New Exams Coming

Bernstein's people got the heads-up from City Hall:

• You should know that the City of Chicago is currently planning to give a sergeant's exam in 2019 and a lieutenant's exam in 2020. If you are going to be taking either of these exams, the information below will be important to you.

Check your Department e-mail. Does this mean one last class off the list? Or two?

Negligent Discharge

Off-duty captain manages to become a shooting statistic:

• A Chicago police captain was shot in the leg Tuesday afternoon when a gun accidentally went off in his squad car in Albany Park on the Northwest Side, authorities said.
  
  The officer drove to Swedish Covenant Hospital on the North Side, where he was stabilized before being transferred to Illinois Masonic Hospital, according to police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi.
  
  “The officer was talking, alert and in good spirits," Guglielmi said in a tweet.
  
  Few details were being released, but the shooting occurred around 1:35 p.m. in the 3200 block of West Argyle Street, police said. "The accidental shooting happened while the officer was in his vehicle,” Guglielmi said.
  
  The shooting prompted Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson to leave the Police Department’s budget hearing at City Hall.

Since he got Special Ed out of a tedious and boring political meeting, he will probably be promoted to Commander.

Here We Go Again

And this time, the case is all procedural interpretations:

• At a heated hearing that offered an in-depth preview of next month’s trial, prosecutors laid out their case against three Chicago police officers accused in a cover-up of the Laquan McDonald shooting — and defense attorneys attacked it as a sham, asking the judge to toss the case entirely.
  
  Prosecutors accuse former Detective David March, ex-Officer Joseph Walsh and Officer Thomas Gaffney of covering up for Jason Van Dyke, who fatally shot McDonald while on duty in October 2014. All three are charged with official misconduct, obstruction of justice and conspiracy.
  
  Over four hours Tuesday, attorneys argued over nearly every aspect of the case, dealing with multiple pretrial motions that must be decided before the trial begins late next month. Judge Domenica Stephenson said she would rule Monday.

There was no cover-up. The conviction alone gives lie to that. There may have been sloppy investigative work, and shortcuts that turned out to be very bad habits, but these indictments were made in order to smear the defendants' credibility for the main event.

Preparations? (UPDATE)

We just had a flurry of e-mails that got our attention:

• JVD sentencing is scheduled for tomorrow. Is there a plan in place for anything if he gets a sentence that is less than what the "community" demands?

An email points out he's a first time offender with zero criminal background. Another person writes that the likelihood of concurrent sentences is high.

So what is the Department's plan ..... just in case? We haven't seen a thing.

UPDATE: Pre-Sentencing? So we'll have an actual date that they'll be cancelling days off shortly. Can they wait until the first snowfall?

No CPAC....for Now

Well this is interesting - an actual positive development:

• Chicago aldermen have voted down a long-shot proposal to give an elected board power over Chicago police, including authority to investigate and fire officers.
  
  The Public Safety Committee voted Monday on the Civilian Police Accountability Commission ordinance pushed by Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, 35th, which would have given the agency power to appoint and fire the police superintendent, investigate all police shootings and alleged misconduct, and overhaul the current disciplinary process.
  
  CPAC is a popular idea among some activists but has not found much support from city officials. The committee voted by voice to reject the proposal.
  
  Some aldermen raised concerns about professionalism of investigations if CPAC went into effect. Others said they were worried about bias.
  
  Ald. Walter Burnett, 27th, said he has attended hearings where the idea was discussed and said some of the plan’s advocates seemed “somewhat hateful of the police.” It concerns him to put police under the authority of people “who don’t like the police,” he said.

That's interesting, seeing as how Burnett was a guest of the State at one of our finer penal institutions due to an Armed Robbery conviction.

You can bet this will come up again if Prickwrinkle wins.

Warm Tuesday

We'd call it an "Indian Summer" type day, but no doubt some snowflake would get offended.

And according to HeyJackass.com, Chicago stands at 492 homicides (plus or minus a few "death investigations.")

No doubt Chicago will pass 500 by this weekend for the umpteenth time.

Maybe Rahm will have a cake a City Hall.

Basic Information

The media isn't blasting his name all over creation.

It's like a miracle or something.

Tribune link here.

Sun Times.

RIP Detective.

Another?

Stop killing yourselves.

Please.

The damage left behind - family, friends, co-workers - is incalculable.

Don't do it.

Half a Mile?

Does anyone have the name of the company that prints yellow and red crime scene tape? Because Area Central Districts have been calling Equipment and Supply trying to get more:

• A gunman in a minivan unleashed a hail of bullets on another vehicle as they traveled on Lake Shore Drive outside of Soldier Field overnight. No one was injured, but police found shell casings spread over a half-mile stretch of the southbound drive. No one is in custody.
  
  Police officers were investigating an abandoned vehicle that was crashed into a viaduct near 18th Street and Lake Shore Drive around 2:10 a.m. when they reported hearing gunfire to the north.
  
  Moments later, a black Chevy Tahoe pulled up to the officers and the driver reported that he had been fired upon as he entered Lake Shore Drive at Roosevelt. The gunman shot from a blue Honda minivan as the vehicles continued south on the drive, the victim said. Police said the Tahoe was hit by at least seven rounds, but no one was injured.
  
  Officers found a trail of shell casings in the southbound lanes that stretched from 1400 to 1800 South Lake Shore Drive.

We sense an opportunity for someone to incorporate a "Vanecko Crime Scene Tape Company" to make an IPO in time for next year's killing season.

Nice Weekend Rahm

These are summer type numbers in autumn:

• Five people were killed, including a 16-year-old boy, and at least 32 other people were wounded in shootings over a violent Halloween weekend.

So since the media has declared this "Halloween weekend" and Halloween isn't until the exact middle of the week, is next weekend also part of Halloween weekend? It should be. A weekend that's almost ten days long might rival that 70+ we had not too long ago.

Nice Loop Rahm

Broad daylight during a busy weekend:

• Police are looking for the gunman who shot a man during a bustling Saturday afternoon in the city’s Loop.
  
  It happened shortly after 2 p.m. on Wabash Avenue near Monroe Street, police said.
  
  The victim, a 21-year-old man, was walking north on a sidewalk when suddenly another man pointed a gun at him and shot him in the arm, police on the scene said.
  
  The victim was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he was expected to survive.

And here's a shocker:

• The shooting suspect stands about 6-foot-2, is black and was wearing a black jacket and black pants, police said. He was carrying a black book bag with red lettering, they said.

The witness comments published by the Tribune are sadly amusing.

Coming Soon!

To a democrat stronghold near you:

• Andrew Gillum, the Democratic nominee in Florida's gubernatorial race, said Wednesday that police are going "too far" if they have to pull out a gun, baton, or taser when approaching a potential suspect.
  
  Gillum made the comment on the liberal podcast "Pod Save America," where he pushed back against his Republican critics who believe he is an anti-police candidate.

Well, if you advocate Officers being unable to utilize the tried and proven tactics of generations because some liberal snowflake thinks that following the law and societal norms is for lesser mortals, you pretty much are the anti-police candidate.

And in this case, a Floridiot.

A Plea Deal?

We already know the Cook County States Attorney hates the police. Is Krime-esha Foxxx is about to demonstrate that a cop's life isn't worth spit, even off-duty?

• For more than four years, the family of Chicago police officer Tito “Mannie” Rodriguez, Jr. has endured court hearings as they wait for answers in his death.
  
  Dennis Anderson was charged with reckless homicide in the 28-year-old’s death, but two weeks ago the family was dealt a crushing blow by the state’s attorney’s office when Anderson was offered a plea deal, according to the family.
  
  “It felt like Mannie died all over again,” said his father (also named Tito Rodriguez).
  
  He was killed in 2014 while driving his motorcycle on the Dan Ryan Expressway. Witnesses say Anderson recklessly crossed traffic lanes illegally that night before striking Rodriguez’s motorcycle near 71st Street.
  
  “We lost him because of a man that did something reckless,” his father said.
  
  The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office would not confirm whether there was a plea deal.

We don't doubt for a second that there's a deal on the table. Witnesses be damned, Krime-esha is going to plea this one out since it's only a cop. We aren't asking for the Death Penalty - we're asking for fair sentencing. And we can name dozens of cases similar in nature where prison time was deserved and given.

All the ASA's ought to refuse to present this one to the judge and make Foxxx do her own dirty work.

Something Isn't Right Here

Anyone else get the impression Chicago is slowly dying?

• Enrollment at Chicago Public Schools dropped to historic lows this autumn after the district recorded one of its largest single-year declines in 16 years.
  
  The 361,314 students counted on the 20th day of classes represents a reduction of 10,000 students from last school year.
  
  That’s not quite as big a drop as in the 2016-17 school year, when enrollment went down by about 11,000 from the preceding year. But it continues a long-standing trend as CPS enrollment has been in steady decline since 2003-04.
  
  Unlike in previous years, there will be less of an impact on the budgets of schools that saw enrollment declines. CPS opted this year to base school budgets on enrollment counts from last school year instead of this year’s 20th day of classes.

So enrollment is going down. You know what's not going down? 

• The property tax assessment portion tied to the schools.

Enrollment down, spending up. That's a recipe for disaster.

WTF?

We're speechless.

• Read it here - we're too disgusted to quote it

Who is the clout covering for all this crap?

Self Cleaning Oven Continues

Two "mass shootings" might be connected:

• A shooting that wounded five men in the Washington Park neighborhood Wednesday night may have been in retaliation for an ambush outside the funeral for a local rapper that injured six people earlier in the week, according to Chicago police.
  
  “It’s a high probability that the shootings were connected,” said Anthony Guglielmi, chief spokesman for the Police Department.
  
  In Wednesday's shooting, five men between the ages of 22 and 49 were shot just before 9 p.m. outside a home in the 6200 block of South King Drive, police said.
  
  They were standing on the sidewalk when several people walked up and opened fire, police said. The gunmen fled in a white sedan, police said. None of the wounds were considered life-threatening.

This part is amusing though:

• Detectives are looking into a possible connection to a mass shooting Monday afternoon outside the Bethlehem Star Missionary Baptist Church at 9231 S. Cottage Grove Ave. As people were leaving the church, six people were wounded by at least two gunmen, a police spokesman said. As many as five mourners drew their own weapons and returned fire during the broad daylight attack.

So law abiding citizens can't have guns because everyone will run around shooting each other like it was the Wild West (which it never was actually), but the "community" can arrived strapped for a funeral to the tune of five "mourners" returning fire at an attack that wounded six....and then saddle up to go shoot five more in a retaliatory ambush of their own.

Makes perfect sense.

Another Video

This one shows the tremendous patience and restraint of responding officers in giving this disturbed individual countless opportunities to surrender:

• The Civilian Office of Police Accountability released several video and audio clips Wednesday of a nonfatal police shooting that occurred in Bridgeport last March.
  
  Wen M. Chen, 31, was shot after officers responded to a call of a domestic disturbance in a home in the 2800 block of South Throop on around noon on March 13.
  
  Newly released body cam footage shows Chen with a butcher knife in hand as officers open the door to the room in which he’d locked himself.
  
  After the door is opened, one officer, whose Taser was drawn and pointed at Chen, tells him to drop the knife six times before deploying the Taser. Another officer on scene also deploys his Taser and Chen can be heard screaming in pain.

After being given over a dozen commands to drop the knife and holding the knife while being Tasered, the subject was shot. We guess the Chinese community doesn't march if one of their number threatens police with a butcher knife, though one shouldn't rule out a dragon attacking the 009 District.

Vallas Plan

Is Vallas the only one actually releasing concrete plans to address issues that should be at the forefront of every voters' minds?

• A hyper-animated mayoral candidate Paul Vallas on Monday laid out his five-year plan to confront a $28 billion pension crisis that Mayor Rahm Emanuel — even after an avalanche of tax increase — has only begun to solve.
  
  Almost screaming from the podium at a City Club of Chicago luncheon, Vallas called for creating a “third-tier pension program” requiring a third of all city employees — those earning more than $100,000 a year — to contribute more toward their pensions and health insurance.
  
  Vallas would further squeeze the city’s unionized employees by negotiating “revenue-based labor contracts” that tie future pay raises to available city revenue.
  
  “I’m not begrudging people a fair wage. But we’ve got … to look at those individuals making those higher salaries and we’ve got to ask them to pay more. We’ve got to control those salary increases, but we’ve also got to require that they make a larger contribution,” Vallas said.

He's certainly not courting the city worker vote.

Furlough Calendars Out

And as a couple of people pointed out, the Department has switched Change Days back to Thursdays, like it was pre-McCompstat.

Why? What could possibly be the reason?

Where Are the Cameras?

Cameras are great, right? They don't sleep, they can see in the dark, and they're all over the crime ridden west and south sides. So why aren't they catching this?

• More than a dozen vehicles have been vandalized and ransacked this month throughout the West Garfield Park neighborhood on the West Side.
  
  In each case, someone has damaged a vehicle before going through the interior, according to a community alert from Chicago police. In some instances, multiple cars in the same block were damaged about the same time.

The Sun Times says "more than a dozen," but a quick scan of radio traffic and our usual e-mailers are saying it's between siz and a dozen cars per night. In other words, there have been something like one hundred different reports done, all downgraded to "theft" or "criminal damage."

Little wonder the FBI doesn't use Chicago numbers.

Hurdles?

Can we dispense with the parade of bullshit now?

• Paraisia Winston looks forward to having the Obama Presidential Center in Jackson Park, 4 miles from her South Shore home, to add a new historical treasure to her already culturally rich African-American community.
  
  She believes the center will spur investment and economic development in her South Side neighborhood — one that has long struggled to secure basic amenities like a major grocery or a recognizable clothing store.
  
  But recently, as development of the Obama center has faced obstacles and groundbreaking has been pushed back, Winston and some of her neighbors have begun to worry about the project’s fate. It faces a legal challenge in federal court over the use of park space for the center, and its chief local backer, Mayor Rahm Emanuel, recently announced he will not be seeking a third term as mayor.
  
  The result is anxiousness that has swept over some residents and communities on the South Side as they brace for a possible long wait, a bitter fight or even another grand disappointment.

This has been a corrupt boondoggle since day one, accurately reflecting the Sparklefarts presidency right down to the draining of public coffers for a monument to a Reign of Error.

• Echoing that suit, a group of environmentalists is arguing that the city and Chicago Park District should not build the Obama project in Jackson Park. Transferring parkland to a private entity such as the Obama Foundation is a violation of Park District code and state law, the plaintiffs contend.
  
  Part of the suit hinges on the expectations for the project itself. Instead of an official presidential library managed by the National Archives and Records Administration, the center will highlight the presidency of Obama without the physical presence of his paper records and will be managed by the foundation, which is not a government entity.
  
  “The new, renamed ‘Presidential Center’ would instead be privately owned, managed and operated in ways that the private Foundation itself would decide,” the federal complaint states.

This is a blatant theft of taxpayer funds for a private endeavor that follows none of the rules or procedures in place.

Why So Many Judges?

Is this something? (click for larger version)

If you read the table from right to left, the numbers of cases in all categories goes down. From 2012 to 2016, Civil cases dropped by over 120,000, Domestic cases down 7,000, Juvenile cases another 6,000, even criminal cases are down 100,000 and then some.

Shouldn't the Courts be shrinking along with the case load? Fewer Assistant States Attorney, a bunch few public defenders and lord knows you don't need as many judges. Who's running on the "cut government" platform?

That Didn't Take Long

We suggested it might not be long before CPD was escorting and doing traffic control for dead gang bangers, and the next day Tommy Dart has a Task Force doing exactly that:

• A recently-created special task force targeting gang violence at funerals in Cook County hasn’t been established long enough to have made a visible impact. Six people were shot Monday when more than 50 shots rang out at the funeral for a rapper known as Vantrease Criss, or “Dooksie Da Man.”
  
  The massive shooting scene encompassed two blocks in the Burnside neighborhood, on the 9200 block of South Cottage Grove.
  
  No one was in custody Monday night, and city officials said shootings at funerals for gang members are an increasingly-common occurrence.
  
  “What we saw today was total savagery in our streets and mayhem,” said Cook County Commissioner Richard Boykin. “Frankly we must put an end to that.”

Amazing - we suggest a completely pointless way to waste money and Dart makes it policy. We must strive to only use this few-found power for good. Any suggestions?

How Can This Be?

Rahm's hiring wave is receding into memory?

• Overtime spending in the Chicago Police Department is rising again after a 30 percent drop in first-quarter spending driven by tighter controls aimed at holding supervisors accountable.
  
  From January through April, Chicago police officers were paid $29.7 million in overtime, down from $42.1 million during the same period a year ago.
  
  But the trend was short-lived, according to records released in response to a Freedom of Information request filed by the Chicago Sun-Times.
  
  They show that police overtime for the four-month period ending in August was $50.9 million, a 71 percent increase from first-quarter spending.
  
  In May, an additional $7.1 million was spent. That includes the 1,000 moonlighting officers assigned to keep a lid on violence over Memorial Day.

So why isn't all the hiring alleviating the manpower shortages that seem to be driving OT costs? Could it be that the new officers are merely papering over a Department that is so top-heavy and so bureaucracy-heavy with hidden spots that OT is the only way to man the cars?

Whoops

This has happened in one form or another to dozens if not hundreds of officers in scores of Departments:

• Brien Jackson returned to a parking lot at an Orange Line station to find his 1999 tan Toyota Camry stolen.
  
  Officers found it a few days later on the South Side. But then they lost it again.
  
  An officer had parked the recovered car in front of the Englewood District police station where someone apparently stole it a second time. It’s still missing.

And guess who they're blaming?

• Now Jackson and his father have filed complaints with the department's internal affairs office and with the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, saying they have not gotten a satisfactory explanation about how this happened.

Once a car has been boosted, it's susceptible to being stolen again and again. It isn't difficult. The only explanation you're likely to get is, "It was recovered and we don't have the manpower to babysit every recovered car, nor the tow trucks to take it to a secure yard, and even if we did, it would be burgled by the yard employees. Good thing you have insurance!"

If cops start catching time for stolen cars being re-stolen, guess what they aren't going to be looking for any more?

Judge Not Accountable

Anyone not see this one coming?

• Cook County Judge Joseph Claps was acquitted Tuesday of a misdemeanor gun charge by another judge who said prosecutors failed to prove the object dropped by Claps in a courthouse lobby was, in fact, a firearm.
  
  Claps held his hand to his face, then wiped away tears as Will County Judge Edward Burmila announced his acquittal following a brief bench trial in the branch courthouse in west suburban Maywood. Burmila had been brought in to preside over the case due to Claps’ working relationships with other Cook County judges.
  
  Prosecutors played surveillance footage appearing to show a gun falling out of Claps’ jacket and onto the floor of the lobby of the Leighton Criminal Court Building in early July.
  
  Two Cook County sheriff’s deputies testified Tuesday they were in the lobby when it happened and said the object was, in fact, a gun.
  
  In ruling from the bench, Burmila, though, said he “can’t believe” the deputies didn’t immediately seize the weapon under those circumstances.

How long has Burmila been a part and parcel of the Chicago/Cook County Machine? The sheriffs most certainly recognized the dropped object as a gun.

They also most certainly recognized Claps as a judge.

And if you want to remain employed in the Court Section, you don't rock that boat. Ever.

Judge Being Held Accountable?

This is part of the reason we always recommend against retaining a single judge:

• A longtime Cook County judge has been referred to anger management counseling and reassigned to administrative duties until further notice.
  
  Judge William Hooks, who has been a criminal courts judge for nearly 10 years, is accused of “acting in such a manner that created a hostile work environment for another judge,” according to a statement Monday evening from Chief Judge Timothy Evans’ office.
  
  The alleged incident or incidents did not occur inside a courtroom, the statement said. Court officials noted that Hooks “expressed contrition” about the matter before the Executive Committee of the Circuit Court of Cook County.
  
  It was not immediately clear who was the other judge involved.

The other reason we don't vote to retain judges is we don't believe there to be a single honest judge on the bench in Cook County. If Operations Greylord and Gambat had been allowed to reach their natural conclusions, there wouldn't have been a judge seated in Cook County for at least five years and the feds might have actually dismantled the Machine once and for all.

Rules? What Rules?

Looks like IAD is operating on an entirely different set of Rules that only they are aware of:

• North Side residents of Chicago have been terrorized by a rash of carjackings and stolen vehicles, often by offenders brandishing guns. Residents are afraid to sit in their cars for even a few moments for fear that they will be confronted by the bands of armed thugs.
  
  But what these North Side residents don’t realize is that the officers trying to combat these carjackings and thefts are not only risking their lives, they are risking their jobs as well.
  
  Consider what happened to Officer [LS].
  
  [LS] was working a three-man tactical car earlier this month when the three got a call that a Jeep had been stolen from Lincoln Avenue and Irving Park when the driver left it there to go into a store.
  
  Because the Jeep had a tracking device, its owner could relay its location to dispatchers. [LS]’s team followed the announcements on the radio. As they approached the scene, they observed the Jeep in an alley. They pulled up, preparing to conduct an investigatory stop. But the Jeep began driving toward them. It careened out of the alley, right at the officers who were in uniform. [LS] was attempting to get out of the backseat of the car.
  
  The offender, now using the car as a deadly weapon, drove right into [LS], who jumped backward into the car to protect himself from the attack. As the Jeep struck the police car, [LS] fired at the vehicle, whose driver was now engaged in using force to evade a felony arrest. As the Jeep pulled away, eliminating the threat, [LS] ceased firing. The offender escaped, and the Jeep was recovered nearby.
  
  The whole incident is captured on video.

Guess who got stripped and is cooling his heels at Call Back, without a COPA investigation, without even a COPA finding. According to the linked FOP article, the violations of the Contract and Due Process provisions contained within by IAD are extensive.

Keep this in mind when you decide to start chasing cars. Hopefully some non-police blogs point out to their readership (who are the ones losing their cars) that if the police dare to stop a stolen car, they're going to be stripped, face considerable suspension time, and perhaps lose their jobs and/or freedom attempting to effect arrests.

Crime is Down! (NOT!)

Once again, the only real crime researching is being done by a blog (not this one):

• Muggings are being reported at least twice as often as they were just five years ago in the heart of Chicago’s business and tourism districts, according to city data. A police beat that covers the Magnificent Mile and Streeterville is now among the worst for robberies in the entire city.
  
  And the police beat that covers the River North dining and nightlife district has seen robberies spike nearly 400% since 2014. If you want to get robbed in Chicago, River North is the place to go. It is now the #1 police beat for robberies citywide.
  
  Overall, the Near North community area, which includes the Magnificent Mile, River North, and Gold Coast, is experiencing a 146% robbery increase compared to 2014 and a 5% increase compared to last year.

For the amount of taxes those neighborhoods generate and pay, those numbers are obscene.

Go read it all and look at the graphs.

Putting the "FUN" in FUNERAL

Nice city you got there Rahm:

• At least six people were shot after a funeral service for a Chicago rapper at a church Monday afternoon in the Burnside neighborhood on the South Side.
  
  The mass shooting happened about 12:30 p.m. outside Bethlehem Star Missionary Baptist Church, 9231 S. Cottage Grove, authorities said. The most seriously wounded was a man, who was shot in the head and in critical condition at University of Chicago Medical Center, but the rest of the victims were in stable condition, authorities said.
  
  Also at U. of C. Medical Center were a 25-year-old man shot in the arm, a 27-year-old woman shot in the leg and lower body and a 24-year-old man male shot in the leg. An 18-year-old man was shot and taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn and a 23-year-old man shot in the leg was taken to Advocate Trinity Hospital.

You can bet that instead of having a car (or a partial tact team) detailed to gang funerals, CPD will be providing a police escort to the church and probably graveyard along with traffic control at major intersections just to prevent something like this, instead of allowing the self-cleaning oven to operate unimpeded.

Arrest Made

An excellent job doing followup on a particularly bad one:

• Two-year-old Julien Gonzalez left the birthday party and walked through the backyard, apparently following his father toward a fight that was getting louder in the alley.
  
  As he aproached the gate, somene yelled out, "Bust, bust, bust," an order to a fellow gang member to open fire. The little boy stepped into the alley and was almost immediately scooped up by an older teen running for cover.
  
  But they were both caught by the red light of a laser sight before they could reach the gate. At least 10 shots rang out. The 18-year-old was hit in the back and the leg, and Julien was shot once in the neck. The teen survived, Julien did not.
  
  On Monday, prosecutors laid out the tragic chain of events from Oct. 6 as Alexander Varela, the man accused of giving those orders, appeared in court on charges of murder, attempted murder and aggravated battery. Police said they are still searching for the gunman and others.

Hopefully, the witnesses remain solid and the community gives up enough to get the actual shooter soon.

One thing bothered us though:

• People from the party came out into the alley and began fighting with Varela and other members of his maniac latin disciples gang. Police have said members of another gang, the young latin organization disciples, were apparently at the party.

Weren't the mld's that gang that was supposed to be "wiped out" a few years ago single-handedly by one of the carpetbagging supernintendos? How could this happen if that gang was "wiped out"?

Exploding Cameras

Well, one camera. And not even here, but in New York:

• The NYPD has suspended the use of a certain kind of body camera “effective immediately” after one of them exploded.
  
  A police officer was wearing a Vievu model LE-5 body-worn camera on a “midnight tour” on Saturday night when he noticed that it was smoking and took it off, the NYPD said.
  
  Not long after, the camera exploded, according to the NYPD. No one was injured by the explosion, the department said.
  
  “The incident revealed a potential for the battery inside the camera to ignite,” the NYPD said in a statement. “The cause and scope of the defect are currently being investigated.”
  
  Axon, the parent company of Vievu, said it was working closely with the NYPD to investigate.

Is this going to impact Hillard's stock options?

Buy This Guy Some Beers

This is hilarious if true:

• I heard a range instructor pulled up on the computer a brief history of the cop killer and read it out loud to the class. He acted like he just stumbled across it and never acknowledged the goofy Dame that changed her name. If true I'd like to buy him a bunch of beers lol. That might be who she got a C.R. against. 

Regardless, he ought to not have to buy a beer for the foreseeable future.

In the meantime, this is going to have to be the Rule of the Day in 015:

• Start the fucking paper trail on her. Because you know she won't hesitate to jam you up and claim racism. Shes a racist. Any whiff of mistreatment, drop paper. Hostile work environment. EEOC. 

Any, and we mean ANY dealings with Bernice I. Smith should be documented for posterity and the inevitable EEOC beef. A witness should ALWAYS be present. DO NOT have any one-on-one dealings with her because the Department will always take the side of the supervisor - even one who changes her name to that of a cop-killer.

In fact, it sure would be unfortunate if a body worn camera was "accidentally" activated.

Nice Weekend Rahm

It's October, right? Weather is cooling off, right?

• Seven people have been fatally shot and 14 others wounded in Chicago since 5 p.m. Friday, including three men caught in gunfire in East Garfield Park.
  
  Shots rang out and struck three men about 3:40 p.m. Sunday in the 400 block of North Springfield Avenue, Chicago police said. A 37-year-old man was shot in his head, and was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he died. The Cook County medical examiner’s office hasn’t released details about his death.

Seven dead is a "respectable" weekend in the spring and early summer. It's kind of unusual for October.

Well This is Interesting

Keep this in mind:

• A driver who got into a dispute with people in another car Friday night in the East Ukrainian Village neighborhood, then hit and killed a man who had been a passenger in the other car, was released without charges, police said Sunday.
  
  The driver who killed a man identified as William Gonzalez, 38, of the 1000 block of North Avers Avenue, was released without charges after detectives determined the driver acted in self-defense, police said Sunday.
  
  Gonzalez and the driver of the four-door sedan that hit him started arguing around 8:15 p.m. Friday in the 1600 block of West Augusta Boulevard, police said.
  
  Gonzalez got out of the car he was in and walked up to the sedan, holding a knife, police said.

So hitting a knife-wielding maniac with a hunk of metal weighing 2,000 pounds is better than shooting them at a distance. Message received loud and clear!

GoFundMe Reminder

A couple of girls who had absolutely nothing to do with why they're without their primary breadwinner need help. Think about stopping in and dropping off a couple of bucks.

You can contact the FOP and find out how to make a direct contribution through the Credit Union so GoFundMe doesn't skim off the top, too.

(comments closed here.)

Arrest, Release, Repeat

Toni, Tommy, Timmy and Kim strike again:

• A Chicago man was arrested the day after he allegedly carjacked a woman's vehicle from a business parking lot in Oak Lawn. Dwayne Corley, 25, appeared before Cook County Judge Peter Felice wearing blue hospital scrubs on felony charges of unlawful vehicular invasion and robbery. Corley is currently on parole and was wearing an electronic ankle bracelet at the time of his arrest, prosecutors said.

Once again, electronic monitoring is no deterrent to misbehavior.

Danger Will Robinson! Danger!

Watch out Austin:

• The merit sergeant who changed her name to a cop killer was assigned to 015. Watch yourselves - she got a CR on one of the instructors at the academy during training.

We are still amazed the "merit board" thought this was a good idea.

Anyone know what this alleged CR number was for?

Thanks Jeff

It's nice to hear this from someone in government, seeing as how the assholes in charge here won't point it out:

• In a speech Friday to a friendly law enforcement audience in Chicago, Attorney General Jeff Sessions called a proposed consent decree that would reform the Chicago Police Department an “insult,’’ saying, “Chicago police are not the problem.’’
  
  Sessions’ remarks came before a crowd of about 40 business and law enforcement representatives, including U.S. Attorney John Lausch, at an event sponsored by the Chicago Crime Commission.
  
  [...]
  
  Sessions bemoaned the city’s spike in violence in 2016, blaming “the ACLU effect,” a reference to the city’s agreement with the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois that required police to more thoroughly document street stops.
  
  “If you let ACLU set police policy, crime will go up,’’ he said.

And Sessions points out what every cop in town already knows:

• Though he didn’t specifically refer to controversial “stop-and-frisk’’ policies backed by his boss, President Donald Trump, Sessions said that if police “don’t stop,’’ they “don’t find’’ illegal guns and fugitives.
  
  He called the ACLU agreement a “colossal’’ mistake that reduced public safety and placed “minorities, particularly at risk.’’

Interesting times ahead, no matter how it plays out.

And the Final Tally is....

Just under a quarter-million dollars:

• A Labor Day protest march may have failed to reach the Kennedy Expressway near O’Hare International Airport, but it did reach into taxpayers’ pockets for tens of thousands of dollars.
  
  Police agencies assigned to the march spent at least $152,871.52 on their efforts, according to information obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times under the Freedom of Information Act.
  
  Add to that the cost of an August march that shut down a northern stretch of Lake Shore Drive, and the total tally hits $214,662.82.
  
  Illinois State Police wouldn’t say how many officers it allocated for the Labor Day protest; they did, however, provide the total personnel cost, including benefits: $119,391.90. The Chicago Police Department, sent 48 officers, which cost taxpayers $27,526.33. The site, on the Park Ridge/Rosemont border, also was staffed by 24 Park Ridge opolice officers ($5,528.22) and two officers from Rosemont ($425.07).

Time to file that lien and recover what money is available.

Don't forget this march:

• For a much-larger march that shut down a portion of the northbound Dan Ryan Expressway — during which included Supt. Eddie Johnson walked arm-in-arm with Father Micheal Pfleger — the state police cost was about $198,000. The total estimated cost to taxpayers for that march was over $300,000.

You can bill Special Ed for his portion since he was there breaking the law along with pfather what's-his-name.

Ruiz Park

Friday dedication:

• On Friday morning, a boy bolted up a lime green slide in a small park tucked away on a corner of the Southwest Side. Two others pumped their legs back and forth on swings, flying up into the air and holding on as tight as all the yellow-spotted leaves still clinging to their branches. A young girl smiled and ran past a newly minted sign: Irma C. Ruiz Park.
  
  Thirty years ago, Ruiz, a Chicago police officer who “took care of everyone,” became one of the first female officers to be killed in the line of duty when a gunman entered a Near West Side school and shot at Ruiz, instantly ending the life of the beloved wife, mother of four and police partner.
  
  A Chicago park in the Archer Heights neighborhood was officially renamed in her honor on Friday. More than a hundred friends, family, fellow officers — even the horse named after Ruiz — gathered for the dedication. And before and after the ceremony, Ruiz’s grandchildren played in her park.

RIP

Car as a Weapon Again?

When actual punishment is scarce, what's to stop this from occurring more often?

• Two people were injured Thursday, including an Oak Forest Police officer, following a carjacking in which the injured officer fired his gun at the fleeing vehicle, police said. The carjacker, described as a male in his late teens or early 20s, was at large as of late Thursday, Oak Forest Police said.
  
  Shortly before noon, Oak Forest Police were advised of an aggravated carjacking involving a gun that had taken place in Orland Park. Oak Forest officers saw a vehicle matching the description traveling at a very high rate of speed east on 159th, and the vehicle attempted to turn north onto Cicero Avenue, where it hit a construction worker, police said.
  
  The driver got out of the vehicle and fled on foot east on 159th, with Oak Forest officers in pursuit, police said. The man carjacked a second vehicle, and as officers tried to apprehend him, he ran over one of the officers with the vehicle, who fired his weapon toward the stolen white Mazda, police said.

Great description once again by the Tribune - watch out for the "males." They're dangerous as Hell.

Best wishes to the injured officer for a speedy recovery, not only from his injuries, but of his badge, which (as you may have guessed) he was stripped of by Speci8al Ed for not getting out of the way and firing at a moving vehicle.

Dumb Idea Pays Dividends

For criminals. Not so much for the law abiding:

• It’s hard to gripe with the general idea behind the Chicago Community Bond Fund (CCBF). The organization raises money to post bond for people who cannot afford to post their own while awaiting trial.
  
  But there seems to be a problem.
  
  One man who was freed by the fund while awaiting trial for attempted murder in North Center went on to be arrested four times in three months for battering and threatening people in Boystown. Despite being arrested repeatedly while on bond and even being ordered to serve two jail sentences for those crimes, his bond was never revoked.
  
  And a transgender woman accused of robbing a man in Boystown in 2017 was freed by the fund in May 2017. Since then, she has repeatedly skipped court dates and she has been arrested three times. The bond fund was twice ordered to forfeit the $50,000 it risked on the woman’s freedom, only to have the money given back after filing motions with the court. Most recently, a litany of social service agencies virtually begged the court to let the woman go free on bond again. The judge agreed. And the woman is now AWOL. Again.

Hop over and read the whole article. The writers over at Crime In Boystown are about the only actual journalists in Chicago any more.

Ghetto Uber Strikes Again

Bad odds, smart move:

• Five teenagers are in custody after the carjacking of an off-duty police officer in the city's Edgewater Beach neighborhood. Police said the officer, a 47-year-old woman, was approached by a group of offenders after parking her Lexus SUV in the 5800 block of North Winthrop around midnight Thursday.
  
  One of the offenders pointed a gun at the officer and demanded her vehicle, then took the keys out of her hand, got into the SUV and drove away.
  
  Police spotted the vehicle on the Southeast Side and pursued it. The offenders were captured after hitting a dead-end at 55th and South Shore. The suspects include a 16-year-old, a 19-year-old and three 18-year-olds. Police recovered a weapon from inside the stolen Lexus.
  
  Charges are pending.

Outnumbered five-to-one and at gunpoint, the smart move is to lose the car, not your life. Good job capturing everyone later.

Don't hold your breath on extensive charges, though. Carjacking is just a "rite of passage" in the "community" and we'll bet no one 'fessed up to the gun, so Foxxx won't be charging anyone with that.

Interesting Concept

Taking house mouses....and putting them on the street:

• A day after 11 people were shot, including three fatally, Baltimore officials condemned the city’s drug trade and announced plans to get more police officers on the streets.
  
  About 230 Baltimore Police Department officers assigned to administrative duties will leave their offices for patrol work as the department seeks to combat a spike in violence across the city.
  
  Interim Commissioner Gary Tuggle temporarily shut down administrative operations at police headquarters and in every district, he said at a news conference Wednesday afternoon. Those officers have been reassigned to the streets, bringing the number of officers patrolling the city to about 650, he said.

Wow! Eleven people get shot and administrative "operations" get shut down. What's the number of house mouses that get sent back to the street when Chicago has a weekend where 70 people get shot?

A Special Arrogance

The last time we heard a yarn this unbelievable, we were on a whaling ship out of Nantucket:

• Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle said she believes a county SUV used “nearly exclusively” by her security chief and found abandoned in the early morning hours after the 2016 election with campaign materials in the back was stolen, even though officials never reported it to police.
  
  Preckwinkle also said she has not investigated the incident and declined to comment on whether she has asked her security chief whether he placed the political materials in the vehicle, saying she won’t discuss “personnel matters.”
  
  Instead reiterated her spokeswoman’s statements from earlier in the week that she does not allow county vehicles to be used for “the dissemination of campaign materials” but doesn’t know who placed the materials in the vehicle.
  
  “My conviction is that it was stolen,” Preckwinkle, a candidate for mayor of Chicago, said of the vehicle. “That’s as far as I intend to comment on it.”

Gee, a stolen county "security" vehicle loaded with campaign literature, in violation of all sorts of Ethics Rules. It's extra funny that she says, "My conviction...." seeing as how anyone charged by her pet Foxxx wouldn't be convicted of anything in Cook County.

Nice Campaign JB

Is this being planned by Rauner? Because it's hard to believe Pritzker could be this dumb:

• Three weeks before Election Day, staffers who have worked for J.B. Pritzker’s campaign have filed a federal lawsuit alleging racial discrimination in their months on the job, accusations the Democratic governor candidate quickly called “just not true.”
  
  The lawsuit comes in the final stretch of an increasingly bitter campaign between Pritzker and Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner that has seen both sides break spending records and accuse one another of criminal activity.
  
  The lawsuit filed Tuesday alleges that African-American and Latino campaign staffers “are herded into race-specific positions where they are expected to interact with the public, offered no meaningful chance for advancement, and receive less favorable treatment than their white counterparts.” Of the 10 campaign staffers named as plaintiffs in the suit, nine are black and one is a Latina.

Next thing you know, there's going to be audio of wiretaps released between Pritzker and Blago discussing the sale of a Senate seat and using some....racially charged language perhaps?

So Pritzker takes union money while undercutting unions, uses racist language, promises to double the state income tax.....and he's actually expected to win?

Sigh

This is probably a sign that you need help:

• An on-duty Chicago police sergeant was charged with drunk driving Wednesday morning after failing a random drug and alcohol test at the police department’s headquarters on the South Side.

.139 .... at 0400 hours. That takes some doing.

Elect JB - Double your Taxes

This one isn't getting any play in the mainstream media, just the policy wonk sites:

• Democratic gubernatorial candidate J.B. Pritzker has promised a number of new spending programs as well as closing Illinois’ current structural deficit. To finance these promises, Pritzker has proposed a progressive income tax hike.
  
  But how much would these promises cost? And how high would taxes need to be to finance them?
  
  Reasonable estimates show the cost of Pritzker’s spending promises demand an income tax hike of $13 billion to $18 billion. This would require approximately doubling the state’s personal income tax to 9.95 percent on the high end and 8.51 percent on the low end from the current 4.95 percent income tax rate.
  
  That means within the existing flat income tax structure, which would remain in place until at least 2020, the typical family in Illinois making just over $79,000 would pay an additional $2,500 to $3,500 in income taxes in order to finance Pritzker’s spending promises.

Anyone here expecting the FOP to hit one out of the park and get us a raise big enough so that we can continue to tread water in this sinking ship? We don't.

And the sad part is, people will still vote for this double-talking asshole.

No Shootings!

No, not here. Chicago can't seem to go twelve hours without someone getting ventilated:

• The last time New York City experienced a weekend without a shooting, Ruth Bader Ginsberg had just been named to the Supreme Court, "Jurassic Park" was thrilling audiences and the world wide web made its debut.
  
  And then this weekend happened.
  
  New York City officials announced no one had been shot in all five boroughs Oct. 12-14 — the first weekend free of shootings since at least 1993, the New York Post reported.

It could be that New York just hasn't found a body with holes in it yet, but maybe a city of 8.5 million souls suddenly started getting along, opening doors for each other, saying please, thank you and pardon me.

Maybe we shouldn't be surprised - no doubt Tokyo has gone months without shootings, so why not New York?

COPA Headhunting

Looking for anything even remotely questionable to hang some scalps on their wall - something we predicted a long time ago - to promote themselves as "independent" and "tough on cops:"

• Video released Tuesday shows an off-duty Chicago police sergeant opening fire from his vehicle and wounding an apparently unarmed man as he stood on a sidewalk in front of a home in the Morgan Park neighborhood on the Far South Side.
  
  The Civilian Office of Police Accountability released police dashboard camera, home surveillance video and police reports more than a year after Ricardo “Ricky” Hayes, then 18, was shot in the arm and chest in the 11100 block of South Hermosa Avenue.

You'll notice the dates and wonder why videos were held for over 14 months instead of the now-customary 60 days. Don't expect that to be answered any time soon.

Run Away!!!

It seems London is taking lessons from J-Fled:

• The acting head of the Metropolitan Police locked himself in a car as one of his officers was murdered metres away during the Westminster attack, an inquest has heard.
  
  Sir Craig Mackey was commissioner of Britain’s largest force at the time of the atrocity, where Khalid Masood ran down four victims with his car and stabbed PC Keith Palmer to death.
  
  An inquest into Masood’s death heard that Sir Craig was being driven out of the Houses of Parliament when the attack started on 22 March 2017.

The inquest is being used as a cover-up, finding that the Police Constable was already grievously stabbed, so there was nothing that Mackey could have done to prevent the Constable from bleeding out. Why actually make the effort when there might be a cup of warm tea waiting somewhere else?

Purse Arrest

Part of the $67,000 heist was solved the other day:

• Three adults have been arrested and charged in connection with the armed robbery of a Christian Dior boutique near the Magnificent Mile this week after they agreed to meet with an undercover officer to sell a stolen Dior purse for $9,000, according to police and court records. A juvenile girl has also been charged in the case, according to a police department source.

And you'll never guess what else:

• One of the accused persons is currently on probation after he pleaded guilty in a robbery-related incident at the Magnificent Mile Saks Fifth Avenue store this summer.

Of course, they weren't charged with the original robbery since there wasn't any description available. Nice pinch though by the followup units.

Likely Consent Decree Timeline

From an insider at County:

• The EXACT SAME THING happened at County years ago, and this will happen to you. Mostly in this order, with very little variation.
  
  One: you will attract less and less talented applicants. Less and less people want to work for CPD or be the police in general. The Darren Wilson/JasonVan Dyke cases, de-policing in general since 08/09, increased micromanagement and metrics-based supervision for suburban departments and weaker organized labor all contribute. Not only that, but you have an economy that is insanely good: unemployment nationally at 3.7%? Hasn't been this good in decades and more better-paying jobs are to be found elsewhere- with stock options and bonuses.
  
  Two: with low-talent applicants, you will hire low-talent people. Which means over the long-term, low-talent officers will be promoted to low-talent so-called-Sergeants.
  
  Three: increase in cameras. There will be more cameras that you know what to do with. In locker rooms, in break rooms, put up in blind spots in the station, in lockups, everywhere. You'll have body cameras for every officer in the department. You'll have dash-mounted cameras inside the squad car aimed at the officers inside. You'll have cameras mounted in the cage in the vehicle. The camera systems will be Ultra-High Def 4K shit, with great zoom lenses, and audio capability. They will be able to be real-time streamed. These cameras will be able to be accessed by command staff ay any time, any where. Directors in CCSO can access this shit from their houses, from their iPads. And they do. They will watch the cameras from home, call into the jail and ask Chiefs, Superintendents, Lieutenants and whoever they want, why officers are doing certain things. This happens daily to us and it will happen daily to you.
  
  Four: increase in civilian directors and oversight. You'll have civilians who are not the police, being put in charge of units, groups and teams. These people are not your friends.
  
  Five: New units for Use of Force Review, Video Monitoring, Internal Affairs, etc... You'll have re-organized units, re-structured units, new units and the like. Lots of juice babies will be placed in this units. The administration will fight you tooth and nail and a lot of the people in these units will not investigate Use of Force incidents correctly.
  
  Six: A hell of a lot of discipline. They'll rewrite the entire General Orders of CPD. They'll fight the FOP on everything, hire a lot more lawyers and they will push for the maximum amount of discipline possible for a lot more officers. They will make examples. They will suspend without pay. They will push to fire more officers, by a factor of 5 at least from that the current level is. There is no mistaking it, people will absolutely lose their jobs.
  
  Seven: The Department will drown the union with more and more lawyers and opposition and struggle during normal operations. Everything from lunches to reliefs to overtime, to uniform/appearance standards, to medical call-ins, FMLA use and the pettiest stuff imaginable. This will increase the workload on the stewards in the districts and units and also the union office, making the office do more and more work. It will make you choose your battles more and it will make officers have less and less faith in the union.
  
  Eight: A ton of good officers will retire. They will be fired. They will stop caring. They'll become even more cynical and jaded that they are now. They'll impact the younger generation and then, they too, will become lazy and not care. More officers will transfer to suburban departments, federal agencies or choose different paths altogether. The department attrition will increase substantially, which will make officers invest less and less in their careers and themselves.
  
  Nine: After years of mismanagement and sinking morale, after hundreds of officers are fired and hundreds more leave, the department will change direction slightly and try to "improve" it. Special teams, special units, special work hours/shifts/days off, perks, etc., will be offered. Those Use of Force units, Internal Affairs and the administration will realize what has happened and try and fix it. This will happen slowly at first and then pick up speed. This is the phase the county is in now- especially at the jail. But the damage will be done.
  
  If you think this is bogus, ask officers who left the jail to come to CPD. County loses between 4-8 per month going to CPD. Talk to them in the districts. Everything I mentioned will happen, or has already started.

Anyone know an LAPD guy who can compare this to their Consent Decree? Or anywhere else that has been saddled with this disaster?

Nice Double Standard JB

Pritzker says one thing, then does completely the opposite:

• Billionaire Democratic governor candidate J.B. Pritzker has portrayed himself as a champion of working families and received substantial support from organized labor, but he used nonunion workers to remodel his Gold Coast mansion.
  
  Nonunion labor from three trades was hired to work on the yearslong, $25 million renovation of Pritzker’s 20,000-square-foot residence, according to a June 2007 email filed as part of a court dispute that arose between Pritzker and the general contractor.
  
  “A note of caution,” wrote construction consultant Douglas Kaulas to Pritzker’s brother-in-law Thomas Muenster, who oversaw the renovation. “Now that the front yard is screened off and scaffold is going up, the jobsite has a much higher visibility. We’re perfectly legal with our permits, but we do have a non-union mason, demo contractor and roofer working. We are a little concerned that the union (business agents) may come to visit.”
  
  For Democrats, the support of organized labor is key and using union workers can be a litmus test. Pritzker now joins the list of Illinois Democrats who championed labor on the public stage but employed nonunion workers when it came to their personal lives.

Reason #1,254 why you can't trust democrats - taking your money with one hand, mouthing the right platitudes, then stabbing you in the back.

Policing - 2018 Style

Amazing what the job has become in just a few short years:

• Can anyone shed any light on the [r]umor that a handful of our newest finest, had an offender that they were trying to place in custody and the offender fled to the police car and tried to drive off. He didn't have keys to drive the vehicle off so he locked himself in and when he tried to exit the vehicle to either fight with these new police officers they locked the door and wouldn't let him out. They then called a field Sgt. to assist and the Sgt. had to show them [how] to take a shit head in custody. If this story is true and if it in fact happened the way I heard it, the dept. certainly has, Be The Change, well in hand. That policing thing, not so much.

Someone did answer the comment and claimed it happened in that haunted Indian burial ground of 025.

Then on the west side, we have e-mails about two coppers getting into an actual fight on first watch over who would get to drive the car that night. One of them had to leave a south side district a short time ago because of all the drama that he created, filing numerous complaints on other officers.

And just so you don't think it's only the new guys, when is Channel 2 supposed to do their multipart series on the SWAT scandals?

What the actual Hell is going on?

They're Actually Serious?

This is why celebrity opinions should be discounted 90%^ of the time - it's just plain uninformed:

• One of Larry Hoover’s loudest advocates believes the imprisoned Gangster Disciples leader would be a voice for peace in Chicago if he were freed by President Donald Trump.
  
  Hoover would urge gang members to “stop the killing,” according to Wallace “Gator” Bradley, a former GD.
  
  “Maybe what they need is the fear of God,” Bradley said Thursday. “I am not saying Larry Hoover is God, but when they took the leaders off the street, they took the street disciplinarian away.”

Wasn't Gator shot a few years back for running his mouth? And it isn't "fear of God" that would bring some semblance of order to the streets - it'd be "fear of Hoover" until such time as Hoover got lit up by one of the leaf-smoking, un-parented, no-future assholes that roam his former territory.

Gator wants a return to the old days when he used to wield some sort of power among gangs. In today's fractured landscape, the only way that is happening is via murder and intimidation. The fact that the media (via Frank Main) is giving this moron a voice and letting him agitate for Hoover's release speaks poorly as to their grasp of what the reality of those days was like.

"Re-Education Camp"

That "implicit bias" crap the department is forcing on everyone? It's bullshit:

• I had the pleasure, a few weeks ago, of attending a seminar at Ryerson University as a specially invited guest to hear University of Toronto psychology professor Jordan Peterson address a colleague’s students on freedom of speech and gender issues that have made him a household name in Canada.
  
  I was of course already familiar with much of Peterson’s material from his videos, which didn’t diminish by an iota my sense of privilege in experiencing the force of live presentation. But my ears perked up at something new in his remarks: an allusion to the “Implicit Association Test” (IAT). According to Peterson, the IAT, a pseudo-scientific diagnostic test to measure an individual’s personal biases, has been introduced into the CBC as a tool for identifying and measuring unconscious biases among its senior executives, in all likelihood with the objective of weeding them out through training.
  
  By coincidence, I had just read a lengthy, detailed and quite damning indictment of the IAT by scrupulously thorough investigative reporter Jesse Singal of New York Magazine’s Science of Us. I hope the honchos at the CBC will read it as well.

And here's the take down of the “Implicit Association Test” the author references in her article:

• Given all this excitement, it might feel safe to assume that the IAT really does measure people’s propensity to commit real-world acts of implicit bias against marginalized groups, and that it does so in a dependable, clearly understood way. After all, the test is hosted by Harvard, endorsed and frequently written about by some of the top social psychologists and science journalists in the country, and is currently seen by many as the most sophisticated way to talk about the complicated, fraught subject of race in America.
  
  Unfortunately, none of that is true. A pile of scholarly work, some of it published in top psychology journals and most of it ignored by the media, suggests that the IAT falls far short of the quality-control standards normally expected of psychological instruments. The IAT, this research suggests, is a noisy, unreliable measure that correlates far too weakly with any real-world outcomes to be used to predict individuals’ behavior — even the test’s creators have now admitted as such.

So here comes the politicians and CPD brass, allowing this pseudo-training to take place, based on the dubious claims that cops are all so racist and unaware of "implicit" racism that we have to be "re-educated" via this and the Consent Decree and who knows what other bullshit they'll come up with.

You can bet this will be coming up in future lawsuits, all to beat up the police and fleece taxpayers.

Deadline Extended Again

Once again, there will be an entry exam to join the Chicago Police Department.

And once again, the application deadline has been extended because not nearly enough people are signing up to make it economically feasible to have a test. It's almost as if there is some reluctance to the idea of becoming the police.

We wonder what it could be.

GoFundMe Link

There have been a few links popping up in the comment sections about creating a GoFundMe effort for the VanDayke family. This is the most cited one.

CBS has linked to it, so it is most likely legit - but CBS is linking to it so others like Jamal what's-his-ass can protest it and attempt to shut it down, thereby punishing a family that is already being punished enough and who had exactly zero to do with any department or court proceedings.

FOP is probably the best place to get information on fundraising, either electronically or via the Credit Union.

You're Doing it Wrong

When you're turning your life around, it's not supposed to go like this:

• A man shot four-years ago by Chicago police has been injured again in another police shooting.
  
  Alonzo Smith, 31, was critically wounded Wednesday in a shootout with Milwaukee police. Authorities say officers were responding to reports of shots fired, when they say Smith shot at them. Officers fired back, critically wounding him.
  
  Several guns and a knife were reportedly found after the shooting.
  
  Smith has been diagnosed with schizophrenia.
  
  He reached a $180,000 settlement with Chicago after the shooting in 2014.

Any chance we can get that $180,000 back?

Bias Survey Canceled

Remember that survey we asked about a couple of days ago? FOP stopped it:

• Apparently, the Chicago Police Department has partnered with the Anti-Defamation League for a training class that will be presented to all Chicago Police Officers. This training class will address implicit bias. Initially, in order to participate in this class, Police Officers were required to complete a survey prior to attending the class.
  
  Several members contacted the Lodge inquiring whether they had an obligation to complete the survey. Initially, the Lodge did not have a response as the Department failed to advise us of the existence of both the survey and the training itself.
  
  The Lodge made inquiries to the Department asking what agency compiled the surveys, what agency was going to use the data from the surveys, would the data be saved or destroyed, and who or what agency would have access to the survey data.
  
  While the Lodge is certainly in favor of any training that will enhance our members' policing skills, we are more interested in ensuring that our members rights are protected. We advised the Department of our objections to this survey: There was not any guarantee that your answers would be kept private, there was not any guarantee that your answers would not have a negative personal impact, and there was not any guarantee that your answers would not have a negative impact on either the Department or Lodge as a whole.
  
  The Department took note of our inquiries and objections and has removed the survey.

We can hardly wait to see what liberal bullshit the Department has decided to foist on everyone, and what lib-tard is getting piles of money for this crap.

Fifteen ET's Made

So the Department made fifteen Evidence Techs this week.

Word is that nine of them have already landed inside spots where they'll never have to process a crime scene.

Congratulations to those that will help alleviate the two and three hour waits at shooting scenes.

The New Normal

And it involves carjacking:

• Three people were carjacked over 40 minutes in Lakeview and Lincoln Park late Wednesday and early Thursday -- and two of the stolen cars were later found in the same South Side police district, one parked and the other crashed, according to Chicago police.
  
  Those carjacked included a food delivery driver robbed at gunpoint and two women, police said.

But don't worry - help is on the way!

• Chicago police issued a community alert Wednesday saying there have been six carjackings or robberies on the North Side. This comes on a day that the police superintendent and mayor announced that there will be more technology on the streets to track stolen vehicles.
  
  License plate readers on squad cars can scan up to 1,000 plates per minute, picking up whether a car is stolen. Two hundred more patrol cars will be outfitted with them, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced Wednesday.

This explains why they called for a bunch of plate readers to be pulled off the streets for a photo-op yesterday.

We can't quite figure out how this matters though - we aren't allowed to chase for property crimes, and that is all that carjacking is under the current regime, even when it's done with a gun.

Don't get trick-bagged.

Silly Rapper

We've never been a fan of Kanye West's music, nor his family, nor his juvenile take on complicated issues. He seems to be a canny businessman who understands his audience though.

We have been amused to see the left's need to destroy him now that he has escaped the thought-police and seems to be thinking for himself for once, no matter how disordered those thought may be. It's difficult to break those habits of allowing others to think for you.

But his rambling defense of Larry Hoover is a nonstarter here. Hoover was nothing but a merchant of drugs, destruction and death during his reign of terror. The only reason we'd want to see Hoover walking around outside of prison walls would be to see how long it would take for his past to catch up to him and get killed, except some innocent person might end up getting shot along with Hoover.

He wouldn't last two weeks on the outside.

Non-Library Advances

Tax dollars being stolen right before your eyes:

• The City Council’s Committee on Housing and Real Estate Thursday unanimously approved an ordinance for the Obama Foundation to pay $10 for a 99-year agreement for the Obama Presidential Center, moving the foundation one step closer to being able to break ground on the project.
  
  Before the vote, Ald. Raymond Lopez, (15th) and Ald. Deborah Mell, (33rd) pressed Obama Foundation members on the ongoing concerns that the center would displace longtime residents and that it would not be a presidential library.

But they still voted for it anyway. Real spines of steel among these alderassholes.

Hoax?

Got this via e-mail this past afternoon:

Anyone know if the FOP knows about a job survey? And does anyone have any actual proof of this "implicit bias"?

Or is this just another of those "It's true because we say it is" moments?

Strange Bedfellows

So this was early last week:

Any questions?

Sounds Familiar....

Our old friend Jack Dunphy in Los Angeles:

• At the risk of being repetitive, we return once again to the Los Angeles Times, whose writers and editors seem to leap at any opportunity to present police officers in an unfavorable light. They are so eager to do so, in fact, that they are willing to omit relevant facts from their stories to achieve the purpose.
  
  The latest example came on Oct. 4, when Times writers Joel Rubin and Ben Poston (with help from staff writers Ryan Menezes and Ruben Vives) wrote more than 3,500 words on what they and their editors believe is a serious problem within the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, to wit, too many Latinos being stopped and searched for drugs on a 40-mile stretch of Interstate 5, known in Southern California as the Grapevine.
  
  “The team of Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies cruises the 5 Freeway,” the story begins, “stopping motorists on the Grapevine in search of cars carrying drugs. They’ve worked the mountain pass in Southern California since 2012 and boast a large haul: more than a ton of methamphetamine, 2 tons of marijuana, 600 pounds of cocaine, millions of dollars in suspected drug money and more than 1,000 arrests.”
  
  Up to this point the reader might be saying: “That’s a lot of arrests and a lot of drugs. Sounds like good police work.”
  
  But this is the Los Angeles Times, remember, where any law enforcement accomplishment must be viewed with the suspicion that the police did something improper to achieve it. And so comes the ominous kicker: “But behind those impressive numbers are some troubling ones.”

Gee, like accusing Chicago officers of being "racist" because they patrol areas that are 90-to-95% black? That cops are stopping too many black and brown people because only 95% of the shootings and murders are committed by black and brown suspects?

Officers go to where the crime is, oftentimes to the detriment of "quiet" neighborhoods who then suffer when criminals go to where the police aren't.

Go read it all.

So, Englewood

Yesterday's injuring of a police officer is a lot more involved than previously thought:

• Three Chicago police officers were attacked and locked inside an Englewood home as they chased a woman who had spit in the face of one of the cops, authorities said. The officers were able to get out of the house in the 7000 block of South Throop Street and arrested a woman and two men around 2:30 p.m. Monday, police said.
  
  Senneca Traylor, 19, was charged with aggravated battery of an officer and resisting an officer. Janice Lewis, 20, was charged with aggravated battery of an officer. Robert Williams, 28, was charged with unlawful restraint and resisting an officer.
  
  The officers had been chasing Lewis when another person threw a piece of wood at the back of an officer’s head, police said. The officers chased that person into a nearby home and other residents of the house locked the officers inside, police said. All three officers were treated at hospitals and released.

It appears that the charging is initially proper, but everyone knows you can't trust Kimesha any farther than you can throw her. She'll live down to her reputation shortly, the politicians will pander and the assholes in the media won't say a word about it.

Locking officers in a building where assist units cannot get to them in a timely manner is about as dangerous as it gets. In fact, Deadly Force would have to be at the top of our list of considered actions = if you are alone, away from assist units, outnumbered and in danger of being disarmed, injured or killed.

But who do you think Kimesha would charge in that case? The officers for getting out of the car? That's on record as a viable criticism in court just last week. After all, the initial foot pursuit was just for spitting - and you all signed up for being spit on, right? It was in the paperwork somewhere. And the gang bangers locking the door, well, that was just because they were afraid of a rat getting in or a dog getting out. How were they to know there was a hot pursuit of a fleeing felon?

This isn't some game anymore. Or if it is, it isn't the game you played just a few years ago. You are a target, period. You are a target for money and you are a target for prison, and all the old rules don't apply any more.

Trump Trolls Rahm

Poking his least favorite mayor:

• The Justice Department will later this week oppose a pending consent decree the city of Chicago agreed to in the wake of police misconduct allegations tied to the Laquan McDonald case, the Sun-Times has learned.
  
  This comes a day after President Donald Trump told a gathering of police chiefs in Orlando that an agreement between the city and the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois on stop and frisk policies was “terrible.”
  
  Attorney General Jeff Sessions said in a statement, “Chicago’s agreement with the ACLU in late 2015 dramatically undercut proactive policing in the city and kicked off perhaps the greatest surge in murder ever suffered by a major American city, with homicides increasing more than 57 percent the very next year.
  
  “Now the city’s leaders are seeking to enter into another agreement. It is imperative that the city not repeat the mistakes of the past — the safety of Chicago depends on it. Accordingly, at the end of this week, the Justice Department will file a statement of interest opposing the proposed consent decree. It is critical that Chicago get this right.”

We aren't sure of the niceties involved, but it may be possible for Sessions to order the Federal Courts to stay out of the fight, putting the entire onus (and extensive multi-million dollar costs) solely on the local authorities and courts, which in our opinion, is Constitutionally proper.

Nice Michigan Avenue Rahm

Again, the targeting of high-end stores:

• Thieves made off with thousands of dollars' worth of merchandise from a Dior store in the Gold Coast on Monday.
  
  Four women entered the store in the 900 block of north Rush Street at about 1:30 p.m. Monday and took 10 purses off the shelves before fleeing the store without paying, police said. The women threatened to spray a store employee with mace if she interfered with the theft.
  
  The women took off southbound on Rush street in a dark-colored sedan that had two men in it, police said.
  
  Authorities are investigating.

Authorities are going to have a difficult time investigating when the description of the car is better than a description of the offenders.

And this was only the beginning of the holiday mayhem on Michigan Avenue. Numerous e-mails describe at least 3 cars being heavily damaged, numerous assaults, "Apple picking" and other robberies - and the only coverage is the theft of purses worth $67,000 or so. Not a word of the wilding and continuous irreparable damage to Chicago's reputation.

Hey Look! A Bail Reduction

Kimesha's Krew at it again, showing that cops' lives don't matter at all:

• Bail was reduced on Tuesday for a 25-year-old man charged with trying to kill a suburban police office with his car during a traffic stop last week on the Far South Side.
  
  Jamal Campbell faces a charge of attempted first-degree murder of a police officer after he allegedly tried to run over the Alsip officer early Wednesday and was shot by the officer in the parking lot of an apartment building in the Mount Greenwood neighborhood, according to the Cook County state’s attorney’s office.

And guess who the scumbag attorney is blaming?

• At a hearing to review his bail on Tuesday, Campbell’s attorney Michael Oppenheimer said the police-involved shooting might have been racially motivated and questioned whether Chicago police were covering up for the suburban officer.
  
  “Although this was an Alsip officer [who shot Campbell], this happened in Chicago and there is a history of cover-ups, as we saw last week,” Oppenheimer said in reference to the conviction of Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke on Friday.

Once again, we are reminded of Shakespeare's Henry VI.

Officer Injured

Serious condition at the moment:

• Chicago police said an officer responding to a residence was injured and is now in the hospital.
  
  The incident happened in the 7000 block of South Throop.
  
  A person threw an object at the officer who was outside, striking him in the head.
  
  He was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center where he is listed in serious condition.

No info on arrests or charges, but does anyone actually trust a Cook County States Attorney nowadays?

Little Late

A great idea....two years ago:

• Once again focusing on Chicago crime, President Donald Trump on Monday said the city should implement a “stop and frisk” policy and get out of what he called a “terrible” agreement between the ACLU and the police department made after a study showed the stops targeted minorities.
  
  Trump, speaking to the International Association of Chiefs of Police in Orlando, also said he was instructing Attorney General Jeff Sessions to “immediately” go to Chicago.
  
  The Chicago Sun-Times has learned the Justice Department will have announcements on Chicago later this week.

Unless the announcements involve have Rahm, Toni, Kimmy, Timmy or Tommy being tried in the public square and hanged for our watching pleasure, we aren't seeing much change. Almost no one is being stopped. Morale is lower than low. Shootings are down but clearance rates hover in the single digits and property crime is rising.

The prosecuting attorney asked JVD at trial something along the lines of, "Sothis all could have been avoided if you stayed in the car? Dow do you think that is going to play in the Districts?

Nice Marathon Planning Ed

Just when you think the Department could get any less competent:

• Working the marathon detail today. About an hour into the race, majority of officers related that their radios were chirping and needed new batteries. Several of the salt trucks used to block intersections broke down and had to be towed out. Some boss screaming about that he is not afraid to spar an officer. What a circus!

And we got e-mails outlining how the Chief of Patrol released some order at midnight Friday violating the Contracts by sending bid officers and sergeants out of District instead of volunteers.

In any event, who is the "boss" who was screaming about how he wasn't afraid to SPAR an officer? No boss should be afraid of issuing discipline if an order or policy has been violated.

FYI: If you feel the need to tell everyone how unafraid you are, you're probably afraid....and most likely incompetent.