FOP Count Today? (UPDATE)

Last we heard, there was supposed to be a count for the Presidential runoff today. Not sure if it's at the Hall or somewhere a bit more spacious so social-distancing can be followed.

Who has the info?

UPDATE: 08 May?

You'll See it Anyway

COPA released eighteen videos of the CTA shooting that seemed to have disappeared from the media radar.

None of them look good and each shows pretty much the absolute worst way the situation could have been handled.

One-hundred toothpicks says that none of the eighteen get the airplay that Abbate got and continues to get, nor the McDonlad shooting. They might even get less than the unarmed autistic kid getting shot by the off-duty sergeant.

Officer Stabbed

Should be okay following treatment:

• A Chicago police officer was stabbed by someone who allegedly started a fire Wednesday in Avondale on the Northwest Side. Police and fire crews were called about 4:45 p.m. for reports of the fire in the 3100 block of North Spaulding Avenue, according to Chicago police. When they arrived, a female started arguing with officers and firefighters.
  
  The female, who started the fire in the basement of the building, stabbed an officer in the leg, according to Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford. The officer was taken to Illinois Masonic Medical Center with a non-life threatening injury to the lower right calf, officials said.
  
  The attacker was taken into custody and charges are pending, according to police.

Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

Moving the Goalposts Again

The leftists in many state governments are actively attempting to wreck the economy in the hopes of removing the current Administration in DC. This is what Virginia had in place, but it's basically the same across the country:

• Moving downward: percentage of positive tests over 14 days
• Moving downward: hospitalizations over 14 days
• Enough hospital beds and intensive care capacity
• Increasing and sustainable supply of PPE

Most states have reached three of these four goals. So of course, that means they can reopen. Even Illinois downsized the McCormick Place Field Hospital from 3,000 beds to 2,000 to 1,000 beds, with under 100 being utilized this past week (UPDATE: under 30).

Then dems across the country started demanding a massive medical stockpile to be in place to treat everyone before reopening. Except you don't store medicines until you have them....doctors administer them when needed, so it's almost impossible to meet this condition seeing as how the stockpile (and the need) are constantly fluctuating.

Then they said the country needed adequate ventilators. The announcement from Washington is that there are ten-thousand ventilators available for immediate distribution with hundreds more being made each day. New York City is now offering excess ventilators to smaller out-of-state hospitals.

The latest crap coming out of democrats is that we have to wait until there is a vaccine available so we can send our kids back to school safely. Question: How is that HIV vaccine working out for everyone? Has Boystown been shut down until there's a vaccine? That would be since....1983. So a mere 37 years ago? We can hold out that long, right?

In the history of the world, there have been only two viral diseases eradicated by a vaccine - smallpox and rinderpest. Each took decades to develop and administer. This is yet another impossible metric being set by the left to attain a political end they can't meet otherwise.

Add to that a certain mayor getting a haircut, a certain governor's family jetting off to Florida, entire legislative bodies hiding and failing to carry out the duties they were elected to do, relying on haphazard "science." It's enough to spark statewide protests and lawsuits, not to mention widespread civil disobedience.

Illinois "All-In" ....Except for....

Rules for Thee, but Not for Me:

• M.K. Pritzker, the billionaire wife of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D), is reportedly skipping out on her husband’s stringent lockdown orders, jetting off to their $12.1 million equestrian estate in South Florida — a state that has refused to implement what Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) described as “draconian” measures as a response to the coronavirus pandemic.
  
  While Pritzker finds himself in the middle of a legal battle over his extension of the his lockdown order, extending it until May 30 and promoting his All-in Illinois initiative, his wife is nowhere to be seen, at least in the Prairie State.
  
  According to Patch, first lady M.K. Pritzker is staying at the couple’s $12.1 million estate in Florida, as the governor has largely refrained from mentioning his wife while fielding questions regarding his own well-being

Fatass said it was "disrespectful" to question him about his wife ignoring the "essential travel only" restrictions while he threatens everyone with "Stay at home or else!" executive orders that run afoul of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. 

Meanwhile, we still can't get a damn haircut. Must be nice to be wealthy and not have to follow the rules, otherwise he would have been in prison for trying to buy the Senate seat from Blago.

Killers Released

Sure, it's bad in lib-tarded Illinois:

• After calls from state lawmakers and a Freedom of Information Act Request from Illinois Senate Republicans, the Illinois Department of Corrections releases a list of every inmate released from state prisons since March 1.
  
  On that list are almost 4,000 inmates that had their sentence commuted by either Gov. JB Pritzker, or were released by the Illinois Department of Corrections. According to court records, some of those released were convicted of violent crimes — 64 of them for murder, four of them convicted here in the Stateline.
  
  It is the most expansive list of inmates released from Illinois prisons since the pandemic started. Last week, 13 WREX reported on 16 offenders that were commuted by Pritzker after documents were sent to us. This new list released by IDOC shows a much larger number of inmates and violent crimes.

Sixty-four convicted murderers out walking around. But at least it's not this stupid:

• The “Green River Killer” will face the coronavirus pandemic behind bars, along with most of Washington’s prison population.
  
  In a narrow 5-4 vote, the state’s Supreme Court ruled that a large chunk of inmates shouldn’t be released because of the pandemic. The vote came after a lawsuit was filed that called for the release of about two-thirds of Washington’s prison population. The lawsuit claimed that inmates aren’t able to control their safety from the virus while in lockdown.
  
  Gary Ridgway, 71, was among those who would have reportedly been released as part of the lawsuit. Ridgway, better known as the "Green River Killer," preyed on young women and confessed to killing at least 49 people. He was sentenced to life in prison in 2003.

Convicted of 49 murders Confessed to 71 murders. Suspected in a total approaching 91 killings.

And he almost made it out the door, losing on a 5-4 vote.

Another $50 to the Chaplains

Fran stealing from the blog once again:

• The Galewood townhome where a packed party was held over the weekend is owned by a Chicago Fire Department commander who also is among several firefighters being investigated over an unrelated online video.
  
  That video, made as part of the “Don’t Rush Challenge,” might have violated city policy, fire department spokesman Larry Langford said. Nine female firefighters are in the video; one, identified as “Commander Matthews,” is CFD Cmdr. Christine Matthews, according to Langford.
  
  Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36th) confirmed Matthews also owns the townhome in the 2000 block of North Narragansett where the party was held.

You're welcome Fran - again.

More Questions Than Answers

A couple of questions that deserve answers:

• did 025 give up a sergeant and ten officers the night of the party?

We're just attempting to point out the blatant stupidity here where resources are shifted to one location (011), leaving the original location (025) unable to effectively respond to a massive party involving hundreds of people.

• The surge is continuing. Every single night. This is how dumb the brass is, they demand a sgt and 10 officers, which is resulting in districts being left without a single sgt on the street for the duration of the surge. Does anyone downtown look into this stuff?

No one downtown is looking at manpower (obviously). But do you know who might look at it? The Consent Decree Monitor and/or Judge. Stripping manpower from one location leaving zero supervision behind would seem to violate a number of the Consent Decree directives.

• Lightfoot says the house party goes against everything they’ve been talking about. YET, it’s ok for the department to have mandatory safety checks every night where officers are forced to get within a foot of drivers and handle their license and other paperwork. Doesn’t that go against everything too? 

Our readers have been pointing this out since it began - everyone is supposed to stay far away....except cops working the "surge" and the unfortunate citizens pulled over, detained involuntarily and forced to have close contact with officers.

Then there's the entire issue of bars are closed, but liquor stores aren't. Mom and Pop shops are closed, but big box stores that can hold hundreds of people are open for business. Weed is essential?

No wonder people are getting annoyed, antsy and fed up.

Another House Party

TMZ.com has footage of another house party on the west side with a twist:

• Forget the thirst trap -- this packed house party in Chicago featuring a stripper is more like a potential coronavirus trap with all the guests blatantly ignoring quarantine guidelines.
  
  It turns out there was even more reckless behavior going down in Chi-Town over the weekend -- this party seemed to have several dozen guests swarming around a stripper wearing a top, but nothing down below. The partygoers, packed in shoulder-to-shoulder, made it rain on her and even got a little handsy.
  
  That might be great for her bottom line, but not so great for health. The video shows no one was thinking a thing about COVID-19, face coverings or maintaining six feet between each other.

The twist?

• A woman who appears to be the homeowner was on video -- live on Facebook, mind you -- inviting anyone watching to come through.
  
  Unclear if city officials will track her down and fine her ass too.

One of these homeowners was interviewed by the media and asked that she not be identified....but then she admits to being a First Repsonder (her own words). Our contacts tell us she is a CFD Paramedic Chief. Of all the people who really ought to know better.....must be a "merit" pick again.

Screw Your Court Ruling

So the ruling against JB the Hutt applies to a single legislator, the one who brought suit against the governor for his overreach. So why is Jabba going to appeal the ruling in short order?

• Precedent (not to mention everyone else can win now.) Other Courts take the finding into consideration. Conflicting rulings mean the State Supreme Court gets involved and if they rule against Civil Rights, the federal courts come into play.

Lightfoot doesn't seem to care:

• After a judge in Southern Illinois ruled that a state representative was exempt from Governor J.B. Pritzker’s extended “stay-at-home” order, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot says the city intends to continue enforcing the restrictions.
  
  In a press release, Lightfoot called Judge Michael McHaney’s ruling “troubling and wrong,” and said that she stands firmly behind Pritzker’s actions during the coronavirus pandemic.
  
  “I applaud and unequivocally support Governor Pritzker’s actions to extend the stay-at-home order to protect all Illinois residents,” she said. “Nothing about today’s ruling will change the city’s intention to continue imposing the stay-at-home restrictions. We need this effort to keep all Chicagoans safe and health, and we will stay the course.”

Continuing:

• Lightfoot says she fully supports the state’s plan to appeal the ruling, saying that it threatens to “destroy the collective progress” the state has made against the spread of the virus. “(This ruling) gives Illinoisans the wrong impression that we have beaten COVID-19,” she said. “Let me remind everyone that the governor’s stay-at-home order has played a crucial role in our data-driven, robust response to COVID-19.”
  
  City data has indicated that the stay-at-home order has helped to flatten the curve in terms of an increase in the number of coronavirus cases.
  
  Despite that progress, Lightfoot says that adherence to the order and social distancing guidelines remains key to ensuring that progress will continue to be made. “Continued compliance will be needed to keep flattening the curve and ultimately lead to a decrease in cases,” she said. “Contrary to what this ruling suggests, we must all be in this together, and only through cooperation and collaboration can we contain and limit the effects of the virus.”

The purpose of the quarantine was to flatten the curve. That has happened (it's right there in the news report.) It was never to "beat COVIC-19." That's impossible. Everyone is going to get this at some point, but hospitals aren't overrun, ventilators are plentiful, masks are being produced.

Time to open up the economy and get people working again, before Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan and Iowa steal away what's left of Illinois business.

Something is Going On Here

No way in Hell this guy comes and makes a sweeping decision lie this without some inside info:

• One of David Brown’s first moves after being sworn in last week as Chicago’s new police superintendent aims to crack down on the department’s more than $130 million a year in overtime spending.
  
  A source said Brown made the decision during a meeting with top police brass.
  
  “Everyone in the room was surprised that was his move,” the source said. “He decided right then and there. A bold move.”
  
  The order, approved late Friday, requires officers to get approval from a supervisor with the rank of deputy chief or above for overtime they work after their regular shifts.

This was tried before with the Detectives and it backfired spectacularly. The clearance rates plummeted and the conviction rate bottomed out. While all this was going on, Overtime costs soared as the States Attorney had to subpoena almost triple the amount of detectives, especially in hot cases like murders where convictions are essential to keeping society safe.

You can't just hand off cases to other detectives coming in cold. Or rather, you can....if you don't want to solve killings and convict murderers.

So what happened? It's seems to be centered around 019 if the comments are any indication of a brewing scandal.

(UPDATE) By the way - Frank and Fran, you owe the Chaplains $50 since you stole this story directly from our posting a few days ago.

More Stupidity

We read that COVID-19 is racist, and then everyone saw a particular reason it's spreading at a massive rate in the community.

We also read that Rogers Park is well above the recognized national and state averages for infections, and now we can see why that is:

• A wedding ceremony at a West Ridge house was broken up by police last week, and drew condemnation from the area’s alderman and religious leaders grappling with one of the biggest coronavirus hot spots in the state.
  
  A Jewish Orthodox wedding ceremony was held in the 6800 block of North Francisco Avenue the afternoon of April 23. Eventually, dozens of guests congregated on the home’s front yard and in the street, according to sources and video of the event.
  
  Police were called to the block and helped to disperse the crowd, Ald. Debra Silverstein (50th) said in a note to constituents. Chicago Police said it received two calls about public safety concerns at the wedding, a department spokesperson said.

So dumbassery crosses all neighborhoods it seems.

Quiet Revolution Brewing

So someone remembers that the Constitution is there to restrict government:

• A judge has ruled against Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, issuing a restraining order over the extension of the state’s stay-at-home order, putting the statewide plan in jeopardy.
  
  Clay County Circuit Court Judge Michael McHaney ruled against Pritzker's order, granting a restraining order to temporarily block the stay-at-home restrictions set to take effect Friday, according to local reports.
  
  [...]
  
  The ruling comes after Republican State Rep. Darren Bailey of Xenia filed a lawsuit in Clay County Circuit Court claiming Pritzker has exceeded his authority and is violating the civil rights of the state’s residents. Pritzker on Thursday extended his stay-at-home order through May 30 as the highly contagious COVID-19 continued to infect thousands in the state.
  
  "Enough is enough!" Bailey said in a statement. "I filed this lawsuit on behalf of myself and my constituents who are ready to go back to work and resume a normal life.”
  
  Pritzker said he plans to issue new public health directives until the suit is resolved.

Americans are finally fed up with the totalitarian leanings of democrats. Did everyone see what the Michigan governor declared?

• After the announcement from Governor Whitmer that she is going to extend the stay at home order in Michigan until May 15th, lawmakers in the state have had enough.
  
  A group of Michigan lawmakers from both chambers are fed up and they are stepping in to curb the totalitarian governor. When Whitmer found out and was asked about lawmakers’ plans she sounded like Joseph Stalin.
  
  There are two ways Republicans are attacking Whitmer, first, they are going to pass bills that limit her authority, which would require her signature. “I’m not going to sign any bill that takes authority away from me,” she gasps.

And in Virginia:

• A circuit court judge in Lynchburg, Virginia has overturned a portion of Gov. Ralph Northam’s executive order that declared indoor gun ranges “places of amusement” that are non-essential and must shut down during his state of emergency, at least at it applies to the Lynchburg range that brought the lawsuit. Judge F. Patrick Yeatts declared in an order on Monday that Northam’s actions are likely to have exceeded his constitutional authority, and declared that the portion of the governor’s executive order on essential businesses that deals with indoor ranges not be enforced against SafeSide Lynchburg while the litigation continues.
  
  Yeatts noted in his decision that the Virginia state constitution declares that “the body of the people, trained to arms is the proper, natural safe defense of a free state.” Since that is the case, clearly the right to bear arms includes the right to train with them. Since gun ranges provide a place where that training can take place, they are protected under the right to keep and bear arms.

Read the post yesterday titled "Good Read" or go to this link and read up on the legal ramifications of Fatass's improper order created without any sort of legislative input. Your future well-being will depend on it.

Scratch a democrat, find a totalitarian, and hopefully Americans are waking up to this now, even in the blue states.

UPDATE: Has Cato or Brown cancelled the "surge" yet? With a Circuit Court TRO in effect, there's pretty much zero standing for dispersals....not that there was any standing to begin with.

Homeowner Fined for Party

And rightly so for generally being dumbasses:

• Chicago Police have cited the owner of a townhome that was the site of a large house party over the weekend, according to a Northwest Side alderman.
  
  Ald. Gilbert Villegas (36th) said he convened a Monday meeting between the building owner and the commander of the CPD’s Grand Central District, who issued the woman “a couple citations for public nuisance and gave her strict warnings and we also have just put her on notice.”
  
  Video footage over the weekend party in the 2000 block of North Narragansett quickly went viral. Clips posted to Facebook showed dozens of people crammed into the home, with everyone standing in very close proximity and hardly anyone wearing protective masks.

Groot huffed and puffed:

• Earlier in the day, Lightfoot vowed to “get to the bottom” of the party — and hold everyone involved accountable for the public health risk.
  
  Lightfoot said the city is “still in the midst of the investigation to identify the specific location” of the party, captured on a shocking Facebook video that already had been viewed more than a million times before it was taken down Monday.

And during the effort to "hold everyone accountable," not a single party-goer is facing a charge or citation.

Funny how that happens.

Taking it Easy today

Not that we're exhibiting any COVID-19 symptoms or anything like that.

We're just tired.

Light posting today.

Comments when we get to them.

Good Read

David J. Robinson is the Chief Deputy Director at the State's Attorneys Appellate Prosecutor's Office in Springfield, Illinois, and he currently serves as the Deputy Director of the Fourth District office. In layman's terms, it means he's not just a lawyer, but a very smart lawyer.

He recently authored a memo that calls into question numerous portions of Putzker's Executive Orders. We're having issues with some of our remote document hosting applications, but here's a direct link to the memo. It runs about four pages, and it brings up many of the issues discussed here and elsewhere.

If you want to be a smarter cop and not rushed into dumb decisions by "merit" hacks who don't know their jobs or the law, read it and understand the nature of the "orders" you're being told to enforce. The foundation is built on quicksand and cops are the ones who are going to drown in it.

Apologies to John Goodman

We like the nicknames "JB the Hutt" or Putzker.

But this had us laughing:

House Party!!!

So Groot and Jabba threatening everyone - along with the "merit" leadership's SURGE idea - mean exactly zero when there's a party to be had:

• A viral video purporting to show a crowded house party in Chicago over the weekend prompted Gov. J.B. Pritzker to admonish the young partiers who appear to be standing shoulder to shoulder and flouting social distancing orders amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
  
  “I have not seen the video though I did hear about it,” he said Sunday during his daily coronavirus briefing. “First, I want to remind everyone that by doing that, by standing together, not social distancing, many people not wearing masks, you’re literally putting everyone around you in danger. They are putting you in danger and, very importantly, all of those people are putting their families and their friends who are not there with them in danger.”

Hm. That's not much of a condemnation actually. Let's see what Groot said:

• “I have seen the video which shows what appears to be a house party taking place inside a Chicago residence,” she said. “What was depicted on the video was reckless and utterly unacceptable.”

No kidding, but again, not much of a rebuke. How about our very own CPD?

• “We are aware of a video circulating on social media depicting a large house party inside of an alleged Chicago residence,” CPD said on Twitter. “While we cannot authenticate the nature or location of the gathering, we want to remind everyone of the social distancing requirements in place. CPD will disperse crowds in violation of social distancing requirements, and if necessary, issue citations or as a last resort, enforce via arrest.”

Again, for an offense that (A) Dart has no desire to see people/folks sent to his jail for, (B) Crimesha has exactly zero intent of ever prosecuting and (C) that Evans will never allow to be successfully walked through the system. There's also the private property issue that has Civil Rights attorneys practically drooling. That's an entirely different can of worms.

Here's the link to the footage that everyone is talking about if it's still up.

Nice Parking Garage

Just in time for the re-opening of Area Four:

This chunk of drain pipe just missed crushing two officers walking to their cars.

Good Suggestion

Someone in the comments suggested that everyone be issued a tape measure so Officers can insure that social distancing is properly measured at ten feet.

We would go further and propose that a ten-foot-pole (purchased from "Vanecko Pole and Hardware Supply Company") be issued to members.

If you're called to the scene of a SURGE dispersal and some "merit" stupidvisor tells you to write tickets or arrest people/folks on the corner, would you trust them to know what ten feet actually is without measuring? After all, they have no idea what a passing score looks like - why trust them on feet and inches?

Who Approves What Now?

Deputy Chiefs are so underworked, the can take on this BS?

So now that's there's no point to having lieutenants around, maybe Brown can work on getting rid of them and captains, too?

Enforce the Law, Not Politics

Our friend Jack Dunphy puts into well organized words various disparate thoughts that have been roiling the CPD as of late:

• [refering to the LAX shooting in 2013] In short, decisions were made based on inaccurate and speculative reports, this despite the fact that reliable information was readily at hand. These poorly informed decisions led to an unnecessarily prolonged shutdown of the airport, bringing undue misery to thousands of travelers and causing disruptions to air traffic that were felt all over the country and beyond.
  
  I have been reminded of that day while watching the global upheaval wrought by the coronavirus pandemic. I will grant that the current situation is not entirely analogous to an isolated incident like the one at LAX, but certain comparisons are nonetheless instructive. Police officers everywhere know that when an incident achieves a certain level of public interest, higher-ranking personnel emerge from their offices to put their imprint on the course of events, most often with deleterious results. Such was the case at LAX that day, as command staff from the LAPD, Airport Police, L.A. County Sheriff’s Department, FBI, ATF, and a host of other agencies descended on the airport and began issuing nonsensical instructions, many of them conflicting with others issued moments earlier.
  
  Police officers also know, through bitter experience, that when an incident attains sufficient notoriety to attract input from political figures, the operation is all but certain to end in failure and disgrace. Even those high-ranking police officers who are adept and nimble decision-makers in a crisis (such people are rare) find themselves swept aside by their more numerous peers looking to please this or that political patron.

This would be the new guy, along with the multiple "merit" old guard (the most incompetent bunch of supervisors yet assembled) running around and issuing orders/directives/missions that run contrary to common sense, the Consent Decree and the Constitution.

We have unconfirmed rumors that already, a few law firms are sending out requests for their minions to troll social media accounts for video of dispersals and confrontations with police in anticipation of a rather large lawsuit concerning Civil Rights. Be very aware that "directives" and "suggestions" from politicians carry no weight of law and no protection to those who attempt to enforce them upon citizens.

Words have very specific meanings in Federal Court.

Buried in the News

Here's something we haven't seen anywhere else:

• Federal Bureau of Investigations Director Christopher Wray fought to prevent exculpatory evidence from surfacing in the case of President Donald Trump’s former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, a source with direct knowledge of the situation tells Daily Caller.
  
  New court documents were filed in Flynn’s case Friday containing the aforementioned exculpatory evidence, commonly referred to as Brady Material. Flynn’s attorney, Sidney Powell, announced the new filing on Twitter. She has repeatedly accused the FBI and Justice Department of hiding evidence in the case.

It's common knowledge that the FBI would happily forgo convicting twenty gangbangers for murder to ensnare ten politicians or a single cop. But even we are amazed at the amount of politicization that took place under Sparklefart's regime that the Director himself would actively withhold exculpatory evidence in the service of the Deep State.

3,000....2,000....1,000

McCormick Place hospital beds are being scaled back by 2,000 beds to a total of 1,000 now:

• City and state officials have decided to open 2,000 fewer beds at the McCormick Place medical center for now, citing the slowing growth of COVID-19 cases in Illinois.
  
  McCormick originally was supposed to have 3,000 beds in case Chicago-area hospitals were hit with more coronavirus patients than they could handle at once. For the time being, however, a planned 1,750-bed hall won’t be opened. And a separate hall for sicker patients has been scaled back by 250 beds.
  
  In recent weeks, Gov. J.B. Pritzker has said Illinois has been bending the curve, meaning the number of cases is growing at a slower rate than it was. Around the beginning of April, cases were doubling every 3.6 days, and as of mid-April, that had been stretched to about 8.2 days.

Since it's leveling off, perhaps Illinois should consider moving up the timetable to reopen the state and start generating revenue? Revenue that every surrounding state is preparing to snatch up since their schedule is far more ambitious that Putzker's.

Surge Casualties

All from e-mails and comments:

• Beats 1613 and 1614 - no cops for two straight shifts (3rd Watch into First Watch) and likely two days in a row;
• 008 is in the midst of a rash of car burglaries and criminal damage to vehicles, and the miscreants were out in full force Thursday;
• 025 had at least one shooting incident a mere ten minutes after a sergeant and five cars were removed from the neighborhood;
• 020 had a call of a mental and the responding officers had to call for backup that wasn't anywhere nearby after the mental decided to fight. Both officers ended up injured. 

And what did fifty extra cops do in 011? One commentator said someone still got shot.

Close Vote

Not that the outcome is ever really in doubt in the crookedest of crooked cities:

• Aldermen approved Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s coronavirus spending ordinance Friday over the objections of critics who say she’s giving herself too much authority to make big purchases using public money without City Council oversight.
  
  The mayor’s emergency powers ordinance passed the council by a 29-21 vote following contentious debate. Lightfoot had the council meet Friday afternoon to consider the package after opponents used a parliamentary procedure to block it at Wednesday’s meeting.
  
  The vote was unusually tight for a signature mayoral initiative. The no votes came from progressive and conservative aldermen from all over the city, with members of the Black and Latino caucuses joining white aldermen in coming out against the plan.
  
  On Wednesday, the mayor had excoriated the five aldermen who stopped the vote as a small group of selfish obstructionists more interested in “preening in front of the press” than working to help their constituents who are in the grips of the COVID-19 pandemic.
  
  But on Friday, Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa, 35th, said Lightfoot’s failure to include provisions in the ordinance guaranteeing equitable distribution of coronavirus funds to protect vulnerable Chicagoans made it unacceptable. “With this mayor, we’ve seen that you have to get it in writing,” Ramirez-Rosa said.

And we all know that members of government willingly return power granted to them all the time. It just happened a few years ago with Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus.

Groot immediately celebrated by riding along with Cato on the west side Friday night, putting her tacit stamp of approval on the redeployment of officers from taxpaying wards to the ones that contribute nothing but death and misery to Chicago.

CPD Can't Win

As predicted by readers here, someone was bound to complain about the number of stops on the west side:

• Chicago police broke up far more gatherings of people on the West Side than any other part of the city during the early days of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s stay-at-home order to curb the spread of COVID-19, according to official police statistics.
  
  More than half of the at least 930 reports where Chicago police dealt with “coronavirus loitering” across the city in an 11-day period from late March through early April occurred in just one of the city’s 22 police districts, the Harrison patrol district on the West Side, according to data on coronavirus dispersals obtained by the Tribune through an open records request.
  
  Of Harrison’s more than 500 reports, many generated by 911 calls, about a quarter of them occurred within Beat 1112, a four-by-four block area on the northern end of the district, the records show.

Actually, that's quite hilarious. Five-hundred reports (many via 911 calls) for "social distancing" violations, but someone gets shot and/or killed and you can't find anyone who saw or heard shit for weeks, months or years afterward.

Lucky Carjacker by Hotel Essex

Lucky he didn't get shot:

• The off-duty Chicago police officer was walking to his car in a South Loop parking garage Thursday evening when a man followed him into the elevator, tucked his hand into his sweatshirt and demanded his keys.
  
  “I have a gun and I will shoot you," the man yelled as the elevator headed to the third level of the garage in the 700 block of South Wabash Avenue, according to a police report.
  
  “Are you serious?" the officer asked.
  
  “I will shoot you," the man threatened again.

This was right next door to the Hotel Essex where First Repornders are staying during the COVID-19 time. The officer tossed over his keys, then went hands-on. Nice restraint by the officer.

Brown Grovels Over Surge

Not even a day on the job and Brown is introduced to the realities of Chicago politics:

• The honeymoon didn’t last long.
  
  Just one day after he was sworn in as the new leader of the Chicago Police Department, Supt. David Brown found himself apologizing to several aldermen from the North and Northwest sides for a plan that took dozens of officers from their wards Wednesday and shipped them to the West Side to curb gun crime and help enforce the state’s stay-at-home order.

Did everyone see how Cato is working around the Contract?

"This is not a tour of duty..."  But he's taking people out of bid spots - places they bid to in order to get out of some of these shitholes - and sticking them in places they aren't familiar with and quite frankly, have no interest in patrolling.

Not only that, the places they're being taken from are now shorthanded by at least ten cops. Your backup (and ours) is now unavailable.

Suddenly our option of using "Time as a Tactic" - which the Department has been pushing for years now with the Consent Decree - has been eliminated. The choice has now gone from "time" to "physical force" or even "deadly force" because there is no backup.

Who is going to answer for that clusterfuck? Groot, you paying attention?

UPDATE: Someone in charge has decided that the north side people are making too much sense about manpower diversions, so the exempts decided to have a one-hour "mission" in Portage Park, a Polish/Hispanic enclave that until last year, saw about two murders a year.Someone somewhere decided this might shut up the taxpaying portions of the city.

Groot's Reichstag Fire

Blue state tyrants are gathering power:

• Mayor Lori Lightfoot was accused Thursday of using the coronavirus pandemic as an excuse to consolidate power.
  
  One day before the City Council is scheduled to meet again to consider granting Lightfoot expanded spending and contracting authority for the duration of the public health crisis, a handful of aldermen and community leaders tried to drum up opposition.
  
  They argued the mayor has no right to decide on her own how hundreds of millions of federal stimulus dollars should be spent.
  
  Lightfoot has argued that funding from the so-called CARES Act is “specifically designed to pay for costs incurred because of the COVID-19 crisis” and that “long-standing issues” like reducing homelessness are not eligible for reimbursement.

While we don't trust aldercreatures any farther than we can throw them, Groot needs oversight. That's the way it's supposed to work, but that doesn't seem to be happening locally at the moment and certainly not statewide:

• The stay-at-home order in Illinois that now runs until at least May 30 will require people to cover their faces in most public settings but will also allow some businesses and state parks to reopen and free golfers to get back to the links.
  
  It will also permit hospitals to again offer some types of elective surgeries, giving relief to patients whose procedures had been put on hold because of the pandemic.

Anyone remember any legislative vote granting extensions of the thirty-day Emergency Powers? And all of the sudden Elective Surgery is "essential"? Or is it that Putzker needs political donations from hospitals that are (A) bleeding money and (B) about to start laying off medical staff, which won't exactly jibe with the narrative that they're heroes (which they are), but you don't lay off heroes when there's a pandemic.

You're Fine, No Test for You

CPD has suspended all company testing of officers for COVID-19.

The most logical theory is that far too many officers will test positive (even without symptoms), meaning an explosion in Medical Roll numbers and necessitating a massive overtime expenditure that, quite frankly, Groot cannot afford.

You can still get tested privately of course.

Surge II

Happening again tonight, despite seven different aldermen calling the mayor for an explanation.

Also, if you happen to live on Beats 1613 and 1614, your commander is trying to outsmart anyone calling her to account:

• 1613 and 1614 were sent from 3rd watch and told to log off and log back in as 1641 and 1651. All to give the illusion that those beats weren’t stripped of their deserved police presence.

Sneaky. So media types, community members and Aldermen who don't know any better - and there are plenty - might be fooled by the renaming of a Beat Car to a Rapid and then pretending that 1613/1614 were covered all night.

Hint for the aldermen asking questions: The beats weren't covered.

"Surge" Leaves City Unprotected (UPDATES)

Not the entire city - just the taxpaying areas:

• SCC, the command staff had a brilliant fucking idea tonight. Strip five cars from six northside Districts along with a sergeant and send them all to 011. So everywhere is shorthanded and every corner in 011 has a squad car parked with flashing blue lights.

We had a hard time believing this one, so we ran a PCAD inquiry:

It looks to be 100% true. Five cars each from 014, 016, 017, 020, 024, 025 and sergeants, too. Nearly forty cars stripped from the north side of the city and sent to the west side. We had a friend send us this one:

That looks like the safest intersection in the city.

Does anyone know how the north side aldercreatures are feeling about cars being stripped from their constituents to babysit people (and folks) who can't behave themselves during a quarantine? And isn't this proof that the command staff of 011 and all their "fixed post strategy" has been a massive failure? Time for demotions Mr. Brown.

UPDATE: Midnights did it, too. Every listed district sent another five cars and a sergeant to 011. On a week night.

On a completely unrelated note, garage burglaries and gas station stick-ups went up almost 85% overnight on the north side. Analysts are looking into this strange jump in the property crime numbers.

UPDATE: 008 lost all their teams overnight working the south side Districts. There had to be more - stupidity this blatant can't just be the north side. Was it all taxpaying "low crime" districts that lost coverage overnight?

Fake Numbers

So Illinois has joined New York in falsifying the COVID death numbers.

How? By doing it right in front of your face:

• So if a person tests positive for the virus that causes COVID-19, that would count as a case. But what counts as a COVID-19 death?
  
  During Gov. JB Pritzker's health briefing on Sunday, Dr. Ngozi Ezike, the Illinois Department of Public Health director, said anyone who had COVID-19 at the time of death, even if the person died of other causes, is counted among the COVID deaths.
  
  In fact, even if a person is in hospice for other reasons but has COVID, too, that death is still counted among the COVID deaths, Ezike said.

This seems more than a bit dishonest, but there's the Illinois Public Health Director telling everyone paying attention that it doesn't matter what you die of. If you have COVID, you died of COVID.

By this logic, you can die of a gunshot wound and - surprise!! - it's COVID. You can be hit by a train, and when the pieces of you arrive at the morgue, by golly it wasn't Burlington Northern smearing you across the landscape that killed you - it was COVID.

New York added almost 4,000 elderly to their death counts because someone remembered that the deceased had a slight cough, perhaps a fever, or even mentioned that he watched a news program about COVID, and - wouldn't you know it - they must have died of COVID.

Fatass's Short Memory

So governor Putzker came up with this bullshit the other day:

• Gov. J.B Pritzker on Tuesday said President Donald Trump is “fomenting some violence” and stirring up protests that will lead to more COVID-19 deaths by urging states to “liberate” themselves from stay-at-home orders meant to stop the spread of the deadly coronavirus.
  
  Pritzker accused the president of resorting to a “political maneuver in the middle of a national emergency.”
  
  “And he should stop it,” Pritzker said.

Leaving aside the entire demo-commie-socialist efforts to reinvent the system by hook and by crook, does Fatass not remember:

• way back in 2016, when Jan Schakowsky's (Communist-Evanston) husband Robert Creamer was working hand-in-glove with members of the antifa assholes who forced the cancellation of candidate Trump's rally at UIC by not only fomenting violence, but executing violence? And voter fraud?
• or how about James Hodgkinson, who after his failed attempt to assassinate Republican members of congress, was found to be in contact with Dickhead "Turban" Durbin's office. To this day, Durbin has refused to release the e-mail exchanges he or his staff had with Hodgkinson, who not only advocated violence, but acted upon it.

Seems like a bit of projection by governor one-man-mass-gathering.

More Please

When the police aren't allowed to be the police, a citizen must take steps to protect oneself:

• A woman shot someone who broke into her home Wednesday in Gresham on the South Side, police said.
  
  The 31-year-old was in a residence about 6:21 p.m. in the 8300 block of South Kerfoot Avenue when a male forced his way inside, Chicago police said.
  
  The woman pulled out a gun and opened fire, striking the suspect in the foot, police said. He was taken to Holy Cross Hospital in good condition.
  
  Police said the woman has a valid concealed-carry license.

Anyone want to bet how a supernintendo from Texas feels about this?

Commies Everywhere

So the Chicago Teachers Union is run by an elected putz - a communist/socialist named Sharkey. According to his wiki-bio, he was a member of the International Socialist Organization (marxist scumbags) and has supported leftist anti-American causes for pretty much his entire life.

He's married to a woman who used to work for a leftist rag called "In These Times" before joining Haymarket Books, another communist front group. We note this because she recently posted these items on her social media account (click for larger versions of the communist):

So in these trying times where police are labeled "essential," forced to work without proper protective gear and respond to situations that might involve exposure to a deadly pathogen, she finds it necessary to degrade First Responders. And with a repeatedly disproven pathetic trope about cops enforcing a non-existent "status quo" peddled to ignoramuses.

Lead Kills More Than Coronavirus

As most of us suspected:

• While the authorities are cracking down on miscreants attending drive-in church services or surfing in the ocean, urban gangs are practicing social distancing by shooting their victims from passing cars.
  
  [...] While local media broadcast pictures of a deserted Windy City, the shootings paralleled those of previous years. Orders to stay at home, like most laws, don’t apply to criminals.
  
  In one single day in early April, Chicago thugs killed 6 people and shot 21. So far this year, 117 people have been killed, and 522 were wounded. By the time you read this, the numbers will be higher.
  
  Only 86 people in Chicago, so far, have died of the coronavirus.

Now, we have no doubt that eventually, the coronavirus will claim more lives than the gangs in Chicago. But at this point in time, it isn't so.

But we aren't hearing much about that.

Self Quarantining is for Peasants

Not only nationally:

• George Stephanopoulos, who revealed this week he has tested positive for COVID-19, is being accused by a hacked-off neighbor in the Hamptons of not following social-distancing guidelines.
  
  The 59-year-old co-host of ABC’s “Good Morning America” — whose wife, Ali Wentworth, earlier this week emerged from a three-week battle with the deadly bug — has been out and about, visiting a local drugstore last week and more recently walking his dog on a private golf course, according to the neighbor.

But locally, too (and not for a haricut):

• So it’s interesting and i think worth sharing that the man responsible for making all these PPE kits who tested positive for COVID is not self quarantining like he should. I thought Sabi Kahn tested positive so how come I saw him as he was running along Chicago Avenue on Michigan around 5 pm today. I guess he can do whatever he wants. Shouldn’t he be at home trying not to pass along this shit to anyone else. Instead he’s working out and running around a bunch of people on a very nice day and exposing everyone. Jerk off!!!

"Some animals are more equal than others" we suppose?

Cook County GoFundMe

Link here for the Corrections Officer brutally attacked in recent days with the video making the rounds of the media and the CWB blog. He's got a long road ahead of him regarding the brain bleeding he suffered.

(comments closed here - informational post only)

Not a Good Meeting

An experiment in a "socially distant" CAPS meeting runs amok:

• Chicago Police held what was believed to be its first online community policing meeting Thursday, and it was marred by racial slurs, porn, cursing and middle fingers.
  
  A serious community discussion on Zoom about how gang members continue to terrorize the Northwest Side also devolved into people throwing gang signs, hula hooping and getting their cat into their Zoom square.
  
  After participants filled the comment section with racial slurs and profanities, organizers of the call had to shut down the chat portion of the meeting and apologize.
  
  “I’m sorry about all the idiots,” State Rep. Jaime Andrade, who helped organize the Zoom meeting, told participants.

Amusingly, if you ruin any sort of basic web-search about the Zoom platform, you soon discover it owned and run by Chinese companies and in most cases, routes massive amounts of data through mainland China. Hardly the type of program you want to put any sort of important information on and probably not one you want to host community meetings on.

Brown Nomination Moves Forward

A surprise to no one:

• Retired Dallas Police chief David Brown breezed through his virtual confirmation hearing Monday, but not before being asked to justify his extraordinary decision to send in an explosive-bearing, remote-controlled robot to blow up the man who gunned down five Dallas police officers in 2016.
  
  The questioner was Ald. Jason Ervin (28th), chairman of the City Council’s Black Caucus.

One would think that Ervin would perhaps doing some basic reading on the incident with the robot bomb. Brown did fine getting the correct story out there, but it wasn't anything that hadn't been published before. Then again, we can't expect ignoramus aldercreatures to actually act intelligently - it's not in their DNA.

Corrections Officer Death

Working in the jail:

• A Cook County corrections officer died after contracting COVID-19, the first officer at the Southwest Side jail to die from complications related to coronavirus.
  
  Sheila Rivera, 47, died Sunday at Resurrection Medical Center in Chicago, her brother said. She had worked as a corrections officer since 2012, and last worked a shift at the jail on April 5, according to Sheriff Tom Dart’s office.

Deepest condolences to the family and co-workers.

Dems Beg for Money

The arrogance is astounding - if you didn't know Illinois politicians:

• Democratic Illinois Senate President Don Harmon is asking federal lawmakers to provide more than $41 billion to the state as part of the next coronavirus relief package, including $10 billion to stabilize a massively underfunded pension system.
  
  “I realize I’ve asked for a lot, but this is an unprecedented situation, and we face the reality that there likely will be additional, unanticipated costs that could result in future requests for assistance,” Harmon wrote in a Tuesday letter to members of the state’s congressional delegation.

Following decades of fiscal mismanagement, misplaced priorities and outright criminal underfunding, Illinois dems are asking Illinois reps to steal billions from the rest of the nation and cover their thievery. How about making some actual concrete efforts to be responsible with money instead of pissing it away every time you see a bloc of voters you can buy off?

(a bunch of interesting graphs and tables at this link here.)

No More Masks?

Anyone on Brown's transition staff want to look into this?

• Just when you think 003 couldn't get any worse, it has.
  
  --On the same very sad day of the announcement of cpd's 3rd Hero losing his life to COVID-19, a citizen well known by several officers from all watches makes a generous donation by dropping off boxes of N95 masks to 003 . When requeated, Officers were denied the mask by the incompetent merits of 003, as the masks are being held captive within the caps office by their well known house mouse merit caps Sgt.
  
  -As all other districts continue to advertise their donations received from outstanding citizens on twitter, 003 district officers on 3rd watch were told they have no more department issued PPE's for everyone.
  
  - Officers are being given roll calls by various Lie-tents, one who admitted he got tested due to having mild symptoms and still came into work, only to go on the medical the very next day with positive test results.
  
  - Officers of 003 are falling short of man power on all watches to COVID-19, lack of leadership. Is the poor leadership contributing to the mass exodus of sergeants leaving 003?

003 has been a disaster over the course of our entire careers. Why would it change now?

Nice Weekend Chicago

Four dead, twenty-nine maimed:

• Four people were killed and 28 others, including a 2-year-old boy and a 17-year-old girl, have been injured by gunfire across Chicago so far this weekend.
  
  Three of the fatal shootings happened with the span of a few hours Sunday, the latest of which left a 19-year-old man dead and a 17-year-old boy wounded in South Austin.

As usual, the media missed one - the only trustworthy stats are from HeyJackass.com.

And we are about to enter a stretch of days that promise to be pleasantly warm and rain-free....during a "quarantine." What could possibly go wrong?

Emergency Powers Deadline?

We were doing some light reading the other night and found this:

• (20 ILCS 3305/7) (from Ch. 127, par. 1057)
  
  Sec. 7. Emergency Powers of the Governor. In the event of a disaster, as defined in Section 4, the Governor may, by proclamation declare that a disaster exists. Upon such proclamation, the Governor shall have and may exercise for a period not to exceed 30 days the following emergency powers; provided, however, that the lapse of the emergency powers shall not, as regards any act or acts occurring or committed within the 30-day period, deprive any person, firm, corporation, political subdivision, or body politic of any right or rights to compensation or reimbursement which he, she, it, or they may have under the provisions of this Act

The Illinois State of Emergency was declared on 09 March, s0 thirty days expired about ten days ago. Did the legislature gavel itself into session and meet to grant additional dictatorial powers to the governor? We may have missed it. We can't seem to find any headlines or media articles about it. But we were sleepy and we needed a quick post to put up and this seemed like a good way to get readers to participate.

UPDATE: Lightfoot is following the proper route trying to extend her emergency powers via the City Council:

• Mayor Lori Lightfoot will ask aldermen next week to retroactively bless her executive order that gives her additional power to spend city money and make changes to the 2020 budget to deal with the COVID-19 crisis.
  
  The mayor issued the order on March 17, creating a new section in the city’s budget to consolidate coronavirus expenses and giving her the ability to move money around to cover the costs that are piling up as the city tries to cope with the pandemic.
  
  The order also allows the city’s procurement department to “negotiate and execute contracts for emergency supplies and services” up to $1 million, up from the $500,000 cap on such emergency contracts that’s usually in place.
  
  With aldermen grumbling about the move, Lightfoot will introduce an ordinance directly to the Budget Committee on Tuesday, asking for the City Council’s approval of the additional powers. In a bid to quell dissent, Lightfoot also has agreed that her administration will give weekly updates to aldermen on the virus spending.

As usual this article came out at 1653 hours on a Friday, meaning no one saw it....including us.

Groot's Sleight of Hand

We had forgotten this portion of the Special Ed scandal - the part where someone's Department phone was MIA for a time and then surrendered without the SIM card. A helpful reader updated us all the other day:

• Yea they have big issues! the girl friend has too much evidence of:
  
  GHOST PAYROLL;
  sex for promotions;
  Illegal hiring practices (favors from exempts)
  (keep in mind the wifes promotion too)
  
  So the clouted escape with a pension all the low level people could actually be charged with felony's.
  
  Keep in mind that the officer kept the phone sim card for insurance. AND IT WORKED! And that fake crap about the officer letting SPECIAL ED leave the scene was a loser from the GET GO.BUT the LT who grabbed up cameras is a whole other story those video are still under FOIA. So when you hear a reporter asking about why the city isnt releasing FOIA info the special ED case is the one they want.

So Groot's complaint about IG Fergie's slow investigation is disingenuous. There are way too many connected people with hands (and other body parts) way too close to the wringer for this investigation to ever see the full light of day.

True?

The Department isn't releasing (as far as we know) stats on who got infected and where they work. But this would seem important:

• The unit tasked with assembling and passing out PPE’s at HQ has had the highest ratio of positive COVID results in the department (60% have tested positive) including their civilian Deputy Chief. So every PPE kit assembled had a 60% chance of being contaminated & passing along the virus to patrol...WTF! And yet, the Department doesn’t want its members tested unless their symptomatic (and frowns upon exposure reports in patrol).

No one has firm data on how long the virus survives outside of a host, but supposedly, every member of the Department has been issued PPE gear....and there is a 60% chance it was assembled (in cut-up heat-sealed currency transport bags) by someone who later tested positive for COVID-19.

We aren't just blue canaries. We're expendable canaries.

Follow the Money

Hey look, reporters are waking up a little bit:

• Dr. Martin Lucenti once practiced in the emergency room at Northwestern Memorial Hospital, and he has treated soldiers at combat hospitals in Iraq and Afghanistan. Now, he’s the medical director of Vizient, one of dozens of contractors the city of Chicago is turning to for help in dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. Vizient just landed a city contract for up to $2.5 million to help operate the field hospital at McCormick Place, which began accepting patients Tuesday.
  
  “Basically, we stood up a health care system under the city in very short order with licensure and DEA and all of those things,” Lucenti said. “You can imagine a city trying to get in the business of trying to procure medical equipment and drugs and so forth. There’s just no expertise.”
  
  So far, $65 million has been budgeted for the city’s emergency response; $5.6 million has been spent, according to the mayor’s office. The city’s emergency vendors include a suburban mirror company making masks and a doctor who worked for the Chicago Blackhawks and is supplying coronavirus test kits.

Believe it or not, the reporters actually point out a goodly number of companies in line to receive hundreds of thousands, even millions of dollars pf taxpayer funds. It's an interesting read and exactly what reporters should be doing across all fields so that voters can decide for themselves if money is being spent wisely.

Germaphobe?

HQ seem to have a largish supply of PPE masks. They hand them out to every visitor and everyone there seems to be wearing a new one every day. Meanwhile, we can't get a replacement for the one we used last week at a domestic.

And an interesting rumor starting:

• SCC, This is not a joke: Building maintenance was ordered by Superintendent Brown to disinfect his entire office EVERY 3 hours. If this is the new standard, why has he not ordered every work station in CPD cleaned every 3 hours? Is it possible that for all his talk about caring for coppers he’s a typical selfish, self-important political hack?

We keep getting emails from Dallas about years past:

• Several police associations want Dallas Chief David Brown out. Dozens of local, state and national representatives and officers held a press conference Wednesday, where they said the department needs to change its leadership and philosophy to fix what they called a “broken system.”
  
  The average police chief in a big-city department only stays in the job for about three years. Brown has been chief for five. Now, his critics are saying that’s too long for how little they claim he’s done to protect officers and citizens. Rochelle Bilal is from Philadelphia and is vice chair of the National Black Police Association. She joined many Dallas locals on stage and said numerous complaints to the City Council, the city manager and Brown himself have gone unanswered.

We are not filled with confidence thus far.

First Patients Finally?

Five whole patients in a facility built to hold how many thousands?

• McCormick Place got its first COVID-19 patients this week as health care professionals begin trying out the hastily built medical center.
  
  Patients started arriving Tuesday afternoon, and five were there Friday, officials said.

It took over a week to get up to five patients. If they build it to capacity, it's supposed to hold three-thousand patients. Current betting has it never topping a few hundred.

We also heard that IAD is running security at the building (overtime?) We're told this is so no one takes pictures of the empty beds and starts to spread them via alternative media sites....like CWB or Wirepoints. Or us.

UPDATE: No overtime, just reassigned from HQ so they don't have to go to the Districts.

JB - 0 for 2

Related to yesterday's post about JB the Hutt giving away $17 million:

• Yesterday, WIND 560AM's Amy Jacobson reported a friend of hers, employed by the FBI, was directly involved in halting a $26 million dollar purchase attempt by the State of Illinois for PPE from a company that didn't exist. This fat imbecile who has grown fond of his recent media celebrity, is so anxious to paint himself a Hero/Martyr in this pandemic, he's willing to piss away your money down another non existent toilet.

JB is certainly proving his incompetence in many ways.

Third Death

004 District Officer:

• A third Chicago police officer has died from complications stemming from COVID-19.
  
  Ronald Newman, 59, died Friday morning, according to Mayor Lori Lightfoot. He had been a Chicago cop since December 2000 and was assigned to the South Chicago patrol district, which covers an area from 75th Street to the southern edge of the city.
  
  He had also worked briefly for the fugitive apprehension unit. He received 137 awards, including two department commendations.

Rest In Peace Officer Newman.

$17 Million in Taxpayer Dollars (UPDATES)

What's that giant flushing sound coming from JB the Hutt's toilet-less mansion?

• Millions of masks purchased by the State of Illinois from China may not be useable by those on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic, after multiple states recalled similar equipment Thursday.
  
  Illinois Governor JB Pritzker has been scouring the world for gowns, gloves and masks to protect medical workers and first responders across the state from COVID-19.
  
  That includes many KN95 masks bought from China, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said earlier this month was an acceptable alternative to the United States approved N95 masks. State spending records reveal Illinois has already spent nearly $17 million buying the KN95 masks.
  
  But now, officials in Missouri are recalling thousands of KN95 masks after testing by the state’s Department of Health and Senior Services over the weekend found some did not meet their standards, according to director Sandy Kartsen.

Who would buy anything from China, seeing as how they've been lying about the virus origins from Day One and continue to cover up the numbers of infected and dead, not to mention, are ground-zero for just about every counterfeit product that is on the market today - purses, software, and yes, medical supplies.

These came with a money-back guarantee, right?

UPDATE: Did JB the Hutt ever take Hart Schaffner and Marx up on their offer to make a quarter-million face masks per week? Local company, hundreds of machines, trained workers....opens up the Illinois economy a tiny bit.

UPDATE: Looks like HSN is making masks after almost three weeks wasted.....and $17 million in taxpayer money that could have been spent locally. And they're operating at one-sixth of full capacity - we suppose that's going to be the President's fault somewhere down the line.

Second Arrest in CTA Murder

Good work by the detectives:

• The second man charged with allegedly pushing a former marine into a moving Red Line train last week was free on bail at the time of the deadly attack.
  
  Fajour Hodges, 19, was arrested about 5:15 p.m. Thursday in the 5000-block of South Wentworth Avenue, Chicago police said. He's charged with one count of first-degree murder.
  
  Hodges, of Humboldt Park, was taken into custody two days after a warrant was issued for his arrest in the April 7 death of 29-year-old Mamadou Balde, police said.

And guess what his record looks like?

• At the time of the attack, Hodges was free on bail while awaiting trial on a pair of felony charges, court records show. That case stemmed from a Sept. 22 theft arrest in the CPD's 18th District, which includes the Jackson Red Line stop where Balde was killed.

Not just one felony.....he was on bail for two, and the Evans/Crimesha enterprise lets him out to kill a veteran Marine.

Hopefully the two killers rot in prison. But what do voters do about a social justice "prosecutor" and half-assed judge who keeps letting criminals out to rob, rape, maim and kill, time and time again?

Property Tax Refund Coming?

They aren't spending the money on education any more, right?

• Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced Friday he will not reopen schools for in-person instruction because of the coronavirus, ensuring the unprecedented disruption to the education of the state’s 2.2 million students will continue through the end of the academic year.
  
  The governor announced the decision at his daily afternoon press conference, joining 27 states and three U.S. territories that have either ordered or recommended the same action, decisions that have impacted more than 25 million students.
  
  “Science says our students can’t go back to their normal routine,” Pritzker said. “To the parents who find themselves experiencing a world of emotions because of this pandemic, along with some extra stress with your kids at home all day, I promise you, you will get through this.”
  
  Pritzker said parents should rest assured that “Illinois students are in good hands. Our teachers and our administrators are doing what they do best. They’re stepping up to ensure that every child in this state receives the education that they deserve.” The governor said state education officials will work with individual districts with specific needs to be addressed.

In the real world, when there's a massive disruption of the economy, overhead is trimmed, people get laid off, businesses shutter. And in the government world, not a single layoff for some reason. Once the government get its cut, they certainly don't want to give it back to the taxpayers.

"Not My Fault," Says Groot

Are we actually going to see a "transparent" investigative process?

• Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Wednesday she is “extremely unhappy” an internal report on the drinking-and-driving incident that prompted her to fire Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson has not been released and blamed Inspector General Joe Ferguson for the delay.
  
  “Look, I don’t control what the IG does. But I will say I’ve been extremely unhappy that it has been this long and we still don’t have an IG report,” the mayor said, after a news conference where she discussed progress made in bending the curve of new coronavirus cases.
  
  “I had my team reach out just last week to say, `Where is it?’ So that’s a question for the IG. But it’s time to get that done so we can move forward.”

This is just so much more theater. Ferguson exists to protect the connected, not expose them (though we'd be happy to see him break with the historical record.)

Brown, Meet Your Command Staff, Part 2

So Beck said this the day after the passing of Sergeant Martin:

• “I implore you to take care of each other and your families,” Beck said. “This illness can be severe, and it does not discriminate. If you are feeling symptomatic, please stay home, quarantine and take care of yourselves.”

Word hadn't made it to the west side though - or someone just didn't care - because we got this summary about some Constitutionally questionable practices undertaken by the bosses there (some slight exaggerations were found later):

• ...wait til you get a load of what happened today (Wednesday, 2nd watch) in 011... Our Illustrious tact team stepped on their dicks so hard, at the command of Spencer, that Lawsuits will be flowing for years to come. This might even make National news.
  
  You think "Papers!...Papers please!" Was bad... Taking it to the next level by storming a corner and locking up everyone, No warning, No anovs...Calling the wagon to come transport everyone then of course the prisoners started wanting to go to hospital... Watch guys tried to stand their ground, when the Tac Lt. was asked why HIS guys weren't babysitting the hospital prisoners his reply was "Because we don't Have to!"
  
  Turned into a mass shouting match between bosses...Desk sgt refusing to approve "unconstitutional " arrests, Commander ordering him to! Huge cluster! These stupid Fucking tac guys and their bosses just dont get it!! Nobody wants to deal with your fucking unconstitutional mess!! The media was at the station, surely lawsuits will be flying after that mess...

What kind of moron would order his Tact teams to sweep corners and bring twenty arrests into an already infected police facility during a pandemic, endangering officers, their co-workers and thereby every officers' family after all was said and done....for an offense Crimesha has no intention of prosecuting? We made some calls, sent out a few e-mails, ran some search inquiries and were able to determine:

• The Tact sergeants objected strenuously to this mission; so did the Tact lieutenant for a short time, but "Befehl ist Befehl" as the saying goes;
• no warnings to disperse were ever issued; the non-social distance offenders were simply removed en masse from the corners; other wagons were borrowed from nearby Districts to transport the bodies;
• when officers refused to put their names to the arrest reports, one of the Tact sergeants stepped up and put his name in Box One of at least six arrest reports to protect his people. That was a stand-up move;
• cooler (and smarter)  heads prevailed when Commander HUD-fucker ordered the Lock-up and Desk to keep all prisoners for twelve-hours minimum regardless of fingerprints and name-checks clearing the proper processes. Everyone was I-Bonded according to the actual Law and not what Spencer attempted to violate.
• the next day, Tact officers refused to sweep the corners by demanding the proper safety equipment be issued. Spencer retaliated by cancelling all Tact overtime initiatives.

The other day at a Groot's press conference, a reporter actually asked her what was going on over on the west side. She denied all knowledge of the arrests and claimed that police had done this on their own. The reporter then dropped the obvious follow-up questions in case Groot got angry. That alone should tell everyone exactly where the blame is going to land - and exactly who is going to be left holding this particular bag of shit.

Vere Are Your Papers?

The ACLU is finally taking notice:

• Chicago police are setting up checkpoints throughout the city both to remind people about the statewide stay-at-home order during the coronavirus outbreak and to “show a strong police presence” in areas hit by violence.
  
  A department memo obtained by the Tribune calls them “seat belt safety and informational” checkpoints, and adds that the “goal of this mission is to engage the community in a positive and informative manner while providing a visible police presence in areas affected by violence."
  
  Each of the city’s 22 patrol districts is to have one checkpoint each day, staffed by a supervisor and an unspecified number of officers, according to the memo. Any officer “interacting with any occupants of a vehicle will don a mask and gloves,” according to the memo. Each checkpoint will last up to an hour.
  
  The Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7, which represents rank-and-file police officers, said the checkpoints conflict with the union’s guidance that officers “only be engaged with the public when you have to."

Aren't there available billboards? Radio and television PSA's? Twitter, Facebook and all manner of social media? We find it had to believe that there is a single soul in Chicago that doesn't have an idea that something is going on involving a communicable disease.

So this pretty much proves that any "boss" who says they have your safety and the safety of your family in mind is completely full of shit.

Beck Gone; Brown on Tap

Get ready:

• [....] Charlie Beck — the now-former interim superintendent of the Chicago Police Department — handed the reins to David Brown Wednesday, completing his five-month stint of leading the second-largest police department in the country.
  
  [...]
  
  The City Council’s Public Safety Committee is expected to hold Brown’s confirmation hearing Monday and his appointment will be put before the full council for a vote two days later.

A friend of ours who has dealt with Brown on a professional level says we're in for a nightmare. Everything he does has a political bent, so he's perfect fit for Groot.

Another Firefighter Passes

Deepest condolences to our friends on the Fire side:

• A second member of the Chicago Fire Department member has died after contracting COVID-19.
  
  Edward Singleton, 55, died Tuesday, after suffering from complications from the novel coronavirus, Fire Commissioner Richard Ford said in a statement. He is survived by his wife and two children. Singleton joined the department in August 1987, and his most recent assignment was at Midway Airport on the Southwest Side.
  
  “It is with a heavy heart that I announce the loss of a second dedicated member,’’ Ford said in the statement.

Hopefully, the last casualty.

Godspeed Firefighter Singleton.

It Ain't Just Illinois

The Floridiots are at it, too:

• On March 19, a drug suspect with a lengthy rap sheet was released as part of Hillsborough County’s efforts to thin out the jail population amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. One day later, deputies say, he committed murder.
  
  According to the sheriff’s office, Joseph Edward Williams was in the Orient Road Jail on charges of possession of heroin, which is a third-degree felony, and possession drug paraphernalia, which is a first-degree misdemeanor.
  
  The 26-year-old was one of 100 inmates given bond as part of an effort to lower the risk of COVID-19 spreading within detention facilities and to protect the inmates, deputies, and civilians working within the jails.
  
  But now, deputies say, he has been arrested for a murder that took place March 20 along Ash Avenue in Tampa’s Progress Village neighborhood.

So is the left coast:

• Los Angeles County's decision to release more than 4,000 inmates because of the coronavirus pandemic has the region dealing with "uncharted territory" in terms of the effect on public safety, an investigative reporter told Tucker Carlson on Tuesday night.
  
  [...]
  
  "He said in the interview, this is uncharted territory right here. He said he got pressure from the ACLU and other social activist groups. Two weeks after he made this decision, he started getting letters from those activist groups to release the inmates. Well, he did it," Melugin said. "And he said if these inmates act up, if they don't show up for court, if they start committing crimes again, that's going to look bad for that social justice agenda. And those groups like the ACLU are going to have to rethink what they're doing."

We highly doubt they even thought about the consequences before releasing four-thousand inmates, so they aren't going to think about it going forward except to blame normal thinking people for not being understanding by surrendering all of their property to the newly liberated.

OEMC Shortages

Unfortunately, the vast majority of people calling off sick aren't actually sick - 100% guarantee the media won't touch that one. But OEMC has been reduced to doubling up radio zones:

• 019 is now sharing a zone with 020 and 024
• 002 is now working with 003

No idea if having three Districts on one channel is safe - leave comments below - but after closing a few Districts, it was always amusing that OEMC never shuttered a dispatching position. Politics at play instead of safety and efficiency we suppose.