Plea Deal in Officer's Murder

This was an accomplice:

• Prosecutors have offered a plea deal to a man facing several felony charges in connection with the killing of Chicago police officer Ella French two years ago.

  Eric Morgan, 25, is expected to enter guilty pleas next month to unlawful use of a weapon, aggravated battery and obstruction of justice, according to a source.

  Under an agreement with Cook County prosecutors, Morgan would face seven years in prison for the weapons charges — the maximum penalty for the offense — to be served concurrently with a five-year sentence for battery and a three-year sentence for obstruction of justice, the source said.

  Court records show a change of plea hearing has been set for Oct. 12 before Judge Ursula Walowski.

  A spokeswoman for Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx said the office declined to comment, citing pending litigation.

We remember the days when everyone in the car got charged....and got convicted.

Crimesha's office didn't say anything about this piece of shit testifying for his sweetheart deal, but then, she's a piece of shit, too, and shit sticks together.

An Axe Falls

Someone needed to be tossed under the bus, and Fred found a fall-guy on the way out the door:

• Chicago’s former top cop acknowledged that play should have been stopped after two fans were struck by gunfire during a White Sox game last month — and he blamed himself for the flatfooted response to the shooting.

  But on his last day as the city’s acting police superintendent, Fred Waller wielded the same sword he fell on and demoted John Spellman, the now-former commander of the patrol bureau. Spellman had been working security that night at Guaranteed Rate Field without proper approval, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.

  [...]
  

  Spellman had been serving as a security supervisor for At Your Service LLC, the company that guards Sox park and is controlled by team executives, according to law enforcement sources.

They're painting this as an exempt working a non-authorized side job, and he's being demoted for it.

They aren't painting it as a pair of gunshots violating all the known laws of physics:

• traveling a mile 
• from an hour beforehand
• striking two people feet away from one another
• which also violates basic trigonometry where a change of barrel angle in a finely tuned rifle measuring one minute of angle (MOA) translates into an impact site nearly two feet away. 

A handgun and a shooter with that type of fine-tuning and that amount of shooting discipline probably doesn't exist where those shots came from. 

But there's an exempt allegedly working an improper side job.

COPA Closes "Investigation"

But they say that they could re-open it at any time:

• An investigation into explosive claims that Chicago cops engaged in sexual misconduct with migrants has been closed without finding any wrongdoing, the city’s police oversight agency announced Friday.

  The Civilian Office of Police Accountability said investigators were unable to find any victims of sexual misconduct, an issue COPA Chief Administrator Andrea Kersten initially raised during an uncharacteristic news conference weeks after the probe was opened in July.

  “There is not sufficient objective, verifiable information of sexual misconduct,” COPA said in a statement.

The Contrarian demanded an end to the BS for the 010 District Officers involved.

We'd think a hefty lawsuit would be better to curb this sort of behavior. The fact that this "uncharacteristic news conference" even took place is ridiculous and proves beyond a shadow of a doubt what COPA's function actually is - generating faux outrage and distracting headlines.

It also demonstrates EXACTLY why the Sworn Affidavit Law was needed.

"A Blatant Lie"

Sometimes the media asks actual questions that make politicians uncomfortable:

And sometimes, they call out the obvious lies being fed to them.

Jail Emptied?

So after the first week or so of "no cash bail," we have unconfirmed reports from sheriffs that over 500 inmates were released from the Cook County Jail. 

We aren't sure if this was the normal weekly traffic running through the jail or it was anyone who had been held previous as a "cash bond" status and they got a new bond hearing.

Could that explain part of the sudden crime uptick? A whole bunch of people got out and needed "food for their families" or some other imaginary "progressive" excuse?

Save Us!

• “The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout 'SAVE US!'...and I'll look down and whisper 'No.”

Zzzzz....:snore.....wha?  Did someone say something? Sorry, we were having a really really weird dream about the 1980's. If only we could remember it. Oh well.....

Did you guys and gals see this?

• A vicious attack in Bucktown this week prompted community residents on Wednesday to demand that more be done to protect them from a spike in robberies. 

  Bucktown Community Organization board member Steve Jensen was “shocked and horrified of the blatant brutality” he saw in a video of a daytime robbery on Monday near Damen Avenue. 

  “I felt sick to my stomach and terrorized,” Jensen told the Sun-Times. “I can only imagine how the victim felt. And I’m shocked and disgusted that this continues citywide, with no answers, explanations or solutions from City Hall and our state legislature.”

  According to police, a 33-year-old man was walking in an alley near the 2000 block of North Damen just before 3 p.m. Monday when two other men approached him from behind, beat him and took his belongings before fleeing southbound on foot.
  

CWB blog has video of the robbery. This sudden "demand that more be done" is confusing us, based on the voting patterns of the past few years, the signs in windows, the marches, the graffiti and strange words and gestures being shouted and shown to us on a daily basis.

Can anyone explain?

Leftist Hypocrisy

Look at all this racism in the democratic run shitholes:

• San Francisco Mayor London Breed announced a plan on Tuesday to require homeless people in the liberal city to undergo drug testing and treatment in order to receive county-funded cash assistance.

  Breed said that accountability was necessary for homeless people seeking cash assistance because the city faces pressure to handle the fentanyl and homeless crises. However, the proposal will still need approval from the City Council.

We recall when this was a regular stand taken by people on the Right. After all, if we had to take a drug test to earn the taxable income to support these junkies, it was only fair they took a drug test to get the handouts. We remember be roundly condemned as "racist" for that position

And this local liberal anti-police bastion is demanding people show their papers:

• DePaul University is requiring all students, faculty and staff members to carry their ID cards on them in response to an uptick in robberies.

  According to a letter from president Rob Manuel, the university is implementing several changes following feedback at a safety summit and multiple robberies targeting students this month.

The story seems to say this is only within university buildings, which as private property is probably a smart move. But we don't think the recent spate of muggings is taking place inside lecture halls, labs and offices. The trouble with an urban campus is that it is pretty wide open to neighborhood pedestrians, drivers utilizing the public way and ne'er-do-wells hunting for easy prey. 

We expect the usual accusations of "racism" from the libs who claimed police were stopping suspicious characters based solely on physical appearances and not that they were obviously on the prowl.

Everything is Closing

This one is a national problem:

• By the end of 2024, CVS Pharmacy will have closed 900 store locations as it pivots to a new "retail footprint strategy."
  

  [...]

  Meanwhile, pharmacy chains, including CVS, Walgreens, and Rite Aid, are battling rampant retail theft at some store locations, likely contributing to closures.

  According to CapitalOne Research, retailers lost approximately $86.6 billion to theft in 2022 and are projected to lose over $115 billion by 2025.

This one, however, is closer to home:

• For three decades, the posh restaurant atop the former John Hancock Center was the place to pop the question, enjoy a romantic Valentine’s Day dinner or celebrate a special birthday.

  But the Signature Room closed abruptly on Thursday, citing “severe economic hardship.”

The article claims the after effects of the Covid closures damaged their restaurant and they couldn't negotiate a favorable lease. But what does a restaurant need to survive? Besides PPP loans we mean:

• customers

And there aren't any downtown after the sun goes down. That's why all those other retail establishments are leaving, too.

BOHICA!

Once again, we're told to accept the crumbs that the rulers grant us:

• The Chicago Police Board voted Tuesday to retain jurisdiction over nearly two dozen disciplinary cases that the Fraternal Order of Police sought to move to arbitration following a nonbonding decision that would allow cops to keep serious misconduct proceedings out of public view. 

  In a 10-page ruling, the police board said it doesn’t currently have the authority to transfer the 22 cases because the decision by independent arbitrator Edwin Benn hasn’t been ratified by City Council. The board also rejected the FOP’s stopgap request to stay the cases.

  John Catanzara, the fiery union chief, has argued that other public workers are already afforded the option of going to an arbitrator, and police are being held to another standard. After learning of the police board ruling, Catanzara insisted “there is absolutely nothing that is going to prevent this from taking place and becoming a reality.”
  

Also once again, John has been counting chickens before the eggs are hatching. This is an unfortunate reality of police being unable to bring any true pain to the city via job action. Police end up relying on arbitrators and lawsuits to enforce any sort of fairness.

We've often said Police aren't above the law, but neither do they deserve to be under it. That should apply to job requirements and contract protections.

Illegals for Thee, not for Me

Interesting "tweet:"

Anyone know why certain progressive aldercreatures aren't accepting (or accepting less) illegals in their wards? Asking for a friend.

 

And what's this?

 

This asshole wants MORE illegals, at a cost in excess of $50 million per month.

TSSSSSSSS Card "Scandal"

Pardon our laughter at this one:

• Twenty years ago, a state senator from the South Side sponsored groundbreaking legislation to combat racial profiling by police. The 2003 law required law enforcement agencies throughout Illinois to compile and report data on traffic stops in their jurisdictions, including the race of the driver, the circumstances of the stop and the outcome. 

  The Illinois Traffic Stop Statistical Study Act was hailed as a promising tool against the widespread police practice of stopping a disproportionate number of Black drivers, often with little or no cause, for what critics dubbed “driving while Black.” 

  [...]

  Yet today Obama’s signature state legislative accomplishment lies in ruins. The percentage of traffic stops involving Black drivers continues to rise. More law enforcement agencies aren’t complying with the law. And the state seems incapable of reversing the tide.

This was supposed to be a two year study, now in its twentieth year, and was Sparklefart's sole legislative accomplishment predicated on widespread "racial profiling." Just so you all know, there has not been a single instance of racial profiling ever proven by this twenty-year monstrosity:

• The Illinois Department of Transportation, which administers data collection for the program, reported in 2019 that the results do not “prove that there is racial profiling but may be taken as the basis for further inquiry.”

We wrote numerous posts over the years about how this entire premise was bullshit. If you're working in 007, almost 100% of your stops are going to be of one race. That doesn't mean you're profiling. And we pointed out that due to disparate economic situations, certain persons might decide groceries were more important than fixing a busted tail light. That doesn't make them evil.

The bigger trouble is that the exempt structure of the CPD decided that TSSS cards were a perfectly adequate method to measure police/citizen interactions. And they're not going to let it go that easily since almost every one of them got promoted on the backs of coppers doing traffic stops.

Unanimous Vote for Larry

Two missing aldercreatures, but still 48-0:

• Larry Snelling’s days in the $260,004-a-year hot seat reserved for Chicago’s police superintendent probably won’t get any better than Wednesday.

  By a 48-0 vote, the Chicago City Council confirmed the man Mayor Brandon Johnson called a “son of Englewood,” with alderpersons from across the city singing his praises as the antithesis of David Brown, his unpopular predecessor.

The posturing started immediately:

• Council rules were suspended to give Snelling an opportunity to address the body, pleading with alderpersons and the people they represent to treat his officers with respect, to join them in fighting crime and, above all, to judge them fairly.

  “Anybody will tell you this: I hold officers accountable. I will call officers out. When we have bad officers, I will call them out. But when our officers are held accountable, they have to be held accountable fairly,” said Snelling, 54.

Progressive aldercreatures are still going to pander to their leftist base, even with a 48-0 vote.

Larry is still going to follow orders, even if it's to strip Officers attempting to exercise bodily autonomy.

Now word is leaking out that the Department is at least 1,900 officers short, and that's on top of the 2,000 unfilled spots Groot and Rahm eliminated in their budgets, and so far this year CPD retirements are outpacing hiring.

Death spiral in full swing.

Noah! Load the Ark!

The 011th District has had its share of problems over the years. Mold, asbestos, being located on the west side of Chicago. There was a station fire triggered by an electrical panel along with the usual heating/air conditioning issues. It was "targeted" for a rocket attack by Libyan connected gang bangers a long time ago and nowadays, the parking garage is collapsing.

They even flooded a few years back when some pipes broke and guess what happened again?

The flooding has moved out of the locker room and into the Roll Call room. This can't be healthy for any of the Officers and goodness only knows how the Lobby Illegals might be affected.

Maybe it's time for a new station?

Trial (UPDATE: Good News)

This one slipped under the radar entirely. We remember the shooting, but we didn't realize Crimesha had filed charges against the police:

• Tribune coverage
• Slum Times coverage

Verdict later today, and lets hope the Chicago Police don't act like demonized yutes in Philadelphia if the verdict doesn't go their way. 

UPDATE: Finding of Not Guilty at bench trial:

• A Cook County judge on Thursday acquitted two Chicago police officers accused of shooting an unarmed man last summer in Pilsen and then lying about how it happened.

  Judge Lawrence Flood ruled Sgt. Christopher Liakopoulos, 44, and Officer Ruben Reynoso, 43, were within their rights to protect themselves when they opened fire, wounding Miguel Medina twice on July 22 of last year.

  “The officers were not the aggressors,” Flood said in his ruling from his bench on the fifth floor of the Leighton Criminal Courthouse. “It’s Medina and [a juvenile] who approached [the officers’] vehicle.”

  The audience in the gallery of the courtroom, packed with supporters, officers and police union officials, erupted in applause at the verdict and had to be quieted by a courtroom deputy.

This case was so weak that even Crimsha's office couldn't win with a fixed case.

Fuck Crimesha "Clown" Foxxx.

Illegal Flood Continues

Twenty-seven buses in four days:

• ....the number of asylum-seekers has surpassed 15,000 with the arrival of 27 buses since Saturday, including seven on Wednesday. With the city running out of room to house them — as thousands sleep on police station floors and at airports awaiting shelter placement — Mayor Brandon Johnson on Wednesday defended his administration’s decision to contract with a private security firm to help place the new asylum-seekers in base camps before winter.

Whatever BJ has planned probably isn't going to work. And if it gets close to working, it's going to bankrupt Chicago.

Here's a Strange Idea

One-hundred-sixty years ago, President Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address and included this line:

• ...that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Of course, since that time, the idea that citizens might participate in and be represented by their ....you know - Representatives .... has deteriorated beyond imagination.

But now, a Chicago aldercreature has discovered that sinking poll numbers are a real thing and that his constituents are getting pissed off:

• Branding the migrant crisis a “bottomless pit” threatening to swallow taxpayers, Ald. Anthony Beale (9th) wants to give voters their first opportunity ever to determine whether Chicago remains a sanctuary city.

  Beale plans to introduce a resolution asking his City Council colleagues to put a binding referendum on the March ballot, asking this question: “Should the city of Chicago continue to keep its designation as a Sanctuary City?”

  If the answer is, “Yes,” the caravans that have brought over 15,000 migrants to Chicago — including 18 busloads last week, 12 more over the weekend and eight more busloads and two more flights on Tuesday — will continue.

  [...] But to get the question on the ballot, Beale first needs 26 alderpersons to vote for it. That won’t be easy in a Council controlled by allies of the most progressive mayor in Chicago history.

That's a tall order to fill and we don't know if Beale is up to the task. On a good day, he might get 15-to-18 votes. But he might get a few extra as the community outrage continues to simmer. The fact is things aren't quite bad enough to put him over the top and BJ can't afford to compromise and look weak.

Clown Derides "Clown Show"

Takes one to know one we suppose:

• Republicans who hold a majority in the U.S. House and whose infighting is risking a federal government shutdown by week’s end sought to focus attention Tuesday on a frequent target, Chicago crime and Democratic criminal justice policies, in a field hearing of the House Judiciary Committee.

  The hearing at the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7 was chaired by Republican Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, who co-founded the far-right Freedom Caucus that is playing a major role in the budget resolution delay. No Democrats attended and GOP panel members posed questions, such as one from Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, asking, “Is Chicago savable? Or, is the city in such a downward trajectory that our only hope is to make sure that these policies don’t spread to other places?”

Short answer - nope, not by a long shot.

• [Crimesha] Foxx told the Tribune she was not invited to testify at the hearing, which she described as a “clown show” and “an exercise in political theater that came at the cost of the exploitation of the loss of Black and brown lives.”

We don't think a Republican holds a significant office in Cook County, and hasn't in three or four decades. In Chicago, it's even longer - nearly a hundred years.

And in that time, how many black and brown lives have been "exploited?" In this case, we're using "exploited" as meaning "killed." Tens of thousands?

Yes, it's political theater, but it's a result of democrat policies.

Friday Night Floods

From the "Crop Circles" post, a few old timers chiming in:

• When we had incidents like these we would open the hydrants and if that wasn’t enough we had an CFD engine come out and saturate the area.
• Did anyone ever think of opening up a fire hydrant.
• We used to open up the fire hydrants in 011 near where the new Academy is.
• ... they'd do that to stop the drag racers on Ohio over by Ferdinand and Tripp in the late night hours.

We're looking at the calendar and discovering that we're an old-timer all of the sudden. We had a sergeant who'd go to midnight Roll Call, then go to the Watch Commander's office to take out the hydrant key, and head right over to the District drag strip and open the pipes for an hour or so. 

Voila! No calls for drag racers and a far more peaceful shift that what might have been. Nowadays, we'll bet lawyers would be lined up waiting for any excuse to sue the city and the officer opening the hydrant, not to mention the imagined environmental "impact" from keeping the streets quiet and clean.

Whatever happened to that "drag racing task force" we heard about? Was that order on the "stop sticks" part of that fantasy?

Anyone Bored?

Here's a hobby for you if you have some hours to kill:

• (OT) coppers asking about tracking ppp loans here it is:
  
  https://projects.propublica.org/coronavirus/bailouts/
  
  Type in a name business 

 If it's run like other sites, you have to be very very specific when searching by name:

• middle initials, with or without (John Doe; John R Doe)
  
• middle initials with and without the period after (John R. Doe; John R Doe)
• apostrophes or spaces around the O ( O'Doe; O Doe; McDoe Mc Doe)

Addresses and zip codes might give you tens of dozens, even hundreds of names to look at. We're pretty sure this is how the aldercreature was spotted by some curious citizens.

We're curious as to how the various Inspector Generals got so many teachers and other government scammers.

We Were Just Wondering....

We saw a few comments about it, and then :::poof!!!::: the Tribune has a whole story on it:

• A month after two women were hit by gunfire while sitting in the bleachers during a White Sox game at Guaranteed Rate Field, the shooting that stunned the city and made news around the country appears no closer to being solved than it was in the hours after the incident, sources said.

  Rumors and hearsay, peddled largely by content aggregators on social media, have done little to quell speculation about the shooting — which, in the nearly 150-year history of Major League Baseball, is believed to be perhaps just the fourth instance of a fan being shot while inside a big league ballpark.

And this gem:

• The woman was shot in the inner thigh and through the calf, one high-ranking police source said, giving the firing of the weapon the trademarks of a pistol accidentally discharging in someone’s pocket.

  The idea the shot came from outside the South Side ballpark would make it “a magic bullet even JFK would be proud of,” said the source, who has knowledge of the progress of the investigation. The source predicted a protracted investigation with few avenues for determining what took place.

"...one high-ranking police source said..." Got to love that even when ordered to shut up and stand down, there is still at least one person willing to tell the actual truth....especially when the evidence of a self-inflicted GSW is right there for everyone to see. Ask a few of the range officers - they all have a story about someone's negligent discharge.

Anyone think it's Fred Waller? After all, didn't he say, "I'm not going to pour syrup over shit and tell you it's pancakes" way back in 2018? And then he had to be bound-and-gagged by BJ when he said the detectives has all but ruled out a shot coming from outside the stadium.

Exercise in Futility?

Or an attempt at martyrdom?

• Regular readers of CWB may find this hard to believe. And, no, we haven’t been hacked.

  A Chicago police officer engaged a carload of armed men in a high-speed, cross-city chase Sunday night after the group, suspected of at least nine holdups, committed three robberies in Lincoln Park and on the Near North Side.

  Sunday night’s first robbery was reported around 11 p.m. outside the Armitage Brown Line station in the 900 block of West Armitage. A 42-year-old woman told Chicago cops she was walking on the sidewalk when four men got out of a white SUV and took her purse at gunpoint, according to a CPD media statement.

  A Near North (18th) District tactical sergeant spotted the white vehicle minutes later on Halsted Street. And the chase was on.

One one hand, "Bravo!" for doing what we were hired to do, trained to do, and up until a few years ago, expected to do.

One the other hand, "What the Hell are you thinking?"

• “I’m not going to terminate [the chase] myself until we crash,” he radioed as he pursued the car toward the United Center. “It’d be great if I could get some help. I’m all by myself.”

  And there’s the rub. Despite the cop’s efforts, putting his career at risk should anything bad happen during the chase, he had no backup to help him. No police helicopters were up. The state police weren’t in the area.

  Worst of all, perhaps, as the sergeant chased the car through a West Side police district, one of that district’s sergeants ordered his units not to pursue the robbers.

  “I haven’t seen one squad car,” the sergeant radioed around 11:22 p.m., about a minute before the crew bailed out near 15th and Drake. They ran from the scene, and the lone sergeant, soon joined by local district officers since the chase had ended, searched for them. No luck. The group got away.

That “I’m not going to terminate [the chase] myself until we crash,” is begging for a problem.

And the "...as the sergeant chased the car through a West Side police district, one of that district’s sergeants ordered his units not to pursue the robbers" is a BIGGER problem.

Believe it or not, we used to chase people. And folks. And we have a drawer full of awards proving it. But after numerous trips to Federal Court and a complete collapse of political support for actually engaging criminals, we backed off. We did a "risk / reward" analysis and it wasn't difficult to see which way the winds were blowing. We didn't like it; it wasn't what we signed up for. But it was reality, and we adapted. We aren't stupid like that Koniarski woman.

We can't say the sergeant from 018 was wrong. Far far from it. Victims don't want to be victims and they'd really like to have their property back. But we'll bet those victims gave up their property pretty quick when faced with a gun/knife/beating threat.

What we can say, and have said, is that from a risk/reward standpoint, we can't justify it. The sergeant might be outraged at crime. He might be pissed at what that the Department has become little more than "crime monitors" or whatever that TV commercial said. We've felt the same thing. But we can't justify continuing on, trying to get other coppers to commit to what might turn out to be the worst experience of their careers. The risk is too high.

Voters elected "progressive" politicians who embrace crime, criminals, and the thought that these ne'er-do-wells are only trying to feed their families or some such bullshit. Until they feel enough is enough, we don't know that it will change in the near or distant future. We can only control our reaction to it.

Spot the Connection!

CWB Blog is working harder than most major media outlets these past few days, and no wonder! Crime is out of control:

• Four Depaul students mugged
• UIC mugger
• Three Loyola students robbed

Hmmm.....DePaul, UIC, Loyola. 

Do you think the criminals are targeting EXACTLY where they know the liberal student bodies (and even more liberal faculty employees) marched and protested against the police, knowing the police probably don't want to hang out where they aren't wanted or supported?

Damn, we're pretty smart sometimes.

Snelling Era Approaches

The theater is in full swing now:

• Mayor Brandon Johnson’s choice to be Chicago’s next police superintendent sailed through a City Council committee Friday following a hearing where the South Side native and 31-year Police Department veteran delivered the progressive administration’s most strident support for cops yet.

  Chief Larry Snelling, the department’s current chief of counterterrorism and a longtime instructor at the training academy, received unanimous support from the council’s Police and Fire Committee. His confirmation now heads for a final vote Wednesday, when a special council meeting will be held.

The standard company lines about "doing better" with officers' mental well-being....after years of destroying it:

• Asked by Ald. Angela Clay, 46th, how he would support his officers’ mental health after a spate of suicides within the department, Snelling stressed: “These are human beings.”

  “I saw them through civil unrest and I saw what they dealt with. I saw the names that they were called. The yelling and screaming. I saw the 16 hours (per day) they worked, dehydrated, hungry, sleep-deprived,” Snelling continued. “They responded the way the city needed them to respond to stop the city as a whole from burning down. They were taunted, and then they went home and then got up and came back to work the next day to do it all over again.”

  He finished with: “Again, there are a lot of things that we can do better as a police department. But we have to support those people who are standing between those who will do you harm, because they’re the only ones who will stop them.”

Do you also remember when Snelling was stripping officers of their stars and credentials for refusing a "vaccine" that has turned out to have almost no curative powers, no long-term immunity benefits and countless myocardial side effects? We do. Better remember it in the upcoming months, too.

So now we have to see some actions - and the recent past history of being a chump who just followed Groot's orders is fresh in our memories. That's going to take a lot of effort to counteract.

Chicago Crop Circles

Sent by a reader:

This is downtown, but be careful all over. 

Big stink about drag racing over in Garfield Ridge. A couple pedestrians died over the past few years in the area and it shows no signs of abating.

Intended Consequence

This post is a bit lengthy, but stick with it. It may change your way of thinking slightly.

A number of people have cited our recent “Threats” posts as examples of the “Streisand effect” named for Barbra’s attempts to sue a California government agency for pictures documenting ocean coastal erosion which incidentally showed her mansion. Her efforts to ban the photos resulted in millions of people wanting to see the pictures instead of just a few dozen government bureaucrats. People want to see what is forbidden to them, especially if the government or so-called “elites” want it: Hunter’s laptop, Epstein’s client list, celebrity sex tapes, etc.

Think of it as the “Law of Unintended Consequences.” We have taken great amusement in pointing it out over the years. In fact, we benefited from one of the greatest missteps in CPD history when Phil Cline banned us from department computers. The aim was to wound/kill the tiny trickle of leaks that were embarrassing to the political/exempt structure. The result was readership jumping from a few hundred per day to over ten thousand overnight, and from there, thirty thousand daily until a scandal broke.....and then it was fifty thousand. Every day. Oops.

Now we had a troll - Jennifer Koniarski - threaten us with (A) exposure of our identities and (B) a lawyer if we didn’t remove a publicly accessible document issued by the Illinois Appellate Court and available on dozens of legal research sites. As a purely UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCE and with ZERO EFFORT on our part, her name and lawsuit are now linked as the #1 search of three major search engines.

That wasn’t us. But this is.

We constantly (and rightly) belittle the media. We bemoan the fact that there are no investigative reporters at the major outlets any more. They manufacture scandals and do zero follow-up based on the outrage of the day. Over most of two decades, we have posted all sorts of breadcrumbs attempting to lead investigative reporters to actual scandal. The hints are still in the archives.

Here’s another one, directly related to the Law of Unintended Consequences and tying in with not only the “Threats” posts, but also the Pension Board slow-walking Duty Disability benefits to Officers wounded in the Line of Duty.

Go read that PUBLICLY AVAILABLE OPEN-SOURCED finding by the Illinois Appellate Court:

• Pay attention to Page 2, Paragraph 7 - a determination of disability;
• Now, Page 4, Paragraph 13 - a brace and cane prescribed;
• Pages 5 and 6, Paragraphs 18-22 involve the Medical Integrity Unit videotaping Koniarski lifting things and walking without a cane or brace in contradiction of medical recommendations;
• Pages 6 and 7, Paragraphs 23-27 - the doctors amended their diagnoses to counter the videotapes. After Koniarski was filmed carrying a 37-pound microwave across a short distance, one doctor suddenly specified a 40-pound restriction over 1000 feet. How convenient!
  

Amazingly, we have Officers with bullet fragments in their bodies and their heads, losing an eye, losing hearing in both ears, dying twice on the way to the hospital, who end up in a No Pay status, while Koniarski has FOUR separate doctors appearing at Pension Board hearings to amend diagnoses after she was videotaped on multiple occasions not following medical advice.

• Breadcrumb #1 - why are grievously wounded cops being put in no-pay status? Spare us the "It's been this way for thirty years" bullshit.
  
• Breadcrumb #2 - who are these four doctors available to a PPO who never graduated the Academy? And how many other disability cases are they handling?

Because these “unintended consequences” have real victims at both ends - wounded cops being fucked with and taxpayers being fucked.

By the way, we have still received no apology and will continue to post the open source link as we feel like it. Welcome to internet immortality dumbass.

More Illegals Headed North

Darn those Texans, making the virtue-signaling idiots in blue state shitholes live with the consequences of their voting:

• Volunteers assisting with the effort to care for asylum-seekers who have arrived in Chicago said Saturday rates of arrival are higher than ever before.

  Annie Gomberg, a lead volunteer organizer at the Austin District station on the West Side, said she received an email from a top immigrant staffer with Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration informing volunteers to expect five buses of migrants to arrive Saturday, which would be the largest number of buses carrying asylum-seekers the city has ever received in one day.

  The volunteers late Saturday were still trying to determine how many buses actually arrived, but the email from Rey Wences-Najera, first deputy mayor of immigrant, migrant and refugee rights, underscored the concern many share as they scramble on a daily basis to provide basic care for new arrivals.

And not just Chicago:

• More migrant buses from Texas are en route to New York, despite Governor Hochul’s demand that any illegal aliens thinking of coming to New York City go someplace else. It couldn’t happen to a better smug “all are welcome here” Democrat.

Was it last summer when a busload or two of illegals ended up at Martha's Vineyard? They barely even got to sniff the sea air before the rich democrats shipped them off site. Texas needs to make this more painful for the so-called "elites" in their gated and exclusive communities.

More Chicago Scandal

Jason Erwin is an aldercreature with a shady background. He owns/owned properties in Maywood, at least one of which was allegedly used as a crackhouse. There was the bachelor party stripper video filmed in what was said to be his aldermanic office.

Now his wife is appearing in headlines for some shady shit where the Groot administration was hiding email records and now her office being the subject of a computer seizure by the Inspector General:

• City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin acknowledged asking BMO Harris about providing a loan to her husband’s landlord, a key allegation contained in a recently released 2020 letter from two former treasurer employees who accused Conyears-Ervin of repeatedly misusing taxpayer resources and abusing the powers of her office.

We're also told that there are allegedly four PPP loans in her name. The four loans are all of a similar nature, but have four different addresses, so we don't know what that means. That there are four different individuals with the same name applying for four different loans? We suppose it's possible.

After all, there are allegedly three PPP loans in the name of aldercreature Angela Clay, and there were a couple news stories about her financial issues.

All sorts of breadcrumbs that an enterprising reporters could make a meal out of....if there were any.

Cashless Bail Jumper in PA

Anyone not see this coming?

• If we told you that a man accused of carrying $1.6 million in fentanyl in Pittsburgh didn't show up for his court date after being released on non-cash bail earlier this month, would you be surprised?

  Us neither.

  But that was precisely the case in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, where 27 year old Carlos Pichardo Cepeda failed the appear for court. The New Yorker "is accused of carrying hundreds of thousands of fentanyl doses at a Pittsburgh bus station," according to Triblive.com.

  Pichardo Cepeda was previously handed a nonmonetary bond by a district judge and released after his arrest. This past Tuesday was his second court date that he missed, the report says. Republicans are blaming the cashless bail while Democrats are placing blame on the DA's office dragging its feet in prosecuting the case.
  

We're sure the stories are going to be rolling in from across Illinois in short order. CWB Blog already has a subtitle "Cashless Bail" they've used for a couple stories. We figure they'll be the only ones covering it regularly....the same way they were the only outlet covering criminals on electronic monitoring committing more robberies, shootings and homicides.

Punch Line

That aunt-queef-duh "Stop Cop City" graffiti in 020 a few weeks back was a reference to a public safety training complex being built in Atlanta, Georgia. The campus is a combined EMT/Fire/Police training facility meant to bring Atlanta first responders up to high standards expected of public safety officials. 

Brain dead leftists keyed in on the police training part of it and inspired protests, sit-ins and vandalism of the site. For a bunch of softballs who bitch about how badly police react to dynamic evolving scenarios, you'd think a better trained police force would be at the top of their demands. You'd be wrong.

But "Cop City" has it's supporters among the normies in Atlanta, and you'll never guess why they want a training facility built:

• Fulton County resident Mike Russell said the name “Cop City” is not representative of the overall project.

  “Every time you hear somebody call it cop city you know they aren’t telling the truth,” he said. “We don’t want to become the next Chicago or Detroit.”

Chicago has devolved into a punchline that Atlanta citizens want to avoid at all costs.

The authorities in Georgia have arrested a bunch of the domestic terrorists there - actually charging them with domestic terrorism - and amazingly, they're just about all from places other than Georgia. Hopefully, they're guests of Georgia for the next ten or twenty years.

We're All Going to Get Shot

The only politician with a lower approval rating than president potato is going to head up a gun violence Prevention Task Force:

• With the nation grappling with chronic gun violence — and with Congress unlikely to pass any new laws — President Joe Biden on Friday launched a first-ever White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention, with Mayor Brandon Johnson, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Ill., in the Rose Garden for the kick-off ceremony.

  Vice President Kamala Harris will oversee the new office Biden created by executive order, as the focus of the White House and the groups working to curb gun violence increasingly look to state and local laws to take actions, since Republicans in Congress have no inclination to back more gun-related measures.

If Kamala is as good at gun violence prevention as she is at border control, we're all going to be counting bullet holes in our bodies by Halloween.

Blue-on-Blue

So what happens when a blue shithole city gets sick of handling thousands of illegals coming over the border....and the ski resorts are about to open?

• Texas Gov. Greg Abbott’s decision to bus migrants to Democrat-leaning sanctuary cities is having the ripple effect the three-term Republican governor likely intended.

  While the city of Denver, Colorado, has welcomed more than 18,400 migrants since last Christmas, a report from The Colorado Sun finds that 6,739 of them were bused to other cities — mostly Chicago and New York City. The Sun reports the city has paid for one-way tickets for migrants trying to reach other parts of the country.

Denver is shipping them out, mayor BJ is warning of massive tax hikes on the horizon for Chicago, thousands of Californians with the money to do so are leaving their state, and the mayor of New York is warning his city is doomed. 

It's a great time to be alive.

How "Merit" Begins

SWAT is legit, right? For years we heard about how it was the only legit Unit in the Department with strenuous physical standards and rigorous marksmanship tests. You want the best trained and best shooters in a Unit like SWAT.

Funny thing though....supposedly an FOIA request revealed this:

• From: Loughran, Sean R.

  Sent: Tuesday, December 14, 2021 9:17 PM

  To: #Exempt

  Subject: New SWAT Applications Being Accepted

  All

  The SWAT application processes for POs and Sgt's was announced yesterday.

  Please read Department Employee Resource Directives E05-15 and E05-25 for details regarding the SWAT application process.

  In short, I'm asking all Exempts to consider who would be an excellent candidate for the Team. We've made some adjustments that maintain the integrity of the process, but allow us to still identify and draw the strongest candidates without lowering the standard.

  We aren't making it easier, per se, just realizing that we were potentially passing over some that would legitimately make excellent Operators. This should correct that process, capture those qualified individuals and allow us to expand the Team according to the Superintendent's long-term plan.

  Please pass this along to your Lts so the interest can be sparked, as its a short urn around. We are also sending out SWAT members to speak at roll calls this week in case there's any questions.

  Thank you,

  Sean Loughran

  Deputy Chief, Office of the First Deputy Superintendent

The date of this e-mail is almost two years ago, but it takes time to get FOIA requests pushed through the red-tape. We think it's legit....check out the weasel words:

• ...made some adjustments...
• ...identify and draw the strongest candidates without lowering the standard."
• We aren't making it easier, per se....
• ...should correct that process...

Look at the author - ol' Elf "Look at my Christmas package in this red leotard!" on-the-Shelf himself.

This - if legit - is horseshit. If you didn't take the tests and you didn't pass the tests, you shouldn't be there, especially given the types of situations SWAT responds to. But this is how "merit" is born.

===

By the way, the Jennifer Koniarski's Pension Board case? Here's a link!

Travesty

They might let this cop killer out of prison:

• A man imprisoned since 1976 in the shooting death of a Chicago police officer could be freed this year after an appellate court panel set aside his 200-year sentence as excessive and ruled that his chances for parole were unfairly denied.

  This decision comes after decades of failed appeals by Ronnie Carrasquillo, Travesty65, who was 18 in 1976 when he fired into a gang-related melee and killed Officer Terrence Loftus, who was in plainclothes, trying to break up the fight.

  In a 27-page opinion, an appellate court panel ruled that Carrasquillo should be resentenced based on changing legal precedents regarding how youthful offenders are treated and how mitigating factors, such as prison rehabilitation, are considered in sentencing.

The biggest "changing legal precedent" in recent years is the denigration of the Policing profession and political hatred of Police Officers labeling them as sub-human, unworthy of protections.

Crimesha vigorously opposed letting a cop killer go:

• ...State’s Attorney Kim Foxx told the parole board she no longer opposed his release...

Way to go Crimesha. Still the criminal's bestest friend. Busloads of coppers have made the trip downstate to oppose this shithead's release for years now. Last time, he was denied parole by an 8-to-1 vote. Hopefully that continues.

===

If anyone is interested in reading about Jennifer Koniarski's Pension Board case, here's a link.

GunsSaveLife.com Link

So the folks over at GunsSaveLife.com picked up on our "threatener:"

• So yesterday, fellow Illinois blog Second City Cop was threatened by a woman.  She claimed “her case” was “her business” and to remove it from SCC.  Or else.

  What was this case?  It involved Jennifer Koniarski who suffered an ankle injury in her third week at Chicago’s Police Academy in 2003.  She hadn’t even finished three weeks into a 16-week academy, but she filed a disability claim.  Somehow, even though she wasn’t a police officer yet, she managed to get her claim approved and has been drawing disability even though she wasn’t a sworn officer for a single day.

  The state, having investigated her claim, recorded her doing all manner of physical activities she claimed she couldn’t do.  Without so much as a limp.  In so many words, the powers that be discontinued her benefits.  She sued and the Appellate Court reinstated her benefits.

This is getting amusing on many levels now.

Threats Update

So it's been......around fifteen-and-one-half hours since we demanded an apology from an ignorant troll.

We didn't get a phone call at work asking for us by name. We have received nothing in the comments or e-mail, which truth be told, is what we expected. As a commentator said, "Threats based upon disclosure of public records are ridiculous."

So it looks like we're going to have to "take steps" as we said. 

As of this moment, we've done exactly nothing. But we discovered this: 

• We did a Google search of the name "Jennifer Koniarski." Over 927,000 results and guess what the #4 result was?  "Threats Against the Blog"
• Amused, we did a Bing Search of the name "Jennifer Koniarski." There were 3.8 million results, and coming in at #1.... "Threats Against the Blog."
• Rounding it out, we did a DuckDuckGo search of the name "Jennifer Koniarski." No search totals, but coming in at #1...."Threats Against the Blog."
  

All that from a single mention of "Jennifer Koniarski." Those "web crawler" robots have gotten much more efficient over the years. It used to take a week or so for things to even register on Google.

We have now mentioned "Jennifer Koniarski" five times in this post, and failing to get our apology in the next eight-and-one-half hours, we'll be mentioning and linking the PUBLICLY ACCESSIBLE Court finding in numerous other posts because the public deserves to be fully informed.

UPDATE: Google #1 search, all without lifting a finger.

COPA Made Shit Up

Friend of the Blog and Contrarian founder Florian Sohnke levels the big guns at COPA:

• For those who are unfamiliar with COPA’s latest fool’s errand, here is what we know. On July 6, COPA received a complaint alleging an officer serving at CPD’s 10^th District had engaged in an improper sexual relationship with an underage migrant sheltering at the Ogden station. A most serious charge, the claim against the officer contended a illegal minor had been impregnated as a result of the improper contact. It was also alleged multiple officers — at least four — had engaged in sexual acts with illegals in Ogden.

  A story which spread at the speed of light, when the allegations of CPD misconduct were aired in public, it inspired predictable results: Chicago media lost its collective mind, the anti-police movement mobilized and deluged CPD with searing rebukes, and community groups staged protests outside the 10^th District building. In this universe of effete liberal opinion, the presumption of innocence is never granted, and officers are always presumed guilty. To the collective of over-caffeinated community organizers, the accused officers were guilty not because the charges were buttressed with evidence whatsoever, but rather because of their physical, familial, and genetic features. All five men were white, male, and served with CPD.

Sohnke also has sources that verify a long suspected truth:

• Sources in CPD’s 10^th District have also confirmed the nature of the complaint is found in an acrimonious divorce proceeding and the officer at the center of the claim has not been summoned to speak with COPA.

COPA's entire mission is based on shaping knee-jerk outrage into anti-police narratives that have no basis in reality. Combined with all of the other anti-police movements, it's amazing a single criminal gets arrested any more.

Go read it all.

Illegals Behaving Illegally

It's devolving....rapidly:

• Two Venezuelan migrants living in a Chicago Police Department station lobby were apparently evicted from the facility after fighting over a mattress.

  Joseph Vega, 28, and Cristian Diaz, 27, lived at the Central (1st) District station in the South Loop when Diaz “incited violence against Vega” regarding the mattress, officers wrote in an arrest report. The report said the men were “brawling” and “exchanging blows” in the middle of State Street.

  The officers referred to the men as fellow “household members” and accused them of putting “approximately 115 migrant shelter seekers/community members … and peace officers in danger and risk of physical harm.”

  Both men were told they were “no longer welcome” at the station due to “reckless and precarious behavior.”

We've also heard the situation outside of 012 is turning into "armed camps" of inside-illegals vs tent-city-illegals with near daily brawls and extortion/protection rackets coming into play.

Threats Against the Blog

So we got a threat yesterday via email. Here's the full text of the email:

• Remove my court case from this blog. It has come to my attention that my court case under Jennifer Koniarski has been posted on your blog twice. My case is my business. It is violation of hipa law. I have a good source and knows who you are. I am giving you 24 hours to remove my court case or I will contact my attorney.

The basis for the complaint is a link posted in the comments section. Two comment sections actually:

• https://ilcourtsaudio.blob.core.windows.net/antilles-resources/resources/453b5da4-64d9-4c79-a248-8837e570586c/1200501_R23.pdf

The link - which is a PDF document - is a Illinois Appellate Court decision handed down two years ago regarding a lawsuit against the Pension Board regarding a termination of benefits.

Let us just highlight a few things:

• it is a lawsuit;
• filed in the courts - which are a branch of government;
• it is resolved by a three judge panel;
  
• as required by law, it is then published BY THE COURT in a public forum, accessible to anyone with a computer in any part of the world.....except Red China we suppose;
• it was posted by a reader without comment - no allegations, no identifying names aside from the open source link we posted above;
  

And now we're being threatened with....something? 

We did a quick search by name and case number, and this case is posted in dozens of places, public court records, legal research websites, you get the idea. It's out there.

So how about this instead: 

• We are giving YOU - Jennifer L McClendon/Koniarski - twenty-four hours to issue an apology to us. There are two ways for you to do this:
• You claim to know who we are, so we assume you know where we work and what shift we work. We'll be waiting at the desk for a phone call. You will ask for us by name, identify yourself, and apologize for this nonsense. Be prompt - half past the hour following Roll Call. We have calls to answer and our supervisor can be a bear;
• If that doesn't float your boat, you will email us an apology. You will state that your case is a matter of public record, filed with the courts and posted on government and legal websites, and acknowledge the blog has no control over this. You will state you really have no reason or means to order us to remove what is already publicly and prominently available to anyone who cares to look. You will properly use the word HIPAA;
• Failing both of these completely reasonable suggestions, we will take steps. Step One is to put that link at the top of EVERY SINGLE POST for a day, just so everyone decides to click on it and read it - it's only fourteen pages. Step Two will be to post it every week until we get bored.
• We won't comment on the merits of the case, the decision itself or any further appeals - we'll just post a publicly available court opinion made available by a branch of government in accordance with the Law in an effort to keep any and all interested parties informed....kind of a public service of sorts.
  

Can you imagine what the internet search algorithms will do? We used to get between thirty-and-fifty-THOUSAND unique visits every day from six continents before The Hiatus. Since we've been back, we're doing around half that traffic, but the numbers are going up every day.

Looking forward to hearing from you.

(comments will be heavily monitored here....HEAVILY monitored....we  might even shut 'em down)

Bidenville Takes Shape

$29.3 million for tent city:

• Chicago has taken the first concrete step to deliver on Mayor Brandon Johnson’s controversial plan to get more than 2,000 migrants off the floors of police stations, O’Hare and Midway airports and into giant tent cities he prefers to call “winterized base camps” before temperatures plummet.

  Piggybacking onto an existing state procurement, the city has signed a $29.3 million contract with GardaWorld Federal Services LLC for “migrant temporary housing.”

  “The purpose of this Purchase Order is to allow the City to purchase from the State Contract temporary housing solutions and related services … to provide critical services to asylum seekers,” according to the contract, signed Sept. 12.

Anyone have a list of corporate officers for GardaWorld? Any nephews or nieces of aldercreatures or Prickwrinkle or connected judges?

The pictures attached to the linked article are something akin to a military base in the Persian Gulf .... except here, there is no military discipline that makes something like this livable in the short term.

WGN does some actual reporting:

• The company must also provide migrants with bedding, laundry, showers, 3-meals a day and security. There is also a line that says the tents can be heated to 70 degrees if the outside temperature is 40 degrees leading to questions about their warmth in colder weather.

  [...]

  The tent city contract also calls for several other benefits including, all-day child care seven days a week and vans to take migrants to schools, doctor appointments and community resources.

We're going to go out on a limb here and say that these tents aren't solar powered. In fact, there probably won't even be a wind-turbine within the camp borders. 

It's going to be 100% fossil fuels running the heat and cooking the food. But you better buy an electric car, ditch your gas stove, figure out a different way to heat your water and by golly, that old AC unit ain't going to cut it in the Summer of '24!

Guard Your Steak

This is a joke, right?

Someone says this is at Wal*Mart? 

Anti-theft steak?

More Money Wasted

This is from earlier this summer:

• Only on CBS 2, we're hearing directly from the violence prevention and crisis response team launched by Gov. JB Pritzker in Chicago.

  What have they accomplished so far? And are they making a difference? CBS 2's [...] has been asking about this team for months.

  The group of 30 has been at work in Chicago since CBS 2 first started asking about their work before Memorial Day. Cedric Hawkins is one of those workers. He said it can be hard to quantify violence prevention, but they are making a difference.

HeyJackass.com has us about 28 homicides short of last year's to-date total and just under 80 from last years grand total. All for the low low cost of $11 million. 

Next year, they're supposed to get $30 million....with a projected budget deficit of over $500 million. And we all know how accurate government bean counters are.

You Want Them to What?

Jobs? We don't need no stinkin' jobs!

• Fewer than 2% of the tens of thousands of migrants overwhelming New York City have applied for work authorizations — while no one even knows how many more are eligible to apply, The Post has learned.

  Roughly about 800 adult migrants in the Big Apple have filed the proper paperwork to start earning a legal paycheck after nearly 18 months of a border crisis that left the city swamped with a wave of asylum seekers, according to data provided by City Hall.

We've seen reports that the minute they get jobs here, the illegals are tossed out of shelters, which is a sure-fire way to motivate whatever the opposite of a work-ethic is.

How many times have we said it? If you incentivize bad behavior, you're going to get more of it. And the behavior democrats want is unemployed, uneducated and completely reliant on government handouts. You see how it worked in the blue shitholes for decades.

Good Question

Is the current illegal alien "crisis" simply a form of germ warfare revenge against the police for resisting the "vaccine" jabs?

• In the early days of the pandemic, the city was woefully unequipped to address even the most basic protections for officers, lacking even hand sanitizers for the districts. The officers had no idea what they were facing as they climbed into squad cars that had just been dropped off by a previous, potentially infected officer from the earlier shift. They entered hospitals and nursing homes to complete reports or initiate an investigation. Many came down with the virus. Several died. Others were permanently affected by the disease.

  Rather than thank the officers for their commitment, the pandemic was seized upon by the one-party system governing Chicago and Illinois as a means to heighten the war on police in Chicago, by whatever means necessary.

  [...]

   The epidemic’s usefulness to manipulate, intimidate, harass, vilify, and trump up disciplinary charges against cops complete, Chicago is now moving in the opposite direction, using the migrant crisis for the same ends even though the city’s actions make a mockery of its COVID vaccine tactics against officers. The decision to place migrants in police stations poses a significant health risk to the members of the public with whom CPD officers interact.

  Reports have surfaced that migrants have been discovered to be infected with tuberculosis. Similar reports have revealed migrant children with worms. Suddenly, the COVID infection that initiated hysteria against officers doesn’t seem to be a top priority from a city government once threatening to fire those who refused to obtain a vaccine. No such vaccine requirement seems to exist for the migrants, nor is there a demand a portal be established for the illegals to report their status on a weekly basis the way officers must.

Go read the whole thing. 

We'd rather believe it was "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" because we all know how stupid Chicago politicians are.

BJ Discusses Failure

We used to know how to run these things:

• Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson says that his administration made decisions to protect the safety of city residents during Mexican Independence Day celebrations, while calling those parades “a beautiful display of culture.”

Beautiful Display of Culture - Exhibit A:

This guy is such an asshole. Moving on:

• Both Friday and Saturday nights, the Office of Emergency Management and Communication closed access to downtown from Division to 18^th Street, and from DuSable Lake Shore Drive to Halsted Street due to the caravans.

  Access was limited to critical response workers and to residents during those times, with access available only at specific intersections.

Yeah...."limited access" actually meant "no access" as CFD couldn't get anywhere until after 0200 AM and if you needed medical assistance, you had to meet them at a designated location. Hard to do if you're cut badly, been shot, have a broken leg or might be suffering from cardiac arrest. Maybe your relatives can drag you closer?

The Department used to be able to handle crap like this, and not like 1968 either. We participated in a number of large scale events, starting with the Bulls Championships and continuing to the present day. Very few of these events were the disasters of recent history because we had semi-competent supervision that knew what worked, what was available and how to clear an area quickly and efficiently. We didn't have bikes, salt trucks, Jersey barriers, raised bridges....and we still got it done.

We could still get it done with the right people in place.

Chicago Self Immolation

BJ prepares to fire the biggest kill shot into Chicago's future, sealing the death spiral into Detroit:

• The letters are stamped all over the hallways of Chicago’s giant skyscrapers and grand office buildings. DRW, IMC, CME, Cboe.

  These are some of the derivatives firms that collectively handle trillions of dollars a year in trades, greasing the wheels of global markets with everything from stock options to corn futures. Most of them have called Chicago home for decades — providing thousands of jobs within the city’s $75 billion finance industry.

  Now, the firms’ commitment to the Windy City is being tested by some $800 million in taxes proposed by a new mayor staring down a budget gap that’s swelled to half a billion dollars. One idea is a levy on financial transactions, which has alarmed companies already worried about a jump in crime that shows few signs of abating.

BJ thinks he can tax his way out of a rather large hole:

• One of his campaign proposals would generate $20 million annually by reinstating a $4 per employee tax on big businesses. An additional $100 million could come from raising the levy on high-end property purchases — the kinds of homes bought by wealthy finance workers.

  Most importantly for the derivatives industry, Johnson has floated seeking another $100 million with a levy of $1 to $2 for every securities contract traded. That would boost costs by as much as 800%, according to CME.

With downtown posting vacancy rates over 20%, and numerous high-rent leases coming due on mostly empty skyscrapers, a $4 per employee head tax will simply drive out businesses. Many downtown renters already have suburban campuses, so a shift to all suburban locales is a simple matter.

As for a transaction tax, one of the big companies (we can't remember which) ran a test the other month whereby all trading was routed through a duplicate trading floor set up out of Illinois. These aren't the old days of traders crowding the pits, yelling out orders, filling contracts like Dan Aykroyd and Eddie Murphy in Trading Places. Most of that stuff is already done by computers, trading hundreds-of-thousands of shares on tenths-of-percentage shifts in the market.

We are told it went flawlessly, which means that all it would take for them to abandon Chicago and the transaction tax would be a change in IP addresses, which is what one executive warns in the article. New York and LA already lost big companies controlling more than a trillion dollars....each. 

If these bean counters will move a trillion dollars worth of electrons based solely on New York and California tax policies, it's a safe bet Chicago isn't immune.

Follow Up Stories

Just a couple of updates on things we wrote about.

More cops leaving for Florida:

• More Illinois police officers are making the move to Florida, enticed by the Sunshine State's vigorous recruitment efforts.

  The migration has gained momentum following the announcement by Governor Ron DeSantis of a $5,000 bonus for officers who choose to relocate.

  Governor DeSantis reports that approximately 37 Illinois officers have already taken advantage of the offer.

  There is speculation that the recent ban on cash bail in Illinois may be a contributing factor in officers leaving the state. However, Illinois State Representative Carol Ammons emphasizes the importance of maintaining a focus on justice amid these changes.

Ammons is a social justice moron. If cops aren't allowed to do the job they were trained for, why stick around? All we are is a meal ticket for the next big lawsuit. Even with Florida's downsides, there's still plenty of opportunities to do good and make a living without the uncertainty.

A large media outlet discovers what we discovered last week:

• In normal cities, law enforcement arrests criminals, and grocery stores stay open. In Chicago, criminals are free to do as they wish, grocery stores are run out of business, and the mayor thinks socialism is the only possible solution.

  Mayor Brandon Johnson is now proposing government-owned grocery stores in order to combat food deserts in the city, as four Walmart locations and one Whole Foods have all recently closed. Walmart claims its Chicago locations have not been profitable since they opened them 17 years ago, but the “tens of millions of dollars” in losses have “nearly doubled in just the last five years.”

  [...]

  You can predict the result of this move with little effort. Criminals would still be free to steal whatever they like from “Chicagomart” just as they would from other retailers. The stores would run on heavy losses, but those losses would be shouldered by taxpayers instead of a corporation such as Walmart. Chicago residents would be subsidizing shoplifting, and whatever terrible business decisions that the notably incompetent Chicago government would make with the stores.
  

That last paragraph is exactly what we described. Seems there are a few intelligent people still working at media outlets.

No Duty Judges?

What is this now?

• Chief Judge Evans got rid of the after hours duty judge and never notified [law enforcement]?
  

So the "forty-eight hour" rule has just been trimmed down to what?

You arrest anyone after the AM Court Call. 

The State doesn't approve charges or designates a Continuing Investigation before Court the next morning (twenty-four hours).

If the Detectives aren't be able to jump through all the hoops Crimesha's people put in front of them, now there isn't a duty judge available after business hours?

Have you ever tried to get a prisoner on the AM transport van when there's even a sniff of a forty-eight hour deadline? It doesn't happen unless there's a Duty Judge signature on a time stamped piece of paper and even then, it's a crap shoot with County accepting the prisoner.

And Evans just got rid of the overnight Duty Judges? How about Prickwrinkle lay off a few dozen judges now that they're unavailable?