Aldercreature Arrested

Yeah, we heard about this one earlier Monday. Evidently, so did a lot of people. We'd love to claim we had an inside source that tipped us off when we commented on gangs making political in-kind contributions of money, but we'd be fibbing.

Coverage at the Sun Times, Tribune, Channel 2, Channel 5 and Channel 7.

Here's the amusing part of it all:

• Troutman has been under scrutiny by law enforcement for years. Investigators are seeking her cooperation.

We're hoping for the same thing.

Tears of a Clown

It isn't that amazing that they're actually starting to connect some old time mobsters to slayings that occurred years ago. There is little honor among thieves nowadays and certainly, the Outfit of old is long since gone.

What's amazing is that they're able to preserve evidence from 32 years ago and actually might get to use it.

• In 2005, more than 30 years after the slaying, prosecutors charged Lombardo and another reputed mob hit man, Frank "the German" Schweihs, with killing Seifert. It's one of 18 Outfit rubouts the feds have charged in an indictment against some of the top alleged mobsters of Chicago -- all part of the Family Secrets trial set for May.

  The fingerprint was referred to publicly, for the first time, in a court motion that Lombardo's attorney, Rick Halprin, filed Friday. Halprin wants information on the methodology the government's expert used in linking the print to Lombardo so he can plan a possible challenge. Halprin said Friday he's interested in finding out whether any testing used on the fingerprint destroyed part or all of it.

It's going to be an interesting May if this trial goes forward.

From the Comments Section

Sometimes, someone writes something so awe inspiringly goofy, we just have to post it up here for everyone to enjoy:

• For heaven's sake SCC can't you say anything good or even a simple appreciation that OCD did a very good job!!! Always has something to say but nothing encouraging full of criticism. Grow up SCC before I was praising you but know I doubt it that you deserved to be. Bet ya your one of those dog ass cop in the beat!!! Bet that you don't even have an arrest for decades. You seem to know so much but why can't you do anything, let's say be the president of FOP and help us out here, but nooooo!!!! your not, because you don't know shit!!!!!!! Ever think of running??? No, why? chicken shit!! Maybe if you run I'll back you up. GROW UP!!!

  1/08/2007 09:47:55 AM
  

First of all, we aren't criticizing the coppers. Read the first line of our post - it says "Nice job." That's good AND appreciative. It was a good arrest. However, based on what we know, it really isn't that large of a bust. 2,800 pounds of weed doesn't even scratch the surface of what passes through this city on a daily basis. We've heard estimates of tens of tons a day that roll through Cook County on the way to other locations nation wide. We're just pointing that out.

As to the rest of the criticisms, we don't consider ourselves dog asses on the beat. We work damn hard for our money. We had more than a few arrests in the last decade or two. We know lots about lots of things, some of it even relating to police work. We chose to remain in the background lest we jeopardize our spots. We aren't eligible to run for FOP as we haven't got the required meetings yet this year, though that might change shortly as the election isn't until spring of 2008.

Now this is entertaining - let's go to the Sun Times article, the final paragraph:

• Caluris praised the officers involved in the raids: [Lt] Cervenka, Sgt. Matthew Cline (son of Supt. Phil Cline), Lt. Joseph Gorman, Sgt. George Karuntzos, Lt. Peter Piazza and Sgt. Armando Ramirez.

Golly, all those OCD bosses grabbing all that cannabis off the street. One would hardly think we needed blue shirts at all anymore. Maybe whoever wrote that comment was one of the listed bosses who doesn't like that we pointed out how little a ton and a half of weed actually means in the "War on Drugs"? Where's the praise for the teams that actually did the work?

We think someone else needs to do a little growing up, hmmmm?

$7.5 Million Cannabis Seizure

Nice job. But barely a fraction of a percent of what goes through the various freight and rail yards of the city.

• Chicago police seized millions of dollars in illegal drugs in the past four days, and arrested six suspects.

  Narcotics unit officers displayed more than a ton of marijuana Sunday night. The officers also confiscated five firearms and almost $55,000 in cash.

• "This led to the successful seizure if over 2,800 pounds of marijuana valued at $7.5 million in street value. The street gangs use these narcotics to fund their enterprises, to buy the guns that put our community and everybody at risk, in terms of violence," said Deputy Chief Steve Caluris of the Narcotics and Gangs unit.

How about the money the gangs contribute to various political figures in an effort to influence political decision making? Don't say it isn't happening.

Recycling Will Save Us!

What was the last recycling rate we saw published? Something like 12% of all households in Chicago? Yet they keep coming up with BS like this:

• The city's 2007 Christmas Tree Recycling Effort, which began Saturday, is expected to surpass last year's 12,000 tree total, according to a release from the Department of Streets and Sanitation.
  
  Mayor Richard M. Daley and other city officials including 43rd Ward Alderman Vi Daley, Streets & Sanitation Commissioner Mike Picardi, Environment Commissioner Sadhu Johnston, and others met in Lincoln Park Saturday morning to help kick-off the citywide Christmas tree recycling effort.

A number no one will bother to check. And it keeps going up year after year and no one questions it, sort of like the election returns from various wards. Does anyone really care?

Lieutenants Test Tales

We're already seeing the typical stories that accompany any test given by the city - people showing up late and still being allowed inside; people not bringing the material they need and still being allowed inside; people using mobile phones in violation of just about every rule published and still being allowed to remain inside.

And then there's the dozens who don't even show up for Part 2 - you know a large portion of these goofs are the ones who are going to be merit over the next few years. How the hell can they even be considered qualified for their position if they didn't even sit the entire exam? At least come up with some kind of legit number, even if the number is 475 or worse. No wonder apathy and complete disrespect for the ranks is rampant. The testing is actually a symptom of the disease nowadays.

Anyone with funny or appalling stories about the test can post here. Was it an "in-basket" test AND oral portion? Or how did they run it for the benefit of the teeming masses reading here?

Bears By Week

Or is it "bye-week?" We're pretty sure it isn't "bi-week" though and we sure hope it isn't "bye-bye week." We, along with a large portion of the Bear followers, are having some doubts about how this team is going to handle the coming week and coming game.

Discuss here.

Note to the Packers fan who likes to type in all CAPITAL LETTERS: keep it sensible and civil or your comments aren't going to see the light of day.

What Happened in 008?

From the Comments Section:

• Dear Commander of 8th District.
  Its not that I don't agree with what you were saying at check off roll call, because I learned along time ago how to make life and this job easier by staying under the radar, But to berate and belittle your troops by yelling and screaming at them is not only very unprofessional but childlike. I am glad u showed your true colors to the younger p.o.'s. I personally lost all respect that I did have in you. I also would like you to know that if you every scream and yell at me personally and roll up your sleeves like you did and charge me like you did that one officer sitting in the front row you better be prepared to get a bloody nose and black eye. I considered that an act of aggression and assault. Some people don't need this job as much as you might think, so be prepared to back up your tuff talk. I demand a apology for your actions and words to the 3rd watch ASAP.

Now believe us, we know that this site is the 21st century version of the bathroom wall. We filter out bunches of garbage. But sometimes, there is more than a little grain of truth in some of the trash. Anyone have any comment or insight into the above letter? Half or more might be complete BS. Or it might be 100% on target. If so, we'd like to know.

Let the Coronation Begin

Done Deal:

• Vanquished mayoral challenger Bobby Rush has all but endorsed Mayor Daley, calling him a "great mayor" who's done a "fantastic job" and "deserves another term."

  Will state Sen. James Meeks become the next mayoral critic to grab a seat on the Daley bandwagon? It sure sounds that way.

  On Thursday, Meeks joined Daley in an appeal for education funding reform and appeared to set the stage for a future endorsement of the 17-year incumbent's bid for a sixth term.

Of course, Dorothy Brown isn't happy.

• Hurt, incensed and moved to tears, mayoral challenger Dorothy Brown today accused State Sen. James Meeks of sexism for playing footsie with Mayor Daley and for calling Brown a "loser" unworthy of endorsement.
  

Watch for her to get some sort of judgeship shortly. Or if god forbid, a democrat wins the White House in two years, an ambassador's post for doing her sacrifical lamb duty for the Machine.

And William "Dock" Walls will get nothing except a very large campaign debt he'll have the next decade to pay off.

Slow Down 011!

A reader writes to us that 011, determined to prove that it really really won the ghoul pool this year, has racked up 3 homicides in the first 4 days of the year.

Slow down boys and girls! Save some for the summer time.

Is This for Real?

We got an e-mail today from someone who recently attended the week long TARA training sessions and they related that there is a proposal in the works to actually evacuate the families of CPD personnel out of the city in the event of a major terrorist attack.

Obviously, the thinking behind this is to avoid a mass desertion of posts as happened in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina where officers failed to report for duty so they could take care of their own families instead. And seriously, can anyone really blame NOPD officers for listening to that instinct? Why place yourself in harms way for a city that did nothing but crap on officers for the past couple of decades (NOPD was always near the bottom in salary and benefits in nationwide rankings and corruption was endemic).

Can anyone confirm or deny that this plan is actually being studied? Because we really have a hard time trusting the City to do anything even remotely beneficial to officers that costs them a dime. We can't see this ever getting past the planning stages. We'd bet money that the plan would be to evacuate to some location like McCormick Place, thereby providing another tempting target to terrorists and not actually providing any sort of safety to officer's families.

The Gun Grabber Returns

From the Sun Times:

• Emboldened by Democratic gains in the Illinois Senate, Mayor Daley unveiled his annual package of gun-control legislation Wednesday -- this time, to reverse an uptick in Chicago homicides.

  Once again, Daley wants to ban assault weapons statewide, license gun dealers and limit handgun purchases to one a month per person. He also wants to mandate trigger locks in homes whose residents include anyone under 18, instead of 14 as now required.
  

It doesn't get much better from there. Of course, it's all "for the children" and other such nonsense, disregarding the fact completely that most people killed in this city aren't killed with properly registered handguns or long guns at all. So once again, the only people affected by this anti gun legislation are the law abiding citizens.

Keep voting for democrats people - lambs to the slaughter. In the meantime, click over here and get involved.

And Speaking of Rumors...

We noticed a major overhaul at SecondCityDick.

Since we went to moderated comments, we've been filtering out maybe 5% of the BS that regularly passes through our site. Some of our veteran readers recall the insanity that went on before. For the most part, the tiny brains have given up the nonsense, but we still have a few who seem to be learning disabled. One of our more mentally challenged commentators constantly posted how SCD had unmoderated real time posting of comments. Good for SCD. Hopefully, they don't have to go through the process we did cleaning out the trash.

But does anyone know if something bad happened over at SCD? Literally dozens of posts have disappeared, every single one of them involving pictures of exempts and open comments. We have a feeling either a chill wind blew their way or they are experiencing the same thing we did when we had to filter our 60-70% of the comments. It just became tedious - a job instead of a hobby. Anyone have info?

Lieutenant's Test Tomorrow

Part 2 of the most recent test is scheduled for tomorrow. We're sure someone out there has some idea of what is going to be the main gist of the exam.

And where the heck are the results from the Sergeants Exam? Some said they were going to be mailed out next week? Or the week after? Or never?

Rumor Central is now us it seems. Start the ball rolling.

We Get Mail

A campaign flyer actually.

Someone noted in the comments section that they had received a "Keep Chicago Moving Forward" flyer touting the re-election campaign of the current mayor. We checked the mail today and so did we. It also comes with a handy pre-paid address card that can be mailed back so as to volunteer your services in the campaign. The reader proposed labeling the whole thing "Return to Sender" and dumping it back into the mail. Trouble is, your mailing address is on the flyer. We'd propose the following instead:

• Tear out the pre-paid address card and fill it out with some nonsense - Jack Mehoff; Amanda Hugnkiss; SCC; whatever you like - use HQ as the address so they know it's from officers.
  
• Check the "other" box and write in something funny like "dismantling Machine politics," or "turning State's evidence for Fitzgerald."
• Mail the postcard in to deprive the re-election campaign of some small amount of funding, no matter how little it might be. Your own little protest in a mere minute!
  

Contract time is coming up and you know the City is going to drag it out for a couple years if possible. Might as well register your dissent somehow.

Next up? How to cast a write in vote for "SCC" on the mayoral ballot!

Worrying Finding - Part 2

Yesterday, we posted the article about how the world class city we call home is as woefully unprepared for a terrorist attack as American Samoa. The primary failure here seems to be based on the lack of interagency communication in the event of a major disaster.

Well, the City is firing back with both barrels. Channel 2, Channel 5, Channel 7, the Tribune and the Sun Times all have coverage of the rebuttal to the Department of Homeland Security report. The City's Chief Emergency Officer, is especially adamant in his defense of local preparations:

• Cortez Trotter said the extraordinary levels of inter-agency cooperation on display at the LaSalle Bank building fire, the South Side power outage and micro-burst and the CTA Blue Line derailment prove that Chicago has the communications network it needs to handle an even larger disaster.
• "You come into the ... the region and stay for a couple of hours at an exercise and, from that, you determine whether or not there's inter-operability issues in Chicago? ... Do you believe the report? Do you believe the two hours or three hours they spent here in the exercise? Do you guys believe what you've seen here or do you believe what you're hearing?" Trotter said.
• "Remember the micro-burst on the South Side of the city? Remember the LaSalle Bank building fire? Remember the Blue Line derailment? Remember the power outage? You don't get through those ... with some degree of success without a collaboration and good communication system. At the LaSalle Bank building fire, the ....agreement that we have with our regional partners was the largest in the history of Chicago. You can't bring people in like that and successfully mitigate without having a good communications network."

When you can't defend a position, the easiest plan is to attack the report pointing out the shortcomings. In every single link above, not a one questions or quotes the guys and gals out in the field who might actually be doing the communicating or the grunts in the trenches at OEMC who are at the other end of the radio. Has a single one of our readers EVER been able to communicate directly with a CFD unit? How about one who's a front line supervisor? And by communicate, we mean other than walking over to the ambulance or apparatus parked on the corner? We don't think so. Is it necessary? Seldom. But in the event of a major event, it's desirable. By the time they roll the "Command Van" out, we're in the middle of some giant headaches.

How about initial Command and Control? We assume someone, somewhere has been trained to set up a temporary command post whereby CFD and CPD can coordinate efforts until such time as a more permanent base of operations can be set up, but thanks to the attitude that it's not feasible to train up the entire Department, we are going to be stuck with a whole boatload of improvisations until those trained people can get into position.

And we hate to rain on Cortez Trotter's parade, but each of the disasters he notes, were for the most part a self contained single agency effort with a minor supporting role for a second agency:

• the microburst was a coordination of city services for the most part,
• the LaSalle Bank fire was a CFD effort with CPD as traffic control,
• the Blue Line derailment was a CTA mishap with CFD doing evac and CPD traffic,
• the power outage was just about all ComEd.

These were recovery efforts. Emergencies, yes, but the potential for loss of life and damage to property was minimal at best. DHS is concerned with a major event along the lines of 9/11 - multiple coordinated attacks against numerous targets resulting in casualties designed to overwhelm a regional ability to cope.

In that case, we are in big trouble.

First Homicide?

We're seeing comments and hearing from readers that the first homicide of 2007 has already been ruled "Self Defense" and the Cook County State's Attorney has declined to seek felony charges.

Anyone from Area 4 or 011 care to enlighten us on this one? We're hearing that the dead guy got all his buddies to crash the party after getting tossed out and someone had a shotgun (properly registered?) and the witnesses couldn't agree on who fired first?

And does this affect the ghoul pool?

Worrying Finding

This is troubling:

• Only six of 75 U.S. cities and surrounding areas rate top grades for their emergency agencies' ability to communicate during a disaster, according to a federal report obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press. A draft portion of the report, to be released Wednesday, gives the highest ratings to Washington, San Diego, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Columbus, Ohio; Sioux Falls, S.D., and Laramie County, Wyoming.

  The lowest scores went to Chicago; Cleveland, Baton Rouge, La.; Mandan, N.D., and American Samoa.

American Samoa? Chicago, world class city, City of Big Shoulders, hog butcher to the world, home of Al Capone and Michael Jordan, is on par with ... wait for it ... American Samoa? WTF? Who in their right mind is going to attack American Samoa? Hell, who in the darkest recesses of their most insane ramblings is going to attack American Samoa? And we are as prepared as they are. That's comforting - NOT.

We are so NOT looking forward to the day when terror comes to town. Just listening to some of the horror stories of out and out bureaucratic incompetence and negligence that arise every so often and the other stories from around the world that we hear from people who attended the TARA training over the past year, we are no where near prepared for what could be inflicted on the city. And this mayor wants us to host an Olympics? Good Lord.

It Must Be Official

011 won. Even the Medical Examiner is saying so:

• Police have two people in custody Tuesday morning for what the Cook County Medical Examiner's office is calling the first homicide of 2007.
  
  The shooting occurred when a gunman left one party and opened fire with a shotgun at another party, leaving three men injured, one fatally, on the West Side early Monday.
  
  Two men, ages 30 and 27, were in custody Tuesday morning but no charges had been filed as of 11:30 a.m., police News Affairs Officer Marcel Bright said.

And everyone knows the ME wouldn't get caught on the wrong side of a controversy, right?

Darwin Award Narrowly Averted

Damnit!

• A 21-year-old woman was hospitalized for intoxication over the weekend after "continually providing wrong answers" during a game of Trivial Pursuit where participants drank alcohol and did drugs when they answered incorrectly.
  
• If a player provided an incorrect answer, that person would take a shot of E & J Brandy and take a hit off a marijuana blunt, according to the report. "Blunt" is the vernacular for marijuana rolled up in cigar leaves.

Nice little advertising plug for the 2005 Current Events Trivial Pursuit people. We're sure they're all a flutter over their publicity coup.