And Once Again.....Hubris

Anyone know why Groot's security detail and vehicles were parked at Wrigley Field all afternoon? Because we saw this NPR headline:

• Baseball Rarity: Cubs And White Sox In Playoffs, But Chicago Fans Can't Go To Games

And we checked the box scores for the  game (we refuse to watch MLB):

• "No in-person attendance"

Which we discovered was a lie. There was an attendance figure. But since she didn't actually pay and go through a turnstile that counts numbers, it's almost like she was invisible.

Except for the big SUV's parked in the VIP area out of direct line of sight from the streets.

We guess she'll be self-quarantining like Fatass to avoid any questions tomorrow.

Tact Team Order - Rescinded

What a clueless bunch of clowns. 

Did they rescind the order at 8 PM last night the same way they issued it, completely destroying any sense of family plans, babysitting, etc? 

Now the Department does a 180 and ruins the contingency plans you may have made.

This shows you exactly what they think of you and your families - ZERO.

Here Comes 600!

And there it goes as Chicago moves onto 601 in a single afternoon:

• Year to Date
  

  Shot and Killed: 548

  Shot and Wounded: 2652

  Total Shot: 3200

  Total Homicides: 601

All stats per HeyJackass.com

Pillows Retiring

Barb "Pillows" West dropped her papers yesterday for 15 October. We still have numerous contacts who remember her bringing her sleep-aid to work and snoozing the night away, and it paid off with her reaching what is arguably the #3 spot in the Department.

There's a laundry list of other "bosses" - in actuality hacks - who are also leaving on or about 15 October. Post em if you got em.

Eight Hours is Too Long?

Try 12 on your feet with no bathroom nearby.

Groot has a chance here...and she's going to miss it, 100%:

• The Chicago Teachers Union is calling for Chicago Public Schools to slash virtual work days in half citing "stress" over too much screen time.

  The union called the eight hour virtual workday "unrealistic and inhumane" in a tweet announcing the petition. The group is requesting screen time be limited to four hours for educators and students [r]ather than the eight hours currently planned.

  “We ask that school hours online be shorten (sic),” the petition reads. “If online school was to be 4 hours, students and teachers will have more time for schoolwork, personal lives and themselves.”

  While the union cites student “stress” in its advocacy for the shorter work week the petition makes it clear the move is aimed at educators.
  

Cut hours from eight to four? How about Groot propose cutting salaries by the corresponding 50% then? She would save taxpayers billions and instantly gain some semblance of credibility being able to stand up to CTU hardball tactics. She won't.

Jesse Sharkey has demonstrated that he runs Groot. He's like a dog trainer putting his pet through its paces. He threatened an additional strike to keep schools closed in the face of all sorts of medical evidence. Groot caved.

The smart money says Groot will cave again.

How Convenient

When the heat gets to be too much, head into quarantine:

• Gov. J.B. Pritzker will self-isolate for 14 days after a member of his staff tested positive for COVID-19.

  The staff member, who was not identified by state officials, tested positive for the virus Monday after testing negative for the virus last week during weekly testing, according to Pritzker’s office.
  

We're going to go out on limb here and say that his daughter probably caught it in her extensive equestrian travels - in violation of all sorts of proclamations by Daddy - and brought it home as a convenient political excuse when the family was caught dirty.

Pay Up

Once again, the Tribune owes the Chaplains Fund $50:

• The Chicago Police Department is stripping patrol districts of officers and limiting the use of some district officers during daytime shifts in favor of a “highly visible” presence downtown, according to memos obtained by the Chicago Tribune.

  The move reduces the number of officers available in at least some of the city’s 22 patrol districts to respond to 911 calls during every shift. As of Tuesday morning, districts will now have to send officers to the downtown area, a move opposed by some aldermen.
  

Districts are being gutted and taxpayers are being deprived of Officers and News Affairs is telling fictions:

• “No doubt officers are detailed downtown, but neighborhoods are well-protected,” Ahern said.

  The department’s districts are staffed with varying number of police officers, not staffed equally per capita or per square mile. But districts with more violence generally have more officers.
  

No kidding. And if you've seen the order, those Districts are sending TWICE the number of officers that other Districts send. And the Tactical Order is proving goofy:

• A separate order issued Friday said district tactical teams will now be limited in the hours during which they can work the streets. Those teams generally make the most arrests in districts, responding to 911 calls, executing warrants and focusing on crime patterns, including burglaries, shootings and drug activity.

And since most burglaries happen while people are at work, not having these teams means burglary numbers are about to skyrocket, not to mention all the daytime addicts are free to steal anything not nailed down (thefts) and there's no check in place shut down dope corners.

This is probably the most half-assed poorly planned deployment in history, and that's saying a lot.

Tact Teams Order? (UPDATE)

Word coming in that there was an order issued a few hours ago:

• No more Day teams. In fact, no more rotating shifts;
  
• All teams are now Night Teams;
• None will start earlier than 1600

We guess that's one way to fill the beat cars. 

Now Tact will almost 100% be filled by reverse seniority when the old timers bail out.

UPDATE: There's an even bigger order out detailing about 100 Officers per day to 001 and 018 on ALL watches. So if you're a bid guy or gal, PO or Sgt, you aren't working where you bid to work. 

Also, for any aldercreatures reading - your wards are being stripped EVERY SINGLE DAY of manpower from here until further notice (elections).

Is this a Labor Grievance of any sort? There is no emergency declared, there are no riots on-going at this moment. Everyone should be getting at the minimum, time-and-a-half all day.

597...598...

Chicago will hit 600 before the weekend.

Double what Brownie said.

Here's what twenty years looks like:

 

Over 60,000 shot. 

You know what 60,000 looks like?

That's 61,500.

And over 11,000 dead - that's an 18% casualty rate.

Children Targeted

Dever Elementary is a north side school. Recently, someone started a tweet page identifying Dever children as supporters of the President:

Anyone know what CPS is doing about this? Or Twitter?

Or CPD for that matter?

Crimesha Disgrace

The Contrarian build$ on the CWB reporting from the other day - gue$$ what'$ involved?

• "On February 7, 2019, her office agreed to vacate two felony drug convictions against Spanish Cobra gang member Ricardo Rodriguez, currently being held by immigration authorities. This decision paves the way for Rodriguez—again, a known member of a gang that has been terrorizing Chicago for decades—to remain in the country."

  "This letter is a formal request for your assistance regarding the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office under Kimberly Foxx, who during her campaign took donations from powerful law firms specializing in lawsuits alleging police misconduct. After being sworn in, Ms. Foxx has established a pattern of releasing hardened criminals who are represented by these same law firms and their allies and who then go on to file multimillion-dollar wrongful conviction lawsuits."
  

This is directly traceable to Rahm's first term promises to plaintiff attorney groups. 

Supernintendo J-Fledgar had instituted reforms that enabled Corp Counsel to successfully fight and win hundreds of cases that otherwise would have been settled and paid our to the tune of millions of dollars. Palintiff attorneys, who weren't used to have to work for City payouts - objected strenuously and lobbied Rahm to return to the bad old days of settling rather than litigating. The lobbying took the form of large campaign contributions.

Rahm won and the rest is a resumed history of payouts for winnable cases and resultant campaign contributions to the Machine.....and the campaign coffers of those who play this crooked game.

Go read the entire article linked up top.

Get Ready for Lockdown II

Putzker has been releasing an increase in COVID numbers at recent pressers in preparation for the pre-election lock down that everyone assumes is coming. The CDC has once again released revised numbers:

• The CDC just quietly revised the mortality rate by age group for people infected with COVID-19:
  0-19 years: 0.0001%
  20-49 years: 0.0003%
  50-69 years: 0.010%
  70+ years: 0.093%
  By comparison, the overall mortality rate for the common flu is far higher at 0.1%.
  This is a link to the new numbers from the CDC:
  https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html

 Everyone remembers how bad the flu-lockdowns were, right?

UPDATE: The CDC already did the conversion math for you.

Groot the Destroyer

So much for supporting local businesses:

• Drove out to the south suburbs Saturday evening for dinner at Benny's Steak House in Mokena and as we were walking in the front door Larry and her wife get out of one of the 3 black suvs parked at the door and run in. It’s obvious she doesn’t care about the fate of the Chicago restaurants that she’s shut down. Chowed down for 2 hours, worked the room a bit and took off. 

So she destroys Chicago's vibrant restaurant community, then (probably) gets comped out in Mokena? She's as tone-deaf as Fatass splitting time at his numerous houses and shipping his daughter and a horse to out-o-state competitions.

And when did the detail get a third truck? We thought it was always two.

Sergeant Test Rumor

Again, only a rumor:

• This is off topic, but I am assigned to headquarters and they are planning to restart the Sergeant's Test from the beginning. This makes sense since it has been around 9 months since Part One was given. That means that you will not see a new list for about two years.

2020 has been a disaster year all around. This "retest" would be stacked on top of other disasters. But in Groot's never ending quest for diversity quotas over qualified applicants who pass a test, sometimes you have to waste $4 million putting a new test together....never mind what people laid out for the Test Prep Classes with Bernstein and others.

Has anyone else noticed the big push for getting e-learning caught up and the 40 hours requirement being met prior to the end of the year? Supposedly, Brown got read the riot act by Groot regarding compliance numbers as outlined in the Consent Decree. Brown decided to suspend any command staff with compliance percentages under 90% at the end of the year.

Again, this is a rumor. Anyone posting "this is bullshit" or similar will be deleted. R-U-M-O-R. It's in the title. It's in the post labels. It might be a complete fabrication. We get it.

Interesting FOIA Request

FOIA is an interesting animal. It's the law, of course, and the City maintains a rather large database for requests and results. What many people don't know (and we didn't know either) is that even the requests are public knowledge.

You have to submit a name, an e-mail and a summary of the requested information. You'd think that an enterprising reporter might keep an eye on these requests to see what other people are looking for, especially in terms of scandals.

This one is right out there in public view from an outfit called the Truth Finder Media Team:

• "1) Any disciplinary file associated with a sexual relationship between Deputy Superintendent Eric Carter and any subordinate including, but not limited to, former Director of Labor Relations Winter Jackson. 2) Any actions taken by Deputy Superintendent Eric Carter to delay the implementation of a sexual misconduct policy, as required by the Federal Consent Decree supervised by Hon Maggie Hickey and Hon Robert Dow. 3) Any disciplinary action taken by Superintendent Brown to discipline Deputy Superintendent Eric Carter for sexual misconduct, or for delaying the implementation of the sexual misconduct policy as required by the Federal Consent Decree."

You just go to this link, change the menu settings to "descending" and it's right up there at the top. That looks like a rather largish and embarrassing scandal if they're asking for documents by name.

Groot is running one Hell of an operation, and the biggest problem is (and continues to be) the people up top, those behind the top people and those recommending top people are just as dirty, scummy and corrupt as the ones up top.

How Many Chances?

Once again, the CWB blog doing the job that "investigative journalists" won't:

• Even in Cook County bond court, where freshly-arrested defendants freely offer bold and unlikely excuses, Ricardo Rodriguez had a doozy. As it turns out, Rodriguez was telling the truth. And what a story it is.

  Shortly after noon Friday, Assistant State’s Attorney James Murphy laid out detailed allegations of home invasion and kidnapping against Rodriguez for Judge Charles Beach’s consideration. Murphy then noted that Rodriguez is a convicted murderer who received a 60-year sentence in 1997.

  “It was vacated,” Rodriguez insisted. “I was wrongly convicted. It was vacated.”

  Murphy said he knew nothing of Rodriguez being exonerated and suggested that he was out of prison because old sentencing guidelines didn’t require murderers to serve anywhere near their full terms.

  But, CWBChicago quickly learned, Ricardo Rodriguez was indeed exonerated of the murder.

Yes, this is another one of those Crimesha specials - "we don't like the cops who investigated this, so we're dropping all the cases that have his name on it without even revisiting the evidence." 

After he walked on that homicide, INS picked him up and held him for year and then cut him loose.

Guess what happened after that?

• About 4 months later, on August 3, he and at least four other people dressed as police officers raided a couple’s home and took a woman hostage at gunpoint while demanding a $1 million ransom, according to prosecutors. A police spokesperson today told CWBChicago the crime was narcotics-related.

How many chances does this asshole get under Crimesha's system? Go read it all - it's disgusting.

And how is a shoestring operation like CWB constantly beating the living crap out of so-called professional news organizations? It's almost like the media doesn't want to make democrats look incompetent at their jobs.

Again, Fatass Ignores "Rules"

What an ass this Fatass is:

• Gov. J.B. Pritzker has violated Illinois Department of Health guidelines by allowing his daughter to engage in out-of-state equestrian competitions.

  Prairie State Wire recently revealed that Pritzker’s daughter, Teddi "Theodora", 18, has been actively competing in equestrian events across the country throughout the lockdown. That's while her father has prohibited Illinois children from participating in most prep sports-- including football, volleyball, soccer and basketball--  until further notice.

  Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) guidelines for sports were developed and mandated by the Pritzker administration. Under those guidelines, athletes in so-called "low risk" sports, like equestrian, are allowed. But participating in out-of-state competitions is prohibited.
  

But when you're a billionaire fatass politician, rules don't apply to you. In fact, you can claim the media is picking on you:

• On Wednesday, Pritzker characterized the report on his allowing his daughter to violate his state rules as an "attack" on his family. "People need to recognize that's inappropriate," he said. "I think people have to understand what I'm focused on is saving lives."
  

No, what people need to realize is that you're an arrogant asshole. When this picture of health and well being starts acting like the "scam-demic" is a real thing, perhaps we'll believe it.

Desk Pop!!!

Gotta test it if you're going to sell it:

• A homeless man is facing felony charges after he found a gun and decided to fire near the Pritzker Pavillion in Millennium Park — just to make sure it worked, prosecutors said.

  Police responded to a call of shots fired on the 300 block of East Randolph around 12:30 p.m. Tuesday and met with a witness who pointed officers toward a man down the street who shot the gun, according to prosecutors.

  Cops approached the man, 46-year-old Todd Seng, and allegedly found a loaded handgun in his pants pocket during a pat-down search. Seng told cops he found the gun about a week ago.

  He said he wanted to see if it worked, so he shot it “into a mountain” at Millennium Park to make sure nobody got hurt, an assistant state’s attorney said during Seng’s bond court appearance Wednesday.
  

At least he'll be getting three hots and a cot for a few days.

Seriously Frank?

What could have been an interesting article...:

• The Chicago Police Department has a typewriter repairman. Which it needs because, well, it’s still using typewriters. “Police officers, in general, are very heavy typists,” said Keith Bebonis, the guy the police call to repair those heavy, hard-shelled relics.

  “These machines are known to take abuse,” said Bebonis, whose dad started Bebon Office Machines and Supplies in the late 1960s. “I don’t want it to seem like I’m saying they’re taking their frustrations out on the typewriter. But they’re just not very sensitive with these machines.”

  Bebon has had a contract to repair 40 to 50 IBM typewriters a year for the police department, along with fixing time stamps and heat sealers. The city has paid Bebon $61,275 between 2007 and February 2020 to repair that aging equipment, records show.

...turns into another "trash the police" by police hater Frank Main:

• But there’s a dark side to the history of typewriters and the Chicago police. Suspects in violent crimes accused late Cmdr. Jon Burge and his “Midnight Crew” of detectives of smothering them with typewriter covers to torture them into confessing in the 1970s and ‘80s, an allegation Burge denied.

And (Frank doesn't say) no one ever proved in a court of law. The fact of the matter was that (and if you talk to detectives who were there) a typewriter cover had a half-life that would rival that of an Ephemera vulgata - the common mayfly. We can safely estimate having seen a few hundred typewriters in our time with the Department and also estimate that we haven't seen a single typewriter cover in that time. Ever.

But don't let that get in the way of Frank's fiction. Does Frank know that Burge retired in 1993? The number of people left on the job who actually worked under Burge's direct supervision is probably in the single digits. The number of cops who even overlapped careers is similarly tiny and 99% of them wouldn't even have known Burge. 

There was some ignorant comment the other day about "You cops should testify about how you tortured all those people with Burge" and we were amused and amazed at the historical ignorance of the absolute impossibility of anyone currently on the job having any sort of direct knowledge of Jon Burge. Crap "reporting" like Frank contributes to the stupidity of the public at large.

The March to 600

011 puts homicide number 70 on the board, and it's a doozie:

• A 5-year-old girl was fatally stabbed Saturday morning in East Garfield Park on the West Side.

  Chicago police officers responded to the 3200 block of West Fulton Boulevard around 9:15 a.m. to a call of a person stabbed. Chicago firefighters were already tending to the injured girl when officers arrived, police said.

  The girl was taken to Stroger Hospital, where she was pronounced dead, police said.
  

The media says "stabbed." We have two e-mails saying the only thing keeping this poor baby's head attached was her spinal column - after Mommy cut her neck almost all the way through. Hopefully the Department is offering the Officers the appropriate counseling services after having to see that. Paramedics and Firefighters, too.

Chicago has racked up 590 dead as of Saturday afternoon and will almost certainly hit 600 with three month to go in the year. Guess how many police have killed?

• five - all justifiably
  

That works out to 0.847% - under 1%.

Shots Fired

No hits, assailant in custody, gun recovered:

• A Chicago police officer fired a shot at a person who was allegedly holding a gun during a foot chase Friday in Edgewater Beach.

  Officers approached two males who were drinking suspected alcoholic beverages in an alley just after 9 p.m. in the 5200 block of North Winthrop Avenue, Chicago police said.

  The males ran and during the pursuit an officer saw one of them was holding a gun, police said. The officer told the suspect to drop the gun but the suspect turned around and raised it instead.

  The officer fired a shot which did not strike the alleged gunman, police said. The suspect was taken into custody and officers recovered the weapon.
  

The usual liberals will whine this was all over some drinking in the alley. And if some liberal had gotten stuck up in a crime of opportunity ("Gee, we're out of beer, we're here in a dark alley with a pistol, let's go get some money for more beer") they'd whine police didn't stop the initial drinking.

It's good that it ended as it did. Nice pinch Officers.

Horse Update

Aldercreature Lopez is all over this story:

• Sneed has learned the injured horse nearly ridden to death by the “Dread Head Cowboy” in an anti-violence protest on the Dan Ryan Expressway, is safely on the mend and on her way to recovery since being moved to a horse farm in the south suburbs.

  “She’s rallied,” said Ald. Ray Lopez (15th), a strong advocate of humane animal care who works closely with the city’s Animal Care and Control Department.

  “But I’m told it should never be ridden again,” he said.

Lopez doesn't even make a secret he's Sneed's source for all this:

• But Sneed also hears Hollingsworth — who has been seen at protests riding horses around the city this summer — was “already on the city’s Animal Care radar months ago for riding a horse near the expressway,” Lopez said.

  “This is not the first time,” Lopez said, even before Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s office tapped the cowboy to do outreach for the U.S. Census. “We had videos and pictures of him multiple times before the mayor hired him to be her census outreach person/cowboy.

  “We were trying to find out where he lived before the mayor hired him,” said Lopez, who has frequently sparred with Lightfoot during her administration. “We were actually on the hunt for him due to concern about how his horse was being kept.”
  

The stable where the horse is being kept has had to hire extra security following this irresponsible bit of reporting by Sneed and grandstanding by Lopez.

Anyone doubting that Lopez is running for mayor?

Whose Fault?

Democrats nationwide are masters of projection. They accuse the opposition of planning do what they are already doing:

• collusion - was democrats
  
• won't accept election results - democrats
• promote rioting and hatred of police - still democrats

Fatass is trying to backpedal his Lt Governor's screw-up:

• A day after a top Democratic ally warned of an across-the-board income tax increase if voters reject a proposed tax amendment, Gov. J.B. Pritzker sought to blame Illinois Republicans should such a tax hike take place.

  [...] The political fallout from Stratton’s remarks underscored the high stakes of the Nov. 3 ballot question asking Illinois voters whether the state constitution should be changed to switch from a flat-rate income tax to a graduated tax-rate system based on income.

  Appearing at an unrelated news conference Friday, Pritzker attempted to cast Stratton’s remarks more comprehensively than what she actually said while also trying to downplay her words as nothing new.

She let the cat out of the bag too early, and now voters are taking a close look at what was supposed to be an end-around to tax everything under the sun after the disasterous 2020 shutdown.

Residency Proposal

Boom! Shots fired at the inbred midget from Massillon:

• The Fraternal Order of Police is demanding a 17% pay raise over four years — and half that amount for officers who are allowed to live outside the city — in a financial-only deal that includes none of the 40 disciplinary reforms demanded by Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

  Last week, Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzara stormed out of negotiations after Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s team offered his members the same 10% pay raise over four years awarded to Chicago firefighters in exchange for higher health care contributions, but tacked on 17 pages including 40 disciplinary reforms.

  Catanzara was so insulted by the city’s offer and the conditions Lightfoot attached to it, he vowed to make a financial-only counter-offer and demand an up-or-down vote by the City Council.

  Now, Catanzara has a new offer — minus the demand for an up-or-down Council vote.

  His new offer would give a choice to Chicago police officers who have long chafed at the city’s residency rule: Take the full 17% — with all but 3% retroactive — and continue to live in the city. Or, accept half that amount and be free to move to the suburbs.

And he used a lot of charged language throwing the gauntlet at Groot:

• “We want to be treated the same as the sergeants,” Catanzara said, noting that union settled on the financial aspect before ending up in arbitration over disciplinary changes.

  “When do we get our life back? If they want to treat us like rented mules, well then, start paying us like rented mules. We’re not gonna sit there and just be slaves.”

  Catanzara said the city’s chief labor negotiator Jim Franczek told him he could not go to the City Council and argue for a financial-only package that did not also include disciplinary changes in response to the demand for police reform in Chicago and across the nation that followed the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor.

  “Which was baloney. He was too afraid to do it. ... They don’t want to get yelled at by the aldermen. Oh, boo-hoo-hoo. They always try to take the easiest path thinking like there’s no other options. Well, we’re not rolling over and playing dead anymore,” he said.
  

Catanzara is correct in that the sergeants got a financial package separate from the rest of the Contract. And (our opinion) it's a good move to throw residency on the table at this point. The State Law regarding residency only applies to cities over one million - meaning only Chicago. So negotiate it.

Groot hates cops and our representation. The feeling is mutual. So why insist on keeping us here? Groot is about to run into the buzzsaw of reality regarding hiring that is hitting every jurisdiction nationwide - no one is taking the job, and Groot killing the city has made it that less desirable. Might as well take the shot.

Defund Groot!

Where does this inbred dwarf get off spending taxpayer money on these advertisements?

• Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s administration is using electronic billboards on city property to honor Breonna Taylor following protests in Chicago this week in response to her fatal shooting by police in Louisville, saying the campaign on signs alongside local expressways is not politically motivated despite some aldermanic criticism.

  The slogan “#SayHerName," which many Taylor supporters have used to try to keep attention on her case, started appearing on digital billboards in Chicago after a grand jury in Kentucky opted this week not to indict any Louisville police officers in her death.

Remember who they are trying to make into some sort of hero:

You won't find any mainstream media coverage on this.

Again, Disband the FBI

As every cop knows, the feebs would gladly let a dozen shooters go to jail one cop for process crimes. They're crooked - just not in the traditional thought process. It turns out that Trump was correct again - the FBI was spying on his campaign at the behest of Sparklefarts:

• Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents tasked by fired former Director James Comey to take down Donald Trump during and after the 2016 election were so concerned about the agency’s potentially illegal behavior that they purchased liability insurance to protect themselves less than two weeks before Trump was inaugurated president, previously hidden FBI text messages show. The explosive new communications and internal FBI notes were disclosed in federal court filings today from Sidney Powell, the attorney who heads Michael Flynn’s legal defense team.

  “[W]e all went and purchased professional liability insurance,” one agent texted on Jan. 10, 2017, the same day CNN leaked details that then-President-elect Trump had been briefed by Comey about the bogus Christopher Steele dossier. That briefing of Trump was used as a pretext to legitimize the debunked dossier, which was funded by the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign and compiled by a foreign intelligence officer who was working for a sanctioned Russian oligarch.
  

The entire investigative team bought liability insurance? That's not a Red Flag or anything, right? Go read it all - lots of links to actual investigative work.

The CIA was doing the same thing:

• DEVELOPING: Investigators have learned that Obama CIA Director John Brennan ran a secret task force out of Langley with its own separate budget to investigate Trump campaign and alleged ties to Russia. Task force set up before FBI officially launched its own probe on 07/31/16
  

A lot of the same thing:

• Former CIA Director John Brennan personally edited a crucial section of the intelligence report on Russian interference in the 2016 election and assigned a political ally to take a lead role in writing it after career analysts disputed Brennan's take that Russian leader Vladimir Putin intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump clinch the White House, according to two senior U.S. intelligence officials who have seen classified materials detailing Brennan’s role in drafting the document.

  The explosive conclusion Brennan inserted into the report was used to help justify continuing the Trump-Russia “collusion” investigation, which had been launched by the FBI in 2016. It was picked up after the election by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who in the end found no proof that Trump or his campaign conspired with Moscow.

Brennan concealed evidence that Putin supported Clinton - because he had all sorts of evidence with which to blackmail her.

Now there is ample evidence that two of most powerful investigative arms of the US Government were actively working to bring down the duly elected president. If you don't know or remember what the Church Committee was back in 1975, you ought to read up on it because these abuses are eerily reminiscent of those days.

You have to be a real political geek to get this deep into the weeds, but once you do...whoa.

Job Action in 014?

If true, it might be the first such event since the that entire Roll Call refused to hit the streets back in the day or the Police Wives blocked the parking lot to get rid of 99 cars after dark.

• I’m glad to hear that the 014th Dist have had it with the security detail on an absolute hate filled racist. Expect a major show of disgust to take place that leaves this tyrant on her own. Great plan and very ballsy and loooooooooong overdue.
• The inbred comment was the final straw, the 014th District is about to declare war on the Mayor. I sure hope she likes being protected by a few suckholes or Monterey Security because PO’S have declared enough is enough. Thanks for putting your big boy pants on kids,you rock!

Could be fun. If we worked in 014, it'd be a cold day in Hell before we watched her house.

OSHA in 025?

Bunch of comments saying that OSHA showed up in 025 and was interviewing Officers.

They're going to need a slightly larger staff if they hit every single Area Building, then work their way down to other stations:

• asbestos in all the Areas
• dangerous mold
• leaking plumbing in locker rooms and holding cells
• cancer clusters in some of the really old buildings
• shoddy construction and collapsing buildings
• don't even get us started on equipment
  

Feel free to list other places they ought to look around.

How Low can Groot Go?

Pretty damn low:

That's the mayor stealing shoes from a young murder victim the other day.

Hey, you know how hard it is to find Kids Size 5's?

Previous Horse Abuse

This doesn't seem safe, sanitary or healthy:

That's Groot's Census Horse Abuser's steed, tucked away in a yard in Englewood this past spring. We recall some roll call banter about a horse being found wandering the streets, but since we don't social media, we didn't really follow it. Now someone has dug up the pictures that were all over Instagram, Twitter and Facebook because of the Aggravated Animal Abuse charges leveled at Groot's publicity stunt.

The yard was described as mud, garbage and horse-shit strewn, with a single bale of hay and no shelter as temperatures dipped into the 30's. Had it been a bit warmer, we're certain the insect problem would have been overwhelming. Why this wasn't a bigger deal, we'll never know.

Promised Tax Increase vs Stealth Increase

Did this moron run out of weed or something?

• Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton warned Thursday that Illinoisans could face an across-the-board income tax hike of at least 20% if voters reject a proposed constitutional amendment to shift the state from a mandated flat-rate tax to a graduated-rate tax based on income.

  For weeks, Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritkzer’s administration has cautioned that severe budget cuts could be on the way if voters don’t approve the proposed amendment to overhaul Illinois' income tax system. But Stratton’s threat that all taxpayers, regardless of income, could face a tax hike unless the amendment passes on Nov. 3 appeared to represent a new shift in strategy for the Pritzker administration.

  “To adequately address the budget crisis under our current tax system, lawmakers will be forced to consider raising income taxes on all Illinois residents by at least 20% regardless of their level of income,” Stratton said during a virtual rally on behalf of the pro-amendment Vote Yes for Fairness group that marked the start of voting in Illinois.
  

We remember a time long ago when a democrat ran for president on a platform promising to raise taxes. Mondale lost that one 525 to 13.

We also remember another idiot who reneged on his pledge to not raise taxes. Bush the Elder lost that one 370 to 168.

But somehow, we have a feeling that Fatass's "Fair Tax" is going to have a good showing, even when it turns out he's been lying about raising taxes on the wealthy only. Does anyone know what happened to New Jersey and New York when they passed these "Tax the Wealthy" proposals?

• the wealthy left - because they could afford to. Even if it was just a paper move to switch their primary residences.

And guess who got slapped with the massive tax increases when the wealthy weren't around? 

• the middle class and working poor.

Illinois has spent years making their voters the most ignorant in the nation. Voting for people who promise to release felons, empty prisons, make buying a gun impossible. Voting for an open ended tax increase would be par for the idiocy.

RICO Charges?

So there was a U-Haul truck dropping off riot supplies in Louisville the other night - shields, signs, water, possible wooden weapons. There are even pictures - here's one, but you can search for others:

Gateway Pundit summarizes an actual investigative journalist who tracked down the renter of the truck. She's part of the "Louisville Bail Project," a George Soros backed initiative to pay for miscreants and rioters to get out of jail to continue the destruction of private property. Soros, of course, it the nazi collaborator who funded - and continues to fund - left wing DA's and States Attorneys who outright refuse to follow their Oaths of Office and prosecute criminals.

This would seem to be a perfect case for RICO charges against rioters, blamfita and their hangers-on. These assholes are fomenting terrorist across the country and deliberately targeting and injuring police officers.

Keep an eye out for U-Haul trucks parked strategically where rioters are known to gather.

Crimesha At it Again (UPDATE)

There really needs to be a push by O'Brien to unseat this useless witch:

• Tomorrow 24 Sep 20, Ronnie Carasquillo who was convicted of murdering P.O. Terrence LOFTUS#5701 is up for a parole hearing. The Cook County States Attorney Kim FOXX withdrew her objection for parole for Carasquillo.

  This has never happened before, where a States Attorney in Cook County or anywhere in the state of Illinois has not objected to the parole for a person convicted of murdering a police officer.

  Last year when he was up for parole FOXX wrote an 8 page objection to Carasquillo/s request for parole. Again, FOXX GAVE NO REASON FOR WITHDRAWING HER OBJECTION.

Let's go O'Brien - get it done.

 

UPDATE: Parole denied by a single vote.

"Peaceful" Protests

That was, until the gunfire:

• Hours after a Kentucky grand jury brought no charges against Louisville police for Breonna Taylor’s death and protesters took to the streets, authorities said two officers were shot and wounded Wednesday night during the demonstrations expressing anger over the killings of Black people at the hands of police.

  Interim Louisville Police Chief Robert Schroeder said a suspect was in custody but did not offer details about whether that person was participating in the demonstrations. He says both officers are expected to recover, and one is undergoing surgery.
  

And once again, we're left speechless by the campaign to make a criminal into a hero.

You doubt it? Here's the report that you'll never see in the lame-stream media. In summary:

• She was on jailhouse recordings running drugs for her man
• She was under surveillance for months - this wasn't a one-off incident
• The warrant was for her car and apartment - the cops were exactly where the warrant was issued for
  

By the way - the "no knock" story? It was a lie. Her boyfriend admitted to the Grand Jury that the Officers knocked. And he admitted shooting at police - wounding one - which drew return fire. He should have been charged and prosecuted for what we call Felony Murder in Illinois, but the prosecutor dumped the charge because "the narrative" was more important than a few cops' jobs and lives.

So once again, our lives are disrupted for a dope dealing criminal.

Call PETA

 Yeah, they're raving lunatics, but harnessing that and directing it at this jackass could be a good thing:

• New details of allegations against Adam “Census Cowboy” Hollingsworth. According to information in charging documents:
  
  
  …Horse collapsed outside animal shelter. Could not get up on its own.
  
  
  …Upon arrival at shelter, horse was overheated, extremely exhausted, shook uncontrollably.
  
  
  …Horse has saddle sores, injuries to its Coronet band, and multiple wounds from being canter on concrete without shoes.
  
  
  …While on highway, horse galloped for short distances and also walked slowly “as if it was to the point of exhaustion.”
  
  
  …Case was delayed by a day because assistant state’s attorney initially declined felony charges, sending cops to do further investigation.

Word is the horse may have to be euthanized, and this mope owns another 4 or 5 horses somewhere else.

35th Ward Asshole

This is the actual alderasshole [correction - we're told this is the asshole's chief of staff - what is it with alderassholes and chiefs of staff?]:

How does this asshole's constituents feel about this? Is he willing to close the police station in his Ward or is he just another blowhard dick?

North Side Voters

As he loses his iron grip on the southside, Madigroin is trying to make inroads into the north:

• Vote State Rep Brad Stephens, Republican in the 20th District. He’s endorsed by FOP 7. His opponent Michelle Darbro moved from Madigan’s neighborhood to the NW side to run against Stephens. She will have 2 million dollars from Madigan and the unions. Madigan wants the seat and is using this liberal Police hater to get it. She will vote for licensing the Police, if elected.

Do everyone a favor and don't vote for this Madigroin-fondler.

Groot Speaks with Forked Tongue

Groot thinks she can run a business?

• Mayor Lori Lightfoot warned ComEd’s top executive this week that the city will not renew its utility agreement with the electric company unless she receives a “substantive” plan that details goals for ethics reform, an end to residential disconnections, help with the city’s clean energy goals and other measures.

  In a letter sent Tuesday to ComEd CEO Joseph Dominguez, Lightfoot chided the utility for not committing broadly to ending all disconnections during the COVID-19 pandemic and the recession. In July, she called out Dominguez in another letter for the company’s role in a federal corruption probe. ComEd confessed to paying $1.3 million in bribes to associates of Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan.

  Lightfoot’s administration said this summer — and officials reiterated at a public hearing Tuesday — that it would be too expensive, costing billions of dollars, to follow through on a proposed city takeover of the power grid from ComEd. That admission eliminated some leverage the mayor had in negotiations.
  

Groot has been claiming for months that she doesn't have any money (the last paragraph says it would cost billions she doesn't have) but she expects ComEd to stop shutoffs that - essentially - give away electricity for free.

How do you run a business without income? You think this would have been a clue:

• With schools closed, restaurants shut down and an economic collapse looming in the early weeks of the pandemic, Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced plans to stop ticketing, booting and impounding cars throughout the city to ease financial pressures on Chicagoans.

  “The only ticketing that is going to be happening is if there is a car or other vehicle posing some kind of public safety threat. But the normal ticketing should be suspended until April 30,” she said during a March 18 news conference. “So, for example, an expired meter that is otherwise legally parked and not posing a public safety threat, you should not be getting ticketed.”

  [...] Try telling that to anyone else who got hit with one of the more than 35,000 parking tickets the city issued during the period Lightfoot told the public they’d be getting a break.

  [...] A Tribune analysis of city parking data found that nearly half of the tickets were given to cars for expired meters in the downtown area — an infraction Lightfoot specifically had singled out as exempted from punishment.
  

How about opening businesses so people can make money?

Phony Endorses Horse Abuse

He was awfully quiet during the big church scandals.

He's all for horse abuse though:

• Father Michael Pfleger and activist Ja’Mal Green called for authorities to release Adam Hollingsworth — better known as the Dread Head Cowboy — from police custody and drop charges against him for riding a horse on the Dan Ryan Expressway during Monday’s evening rush as a form of protest against kids getting shot in Chicago.

  “I’m with the Cowboy 100% and I think these charges need to be dropped” Pfleger, who led 5,000 people onto the Dan Ryan in 2018 to protest violence, told the Chicago Sun-Times in a phone call Tuesday.

  “I think we need to do a whole lot more disruption of shopping and traffic and business as usual until we deal with this violence.”

But don't march in the 'hoods where kids are getting shot by the wagonload though.

Groot Huffs and Puffs

Groot's fantasy land:

• Word from a good source on 5th Floor, Lightfoot is now dead set on no retro and layoffs to punish our F.O.P. She hates Catanzara so much she starts trembling(direct quote) when she hears his name. She was overheard telling her staff she doesn’t give a fuck if the whole bunch of inbred idiots(CPD) leaves. Her new mission is for us to not see a contract in her first term. I sure hope the Union gets a lot more radical or we are in for rough waters.

Good thing it isn't up to her. If it goes to Arbitration, he's bound by precedent and retro has been awarded for every single contract when the City decided not to negotiate in good faith. Also, every other Union has gotten retro.

Layoffs are another fantasy. If the City would offer a decent buyout package, she'd get more than enough people to leave. In fact, this is going to be a near-record year regardless even without a Contract.

More of This Please

Great news from Waukegan:

• An occupant of a Waukegan house fatally shot two men who were apparently trying to break into the home Tuesday morning, according to police.

  A resident called police to report that the men, at least one of whom was armed, were attempting to enter the residence in the 100 block of Frolic Avenue. When police arrived, they found the bodies of the two men in the front yard of the house. They also recovered a handgun by the bodies, Waukegan Police Commander Joe Florip said.

  Police declined to provide many details in the hours after the shooting, as authorities gathered information from witnesses and combed over the scene, a small home in what area residents said is a normally quiet neighborhood.

Looking forward, this has driven down the Waukegan crime rate by a full percentage point. Good job citizen!

Covered Here Last Week

 Sun Times finally telling people that Groot is stripping the taxpaying neighborhoods of police:

• The Chicago Police Department’s Community Safety Team — a new unit aimed at forging stronger community ties on the South and West Sides — is growing.

  Another 200 officers will soon join the 450 already assigned to the team, which was created earlier this year as part of Supt. David Brown’s reorganization of the CPD.

650 cops? The Department seems to be rapidly approaching the point that Rahm was at when he disbanded MSF and TRU - two street units - and then claimed he put 1,000 cops back on the street.

Remember where those cops went? 003, 005, 006, 007....shorthanded southside spots.

Remember who just posted 35 openings in 003?

Welcome to the southside Officers.

Retrial Up

In front of one of the worst judges currently on the bench:

• We just received word that the re-trial for Jackie Wilson (one of the animals who murdered Chicago Police Officers Fahey and O'Brien) is set to begin tomorrow (09-22-2020) and will probably conclude on Friday.  This is a consequence of the Torture Commission.  So now the Faheys will be forced yet again to relive the day in February, 1982 when Wilson and his brother Andrew killed the officers.  The trial is in front of Judge Hooks, who has made it abundantly clear that he is no fan of the police.  (See earlier posts.)  Please keep the Faheys and O'Briens in your thoughts and prayers this week.

If you know the Courtroom number, post it.

Think of the Horses!

Remember this happy day?

 Groot was introducing the "Census Cowboy." It took our readers all of about an hour to discover he was an old four corner hustler with quite the felony record. Our readers also found video of him in Englewood telling the videographer "fuck 12" and "fuck CPD." But Groot hired him for her census push. We have a feeling she makes all her personnel decisions like this - uninformed and half-assed. 

Now he's an animal abuser, too:

This is why you don't run an unshod horse on concrete.

• Chicago’s well-known “Dread Head Cowboy” rode his brown and white horse onto the Dan Ryan Expressway on Monday, snarling traffic in the middle of rush hour.

  The man, who’s real name is Adam Hollingsworth, posted video of his ride on Facebook live, which was also captured by news helicopters. In his posts, Hollingsworth — who has ridden his horse to multiple civil rights protests this summer — says “I shut down the Dan Ryan! Kids lives matter!”

They do - so tell the community to start acting like it - but stop injuring the horse.

Commie Not Fired After All

So it seems that the commie aldercreatures AREN'T firing those who threaten violence and denigrate the police -  and the community is "worried":

• Two aldermen are facing backlash after recent social media posts from their staffers were critical of police, with residents saying the posts are worrisome as the wards face a spike in violent crime. The issue involved Facebook and Twitter posts from the chief of staff of Ald. Rossana Rodriguez (33rd) and an aide for Ald. Daniel La Spata (1st). The posts are from July and August, but they stirred controversy among some neighbors last week.

  Ashley Galvan Ramos, a constituent services liaison in La Spata’s office, referred to police officers as “pigs” in a July 18 tweet in the aftermath of violent clashes between officers and protesters near the Christopher Columbus statue in Grant Park.

  “The aggression and brutality on YOUTH last night was a direct attack on YOUTH,” Ramos tweeted. “Lori Lightfoot and her wife wanted to create a networking group for YOUTH to ‘stay off the streets’ but can’t even call her pigs out? She can’t even see wtf she’s doing wrong.”

And then the one we covered before:

• On Aug. 24, Vicko Alvarez, Rodriguez’s chief of staff, shared a Sun-Times article on Facebook and wrote “Defund and abolish. You can get it done through hearings at City Hall or the people will get it done on the streets by fire.”

  Though rumors spread on social media that Rodriguez fired Alvarez over the post, the alderman said she has no intention of firing the staffer. Rodriguez said her office received threats after the controversial post. Rodriguez said her office has been dealing with backlash from Alvarez’s Facebook post for weeks, with union leadership of the Chicago Fire Department suggesting its members to call her office to complain.

  La Spata’s spokesman Joshua Smyser-DeLeon would not say if Ramos would face discipline, saying what employees post on their personal accounts is protected by the First Amendment.

Which is shocking because the Department is trying to suspend/fire a number of Officers for what they posted on social media off duty and this blog itself was the subject of an illegal First Amendment Investigation run by the now-Deputy Superintendent [corrected] of Constitutional Policing.

 

Quite the double standard for commies it would seem.

Blame the Virus

Via Jack Dunphy, if you can't blame the police and you're forbidden from blaming the politicians, blame the virus:

• Chief Michel Moore, demonstrating the type of shameless political pandering that propelled him into the post, attributes L.A.’s crime spike to the COVID-19 pandemic, which, he says, has led to economic despair and heightened interpersonal dramas.

  “What we’re sensing is a lot of stress, a lot of communities that are on edge, a certain amount of depression,” Moore said at a recent meeting of the city’s police commission. Even more laughably, he said virus-related restrictions on hospital visits have contributed to the bloodshed. Quoting from the Los Angeles Times:

  [Moore] also said that pandemic-related rules barring visitors from local hospitals have prevented trained violence intervention workers from visiting the bedsides of surviving shooting victims — eliminating the opportunity to provide resources and emotional support, address their anger and help prevent retaliatory violence on the streets.

  Chief Moore is not as hopelessly dense as that statement would indicate. In speaking such gibberish he is merely reflecting the prevailing sentiments of Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and most members of the city council, to whom he is in debt for his handsomely compensated position, and who, like himself, would prefer to attribute their crime problem to something they cannot control and for which they, therefore, cannot be blamed.

Indeed - go read it all.

New Cheating Scandal Coming?

At least they aren't holding it at HQ like last time:

• Are you talking about Lt. Ward who recently led the recent secretive study group for sergeant with Fenner at the firehouse..and everyone in it failed the first part of the sergeant’s exam.

Cheaters helping cheaters - history repeats.

This Should be Fun

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. Hot lead though?

• United States Postal workers who deliver mail in some of Chicago’s more violent neighborhoods are threatening to halt their services after a mail carrier was shot in the city’s South Side earlier this month.

  The carrier, a 24-year-old woman, was left critically and injured after being shot multiple times at 91st Street and Ellis Avenue while delivering mail on September 10. Police said the worker did not appear to be the target and had been caught in the crossfire during a drive-by.

  Chicago’s WSL-TV reported that she was the second mail carrier wounded by gunfire on that route. Another mail carrier, also caught in the middle of gunfire, was shot in March while on the job but survived.
  

Didn't Simon Phoenix have this sort of beef with the bus drivers? And didn't he trick John Spartan into demolishing an entire building?

Nice System Crimesha

This is from a few days ago, but get a load of this:

• A parole escapee left his 4-year-old daughter alone in his car “with an AR-15 rifle and a whole lot of heroin” when he decided to run from police in Monday morning, a Cook County judge said during a bond court hearing Tuesday.

He was wanted for a parole violation:

• The uniformed officers pulled over to talk with Bustamante when they saw him standing behind a car that had it’s trunk open. He ran, but the cops caught up with him less than a block away, and a five-minute battle broke out as the cops tried to arrest him, according to prosecutors.

  During the brawl, Bustamante allegedly bit both officers, kicked one in the groin, tried to disarm one, and spit in both cops’ eyes, mouths, and noses.
  

After being subdued....: 

• Prosecutors charged Bustamante with Class X manufacture-delivery of a controlled substance, Class X felony armed violence, unlawful use of a weapon by a felon, two counts of aggravated battery of police, child endangerment, two counts of resisting, possession of ammunition, and other crimes. He is also charged with previously threatening to burn the mother of his child and her car. Bustamante was also wanted by the state for failing to comply with the requirements of his parole and on a DUI warrant.

  After hearing the state’s lengthy presentation against Bustamante, Judge Mary Marubio said she believed there were many indications that he would not comply with the terms of a bail bond.

Yeah, probably not Judge. But guess what? 

• Marubio said state law prohibited her from holding Bustamante without bail on the new allegations. “If I could, I would,” she said. Instead, she set bail at $500,000 and ordered him to go onto electronic monitoring if he can post a $50,000 deposit bond.
  

She WASN'T PERMITTED to order him held without bail, even after the litany of charges against him.

 

Once again, CWB exposing the absolute stupidity of the Cook County system, and the silence of the main-stream media is absolutely astounding.

Mass Shootings Are Up

The Tribune actually used the term "mass shooting" for some reason, but left out actual important info - can you spot it?

• Two mass shootings have left at least nine people injured in attacks in the South Side’s West Pullman and West Englewood neighborhoods on Saturday evening, officials said.

  Most recently, about 5:45 p.m. in West Pullman neighborhood, five people were injured the 12200 block of South May Street, according to Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford.

  Witnesses said two black cars tore down the street and began shooting at people who were standing on a sidewalk, a porch and inside a home at the May Street address, police said.

  [...] The West Englewood attack took place in the 6800 block of South Claremont Avenue about 5 p.m. police said.

  A group was standing at the Claremont address when, according to a witness, a gunman opened fire, hitting four in the group, before running away through an alley near 69th Street.

This during a weekend when another forty-plus Chicagoans ended up with extra holes in their bodies, even with the temps ending up in a pleasant autumn-like range.

This is Ironic....Sort Of

See if you can see the disconnect:

• Sunday at midnight, TikTok and messaging app WeChat will vanish from U.S. app stores. Users who already have TikTok on their phones will still be able to use it for now. The Trump administration claims the Chinese are maliciously collecting Americans’ personal data through the apps.

  One person who said she will not be sad to see TikTok go is an Albany Park woman. She discovered a video of herself on the app that was recorded without her consent.

  [...] It all began at a BP gas station at Pulaski and Montrose when Vanessa Gonzalez said a van pulled up and gave her an uneasy feeling. Days later, she would find out the man inside was recording her. He said it was because she was texting while pumping gas, which signage does warn against. But she said either way, what he did was wrong. 

Wrong? How so?

• “Apparently a guy recorded me just pumping gas. It kind of had a lot of “likes” and yeah, I just found it disturbing because that’s an invasion of my privacy.” Gonzalez said it made her feel embarrassed and creeped out. “I don’t know this man or his intentions at all,” she said.

  [...] Gonzalez said she hopes her story encourages women to be more aware of their surroundings and to speak up if they feel uncomfortable. “If they feel something to trust it, to call someone, call the police, and just always be aware of your surroundings,” Gonzalez said. “Because you never know who could be doing what, or what their intentions are.” 

So she wants to call the police....who will drive up in a camera equipped car, wearing a camera, and then probably be surrounded by half-a-dozen morons whipping out their camera phones....for something that is completely legal last time we checked. Legal and encouraged by society it would seem.

Even if he told the cops he was making a "spank video" for his own personal needs at home, it still isn't illegal.

Update on Injured Officer

We mentioned this one a few days ago. We can only link to the CWB Twitter feed from here:

• click here for link - content warning VERY GRAPHIC

The news said "leg injury" but there's no way this was only a leg injury. 

 Prayers for a speedy recovery Officer.

Headed for Disaster

As predicted here and elsewhere:

• The Chicago Police Department has 847 sworn vacancies that could be reduced to chip away at a $1.25 billion shortfall in the city’s 2021 budget, aldermen were told Thursday.

  Mayor Lori Lightfoot has, so far, resisted the movement to de-fund the police that has been sweeping the nation since the death of George Floyd. Chicago is the nation’s largest city to give the cold shoulder to those demands after police cuts announced in New York City and Los Angeles. But that doesn’t mean the Chicago Police Department’s $1.7 billion budget will be spared from the budget ax.

  During a joint meeting of the City Council’s Budget and Public Safety committees focused exclusively on CPD spending, Budget Director Susie Park told aldermen there are 847 sworn police vacancies and all are under the microscope to chip away at the shortfall.
  

How many years did we post about the downsizing of the Department? And the rearranging of deck chairs that Rahm did, pretending to put 1,000 officers on the street by disbanding street units? And how many openings were just posted for what can charitably described as an "undesirable" District to be in? Thirty-five, wasn't it?

Does anyone doubt that next year's twelve-hour days and cancelled weekends aren't going to double simply because there aren't nearly enough officers on the street? And so will the injuries that will result from being undermanned?

How about cutting the fat up top first Groot?

Desperate Measures

When the community is reduced to this, they've lost any trust in the political structure:

• Some community activists in Chicago want children to carry bulletproof backpacks in an effort to stem the growing number of young gun violence victims.
  
  Violence Interrupters Executive Director Tio Hardiman asked during a press conference Thursday morning outside Chicago Police Headquarters for Gov. JB Pritzker and Mayor Lori Lightfoot to introduce measures to provide body armor to kids.
  
  Hardiman said nearly 40 children have been shot and killed so far this year.

Groot is looking to set records as a baby-killer, assisted by the useless Crimesha who keeps releasing gun offenders, knife offenders and every manner of killer she can find. And to have a woman-beater like Tio fronting this effort has to be a bit embarrassing.

EEK!

 This isn't going to sell any fishing lures for sure.

Consequences

We'll just leave this here:

One down, hundreds to go.

Thirty-Five Openings?

So the Department posted bid openings across the city and it looked something like this:

• 003 - 35
• 016 - 1
• 017 - 2
• 020 - 1

That's it. This is eerily reminiscent of the stunt they pulled about ten years ago where the Department wouldn't post a single opening for months on end and then come up with double-digits in a bunch undesirable spots. Any movement was one-for-one trades, so you really had to keep an eye on things to see who was moving where.

Who, What Now?

Barz to Deputy Chief? Must be nice to be the investigating Sergeant for the IAD Testing scandal just a few short years ago and turn the cover-up into not one, not two, but three "merit" promotions.

Who was the other one who did that in 002? From corrupt Tact Secretary to Commander in record time.

And who is claiming that the Department hired back Henny Penny? Because we have a bunch of material in storage that we'll have to dig out if this is true, starting with her Booking photo:

Judges Revolt

You thought we had an "independent" judiciary?

• Cook County Democrats led by Party Chair Toni Preckwinkle may have picked a fight for which they hadn’t really bargained this week in seeking Judge Michael Toomin’s ouster from the bench in a bald political power play.

  Late Wednesday night, the other Cook County judges seeking retention on the November ballot refused to fork over their usual $40,000 payment to the party’s get-out-the-vote effort — partly in protest of the Democrats’ decision to target Toomin for defeat.

  In essence, they refused to kiss the ring. It was a rare election-year display of political independence for the judges, who saw in the attack on Toomin, a respected veteran jurist, a clear threat to their own autonomy.

  Whether this turns out to be a revolt from the Democratic Party itself or just a revolt from Preckwinkle’s leadership of the party remains to be seen.

So every judge forked over $40,000 per election season? [addition - Or is this $40,000 cumulative from their "association"? We're getting conflicting information] That might explain the exorbitant salaries they get for part time work, the massive sway Ed Burke and other Slating Committee chairpersons wielded over the years, and why the Feds shutdown Operation Greylord after only ninety-three indictments - if they kept going, there wouldn't have been a single judge left sitting on the bench.

This is EXACTLY why we vote "No" on every single judge, regardless of how they treat the police - sometimes, you just have to clean house top to bottom.

South Shore Shooting?

Word trickling in that an Officer, leaving training at the South Shore location, had his headrest save him some major damage one or two nights ago.

No one seems to be able to answer if it was a stray round or a targeted attempt on an Officer's life. In light of recent threats and recent assassination attempts, this should be answered immediately.

And a better method of training locations figured out.

How to Fuck the Police

 This is from the brains of Groot's operation?

• The office designed to help aldermen keep tabs on how the city spends tax dollars detailed a proposal on Thursday that would cut $55 million from the Chicago Police Department’s $1.7 billion budget in 2021 to help fill Chicago’s massive budget shortfall.

  The recommendation is the first from Kenneth Williams, who was named to lead the City Council’s Office of Financial Analysis in May after aldermen expanded the office’s power in an effort to provide a counterpoint to the annual budget proposal from the mayor’s office.

  Williams said he went through the department’s budget to find savings by cutting “perks” and things that are “nice to have, but not need to have” and identified savings equal to about 3% of the 2020 departmental budget. 

  The city could save $30.5 million by cutting tuition reimbursement programs and uniform allowances for police officers and commanders and another $23.5 million by cutting quarterly payments to sergeants and to those assigned to special units, according to the proposal. Another $1 million could be saved by reducing spending on police at O’Hare and Midway airports.
  

Perks? These were negotiated benefits from the City to employees. In fact, most of these so-called "perks" were offered in lieu of pay raises so that the City didn't have to factor them into pension payments - and does everyone remember how well the City kept up on those pension payments over the intervening decades?

For these benefits to be surrendered, Groot better be prepared to add the total value to salaries - we were always the good guys/gals in these negotiations, sparing the City (and taxpayers) increased pension payments.

And this is just dumb:

• The City Council’s Office of Financial Analysis also recommended that the city require officers to carry liability insurance as a way to reduce the cost to taxpayers to settle misconduct lawsuits. That change would require a change in state law.

Perhaps if the Corp Counsel actually fought the nuisance cases (like they did under J-Fledgar) instead of settling them with connected firms (that make political contributions to the Machine), then they would (A) make it less attractive to file bullshit cases and (B) have money to fight the cases that need fighting. J-Fledgar saved the City millions fighting suits and made plaintiff attorneys angry enough to threaten Rahm into settlements again.

Anyone know why Groot isn't cutting half of the aldercreatures? New York is three times as big as Chicago and gets by with as many politicians.

How about the CPS? Their budget is $7.7 billion - four-and-one-half times the Police Department. Surely there is room for massive cuts, especially when they aren't even using any of their buildings, supplies or physical plant personnel.

Short...and Getting Shorter

This is what was working the other night in 020 (click for a larger image):

One sergeant, three 99 units, two 10-4 units, five cars listed as DOWN.

Additionally (which we removed fro the section marked "DETAILS," there are three 10-4 units assigned to downtown and four other officers detailed to the Tactical Team to fill four vacancies for a separate detail outside of the District.

In simple terms for our non-police readers:

• 1 sgt and 7 POs working the District to which they are assigned
• 1 sgt and 10 POs detailed out of the District from which they're supposed to be working.

So taxpayers aren't even getting HALF of their assigned officers working the District. This is happening Citywide. And it's about to get worse (as always, click for a larger version):

 

Again, for the non-police readers, Groot is about to steal 200 Officers from across the City to backfill a "Community Safety Team" which will be utilized well into December for anticipated riots and/or looting downtown, all at the cost to neighborhoods that are already seeing massive upticks in shootings.

You doubt us? Check out this article about Albany Park experiencing a 100% increase in shootings and killings in about nine months. It's already happening and it's only going to get worse. 

Might as well kill morale across the board.

Moving Costs

 This is what it currently costs to move into and out of selected California cities:

A simple Supply and Demand chart....and it costs triple, quadruple, even ten times the inbound amounts in many cases.

Anyone know what it costs in Illinois to move out to other locations...and can you make a chart?