Rumor Mill Working Hard

Other things that pop up:

• My neighbor works for Chicago Motor Maintenance/Fleet Management and I could not help but notice a marked CPD squad car parked in front of his house for the past 2 nights. I inquired and was shocked to hear that the workers at the area were instructed that they can take card to/from work to "test" them............but my informant at 35th st told me the real reason is to give the "illusion" of more officers on the streets!!! These hacks from downtown are really stretching with this one!!!! With the upcoming 500 new hires and all the motor maintenance take home cars that will make us at full strength right???

....and a reply:

• So, when a frantic, terrified victim runs into the street to flag down some help from one of these auto mechanics, WHAT THEN?

Then they are going to be really terrified.

Another one:

• Starting August 1, all Robbery Dets assigned to districts will be in uniform and will be assigned ALL robbery jobs via OEMC.
  
  All Dets from the Area and Districts will be expected to patrol the street between assignments. At least one Det Sgt will be assigned a Conflict Zone in the Area or District and will ensure his available units are conducting stops in the zone. The Det Sgt will be held responsible for his unit's daily activity.
  
  The Detective Division as it was once known is gone forever.

The D-Unit as we once knew it is already gone, but forever is a long time.

Where Exempts Come From

Spotted in Lake Yeager, Illinois:

• A testicle-eating fish was reportedly found in Lake Lou Yaeger in Litchfield, Illinois.

  A fish with teeth, called a 'pacu,' was found in the lake, according to Illinois Department of Natural Resources.

  According to KSDK, a fisherman caught a Pacu back on June 7th, while another man caught a pacu ten days later. While a Pacu poses no real threat to humans, Metro.co.uk reported two local men died in the river, after their testicles were eaten by a pacu fish.

And then we discovered that certain high-ranking exempts owned land in and around the Lithcfield area, prior to being made gold stars. And they had other ambitious lieutenants, captains and XO's over for a visit prior to them also being made exempt. So there seems to be a pattern, perhaps a secret initiation? It would certainly explain the completely docile attitude on display weekly at the CompStat meetings.

Indicted former aldercreature and Cook County commissioner Beavers was heard bragging he doesn't go to Litchfield, but if he did, he'd be a seven course meal for a Pacu, with enough left over for dessert.

This Made Us Laugh

Too much humor gets lost is the shuffle and the hundreds of comments posted here each day:

• Rahm wants to have Gladiator Day. It will be held at Solider Field and every gang can select its finest and they can duel to the last one standing. Rahm will sit up in the top sky box eating a turkey leg wearing a toga. He will be surrounded by several children. He will give them $10.00 each (from the speed cameras) until one lone banger stands. That lone banger will be called Ceasar Fire! Rahm will have bought future votes and solved the crime problem all at the same time...

Now we just need a photoshop of Rahm as Caesar, similar to the Reader pic of Shortshanks as King George III.

Let the Dumping Begin

The Department is getting around to clearing out the overabundance of manpower in the recently combined districts.

Beginning with the Sergeants, 13 are being moved from 019 and 9 are being moved from 002.

Openings include 003, 005, 006, 012, 013, 014, 017, and 022.

Blueshirts up next?

UPDATE: Dumpings delayed? Something about a "contract" being in effect.

Side Job - HOLLYWOOD!

Maybe you can get "discovered"

• SEARCHING FOR REAL POLICE TO CAST AS PAID EXTRAS!!
  
  The NBC TV series, “Chicago Fire” is searching for real Chicago police officers, detectives, swat, all ethnicities and ages to work as paid extras!
  
  The exciting series, “Chicago Fire” is shooting in Chicago starting in approximately one week and shooting until Christmas.
  
  If you are interested please send in a photograph in uniform with your height, weight, clothing sizes, and your phone number to:
  Chicagofireextra@gmail.com
  
  Please put in the subject line of the e-mail “Police”
  
  Send in photographs ASAP as casting is happening fast.
  
  Please note that by sending in a photograph this does not guarantee being cast to work as an extra.
  
  The rate of pay, if cast, is $175 for an 8 hour day and time and a half after 8. There is also a $25 dollar bump for your uniform. A normal shooting day is approximately 12 hours and sometimes we shoot hours longer. Anyone we cast must be available to work the entire day or night, if they are cast.
  
  Thank you!
  Det. John L. Folino, Jr.
  Central Detectve Bureau

What If We Say "Pretty Please?"

It's like they're reading from a script - a script we wrote with the assistance of our readers two or three years ago:

• Chicago's extensive efforts to reinvigorate its convention and tourism industries could be damaged unless the city quickly defuses the violent crime wave that has exploded in its neighborhoods and nicked the downtown, the city's top convention and tourism official said Wednesday.
  
  "We hope this sunsets quickly because all the good work we're doing regionally, nationally and internationally, if this is not contained in a reasonable period of time, it will have an impact," Don Welsh, president and chief executive officer of Choose Chicago, said in a morning meeting with the Chicago Tribune's editorial board.
  
  News reports of several unprovoked attacks by youths in the Michigan Avenue corridor and of the surge in murders in some impoverished Chicago neighborhoods are triggering concerned calls to Choose Chicago, the newly restructured not-for-profit agency that combines the city's convention bureau and its office of tourism and culture. The issue has gained national attention in the New York Times and other media.

Rumor has it a lid is going to be thrown on the Taste this year. No one gets shot or else.

NY Post Makes Fun of Rahm

It's going national baby!

• Direct comparisons are always tricky, of course. But when it comes to causality, it’s no secret that aggressive policing can make a huge difference.
  
  And Chicago’s approach is decidedly more laid-back than New York’s.
  
  It doesn’t use stop-and-frisk to counter its gang-fueled violence — but it does publicly plead with its criminals to move their crimes someplace else, so no one besides the intended victim gets hurt.
  
  Really.“[If] we’ve got two gangbangers, one standing next to a kid, get away from that kid,” Mayor Rahm Emanuel told CBS News.
  
  “Take your stuff away to the alley. Don’t touch the children of the city of Chicago. Don’t get near them.”This is what passes for crime-fighting in the Windy City?

When you have no police, this is exactly what passes for crime-fighting.

Moody Downgrades CPS

An explanation as to why the CPS was allowed to raise property taxes the maximum allowed by law:

• Officials at the Chicago Public Schools acknowledge they are facing severe budget pressures as financial watchdog Moody’s cut its rating on the system’s $5.6 billion in debt.

  WBBM Newsradio [...] reports Moody’s Investors Service downgraded CPS’s debt from A1 to Aa3 on Wednesday, but warned another downgrade could come soon.

The schools are failing, the students are dropping out, they have no assets to speak of - we're surprised they're even allowed to borrow money.

Look! Over There! No, Not Here

Stopping looking south:

• Two people, including a 14-year-old boy, were wounded in separate South Side shootings, Chicago police said.

  The unnamed teen was standing in a vacant lot in the 10700 block of South Perry Avenue in the Roseland neighborhood at about 10:30 p.m., when a shot rang out and he was struck in the left knee, police said, citing early reports.

No, no, no. Look at the north side. Look at the suburbs. Hey, you're looking south again, aren't you?

• Two young girls were injured Tuesday night in a shooting at Cooper Park on the city's Far South Side.
  
  The girls, ages 12 and 13, were wounded shortly before 8 p.m. on the 1300 block of West 117th Street in the West Pullman neighborhood, said police.

  Preliminary reports said the girls were inside the park when shots rang out and they were struck.

Remember, we're a "Welcome City."

On the bright side, these kids are going to rock the "What I Did on My Summer Vacation" essays back at school....if the teachers don't strike.

Misery Loves Company

014 at it again:

• OT SCC but she's at it again.........Yes the Lt. from 014 3rd watch, yes the very one who refused to excuse an officer when his wife called him at work and said she was taking their son to the ER, whe the officer asked to be excused she looked and she said "what can you do your not a doctor, your job is here"........well Lt. DH decided on 03July to tell everyone on the 3rd Watch that all DOH denied per the Superintendent.......well FOP was called and found out no suck order existed.....their are some pretty pissed off copers on 3rd Watch who cancelled a lot of plans, and they were equally pissed off when the sheets on the fourth revealed PO's on 2nd watch were given DOH and PO's on 1st Watch the night of the fourth were also given CU.......

A Grievance and a finding against the lieutenant might do wonders for morale. When is the FOP going to start hammering these fools? When is the Department going to start taking administrative action against bosses who so blatantly violate the Contract? And in Garry's name? Name him in the Grievance, too.

And supposedly, there are a couple of EEOC lawsuits brewing in the background of a few districts over similar nonsense. Some lawyers are going to get rich(er).

CPS Shortfall is the Fault of Police

That's the message we're getting:

• A newly-acquired secret agreement obtained in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) confirms that Chicago Public Schools (CPS) diverted about $70 million, largely from teacher salaries and unemployment benefits, to avoid paying teachers a promised 4 percent contractual raise last school year. The money was instead given to the Chicago Police Department (CPD), mostly as payment for services previously rendered under prior agreements. CPS then falsely told the media that these payments were “owed” to CPD, and that CPS “had no choice” but to make these payments.

  Records obtained from the FOIA lawsuit show that CPS has been paying about $8 million per year to CPD since 2002 for two police officers to be stationed at approximately 100 high schools to process arrests of juvenile offenders. The officers are supervised exclusively by CPD personnel. CPS provides, at its own expense, computer terminals connected to CPD for the officers’ use. CPS approved this continuing arrangement on February 24, 2010 (10-0224-PR16), authorizing the $8 million annual payments from January 1, 2009 through December 31, 2012, for a total cost of $32.8 million.

This is one of those accounting tricks that fools a lot of people. The Police Department manned over 100 CPS high schools for years. The salaries of the officers were paid for out of the CPS operating budget. The city is just moving money from one account to another since everyone involved works for the city.

But now, we get to take the blame for Rahm sticking it to the teachers when he denied them their 4%. Funny how that works out.

Use Your Vacation Time

A sharp eyed reader pointed out this amusing article in the Tribune from Monday:

• Good news, everyone. I'm ordering you to go on vacation.
  
  I know, I know, you're not sure if this is the right time. Things are busy at work. You might not take any time off this year because of the economy. You want to impress the bosses with how hard you work.
  
  Shut up and take some time off!
  
  According to a survey conducted at the end of last year by the workforce consulting firm Right Management, about 70 percent of U.S. workers say they didn't use all their vacation time in 2011.
  
  As a time-off enthusiast, that baffles me. I understand the worries some have about the fragility of the job market, but if you're lucky enough to have a job that gives you paid vacation, that time belongs to you.

Someone want to forward this one to McPlymouthRock and the command staff as they continue to screw each and every cop who asks for a day off here and there while burning out every single one of us with their nonsense and BS number games?

Remember, we earned that time due. We earned it by staying late, attending court, missing family stuff, all for the citizens of Chicago and in the service of the law. The unreasonableness of the current regime is going to bite them in the ass, if it isn't already.

Welcome City - Not Sanctuary City

When are these asshole politicians going to get it?

• Undocumented immigrants who witness crimes or are victims themselves would have nothing to fear from Chicago Police— and no excuse to avoid cooperating with them — under a mayoral plan unveiled Tuesday that united former political adversaries.

  Mayor Rahm Emanuel and U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Chicago) joined forces to unveil the so-called “Welcome City” ordinance, which would prohibit police from detaining undocumented immigrants unless they are wanted on a criminal warrant or have been convicted of a serious crime.

  “If somebody has a criminal background, I want ‘em in jail or out of the city. If you’re an immigrant and you have no criminal background, I don’t want that to be prohibitive from you contacting the police,” Emanuel told a news conference at Little Village High School.

Um, they have an unenforced criminal charge on their background already idiot - THEY'RE ILLEGAL. But hey, it isn't like they're keeping the "official" unemployment rate in the 8.2% range and the actual rate well above 15% while they bankrupt cities, counties and states across the nation.

Fortunately, we have this option:

• I.C.E. Chicago Field Office
  Area of Responsibility: Illinois, Indiana, Wisconsin, Missouri, Kentucky, Kansas
  101 West Congress Parkway, 4th Floor
  Chicago, Illinois 60605
  Phone: (312) 347-2400

Use it wisely.

Felony Murder

This is a very good law:

• A man was ordered held on $1 million bond Tuesday after being charged with murder because his accomplice in a South Side robbery was shot dead by police, according to prosecutors.

  Tevin Louis, 19, of the 500 block of West Winneconna Parkway, was charged with one count of first-degree murder, two counts of armed robbery and one count of disorderly conduct.

  On Tuesday, Judge Laura Sullivan ordered him held on $1 million bond.

Hopefully, Anita's people can make the case.

Genius! Pure Genius

Whichever two anonymous commentators thought this up, our hat is off to you and we'd like to offer you jobs (unpaid internship) with our band of merry fools here:

• "This one's gonna be easy to pimp for himself because he can claim he stopped hundreds of crimes that were never going to occur the way he claims anyway."
  
  Golly! This is genius! I prevented six crimes on my beat alone today!
  
  ==============
  
  OMG, that is funny as hell! Instead of coming in with any numbers, come in with non-numbers--um, no bus checks or contact cards today, however, with Garry's direction, I PREVENTED 3 burglaries, 4 'killings', 6 auto thefts, 2 rapes and 7 arsons....so there are your numbers.

Hey, if CeaseFire can claim to have prevented a few hundred shootings with absolutely no proof, no documentation and no questions, there is nothing preventing us from claiming exactly the same thing.

Tomorrow, we check off with at least 10 "prevented" crimes of various severity, and we encourage everyone to do the same.

Way to Raise Morale

We can hardly wait to bring in a bunch of numbers for the boss:

• Just an FYI for the FOP and any other secret readers of this blog. The commander of 008 is refusing to allow officers the day off for the first annual J. Kupczyk golf outing.
  
  The commander expects the overworked troops to pay $80 for a day of golf and food and no libations because they have to come into work right after. The commander was told that he could ask for officers from adjoining districts but refused to do so to accommodate the Officers who actually worked for Kupczyk. The answer to all of this was to move the golf outing to October sometime after the "children" are back in school and the violence settles down...wink wink and maybe then the Officers could get time due but no guarantees were or have been made. This is what passes for leadership in this department.
  
  The XO of this district also likes to brag about how he has all this money in deferred comp and how the commander allows him to adjust his schedule to accommodate his family life....how nice!
  
  I did not want to take away from the original post but wanted to share this info. Great job by the officers and glad you are ok. Excellent job and keep up your spirits! "The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help or concluded you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership." Colin Powell

Somewhere, Kup is shaking his head in disgust.

WANTED!

G.M.

The Chicago Magazine article has this screamer in it:

• Inheriting his father’s police shield, McCarthy quickly distinguished himself as a beat cop. Other officers were soon talking about the young patrolman who had a knack for making arrests that mattered, busting people who were armed and dangerous. “They started saying that my initials didn’t stand for Garry McCarthy,” he recalls. “They stood for Gun Magnet.”

Dare we ask the readers to come up with their own "G.M." additions to the self aggrandizing legend that is Goofy MoFo?

This is a family blog, so keep it clean, though snide is acceptable.

Limo Wilding

Riding to the wilding in style:

• Four men who got out of a white stretch limo in Wrigleyville and began beating people were filming a rap video and had been taunted by passersby, including with racial slurs, their relatives said Monday.

  Prosecutors, however, contend the four men began beating people “for no apparent reason.” One of the victims had his jaw broken in the melee, police said.

  Relatives of the men claim the video being shot by the men will prove the case that they were being taunted. One relative claimed someone grabbed one of the men before the beatings. The men had borrowed the white limo from a friend to film the video — and had chosen Wrigleyville for a “celebratory shot.”

  The four were charged early Monday with the beatings that left four injured — including a police officer.

The relatives are front and center with all sorts of excuses for what can only be described as "animals gone wild." The felony backgrounds of these assholes is some interesting reading and the prison records? Some seem to have spent more time in the clink than in school, which explains a lot. But the Sun Times publishes all the excuses without a whisper of their histories.

We can hardly wait for the Taste mayhem.

Where's the Diversity?

Shame shame Rahm:

• When Mayor Rahm Emanuel convenes meetings of his cabinet, the racial breakdown of those top aides hardly reflects the diversity of the city they serve.

  In a city in which no single racial group makes up more than a third of the population, almost two of every three City Hall department heads is white. Of 30 Emanuel appointees to the highest-ranking city government positions, only five are black, and three Hispanic, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis shows.

  “It’s abysmal,” Ald. Leslie Hairston (5th) says of blacks’ under-representation in the upper ranks at City Hall. “We have talked about it with the mayor, but apparently it has fallen on deaf ears.”

Forget actually having the best qualified people running departments. It's 2012 and so many politicians and the media insist on playing the color game.