Holy Shit

Looks like the rumor has some foundation:

• Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration is leaving a West Side police commander in his post despite an April recommendation by the city’s Independent Police Review Authority that his police powers be stripped.
  
  The recommendation followed a DNA test bolstering a complaint that Harrison District Cmdr. Glenn Evans, 52, assaulted a South Side arrestee.
  
  The complaint, according to sources close to the case, alleges that Evans threatened to kill Rickey J. Williams, 24, and jammed his police pistol into the man's mouth. The sources spoke on condition they not be identified because they are not authorized to speak with the media.
  
  The DNA test, described in an April 17 laboratory report from the Illinois State Police, found that material swabbed from the weapon “matches the DNA profile” of Williams.

A DNA match on the gun? And Rahm is leaving him in place? 100-1 says he's gone by the close of business Friday. Jason Ervin is going to have a field day with this one.

Again with the SOS Scandal

The scandal that keeps on giving:

• Two of Chicago’s dirtiest cops are at the top of a list of police officers who had generated more than 10 misconduct complaints between 2001 and 2006, according to newly released records.
  
  Keith Herrera and Jerome Finnigan were members of a crew of rogue police officers convicted of home invasions and rip-offs of drug dealers.
  
  Finnigan was convicted in federal court of seeking to have a fellow officer murdered because he thought the cop was a rat.
  
  Herrera was cooperating with law enforcement authorities investigating the crew. He served a short prison sentence, and Finnigan remains behind bars

So the FOP last ditch effort failed. It was a long shot anyway.

The list makes for interesting reading. Quite a bit of it is out of date, assignment-wise. There's at least one exempt on there and a south side lieutenant who has managed to take 55 days suspension time for assorted violations. A number of females. More than a few resignations and guests of the Illinois Department of Corrections, too.

You can bet plaintiff attorneys are burning the midnight oil combing through this document dump.

No Shortages.....But....

McCompstat, Rahmbo and various exempts keep claiming there are no shortages of police, that we're up to strength and every district is fully manned. We've run some numbers and although it seems we're almost up to strength in white shirts, blue shirts are still a bit on the short side.

And then there's this:

• All RDO's cancelled 01-03 Aug. $$$

Fiesta del Sol and Lollapalooza mean there isn't a team getting a day off. Or a night off for that matter. And next weekend is Billiken. And the entire overtime budget was gone in May, so who knows where all this money is coming from.

But hey, no shortages around here.

More Tribune Anti-gun Stuff

This could all be covered in one or two paragraphs (registration required):

• An 86-year-old man who attempted to help police foil an armed robbery at a Crestwood phone store by firing at the fleeing suspect may not have broken the law, but firearms trainers say he ignored a basic rule of carrying a gun in public: Don't try to be a hero.
  
  The man, who has a permit to carry a concealed gun in Illinois, won't face charges for firing two shots outside an ATT store in Crestwood, according to the Cook County state's attorney's office. A police officer pursuing the suspect had to duck for cover, not knowing where the shots were coming from, Crestwood police said. No one was injured.
  
  Officials refused to identify the permit holder involved in the incident Saturday but described him as a "model citizen" in the southwest suburban Cook County village of 11,000 residents.

But the Tribune writers go on for 30 paragraphs and two full pages about how this has "re-ignited" the Concealed Carry debate. Huh?

• This is the second time in a month a concealed carry permit holder has fired a weapon in public in the Chicago area.

"...the Chicago area." Not even Chicago city limits for this one, but by golly, this is out of control! Meanwhile, if you hop over to HeyJackass.com, the July count of NON-Concealed Carry Permit shootings stands at three-hundred-twelve....forty-one of whom have died. Kind of a big difference there.

At first glance, it would appear the Concealed Carry holder is guilty of bad judgement, pursuing an armed offender and firing at him. Had he hit anything, he'd be guilty of a lot more. Had the copper shot the Concealed Carry holder, he'd most likely be justified, but second guessed to death. All that being said, we don't know the details and can only trust the judgement of the Crestwood Police Department and their investigation. The Tribune fails to do that and instead gets all anti-gun preachy.

CHA is Loaded

No wonder they're spending money on $3,000-a-month Gold Coast condos:

• On the day a think-tank publicly released a report that says the Chicago Housing Authority has been socking away hundreds of millions of dollars instead of using it for housing for the poor, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has asked the agency to do more.
  
  “Since HUD learned of the level of the reserves, it has prompted CHA to issue more vouchers,” said Brian Gillen, a spokesman in the Chicago office, in a written statement.
  
  HUD’s push for the CHA to improve its utilization of the housing choice voucher program came as activists gathered outside a City Council hearing Wednesday to demand elected officials and local leaders step in to better monitor the agency.

You know, that $300+ million would cover half of the $600 million balloon payment due to the pension funds.

Oh, and for a chuckle, read down to the last few paragraphs. Another entitled single mother of four wondering where her check is. She blames the CHA for her lot in life, not her inability to stop having kids she can't afford.

WBBM Picks Up Story

Mike Krauser from WBBM NewsRadio was trolling here evidently:

• Mike K said...
  
  Mike krauser, WBBM Newsradio, trying to reach officer Mathews' son. 312-636-9065
  
  7/29/2014 08:06:00 AM

He must have gotten the info from somewhere, because:

• Joey Mathews can still name all five men convicted of killing his father, Chicago Police Officer John Mathews, in Hegewisch 26 years ago, and he’s furious one of them has been coaching youth baseball in the same neighborhood, years after finishing his prison sentence.
  
  WBBM Newsradio’s Mike Krauser reports Joey Mathews was 4 years old when his father was beaten to death by a group of young men near Wolf Lake on the night of May 21, 1988.

There really out to be a good turnout tonight.

Nonbinding Waste of Money

Thanks Quinn and Madigan for wasting everyone's time:

• Gov. Pat Quinn today signed into law a measure to put a non-binding referendum on the fall ballot asking voters whether millionaires should be taxed at a higher rate — a move aimed at helping drive up Democratic turnout.
  
  The measure represents a Plan B for Quinn, who had supported efforts initiated by Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan to have a binding constitutional amendment placed on the ballot to require millionaire incomes to pay an additional 3 percentage points above the current individual income tax rate. That plan went nowhere in the General Assembly.
  
  The ballot proposal signed by Quinn at a Berwyn elementary school asks voters if they think the constitution should be amended to give schools, based on their student population, money from a 3 percent tax on millionaire incomes. The state Revenue Department said such a tax would generate about $1 billion. It would not have the force of law, however.

These tools put this on the ballot so as not to have to face an actual resolution for something feasible, like term limits. You ask people, especially low-information voters, if they'd like to take millionaires' dollars by force via the government, what do you think they're going to answer? And when that happens, who do you think can actually afford to move out of state? Or declare residence in another lower tax location? Has anyone noticed the factories and assembly lines being built across Illinois? There aren't any. And there won't be any millionaires here shortly if this continues.

Did you notice the second paragraph? The plan went nowhere in the General Assembly, so this is a waste of time. The General Assembly is made up of....more than a few millionaires, and they aren't about to cut their own throats.

We were certainly amused to see this poll released Tuesday:

• Gov. Pat Quinn on Tuesday dismissed a recent poll giving his Republican opponent Bruce Rauner a 14-point lead as “phony-baloney” and suggested it’s a bit early to write his political obituary.

Potato-head is in trouble.

Witch Hunt at FDNY

Wasting money hunting down whistleblowers:

• FDNY firefighters are fighting the department’s snooping into their personal phone records to hunt the source of news leaks.
  
  Outraged by FDNY tactics — including subpoenaing cellphone records — the Uniformed Fire Officers Association “strongly recommends” that members not give the department their numbers and delete them from their personnel files, The Post has learned.
  
  The department needs cellphone numbers to reach off-duty personnel in a major emergency. But recently it has been searching phone records to check if members called reporters.

We imagine this is about the recent story of an unqualified FDNY recruit being carried throughout training without being able to pass the physical rigors of the process. It's not like the public should expect a firefighter to be able, you know, climb ladders, drag hoses, extinguish fires or anything physically demanding. "Don't worry about the building burning down around your ears - a capable firefighter will be there shortly!" It's not as if anyone would actually die in a smoky stairwell in a County Building because the fire lieutenant was unable to climb to where people had taken refuge against a door, right?

It's been whispered in our ears that McCarthy has been (and continues) doing something similar. We don't doubt it simply because we know that Barb West conducted an illegal First Amendment investigation once already and Dave Harris gave a speech where he said he was going to shut down the blog because it is "detrimental." The Department hasn't acted on the info acquired because they can't justify a legitimate government need to, but supposedly people with a habit of posting here have been denied management transfers to better spots and one has even been dumped from a decent spot.

Be aware that this isn't a New York phenomena.

FOP Tries a Last Shot

Probably a desperation move, but a move nonetheless:

• The union that represents Chicago police wants to halt the release of internal investigation files for alleged police misconduct.
  
  In an injunction filed Monday in Cook County circuit court, the Fraternal Order of Police claims the release of the information would “unfairly and vexatiously harm the individual officers named therein.” The FOP wants to keep the city from releasing the lists until it has reviewed them for accuracy, according to the injunction. The union claims in the injunction that it’s aware of at least 12 officers whose names are improperly included in some of the files.
  
  A three-judge panel of the Illinois Appeals Court ruled in March that such files would not be exempt from the Illinois Freedom of Information Act. The appellate court’s ruling found that records related to citizen complaints of police misconduct are a matter of public record.

Given that sloppy paperwork that is typical of any large bureaucracy, the City of Chicago has taken notoriously inaccurate record keeping and shoddy paperwork to a science. If the FOP found 12 officers with inaccurate records, you can bet that there are at least 120.

We even heard that there was once a mayor who kept almost no records at all of crooked contracts and such, and when he got a friendly doctor to say he was a bit forgetful, there was hardly a scrap of paper to hang him on or contradict his nonexistent testimony.

As we said - a long shot, but one that could save a hundred or more guys and gals from being painted with an undeserved brush.

Action Over Freed Cop Killer

This was covered in the comment sections and the FOP even put up a post:

• Hey guys, kinda looking for a short notice quick favor. I'm a Cicero Firefighter now, but I am the son of a Chicago Police Officer that was killed in the line of duty on May 21, 1988. He was killed down the street from the house we lived in in the Hegewisch neighborhood. All of his killers have been released from prison, the last two were paroled on March 25, 1999. One of those men, Dean Chavez, one of the more brutal of the five has since come back to the neighborhood and has been coaching youth baseball in the Hegewisch Babe Ruth League, we were able to have him removed on June 23 of this year by the President of National Babe Ruth Leagues (the local charter there is run by his friends). Dean has been claiming that we are violating his civil rights by having him removed from his position and has gone to the media (nothing has been printed or aired yet, but he is trying).
  
  On July 30 at 7PM the Babe Ruth League is having an open meeting at Steve's Lounge in Hegewisch (13200 S Baltimore Ave, Chicago, IL 60633). Dean is planning on bringing family, friends, players, players parents (the few players/parents that DO support him) to the meeting to show support for him and why he deserves to be a role model to these young kids. My family is hoping to reach as many police and firefighters as would be able to make it to the meeting to show the Babe Ruth League that we will not stand for murderers mentoring young minds, I would also like to pressure the entire Babe Ruth Board to step down due to their gross negligence in keeping Dean in as a coach while having full knowledge of this man's history, especially in the neighborhood that he caused so much harm to. Officers, if you can help me get the word out, that would be much appreciated. Thank you!

A cop killer should pretty much rot in hell as far as we're concerned. He certainly shouldn't be coaching coppers' kids in what is widely known as a cops' neighborhood. And that Board ought to be truly ashamed even having this guy on their radar.

There's a few trolls that have been baiting in the comment sections lately. Spare us the crap about "he paid his debt" or other such nonsense - some debts are never repaid. Your comments will be deleted without ever seeing the light of day.

Get to Hegewisch.

Officer Will Recover, but...

A worrisome quote from the Supe:

• Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said he knows the injured officer personally. The veteran was shot in the left bicep, McCarthy said.
  
  “He’s OK,” McCarthy told reporters late Monday morning. “He’s in a lot of pain.”
  
  The officer, assigned to the downtown “entertainment detail,” was just getting off his shift when he saw a man trying to break into a construction site close to the officer’s home, McCarthy said, confirming other reports that the man was armed with a screwdriver.
  
  “It’s not clear how [the officer] got shot,” McCarthy said. “Whether the gun got taken away from him and he got it back, or whether or not it discharged while he was fighting with him.”
  
  The officer may have suffered some permanent damage, McCarthy said.
  
  “He may have some long-term problems with that,” McCarthy said. “But he’s in good spirits in the hospital. He’s obviously upset about the incident and having to take somebody’s life.”

"long-term problems" is never good news. Hopefully, the miracle workers at rehab can get the officer up and running well enough to qualify and serve out his career. Everyone is certainly thankful it wasn't worse, but a long road ahead for our brother officer. Best wishes and good luck.

Aldercreature DUI

Another shining example of leadership:

• A Northwest Side alderman was arrested early Friday morning and charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, an Illinois State Police spokeswoman said today.
  
  Ald. Rey Colon, 35th, was stopped about 1 a.m. Friday on the Eisenhower Expressway near Homan Avenue, police spokeswoman Monique Bond said. Colon was charged with misdemeanor DUI.
  
  Colon, 53, was stopped after his 2006 Honda was seen drifting between westbound lanes without signaling as he prepared to exit the highway, Bond said. After being given field sobriety tests, he was arrested and charged with DUI, driving on an expired license, improper lane use and failure to signal.

Expired license? Ray too busy to stand in line? We're just surprised that an aldercreature drives himself around.

Off Duty Wounded (UPDATE)

Word of an Officer in 014 wounded in a shootout.

Suspect was also hit.

No word on what's going on yet in the media.

UPDATE: Tribune has it:

• Police officers are gathering at John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County this morning after a police-involved shooting in the Bucktown neighborhood.
  
  The shooting happened about 3:30 a.m. in the 1600 block of North Marshfield Avenue, Police News Affairs Officer Ron Gaines said.
  
  The Office of News Affairs could not immediately confirm reports an officer and a suspect were both shot.

Memorial Horses

Fundraiser from the Police Memorial people:

• A charity that provides financial support to injured Chicago police officers and the families of those killed in the line of duty will install as many as 100 life-size horse statues throughout downtown Chicago this fall, organizers said Sunday at an event honoring fallen officers.
  
  The program is modeled after the Cows on Parade public art installation, which began in Chicago in 1999 and has since traveled the globe, raising more than $25 million for nonprofit organizations.
  
  The horse sculptures, manufactured at a Logan Park statuary, are designed to resemble Chicago’s Mounted Patrol Unit horses. Each will be decorated by a local artist and named for a fallen officer, according to organizers. The sculptures will be placed at tourism destinations, corporate atriums, parks, plazas and private businesses from September through November.
  
  Sculpture sponsorships will start at $2,500 and the statues will be auctioned off to the public after the display concludes, organizers said. Net proceeds from sponsorships and from the auction will go to the Chicago Police Memorial Foundation.

We'll post pictures of the finished products if we run across any. We'd also suggest that people/coppers be aware that these will undoubtedly be targets for ::ahem:: wilding yutes at some point - that isn't a pessimistic view, that's a realist observation.

Nicer Than You Could Afford

As long as everyone else is paying, why not live high on the hog?

• The high-rise at 500 N. Lake Shore Drive is the second-most expensive in the city, with rents for a one-bedroom apartment approaching $3,000 a month, well beyond the reach of most Chicago residents.
  
  But that's not too much for the Chicago Housing Authority, which has used federal tax dollars to pick up most of the tab for four lucky residents in the year-old building, with its sweeping views of Lake Michigan, a concierge and a dog-grooming center.
  
  The tenants moved in over the past two years as part of a push by the CHA to expand its housing voucher program so that more low-income residents can leave the city's roughest neighborhoods and start a new life in places with low poverty and crime and close to good schools and jobs.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but $3,000 a month is probably more than double a vast majority of mortgages in most parts of the city. And those receiving these "super-vouchers" have done exactly what to earn a nicer address than 99% of Chicagoans will ever see?

More "Free" Stuff

Once again, more money to pay for the pandering Rahm has to do:

• Sneed hears Mayor Rahm Emanuel is this/close to rolling out a plan to fund free preschool enrollment for 4-year-olds from low income families.
  
  “Watch for the mayor to build on his expansion of full-day kindergarten to all Chicago children,” said a mayoral source.
  
  “Roughly 1,500 4-year-old kids from low income families who qualify for the federal school lunch program have no access to half-day pre-K,” said a mayoral source.
  
  Sneed is told the mayor plans to close this gap with an investment of $6 million “by initiating a new social impact bond, a financial tool designed to invest in social programs saving government money in the long run — and looking for more efficiencies in the city budget,” said the source, who added that capital costs will be paid by the Chicago Public Schools.

We never have understood where the media touts the leftist (but we repeat ourselves) line that everything the government does is somehow "free." Just because you don't see which hand or wallet the government is stealing from, doesn't somehow make it "free." Spreading around the pain doesn't make it "free." What it actually results in is a situation where every man, woman and child in Illinois owes something like $80,000 or some other obscene number because of all the "free" shit that Daley, Madigan, Rahm and Quinn have been giving away.

Oh, and that additional 1,000 illegal aliens that Rahm wants to house in Chicago? Yeah, it's now 1,500, on top of the 1,500 Sneed mentions as getting "free" pre-K.

Keep letting Rahm dig that hole Chicago.

Is This Illegal Now?

Just a question about a rumor we keep hearing:

• Sticking a gun in someone's mouth and rattling their teeth while threatening to kill them....is that still frowned upon by the Department?

If we did something like that, we'd expect to be at callback, stripped and facing an indictment.

We were just curious.

Best Sgt Exam Observation

This is genius:

• 132.1513 is the atomic weight of the clout atom.

We literally couldn't stop laughing at that one.

Can someone explain why the exam was based on a cumulative score of 132.1513?

Does the mayor have something against whole numbers since he is only able to count up to 9.5 on his fingers?

Stop With the Lies Again

The posthumous expunging of a dead criminal's record continues:

• A 13-year-old boy was killed and six others were wounded in a drive-by shooting Friday evening in the West Side East Garfield Park neighborhood, according to fire authorities.
  
  [...] One person was dead at the scene, according to a Chicago Fire Department spokesman. Relatives identified the fatally shot victim as Samuel Walker, 13.
  
  Walker’s aunt, Maribell Ruiz, says the teen would have been 14 next month. She described him as a studious teen and called his death senseless.

Studious? He was in summer school, which kind of belies an "un-studious-ness" about this supposed scholar.

And at the advanced age of 13, he already had 5 arrests, 3 of them for felonies. PCS, PCS with Intent, PCS/Manufacturing along with misdemeanors for Battery and Assault.....this kid was obviously a dope dealer and most likely the intended target along with one or more of his hooligan friends.

Far from being a "senseless" death, this one makes perfect sense to the individuals who want that corner.

1,000 More?

Rahm is pandering again, sucking up to the left and assisting Obama in destroying the border:

• Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, a former Obama administration chief of staff, wants to expand the city’s efforts to house young illegal immigrants from Central America, reportedly proposing to shelter an additional 1,000 of them by year's end.
  
  "The influx of unaccompanied child migrants is a growing humanitarian crisis that we can no longer ignore," said Emanuel, according to The Chicago Tribune. "While we have our own challenges at home, we cannot turn our backs on children that are fleeing dangerous conditions.”
  
  The mayor’s office says the federal government will pay for the youths’ shelter, education, health care, food, safety and social services.
  
  However, officials are trying to get Chicago lawyers to provide free legal services for the youths, who arrived in hopes of staying with U.S. relatives but now face federal deportation hearings.

The feds will pay? You mean with ... our tax money? Money that might be better spent on domestic issues, like crumbling infrastructure, non-existent border security and bailing out hospitals/schools/prisons currently overpopulated with illegals? Not to mention the crime and disease that are popping up with alarming intensity at "processing sites" across the southwest. Sure, let's bring in 1,000 more people who will be a drag on the economy.

Three Year Old Shot

The hits just keep on coming for McCompStat's strategies:

• Three people are in custody Saturday in a Southwest Side shooting that left a 3-year-old boy critically injured Friday evening, police said.
  
  Jason Ares suffered a through and through gunshot wound to the abdomen about 10 p.m. Friday in front of his home in the 4400 block of South Sacramento, according to police and family members.
  
  Sandra Steve, the boy's aunt, said her sister and the boy's father heard gunshots and peaked between two homes when someone fired shots from the front of the home, striking the toddler.
  
  A group of two females and a male walked past Jason and his family, and when they reached the end of the block, the male turned around and fired, striking the boy in the right hip and abdomen, police said.

Gang related again, but sure to be blamed on the gun and not a culture that believes it perfectly acceptable to shoot in the hood at people walking with children no matter who or what is in the path of the bullets.

A Seven-fer?

Following on the heels of five-fer last week in 015, 011 comes through in a big way:

• A 13-year-old boy was killed and six others were wounded after a shooting Friday evening in the West Side East Garfield Park neighborhood, according to officials.
  About 6 p.m., multiple people were standing in the 700 block of South California Avenue when they were shot, police said.
  The boy, who was shot in his head, was dead at the scene, officials said.

And that's in addition to at least one other shooting earlier in the day. The west side has always been a sort of a failed social experiment, but this year it's coming to the fore again.

Technical Issue (UPDATE)

Having a small issue here with the computer. Comments will be delayed for a short time. Don't worry, we'll get to it shortly.

UPDATE - We've plowed through half of the backlog on a backup computer. The rest will be up in a little while. Don't worry, your comment hasn't been lost, merely delayed.

CPS Grads Get Five Points

Why?

• Union firefighters are threatening to sue over a city initiative that gives graduates of Chicago Public Schools preferential treatment in city hiring, just as Mayor Rahm Emanuel trumpets a new round of recruitment for the Fire Department.
  
  Emanuel's office made a point Wednesday of drawing attention to an online application for the Fire Department open through Sept. 16. It costs $30 to apply, with a written exam set for December for qualified applicants.
  
  The job description makes clear that those who already have completed fire or police training receive preferential treatment for firefighter and police positions, as do relatives of those who died in the line of duty as police officers, firefighters or military personnel. It also states a hiring preference for veterans and CPS high school graduates.

For the most part, say about 100% of the time, a child has no input into where his/her parents send them to school. Some go to private schools for religious reasons, some parents think that private schools do a better job educating kids, some think (with quite a bit of evidence) that Chicago Public Schools suck.

So why penalize perfectly qualified applicants for the decisions of the parents? There is no special talent that CPS students have for climbing ladders, cutting holes in buildings or putting out fires. All of that is taught at the Fire Academy. A simple Civil Service exam gets you a qualified applicant, then you teach him how to become a firefighter. It's really quite simple everywhere except here.

Arrest Made

And once again, just some asshole shooting at some other asshole:

• Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said witnesses have identified [Tevin] Lee as the gunman who fired four or five shots toward that building last Friday night “without care or regard for the safety of anyone else.”
  
  Lee, described by McCarthy as a known gang member, was trying to retaliate against rival gangbangers after an associate of his had been beaten up in a fist fight a few hours earlier, McCarthy said.
  
  “Unfortunately, his intended targets were standing beside the home in which Shamiya and her friends were innocently playing,” the superintendent told reporters at a packed news conference at police headquarters.

Well done to all the involved parties - coppers, detectives, support units. A hell of a heater case handled efficiently and professionally. You don't nearly hear that enough.

Yet Another Downgrade

No end in sight:

• The outlook for the state of Illinois' credit rating has turned negative, Standard & Poor's Ratings Services warned today in a report.
  
  The credit rating agency affirmed the state's worst-in-the-nation A- bond rating, but its outlook, which had been raised to "developing" earlier this year after enactment of pension reforms, went back to negative.
  
  That means that the state's credit rating could be downgraded within the next two years unless its finances improve, S and P said. A lower credit rating translates into higher borrowing costs.

Perhaps we should amend that to say "no end in sight that doesn't mention the word 'Detroit'. "

Sgt Results in Your E-Mail

Yup, they're out there.

Now what?

Sgt's are up to strength, so no classes for a while? Or are they going to over-promote a first class in anticipation of a Lieutenants class? But Lieutenants are up to strength, too.

At least we've got some results.

Nice Resume` Builder

Isn't this special?

• Yesterday, after a three-year-long investigation, the federal government appointed a monitor to oversee the police department in the city of Newark, New Jersey, after the U.S. Justice Department uncovered a “pattern and practice of unconstitutional policing” in recent years—including during the years that Chicago’s police superintendent Garry McCarthy served as that city’s top cop, from September, 2006 to May, 2011.
  
  The Justice Department and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey announced its investigation on May 9, 2011, just days after Chicago’s newly sworn-in mayor, Rahm Emanuel, selected McCarthy to run the department here. (Investigators in the U.S. attorney’s office first began looking into allegations of brutality, racial discrimination, and police misconduct in 2010. The New Jersey chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union that year also petitioned the Justice Department to begin an investigation into hundreds of complaints of police brutality, wrongful arrest, improper stops and searches, and false arrests.)

Thanks goodness nothing like that could happen here!

Hey Rahm? You having second thoughts about this hire? It's okay to admit it may have been a mistake - the healing process requires that you acknowledge mistakes.

Has any Chicago media outlet even touched this?

Daley - Untouchable

When your father builds the political structure from the ground up and you continue the habit of granting favors and boons to the political class, it pays off down the road:

• Former Mayor Richard M. Daley isn’t going to have to testify in City Hall’s lawsuit to break a sweetheart contract the Park Grill restaurant awarded under Daley.
  
  After reviewing affidavits on Daley’s medical condition behind closed doors, the Park Grill’s operators and lawyers agreed Wednesday to withdraw their subpoena to put the former mayor on the witness stand.
  
  Park Grill operators Matthew O’Malley and James Horan had been relying on Daley to be their star witness to rebuff the lawsuit Mayor Rahm Emanuel filed in Cook County Court three years ago.

So no one will be held accountable for the millions, even billions squandered during the reign of Shortshanks. Teflon has nothing on this asshole.

Again, Boo Hoo

Hopefully, this is becoming a trend:

• An Arizona inmate took almost two hours to die by lethal injection on Wednesday and his lawyers said he "gasped and snorted" before succumbing in the latest botched execution to raise questions about the death penalty in the United States.
  
  The execution of convicted double murderer Joseph Wood began at 1:52 p.m. at a state prison complex, and the 55-year-old was pronounced dead just shy of two hours later at 3:49 p.m., the Arizona attorney general's office said.
  
  During that time, his lawyers filed an unsuccessful emergency appeal to multiple federal courts that sought to have the execution halted and their client given life-saving medical treatment.
  
  The appeal, which said the procedure violated his constitutional right to be executed without suffering cruel and unusual punishment, was denied by Justice Anthony Kennedy of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Let us be among the first to hope that every single inmate on Death Row suffers a tiny fraction of the agony they inflicted on their victims and the families of their victims via a botched execution.

Failing that, bring back Ol' Sparky. We'd happily throw the switch on every one of those, too.

Arrangements for Officer Rodriguez

Wake: Friday July 25th 2pm-8pm
Mt. Auburn: 4101 S Oak Park Ave, Stickney IL

Funeral: Saturday July 26th Procession starts at 930, the mass starts at 10am. Church: St. Pius, 4314 S Oak Park Ave, Oak Park, IL

--------------------

Informational post only - comments closed here.

--------------------

Donations are being accepted at the following link to assist the family with  immediate expenses.

CFD Contract Ratified

Congrats to the hose-pullers (we kid):

• Chicago firefighters will get $32 million in back pay within 75 days—and the city will get a dramatic upgrade in ambulance care — under a five-year contract advanced Tuesday that opens the door to even higher pay raises.
  
  The agreement ratified by the City Council's Committee on Workforce Development guarantees 4,645 firefighters, paramedics and emergency medical technicians an 11 percent pay raise over five years, but ends free health care for those who retire between the ages of 55 and 65.
  
  After Dec. 31, those retirees will be forced to contribute 2 percent of their annuities toward the cost of their health insurance until they're eligible for Medicare.

Not a perfect deal. But Rahm didn't get any of the manpower cuts he was pushing.  About as good as could be expected.

Check Your E-Mail

It was addressed to everybody, so you probably got one if you were employed by the Department during the pertinent time frame:

Let the witch-hunting begin.

Look - Consequences!

This will cost Maryland untold hundreds of jobs:

• Beretta U.S.A. Corp., located in Accokeek, Maryland, announced today that it has decided to move its manufacturing capabilities from its existing location to a new production facility that it is building in Gallatin, Tennessee. The Gallatin facility is scheduled to be opened in mid-2015. Beretta U.S.A. had previously planned to use the new Gallatin, Tennessee facility for new machinery and production of new products only.
  
  “During the legislative session in Maryland that resulted in passage of the Firearm Safety Act of 2013, the version of the statute that passed the Maryland Senate would have prohibited Beretta U.S.A. from being able to manufacture, store or even import into the State products that we sell to customers throughout the United States and around the world. While we were able in the Maryland House of Delegates to reverse some of those obstructive provisions, the possibility that such restrictions might be reinstated in the future leaves us very worried about the wisdom of maintaining a firearm manufacturing factory in the State,” stated Jeff Cooper, General Manager for Beretta U.S.A. Corp.
  
  “While we had originally planned to use the Tennessee facility for new equipment and for production of new product lines only, we have decided that it is more prudent from the point of view of our future welfare to move the Maryland production lines in their entirety to the new Tennessee facility,” Cooper added.

At least 300 skilled machinists plus support staff and ancillary jobs. And the tax base gets eroded, too. What forward thinking by the politicians in Maryland. Illinois might be able to learn something from them.

Name in Lights

Haha:

Let's Have a Meeting!

But don't let the general public know what's going on in it:

• After yet another bloody summer weekend in which four people were killed and 39 people were wounded, Mayor Rahm Emanuel held a closed-door summit Monday with community leaders and law enforcement officials to discuss violence that continues to grip Chicago.
  
  “I think everybody here knows this is a deeper conversation. It’s more complex than how many ATF agents we have and how many kids we have enrolled in our mentoring program,” said Emanuel, before reporters were escorted out of the conference room at Chicago Police Department’s South Side headquarters.

No need to let reporters see what's going on. Rahm will treat them like mushrooms (kept in the dark and fed bull shit) and they'll run and print what he says to print, especially during an election year. Don't want ot lose that all important "access" you know.

• The summit was held just hours after a crowd of mourners poured out into a West Side street Sunday to hold vigil for Shamiya Adams, an 11 year-old girl who was killed Friday night when a stray bullet that flew into an apartment during a slumber party. So far, no arrests have been made, but police Supt. Garry McCarthy said detectives have some “good leads.”
  
  “The case is progressing nicely,” said McCarthy, who added that he couldn’t discuss specifics. “We have a lot of information and the case is developing quickly.”

"nicely" if you don't count that fact that an 11-year-old caught a bullet in the head in the middle of the "lowest crime stats in decades."

• “Often times you feel like you’re being talked at, or being told all the great things that are being done,” said the Rev. Michael Pfleger, the outspoken South Side pastor of St. Sabina Catholic Church, on his way out of the conference room.
  
  But this time Emanuel opened the floor for community groups, allowing them to air their concerns and grievances — a move Pfleger called “refreshing.”
  
  “I don’t usually leave meetings feeling this good and I felt good today. Obviously ... action has to take place now, but to be able to lay it out on the table, I thought was very good,” he said.

Well, you know if Pfather Pfleger left the meeting "refreshed," then there must be hope for the whole situation. After all, look at what great strides St. Sabina's has made in turning around that neighborhood - hardly a murder to be seen.

Anyone else get the feeling that their pockets just got picked, their Rights just got trampled and we're going to be told to smile-and-eat-shit in short order?

Illinois Still Bleeding Jobs

Dead last in the nation:

• In June, Illinois suffered the largest monthly workforce loss in recorded state history.
  
  June’s workforce loss was worse than the worst month of the Great Recession. Overall, 21,700 Illinoisans gave up and left the workforce in June; in September 2008, 17,500 Illinoisans quit the workforce. (Bureau of Labor Statistics data go back to 1976.)
  
  This hefty workforce loss has driven state’s unemployment rate down to 7.1 percent from 7.5 percent, creating a superficial appearance of improvement. And Gov. Pat Quinn says Illinois needs to “keep the momentum.”
  
  Keeping up this sort of “momentum” would be disastrous.

Disastrous indeed.