Another SAFE-T Murderer

You know who doesn't miss court?

• people in custody

And as an added bonus, they usually don't commit murders either:

• For nearly five months, Cleophas Polk had an active arrest warrant after he stopped appearing in court in a pending stolen-vehicle case. When authorities finally caught up with him and brought him before Judge Michael Clancy, the judge released him. Three days later, Polk beat a man to death with a wooden board on a West Side street.

  This week, following a jury trial that ended with Polk being found guilty of murder and robbery, Clancy sentenced the 33-year-old Polk to 65 years in prison.

Sounds like Clancy knows he f#$%ed up and wants to bury his mistake in prison for a few decades lest his name keeps popping up every election season.

Nice Academy Conehead

What the actual f#$%?

• Off topic but potential scandal brewing at the academy. A retired copper has a daughter who is currently one month into the academy. She told of a particular male recruit in her class who has been sexually harassing female recruits in the form of smelling them, getting uncomfortably close, and asking things like what perfume are they wearing. Multiple female recruits brought this to the attention of their home room instructors who notified a sgt. Instead of firing the recruit for already displaying creepy behavior, they simply moved him to a different home room. This has been done TWICE already and he is now in the class of the daughter of my friend. How the hell can you allow this man to remain employed when multiple women have already complained about him. This is the type of idiot who you will see on the news a couple of years from now for trying to have sex with an arrestee or a victim on duty

Seriously?

If true (and this would probably be the shortest investigation in history) this is the easiest and best opportunity to fire this creep, YEARS before he turns into a headline-making scandal for either workplace issues, some disturbing traffic stop behavior or maybe something truly sinister with a prisoner.

Unless he's related to someone heavy? 

Scandal Inbound?

Seriously?

• BREAKING NEWS!!!!
  
  The OIG came to Area 1 Detective Division unannounced and ceased a couple of computers and a few other pieces of equipment yesterday evening.
  
  Rumor has it that they have been and are nearing the end of a multi year OT FRAUD investigation involving current and past supervisors including LT’s.
  
  They allegedly used video surveillance, GPS and cooperating individual(s) - yes plural!!! Shouldn’t be in two place at one time, at your side gig/hustles, on Tik Tok

In this day and age of cameras everywhere, social media tags, GPS, etc., people should be smarter instead of getting caught like this.

Still?

The scandal that never seems to end:

• Eight more Chicago cops have been caught pocketing pandemic relief money they weren’t entitled to — pushing the city watchdog’s tally to 44 officers, with more investigations nearing the finish line.

  Inspector General David Glockner said Thursday his office found evidence the eight officers illegally collected more than $191,000 through two federal programs meant to keep businesses afloat during the COVID-19 crisis.

  The latest findings involve money obtained through the Paycheck Protection Program and a federal economic injury disaster assistance program. Both offered a financial lifeline to businesses battered by the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. Hundreds of billions of dollars in fraud have been identified in those same programs.

  Glockner’s office recommended firing six of the officers. The other two quit while investigators were still digging.

Anyone have the tally on OEMC employees caught dirty? Or CTU employees?

Curious that the only corruption highlighted seems to be from one department.

Teaching?

 

From a couple of comments and emails:

• We were told the FBI guy was in town to present a training session at A3.

What exactly was this guy supposed to be teaching?

fbi = Fondling Boners Indecently?

We suspect a lot more of this with the feebs....a LOT more:

• A retired FBI supervisory special agent from Colorado is being held in Cook County after prosecutors accused him of sexually soliciting a 16-year-old boy in the steam room of a Logan Square health club.

  At about 10 p.m. on September 30, the boy’s father dropped him off at the gym in the 2400 block of North Elston Avenue to work out after he finished his homework, prosecutors said in a detention filing for Jeffrey Green, 59. After exercising, the boy went to the steam room and sat on an upper level with Green and another person. The witness noticed Green masturbating and went to get security, according to the filing.

  Left alone with the boy, Green began walking toward him while continuing the sexual act, prosecutors alleged. Green told the boy, “Don’t worry,” in what prosecutors described as a “sexual tone.” Standing in front of the teenager, Green then asked if he wanted to perform a sex act on him, prosecutors said. The boy, who had never seen Green before, replied, “F*** no. Go away,” or words to that effect, according to the filing. He then sat in shock, prosecutors said.

You look at a lot of these supervisory agents and you just think, "What a beat off this guy is." Turns out, you might be right.

Plus, we have inside info from The Keesing Bandit that his little black book has entire chapters of "contacts" contained within. 

Getting Ugly

And due to get uglier:

• As community leaders called for criminal charges against a Chicago police officer accused of using two guns to fire down a Little Village street, new details emerged about the young cop and the circumstances of the off-duty shooting that wounded another man over the weekend.

We'll leave the details to the Slum Times article linked up top. 

But we'll note that falling hiring standards have consequences far beyond what would normally be imagined.

Don't Be Dumb

In this day and age of "accountability," don't be stupid:

• Two former suburban police officers have been charged with misusing their authority to conduct unauthorized Illinois license plate searches, the DuPage County State’s Attorney’s Office announced Monday.

  According to a news release, a DuPage County grand jury on Sept. 29 returned a 21-count indictment against former Itasca police officer Marisa Ciccola, 30, and a two-count indictment against former West Chicago police officer Gerardo Solis, 39.

  The grand jury alleged 13 counts of official misconduct, a Class 3 felony, and eight counts of computer tampering, a Class B misdemeanor, against Ciccola and one count each of official misconduct and computer tampering against Solis.

Remember that exempt who was stalking some woman, running her plate and phoning her after being told to knock it off? Even a demotion back to lieutenant didn't stop his behavior. Now someone sought and got a twenty-one count indictment (thirteen of those being felonies) against a single former officer.

Even if you can't see it, assume everything is being tracked, observed and recorded - you'll stay out of most trouble that way. 

FOP Friends and Family Plan

Good news - if you're dating the FOP president, you don't have to pay for your own lawyer!

• latest A.I. generated video here 

It pays to know the right people.

Food Truck Given Away?

The General Meeting was yesterday - what happened and what the Hell is this?

• The FOP meeting today was a shitshow. JCAT said he and the FOP board gave away the food trailer to a charity controlled by his minions. This is a sad state of affairs. Will they take the FOP decals off the sides of the cart? We were told that the issue was lawsuit liability and that's why the cart was given away. So why the F did we buy it in the first place, if it's such a high risk?

Is this true or is this some proposal to give the truck to the non-existent unapproved charity that is supposed to be funded with $50K of Dues money? What is this Lodge liability for exactly? Accusations of food poisoning? Or shielding the current admin from an audit of cash purchases? 

The charity would be controlled by the same people currently running the Lodge so....not suspicious at all.

We did hear Catanzara claimed that since the Federal subpoenas were a year old, there's nothing to worry about. Someone then proposed that the Lodge stop paying the liar lawyer $450 bucks an hour if there's nothing to worry about. The president ruled the motion out of order and refused to allow it to come up for a vote, so....there must be something someone is worried about.

Fun times. 

More Assholery from Lyke

And chief judge Bee-atch won't do a thing about it:

• In Courtroom 208 at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse on 26th Street, things run a little differently. Presided over by Judge John Lyke, it is a courtroom where cop killers and other violent crime defendants can embrace their families while victims’ grieving relatives, some of whom will never touch their deceased loved ones again, look on.

  The practice is not new.

  In April 2023, Steven Montano appeared in Lyke’s courtroom to plead not guilty to the on-duty murder of Chicago Police Officer Andres Vazquez Lasso, whom Montano shot dead near a schoolyard as children took shelter under playground equipment.

  During the hearing, Lyke allowed Montano to hug several family members in the gallery, something he specifically orders his deputies to allow — in violation of sheriff’s office regulations.

  “I wanted to vomit,” said a now-retired Chicago police officer who was in the courtroom for Montano’s plea hearing. “Literally wanted to vomit. He was rubbing it in the faces of Andres’ family, partner, everyone with a sense of decency. [Lyke] did it on purpose.”

Not only did Lyke have the aforementioned two deputies taken into "custody," he's has threatened FOUR other deputies with contempt for not following his directives - all of which run contrary to established security protocols and sheriff office policies.

And almost no one is standing up for the deputies - not Dart, and certainly not Bee-atch.

There ought to be a job action by the deputies and the Teamsters. And a formal complaint with the ARDC or whoever oversees judicial misbehavior. And then, a lawsuit.

About That Subpoena

From the Federal Court filing (click for larger view):

This seems to be based solely on his term at the State Lodge? Is this just an effort by the feds to get someone talking? 

Someone posted this in the comment section: 

• Retired;;;;;;;KMA 2: Pretty obvious the blog is campaigning against current leadership. 

There's a campaign? Whom did we endorse? 

The fact is we aren't campaigning for anyone and we aren't supporting anyone. What we are doing is informing the membership of some of the sketchy behavior going on at the Lodge and encouraging them to ask questions about their dues money and their representation spending said money - questions that should have been asked continually for years....AND QUESTIONS THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ANSWERED EACH AND EVERY TIME THEY'RE ASKED. 

Remember, the next meeting is 16 Sept at noon.

(technical issues with this post - we're correcting what we can) 

CTU Influence Waning?

Perhaps their stranglehold on Chicago politics is loosening?

• By advancing unsustainable financial demands, taking an ever larger share of tax revenues at the expense of city workers and systematically denying residents quality school choices, CTU support is plummeting

  The Chicago Teachers Union’s (CTU) defamation lawsuit against the Illinois Policy Institute and the Liberty Justice Center is evidence of a union in full panic mode as it attempts to silence its political opponents. The lawsuit follows a significant court ruling compelling discovery, which may finally force the union to open its books and account for years of delayed financial disclosures. It also comes as the CTU experiences a series of political defeats driven by its current leadership as its public support erodes and key labor relationships fray.

  The CTU has evolved into a hyper-political force with a broad agenda extending far beyond educating Chicago’s students. It deploys millions in member dues to back far-left political candidates and seek control over the Chicago Board of Education. As the Chicago Tribune editorial board correctly observed, the CTU attempts to have it both ways: Acting as the city's dominant political power broker while claiming immunity from public criticism under the guise of merely representing teachers.

Maybe it exposes financial improprieties? Like that luxury mansion in the Southwest that no one seems to know how or why it got purchased with union money? Maybe Davis Gates goes to prison soon and Conehead drops out of the election?

Go read it all. 

CPS Numbers and Disciplinary Files

We're told these numbers are compiled directly from City of Chicago offices, press releases and various media outlets:

• Chicago spent $639.6 million on illegal-migrant care from August 2022 through 2024.
  
  
  In the same season, Chicago Public Schools faced a $732 million budget hole and layoffs.
  
  
  Only 43% of grades 3-8 were proficient in reading, 27% in math.
  
  
  Forty percent were chronically absent in 2025. Enrollment fell more than 70,000 in a decade, and the district still asked for a record $10.1 billion budget.
  
  
  So the city found two-thirds of a billion for people who skipped the line, and handed its own classrooms a deficit.
  
  
  If Chicago can find $639.6 million for arrivals, who decided the child who already has a desk waits in back?

It's good to see these numbers in a single spot instead of spread all over media outlets that don't cover the entire story and accept what they're fed by City Hall politicos like good little lapdogs. 

In the meantime, the Contrarian people noticed the release of CPS disciplinary files:

• Why is no one talking about the more than 700 Chicago Schools employees who have been disciplined for misconduct — including sexual abuse against students — in just the last year?

  The first news of this sordid state of affairs broke at the end of July when WTTW reported that more than 700 employees of the CPS had been caught engaging in some sort of misconduct, including harassment, financial crimes, and sexual abuse. And this huge number represents only a single year of disciplinary records.

  The CPS has nearly 43,295 employees, so 700 is nearly two percent (1.62 percent is the number here) of the total number of employees. That seems fairly high. Granted, zero misconduct is what any business or organizations strives for, but 1.6 percent is certainly not acceptable, and is higher than the average rate in the private sector, regardless.

  WTTW noted the number of disciplined CPS workers were counted between January of 2025 and January of this year. While most of the misconduct cases were low-level infractions, dozens were clear crimes including harassment, discrimination, fraud, and sexual assaults. Of the latter, 10 employees were either fired or had resigned over accusations of sexual assault involving students.

The Contrarian notes that this was reported by WTTW - an outlet that has viewership that (in many cases) is less than the blog during its heyday. No wonder the City goes there instead of places it might actually get seen. 

Another EM Failure

Anyone not see this coming? Again?

• A man accused of trying to ignite a Molotov cocktail at a CTA bus stop has been missing for weeks after a Cook County judge denied prosecutors’ request to keep him in jail, court records show. Three other judges have now signed arrest warrants for 27-year-old Marshun Kimber, who remains at large.

  Judge Kelly McCarthy released Kimber on an ankle monitor on July 30 despite a warning from an assistant state’s attorney that he posed a danger to the public and could be a flight risk, according to a transcript of the detention hearing. Within days, on August 4, prosecutors filed a motion alleging a violation of his electronic monitoring conditions, records show, but Kimber never showed in court for a judge to consider the matter.

But don't worry - there are THREE separate warrants out for his arrest:

• On August 4, prosecutors filed a motion alleging that Kimber had, in fact, violated the terms of his electronic monitoring. McCarthy entered their motion and scheduled it for consideration on August 7. Judge Pablo DeCastro heard it that day and signed an arrest warrant, according to court records. Judge Martin Moltz signed another warrant on August 10. And Judge Barbara Dawkins issued another warrant on Monday, according to court records.

Someone tell Bailey no one want to hear about abortion, they want to hear what politicians are doing about repeat criminals being released into the communities to continue robbing, pillaging and terrorizing victims.

Because democrats ain't doing shit. 

Dodged Another One

Once again, the "victim" was likely offered enough to go away and sign some sort of NDA:

• The Rev. Michael Pfleger was reinstated in his position as priest at St. Sabina Catholic Church in Auburn Gresham following an investigation into a child sex abuse claim against him from decades ago, the Archdiocese of Chicago announced Monday.

  In July, Pfleger was accused of sexually abusing a girl who was a student at St. Sabina between 1993 and 1995. It was the fifth similar accusation against Pfleger within five years. He staunchly denied the most recent accusation as the archdiocese’s Independent Review Board investigated.

  The archdiocese said the investigation concluded, “There is no reason to believe Father Pfleger is guilty of this allegation.”

Five allegations in five years - what would pfather pfleger say if that was a copper being accused of something?

Scratch that - what HAS Mikey said about coppers accused many times of completely unproven allegations filed time and time again?

• After the accusation surfaced in July, some parish leaders called for an overhaul of its abuse investigation process, pushing for a more balanced approach that provides due process for the accused while protecting survivors of abuse.

  Some of the demands from St. Sabina leaders included:
  

• More transparency about investigation timelines and procedures
• Quicker resolutions to cases
• Independent review of allegations
• A tiered suspension policy that would consider factors such as the age of an allegation and whether there is an ongoing risk to children.

Well....those demands certainly seem to echo similar demands by the Police unions regarding allegations against the membership, don't they?

It's funny how once you're subject to an unfair process, you start demanding the Rule of Law and proper procedures be followed to ensure your Rights aren't violated. 

Interesting Take

This certainly hints at something federal going on over on Washington Street:

• It’s important to take a long look at the scandals now emerging at one of the county’s largest police unions, the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) Lodge 7.

  Right now, the most pro–law enforcement president in the modern history of the nation is in office, proving time and again his willingness to back the police. At the same time, Chicago is ground zero for the radical Democrats seeking to expand their power throughout the country. The key strategy of this Democratic faction is a war on the criminal justice system.

  One would think that an alliance of the Trump administration, particularly the Department of Justice, and the Chicago FOP would be a match made in heaven. Imagine the things they could get done. One would think that public appearances between Trump and the leader of the FOP, John Catanzara, would be frequent and friendly.

But as Marty Preib points out, there is a distinct lack of any sort of contact with the national administration and the current FOP leadership. In fact, "the FOP president was reportedly turned away at the capital for a conference of big city police union leaders."

That's a big hint that someone somewhere doesn't want any photographs floating around of someone under investigation to appear with the sitting President....you know, the way the media subtly neglects to show Porkulous consorting with murderers and drug dealers.

Go read it all. 

Gun Runner?

Hiring standards have fallen so far....there's another scandal brewing:

• Did a Chicago cop hand over two guns to a now-convicted extortionist and then lie to the police department about what happened to them?

  That explosive question arose in federal court filings in the case of Jawad Fakroune, a politically connected Chicago businessman who was convicted in June and is now serving a six-year prison sentence for threatening a restaurant owner over a $1.5 million debt.

  But the officer’s identity still remains a mystery.

The known offender has a cozy relationship with some Pritzker people that (obviously) the media wants to keep quiet, and Internal Affairs claimed to know nothing about the reportedly stolen guns recently, but has since opened an "investigation." 

But seeing the names the media has selectively decided to reveal and not others, it certainly smells like this "investigation" may go the way of the testing scandals of recent years where dozens of exempt Subject Matter Expert members had their spouses, pin cushions and other relatives "passing" with extraordinarily high scores.

Interesting Curriculum Vitae

For those who don't know the Latin, C.V. is a fancy term for an extensive résumé:

• In English, a curriculum vitae, commonly known as CV, is a short written summary of a person's career, qualifications, and education. This is the most common usage in British English. In North America, the term résumé is used, referring to a short career summary, whereas CVs are much longer than resumes. The term curriculum vitae and its abbreviation, CV, are also used especially in academia to refer to extensive or even complete summaries of a person's career, qualifications, and education, including publications and other information

For the truly curious, here's a quick summary of the lawyer that the FOP is paying $450 an hour to, right from his publicly accessible website:

• Terry Campbell focuses his practice on white-collar criminal defense, regulatory enforcement, complex commercial litigation, and criminal and civil appeals.  He has more than 20 years of trial experience, and has tried numerous cases in federal and state courts, both in Chicago and around the country.  Mr. Campbell provides a combination of impeccable judgement, strategic vision, and dedication to his clients and their cases.  His exceptional abilities have earned Terry his reputation as one of the top white-collar defense lawyers in the community, and he has been consistently recognized in publications such as Chambers & Partners and Illinois Super Lawyers based on peer reviews of his professional skills.

  Mr. Campbell has represented individuals in any number of high-profile cases during the past 20 years, including investigations and prosecutions relating to alleged fraud against the City of Chicago’s MBE/WBE program; the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill; the prosecution of former executives at Sacred Heart Hospital for violations of the federal Anti-Kickback Statute; the collapse of Sentinel Management Group (which was described by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago as the largest financial fraud case ever prosecuted in this district); securities and accounting fraud cases against a former member of the Board and Audit Committee of Safety-Kleen Corp.; a securities and bank fraud case against a former officer of First Merchants Acceptance Corp.; and many others.

That is quite the impressive history....

....but not whom we'd expect to be representing someone who has been insisting that there's nothing untoward about the books, accounts and credit card receipts that he's been hiding from membership inspection for how many years now?

Curious and curiouser to say the least, especially after admitting at the last meeting that there were "policy issue[s]" regarding the FOP expenditures

Scandal That Shouldn't Be

Was there no screening in place that might have been a clue that this person was probably unfit to be hired?

• Over his first six years as a Chicago cop, Joseph Vecchio ran with a troubled tactical unit and accrued more disciplinary complaints than any other cop.

  On Thursday night, his tumultuous career was placed in serious jeopardy: The Chicago Police Board announced he faces firing in two separate disciplinary cases.

  By Friday afternoon, Vecchio was in police custody, accused of brutally attacking a woman earlier this week and holding her against her will, according to a police report.

  The woman was only able to escape by scaling down a third-floor balcony when Vecchio left her unattended to grab a food delivery, the report says. She told police that Vecchio had once warned her that he wouldn’t need a gun to kill her — “he could just crack her head open.”

And now the department is painted with the same brush as this guy. You know it, we know it, everyone knows it. If the Department and City wouldn't mindlessly defend and cover for connected people who never should have been on the job or kept around after their first scandal, the CPD would be a in far better position in so many ways.

Anyone know why the media is running with the picture of him and Barz together?