Crazy North Side (UPDATED)

This could have ended very badly:

• A Northwest Side man is accused of beating his neighbor to death, injuring himself and then assaulting a police officer and a nurse following his arrest.

• After police arrested Tyler, officers took him to Illinois Masonic Medical Center to be treated for self-inflicted injuries, authorities said.

  While at the hospital, Tyler hit a female nurse with a glass shelf, leaving a wound that required 38 stitches, police said. Tyler allegedly punched one of the arresting officers in the face and tried to disarm him.

  Tyler was charged with first-degree murder, aggravated battery to a police officer, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and attempting to disarm a police officer, police said.

Thank goodness it didn't. Was this a one-man-detail on a suspected murderer?

UPDATE: We completely missed this part of the article:

• While at the hospital, Tyler hit a female nurse with a glass shelf, leaving a wound that required 38 stitches

Reported as FACT. Then this:

• Tyler allegedly punched one of the arresting officers in the face and tried to disarm him

Really? He cut up a nurse, but "allegedly" punched and tried to disarm an officer? Anyone who thinks these isn't a built in bias against anything involving Chicago cops, then this article ought to be Exhibit A in any rebuttal.

Verified

See ya later!

• A 28-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department has been tapped to lead the Darien Police Department, officials announced.
  
  Deputy Superintendent Ernest Brown is currently in charge of the 8,000 officers in the Chicago Police Department’s Bureau of Patrol, which includes its SWAT teams. He also served as the chief of the organized crime division in Chicago.
  
  Darien Mayor Kathleen Weaver said in a written statement that Brown was her top choice for the job, calling his career “extremely honorable” and praising his experience and leadership ability.

Wow. It completely glosses over the seedier aspects of Ernie's disastrous tenure here. And his off-duty exploits. And his applying to that Arizona job and the subsequent withdrawal of an employment offer following their discovery that the resume had more holes in it than a south side homicide victim.

Maybe Darien could put Ernie's resume out there for everyone to peruse. And then Buckeye, Arizona could put out the application they got and we could do a side-by-side comparison.

Shooter Shot by Police

At first glance, it appears that a murderer was caught in the act and sent to his reward in hell:

• Two men were fatally wounded within minutes of each other Thursday night in the same neighborhood on the city's Northwest side, one in a police-involved shooting.
  
  The first man was killed about 10:30 p.m. in the 4900 block of North Troy Street, said Pat Camden, spokesman for the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police.
  
  Police who heard the shots responded to the call and attempted to pull over a dark-colored SUV leaving the area, Camden said.
  
  When officers tried to pull the SUV over in the 5300 block of North Kedzie Avenue – about five blocks from the first shooting – a passenger jumped out, fired at police, and ran down an alley, Camden said.
  
  Police returned fire and gave chase, Camden said. The man shot at police again and police shot back, killing the man, Camden said.

A whole lot of "Camden said..." in there. That's nice to see again. And an excellent job by the the involved officers - no police were injured.

At least the Cook County States Attorney and judicial system will be saved the embarrassment of explaining why they paroled this guy in 2014 after serving 3 years for murder.

Thank You Voters!

Once again, it falls upon us to thank our readers for their time and efforts on our behalf. CBS announced the winners of Chicago's Most Valuable Blogger Awards for 2011 and your humble servants here at SCC placed first in the "People's Choice Award for a Local Affairs" blog.

You like us! You really really like us!

In any event, thanks to all who voted, spread the word, then voted again and again Chicago-style. We have no idea if CBS is going to release vote totals, but we appreciate each and every effort on our behalf, especially other police blogs who steered traffic our way, Shaved in particular.

We'd also like to thank our competitors. We benefited from a lot of repeat viewers, which doesn't detract from some of the other fine blogs nominated. You can find a lot of talent buried in the myriad of blogs that were nominated. Check them out at this link here for some very good reads and local attractions you might not otherwise hear about.

Supposedly, there is a prize involved - we believe it's some sort of gift certificate in the neighborhood of $50 or so. CBS also gets to use our likeness and such in advertising. Seeing as how that isn't likely to happen, we're going to make a formal request to donate the gift certificate or equivalent amount of cash to the Chicago Police Chaplains for use in their ministry. Thanksgiving and Christmas are coming and there are many among our number who need the helping hand that the Chaplains provide.

Again, thanks for your support, comments, and visits. Without you, the readers, we have nothing at all.

Mark Brown Calls Out Rahm

Spotlighting what our readers have been saying since Rahm's inauguration:

• As Mayor Rahm Emanuel took another step Wednesday toward the moment he dons a blue police windbreaker, stands on the hood of a CPD squad car and declares “Mission Accomplished” on his campaign promise to put 1,000 more police on the city’s streets, the time has come to take a more active role in correcting him.

  Folks, it’s just not true.

  At least half the police officers that Emanuel and Police Supt. Garry McCarthy have redeployed since May to help them say they’ve met that goal were already working ON THE STREET fighting crime.

Now where have we read that before? Oh yeah, we wrote it here. And at that time, we were summarizing quite a few irritated and pissed off coppers who saw through Rahm's BS from day one.

So we're up to two columnists who aren't on the Rahm bandwagon? Along with us and our readers? We'll have to move out of our phone booth for the next meeting.

CFD Scandal

Fool the city once, shame on them. Fool them twice after being warned not to do it again, well, you can't fix stupid:

• Four firefighters will be dismissed and placed on the city’s do-not-hire list for padding their mileage reports, Chicago Fire Department Commissioner Robert Hoff said today.
  
  
• Hoff decided to give 43 of the other firefighters, who had “otherwise clean disciplinary records,” unpaid suspensions ranging from 30 to 60 days. A 30-day suspension equates to an average out-of-pocket loss of approximately $6,000.
  
  Six other firefighters who were investigated chose to retire. One person is on vacation through the end of the month, which is when their disciplinary action will be decided.
  
  The city’s legal department will look at the cases to figure out whether the city can recoup the money.
  
  The four firefighters who were let go previously were fired in 2008 for accepting or facilitating cash payments in exchange for making weekend pump inspections at high-rises. The inspectors got their jobs back after their cases went through arbitration, but were told if they had another infraction they would be terminated,...

Another bit of ammo for Rahm to use once their contract comes up.

DTEB to Darien?

Word on the street is Ernie Brown is slated to take over the Darien, IL Police Department. Can anyone confirm this event and an effective date? We'd hate to lose one of our prime sources for material.

Penny for Your Thoughts

We heard that the Bad Penny isn't going to 016 after all. An all "New & Improved" Transfer Order has come out and she's headed to 020.

Congratulations to one district and condolences to the other.

Another 114 Magic Bodies

Closer and closer to the bone:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel is putting 114 Chicago Police officers back on the street, redeploying them from specialized units and administrative posts.

  Emanuel joined police Supt. Garry McCarthy Wednesday at the Broadway Armory in the Edgewater neighborhood, to announce the the redeployment of 114 police officers to the city’s 25 police districts.

  Of those officers, 59 will come from specialized units. The remaining 55 are currently assigned to administrative positions within the department’s Bureau of Patrol.

• These latest reassignments will bring to 881 the number of officers returned to beat patrol since Emanuel took office in May. Many have been reassigned from desk duty....

And many others have been shuffled. After moving the goal posts, Rahm is claiming 881. More than half of that total was already on the street - MSF and TRU. Fifty others were PPO's who came off their training status. Now he admits another 59 are coming from "specialized units." The fact that he differentiates them from "administrative positions" means they were already on the street in some capacity.

And as someone pointed out in the comment sections, all this without hiring a single body, but the retirement posters keep going up.

Mold Makes the News

Amazing - it appears here, then it appears everywhere:

• The Chicago Police Department says it is investigating reports of a mold problem at the Police Academy, at 1300 W. Jackson Blvd.

• “A grievance has been filed by the FOP several weeks back, and we’re waiting on the Illinois Department of Labor to send out a safety inspector to take a look at the conditions that are there,” said FOP spokesman Pat Camden.

  Camden said it is not clear where in the building the mold located, but “it’s enough to where somebody has complained to the union in regards to it, and that’s when we filed a grievance.”

We guess this means they'll address 024's mold issue tomorrow, and 012 the day after that. Problem solved! Or maybe not.

Almost Got Away

Evidently, the gunman is a big believer in the old adage, "If at first you don't succeed, try try again."

• An 18-year-old man dove from a car to escape a gunman, but made it only three blocks before he was shot dead, Chicago police said.
  
  
• Varner had been sitting in the back seat of a parked vehicle when the gunman spotted him, approached and pointed a handgun at him, police said.
  
  Varner dove from the vehicle and escaped, but encountered the gunman later on King Drive and was shot, police said.
  
  Varner was taken to Stroger Hospital, where he was pronounced dead, authorities said.

Witnesses say that if the victim hadn't stopped to do a victory dance after his first escape, he might have lived. On the other hand, it was an impressive effort.

007 Police Shooting

Once again, officers fine:

• A man was wounded in a Chicago-police involved shooting Tuesday in the South Side's Englewood neighborhood.

  No officers were hurt, but the full extent of the civilian's wounds was not immediately known.

  The shooting happened about 5:30 p.m. at West 73rd and South Morgan Streets, police said.

Waiting for the "reverends" to protest on behalf of the police victims in 3....2.....1.....

(....and somewhere, a cricket chirps)

Big Hearts?

How about "big suckers"?

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Tuesday defended his decision to cut in half — but still retain — the police bodyguard detail that accompanied former Mayor Richard M. Daley and his wife, Maggie, into retirement.

  Emanuel noted that he’s cutting the detail from six active officers to three and that two of those officers would be on call to take Maggie Daley to and from the hospital and to doctors visits.

  Maggie Daley has suffered a series of recent setbacks in her nearly 10-year battle against metastatic breast cancer.

  “While we are a city of big shoulders, we’re also a city of big hearts,” Emanuel told reporters at an unrelated news conference.

We had to take Grandma to the doctor the other day. We hired a Medi-car to do it. She worked for the city for many years, was actually on the payroll. Raised 5 kids, buried a husband, beat cancer once already. Where's her car and driver?

Police at Fault

Hey, if you put up a failure of a mother and she says it on TV, it must be true:

• A 13-year-old boy was in serious condition Tuesday after being shot in the chest in a Monday night shooting in the Rogers Park neighborhood that left two other teens wounded.

  The three teens were on the corner in the 1600 block of West Pratt Boulevard about 7:30 p.m. when a male suspect fired at them, then fled, according to police News Affairs. Police initially listed the address of the shooting as the 6800 block of North Ashland Avenue.

  Pameya Campbell said her son, Javanis Barksdale, 13, was an eighth grader at CPS Kilmer School near the site of the shooting.

  [...] She said her son was not in a gang. Campbell said her son played basketball, soccer, football and swam in addition to going to church.

  Campbell said police were not doing their jobs.

  "Where are the pastors? Where are the reverends? All the officers said to me, 'ma'am this is a bad corner,’” Campbell said. "I am not a police officer. I expect when my child leaves home, I expect for the police to do their job, and it's not being done."

Like you have any idea what the police jobs are lady. Like we can be everywhere at once, magically see into the future, predict crime and stop bullets with our minds. (Anyone notice how we don't see any bullshit about the Crystal Ball Unit anymore? Hmmmm.)

In any event lady, how about taking up your beef with the mayor? He's about to eliminate around 2,000 unfilled officer spots to balance his budget. You think maybe one of more of them might have been able to stop this shooting?

But the media reports her bullshit as fact and that's all anyone is going to remember come contract time - the police aren't doing their jobs. This town is a joke, the mayor calls the tune and the media can't get enough of the smell of Rahm's ass.

Rahm Continues to Chip Away

Up to seven schools caving:

• On Tuesday, two more Chicago schools approved a longer school day for this year.

  By a narrow margin of 51 percent, teachers at Nash Elementary School, 4837 W. Erie St., voted in favor of a longer school day Tuesday afternoon. Earlier in the day, teachers at Disney II Magnet Elementary School, 3815 N. Kedvale Ave., approved a waiver allowing for the additional instruction time by a vote of 20:4.

  Both schools will start the new schedule Sept. 26, which means they stand to gain $150,000 in discretionary funds. Teachers at the schools will receive $1,250 bonuses.

It isn't really amazing that Rahm is doing this. It is amazing that the teachers are selling out for so little.

Mold in 024

You thought the Academy was bad? Look what's seeping through the floor in 024:


There are some truly disgusting work places throughout this Department. Probably more than enough to keep an entire team of environmentalists busy for years.

What's Growing at 1300?

What's that popping up through the carpet?


It's mold. And evidently lots of it. Trouble is, it's working it's way up through the floors and walls of the Police Academy.

From an e-mail:

• The mysterious white substance kept popping up on the carpeting in the upper floors and downstairs in various offices. The management was notified the first week of August. The inspectors came out the following week and inspected. Three weeks later we were given an oral report that the mold is not dangerous. No one has been able to produce a written report documenting these results.
  
  The FOP was contacted, who in turn contacted the Dept of Labor who is yet to inspect the Academy. A safety grievance was filed. Did I mention that over 15 workers at the academy are currently ill with upper respiratory infections, fever, etc? Did I mention that Cuello and Shear came to inspect and said it's totally unacceptable?
  
  Did I mention that they turned the heat on 80 to try and cover it all up? Some of the mold disappeared but that doesn't mean that it isn't still in the carpeting. It just isn't showing it's spores publicly. An officer went in his locker yesterday to get his hat. Filled with mold. As well as his blouse, refer, tie and every other item of clothing there. Over the holiday weekend an instructor forgot to rinse out his cup that had green tea residue and came back 3 days later to find a hairy mess in his cup?
  
  There is a petri dish in the middle of the office that a co-worker purchased. It contains the fuzzy growth of a carpet sample that was taken. (It still has to be mailed in for analysis). Never mind we have a suburban class in there I wonder what the hell they are thinking of our dirty building?
  
  Could you post this please before we all drop dead? Perhaps someone will give a shit when it is public knowledge. Over a month later and nothing has been done about this.

And in case you were wondering, here's a picture of the petri dish one enterprising officer purchased in an attempt to identify what was making everyone sick:



By the way, whoever told the officers that mold "isn't dangerous" is full of crap.

So we have bosses authorizing the homeless and all their various diseases in our workplaces, now the Department is training suburban recruits (and hopefully some CPD ones shortly) in an environment that is almost guaranteed to make them ill for the duration of their stay along with anyone using the gym and workout equipment.

Money for Nature

But nothing for the worker bees:

• The city would acquire 21 acres of woods and wetlands that belong to the sprawling Rosehill Cemetery on the Northwest Side and turn the tract of land into a nature preserve under a plan introduced by Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

  The mayor is seeking city approval to spend $7.8 million — which would come from tax increment financing and tax-exempt bonds — to acquire the land in the northwest corner of the cemetery, roughly Peterson and Western. The city would then turn the tract of land over to the Chicago Park District for a $1.

  “The land will be developed into a nature preserve with walking trails, a bird sanctuary and fishing opportunities in the existing ... pond,” Michele Lemons, a park district spokeswoman, said in an e-mail to the Sun-Times.

Priorities. And remember where we all fall in that list.

Hey, Look - Bears Win

We didn't cover the Bears yesterday seeing as how it was the 10th Anniversary of 9/11. We know the NFL did a good job combining the remembrance with the pageantry of the season opening weekend. We just didn't feel we could come off of the 9/11 posts with a happy, cheery post. No big deal.

In the meantime though, the Bears looked pretty damn good:

• The Bears didn't just announce to doubters they're to be taken seriously in the NFC this season. They screamed it.
  
  A 30-12 dismantling of the Falcons in the season opener Sunday at Soldier Field was as much an affirmation as it was a victory. They took apart the conference's top-seeded team from a year ago piece by piece, dominating at the point of attack and winning in all phases.

And they got out mostly injury free with just two players looking at a few weeks off (so far). Not bad.

What's Missing Here?

This is from yesterday's 9/11 Remembrance. Anyone notice anything odd?


Ok, every single one of you who said, "Rahm's finger," slap yourselves in the head so we don't have to do it.

You have the head of the Fire Department, the head of the city, and the second-in-command of the Police Department. That's odd to say the least. Back in the day (hell, even today), one can tell who is in favor by their proximity to the mayor at important events. You could also tell who was in for an ass-chewing. The comments in other postings hint that something large is brewing in the background. Keep your ears open, the rumblings are getting louder.