New Award?

The rumor mill started up again:

• What in the fuck is this new participation ribbon this silly department created? Another bull shit ribbon for some DEI boss to walk around with on his or her chest thinking he or she has done legitimate police work. The name of this ribbon you ask? Drum roll please. It’s called the “Resiliency Award”. I’m not making this up. If you were an active duty member from January 1,2020 through November 29, 2020 during Covid and Sir George Floyd of Fentanyl riots you get this ribbon. Just when you think this job can’t get more ridiculous the department creates an award for this nonsense. Hey , thanks for showing up and here’s your ribbon for coming to work. Nothing more just showing up.

First of all - completely believable. 

Second - do they send it to retirees?

Asking for a friend. 

This CANNOT Be True, Right?

Right? (click for larger view)

Twenty-three people taking the test?

We got this via email, so no idea if it's true.

It's tagged as a Rumor. 

FOP Follies

Yet another rumor, this time that the First VP had charges filed against him for misappropriation.

Revenge for filing the charges against the president months ago?

Sure is a lot of drama over there. 

Recruit Shot?

Rumor today that a recruit got shot on the range? Tourniquets had to be applied?

Any details? Are they going to live? 

UPDATE: an emailer claims this wasn't a recruit, but a staff member who laid open most of his hand cutting up part of his lunch and Officers applied a tourniquet due to the heavy bleeding.

So a Lifesaving Award may be in order. 

Someone Told Carter, "No"

Rumor central:

• Whoaaaaaa…. Listen to this. Eric Carter called the 1st deputy and asked to have a certain Lt from 006 promoted to a commander and she said no, Waller will be making those decisions and she said she won’t back any of his picks.. he blew a gasket, called Waller and vented and Waller told Carter where to go… hilarious. Good for the first and good for Waller.

Hilarious if true.

Waller Making Moves

 Not much time being wasted:

• Deputy Chief Jill Stevens (BOP) to Chief of Patrol.
  
  Deputy Chief A. Parham to Deputy Chief BOP.
  
  Cmdr R. Watson (BOP) to Deputy Chief replaces Parham.
  
  Cmdr L. Courts (007) to Cmdr Narcotics replacing Josh Wallace (Retired).
  
  Lt Miles to Cmdr 007.

Anyone hoping things might get better just got kicked in the teeth.

CTA Special Going Away?

It seems the sheriffs are having an outsized impact on crime numbers and CTA Special Employment is on the chopping block.

It is also rumored that there are discussions about getting rid of Mass Transit altogether and just letting Dart run a new Mass Transit Police Force under Prickwrinkle's patronage army.

The arrest and citation numbers for CPD's part are pretty much abysmal and the level of spending can't be justified any longer.

Prepare your Bid paperwork just in case. 

HQ Rumor

These types of rumors make us smile:

• Half days and free days are over for HQ officers!!!! New swiping in and out of the building and the parking lot!!!!

Because no one actually keeps track of this for more than a day or three. Then someone sabotages the swiping machine or breaks the gate in the parking lot, or whatever.....and it's right back to scamming again.

Remember when Walter Jacobson or one of the other media types would actually camp out at a Ward yard and log the cars going in and out and ask why someone was working a three hour day? You'd think with all the remote cameras and technology someone could stick a Go-Pro or a trail cam over on the school by HQ and record every car going in and out and have some fun with the clouted.

Rumor

From the comments:

• Retired guy here. Just spoke with a guy who is detailed tomorrow to the Obama Center. Apparently the CPD has to guard that monstrosity! He said they were told that the police cannot enter the facility to use the bathroom during their tour-of-duty. Told to go down the block to the YMCA. Can anyone else confirm this?

Well?

We wouldn't be surprised.

And in an emergency, we'd just do what ha to be done and take the suspension days. It was an emergency after all. 

Rumor Mill in High Gear (UPDATE)

Here we go:

• Sup has turned in his letter of resignation for a prearranged date shortly after the 4th of July festivities.

  We will have a new interim Sup, a permanent (female) 1st Deputy and 3 new Chiefs.

New Chiefs, filing empty spots or replacements? Because there are too many as it stands. 

Who has the rumored names?

This will likely be a further disaster. 

UPDATE: Supposedly, these are the changes:

• Ursitti - 1st Deputy
  
  Bruno - Chief BOD
  
  Rick Rivera - Deputy Chief
  
  Al Perez - Cmdr 014
  
  Mike Santos - Cmdr 010
  
  Cleggett- Cmdr 003
  
  Fraction - Cmdr 015
  Hawkins - Cmdr Area 1 Detectives 
   

Gold Star Union?

This might not end well:

• Off topic but apparently the exempts, Commanders and Deputy Chiefs, are attempting to unionize.

One of the main points of even having the Exempt rank is to have expendable people who are beholden to their political masters. 

If they're allowed to unionize, the political side of the equation loses their hold over them. 

Not that we're in the habit of giving Conehead advice, but if you want to stop this in its tracks, propose getting rid of the Gold Brain pensions provisions and revert to the top tier to the last testable rank (lieutenant). Not only would it kill this effort, it'd be a small step to extending the life of the pensions.

Returning to Basics?

Another interesting rumor:

• Narcotics is going away. They are making 5 area narcotics teams that will fall under the patrol area deputy chiefs. That’s it. They will work out of the same offices as the PRT teams and still have access to 1505 and the Bursars office for money. Wallace is jumping ship and put in his papers for mid July. They told him he was going back to Lieutenant or he can retire. He chose to leave and not do the rest of the summer. This will all happen in September.

Is Homan Square being emptied out? Back in the day there were overd 1,000 personnel assigned there in fifteen or twenty units and sub-units. It was probably larger than HQ on occasion in terms of total bodies.

In practical terms, nothing should be manned until all of the beat cars on all watches are covered adequately. And once the beat cars are covered, then you can start with District tact teams and 06 cars.

After that, you can spend money and personnel on citywide units.

What Now?

From the comments:

• OT: anybody investigating the former head of mayors details wife? Brand new merit LT S.L. They cut her lock at 640 and found $37,000.00 in cash. And then she demanded it back. Luckily NW was there. Lisa A trying to cover it up.

Did someone forget to pick up the"merit" payoff? A lot of connected names in this one.

Any Truth to This One?

We get emails regularly alleging all sorts of things. 

Some are obviously trolls. Some sound like something that could happen:

• So the latest from the Police Department news, they are going to strip Northside Police Districts of their most important resources, Patrol Officers. Some districts are losing from 25 to 50 Officers, depending on their actual Officers assigned.

These Districts are already short from everything we've seen and heard. Sometimes someone sends us the daily worksheets and the cars are half staffed. Someone sent us pictures of a parking lot and it was full of unused squad cars. We couldn't determine if it was shift change or something else, so we filed it under "interesting" but didn't post about it.

Moving Officers though - now you're talking about Contract violations and time-and-one-half for being shipped out of bid spots. After all the talk about OT cuts, we can't see paying dozens of Officers OT just for showing up for work.

But we know where there are something like 150 Officers guarding a west side residence and driving family members around when there used to be only twenty-four in years past. 

They're all Detailed, so Contractual protections may not be as big of a hurdle.

Heiniken Leaving - Who's Next?

John "I never said don't assist ICE" Hein is leaving at the end of the month: 

• Hein is a 30-year veteran of the department and was first appointed to chief of patrol back in 2024, where he oversees CPD’s largest bureau, including all 22 police districts across the city.

  When Hein was appointed to the post, CPD Supt. Larry Snelling commended his leadership and extensive experience in the department.

  It was unclear why Hein was leaving the post.

Part of his leaving could be he just sick of all the BS.

Or maybe he's sad at having to cancel everyone's RDOs again after so many promises not to. 

Or it could be he can't be trusted to work with Federal partners in enforcing actual Law.

Or maybe someone who's been covering for him the past couple of years is leaving, too:

• Snelling is due to address the City Club this Wednesday 20 May. Many big political announcements have been made at City Club meetings, like Crimesha declining to run again.

Is Larritorious going to announce he's leaving? 

Or is he running for office? 

 

Rumors Abound

Every rumor starts with an element of truth in it and this is no exception:

• word out of hq: that big promotional class of 37 lieutenants, plus sergeant retirements starting this month wiped out almost all of the 51 sergeants that got made in march. cpd hr formally requested a summer class of 50 sergeants, which has not yet been approved, in addition to a fall class of 50. 

  Recruit classes all summer are scheduled in advance with ILETSB. But city hall said fuck no and cancelled all recruit classes until September. not a single one until mid-september.
  
  and last night, 12 PO's, 4 SGT's and a LT were dumped from the academy back to districts due to poor performance. 

This is due to be yet another summer of above average retirements as the 1997 people are hitting their twenty-ninth year. Long time readers and veterans will recall the gigantic hiring wave of 1993-thru-1998 where something like five-thousand bodies went through the Academy. The Department is at the end of that run (mostly) and hiring since has never quite kept up with attrition.

For more proof, check out the post directly below this one. 

Body Parts?

What's this rumor that keeps popping up about some body parts being located in the crawlspace of a house up north (Oriole Park?) that has some association with a former high ranking individual?

Someone claimed it was ongoing. 

Someone else said it was an old case unrelated to the retired boss.

It's certainly something that would provide the readership with quite a bit of entertainment and comedy opportunities, which is the main purpose here. 

Rumor

How many officers are we talking about?

• Off topic.. The entire caps office in 012 failed to qualify with their primary weapons and are pending the 7 hr mandatory firearms refresher

Far too many cops fire thirty rounds, once-a-year, at qualification time. That isn't nearly enough to be even remotely proficient at using what is arguably the most important tool on your person.

Someone is going to argue, "How many times would a CAPS officer need to use their gun?" and the answer is, "If it's even once, you better be capable." 

Park with the Engine Off?

Is this true?

• OT. We were told in roll call today to be mindful of how much gas we’re using. It were stopped we should turn the engine off. WTF. 

At least it's been nice weather - could you imagine if it was below freezing and they wanted you to park with the engine off? Or 100 degrees like out west this weekend.

Maybe it's time to adopt the CFD model and park at the station until a call comes in. 

Is Conehead having money problems? 

UPDATE: How many cars on Conehead's detail?

• 150 cops across three watches - call it +/- fifty per watch
• days off, furlos, etc - that's twenty two-man cars plus at least one supervisor, probably two

So Conehead has twenty-plus cars burning gas 24/7 plus the two armored vehicles which are constantly kept running in case Conehead needs to leave in a hurry.

Rumors Abound

Aside from the Larritorious/Heiniken rumor, these popped up:

• Rumors swirling BOP RBT teams being moved into the Bureau of Detectives to handle RBT cases and All Detectives to only handle Violent Crimes. 
• Tac is rumored for changes. Sounds like the usual dept change the name of something keep the basics. Some tac members will be cut the ones who want to stay and are deemed good enough by the Area DC and BOP will be moved to the Area PRT team. No more district tac , tac will be part of PRT in uniform and marked cars. They will be doing it like this so they can tell the activist and community concerns tac is poof with the scandals etc , no PRt scandals have occurred . And it’s good for the dept because prt will have more as they continue to grow for more additional teams and protests details etc. 

Expect a lot of "reorganization" rumors to grow over the coming months as the retirements continue and hiring slows or grinds to a halt.