Why Not Record Teachers?

An interesting conundrum for lefties:

• Paul Boron is 13 years old. And he’s facing a felony eavesdropping charge that could change the course of the rest of his life. His story stands as another chapter of controversy surrounding an eavesdropping law some experts have criticized as ripe for abuse and misapplication.
  
  On Feb. 16, 2018, Boron was called to the principal’s office at Manteno Middle School after failing to attend a number of detentions. Before meeting Principal David Conrad and Assistant Principal Nathan Short, he began recording audio on his cellphone.
  
  Boron said he argued with Conrad and Short for approximately 10 minutes in the reception area of the school secretary’s office, with the door open to the hallway. When Boron told Conrad and Short he was recording, Conrad allegedly told Boron he was committing a felony and promptly ended the conversation. Two months later, in April, Boron was charged with one count of eavesdropping – a class 4 felony in Illinois.

Firstly, shouldn't a parent have been in attendance? Sure, the kid seems like an out-of-control ass, but as we are all aware, asses of all stripes are expected to be treated with kid gloves and god forbid you violate their rights in the tiniest manner.

Second, public school teachers and principals are public employees, right? And the big push is to record public employees in the performance of their duties, correct? The core argument is that if you performing a government function, then you have no expectation of any sort of privacy interacting with the public - police especially, but why not teachers, principals, building inspectors, aldercreatures, and dare we say it? Mayors.

At the very least, we'll have all sorts of proof in the event of false accusations against teachers, classroom attacks by students, and liberal indoctrination efforts.

Crooked Contracts?

In Chicago??? Who would have thunk it?!??!

• In late 2011, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration gave a no-bid, five-year deal for $115 million to a politically connected partnership to operate and maintain O’Hare Airport’s in-house transit system — the People Mover.
  
  Nearly seven years later, that partnership, called AOR Transit Joint Venture, is still on the job. That’s after being handed more duties, without competitive bidding, that have helped bring it an extra $58 million, records show.
  
  Emanuel has pledged to open up government contracting opportunities. But his administration repeatedly has extended existing contracts, without seeking competing offers, on big public works jobs at O’Hare and at Midway Airport. The People Mover job is another example of that.

The Slum Times article lists another couple of crooked contracts, but let's be real - if you don't kick up to the Machine, you aren't going to be doing business anywhere in Chicago. And since the payout is so huge, the payoff is small potatoes.

Pendulum Swings Back

In liberal Milwaukee of all places:

• Milwaukee Police Chief Alfonso Morales said Monday, June 25 law enforcement officials are working together when it comes to pursuit policies. This, as city leaders held a news conference in an effort to provide a unified message about the MPD pursuit policy -- informing people that police will chase reckless drivers.
  
  Until last fall, Milwaukee police were only allowed to chase drivers suspected of committing a violent felony — a directive put in place in 2010 after four bystanders were killed during three separate police chases. Former police Chief Edward Flynn revised the policy after pressure from the Milwaukee Common Council and members of the Milwaukee Fire and Police Commission, who were responding to public outcry over reckless drivers.
  
  Under the new policy, officers are able to chase after reckless drivers and suspected drug dealers -- and Chief Morales said the number of pursuits has increased since Sept. 17, 2017 after the policy change.

Until someone comes up with a vehicle-borne engine disabling device, criminals are going to flee and officers are going to (initially) chase them. Chicago has proven time and again, if there are no consequences for fleeing, then you're going to get more fleeing. There has to be some balance and some penalty.

What Shortage? Oh, That One

Doesn't Pfleger care about black people?

• The Chicago Police Department on Thursday pleaded with Rev. Michael Pfleger to abandon plans to shut down the Dan Ryan on July 7 to avoid pulling 200 officers out of violence-plagued neighborhoods, but the activist priest said the expressway march will go on.
  
  “That was the decision that was made for the acts of civil disobedience and direct action because we are not getting the services we need in our communities, and the violence is continuing. This was the decision that was made, and we’re going with it. We’re not backing down on it,” a defiant Pfleger said.
  
  Pfleger didn’t budge when told the expressway march would require 200 officers to be yanked out of South and West Side neighborhoods plagued by gang violence.

Pfleger is (possibly inadvertently) exposing Rahm's lies about manpower not being anywhere near what it was in the 1990's and early 2000's.

We don't know why the Department cares though - once Pflger goes down the ramp, he's ISP's problem. And we're at Full Strength, right? We do have a suggestion though:

This would open up any jammed expressways pretty quick.

Venue Change Asked For

Long anticipated, finally unsealed:

• A long-sealed motion by indicted Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke seeks to move his trial for the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald outside Cook County, alleging that “extensive, inflammatory and sensational media coverage” has made a fair jury trial here impossible.
  
  The motion, finally made public three months to the day after it was filed, also contended that public comments by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, then-State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez and other elected officials amounted to “the public execution of Jason Van Dyke.”
  
  “It can be argued that there is no case in history that presents a more compelling example of the necessity for a change of place of trial,” the 31-page filing concluded.
  
  The motion was filed March 28 by Daniel Herbert, Van Dyke’s lead lawyer, only to be quietly unsealed this week by Judge Vincent Gaughan, who has put extraordinary restrictions on the release of evidence and testimony in the high-profile case. It was made public Thursday.

This hearing won't take place before August according to the report, so a summer trial looks to be out. That's a good thing. And the way this thing has been used as a political football for so long, the chances of an actual venue change are better than average.

Newspaper Attacked

Amid all the chaos in Maryland following the shooting of some reporters, a few thoughts come to mind:

• This guy had a personal beef with the paper, losing a defamation suit against them back in 2012. That doesn't seem like the fault of the current White House occupant;
• All this whining about portraying the press as the enemy. Hasn't the media been painting everyone with a Confederate flag as a racist, Trump supporters as nazis and anyone who believes in border security as some sort of racist nazi?
• Where was this outrage when a Bernie Sanders supporter was targeting Republican members of Congress practicing for a charity baseball game? Or when "protestors" shut down the Trump rally here and elsewhere? Or when right leaning speakers were shut down on campuses across the nation?
• Which "comedian" was just on TV the other night wishing that someone had shot Justice Kennedy instead of President Kennedy? Some conservative wacko? Oh right, it wasn't.
• Which organizations have been pushing the completely dis-proven "#blm" narrative that has directly cost a large number of officers their jobs and their lives?
• How about the national coverage of TWO mass shootings in Chicago Monday to go with the total of 32 people having extra holes in their bodies that day? Oh wait, there wasn't any because "black" something something something.

Seems like selective outrage.

Closing Underpasses is Racist!

Once again, everything is racist, even crime fighting endeavors:

• One year after the murder of a 25-year-old woman triggered the racially-charged closing of the Ohio Street underpass, Ald. Brian Hopkins (2nd) wants to seal off the underpass at Chicago Avenue and Lake Shore Drive.
  
  Hopkins said there was a “noticeable and dramatic decline” in overnight calls to 911 after the Ohio Street underpass was closed and he’s hoping for similar results at Chicago Avenue, which connects to Lake Shore Park.
  
  “At 2, 3, 4 in the morning, an increasing number of people are using that to access Lake Shore Park from the trail, then having illegal parties. Drug use, alcohol, under-age consumption. All of that is happening. And we really need to stop that,” Hopkins said.

Seems logical. If your business is closed for the night, you don't leave the doors unlocked and the windows open, right? After Hopkins had the Ohio Street underpass closed, complaints dropped, and there have been grounds for extensive complaints recently:

• Hopkins noted that Lake Shore Park is not far from the area where 10 people were recently pushed into the lake by a group of young people who did it just for the fun of it. It’s also close to where a young suburban couple was surrounded by a group of thugs, culminating in the man being punched in face, hitting his head on the pavement and suffering a fractured skull.

Aldercreature Beale denounced the previous closure as racist:

• When the Ohio underpass was closed, Beale denounced the move as racist. Last year, the Chicago Park District was ordered to close the Ohio Street underpass between midnight and 5 a.m. from April through October in a controversial move that, once again, exposed the city’s racial divide.
  
  Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd) rushed the “order” — with an assist from Finance Chairman Edward M. Burke (14th) — in response to the Father’s Day 2017 murder of 25-year-old Raven Lemons near the underpass used to access the beach and the lakefront trail.
  
  Beale called it another example of the “double standard” that has long applied to crimes in white and minority communities. “If we start closing streets every time somebody gets killed, we would have over 600 blocks in the black and brown communities shut down,” Beale said then. “This is over-reaching, over-reacting. We deal with these types of things every single day in our communities. But when it happens downtown, [people say], ‘Let’s shut it down.’”

But it's hard to argue with actual results. And Beale must have realized what an asshole he sounded like demanding the shutdown of 600 blocks of black and brown communities when the killings are being done by......black and brown communities.

County Shortages?

And the media is ignoring it, too:

• SCC, I have one for you and the chaplains to be paid. Cook Sheriff 24/7 court Markham lockup on Friday had an inmate who died in custody. Here is the kicker...……. When the guy died the Sheriff had NO supervisor on duty in the lockup from 7-11pm in effort to save on overtime. They reportedly only had one male officer and the inmates body wasn't found until several hours after he injured himself. Sheriff Dart hasn't hired a court officer for 12 years due to his bloated budget and just paid out a 3.5 million dollar suit in the same facility. Now he probably was trying to save a few hundred bucks working without a supervisor and now will pay out another huge lawsuit. Can you please post this cause officers are fed up being forced to work short even on the lockups and jail.

The media probably isn't reporting it because Dart hired a whole bunch of their family members at six-digit salaries, and then laid off deputies while leaving the bloated managers in place.

And the Verdict is.... [UPDATE, Moved]

UPDATE: Obviously, this is going to be the big story all day, so we're moving it from 2101 hours Wednesday to its current position at the top of the Thursday posts.

Confused as all Hell, but it looks like they cleared the Officer on a technicality:

• In a chaotic finish to a high-profile trial, a judge first announced that a jury had found that a Chicago police officer unjustifiably shot and killed a bat-wielding teen, then wiped away the verdict and the $1 million award to the teen’s family after noting that jurors had also found the officer reasonably feared for his life when he fired.
  
  Confusion abounded at the Daley Center courthouse Wednesday evening after the Cook County jury reached its conflicting verdict after 3 ½ hours of deliberations, capping an eight-day trial.
  
  Judge Rena Marie Van Tine first announced that jurors had sided in favor of Quintonio LeGrier's parents — who sued the city and Officer Robert Rialmo — awarding them $1.05 million in damages.
  
  Moments later, however, it was revealed that jurors had also signed a special interrogatory — a specific question to a jury — finding that Rialmo fired in the reasonable belief that LeGrier posed the danger of death or great bodily harm to himself or his partner.
  
  Van Tine then found that the answer to the specific question overrode the rest of the verdict. Over the objections of the LeGrier family’s lawyers, the judge entered judgment in favor of Rialmo and the city.

Expect extensive appeals, but in the meantime we're still allowed to fear for our lives against a bat wielding assailant and take appropriate police action.

"Merit" Sergeant Investigation

It sure is amazing how many "merit" supervisors are getting into trouble over the years. It's almost like they don't know the job they're supposed to be doing, yet somehow, they got promoted anyway:

• Remember Sgt. Sam Dickerson, the Chicago cop who wouldn't let Wendy and me turn in a total of eleven guns between us at the June 2 Chicago Gun Buyback? The same cop who ordered me to accompany him outside after he caught me snapping a photo inside the church building where they held their event? The one who banned me from ever participating in a Chicago gun buyback again? You may not remember him – at least by name, but he's gonna remember me.
  
  Yes, I escaped Chicago's Public Safety Headquarters in one piece Monday. The Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson must not have recognized my name or spotted me. Either way, I spent literally all afternoon on the fifth floor, right around the corner from Special Ed's office. At the high-security Internal Affairs Bureau, I completed my part of the formal complaint process against Sgt. Dickerson (pictured, center, holding box).

This is the moron who single out a white guy at a gun turn-in, claimed it was a "private event" even though Chicago Police were all over the building wearing Chicago Police identifiers, and then banned him from the premises AND any future "gun turn in" events, violating we don't know how many laws, Department Orders, and at least one Constitutional Amendment.

You'd think he at least had a passing familiarity with some of those things. Instead, he highlights the general incompetency of "merit" promotees across the board and makes IAD pretend to perform another sham investigation.

Safety Warning

Texas:

• HOUSTON — A police sergeant in Harris County, Texas, is sick after touching a flyer left under a police patrol vehicle’s windshield wipers that was laced with the opioid fentanyl.
  
  The Harris County Sheriff’s Office said that several flyers laced with the powerful drug were found under the windshield wipers of several police cars on Tuesday afternoon.

Fentanyl is that cheap that the dealers can afford to use it as a weapon? Be aware and be careful.

A Misdemeanor?

We guess Foxxx can disregard all sorts of laws:

• After shopping on the Mag Mile, DuSable High School junior Jasmine Ware and three girlfriends decided to grab a snack before heading back their Bronzeville homes Monday night. They stopped at the McDonald’s at Chicago Avenue and State Street in the Gold Coast neighborhood and noticed a woman causing a ruckus. “A random lady was arguing with somebody else,’’ said Ware, 16.
  
  The girls figured out what they wanted to eat and stood in line near the woman. “The McDonald’s lady said to (me), ‘Come up next,’’’ Ware said. “Then the lady said: ‘I’m next.’ We’re like, ‘Um, how are you going to be next?’” The woman began arguing and pushing them, she said. “The next thing I know I see her go inside her purse and pull out a hammer,’’ Ware said. “She said: ‘I’ll hit y’all.’ She was cursing, she even spit on one of my friends.’’
  
  Ware said she slipped on something, possibly water on the floor, and fell toward the woman. The woman raised the hammer and swung it at her forehead, just over her right eye, Ware said.

An attack with a weapon, blood drawn, public place of accomodation....all the boxes checked for an Aggravated Battery, right?

• [Hannah] Walker, of the 4200 block of West North Avenue, was charged with misdemeanor simple battery, according to [...], a spokesman for the Chicago Police Department.

Lucky she didn't get more than a glancing blow on the girl's head. We guess black lives don't matter to black criminals.....or black State's Attorneys either.

Government Unions Hit Hard

Who was it said, "Elections have consequences"?

• The coalition of national unions most affected by the Illinois case Janus v. AFSCME Council 31 ruling is predicting an immediate revenue loss as governments stop collecting “fair share” or “agency” fees from non-union employees. “But not the kind of draconian existential threat that the right wing attempted to do when they started this fight,” says Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.
  
  On Wednesday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision that government workers who choose not to join unions cannot be compelled to pay “fair share” dues.

What we'd like to see is an itemized bill, so that if the police labor organizations ever attempt to donate to Rahm or Madigan or Pritzker or another Daley or any other asshole who begs for our endorsements/votes and then screw us, our pensions, supports insane work rules, etc., then we can reduce their ability to hand over our money in our name.

We write checks to assorted conservative causes and politicians. Then the FOP sends Madigan a check every year.

Why? We don't like the Madigans. They're assholes, both of them. Under a previous regime, the FOP was "encouraged" to contribute to Lisa, not so that she would do our bidding, but so that Mike wouldn't work actively against us, as if neutrality on pension issues was a good thing. We needed an advocate and we got another bloated political pension for a Machine politico. We earn our money and it's high time those utilizing it earned it, too, by representing OUR interests.

Good Question

Smartest readers in the world:

• Anonymous said... If {phleger] wants to stop gang violence why not block the roads leading to the drug markets? Are the gang leaders his biggest contributors on Sundays?

Probably not the biggest "contributors," but they'd put a bullet in his skull if he fucked with the drug profits, pretend priest or not. How about it Mikey? Feel like martyrdom? Or are you as big a sellout as we all know you to be?

Nice Monday Rahm

In a single twenty-four-hour period:

• Twenty-three people were shot Monday in shootings across the city, including ten people who were shot in two late-night attacks on the South Side.
  
  Between 10:45 p.m. and 10:50 p.m., one person was killed and nine were wounded in two shootings in the West Pullman and Bronzeville neighborhoods.
  
  The most recent fatal shooting happened about 10:50 p.m., after a shoot-out in West Pullman that left three others wounded, according to Chicago Police.

Including ten shot in a fifteen-minute span.

Time for Phleger Dollars Again

Click the pic.

Enlarge.

Print.

Put in envelopes at church.

Detectives Detailed?

So the clearance rate for homicides hovers around 14%. Shootings a tiny bit better. Property crime investigations are suspended on a regular basis due to inadequate evidence collection/processing.

The Department just made something like 110 detectives who are rushing to the Areas to solve crimes. Wait. They're not? They're being detailed to the streets, beaches, downtown, in uniform, until after the Fourth of July?

Is this a grievance? After all, these detectives are merely detailed to the Academy for training. Their Unit of Assignment is still where they came from. In many cases, some of these officers had twenty or more years, yet here they are being re-detailed from Units of Assignment, in many cases with days off being adjusted, for what should be a reverse seniority situation.

And remember....we're not shorthanded.

End the Parade

Exactly what is there to be "proud" of here?

• How police handled a fight in the wake of Sunday’s Chicago Pride Parade is now the subject of an investigation by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA), according to a spokesman for the Chicago Police Department.
  
  The videos were recorded as police were in their fifth hour of trying to maintain order along Belmont Avenue where large, lingering crowds sparked a series of fights following the parade.
  
  At 9:33 p.m. on Sunday, police officers witnessed and responded to a battery-in-progress in the doorway of Big City Tap, a bar at 1010 West Belmont.
  
  Footage of the incident captured by several bystanders shows men in “security” shirts involved in a physical altercation. At one point, a woman dressed in white is seen stepping from the sidelines. She then appears to punch a security guard in his arm or chest.
  
  A Chicago police officer steps into view and separates the woman, who falls to the ground. In one video, her legs begin shaking in the air while a spectator screams "she's having a seizure." In another, officers are seen tending to her while awaiting an ambulance.

Ghetto fools acting like ghetto fools, and when the cops arrive and cameras go on, act even more like a ghetto fools then complain that police tried to stop you acting like a ghetto fool.

Time to end this disaster for a few years, same as the south side organization did when St Patrick's Day got too stupid to exist in a neighborhood setting. Five hours of crowds and fights isn't a celebration by any stretch of the imagination.

Well Look At This

What was it we were saying not too long ago? Rahm lies? Constantly? And wastes hundred of millions on a project that no one will use? Proof again:

• “If you build it, they will come” is often accepted as sage advice. But this hasn’t exactly been the case for DePaul University’s Wintrust Arena. Attendance to the arena, which was financed in part by taxpayers, has trailed the projections officials touted in advance of its construction.
  
  In addition to hosting university basketball games, Wintrust Arena is home to the Chicago Sky and serves as a venue for concerts and other events. The Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, or MPEA, commissioned HVS, a New York-based consulting firm, to conduct a 2013 feasibility study on the McCormick Place Entertainment District, a development project that included the new DePaul University arena. Despite attendance for DePaul men’s basketball games having previously hovered below 3,000 per game, HVS projected the 10,000-seat Wintrust Arena would draw an average of 9,500 people per game. A February 2017 economic impact report by MPEA eyed an average attendance of 9,000 for Wintrust Arena games and events.
  
  But MPEA documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show Wintrust Arena events falling far short of these estimates. Men’s basketball games, for example, have drawn an average of only 3,142 fans per game, trailing HVS and MPEA projections by 67 percent and 65 percent, respectively.

And taxpayers are on the hook again. Anyone see this in the Tribune? Slum Times? Maybe a broadcast network or two?

Prepare the Mass Arrest Kits!

This asshole is giving plenty of warning to do something stupid, dangerous, and ILLEGAL. How about arresting him for once?

• Outspoken Rev. Michael Pfleger and hundreds of anti-violence activists plan to shut down a portion of the Dan Ryan Expressway days after the Fourth of July, a holiday notoriously associated with a spike in shootings.
  
  He took to Twitter and Facebook on Monday to get the message out about the 10 a.m. July 7 protest in the northbound lanes of the Dan Ryan; it’s to begin at 79th Street. As many as 1,000 people plan to walk about a mile and half to 67th Street to demand city officials do more to address the violence that has claimed the lives of hundreds of Chicagoans, Pfleger said in a phone interview later with the Tribune.
  
  “As we celebrate Independence weekend, there’s not a sense of freedom in many of our communities and for many of our young people,” said Pfleger, the senior pastor at St. Sabina Catholic Church. “Instead, there’s a sense of fear.”
  
  Illinois State Police, which patrols the highway, is aware of the planned protest but declined to comment.

Disregard for the Law engenders continual disregarding of the Law.

Now if it was an unjust Law, sure, protest away. But this is an expressway, and there are already Laws against murder, felons owning guns, drug dealing, dice games and an entire host of things that lead to shootings. How about protesting Foxxx's refusal to prosecute the gun-runners bringing weapons into the city by the dozens?

Good Dog!

Quite the nose on that hound:

• A Chicago Police dog led investigators to more than $10 million worth of pot after a traffic stop Thursday evening in south suburban Midlothian.
  
  The CPD Bureau of Organized Crime stopped a pickup truck pulling a trailer at 6:57 p.m. Thursday in the 14200 block of Menard Avenue in Midlothian, police said. During the stop, a police dog detected the scent of pot.
  
  A search of the truck and trailer turned up more than 1,500 pounds of marijuana and other THC products with an estimated street value of more than $10 million, police said. The driver, 42-year-old Jason Z. Tanner of Lakehead, California, was arrested and charged with a felony count of possession of more than 5,000 grams of cannabis.

Over 5,000 grams? How about over 680,000 grams? There should be a higher charge than a mere 5,000 grams (about 11 pounds.)

And OCD ought to kick in for a steak dinner.

I'm Going to Disney World!

Well, not Disney World.....Costco.

And he's going with his lawyer.

In Bolingbrook (click for larger version).

After spending a few well deserved years in prison (though not nearly enough) a murderous scumbag needs to get him some shopping done.

And before someone says, "You shouldn't be posting that," a few points. First, go fuck yourself. Second, these are public figures - one wants to be and one is being used by the other to push an agenda. If we have to put up with trailer-park trash filming us at work, on-and-off-duty, in our personal vehicles, then we feel perfectly fine posting any pictures we get of these two assholes in a public setting. Third, get bent if you want to whine about it. Go find your pussy hat and start marching again.

More Number Games

The media publishes City Hall press releases just like the good little ass-kissers they are:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago Police Supt. Eddie Johnson announced Sunday that over 100 new police officers were being deployed across the city.
  
  The new officers are being hired as part of the CPD’s plan to add nearly 1,000 cops to the police force, according to Emanuel’s office. More than 2,400 CPD members have been hired or promoted as part of the department’s hiring plan, which started last year. That includes 1,600 new recruits, 77 lieutenants, 214 sergeants, 370 detectives and 213 field training officers who have entered the police training academy.

Once again, providing smokescreens to Rahm's reelection efforts:

• Where does the media think the lieutenants, sergeants, detectives and FTO's come from? It's not like there are all these unemployed cops wandering around waiting for the CPD to come offer them a job.
  
  FTO's and detectives all come from the blue shirts. So those 583 were already employed by the Department.
  
  Sergeants come from the detective, FTO and Patrol Division ranks. So a few of those new 214 sergeants were already counted among the previous promotees, and the rest were taken away from existing spots.
  
  The lieutenants ALL come from the sergeant rank, so those 214 "new" sergeants are actually only a net gain of 137.

You see where we're going with this. The media fails to just come out and ask, "How many sworn officers do you have on the payroll today as compared to this time last year? And how many officers of all ranks retired in the past 12 months?"

That might prove embarrassing to Rahm, especially as the Department is canceling days off for numerous units and teams along with offering overtime for five straight days in July (03, 04, 05, 06 and 07) for the expected holiday mayhem. If we were anywhere near full strength (such as it is), there wouldn't be massive overtime expenditures.

A Recording Studio?

Sure, why not? You waste money on just about everything else:

• Just eight classes into a music education course at Cook County Jail, inmate D’Andre Morris already looked like a professional. Using an Apple computer connected to two subwoofers, Morris deftly cut and blended musical tracks at a new recording studio built in the basement of the jail’s medium-maximum Division 11.
  
  Long interested in songwriting and music production, Morris said he’s never worked on professional sound equipment like the kind inside the studio locked behind a large green metal door with a single square window. Morris, who’s spent more than a year behind bars awaiting trial on an attempted murder charge, said he’s grateful to be learning the technical aspects of sound engineering, even if he regrets that it took a stint in jail for this opportunity.

All of which will go out the window if he's convicted. Because we don't think any of the maximum security prisons in Illinois are as....."enlightened" as Fart tries to seem.

We're going to suggest something crazy here, so bear with us. How about encouraging some of these "at risk" youths to, you know, stay in school, learn something, explore opportunities afforded them at so many different levels of the educational system and maybe, just maybe, becoming a productive member of society and not a drag in jail?

Crazy talk, right?

Another Way to Kill Crime

Prickwrinkle's people are already disregarding the law - might as well get rid of it:

• The Cook County medical examiner’s office routinely fails to abide by a requirement that it send an investigator to the scene of every suspicious death, including all homicides and suicides.
  
  Now, saying it can’t afford to do that, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle has come up with a Chicago-style solution: water down the county ordinance that requires the on-site visits.
  
  The ordinance says a medical examiner’s “representative shall go to the location of the body” and begin an “investigation with an examination of the scene” — though the agency and Preckwinkle dispute that that’s a requirement.
  
  Still, Preckwinkle is moving to change the ordinance so the office instead would be given “discretion” about whether to make “a scene examination,” based on “generally accepted guidelines for conducting medico-legal death investigations.”

So a failure to investigate sets the stage for downgrading all sorts of suspicious "death investigations."

What Took So Long?

We're pretty sure the morgue isn't this backed up:

• The deaths of a husband and wife, both 90, whose West Garfield Park apartment burned in February, have been ruled homicides, officials announced this week.
  
  Aldonia White, a returned [do they mean retired? - SCC] nurse, died of multiple blunt force injuries from an assault with a contributing cause of death listed as heart disease, the Cook County medical examiner’s office said Friday.
  
  Her husband, Lewis White, a veteran, died of inhalation of products of combustion due to an apartment fire with heart disease also a contributing cause. Both deaths were ruled homicides, the office said.
  
  The fatal blaze on the second floor of a two-flat in the 4000 block of West Wilcox Street appeared to have erupted in more than one place, Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford said at the time of the blaze, which started about 3:10 a.m. Feb. 6.

Four-and-a-half months to determine blunt force injuries? What kind of operation are they running over there at the ME's office? So a murderer or murderers have had a walk for almost half the year with the investigation itself stalled? Unmoved?

And now HeyJackass.com has to go back and re-calculate all their numbers.

Shooting in....Edison Park?

Correct us if we're wrong, but this is about the quietest neighborhood in Chicago due to the high concentration of cops, firemen, teachers and city executives just about everywhere?

• Two teen boys are in custody after they drove away from Chicago police and crashed into a Niles police car, sending an officer to the hospital, Chicago police said.
  
  Minutes after midnight Saturday, Chicago officers saw an SUV driving north at a "high rate of speed” on Northwest Highway from Oshkosh Avenue moments after a call came in for shots fired nearby, according to an email from [...], a Chicago police spokesman.
  
  The officers saw an object thrown from the driver's side of the SUV, thought it was a weapon, activated their emergency equipment and tried to stop the car, police said. The driver drove away, ultimately crashing into two Niles police vehicles, one marked and one unmarked, at the intersection of Oakton Street and Milwaukee Avenue....

Anyone know where these assholes were from?

Best wishes to the Niles cop injured by these felons.

Use of Force Proper

Nice to see someone has their heads on straight:

• A police practices and use-of-force expert testified Friday that Officer Robert Rialmo had no choice but to shoot Quintonio LeGrier in December 2015.
  
  Emanuel Kapelsohn told jurors that a stun gun, pepper spray or a baton would not be appropriate responses to someone charging at an officer with an aluminum baseball bat.
  
  Kapelsohn said that Rialmo’s actions were “in keeping” with departmental policies on use of force.

This is a nationally recognized expert on Use of Force situations, appearing nationally numerous times and in at least nine other Chicago cases. Hopefully, there are a couple intelligent people on the jury watching and paying attention.

I-Bond

As predicted here and elsewhere:

• After more than 36 years in custody, an accused cop killer who alleges notorious ex-Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge tortured him into confessing was ordered freed Friday while awaiting his third trial on the charges.
  
  Jackie Wilson, 57, was granted a recognizance bond by Cook County Circuit Judge William Hooks, who last week tossed out Wilson’s murder conviction after finding that Burge and detectives under his command had physically coerced his confession to the 1982 slaying of two Chicago officers.
  
  The judge said special prosecutors “utterly failed” in their arguments to keep Wilson in prison, adding that they appeared to want him to view the case “through the lens of a court sitting in 1982 or 1988 without considering the revelations that have come to light over the last three decades.”
  
  Wilson is likely to walk out of Cook County Jail as soon as later Friday.

Pardon our wishing for a steamroller to be traveling down California and suffer a catastrophic brake failure at precisely the moment Wilson walks out of custody. Hopefully it doesn't scratch the paint job.

Additionally, in light of what's going on in New York, police nationwide are going to have to take the position that the courts don't have our backs any more.

New Contender - Dumbest Statement

Once again, the grievance-mongers insist that robotic cameras are racist:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel was urged Thursday to go easier on parking and vehicle ticket scofflaws after a new report showed the city’s get-tough enforcement policies were having a disproportionate impact on low-income and minority communities.
  
  In a report appropriately called, “The Debt Spiral,” the Woodstock Institute examined 3.6 million vehicle-related tickets issued by the city in 2017.
  
  Those tickets included: 273,000 issued by red-light cameras; 250,000 by speed cameras; 187,000 sticker violations; 175,000 tickets for expired meters; 162,000 for expired license plates or temporary registrations and 144,000 for street cleaning violations.
  
  Results of the ZIP code-based study were not all that surprising, but troubling nevertheless.
  
  Tickets were 40 percent more likely to be issued to drivers from low-and-moderate income areas than to motorists who live in higher-income neighborhoods. The same 40 percent disparity existed for drivers from predominantly minority neighborhoods.

The way we read this, the tickets weren't tracked by where they were issued - they were tracked by what zip code the car itself was registered. So if minorities got tickets (let's say downtown) for any of the listed charges (red light, speed, city sticker, expired meters, plates and street cleaning) and the car was registered to their home address, then the ticket writer or robot camera is racist for the issuance of the ticket and not for the fact someone violated the law at the point of issuance.

What a crock of shit.

But here's the amazingly stupid statement by the "lawyer" representing the aggrieved parties:

• “Where the city decides to place cameras has a disparate impact on low-income populations. … You’re more apt to get a speed ticket or a red-light ticket if you’re driving through that area than if you’re driving through areas that don’t have those cameras,” [director of research for the Woodstock Institute Lauren] Nolan said.

Because we thought for sure that you could get automated tickets anywhere in the city....even places where cameras aren't installed. Who knew?

How about you drive the limit, park where you're supposed to, and keep the required registration up-to-date as required by law?

13% Bullshit

So the police are not racist? We never were?

• Black Americans are not more likely to be shot by the police than White Americans in proportion to each group's rate of interaction with the police, as measured by crime rate, a new study argues.
  
  The report, by psychologists Joseph Cesario and David Johnson and criminologist William Terrill, analyzes trends in fatal shootings by police in 2015 and 2016 using a variety of data sources.
  
  Measuring racial disparities in police use of force is a touchy subject. High-profile shootings of black men by police have been a focal point for Blacks Lives Matter and similar groups, which see such shootings as both endemic of larger police abuses and an epidemic in their own right.

The study takes on the nonsense statistic that since blacks make up 13% of the population then they should account for 13% of tickets, offenders, prison population and (of course) police shooting encounters. The authors blow a large hole in the waterline of that argument...but they also realize such an inflammatory finding won't endear them to the establishment that has a vested interest in continuing the political theater. It's still a mildly interesting read.

Stolen Credentials

We couldn't make this up if we tried:

• So, we have a boss from the Cook County Probation Department who had to come into a district station today and file a theft report against a fired employee who refuses to give back his credentials and badge. Among other things, this employee lied about their education and background.
  
  This employee was asked to return the items and then served via certified letter at his new place of employment, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability. Great employee screening process they have in place over there.

So at least one of the COPA investigators is running around with a stolen badge and ID.

If any reporter is interested, FOIA Records Division Number JB-314633

Wilson Hearing

Reminder:

• Scc, please post asap. Judge Hooks will be deciding tomorrow, Friday afternoon at 1200hrs. 26 cal. Rm 301. Bond for Jackie Wilson for the murders of officers Fahey and O’Brien. A large show of support would be greatly appreciated by the families. 

Hooks is the social justice warrior judge bending rules and the law to retry (and free) the surviving Wilson brother. He's previously banned armed police officers from his courtroom, so expect Sheriff Deputies to be playing the role assigned to them, though it would be nice to see them refuse.

Felony Murder Charges?

Another perfect example of when the Felony Murder statute ought to be applied.....but will it be?

• A 66-year-old woman riding in a taxi was killed Wednesday night after the driver of a stolen Jeep, who was allegedly fleeing police, struck the cab in Chicago's River North neighborhood.
  
  Police said they were trying to stop the white Jeep Grand Cherokee, but the driver blew a red light trying to get away.
  
  The Jeep, which was reported stolen in the 500-block of North State Street, slammed into the taxi near West Grand Avenue and North Dearborn Street around 10:55 p.m.

In addition to the dead woman, two pedestrians suffered broken legs. Everyone in that car should be charged with Murder.

UPDATE: Released without charges according to a couple of commentators. A-fucking-mazing.

Graduation Foul Up

Did this really happen?

• OT: How in the hell does this happen? The nine newly promoted Lieutenants from the previous go-around showed up at Navy Pier yesterday with their families in tow to attend their graduation ceremony only to be turned around. They were informed by Academy staffers that they were not on the list to graduate. After leaving Navy Pier and arriving home, their were all contacted and directed to return to Navy Pier to participate in the ceremony. After spending another $20.00 on parking, they all crossed the stage. 

It's 100% believable - we've seen who runs special events for the Department. And the way the Department delays "graduations" until Rahm is available to do multiple classes. If they're out $20 for parking...twice...they should just chalk it up to how much the Department thinks about them.

Theft of Cash?

Anyone hear about this one?

• Anonymous said...OT - This years Puerto Rican Fest was the first time they charged a $2 donation at the gate. They claimed that the money was earmarked for the Hurricane Maria recovery effort.
  
  Low and behold, four days after the Fest is over the President of The Puerto Rican Parade Committee went into the 14th District desk to report that "up to $70,000" was stolen from the donation boxes. He's claiming that security was responsible for the theft. Sorry Hurricane Maria survivors, maybe next year.

All sorts of untraceable cash in boxes at a political "festival." Kind of reminds us of the shady accounting that goes on every year at the Taste.

Shootout Video

It happens in an instant:

• The Civilian Office of Police Accountability has released video showing how an off-duty police officer fought off two people trying to steal his car last April.
  
  The incident occurred in the 3700-block of West 79th Street in the Ashburn neighborhood at about 7:40 a.m. on April 20. The men were already inside the car when the officer opened fire. The suspects fired back as they ran away.
  
  No one was hurt and the two suspects got away.

Keep your eyes open, especially in shady neighborhoods.

Remember, Police are the Problem

From our Occasional Statistician:

Another set of stats:

Discuss.

Law Degree AND Medical License?

Here comes the bullshit factory:

• The attorney for the family of a critically wounded teen left unattended by paramedics said Wednesday he believes the boy could have lived if responders "did what they were supposed to do."
  
  “It’s hard enough losing your child in such a mindless act as a shooting,” Nenye Uche told reporters Wednesday. “But I think, perhaps, it’s even worse knowing that your child’s life could’ve been saved if first responders, in this case paramedics, did what they were supposed to do, did what they were trained to do.”

Amazing that we don't see more lawyers with double degrees in medical practice. Maybe it's so rare because they don't know if they should sue themselves for medical fuck-ups or deny themselves critical health care when they get run over by irate clients.

We've seen lots of bodies spontaneously "move" as the final electrical impulses leave the corpse. A gasp, a breath, twitches, jaw and eye movement. The human body is a remarkable piece of work, but these people were undoubtedly dead. One was missing a head, so we're pretty sure they weren't coming back. And it was disturbing in the extreme - no denying that.

The paramedics at this scene were responding to six people shot. They utilized their training and triaged the wounded. Someone with multiple holes to the noggin and leaking brain isn't high on the list of probables, so they covered him and moved on. You save the ones that are savable.

001 Property Sale

Someone is going to turn a nifty profit on this:

• As the city of Chicago fosters big new developments around the South Loop and Near South Side, it's also hoping to piggyback on them to boost its own coffers.
  
  That's the idea behind the 2.4-acre parking lot at 1701 S. Clark St., which the city recently put on the market. The lot is used by the Chicago Police Department's 1st District.

As part of the sale, the city is requiring some sort of parking structure to replace the nearly 300 spots being surrendered:

• One challenge facing any prospective buyer is that any new development on the site must include 271 replacement parking spaces for CPD, whose 1st District station neighbors the lot to the east, according to a call for offers on the property. That replacement parking could be built on the lot immediately south of the CPD station but would require 24-hour secured and dedicated ingress and egress for CPD and would be subject to final approval from the Police Department.

Alderasshole Arena is requiring a dedicated, sheltered, running-hot-and-cold carwash spot for at least 10 aldercreatures be included in any new parking garage built in Chicago.

What the Heck is This?

What District(s) or "merit" bosses put this together?

Someone said it was rescinded within hours of being released. Someone else said it's 12 entire pages, but this one is the meat of it all. Wonder how the citizens feel knowing that they're just a "point system" to bigger overtime checks.

UPDATE: It's eight pages long, not twelve, and we've been sent the entire package along with the Order suspending implementation. Fred Waller's signature is all over this thing.

No Gun Charges....Again

Here's how bad Kim Foxxx is:

• Kim Fox is CI-ing [Continuing Investigation] way too many UUW cases. We had an incident at Puerto Rican fest over the weekend where the command post saw a guy on the pod with a gun in his waistband. They called it out including a detailed description of the guy right down to his tattoos. Area central gun team grabs him just after he pitched the gun in a bush. They CI the case pending DNA analysis. Mind you because of the crowds gathering the gun was recovered by the officers so prints and DNA will come back inconclusive. BUT they have 22 min of pod video showing this goof with the gun in his waist. Unreal.

Twenty-two minutes of a subject on the public way, in a park, with a gun, in violation of God knows how many laws, but Kimesha and her minions need to get a DNA swab, which will come back as nothing more than an opportunity for Defense Counsel to claim fifty other people might have touched that gun or hidden it in the bushes.

Meanwhile, he roams the streets, probably looking for another gun and someone to shoot. And the media will be amazed when he either gets pinched again or shoots someone.

Not Only a Mattress

Someone commented about the gun located under a lockup mattress:

• A mattress? Since when do they get mattresses?

Since a few years ago, when some judge decided that the cold hard metal cots in lockup were too hard on prisoners' delicate heinies and sciatica. So the city was required to buy mattresses made of a non cut-able Tyvek material which are issued nightly to anyone staying overnight for a morning court appearance. Every lockup in the city now has two stacks of mattresses - one for issuance to prisoners and one that somehow didn't live up to the billing of non cut-able.

But it's gone a step further now:

• Hey SCC, the other day the District had to down a car to go down to HQ to pick up new one-time use lockup blankets, probably courtesy of the Vanecko Disposable Blanket Company. Word is that shortly there will be a Prisoner Massage Pilot Program starting in 003, 005 and 007.

Disposable blankets?

Crystal Ball Reveals....

....exempt movement?

• Clout Changes ..... Stand By
  Johnson from 11 to Chief
  Varrick from 005 to 11
  Senora Ben from 006 Tact to 005 Commander
  Hanna from 003 to CAPS
  
  There are no secrets in the department 

This would be a serious breach of clout protocol if leaked out in advance. Thanks!

Gang Banger Planted

As someone asked, do these reporters even read what they write?

• Dozens of friends and family gathered around the gravesite as Maurice Granton’s black casket with silver detailing was slowly lowered into the ground. Six white gloves were placed on top, a sign of respect from the former South Side gang he was once part of. Now, the family must wait for the release of body-camera footage from June 6, when a Chicago police officer fired three shots at Granton — one fatally striking the 24-year-old’s spine — as he ran away.

But.....but.....he left that life behind?!?

And of course, the usual funeral mayhem followed:

• As the service ended, a large organ played in the background as people funneled out of the church. The mourners piled into about 20 cars and followed the hearse about 30 minutes south to Mount Hope Cemetery. A group of young people leaned out the windows of their cars, cheering and holding one of the red shirts that memorialized Granton.

Idiots.

Weekend Shooting

This one slipped under the radar over the weekend:

• A man killed himself after he barricaded himself in a Southeast Side garage Saturday morning, Chicago police said.
  
  The suspect was wounded by police before he killed himself, police said.
  
  Officers responded to the 9400-block of South Commercial Avenue in the Calumet Heights neighborhood at about 11 p.m. Friday. They were called to a home there after a 24-year-old man got into a dispute with family members inside that home, police said.
  
  The suspect fired shots outside the house and then moved into the garage, where he barricaded himself and a SWAT team was called in. No one was injured by the suspect's shots.
  
  After several hours, the suspect left the garage and went into a grassy area nearby and was confronted by a SWAT officer.
  
  The suspect pointed his hand gun at the officer, who fired and wounded the suspect, police said. The suspect then shot and killed himself, police said.

Good job.

Bring Out Your Dead!

This is why you let paramedics hook up victims to the electronic box:

• Authorities are trying to determine how first responders placed a sheet over the body of a teenager who was shot multiple times in the head — then, minutes later, realized he was alive.
  
  The 17-year-old man was shot about 4:45 a.m. Monday in the 1300 block of South Loomis outside the ABLA/Brooks Homes, a CTA housing facility, in the University Village neighborhood. Four others were also shot — one of them fatally.
  
  “I don’t know the length of time (he was under the sheet) but from what my understanding of the incident is — that individual has a catastrophic injury,” CPD Deputy Supt. Anthony Riccio said Monday at a news conference at police headquarters held to discuss weekend violence.
  
  The teen was taken to Stroger Hospital in critical condition.

Expect a new policy that CFD will remove ALL victims from the scene and transport them to the hospitals where actual doctors will be tasked with pronouncements from now on.

Frustrating?

Unacceptable AND frustrating?

• The weekend began with seven people shot in just an hour on the South Side. It ended with 10 people shot in two attacks on the West Side.
  
  By Monday morning, at least 56 people had been hit by gunfire in Chicago over the weekend. At least nine of them died, according to data kept by the Tribune.
  
  It was the worst weekend for violence in the city this year. But more troubling, it was close to comparable weekends in 2016 and 2017, when gun violence hit levels not seen in Chicago in more than a decade.
  
  "Most of Chicago celebrated and enjoyed this weekend," Chicago police First Deputy Superintendent Anthony Riccio told reporters, referring to Pride Fest on the North Side and various Father’s Day celebrations. "However, we saw an unacceptable and frustrating level of gun violence in several communities.
  
  “There’s too many illegal guns on the street,” he added, echoing a constant theme of his boss, Superintendent Eddie Johnson. “They’re too easy to get.”

Stop already Tony. Guns aren't that easy to get - what is easy to get is "off without charges." And that includes theft of guns, straw purchasing, and burglaries. Adapt an "Exile" type of sentencing and we'll guarantee gun crime goes down.

In the meantime, we're going to have to come up with some pretty ugly prediction numbers for the Fourth of July week.

Frisk....and Frisk Again

This mope should have been searched at least three times before hitting County:

• Chicago police are investigating how a Humboldt Park man with a long criminal history got a loaded handgun past officers and into the police station lockup over the weekend.
  
  The .22-caliber handgun was discovered by a cleaner while tidying the holding cell at the police station at 2452 W. Belmont Ave., according to police and Cook County prosecutors.
  
  Authorities said Miguel Acevedo, 38, was picked up by police early Saturday when they discovered him and another man, a documented gang member, “using narcotics” inside a car on the Northwest Side.
  
  Acevedo, who was on parole for a 2017 drug conviction, told officers his name was "Luis Rodriguez" and then "Angel Gonzalez." Police later determined Acevedo's true identity and his status as a parolee. He was arrested and charged with obstructing his identity and a parole violation, authorities said.
  
  Acevedo was processed at the police station on Belmont known as “019 West” and brought to a cell where he was alone, authorities said. Surveillance video caught him hiding the gun, loaded with five rounds, underneath a mattress.

Frisk #1 on the street. Frisk #2 before hitting lockup. Frisk #3 in the lockup. But no one found this gun? Come on people - fetal doesn't mean "stupid," and this was stupid in the extreme.

Media Code of Silence Cracks

Just a tiny little bit:

• Slum Times - A 20-year-old woman was charged with spitting on an off-duty Chicago Police officer outside a City Council meeting last month where demonstrators rallying against the construction of a new police training academy clashed with members of the Fraternal Order of Police who were staging their own protest.
  
  On May 23, Penny Hawthorne walked up to the officer and started yelling “vulgarities” at him, according to Chicago Police. She continued the tirade while walking alongside him and then spat on his left cheek.

The Tribune fesses up to being the employer of dear ol' Dad:

• A woman has been charged with spitting on an off-duty Chicago police officer outside a contentious City Council meeting last month where demonstrators protested a new training academy and the police union marched in support of an officer facing dismissal for a double fatal shooting.
  
  Penny Hawthorne, 20, of Oak Park, is charged with a single count of misdemeanor battery making physical contact. She is accused of spitting on the officer at about 11 a.m. May 23 during a public demonstration involving the Fraternal Order of Police, according to Chicago police spokesman Officer [...].
  
  [...] Hawthorne is the daughter of Tribune reporter Michael Hawthorne.

Somehow, she managed to delete most of her social media presence in the intervening time frame...funny how that happened.

In the meantime, helpful researchers have posted the e-mail address of the Chief of Police at Boston College (John.king.2@bc.edu) so that he can warn his department of the safety and biological hazards that may threaten his officers should they run across this delightful human being.

And others found that Boston College has a Code of Conduct and you can report violations at this link here. Time to make the assholes live by their own rules.

Crime is Down

And so is CTA ridership for some reason:

• Ridership on the L is falling, CTA figures show — a decline one expert attributes to “a perfect storm” of factors including competition from ride-sharing companies like Uber and Lyft.
  
  For the first three months of this year, the CTA provided 52.7 million L rides — down 3.7 percent from 54.7 million in the same period last year.
  
  And ridership was down at 119 of the 143 L stations versus last year, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of CTA data found. Twenty-three saw an increase, while the Washington-Wabash station didn’t exist at the same time last year.

No word about crime though, even though there isn't any police presence to speak of and little old lady's are losing their eyeballs:

• A 67-year-old woman is expected to have her left eye removed after an “unprovoked” punch from a south suburban man severely injured her last week aboard a Red Line train, Cook County prosecutors said at a court hearing Sunday.
  
  Judge Stephanie K. Miller denied bail for Derrick L. McMath, 28, who was charged with aggravated battery involving great bodily harm of someone age 60 or older in the attack captured on CTA surveillance video.

We've said this in the past and it bears repeating - very few people care about the actual crime rate. We do because it's part of the job, something the bosses harp on, and directly effects political machinations.

What people DO care about is the perception of crime, and all the cameras aren't going to do a damn thing except provide nice pictures of you getting your ass beating, raped or shot. All the cops in the world aren't going to deter shit without a vigorous justification of their legal actions preserving law and order. All the arrests aren't going to mean squat without relentless prosecution and extensive jail time for repeat felons currently facing none.

Something Weird Here (UPDATE: VERY Weird)

We've been following this story a bit, and are a bit confused as to what (and why) the media is attempting to cover up:

• The family of longtime television reporter Elizabeth Brackett is thanking police and fire officials who came to the 76-year-old’s aid after she suffered critical injuries this week as she was biking on the Lakefront Trail.
  
  Brackett’s family also said it was also “immensely grateful” to the good Samaritan who saw the former reporter for WTTW’s “Chicago Tonight” and performed CPR until paramedics arrived and the staff at Stroger Hospital who are caring for Brackett. The family also asked for privacy in its statement.
  
  “The family of Elizabeth Brackett is grateful for the outpouring of love and support shown by all of Chicago since her accident Wednesday,” the statement said.

An accident. So what's this then? So why not be specific?

• Details of the Wednesday incident, which happened on a South Side stretch of the Lakefront Trail near 39th Street, weren’t clear.
  
  Brackett had been training on her bicycle before someone found her on the bike path, her close friend and colleague Carol Marin told the Tribune.
  
  Brackett’s family has told her colleagues that Brackett was found about 40 feet from the bike trail, which is not far from her South Side home, said Phil Ponce, host of “Chicago Tonight,” who has worked with Brackett since the 1990s.

Forty feet? So did she fall down an embankment? It's actually kind of flat there. Did she crawl to where she was found.....or was she dragged and this is yet another crime being covered up by the media even though the victim is one of their own?

So many more questions than answers.

UPDATE: Brackett passed away overnight, and the new article raises even more questions:

• Little is known about Brackett’s accident Wednesday, which happened on a South Side stretch of the Lakefront Trail near 39th Street. Brackett’s family told her colleagues that she was found several feet from the bike trail, which is not far from her South Side home, said Phil Ponce, host of “Chicago Tonight.” A still-anonymous good Samaritan saw Brackett and performed CPR until paramedics arrived, according to the station. Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford told WTTW that paramedics saw “no signs of trauma, no dirt, bruises, scrapes, contusions, anything that indicated she collided with something or had a fall or struck something.”
  
  “We don’t know how she got there,” he told the station. Her family is hoping to identify the person who performed CPR on Brackett, the station reported Friday.

So now they've changed "40 feet" to "several feet," and the CFD found nothing to indicate a fall or collision.

The family wants to find whoever performed CPR on her.....we'll bet the detectives do, too.

Spitter Surrenders

Late word arriving:

• A young woman accused of spitting on an off-duty police officer has turned herself in.
  
  Chicago Police said that Penny Hawthorne, 20, spit on the off-duty officer during a May 23 protest at City Hall.
  
  Police said that she yelled insults at the officer, then spit.
  
  Hawthorne is charged with misdemeanor battery.

Oak Park River Forest graduate, east coast liberal arts college course-load no doubt. And if our previous information is correct, the daughter of Tribune environmental reporter. We guess we can assume exactly what lessons were taught in that household in regard to respect of persons and Constitutional Rights to air grievances.

Twenty toothpicks says probation.

Backlog Courtesy of Phleger

How does this asshole continue to get away with this crap?

• Pflegers march left 006 with zero cars to respond to jobs. 1st watch had no cars or radios till 2230 hours. Massive backlog. Plus the zone was completely tied up. So, in short,the community had zero police service for almost 2 hours so Pfleger could do a publicity stunt. He also claims on 07 July he will have another march to shut down the Dan Ryan (so if you have a semi or large SUV, please drive the Ryan that day) cause pissing people off is a great way to get people behind you. Once again, the community would be without police service but Pfleger doesn't care about the community. Pfleger only cares about Pfleger  

And he's planning to block a major expressway on 07 July? That's illegal, right? Does ISP know about this? Can they mobilize a regional group of municipalities to provide coverage and effect mass arrests from this planned unlawful behavior?

Perhaps the subsequent fines can be directed toward funding police pensions and the community service spend some time cleaning up the Dan Ryan.

$174 Million? From Where?

Amazing that all this free shit costs so much:

• The controversial Obama Presidential Center in Chicago will benefit from almost $200 million in taxpayer funding for work on infrastructure projects near the center on Chicago’s South Side.
  
  The Chicago Sun Times first reported Friday that Illinois lawmakers had approved $174 million for roadwork in and around Jackson Park related to the development of the center.
  
  Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a former Obama White House chief of staff, described the infrastructure improvements as “money well spent.”

And get a load of this fantasy:

• ...the Obama Foundation’s claim that the center will support thousands of new jobs and have a total economic impact of $3.1 billion in its first 10 years.

There are hit theater productions here in Chicago that don't produce $310 million in economic impact per year, and they sell out 4 nights a week and twice on Saturdays.

We don't know who came up with these numbers for the most inconsequential president in history, but three years ago, the eggheads at the University of Chicago wrote a report that the library (which will contain almost no books or documents) would have an impact of $220 million - and that was derided as overly optimistic by a professor who actually studied presidential libraries. So the extra $90 million is a complete load of horseshit.

Exempt Movement?

Did they remove the Camel Commander prior to this weekend?

Did someone from Downtown actually read the blog?

Did Rahm? Who explained the big words to him?

Is SCC suddenly running the Department and no one told us?

12 Year Old Killed

You can't even visit Chicago on summer vacation without being sent home in a coffin:

• A 12-year-old girl was among two people killed Thursday in shootings across Chicago. Seven men were also wounded in shootings during the 24-hour period.
  
  The girl was killed late Thursday in a shooting outside a gathering in the West Garfield Park neighborhood, according to police. About 11:20 p.m., the girl and a 36-year-old man were outside in the 4200 block of West Wilcox Street, Chicago Police said. The man heard shots and then realized he was shot in the leg.
  
  The girl was shot in her neck and was taken to Stroger Hospital, where she was pronounced dead, police said. The man’s condition had stabilized.

Phleger and the Parkland circus were nowhere to be found.

Lori Supports Child Murderers

Lightfoot playing politics with Rahm and the FOP:

• Mayoral challenger Lori Lightfoot demanded Friday that Mayor Rahm Emanuel publicly condemn the police union for attempting to derail negotiations aimed at forcing federal court oversight over the Chicago Police Department.
  
  At the same time the Fraternal Order of Police filed its motion to intervene in the lawsuit filed last summer by retiring Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan, the FOP also sought to dismiss Madigan’s lawsuit altogether. The union argued that Madigan lacks the legal authority to force Emanuel to negotiate a consent decree. On Friday, the union’s motion to dismiss was front-and-center in the crowded race for mayor.
  
  Lightfoot, who resigned as Police Board president to run for mayor, demanded that Emanuel publicly condemn a union that stands as an impediment to reforms desperately needed to restore public trust shattered by the police shooting of Laquan McDonald.

Lightfoot claims that since Rahm hasn't been specific enough in denouncing the FOP, he must support their position. We suppose that since Lightfoot hasn't explicitly condemned the murder of a 12-year-old child Thursday night, she must support the gang factions warring in that little corner of Hell.

Spielman is off the Rahm-servation, Which team is she shilling for this week?

Vicious Attacker Apprehended

CWB had pictures and a story:

• Chicago cops are asking for the public’s help in identifying a man who “viciously” attacked a senior citizen aboard a North Side Red Line train yesterday. The woman may lose her eyesight as a result of the attack, CPD Chief Communications Officer Anthony Guglielmi said. Images of the suspect, released by CPD on Friday afternoon, are shared throughout this report.

The pictures are pretty horrifying:

The senior citizen pretty much seems to have no idea what's coming.

And a Chicago alderassshole is already making excuses for this hate crime:

• Ald. Joe Moore, 49th Ward, said the attacker apparently was “suffering from some mental health issues.”

Moore must have gotten himself a medical degree while no one was looking,  to be able so quickly and efficiently diagnosis mental illness AND lay down a criminal defense at the same time. Maybe he can help out the senior citizen's medical team in repairing her shattered face.

Wilson Granted Retrial

What a fucking joke of a "justice" system:

• A Cook County judge on Thursday overturned the murder conviction of a man who claimed disgraced former Chicago police Cmdr. Jon Burge and his subordinates tortured him into confessing to the slayings of two police officers nearly 40 years ago.
  
  Jackie Wilson, 57, alleged he was beaten by Burge and his crew until he admitted being present when his now-deceased brother, Andrew, fatally shot Chicago police officers Richard O'Brien and William Fahey in 1982.
  
  Judge William Hooks tossed Wilson’s confession and overturned his conviction. Wilson had been serving a life sentence in prison. “Your life matters, and yes, even a guilty person’s life matters,” the judge said. “All rights matter, the rights of the good, bad and ugly all count.”

The FOP makes noise, but little in the way of action:

• In a statement on its website, the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police blasted the commission as “an unconstitutional body” comprised of “many commissioners with a decidedly anti-police bias.” The FOP also chided Hooks’ decision, saying the families of Fahey and O’Brien will be forced to “relive the night of the crime and the possibility that this killer may have another chance at garnering his freedom.”
  
  “While the FOP does not in any way condone police misconduct, the notion that Jackie Wilson was abused in custody is virtually non-existent, and we are extremely disappointed in Judge Hooks’ ruling,” according to the statement.

Judge Hooks has been nothing but a disappointment for years, but he finally got a "social justice" case where he could put his bleeding-heart credentials on full display. Fahey and O'Brien, along with their families, will never rest in peace or receive closure due to the fabulist creations of the Peoples Law Office, Flint Taylor and the anti-police leftists.

Anyone out there doing work above and beyond answering calls really ought to look at what the system is doing to dead cops.

Downtown-to-O'Hare Tunnel?

We have our doubts about this:

• Billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk’s vision of autonomous vehicles that would zip back and forth at more than 100 mph in tunnels between Chicago’s Loop and O’Hare International Airport has drawn both interest and skepticism from transportation and engineering experts.
  
  “We’re scratching our heads as to whether this is truly ready for completion,” said Joe Schwieterman, professor and director at DePaul University’s Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development. “… This could be a big victory, but it could be a big risk.”
  
  “The word I keep hearing is ‘stunned,’” said a source familiar with the proposals, speaking of reactions from industry professionals. “They couldn’t believe a city as powerful and conservative as the city of Chicago would agree to a fantasy.”
  
  The city of Chicago has selected Musk’s The Boring Co. to build a high-speed express train to O’Hare. Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration picked Boring’s bid over a more conventional high-speed rail proposal. There are a lot of “ifs” about the Musk project, which Emanuel has promised would be financed by The Boring Co. and not the public. Emanuel said the city was taking a bet on Musk, “a guy who doesn’t like to fail — and his resources.”

Musk is supposedly financing the entire project...with the agreement that he gets all the profit. So where is Chicago's financial upside? Taxes on ticket sales? Increased tourist/convention spending?

And as for Musk being “a guy who doesn’t like to fail..."

• Tesla will lay off about 3,500 workers in an effort to boost profitability, CEO Elon Musk wrote in a company email.
  
  [...] Musk conceded that Tesla has not made an annual profit in 15 years. The company posted its largest quarterly loss , of more than $700 million, earlier this year.

We have far more questions than answers at this point....and so should you.

Nice Movie Sets Rahm

Hollywood likes to utilize pretend violence. Real violence not so much:

• Saturday night they were filming a low budget movie called Beats up and down 69th near Prairie. Filming was canceled for the night when a gunfight happened a few blocks away. I heard that the fight was over a dice game.
  
  [...] The sound mixer quit the show, that is a pretty big deal to have a high level guy quit over the threat of violence. The producer ordered all the crew trucks to surround the film crew until they left the area. I hear they were panicked. I was on set earlier on the day and they had several uniformed CPD officers on set, at least one was a Lieutenant. The cops I talked to live west of Midway. I assume that they were off duty.
  
  This news is spreading like wildfire throughout the local film people and will probably affect other production companies. NBC hired a private security firm over a year ago after a few incidents at Cinespace Studios. Now the rigging and pre production crews are demanding security with them before and after filming, this will be good for cops but will add more to production costs. I predict it will cause productions to shy away from Chicago.

Seeing as how most filming doesn't begin until after sundown and Hollywood likes the grittier underbelly of society, we're surprised something similar hasn't happened sooner.

West Side Serial Killer?

Looks possible:

• Four girls/young women were reported missing on Chicago’s west side – two of them later found dead – since March 2018, raising concerns that there could be a serial killer or kidnapper at work. Chicago police say, though, that there is no evidence at this point to link the cases.
  
  Furthermore, one of the girls who was reported among the missing, Victoria Garrett, has been found and was reunited with her family, Chicago police spokesman Anthony [Google-Me] told Heavy on June 12, 2018. Another of the missing girls, Anna Stanislawczyk, “was seen but has not returned home yet,” he said. As for the remaining two girls, Sadaria Davis and Shantieya Smith, whose bodies were discovered after they went missing, “at this point there is no evidence to link these cases or establish a pattern,” said [Google-Me].

Nothing to link them....except for a "person of interest" currently in the wind:

• Chicago police detectives want to speak to a man to learn what he knows about a woman and a teenage girl who went missing on the West Side and were later found dead, police sources said Wednesday.
  
  Police have issued an “investigative alert” for the man, who traveled out of state after he knew he was being sought for questioning.
  
  The investigation is focusing on the deaths of Shantieya Smith, 26, and Sadaria Davis, 15. The man, who has a felony drug conviction, was seen with both of them before they died, the sources said.

Slum Times "reporter" Frank Main mentions an "investigative alert" but guess what's missing from his entire article?

• A name and/or description of the potential serial killer.

You'd think that might be just a little bit important....but not to the media it seems.

Hey Kim?

Here's an example of how the Felony Murder Statute works:

• In the moments after she was shot in the face during a drug deal that turned into a murder, Jeanette Spitz thought: “Is this how I’m going to die? Is this how it ends?”
  
  Spitz, who was 17 when she was shot and critically injured in Skokie nearly four years ago, took the witness stand Monday to testify against Dzevad Avdic, one of five people accused in connection with the shooting of Spitz and her friend Maxwell Gadau, who was killed.
  
  Authorities have said the 2014 shooting in Skokie occurred while Avdic and the other suspects were attempting to steal about $500 worth of marijuana from Spitz, and that Gadau, also 17, was there to lend “moral support.”
  
  Avdic, 22, of Chicago, has been in custody since his arrest soon after the shooting. Authorities alleged that another man charged in the crimes, 20-year-old Antonio Hicks, of Chicago, was the person who shot Gadau and Spitz. But Avdic is facing the same charges as Hicks — first-degree murder, attempted murder and armed robbery — because he planned and took part in the crime, prosecutors said.

So Kim, in case you forgot how Illinois Law was written to work by the actual Legislature, you're supposed to charge accomplices who take part in a felony that results in the death of one of their number, even if they didn't pull an actual trigger.

At least, that's what a competent States Attorney is supposed to do. You're proving each and every day that you aren't.

See the Signs

Have you ever noticed that the people supposedly "in charge" don't seem to have any idea of what warning signs are? 

Cops hate change. Routine is comfortable. If you have a bunch of coppers and supervisors putting in PAR forms to leave a District or a Unit, there might be an underlying reason somewhere. 

• At one point in our careers, a certain south side District had fifty or more officers detailed out and over a dozen sergeants working anywhere but their Unit of Assignment. 
• A well known west side District under the regime of an especially incompetent Captain lost four lieutenants, a dozen sergeants and over eighty cops in just six months. A contact of ours in Personnel related that the number of PAR forms to leave averaged over seventy-five per month.

And downtown did nothing - they didn't recognize the signs of incompetent leadership. It's currently happening again in 002 with almost half of the lieutenants putting in PAR forms, half-a-dozen sergeants successfully moving out and officers filing nearly four dozen requests to move.

And again, downtown seems to be clueless.

Another EEOC Complaint?

This time out of Homan Square. And involving some very connected individuals.

Rahm is currently taking the heat for the CPS child rape factory running full steam under his watch. Let's see if he steps up to  take responsibility for his handpicked "meri-clout-orious"supervisory ranks fucking up once again and potentially costing taxpayers untold millions. Again.

At this rate, he won't have to worry about Quinn's Term Limit Petition.

Hold Out for Arbitration

Remember the last Contract we had? All the arbitration hearings? Does anyone remember what Arbitrator Benn said during the hearings that awarded the FOP paltry raises?

One of our e-mailers remembers it quite clearly:

• “For example, during the next round of negotiations or any interest arbitration, the Lodge retains the right to argue that its members are entitled to above average or “catch up” wage increases to restore whatever differentials or rankings it believes have been compromised by this award or that the then current wage rates should be not considered the status quo given the unique circumstances of this case.”

The economy is on the cusp of a rather sizable and sustained expansion. This should be printed on the cover of every single binder the FOP brings to the negotiating table and if (when?) a stalemate is reached, on every binder present to the Arbitrator.

Plus, with all the crime being down, we certainly deserve a raise commensurate with our extraordinary efforts this year.

Homicides down 10%? Paycheck up 10%....minimum.