Second Guessing Gets Worse

Many of our readers predicted something like this years ago, and we agreed with them:

• Timothy Glaze Dean was shot and killed by Chicago police on January 3 of this year. Police body-camera video showed he was holding a knife at the time. Glaze Dean was shot 20 times, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday afternoon by an attorney for his estate, who said this is part of a longstanding pattern and practice of excessive force used by CPD.

  Police body-camera video showed officers exiting their vehicle, answering a wellbeing check call for Glaze Dean. An acquaintance was concerned about his mental state and said he was playing with a knife. The video showed police entering the Little Village apartment complex, traveling by elevator to the sixth floor and announcing themselves at Glaze Dean's door.

  A second later, Glaze Dean walks into frame with a knife in his hand. Two seconds after that, as he walks towards police, they open fire, shooting 20 rounds.

  Some bullets were fired after he was already on the ground without the knife and no longer a threat, according Glaze Dean family attorney Greg Kulis. The entire incident took less than two minutes from when officers exited their vehicle. "The police don't say, drop the knife. They don't say, police, put your hands up, drop the knife, step back," Kulis told the I-Team.

  Kulis said the body camera footage showed a lack of any attempt by police to deescalate the situation and points to what he calls a broader problem with CPD of excessive use of force, referencing both Laquan McDonald and Dexter Reed, who were shot 16 and 13 times, respectively, by Chicago Police and were killed.

First up, anyone who cites the Reed shooting in any capacity can be classified as a Grade A Moron. Reed shot first, shot a cop, and deserved every bit of lead Officers were able to fire at him. Fuck Reed, Fuck Channel 7 and Fuck this scumbag lawyer.

Second, anyone who views the video from the Dean shooting sees that he (A) had a knife, (B) brandished the knife in a threatening manner, and (C) advanced on the Officers in a tiny hallway. There was literally tenths-of-seconds to decide, draw and fire. Once the decision is made to utilize deadly force to meet an oncoming threat, there isn't a single order, ordinance or law that requires Officers to take a hit - any sort of a hit - before using said Deadly Force.

But these scumbag lawyers and whore media types want it to be:

1. observe the threat
2. give verbal direction
3. observe if there is any reaction to the verbal direction 
4. draw weapon
5. observe the threat
6. point weapon with additional verbal direction
7. observe if there is any reaction to the verbal direction 
8. fire one single bullet
9. repeat steps 1-thru-8

Now go dig up the footage of the Reed or Dean shootings and tell us exactly where all of this was supposed to take place?

Once again, we make this open ended offer to any scumbag lawyer or scumbag media type:

• we will provide you with a full set of CPD equipment - gunbelt, holster, OC spray, baton, handcuffs and bullet-resistant vest. We will steal a Taser from a friend. We will get you a pistol and three magazines fully loaded;
• we will print out a copy of the Use of Force Order and get Larritorious to explain it to you as he is the (allegedly) preeminent expert on CPD;
• we will set up an address for you to respond to via a radio call, someplace with multiple doors, narrow hallways, bad lighting, etc.
• you will be required to place us into handcuffs within the Rules, Regulations, current Ordinances and Illinois Law. You will do this without damaging us or suffering damage to yourselves;

But....:

• we might be armed....maybe a stick, a pipe, a blade, blunt instrument, maybe even a gun. You won't know until you get there and find us....because we'll be avoiding direct contact with you;
• if you use anything besides your winning personality, we win and you lose; 
• losing will involve some sort of forfeit on your part, probably something along the lines of a written/televised apology and admission that you don't know diddly-squat about police work and everything you've been spouting is just so much bullshit in service of the lib-tarded agenda for starters; 
• after that, there will be a monetary and physical penalty to drive home the lesson.

Oh, and did we mention that we'll also provide you with a waiver, signed and notarized, absolving you of any damage you might inflict upon us - direct mechanical strikes, pepper spray, taser effects and gunshot wounds. We'll have it written up by an actual lawyer and make a video of ourselves reading it so there's no question we knew what we were signing up for.

And you'll sign the same waiver.  

Time for a Change (long post)

This past Friday. following the funeral of Officer Rivera, the Slum Times posted an article regarding the disciplinary record of her partner who tragically killed her. 

We'll link it, but we aren't going to quote it or cite it. We can't say we're surprised by the number of Log Numbers in his short career. If you work certain places, you're going to catch complaints. If you're young, you're going to do stupid things, especially if you're out drinking. If you're minimally aware of how hiring standards have fallen, you're going to suspect that certain red-flags that would have prevented hiring in the past aren't going to be as rigorously applied when no one wants the job. And the habit of this generation to record everything and the social media fixation continues to baffle us.

It's a perfect storm of crap.

We don't know what the final investigation will conclude, but we'll almost guarantee they won't address the most glaring deficiencies that led to this unspeakable disaster.

We will say this however:

• It is far past time to reinstate the Ceriale Rule and update it for the modern era.

For those who weren't around, Michael Ceriale was a CPD Officer who was on Tact, doing a narcotics surveillance in 002, when he was killed by a teen who fired a round at the location Ceriale was concealed striking him below his vest. He died six days later. Ceriale was only 26 and had a grand total of one year, three months and sixteen days on the job. Considering six months in the Academy, his street time was under ten months....and he was on Tact. While that was probably indicative of his drive, ability and skill, the brass belatedly realized that these admirable qualities didn't provide the greatest single attribute to a successful police career:

• experience

So downtown instituted a "probation plus three year" rule for any plain clothes assignment which back then meant Tact or Gangs. Anything past that usually required Tact or Gang experience anyway, so the other spots were covered automatically (barring phone calls - which still existed because why wouldn't they?) And it mostly worked. There was even a time where a separate training course was required before you worked plain clothes. It wasn't much of a course, but it was on paper.

Somewhere, it all went away. By the later stages of our careers, they were filling Tact teams via reverse seniority because no one with time wanted to voluntarily give up Contractual Rights and surrender days off to get sent all over the city for crappy parades in crappier neighborhoods that you had the seniority to avoid. But the Department didn't care - they had plenty of "volunteers" who would do anything to avoid midnights. If we're doing the math correctly, Rivera's partner had just hit three years on the street.

And here the Department is - the youngest and least experienced organization in over three decades, with lowered standards, overlooked red-flags, and a Personnel Department desperate for any warm body to fill a uniform. It's a recipe for disaster as evidenced in early June.

As we said above, it's past time to reinstate the Ceriale Rule with major updates:

• we'd suggest a five year minimum, with at least some of that time on midnights. First Watch is not natural, it damages the mind, body and soul, it takes a toll on families. But it provides experience in excess;
• a full week of training regarding plain clothes. This would include an emphasis on tactics. Tactics for traffic stops especially after that shooting in 011 where everything learned at the Academy seems to have fallen by the wayside. Approaching suspects, citizen interactions, proper equipment, etc. We'd even go so far as to suggest an actual tact "uniform" of utility pants and polo-type shirt with CPD insignia. The skinny jeans, ripped t-shirt, baseball cap look isn't professional and - valid or not - provides defense attorneys with far too many opportunities to claim "no one knew you were the police."
• supervisor recommendations on paper. Let's face it - Tact has devolved into a favor-based assignment. There have always been goofs, but it used to be cops with some significant drive who made the teams. Cops who could smell guns, spot hot rides, knew the players, could puzzle out the dope operation, things that come with experience. The really good Tact supervisors spotted these cops and recruited them. Nowadays, sergeants don't get to pick their teams, they get told who is coming over. Hell, the lieutenants don't even get to pick their sergeants. If the Department went back to actual supervisory input, then the white shirts (who talk among themselves) would know who the dedicated and smart workers are, and who's getting Court Deviations for missing Traffic Court or Log Numbers for verbally abusing citizens, and they wouldn't be on Tact. And then, make the supervisor responsible for the recommendations.

Unfortunately, there will be objections to these reasonable suggestions. We've made them before in one form or another, here and elsewhere. Our point, however clumsily we try to make it, is that experience is the greatest teacher in the police profession, and when combined with decent training is the only smart way forward to recover from this tragedy.

No one wants to be where where the Department is at today. 

Some Notes

First up, thank you for all the kind words and wishes in our 20 Year post. We appreciate them all.

Second, we aren't going anywhere quite yet. We've been looking and keeping options open, but at the moment, we're stuck here in town for a few reasons. And once those reasons head off  - to their adult lives or to their heavenly rewards, more options open up to ourselves. Obviously, it would be weird blogging from hundreds of miles away, 

Third, as it's been twenty years, we've lost a few passwords, misplaced a few log-in credentials, the blogging platform has gone through a few changes and we're having an issue uploading the twenty-year star into a suitable graphic format. So we're stuck adding a fourth "service bar" at the moment. It's on our list of things to puzzle out, but nearer to the bottom than the top. 

We think that covers it for now. Open post in the meantime as the weather hits the 90s the next two days. Perhaps the first real test of Conehead's violence interrupters actually having something to deal with? 

Controversy

So this comment appeared yesterday. We posted it knowing it was going to generate controversy, and now we're probably going to provoke even more:

• So a copper in 020 pulls over a 73 year old woman for making a left turn at 4:10pm where it says no left turn from 4-6pm. Copper sees the fop sticker and asks if it’s hers. She says no it’s my son’s. Copper then writes her a ticket for the left turn and no insurance because she can’t pull it up on her phone. He then takes her to the station and takes her car. He claims it’s the law and he has no discretion. This guy needs a fucking life.

So let's get this straight:

• elderly driver;
• disobeys the law;
• falsely represents her vehicle as being owned by an officer;
• can't provide proof of insurance;
• gets TVB-ed;
• car gets impounded....

And the officer, in this day and age of body cameras, POD cameras, in-car cameras, all mic-ed up and recorded in living color....writes tickets and applies the law as written, but he's going to get hassled because:

• she's old? Maybe someone should take away her license if her faculties are that bad;
• she's related to a cop? That's going to look really good at the IAD/COPA investigation;
• she can't produce insurance? She brings it to court and that one is dismissed;
• we won't even speculate as to racial profiling....but imagine that one;

The impound seems a bit over the top, but if there an underlying circumstance that necessitated the impound? They exist and the comment isn't clear, but can you imagine if the car wasn't impounded? You'd be lucky to get a three day suspension.

We're sorry, but this is what the citizens of Chicago have voted for, more so the lakefront liberal crowd, but pretty much citywide, countywide and statewide....nationwide if you like. We've advocated for (and the city is insisting on) NOT enforcing traffic laws across the board. but if you dip your toe in that pond, you better be 100% in the right lest you get suspended. 

You aren't going to be popular, your personal vehicle might take "parking lot damage," you might even be confronted by the mother's offended son. But you can rest assured that you probably created a voter who thinks government (that's you) has gotten too mercenary, too rapacious and too out-of-control. It might even work out in thirty or forty years.

Feel free to disagree - politely. We stopped writing tickets for anything other than accidents once cameras were installed on light poles, squad cars and police officers because we knew eventually, they'd be used against any "discretion" we once had.

Use Your Eyes

A couple of commentators took issue with our contention yesterday that the Wisconsin shooter wasn't actually a female as the media reported. The pearl-clutchers were offended that we would dare to make such an accusation in the face of media reports to the contrary. Well, let's take a look at it:

1. we were trained observers for nearly three decades and we recognize patterns;
2. we don't trust a word the media says;
3. we have photos and the manifesto from "her" social media sites via third parties and while we won't post them (because Google would shut us down if we did), they're enough to make us question any story being pushed by the media - "her" online handle was "crossixir" which might be a clue - if "she" wasn't full on trans, "she" was a cross dresser on the verge;
   
4. we recognize that Madison, Wisconsin is a hotbed of lib-tarded alphabet person advocacy and they'd never left the truth get in the way of a narrative....or concealing the truth;

And finally, how do you tell everyone the shooter is trans without telling everyone the shooter is trans? You let the chief of police have a press conference:

• The police chief investigating Monday’s deadly Wisconsin Christian school shooting is adamant that the 15-year-old killer’s gender identity isn’t “important at all.”

  Madison Police Chief Shon Barnes dismissed concerns about Natalie “Samantha” Rupnow’s identity when asked about early rumors that she was possibly transgender.

  “I don’t know whether Natalie was transgender or not. And, quite frankly, I don’t think that’s important at all,” Barnes said of Rupnow, who died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after killing a teacher and a student.

  “I don’t think whatever happened today has anything to do with how she or he or they may want to identify,” he stated.

Except that it has a massive bearing on any legit investigation, including if any drugs, hormone blockers, anti-depressants, etc might have influenced the murderous behavior seen in so many recent shootings.

 By the way, was anyone else amazed at the stupidity coming out of the White House today? Where Biden called for an "assault weapons ban" in a shooting where the killer used a pistol? And then (this really gets us) demands people face the full penalty of law when violating weapon laws, after he just pardoned his own son for not following weapon laws?

Crimesha the Liar

As she prepares to exit office, she leaves the same way she entered - lying her ass off.

Here's the interview with Craig Dellimore on WBBM Newsradio and at the 5:30 mark of the interview, she claims - without evidence and without a grain of truth to it - that the blog posted she had two daughters along with her address.

THIS IS A LIE. It never happened.

We don't post addresses. Shortshanks never got that treatment. We think we may have posted a picture of Rahm's front porch once, but that was after his "wife" had a hissy fit when someone left some tomatoes from the garden on the porch. Groot's abode was attached to a RedFin realtor listing on the internet.

Anything like what she claims never saw the light of day here.

But when you're an incompetent lawyer, alleged husband beater, criminal coddler, who makes up law while washing root beer out of your clothes, it's par for the course.

What Have You Done Citizen?

When we give advice like this:

• Don't get middled - let them torch downtown. Let Conehead have his nervous breakdowns. Let Fata$$ refuse to call out the National Guard. Self-preservation is the only intelligent move.

We know it's going to provoke comments from some tiny-brain like this:

• And you and your fellow travelers wonder why regular, normal, tax paying, working stiffs don't "Back the Blue" anymore? Actually calling for crime and mayhem to be ignored???

We didn't say "ignore." By all means, respond promptly and carefully if assigned the job. But...be that "crime monitor" you see on the commercials. Make sure your in-car camera is running, turn on that body cam, record everything you can....from a safe and secure distance, using time and shielding as dictated by the "Consent Decree." Because any police action you take will be scrutinized by four or more "oversight" agencies looking to suspend, fire and imprison you.

And you, Dear Citizen Reader, what have you done to "Back the Blue" as you so cavalierly put it? Did you buy a t-shirt? A bumper sticker? Have you displayed them proudly on your car or in your windows? Do you sign petitions and organize community groups to speak up for the police? Are you making phone calls to politicians who vote to hamstring the entire Department and allow un-elected bureaucrats to dream up reasons to harass, suspend and fire Officers for what was completely normal (and legal) just five years ago? Are you running for office or just running your mouth?

No doubt you are a "progressive" type that won't stand up to aggression if it's by one of the "protected" classes who are allowed to run roughshod over entire neighborhoods. You have the "Hate has no home here" sign on the lawn and watch XiNN and MSDNC to tell you police are slave catchers, Trump is Hitler, boys can be girls and climate doom is a mere few years away. 

You expect the police to be all knowing, all powerful and all-to-willing to go to prison for what an armchair quarterback decides over the course of days to second guess a situation that an Officer might be lucky to have five seconds to react to. And with the "defunding" and manpower shortages, do it all with increasingly useless, tedious, needless "training" that exists solely so some exempt member's pincushion can avoid the street.

Do us a favor - sign up and show us how it's done. We did, for nearly thirty years.

Never Satisfied

People think cops bitch and moan a lot. We might, but no more than average and we usually have good reasons. Guess who complains more? People (and folks) judging cops:

• Chicago police were given a lot of credit for how they handled the protests during the Democratic National Convention and kept the city safe. But a police watchdog group is saying the real test for police is still ahead.

Imagine that.

• During the DNC protests, Chicago police said, officers made 74 arrests and noted there were only eight or nine complaints about police conduct.

  On Friday, CPD Supt. Larry Snelling praised his officers for their restraint. "So as a result of it, you didn't see the activity that people expected to see," Snelling said.

Under one hundred arrests and under ten complaints. That is a victory right there....unless you're a professional complainer:

• One of the leaders of the March on the DNC on Tuesday said that police should not be taking a victory lap.

  "A lot of people from the from the different organizations, different contingents, the protesters themselves said they felt extremely intimidated by those cops being right on top of the protesters the way they were," said Coalition to March on the DNC Spokesperson Hatem Abudayyeh.

  Abudayyeh pointed to the police bicycle lines and the riot gear in particular.

If you and your group had proven yourselves trustworthy over the past few protests, perhaps the show of force wouldn't have been necessary. But given what we all know, better to be prepared than not.

These assholes in the "All Criminals Love Us" group:

• The American Civil Liberties Union noted that police should be credited for showing a lot of de-escalation and restraint when all the supervisors and cameras were around.

  "How does that work the next time there's a traffic stop? How does that work the next time there's a foot pursuit or a stop and frisk, or there's an interaction in the community?" said ACLU of Illinois Communications Director Ed Yohnka.

We don't know under what table Ed's been hiding, but pretty much 99%-plus of recorded incidents since cameras were introduced doesn't show the police acting like assholes - it shows exactly the opposite. 

• Demonstrators were also frustrated by how police and the city sought for months to restrict where and how they could march and rally. The ACLU, which is part of the consent decree coalition, would like to see Chicago police act every day as they did during the DNC.

  "There shouldn't be a difference because the whole world's watching. It ought to look the same on the South, or the West, or the North Side, or downtown, simply because that's the way policing should work," Yohnka said.

Too bad Ed can't say that South, West and North side behaviors should look the same, because that's how a civil society should operate....but then he'd be labeled as a racist instead of just an ignorant communist. It's just easier to blame the police for human failings in stressful situations.

Finally Channel 7's progressive staff had to get their last dig in:

• While the police response during the convention may have helped erase the ghosts of 1968, the department's long-term reputation in the neighborhoods may depend on how well the DNC lessons become part of CPD's DNA.

Why don't you go into the neighborhoods (instead of "reporting" from behind a computer desk) and ask around about "ghosts of 1968." Few remember, fewer care, and those that do tend to agree with old Mayor Daley - the hippies had it coming. Read "Boss" by Royko. He went out into the neighborhoods, usually drunk, and the people there backed Daley and the cops. If we remember correctly, Illinois pols won by their biggest margins in history with city voters. Daley certainly did. 

The only ones hung up on 1968 are the ones who supported the losing side. And they lost their shot at "revenge" in 1996 when that one went off relatively smoothly.

But this all proves that trying to win the approval of leftist, progressive, communist, democrat assholes is always a sucker's bet.

Slum Times Strikes Again

Airing out all sorts of unsustained allegations:

• The five Chicago police officers involved in the fatal shooting of Dexter Reed after his SUV was pulled over have been investigated a combined 41 times since 2019, with many of those complaints stemming from traffic stops.

Not a single sustained allegation by the way.

But this particular article doesn't once mention Dexter's previous weapon arrest. Why the double standard? If we're throwing out unsustained allegations, then a previous gun arrest deserves mention, along with alleged PPP fraud, right? Especially a gun arrest at a rather large public gathering where hundreds of innocent people (and folks) were potentially in danger!

The Slum Times also quotes the fake ACLU (All Criminals Love Us) stats regarding traffic stops:

• The American Civil Liberties Union last year filed a lawsuit against the Chicago Police Department claiming officers make a disproportionate number of traffic stops in predominantly Black and Latino neighborhoods.

To which we simply reply:

Cops go to where the crime is....and crime is (cough cough) disproportionate.

Graphic courtesy of HeyJackass.com

COPA Lying....Again (UPDATE)

These lib-tarded commie fucksticks need to be disbanded.

Here's the TRR from the wounded officer (from the COPA website, so don't give us any $hit about it). Note the circled portion (click for larger version):

How many shots fired by the wounded Officer?

• Zero

And here are the TRR's from the other four Officers. Again, note the circled portions (click for larger version):

How many shots accounted for by the other four Officers?

• 17 + 34 + 16 + 12 = 79 shots by the police
  

We're going to do some really complicated math here, so if you work for COPA, are named Jamal Green, are raising three black kids and a love child on the west side, or are any of the other asshole political jagoffs reading, you might need a calculator:

• 96 shots MINUS 79 shots equals.....17 shots
  

And seventeen is.....the number of rounds commonly found in a semi-automatic pistol.

In plain English, Dexter did a mag-dump at the police.

He didn't fire eleven times, he fired everything he had.

And he's exactly where he belongs right now.

UPDATE: Some readers and ALL of the media have missed the point. The Officers didn't fire 96 times. They fired 79 times as accounted for in all of the TRR paperwork. 

But "79" doesn't have the attention grabbing appeal of "almost 100" in COPA's and the lilb-tarded media attempt to stir up the ghetto cauldron into some sort of behavior that can be exploited for other purposes.

What you are seeing is a "narrative" being constructed in real time.

For the Ignorant

And by Ignorant, we specifically mean:

• the jagoff mayor Conehead;
• the worthless Crimesha
• the useless head of COPA Andrea Kersten
• dickhead Durbin
  
• governor Fata$$
• and the sniveling coward "superintendent" Larritorious Smelling
  

Here's the Supreme Court decision regarding persons in vehicles:

• Pennsylvania v. Mimms, 434 U.S. 106 (1977), is a United States Supreme Court criminal law decision holding that a police officer ordering a person out of a car following a traffic stop and conducting a pat-down to check for weapons did not violate the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

The Officers were completely within the Law ordering Dexter from the vehicle following the stop. Regardless of the reason for the stop, once you are ordered from the car, you MUST exist the vehicle.

Here's the relevant part of the Illinois Law:

• (720 ILCS 5/7-5)(from Ch. 38, par. 7-5) Sec. 7-5. Peace officer's use of force in making arrest. (a) A peace officer, or any person whom he has summoned or directed to assist him, need not retreat or desist from efforts to make a lawful arrest because of resistance or threatened resistance to the arrest. He is justified in the use of any force which he reasonably believes, based on the totality of the circumstances, to be necessary to effect the arrest and of any force which he reasonably believes, based on the totality of the circumstances, to be necessary to defend himself or another from bodily harm while making the arrest.

An Officer had just been shot by Dexter. Therefore, Deadly Force is authorized, even demanded, due to the actions of the offender, and until such time as the offender ceased his actions. The video, however shaky, shows Dexter holding, and firing a gun....and firing first.

And we can't believe we have to cite this Law, but in light of the politicians (and we include Larritorious in this category) slobbering all over a dead felon's testicles, here's the topper:

• 720 ILCS 5/7-7)(from Ch. 38, par. 7-7) Sec. 7-7. Private person's use of force in resisting arrest. A person is not authorized to use force to resist an arrest which he knows is being made either by a peace officer or by a private person summoned and directed by a peace officer to make the arrest, even if he believes that the arrest is unlawful and the arrest in fact is unlawful.

By Illinois Law, THERE IS ZERO RIGHT TO RESIST. If you feel an arrest or a traffic stop is unlawful, even if you know it with 100% certainty, your ONLY LEGAL course of action and/or correction is THROUGH THE COURTS, not on the street and certainly not by shooting at the police.

And although COPA is going to try to hang their hats on "too many shots," there is nothing in the law that specifies how many shots a "reasonable police officer" must fire to stop a threat. Anything by COPA is purely speculation, an Administrative matter and perhaps a Training Issue.

Ask Larritorious - he spent his career at the Training Academy - mostly getting laid by various willing recruits - but near enough to a classroom that by the process of osmosis, may have absorbed some passing knowledge of the Law.

This Moron Again?

Steinberg is whining again. Amusingly, at the very top of the column is a box that says, "This article cost an estimated $2,200 - DONATE NOW." 

We're pretty sure readers are being ripped off (no link for Neal):

• A police officer I know shared a link to a Chicago Police Department video encouraging cops to apply for the 2024 sergeants' exam. The five-minute video was produced for internal CPD consumption, but someone posted it to YouTube.

"Someone" had to post it because the Official CPD site took it down, probably because it was evidence of their stupidity and racism.

• The video begins with a stolid white-shirt, two pens snugly beside his gold star, looking directly into the camera.

  [useless exempt member spouting nonsense propaganda] I look forward to seeing all of your enthusiastic faces on examination day."

  All of their enthusiastic faces? Really? Because as the video unfolds ... well, let's give it a look.

We did. And so did a lot of other people, which is why Steinberg has something to write about.

• [more meri-clout-orious white shirts spouting platitudes in broken to poor English]
  

And the Neal gets nasty:

• Six more officers urge hard work. To an outsider, it's an unexceptional piece of management propaganda. So what's the trouble? Let's slide over to Second City Cop, an unofficial, relentlessly toxic Chicago police blog, and tune into the chatter:

Ah yes. As most of you know, Neal has carried a grudge against us for years now, ever since we wrote his....unfortunate experience with law enforcement. He proceeds to cherry-pick a few of the more pointed comments....anything to paint the blog in a bad light....and then this:

• Many remarks are blunt, bordering on cruel — lots of snark on the weight of the brass in the video. But they also reflect a reality as true in roll call as it was in kindergarten: It hurts to be left out. Particularly regarding job promotion. I asked CPD whether the racial makeup of the video was intentional.

  "The internal video featured supervisors encouraging all qualified members of the Chicago Police Department to apply for the upcoming sergeants' exam," News Affairs explained, dodging the question. "The role of a sergeant is an essential position within the Department and an important opportunity for the professional development of our sworn members. We continue to encourage all qualified members ready to take this next step in their careers to apply."

Neal ADMITS the Department dodged his question, and does exactly ZERO follow-up. You know, to hold government accountable for the things it does? What the media is supposed to do, or so we're told all the time.

And the lesson he derives from all of this?

• It hurts to be left out.
  

That's it? Wow. Tell us you were the last kid on the playground picked for teams without telling us you were the last kid picked. It's not about being "left out." It's about being completely dismissed from the rich and storied history of what was once a noble and respected calling of service to the community.

We aren't going to deny that the comment section gets a little rough at times. We filter out what needs filtering, but that is negligible. The fact is pretty much every single face in the video was a "merit" pick one or more times in their careers - a term that has no known definition in the CPD, nor attainable goals so that everyone could have a chance at meeting the "essential position" requirements - means that the ridicule is more than deserved in most cases.

And then Neal retreats to the tired old saw of aged liberals everywhere - racism!

• Maybe I should make their case for them. Chicago is 30% Black; only 22% of CPD is, and just 16% of sergeants. Must they tuck a token white face in their internal video? Is that really necessary?

Really? So if one-third of Department members, and one-third of sergeants are white, why wasn't a "token white face" in the video to even it all out? Why deliberately dismiss one-third of the Department from even being seen?

The rest of the column is excuse making, and Neal goes on about "merit," low standards, black versus white - and oddly, disregarding the one-third brown segment of the Department, who made numerous appearances in the video.

Guess Neal is racist, along with being a drunken wife beater.

Water Cooler Talk

Someone wrote this in a comment in the Fauci post:

• Been reading the blog for over a decade. It’s your blog, you can do whatever you want and I’ll still read it everyday. But the consensus I’ve been hearing around the water cooler at work is go back to the bread and butter, department rumors and boss bashing.

What District has a water cooler? Or what floor at HQ?

Whatever, we appreciate constructive criticism from where ever to keep the interest of the readers.

But we did a rough count of our January posts and found out of fifty-ish posts:

• 3 open posts
• 10 crime posts
• 6 scandals - police and fire
• 10 posts on politics (local, state and national)
• 4 posts on illegals
• 5 posts on schools
• 11 posts on Department issues, FOP and safety concerns

We thought it has been a pretty balanced January all-in-all. We don't have a water cooler, just a coffee spot and a bar. And believe it or not, cops actually care about politics at all levels, especially when so many political decisions affect our kids education, our tax bills, our bodily autonomy, our district lobbies, etc.

You're welcome to skip the posts that don't interest you. You're welcome to submit stories and rumors for us to look at and perhaps write about.

Fair warning though - as the 2024 election approaches and the next "plandemic" is implemented and cops are expected (ordered) to perform certain functions (even Constitutionally questionable functions), we're going to be writing until they don't allow us to.

Chasing? Hahahahaha

These morons want us to chase again? (long post)

• The Chicago Police Department should relax restrictions on vehicle pursuits because the sharp controls have encouraged robberies by criminals who believe they are unlikely to be chased, the head of a civilian oversight panel said Monday.

  Anthony Driver, president of the Community Commission on Public Safety and Accountability, joined the chairman of the City Council’s Police and Fire Committee in sounding the alarm about severe restrictions they say have contributed heavily to a citywide surge in robberies.

  Driver said he has asked commission staff to determine whether the civilian panel has the power to relax the restrictions without running afoul of a federal consent decree.

Well, seeing as how it's not a real "consent decree" and a commission has no real legal power, we'd imagine the answer is "nope."

• If it can’t be done by the commission, Driver said he would consider asking newly appointed Chicago Police Supt. Larry Snelling to take the lead by issuing a new general order on vehicular pursuits.

  “People do feel emboldened. … People run from the police and know that police aren’t going to chase them. They flee in cars and they go do more robberies,” Driver said on his way into a meeting with Snelling Monday to formulate annual goals that will be used to assess the superintendent’s performance.

  “Those chases do get very dangerous. That decision was made at a time when not only officers were being injured but so were members of the public,” Driver said. “It’s trying to find the right balance between … keeping pedestrians safe, but also making sure that folks are held accountable.”

Yeah, we were saying that almost at the beginning of the blog, nearly two decades now. We also said if you reward bad behavior, you get more of it. Not chasing is a reward of sorts because the criminal gets away with whatever they did that they're running from.

• In late January, Driver was the victim of an armed robbery while walking near his South Side home.

  Two teenagers jumped out of a tan SUV, stuck a gun in his abdomen and made off with his wallet, phone and computer.

  “When I was robbed, they had robbed six people before me. Literally. They pulled up and, when they robbed me, they threw out purses. They dumped the purses in the street,” Driver said.

  “I’m hearing from Chicagoans. I’m hearing from police officers and ... stakeholders that this is something that needs to be looked at. We can’t hide or run from this issue anymore. ... I don’t think there was a lot of public input from either the general public or officers when this policy was created.”

..........wow

Seriously....wow.

We seem to be overrun with stupid morons.

Anthony is it? Tony? Here's the scoop Tone - there was ZERO input from either the public or (most importantly) police. This was a political decision made by politicians with input from plaintiff lawyers who make a living suing the city, then making contributions to the people who passed the law.

Are you truly that uninformed? Should you even be the head of this commission that literally dictates the increasingly dangerous crime conditions affecting millions?

• Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29th), a former CPD officer now chairing the council’s police committee, urged the commission to take the lead in revising the current vehicle pursuit policy, which he believes went too far.

  The policy requires every vehicular pursuit to meet a balancing test: the need to “immediately apprehend the fleeing suspect” must outweigh “the level of inherent danger created by a motor vehicle pursuit.” It also states CPD “will not discipline any member for terminating a motor vehicle pursuit.”

  In practice, it “essentially becomes a no-chase policy. ... Even if you do see a robbery, does the current policy allow for a chase?” Taliaferro said. “Our chase policy does play a role in the criminal mindset,” he added, with robbers figuring “that since there is a no-chase policy, then I don’t have to worry.”

Even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while, and Taliaferro just found three. (1) Criminals have made the calculation that don't have to worry about being chased, apprehended and face consequences and (2) there was a hole in his pocket, and his hand wandered into his testicles.

• Yvette Loizon, another commission member, said she believes changes in the vehicular pursuit policy must be made by the superintendent.

  “Under the ordinance, that probably exceeds our purview because it’s a matter for the consent decree, which we don’t have direct authority over,” said Loizon, an attorney who serves as a partner at Clifford Law Offices.

  “But if CPD were to attempt to modify that order as a general order, we would then have the ability to provide them with input.”

How do we put this politely? "How about you input deez nuts?" You ignored the Department before. And not to brag of anything, this publicly available blog has been critiquing policy for years now, pointing out inanity, stupidity and plain old dumb decisions. The archives are still there. We write slightly above the third grade level that CPS aspires to, so if you need help with the big words, we're still here.

• Over the years, Chicago taxpayers have shelled out tens of millions of dollars to innocent pedestrians, motorists and passengers killed or injured during police pursuits gone bad, despite repeated overhauls of the pursuit policy.

And the Slum Times then cites a 2020 crash involving a squad car, the subsequent payout, and the "no foot chases" policy of last year. Counting the punitive damages assessed against Officers AFTER self-terminating pursuits in accordance with these policies, juries are still reaching into Officers' pockets for additional money.

So no thanks. It's safer to not even begin the pursuit in the first place.

Unless.....

Tell you what:

• go to Springfield, convince those idiots down there to grant blanket 100% immunity to Officers EXCEPT in cases of PROVABLE avoidable injury by Officers' NEGLIGENCE;
• outlaw punitive damages against Officers EXCEPT for the above condition;
• expand the Felony Murder statute to include Great Bodily Harm by the offender;
• and require States Attorney to charge it in all cases under threat of losing their law licenses, their elected positions and a couple years in prison.

Then we'll think about it.

Simple Solution

A few weeks ago, we posted about the failure during the car parade downtown:

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

A couple of commentators and emailers misread our meaning. Even though we explicitly said "not like 1968" it appears they thought we meant clearing the streets by way of pepper spray, tear gas and batons. That isn't what we meant at all.

What do you need for an out-of-control crowd? First of all, you need a crowd. 

So what if there was no crowd?

Here's a simple street map with one-way arrows:

Imagine a few hundred cars driving all over these streets. Chaos, right?

Now here's another simple street map with blocked intersections and raised bridges:

The usable streets are all headed in one direction - out of town.

The Department used this method during the Bulls riots on a smaller scale, but it cleared out impromptu car parades in short order. We know....because we were there. And it worked. We were able to secure large sections of previously out-of-control blocks without using a single baton, pepper spray or gas team. There were Districts that used all of those, and we were there, too. Guess which way we preferred? No muss, no fuss, no car parade in short order.

Now, we've got salt trucks, dump trucks, empty buses, bike teams, Jersey barriers, stop sticks and lord knows what else. Add in some raised bridges and guess where the parade goes? Either out of town or no where at all, and in that case, ER Towing does business that rivals the first day of Winter Parking Restrictions.

If anyone wants to steal this idea, you saw it here first, and we stole it from the 1990s.

Intended Consequence

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

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

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

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

That wasn’t us. But this is.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

GunsSaveLife.com Link

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

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

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

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

This is getting amusing on many levels now.

Threats Update

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Threats Against the Blog

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

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

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

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

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

Let us just highlight a few things:

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

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

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

So how about this instead: 

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

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

Looking forward to hearing from you.

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

Sun Times Panders

Of course, when has the Sun Times NOT pandered? This is just par for the course and we haven't had an opportunity to slap the media around in a while, so let's see if we've lost a step. Here's a political hit piece disguised as an "editorial" that appeared 05 July:

• Mass traffic stops that don’t stop crime show Chicago sorely needs policing reform

Oooo....scary headline! A lie, a false premise, and a completely unprovable conclusion. Way to begin!

• Chicago Police officers have stopped Austin resident Jacquez Beasley at least 12 times since he got his driver’s license three years ago. He’s been ordered out of his car, frisked and had his vehicle searched. Yet officers have never issued the Chicago Park District employee a traffic citation, arrested him or seized any contraband.

Did he commit a traffic violation? Did he commit an arrestable offense? Did he have any contraband? No idea!

• Police have pulled over South Lawndale resident José Manuel Almanza Jr., a U.S. Marine Corps veteran who works for a West Side racial justice organization, more than 12 times since 2021. As with Beasley, police have never ticketed Almanza, arrested him or seized any guns or drugs from his car.

Same three questions

• South Shore resident Mahari Bell, a marketing consultant and part-time driver for UberEats and DoorDash, has been subject to at least 10 traffic stops. He’s been ordered out of his car, handcuffed and had his vehicle searched — but has never been ticketed, arrested or had contraband seized.

Same three questions

• What’s going on here can’t be written off as just unfortunate coincidence, according to a lawsuit filed in federal court last week against the city and the Chicago Police Department, by the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois. Seems a lot like the new stop and frisk, and it’s doing little or nothing to stop crime.

One more question Slum Times - were the stops recorded on in-car and body cam video?

:::crickets::: 

Of course they were! Not recording is a suspend-able offense. Not recording with intent is a felony - Class 3 - and will result in the officer losing his job and going to prison. And to drive that point home a bit more, WOL's (watch commanders) are required to view these videos on a daily basis, note infractions and take corrective/disciplinary action. Failure to do so results in them being suspended, usually starting at three days and moving upwards.

Almost no one is not recording stops any more and those that aren't are being tagged for three, five, seven, even thirty days off. IAD and COPA are bragging about suspension days being handed out. If there aren't any separations already, there will be because it's been the law of the Department, City and State for a few years now.

The "editorial" continues:

• The 147-page lawsuit details a list of repeated, invasive traffic stops by police of Beasley, Almanza, Bell and two additional plaintiffs, all of whom are Black or Latino. The plaintiffs were pulled over for minor infractions like a burned-out tail light — or no infraction at all — and were forced to answer questions such as whether they had a firearms owner ID card or where they were going.

Um....so minor infractions aren't infractions anymore? We must have missed that one, because we've been seeing misdemeanor trespassers in Washington DC being held for over two years without trial and no one at the Slum Times seems to have an issue with that.

Um....no infraction? Again - cameras. 

Um....forced to answer? Oh lord, if only! Ignorance of your Constitutional Rights and the voluntary surrender of same is not "forced to." You aren't required to tell anyone where you're going or what you're doing. Lefties and the media (but we repeat ourselves) write like this to mis-educate the citizenry to further their BS narrative.

• In some cases, the lawsuit maintains, the plaintiffs were ordered out of their vehicle while it was searched, then frisked and even handcuffed — yet none of these incidents resulted in even a traffic citation, much less an arrest or seizure of guns or drugs.

Again, as cited throughout our archives, Maryland v Wilson and Pennsylvania v Mimms. During a lawful stop, you can be ordered from the vehicle at any time for any reason and you cannot refuse. The Supreme Court said so. Stops aren't required to end in citations or arrests. Verbal and written warnings are completely legal and unless you brought illegal guns/drugs along for the ride, how are police supposed to find something that isn't there? Plant it? Again - CAMERAS.

Then we get to the heart of the lawsuit and the intent of the Slum Times:

• The ACLU analyzed more than 2.6 million traffic stops over six years, from 2016 through 2022, that showed Black drivers in Chicago are four to seven times more likely to be pulled over by police than whites, and Latino drivers are stopped twice as often.

Eek. So scary.

Four to seven times more likely....why? Are they attracting attention to themselves? Like speeding, rolling stop signs, blasting music? Are they driving like a$$holes, swerving in and out of traffic, turning illegally, littering and generally acting like the Rules of the Road don't apply to them? Maybe they don't have both plates and they aren't current in the computer and the rear one isn't lit.

Let's be nicer - are they driving a ghetto hooptie with a cracked windshield, missing hubcaps, hanging bumpers, missing gas tank door, cracked taillights, etc? And are they driving this rattle trap because, due to their economic conditions, this was the only running vehicle they could afford to get to and from work or school or even the gun range?

Because each and every reason listed above is enough to stop a car and check it out for a police officer. The police didn't make it so - the LEGISLATURE did. And then, the Legislature gave the power of enforcement to.....the police.

And then there's the elephant in room - where are these wrecks concentrated? What parts of Chicago? The poor parts? And those parts of Chicago are populated by....poor people? And poor people tend to trend....

You see where we're going? If you're working in certain Districts, where the population is 90% or greater of a certain demographic, it's damn near impossible to stop anyone NOT of that persuasion.

There's an easy solution of course. France pioneered it - No-Go Zones. You just don't send the police there and you don't enforce the laws the Legislature passed in those areas. Problem solved! 

Of course, if you watch the news, France is currently experiencing riots unlike any seen in the past decade and in the not-to-distant-future, the army will be called in to "pacify" the banlieues (slums).

Which ironically, is what the media, lefties and democrats (repeating ourselves again) want.

The editorial goes on a little more, making less sense and we imagine some of you are bored with our wordiness. But you should read it anyway and take it to heart, especially if you're stuck on this job as we are for a bit. You have no real friends in the mainstream media and they are using you for a larger agenda. The ACLU is utilizing data YOU collected to make YOU less safe and less able to afford a middle-class lifestyle. Same with the Department and the City itself.

Side Note: Is Mope-rah still on the Slum Times editorial board? This whole thing sounds like the usual crap she spews from her over-entitled criminal-coddling Maywood-dwelling piehole.