remove the bullet and repair the damage.
  
  For both Johnson and Leyva, just two of the thousands of gunshot victims in Chicago every year, the first hours and days of their hospital treatment were only the start of what would be costly recoveries that continue to this day. Still, the bills for their initial treatment were staggering. In his first 35 minutes at the hospital, Leyva had racked up $21,521 in charges, and by the time he was released three weeks later the bill totaled more than $157,000. For Johnson, who spent barely 24 hours at Mount Sinai, the hospital charges approached $27,000.

And that's only part of the bill:

• And even that figure represents just a fraction of the total billed. While the hospitals charge for room and board as well as equipment and drugs, the surgeons, anesthesiologists and other medical professionals who treat gunshot victims in emergency rooms across the city typically bill separately.

And guess who's paying? We'll give you a hint - it's seldom the people with the holes in their bodies.

Good Question (UPDATE)

As usual, some sharp readers noted this:

• Um, how was Ch 2 able to FOIA the body cam tape of this guy when we were told that only Bobby Rush could approve the release of his tape when he accused the CPD of racial profiling?
  
  How about it Ch 2? Will you also FOIA Rush's tape?

We assume the reason is because Maldonado is a political threat to someone in power, so he must be kept in check and his ambitions must remain local. Rush is a washed up has-been whose constituency votes for him only out of habit and he has no ambition besides a peaceful expiration at some point instead of a hail of gunfire like so many of his compatriots.

But that doesn't mean an enterprising cop or their union couldn't FOIA the tape.

UPDATE: We guess someone did FOIA the tape and it was out in February. Here's a link to it.

We may have confused Rush's incident with the one in 010 a few years back where some political animal made all sorts of accusations, but we can't remember who that was and if it was just in-car camera instead of body cams.

Get Under That Bus!

As predictable as the sun rising in the east, a politician blames the police for their own failures:

• Minneapolis police Chief Janee Harteau resigned Friday at the request of the mayor, who said she lost confidence in the chief following last weekend's shooting death of an unarmed Australian woman by a police officer.
  
  In a statement released Friday, Harteau said: "I've decided I am willing to step aside to let a fresh set of leadership eyes see what more can be done for the MPD to be the very best it can be."
  
  Mayor Betsy Hodges said she asked for the chief's resignation.
  
  "I've lost confidence in the Chief's ability to lead us further ... it is clear that she has lost the confidence of the people of Minneapolis as well," Hodges said. "For us to continue to transform policing — and community trust in policing — we need new leadership at MPD."

No word on if citizens have "lost confidence" in the political leadership that pushes through shaky recruits who rack up multiple federal lawsuits regarding Civil Rights violations in the name of "diversity." But you won't see that reported in the mainstream media.

Another Neighborhood Sinking

Proof that the political elite are bent on destroying any semblance of thriving neighborhoods in Chicago that don't reliably vote for democrats:

• A key city panel approved the construction of a seven-story, 297-unit luxury apartment complex near the Cumberland CTA Blue Line station in a 7-1 vote on Thursday despite the objection of Ald. Anthony Napolitano (41st), who said residents of the 41st Ward did not want the project.
  
  Unveiled by the developer Glenstar O'Hare, LLC last December, the M-shaped building at 8535 W. Higgins Road would join a cluster of hotels and office mid-rises between the Kennedy Expressway and the border of suburban Park Ridge. It would include studio, one-bedroom and two-bedroom apartments, with the cheapest units starting around $1,200 per month.

No doubt this is payback from the Machine for Napolitano objecting to Arena's plan to destroy the Jefferson Park neighborhood. It's too bad decent citizens have no input into the destruction of the home values.

Officer Shot

Robbery in the 009 District:

• A Chicago police officer was "conscious and alert" after being shot in the leg during a gunfight outside a South Side cellphone store Friday afternoon.
  
  The officer was shot during an armed confrontation in the 4600 block of South Ashland Avenue about 1:30 p.m., according to Chicago police spokesman [...]
  
  Earlier, police said it occurred in the 4300 block of South Ashland.
  
  Fellow officers took her to Mercy Hospital in a squad car, and her condition does not appear to be life-threatening. She was later transferred to Stroger Hospital, where Superintendent Eddie Johnson is scheduled to speak to the media, according to police.

One in custody according to the report.

"not life threatening" is such a crappy turn of a phrase. Gunshot wounds are "life altering" almost every single time and transferring the Officer to Stroger just emphasizes that.

Prayers for the Officer

Retiree Health Care Victory?

This appears to be very good news from earlier in July:

• The Appellate Court decision is out and here is a synopsis of Clint Krislov’s interpretation.
  
  The covered class entitled to lifetime benefits including all of Class 3 and most of Class 4 that means anyone hire before June 16, 2003. Everyone who became a “participant in the system” (hired before June 16, 2003) by the 2003 settlement is entitled to lifetime benefits
  
  The ruling includes Class 1, 2,3 (hired by August 23, 1989) and most of Class 4 (post August 23, 1989 hires). The Appellate Court views the only protected benefit is the $55/$21 a month contribution for Police and Fire and $25 a month for Laborers
  
  The ruling doesn’t address those hire before April 1, 1986 who do not qualify for Medicare.
  
  There is 35 days to appeal to the Illinois Supreme Court.

We're halfway through the 35-day appeal time frame. If anyone has links to the decision or a deeper understanding of what it all means, post it in the comments.

This might....MIGHT....trigger another wave of retirements, rendering Rahm's hiring wave moot.

Aldercreature Caught Dirty

Cameras cut both ways dumbass:

• It started with a Chicago alderman’s request to cross a crime scene in a car. His confrontation with officers at the scene only escalated from there. It was all being recorded, [...]
  
  The whole incident is under investigation, sparked by a complaint from 26th Ward Ald. Roberto Maldonado about how he was treated.
  
  But in police body-cam video obtained by CBS 2, officers question whether Maldonado is asking for preferential treatment.
  It’s in the middle of the night in Humboldt Park, one month ago. Maldonado wants to go home. The problem is, he wants to drive right through a crime scene, or wants police to drive him, personally.

What in god's name makes this asshole think he can just walk through an active police investigation? Oh yeah, he's an alder-asshole with homicides coming out of his ears, and he just doesn't care whether or not it gets solved.

DNAInfo has more:

• At one point, the Humboldt Park alderman got so angry that he called the entire Chicago Police Department into question, saying, "This is why the Police Department is in such bad shape with the citizens."

And why does he think that cops (and many citizens) have grown weary of the "business as usual" among Chicago politicians who think that they're above the common man, above common sense, above the law?

• At the very end, as Maldonado is walking away, he can be heard saying faintly: "I hope that that wasn't taped."

A voluntary contact with police on a public street at an active crime scene? Keep hoping you brainless twit.

National Issue Comes to Chicago

As a rule, we don't do social media. However, AceofSpades blog has an extensive Twitter conversation that demonstrates the damage the previous Administration has done (and continues to do) to the nation, specifically Washington DC. We've condensed it for space considerations, but you can read the whole thing at the link up top:

• Boy oh boy. Remember we said that after Obama left office, we'd find out the damage he did? Under Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch, the Department of Justice pushed the states to pass new laws. The goal was to make it impossible to hold repeat offenders in jail before trial. Why? Because so many repeat offenders are black.
  
  The first step was to reclassify violent felonies as nonviolent misdemeanors. Look at California. Assault with a deadly weapon, harming a crime victim or witness, resisting arrest that injures a police officer...Violent elder or child abuse, arson with injury, and manslaughter are now nonviolent felonies. Proposition 47--passed in 2014--reclassified certain "nonviolent felonies" as misdemeanors. Therefore prisoners convicted of violent elder abuse were released because now their former violent felony was a misdemeanor.
  
  So the Democrats first changed violent felonies to misdemeanors. Then they changed the laws for bail. Washington DC Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier resigned because criminals were being arrested, released, and arrested again the same day. Federal authorities decide who stays in jail in DC. Under pressure from Holder and Lynch, they were releasing everyone.

We don't know what you think, but that last paragraph seems to be EXACTLY what Kim Foxxx is doing by downgrading every felony she can, EXACTLY what Dart is doing emptying the jail and EXACTLY what Evans is doing by reducing/eliminating bail for supposedly "non violent" offenders. By the way, our respect for Lanier went up a notch for resigning when her Department was hamstrung by the DOJ - she cites nearly every criticism we've made the past few years. (EDIT - She's still a gun grabbing leftist tool):

• The crime rate spiked dramatically. The Democrats are pushing for "community rehabilitation programs" instead of prison. The most repulsive member of congress--@tedlieu, the guy who trolls Trump--has introduced a doozy of a bill. Lieu wants to ELIMINATE bail in the entire country. They point to the "success" of New Jersey, which eliminated bail earlier this year. In New Jersey, a person is evaluated with an eight-question form. Prior offenses are not taken into consideration. As a result almost nobody is held over until trial. Almost everyone is released. The state had to hire new staff and create new computer systems to manage the new system. Releasing everybody has so far cost New Jersey $400 million, and the crime rate is skyrocketing.
  
  Washington DC eliminated bail, and now the city pays $50 million a year to oversee almost no prisoners. Duane and Beth Chapman--He's better known as Dog the Bounty Hunter--testified in Sacramento about the new laws coming. The Chapmans pointed out every loophole they could: a guy who never shows up for trial, for example. They said that the Democrats then TWEAKED the laws to EXCLUDE any possible offender. The DC Police arrested a total of 219 violent protestors on Inauguration Day. Only 17 showed up for their trials. The Chapmans said that the Democratic party has made it a priority in 2017 to pass laws that make holding anyone in jail impossible.
  
  What I realized a long time ago is that Democrats' sole motivation is to piss off conservatives. So I'm not surprised that one of our two major parties now wants us to die at the hands of violent criminals. The end result of Democratic "reform" is that criminals now commit crimes with impunity, and people are too afraid to call the cops. There are no penalties for threatening witnesses and skipping your trial. Nobody comes looking for you. And if you get arrested, they immediately release you. You may have heard that more an more celebrities are having their mansions broken into. Alanis Morissette was robbed of $2 million worth of jewelry. This is a new crime, being committed by old gangs such and the Bloods and Crips. It's because there are no penalties. This is just one of the things Obama did to us. And the CURRENT Democrats want to make it even worse. The end.

The damage wrought by Obummer and his half-assed "social engineering" will be felt by generations of cops and victims.

Violent Becomes "Non Violent"

And if the above post wasn't bad enough, look what felonies California has defined as "non violent" just this year:

Battery? Domestic Abuse? Forcible rape? Assault on Police? What the fuck California?

UPDATE: We misidentified the list of charges as being from New Jersey - we apologize for the confusion, but we got new glasses and are still getting used to reading the computer screen with them.

Just Another Reminder....

What a f#$%ing bullet Chicago dodged in 2016:

• The Rio Olympics continue to be an example of why more and more cities are wary of hosting the games.
  
  Rio 2016 has essentially become a financial disaster, with the games costing $13 billion in a mix of private and public money, according to a June Associated Press report.
  
  Much of the Olympic infrastructure is abandoned or underused, including the $700 million athletes village that was supposed to be turned into luxury condos once the games were over.
  
  Stephen Wade of the Associated Press recently reported via Twitter that the athletes village was "shuttered" and that only 7% of the condos had been sold.

Tokyo, the 2020 site, has seen theirs costs balloon from $6 billion to over $12 billion - 100% above budget and nearly 3 years to go.

Scholarship Guy Makes Bail

Just the other day we wrote about Chief Judge Evans granting bail to so called "non-violent" offenders, which covers any number of felonies. Evans also said his order "calls for judges to stop issuing cash bonds for dangerous people."

You mean like this guy?

• Investigators found a “treasure trove” of property belonging to at least seven separate robbery victims when they searched two backpacks being carried by recent Lincoln Park High School graduate Bryce McGill early Friday.
  
  McGill was arrested outside of Wrigley Field after police recognized him as a robbery suspect who had been profiled in an internal police alert.
  
  A custodial search turned up two wallets; three sets of keys; four cell phones; a MacBook; three Ventra cards; a watch; two credit cards; and—oddly enough—an electrical ballast.
  
  Prosecutors Saturday charged McGill with five felony counts of robbery, one felony count of robbery while indicating the presence of a firearm, and one count each of reckless conduct, resisting police, and theft of lost or mislaid property.

This is the guy with the "full ride" to UNC reduced to doing strong armed robberies in order to pay for his off campus housing or something, though there are some doubts his liar lawyer might have fudged a little on that.

This guy beats women and robs them, and he's free as a bird.

The New Normal?

Two more kids shot:

• Moments after getting picked up from a summer camp Wednesday in the Austin neighborhood, 4-year-old Asante Glover III and his sister 6-year-old Keziah Shealy had hoped to find a quick snack before taking a nap, relatives said.
  
  When they left Columbus Park on the West Side around 4 p.m., the siblings spotted a vendor selling crushed, flavored ice, known as "snowballs," they thought they’d found the perfect summertime treat. But before they could make their way to buy a cup, a black car pulled up in the 5500 block of West Van Buren Street and someone inside fired shots, hitting the children and their 27-year-old father.
  
  The snowball vendor rushed to their aid, putting the children and their father in the backseat of her truck and speeding to Mount Sinai Hospital.
  
  [...] The children’s mother Shajaun Sims, a CTA employee, hurried to the hospital where her son was treated for a graze wound to his left hip and left leg and her daughter looked after for a gunshot wound to the thigh. Meanwhile, their father underwent surgery for eight gunshot wounds, including three to the chest. He was listed in critical condition, but was later stabilized, according to police and relatives.

Golly, who were these intemperate youth shooting at?

So is this the new thing? Dad takes kids our for whatever reason, thinking they'll be like little bullet-proof shields from those who would do him harm, but now they're just miniature backstops catching lead? Like the 9-year-old the other day, all dressed up in his Daddy's colors, now these two. The gang wars have entered new lows - not only the assholes who would shoot kids, but the assholes using them as cover.

UPDATE: Dear ol' Dad returned fire? Oh this just gets better and better. How did the media not report that part?

Great Idea

Why didn't someone think of this before?

• Activists in Baltimore are attempting to promote a murder-free weekend by urging criminals to ditch their guns -- despite the failure of previous community ceasefires to curb violence.
  
  Activist Erricka Bridgeford has been pushing her campaign for a violence-free weekend since May, and the idea has garnered support on social media. She and other activists are calling for a 72-hour ceasefire from Aug. 4 to Aug. 6.
  
  "This is a city-wide call, asking Baltimore residents to celebrate life during the ceasefire," the event's website stated.
  
  "This ceasefire is the product of Baltimore residents not only being exhausted by homicides, but believing that Baltimore can have a murder-free weekend if everyone takes responsibility."

Let us know how that works out for you.

Can Anyone Confirm?

The 13^th Annual Cycle Across Illinois benefiting IL COPS took place this past weekend, 13 July through 16 July. The ride honored six Illinois officers killed in the line of duty, including Jason Gallero of the Cook County Sheriff’s Police Department. The ride went from Alton, covering some 300 miles and was scheduled to end at the Maywood Courthouse.

According to this e-mail, it didn't:

• Please look into Preckwinkle's actions on why she would not allow the ride to finish at the Maywood Courthouse. The ride was notified on Friday night that they were not welcome on Sunday morning. There were surviving wives, mothers, and children left riding from Alton Illinois, and Preckwinkle told them they weren't welcome! This needs to get out there.

Here's some drone footage of the finish, and it looks like they were diverted to a nearby high school. So why didn't Prickwrinkle allow the ride honoring one of her own Sheriffs to end at a closed Courthouse?

Interesting Assumption

Following the killing of the 9-year-old kid this weekend, a pointed demonstration of  how poisoned the atmosphere is after a few years of media lies, half-truths and slanted reporting:

• Raul Mendez, a 52-year-old who lives on the 3400 block of 95th Street, said he saw the SUV in the area near his house. He was inside, talking to someone on the phone, when he heard a man screaming.
  
  "He was surrounded by police and I thought, 'Maybe they were torturing him or something like that.' But it turns out maybe that wasn't what was happening," Mendez said.
  
  "He was screaming, 'Tell me he's not dead.' I walked up to the bridge where he started screaming all over again," he said. "He said, 'They killed my son, they killed my son,' in Spanish.

The cops on scene were cleaning up after a fatal motorcycle crash that had to attract this guy's attention, and his first thought is that the cops are torturing someone - in this day and age, in this atmosphere, with cameras and video everywhere. An allegation (torture) that has never been proven at any point in time in a court of law.

Not a Good Sign

Chicago had it's own version of this at a park in 012 the other week. This is an escalation:

• What started as a weekend barbecue at a recreation center led to an aggressive encounter with Philadelphia police officers.
  
  Around 400 teens in an unauthorized gathering confronted police outside the Lonnie Young Recreation Center in Germantown Sunday night.
  
  Police say it all began after 6 p.m. When officers arrived, they found the large crowd on the sidewalk and in the street, as most were estimated to be between 12 and 17 years old.
  
  [...] Officers said glass bottles were thrown at them. Publicly available videos on social media show the teens surrounding officers in their vehicles, hopping on top of cars and generally taunting police.

Again we point out, without a citywide response unit on call until around 0400 hours, this is going to happen here in short order. Social media already drives a sizable percentage of Chicago crime. You think it isn't going to drive a "flash mob" at some point to confront police?

Don't Identify Offenders

The liberal mind is a strange thing:

• Officials from BART, the public metro system serving California's San Francisco Bay area, have come under fire for their refusal to release crime surveillance videos, claiming such tapes will promote stereotypes and "stir up racial animosity."
  
  A BART official defended the agency's decision on Monday by saying information about criminal misconduct will be withheld at this time because of the media's "disproportionate elevation" of crimes that "unfairly affect and characterize riders of color," the San Francisco Chronicle reported.
  
  The decision, however, has been roundly criticized by at last two BART board members who are calling for greater transparency on how crimes are reported within the system.

Why bother alerting the ridership whom they should be watching out for. It might hurt someones feelings. The Chicago media has been doing this for years now, and crime is completely under control.

It Isn't Racism

What if the entire narrative is a lie? (HINT: It is):

• By now everyone knows that police, whether consciously or subconsciously, are targeting young black men, killing them at a disproportionate rate.
  
  But what if everyone is wrong? What if race actually has little causal effect on police shootings?
  
  In fact, the data show just that. If we as a nation can look seriously at the evidence, we can have a much more productive conversation about what’s gone wrong and how to fix it.

And here's a simple explanation of how the left twists the narrative into a pretzel:

• The Washington Post recently ran an article about police killings nationwide in the first half of the year. That story made the same mistake Post reporters have been making for years by comparing the racial composition of those killed with the overall racial composition of the United States.
  
  [...]
  
  And few activities, from the important to the trivial, conform to the Census Bureau’s breakdowns of the American population. Black people, who constitute about 13 percent of Americans — the Post had to focus on men alone to get the figure down to 6 percent — are 1.4 percent of doctors, 38 percent of barbers, and 16 percent of cooks. They account for 14 percent of pedestrian fatalities and 74.4 percent of NBA players but just 8 percent of NPR newsroom employees.
  
  The media would have Americans believe that race is the single most important and predictive element of fatal encounters between police and civilians. Yet both the basic data and less superficial analyses than the Post’s show that is not the case. With a few notable exceptions, violent criminal attacks are the best predictor of whom police might shoot in America.

Cops profile criminal behavior. Our readers (and this blog) have made that point for years now. And all of the "reform" of recent years has made it nearly impossible (and unwieldy) to effectively document a fluid, constantly changing, dynamic situation. And the penalties for "mis-documenting" a situation are far more punitive than corrective.

That isn't to say documentation shouldn't be done. We didn't say anything like that and any comments accusing us of that will be summarily deleted. You're inability to read or understand the written word is your problem. But the pendulum has swung so far over into the realms of attempting to micromanage a typical street stop that the "risk-reward" measure has hogtied proactive efforts. In other words, the simplest and safest road is "fetality."

Go read it all.

Multiple Pensions

Question:

• Does anyone know how many pensions (and how much they are) that Prickwrinkle collects?
• How about Shortshanks? We know he collects multiples;
• Do these thieves collect Social Security, too?
• Other politicians who are double or triple-dipping?

If investigative reporting is dead, then citizens have to pick up some of the slack, and crowd-sourcing information is as good a method as any.

Ferguson Found THESE E-mails

Seems like "selective enforcement:"

• While many regular fans were shelling out big bucks to park near the United Center, Chicago city workers engaged in a scheme to set aside free street parking for friends and family during Blackhawks playoff games and Bulls games, a city inspector general report said Monday. The report suggests the practice also could be taking place at other venues.
  
  During the Blackhawks' 2015 run to the Stanley Cup championship, friends of Office of Emergency Management and Communications personnel were routinely allowed to park on a stretch of Wood Street near the stadium that is supposed to be reserved for media, according to Inspector General Joseph Ferguson's quarterly report. OEMC workers sometimes blocked off the street, "only granting access to those who OEMC management granted permission to park and directing members of the public to park elsewhere," according to Ferguson's report.
  
  The inspector general's office conducted surveillance of the street 13 times during Hawks games, nine of which were playoff games. The office also watched the street before three Bulls games, according to the report.
  
  "Approximately 62 different, non-OEMC vehicles parked on the west side of Wood between Warren and Madison during the surveillances," the report states. "Many of those vehicles parked on multiple occasions. The parkers included friends and relatives of management-level and supervisory OEMC employees."
  
  OEMC officials would often get requests to park on their city email accounts. They would then relay the names of the drivers and vehicle descriptions to OEMC supervisors working at the United Center, who would pass the information to traffic control aides stationed near the block.

First of all, 13 Blackhawks games versus 3 Bulls games? We'd say Ferguson has a distinct bias against hockey fans. Hopefully, the NHL will be lodging a protest shortly.

Second, it's amazing how Ferguson was able to locate these e-mails, but he couldn't turn up a single e-mail outlining secret study groups held at Headquarters on numerous dates with numerous room number changes when attendees were tipped off that IAD had received complaints. That these e-mails existed is beyond question - too many people knew about them to completely cover up the breach. Paper copies made it into the file and may have been part of the original complaint.

But Ferguson couldn't locate a single one. But he's got plenty on the OEMC parking scandal. One person resigned and a bunch of suspensions were handed out. And no one is accountable for the biggest cheating scandal in history that is leading to incompetent morons driving the Police Department into the ground.

Disaster in the Making

We can see this ending badly:

• Cook County’s top judge on Monday ordered his fellow judges who conduct bond court to release all defendants who pose no criminal danger to the public, veering sharply away from a cash-for-bond system that critics have long contended unfairly lands the poor behind bars.
  
  “If they are not deemed a danger to any person or the public, my order states that they will receive a bail they can afford,” Chief Judge Evans told the Sun-Times.
  
  “Defendants should not be sitting in jail awaiting trial simply because they lack the financial resources to secure their release,” Evans said, noting that judges will now be required to ask how much a defendant can afford to pay.
  
  On the other end of the spectrum, Evans’ order also calls for judges to stop issuing cash bonds for dangerous people.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but Cook County judges aren't the sharpest knives in the drawer. Most are political hacks, put into place as rewards for being mediocre lawyers and excellent politicians. Expecting them to adhere to something like a new bail schedule is like expecting them to follow sentencing guidelines - nearly impossible. They take their marching orders from politicians with the fingers in the breeze of popular opinion, you know, like Kim Foxxx refusing to prosecute statutes passed by the Legislature.

Without a bond, an actual cash guarantee to compel appearances in Court, we see a whole bunch of no-shows in the immediate future. And you can't really have a Bond Forfeiture Warrant without something (like cash) to forfeit. Oh sure, the clerks will enter it into the system somehow and understaffed cops/sheriffs will grab the Warrant List and go looking, shorthanded as they always are, with a backlog of tens of thousands of active warrants. And someone designated "non violent" will suddenly become violent and people/folks will cry, "It was only a shoplifting warrant - why did the police have to use so much force?"

What's That Sound?

:::FLUSH:::

• A recent Lincoln Park High School graduate was ordered held on $150,000 bail Saturday in connection to a recent string of strongarm robberies in the Lakeview neighborhood.
  
  Bryce K. McGill, 18, faces multiple counts of robbery and one count of aggravated robbery for several street robberies, at least three taking place on July 6 in the Boystown enclave in Lakeview, prosecutors said at the Leighton Criminal Court Building.
  
  In all of the attacks, McGill and an unnamed accomplice approached men and women on the street, and McGill would punch the victim in the face, prosecutors said. The pair then grabbed the proceeds, including iPhones and wallets, and fled on foot. McGill is connected to at least five robberies, including one in which he implied he had a handgun, prosecutors said.
  
  Chicago police arrested McGill early Friday morning in the 900 block of West Waveland Avenue more than an hour after a robbery and found the proceeds from several robberies on him, according to prosecutors and McGill’s arrest report.

The giant sucking sound?

• Saturday’s hearing took an emotional turn when McGill’s court-appointed attorney told the court during mitigation that McGill had graduated from high school last month and had received a full scholarship to the University of North Carolina.
  
  [...] “UNC? Full ride?” Judge Peggy Chiampas asked loudly in the courtroom. “I need a break,” she said before briefly storming from the courtroom for a brief recess.

To her credit, Chiampas demanded proof at the next status hearing, but what kind of thought process does it take to blow a full ride away from the Hellhole that surrounds his dope infested home address?

Shooting

Something like the third police involved shooting in 025 in under two months:

• Chicago Police shot an 18-year-old man twice during a traffic stop in the Belmont Central neighborhood early Sunday morning.
  
  Police say they pulled over a vehicle with four individuals between the ages of 17 and 21 for failing to use a traffic signal during a right turn around 3 a.m. Sunday. As officers were getting the driver's license and registration, police say they noticed a man in the backseat with a gun in his hand.
  
  CPD Deputy Chief Al Nagode said the man made several statements that were "threatening in nature."
  
  "The officers had a dialogue with the individual where they were attempting to get him to put down the weapon and not continue," Nagode said. "The subject refused to do that and it resulted in the subject being shot.”
  
  Both a sergeant and an officer fired their weapons, striking the teen once in the arm and once in the leg. He’s now in serious but stable condition at Loyola Hospital. Neighbors say he's from the neighborhood where he was shot.

It seems every effort was made at "de-Escalante-ation" as per the direction of previous administrators, and yet, the subject still refused to follow clear and lawful direction. Amazing, isn't it?

Good job to all involved.