Quick Guilty Plea

We'll say this was the fastest conviction plea we can remember:

• The woman federally charged after buying the gun used in the Swedish Hospital shooting, which killed a Chicago police officer and wounded another, has pleaded guilty.

  Back in late April, Olivia Burgos, 23, of LaPorte, was charged with making a material false statement in acquisition of a firearm.

  The documents state that Burgos bought a Glock 29, 10 millimeter pistol from Range USA in Merrillville on May 27, 2024.

  A chaotic scene unfolded on the North Side on the morning of April 25. CPD officer John Bartholomew, who was a 10-year veteran of the police department, and his partner brought Alphonso Talley to Swedish Hospital after he was taken into custody for an attempted robbery.

  Talley asked to be checked out at the hospital. Before a CT scan, police said Talley pulled out a gun and shot both officers. Bartholomew, 38, died as a result and the other officer made a recovery.

Um....we don't think he's "made a recovery." Not even close.

This quick plea deal hints at a cooperative witness, but it sounds like she pled to the Federal charge. Is she still facing any State charges?

Can a Federal plea deal be used as leverage in a State murder case? The shooter wasn't charged Federally, was he?

Memorial Sign

An honorary street sign was put up the other day:

• Chicago Police Commander Bryan Spreyne called out the names of his 8th District officers one by one Sunday.

  Officer Enrique Martinez’s name was called three times as the officers stood at attention in the 6300 block of South Komensky Avenue before Spreyne spoke again, this time to say “may you never be forgotten.”

  Martinez was shot to death while making a traffic stop in Chatham Nov. 4, 2024, just a month before the 26-year-old would have marked three years with the Chicago Police Department.

  The West Lawn block the officer grew up on, now known as Officer Enrique Martinez Avenue, was dedicated on what would’ve been his 28th birthday.

There was also a list of Officers killed recently in the article:

• He’s among several Chicago officers who have been killed both on and off duty in recent years: Luis Huesca, Aréanah Preston, Andres Vasquez Lasso, Ella French, Krystal Rivera [...] and most recently, John Bartholomew last month.

So many lives, many so very young, stolen from us all.

We hate seeing these street signs because they demonstrate the depravity of Chicago criminals, but every one of these Officers should have one. 

Fundraiser

 

And speaking of Officer Crespo:

• Chicago Police Officer Nelson Crespo's family says he is still in the ICU, but the good news is that he is able to breathe on his own for several hours at a time, according to his doctors.

  Now, the family is focusing on raising money to help support the injured officer. For Officer Crespo, the path to recovery may be long. But the support surrounding him is far from short.

  "He just makes friends wherever he goes. He's just he's just a great guy," said Nancy Crespo, the officer's sister.

  Nancy said doctors told their family that her brother is showing progress.

Any progress is good news.

Funeral Coverage

Assorted media outlets:

• Sun Times
• Channel 2
• Channel 5
• Channel 7
• Channel 9
• Channel 32

Everything Tribune is paywalled.

A truly depressing day. 

We haven't heard any updates in a while about the wounded Officer. Is there any public info available?

Contrarian Articles

Another couple good ones up on their site.

The first one deals with the SAFE-T Act leading directly to violence against the police:

• When you build a system that frees violent criminals, you don’t get to act surprised when it kills a cop

  Anybody who lives in Chicago knows what’s going on.

  Anybody who reads the papers knows what’s going on.

  Anybody who’s paying even the slightest attention knows this city has turned its criminal justice system into a revolving door for violent offenders.

  Except, apparently, the people running the criminal justice system.

  Because if they understood the reality they created, maybe Officer John Bartholomew would still be alive.

The second is Porkulous lying about the SAFE-T Act:

• During the 2022 campaign, Bailey made the exaggerated but memorable claim Chicago was “living The Purge when criminals ravage at will and the cops are told to stand down.”

  Bailey was alluding to The Purge movie franchise, where one day a year, people can commit crimes without facing punishment.

  The Loch Ness Monster

  Not true, Pritzker answered back. The SAFE-T Act was written to protect a mother. A mythical mother, the Loch Ness Monster of petty criminals.

  The governor, many times during the campaign, repeated this lie.

  “Making sure that we’re also addressing the problem of a single mother who shoplifted diapers for her baby, who is put in jail and kept there for six months because she doesn’t have a couple of hundred dollars to pay for bail.”

  ‍Yes, I said Loch Ness Monster, because such a woman — sorry “Nessie” believers — never existed, except in Pritzker's imagination.

  Eventually, Pritzker added baby formula to the mother’s “the heist.”

  In response, Patrick Kenneally, who was then the McHenry County state’s attorney, and 100 other Illinois county prosecutors — out of 102 — opposed the SAFE-T Act, and in a lawsuit called the law a “clear and present threat to public safety.” And Kenneally said that under Illinois law prior to the SAFE-T Act it was impossible for Loch Ness Mother to be jailed pretrial for simply stealing diapers, calling Pritzker’s claim “misinformation appealing to emotion.”

  And amid that discussion, Pritzker launched another lie.

  "Well, let’s just set the record straight with everybody. The SAFE-T Act is designed to keep murderers and domestic abusers, violent criminals in jail.”

  Yet Talley, despite being a seven-time felon who was accused of violence, a parole absconder, and someone who stopped charging his electronic monitoring ankle bracelet, was not locked in a jail cell on the morning he allegedly murdered Bartholomew.

The articles are far to extensive and detailed to quote, so head over to the links up top and take your time reading them.

Keep spreading the word - there's something brewing out there. Don't know if it has momentum yet, but people are getting sick and tired of the lies being told.

Accomplice Apprehended

US Marshals grabbed the other robber:

• A suburban man is charged with helping Alphonso Talley violently rob an Albany Park dollar store last Saturday morning, shortly before Talley allegedly went on to kill a Chicago police officer and gravely injure that officer’s partner by shooting them with a firearm he had hidden on his body after being arrested following the holdup.

  A U.S. Marshals Task Force arrested Jeron Tate, 18, of Maywood, on Thursday in the 7500 block of South Carpenter Street, Chicago police said. He is scheduled to appear in court for a detention Since he was long gone before Talley got arrested, we don't think there's any way to stack Felony Murder charges on him.

Since he was long gone before the shooting, we don't think there's any way to tag him on a Felony Murder case.

However, there's plenty of pressure to bring to ensure he testifies against Talley regarding the initial armed robbery to get him a life sentence.

Thank You Ms Velezquez

This is the worker at the Dollar Store that was pistol whipped by the armed robber who went on to kill Officer Bartholomew:

• The woman who was pistol-whipped during an armed robbery at a Family Dollar store in Albany Park last weekend said she was horrified to learn one of the two men who were arrested was also accused of later shooting two Chicago police officers, killing one of them.

  Maria Velezquez was still badly bruised nearly one week after the attack, but despite her physical scars, she was speaking out, because she wants people to hear what she endured while simply working at her job; a job she's terrified of returning to now.

  Velezquez was working at the Family Dollar store at the corner of Lawrence and Sawyer avenues on April 25, when two men robbed the store. One of them hit her three times in the face with a gun, breaking her nose.

Despite her injuries, she gave responding Officers a decent enough description of the offender to lead to his eventual capture. She was as horrified as we all were of what transpired afterwards.

There's a GoFundMe for her. It isn't getting as much notice as the multiple fundraisers for the Bartholomew family, but even a couple bucks might be a simple enough "Thanks" for stepping up after taking a beating like she did.

Best Explanation So Far

CWB doesn't only report crime. They did something that no other media outlet even considered as far as we can tell:

• It’s the question everyone is asking: Was Judge John Lyke required to release suspected cop killer Alphonso Talley under the SAFE-T Act?

  Talley, a seven-time convicted felon with armed carjacking and armed robbery cases pending before Lyke, later escaped from his ankle monitor and, prosecutors say, brutally robbed a store cashier Saturday morning and then shot two CPD officers, killing one.

  To understand whether Lyke had any real choice in the matter, it helps to walk through exactly how Illinois’ pretrial detention law works.

And then, by God, they walk through it, step by step. Here is the real meat of the article:

• Then, and this is where Lyke crossed the Rubicon, the judge made his finding: “This court cannot find that the state has met its burden by clear and convincing evidence that there is no condition or combinations of conditions that this court can impose to protect any person or persons in the community when weighing everything with a fresh set of eyes and understanding.”

  At that point, the SAFE-T Act required Lyke to release Talley on the least restrictive conditions Lyke believed were necessary to keep the public safe. He had no choice in the matter. A judge cannot decide that electronic monitoring is sufficient and then keep someone locked up anyway. The law does not allow it.

  The answer, then, is yes. Once Lyke determined that conditions existed that could protect the public while Talley awaited trial outside jail, the SAFE-T Act required him to release Talley on those conditions.

Simply put, Lyke's determination that....

• a multiply convicted violent felon, 
• with additional pending violent felony cases 
• committed while already on Electronic Monitoring

....wasn't enough proof that Talley was a danger to the community. So the only way forward was to release Talley on yet another useless Electronic Monitoring anklet because Lyke closed off every other avenue to himself. That "under-developed brain" bullshit was Lyke just closing another off-ramp that would have kept a violent repeat felon in custody.

Fata$$ was actually technically correct - this one is on the judge, a useless DEI hire who misapplied the craptacular law that Fata$$ signed into existence. Plenty of democrats to blame for this one.

An SCC salute to the crew over at CWB, just about the only journalists worthy of the name any more. 

Parking

When we posted about the parking conditions over at the wake and funeral for Officer Bartholomew yesterday, we didn't expect so much whining about it. We were just warning people to plan ahead. 

The family gets to choose the location of services and Special Events does what they can to make it work as well as they can. They've done great work in the past under similar circumstances.

Some commentators suggested car pooling and Uber rides. Someone else said the Park District is going to make lakefront parking available. 

How about this - the Department had dozens of those 15 passenger vans they used for events and deployments in the past. Have those cleaned up and station three or four at the following locations:

• 019 - huge parking lot
• 020 - multistory parking garage
• 024 - Streets and San Ward yard

Then run a shuttle service to and from St. Andrew's. 

There are ways around the parking issue and that shouldn't be something that deters members from attending to show the family support during this trying time.

 

 

Funeral Arrangements

Services for Officer John Bartholomew:

• Funeral services for Chicago police officer John Bartholomew, who was fatally shot at Swedish Hospital last Saturday, will be held next week in Chicago’s Edgewater neighborhood.

  Visitation will be 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. May 7 at St. Andrew’s Greek Orthodox Church, 5649 N. Sheridan Rd., according to an obituary posted Thursday. Funeral services will be held there at 10 a.m. on May 8.

We have only attended one event at that location and parking was a challenge, so allow yourself plenty of time. Check the AdMin Fax messages for St Jude's information.

RIP Deputy Coyle

Crittenden County (Kentucky) Deputy Rick Coyle, former CPD, died this morning weeks after being shot:

• Crittenden County Sheriff’s Office officials say one of their deputies has died following an officer involved shooting that happened earlier this month.

  According to a press release, Deputy Rick Coyle passed away Thursday morning after he was shot in the line of duty on April 2.

  As we’ve previously reported, officers from the Crittenden County Sheriff’s Office, along with staff from the Kentucky Department of Community Based Services, responded to the 2800 block of KY 365, to serve emergency guardianship paperwork.

We met Rick on a couple of occasions, shooting scenes and such. He was friendly, funny and professional, and he obviously left this impression on his Kentucky department after retiring from CPD. Their loss is fresher than ours. 

Prayers to his family, friends and co-workers both there and here. Godspeed Sir.

GoFundMe Link

We were sent this by a number of people.

• GoFundMe Link 

We have no reason to suspect anything untrustworthy about the fundraising effort, but we also have our usual concerns knowing that there are people that use these events to swindle and scam those who just want to help.

DO YOUR DUE DILIGENCE BEFORE DONATING.

Perhaps the FOP could verify the legitimacy of the fundraising efforts? 

In fact, knowing that GoFundMe routinely takes a percentage of the money that ought to be going to the fallen Officer's family, maybe there ought to be an Official Committee delegated with directing or utilizing alternatives that make sure 100% of the donations end up where they'll do the most good?

Just a thought. 

Judge Says, "Not My Fault"

Damage control over at the Criminal Courts:

• The Cook County judge who released a repeat violent felon with four pending felony cases on electronic monitoring last December, the same felon prosecutors now say escaped that monitoring and shot two Chicago police officers, killing one over the weekend, acknowledged during the hearing that the defendant likely would have faced “a minimum $1 million bail” under the state’s old cash bail system.

  But Judge John Lyke said that era was over.
  
  “Our esteem[ed] Legislature says, no, we’re not going to do that anymore,” Lyke said in reference to Pretrial Fairness Act provisions of the SAFE-T Act. “We’re going to make judges take a critical look at it.”

  And moments later, after explaining that he believed Alphonso Talley’s life of armed robberies and carjackings might have been the result of an underdeveloped brain that had since matured — even though Talley had allegedly committed an armed carjacking and an armed robbery with the same brain just eight months earlier — Lyke decided to let him go home on an ankle monitor.

  Lyke noted, however, it was “over the state’s rigorous objection.”

So after claiming the Legislature forced him to take a look at the criminal record and then OUT OF THE FUCKING BLUE makes a medical determination that maybe this shitbird's brain is "underdeveloped" due to his extensive armed habitual criminal habits, he lets him go on a electronic monitoring system that has been proven TIME AND TIME AGAIN to fail to keep criminals in check.

You know what we remember worked pretty well at keeping criminals in check?

• concrete walls
• iron bars
• twelve feet of barbwire topped fencing 

But democrats don't want that. 

Investigation Continues

Gun traced to a straw buyer:

• A suburban woman is facing federal charges for allegedly lying on paperwork when she purchased the gun used over the weekend to kill Chicago Police Officer John Bartholomew and critically wound his partner at Swedish Hospital.

  Olivia Burgos bought the Glock 29, a 10-millimeter pistol, at Range USA in Merrillville, Indiana, on May 27, 2024, according to a federal complaint filed in Indiana on Monday. When she completed the standard purchase paperwork, she confirmed she was the “actual transferee/buyer” of the weapon and that she was not unlawfully using any drugs, according to an ATF agent’s affidavit.

  Both of those statements were lies, she allegedly admitted when ATF agents visited her after this weekend’s shooting.

  In fact, Burgos was addicted to fentanyl when she bought the firearm and had used the drug that same day, according to the filing. She also received money to buy the gun from her then-boyfriend, a convicted felon who was legally prohibited from purchasing or possessing firearms. For good measure, Burgos listed a La Porte, Indiana, address on the form when she was actually living in Highland, Indiana, with the convicted felon, the ATF agent wrote.

The ATF tracked her down pretty quick, but nothing yet on how the gun transitioned from her to Yolanda Talley's nephew.

And now we're getting word that the Detectives that tracked down Yolanda Talley's other shooter nephew was removed from the Area shooting team and the States Attorney's Office is getting pressure to drop the charges. 

Let's see if the media picks up on that one. 

Worse and Worse

If a bartender overserves someone who is obviously intoxicated, they're held liable for any criminal acts committed by the drunk. 

So why aren't judges and politicians held liable for repeating criminals they free?

• A man suspected of shooting two Chicago police officers inside a hospital room Saturday morning had been a fugitive for weeks, had two violent felony cases pending against him, had escaped from electronic monitoring, and was listed as an absconder by the Illinois Department of Corrections, according to court records and multiple government sources.

  The officers were standing guard over the man at Swedish Hospital, 5140 North California Avenue, when he gained access to a gun and shot them around 10:50 a.m., CPD Superintendent Larry Snelling said.

  One of the officers died. The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office identified him as John Bartholomew, 38, a 10-year veteran of the department. The other officer, a 57-year-old with 21 years on the force, remained in critical condition at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center.

  The suspect has not been charged with the shootings, and CWB Chicago, which has mentioned him in three stories since 2017, is not identifying him by name for that reason. But sources at multiple levels of government confirmed he is the individual in custody.

Fuck it. His name is Alphonso Talley, and he might be yet another criminal relative of alleged PPP fraudster Yoyo Talley. Google his name and the CWB articles with him listed as the offender are front and center. Yoyo is infamous for having her niece use her car to drop off heroin on the west side, and if we recall had another nephew shoot and wound someone in 015?

But isn't this criminal data available to....oh, we don't know....FUCKING JUDGES who continually release him on an "electronic monitoring" system that fails, time-and-TIME AGAIN, and in this instance, costing an Officer his life and his partner any semblance of a normal existence IF he recovers?

Start voting people. And start encouraging others to start voting. And make sure they don't vote for incumbents, don't vote to retain judges and certainly don't vote for criminal loving democrats....like Conehead and Fata$$.

RIP Officer Bartholomew

Identify officially released:

• The Chicago police officer fatally shot Saturday at a Lincoln Square hospital was identified as John Bartholomew, according to the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

  Bartholomew, 38, was shot alongside another officer at Endeavor Health Swedish Hospital, 5140 N. California Ave., by a robbery suspect who had been arrested earlier that morning, police have said.

  No update was provided Sunday on the second officer, who has not been named. He was “fighting for his life” in critical condition, police Superintendent Larry Snelling said Saturday at a news conference outside Illinois Masonic Medical Center, where both officers were taken after the shooting.

More details to follow over the next few days.

One Post Only Tonight

We don't know where to begin with all this.

One deceased Officer, one still listed as critically wounded in the press, but our comments and text messages have all sorts of other info, none verified 100%.

Larritorious saying a third gun was recovered from the scene at Swedish, which implies a breakdown of Custodial Searches on more than one occasion. Guns hidden in fat folds should always be remembered as a possibility....remember Sox Park.

Someone says Swedish "wands" prisoners in custody, but that didn't discover the weapon in question. 

A name has appeared in our comment section, and if you google it, there are many other crimes committed by this individual, most involving guns, mostly in lakefront Districts, all or which should have been multi-year sentences. If the name is correct:

• here he is with a gun again, caught after committing another violent robbery Saturday, shooting two Police Officers;
• he may have been out on Electronic Monitoring, still skipped Court, so yet another SAFE-T Act failure;
• he might be related to a certain exempt who was forced out a while back;
• this might be either the same nephew (or an additional nephew) with a habit of shooting people

More info will probably trickle out today, verifying or debunking some of the above info. Like we said, we have no idea where to even begin with this clusterfuck.

Officer(s) Shot at Swedish Hospital

Rapidly evolving situation.

Prisoner detail gone bad. 

017 wagon crew. 

Prisoner got one of their guns, shot both Officers and escaped,

Possibly in custody after a SWAT response in the neighborhood. 

Coverage here and here.

Prayers. 

UPDATE: we're being told one Officer has passed and the news about the second is about as bleak as can be.

Pray harder. 

This was a Rough Watch

They released the body cam video of Officer Krystal Rivera's death at the hands of her partner and there's nothing easy about it.

• article and video link here

We will refrain from comment at the moment aside from saying there is pretty much nothing redeeming about it at all - poor tactics, poor reactions, poor everything.

We're leaving comments open for the moment, but we might just shut it down depending on content and context. 

Justice by Bearcat

Wow:

• A California sheriff’s detective was shot and killed Thursday while serving an eviction notice after an armed suspect opened fire on deputies in what authorities described as an apparent ambush that led to an hours-long standoff.

  The suspect, identified as David Eric Morales, was ultimately killed when a law enforcement BearCat armored vehicle ran over him after he continued firing and refused to surrender, authorities said.

  "The suspect was lying prone on the ground, in camouflage clothing, continuing to pose a threat," Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux said later during a news conference. "The situation was resolved, and the suspect is now dead. He was not shot. One of the BearCats ran over him and killed him."

A quick search has the BearCat weighing in at just over eleven tons. You use what you have available under the circumstances and a vehicle greatly reduces the chances of a miss or an unpredictable ricochet.

Sympathies to the California law enforcement community for their loss.