One-in-a-Billion

We're thinking one-in-a-trillion:

• Investigators say an off-duty Colorado sheriff's deputy fired a bullet straight down the barrel of a suspect's gun, a shot they called "one in a billion."
  
  The detail emerged in a letter from prosecutors Wednesday announcing that Arapahoe County Deputy Jose Marquez was justified in shooting the attempted-robbery suspect, who survived. Marquez also was wounded in the January shooting and is still recovering.
  
  The Aurora Sentinel newspaper in suburban Denver reports that Marquez was visiting his girlfriend's apartment when two suspects approached him in the parking lot with their guns drawn.
  
  The off-duty deputy told investigators that one suspect told him to "give it up."
  
  Marquez says the suspects fired first and he shot back. One was wounded in the leg and arrested, and the other got away.

Here's the picture:

Don't bother buying any lottery tickets - that is a lifetime of luck right there.

Bad Ammo

This is the reason the Department suspended qualifications and called everyone in off the street for the past two months:

This ammo is still out there - we just had an e-mail from someone who experienced a bad malfunction due to this. Everyone should unload all their magazines and unload their weapon and eyeball every round, as soon as possible. Don't rely on the Department calling you in - do it yourself. Your life might very well depend on it.

Days of Rage....or Not

We were inundated with e-mails warning us about a so-called "Days of Rage" scheduled for tomorrow in 37 American cities, including Chicago. Assorted media outlets ran with is, including the Washington Times which says the military is telling it's personnel to avoid the "targeted" locations.

But the article further states that this is an unsubstantiated rumor, denied by all sorts of concerned parties.

Even the widely discredited Snopes.com website notes that the list of 37 cities, with all the dates, times and sites listed, is an exact copy of a previously debunked 2014 rumor.

Regardless of the rumors, and in light of events overseas again, due caution should be exercised from this point forward. Be aware and be careful.

Bye Bye Shotguns?

An interesting missive out of the Chief of Patrol's Office this week:

• Commencing the week of 18 July 2016 through 22 July 2016, there will be a District shotgun and ammunition turn-in. The purpose of this weapon turn-in is to collect the shotguns, reconcile the inventory and later repurpose the weapons if necessary. [emphasis added - SCC]

There's an attached matrix for every district and unit to bring the shotguns in - and the Districts may not get them back. One of the more versatile weapons in the Department inventory is being removed from circulation, possibly forever.

Question - Why? And why now? Cops are under siege nationwide. Ambush, sniping, attacked at marches. The firepower arrayed against cops is wide ranging, so why not have shotguns as one of the options available? Sure they aren't the most modern weapon and the maintenance leaves much to be desired, but for the most part they worked.

Is this because we might actually have to use them? And are they checking them for functionality or removing them forever?

Another Narrative Falls

That Baton Rouge shooting? Just got a lot more...interesting?

• 9News reports the details of a previous arrest of Alton Sterling that is eerily similar to the incident that ultimately led to his death.
  
  Sterling, 37, was recently killed in a shooting involving two Baton Rouge police officers on July 5.
  
  It turns out Sterling has struggled with police in the past. Documents show, in May 2009, Sterling fought with cops outside of a convenience store on Rosenwald Road, where he was selling CDs, while carrying a gun.
  
  In the report dated May 29, 2009, the officer said he was dispatched to a convenience store after getting a complaint about a subject “on the corner selling CDs” and that the subject had pulled a gun on someone.

Selling CD's, carrying a gun, threatened someone, fights the police, all in 2016.

Now the media suddenly discovers, that in 2009, he was selling CD's, carrying a gun, threatens someone else, fights the police, seven years ago.

It's almost like he had a habit of doing this sort of thing.

Spread this one around boys and girls.

And be sure to point out that the police being called to the scene negates any accusation of "profiling." If you don't want the police to show up, stop calling.

Bad News for Protestors

Whoops:

• A study by a Harvard professor released this month found no evidence of racial bias in police shootings even though officers were more likely to interact physically with non-whites than whites.
  
  The paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research, which examined thousands of incidents at 10 large police departments in California, Florida and Texas, concluded that police were no more likely to shoot non-whites than whites after factoring in extenuating circumstances.
  
  “On the most extreme use of force — officer-involved shootings — we find no racial differences in either the raw data or when contextual factors are taken into account,” said Harvard economics professor Roland G. Fryer Jr. in the abstract of the July 2016 paper.
  
  Mr. Fryer, who is black, told The New York Times that the finding of no racial discrimination in police shootings was “the most surprising result of my career.”

Well that's certainly inconvenient - a black Harvard professor (someone probably smarter than 90+% of the population) does an extensive analysis of the data, and comes up with something even he didn't expect - "the most surprising result of my career." Especially seeing the body count and property damage totals of the past few years.

We can imagine the abuse he's getting now.

De-Escalante Leaving?

Rumor is he's about to become the Chief of Police at Northeastern University.

Isn't it amazing how these six-figure jobs just pop up at opportune moments for the connected? That should supplement his dancing gig at Great America nicely.

Rumor is Weezie is dropping her name in for the First Deputy opening. Somehow, she got a hold of the interview answers, probably from Mrs. Wysinger, who knows a guy who used to have that spot.

No More Freebies

This popped up in the comments:

• Off topic, just got wind of a new order saying were not allowed to take discounts for coffee, food etc Any knowledge of?

This is the second appearance of this particular rumor. It was here a few weeks ago and we filed it away to address later as more info became available. Numerous people replied to it yesterday, some with the info we were waiting for:

• When the new order is published, everyone will be shocked at the rules. Two officers had DOJ with them for a tour of duty. The officers took them to a hotel for free meal. The DOJ was shocked and now we get a new order for any type of gratuities

Feds are sticklers for this sort of thing, so we assumed something like this was coming. In Washington DC, everything is for sale (you just have to call it by another name), but out here in the sticks, it's not allowed.

That being said, we were told by a lot of old timers, "Always reach for your wallet kid" and we've lived by that advice ever since. If a business wanted to give us the "employee discount" and there was a tip jar on the counter, we'd toss the difference in the cup for the employees. If it was full boat, we paid full boat.

We didn't seek it out, we never demanded it, though we've heard of those who did. And it certainly never affected our choices - if your coffee sucked, we didn't get it; if we wanted a certain coffee, we paid whatever the register said, regardless of any sort of discount. In other words, we were smart about it.

So now what are we supposed to do? Order the cashier at gun point to charge the full price? Video the boss putting his key in the box, ringing off 10% and then report him to whom exactly? What about this manager?

• My staff knows to give discounts to uniformed police officers from any municipality. It is authorized by our corporation to do so. We want you to be around. You guys have helped save our employees and customers from potential risk so many times. None of you ever ask for it either. You guys know our corporation doesn't care how safe we are and have a car out about the time of shift changes to make sure we get to our cars without incident. We are all very thankful.

We had a nice couple pay our bill the other day - never told us, just walked in, paid the cashier and walked out. We went to pay and the cashier told us what happened. What now? Purge the food we didn't pay for? Not likely.

If you have to ask, you're an ass. If someone does something nice for you, thank them, profusely. Shake their hand. Leave a tip on the full amount for the staff.

And be sure to tell the White Sox that "First Responder Day" is a thing of the past.

Tio Speaks

Sometimes we really wish ignorance was painful - it might actually educate the tiny minds:

• The bond set for Ja'Mal Green, an activist who was arrested over the weekend, is too high and the charges against him are meant to "send a message," said community and family members during a news conference Tuesday morning at the Leighton Criminal Court Building.
  
  Bail was set at $350,000 for Green, who is charged with five felony counts: two of aggravated battery to a police officer, two of aggravated battery in a public place and one of attempting to disarm a police officer, according to a statement from Chicago police. Green was also charged with two misdemeanor counts of resisting/obstructing arrest.

Um, Ja'mal caught five felonies. $350K isn't out of line.

• Eric Russell, a community activist who has represented a number of  families with relatives killed by police, said Green is a "political prisoner" and the target of a vendetta because of his advocacy work.

A political prisoner would be someone like Mandela or Gandhi. Green is a loud-mouthed attention-seeker who spit on a cop, punched another and tried to disarm a third.

• Tio Hardiman, president of Violence Interrupters, said community advocates are petitioning for a reduced bond.
  
  "This young man is a standup individual in the community at a much-needed time in our history in the United States," Hardiman said. "The police cannot continue to get away with abusing our people."

So his bail should have been more in line with, say, Tio's for wife beating? And guess who didn't set the bail there Tio? The cops. Bail would be set by the Honorable Peggy Chiampas, and actually, she has to follow a set of rules put in place by the Chief Judge....a set of rules routinely ignored by too many judges.

But don't worry, Special Ed is holding a bake sale in the HQ lobby today. Weezie made cookies and brownies.

Five Felonies, High Bail (UPDATE)

It seems Special Ed has been getting calls all day from the Cook County Jail, seeing if he could do something about this high bail:

• A Cook County courtroom erupted with shouts of “black lives don’t matter” on Monday after a judge set bail at $350,000 for a well-known activist charged with striking one police officer and trying to disarm another during weekend protests.
  
  Three women were taken into custody for shouting after Ja’mal Green’s bail was set, but Green’s mother and sister were later let go. The third woman was detained after sheriff’s deputies discovered two traffic warrants outstanding.
  
  “I will not tolerate any disrespect in my courtroom,” Judge Peggy Chiampas said as two of the women, still shouting, were led into the lockup.

Unfortunately, Chiampas let them go later without the contempt citation. Guess what they just learned? No consequences - exactly what the arrested asshole learned.

• As they left the Taste of Chicago Saturday evening, an officer saw Green climb a fence and ordered him to get down.
  
  Green threatened the officer, saying he was “going to beat his ass” and stood face to face with him, swinging his arms, prosecutors said. Green was allowed to continue the protest, but later struck a police commander, George Deveraux, in the shoulder, prosecutors said, a moment captured by a Chicago Tribune photographer.
  
  Green also spit in a police officer’s face, prosecutors said.
  
  Green was allowed to continue in the protest until, on Michigan Avenue near Water Tower Place, he grabbed the duty belt of a police captain about an inch away from the officer’s service revolver, prosecutors said.
  
  A police lieutenant pulled Green’s arm away and attempted to take him into custody but Green resisted, saying, "You’re going to get it – I’m going to have your badge," prosecutors told the judge.

So Special Ed, is it true? You're going to take the lieutenant's badge and give it to Ja'mal? After all, you told Ja'mal you were going to strip that other officer and remove him from the street for defending his partner's life before anyone else knew it was going to happen. Maybe you're going to hold the other officer down so Ja'mal can "beat his ass" since it's obvious you don't have officers' backs.

Do you see what you created dumbass? Do you even understand the first rule about raising a child? If you reward bad behavior, you get more of it. By removing this asshole from the justice system last time, you created a monster, a jagoff who thinks he's untouchable. He's spitting in officer's faces for god's sake. Now he's claiming he's going to beat up officers, have their badges and grabbing at guns.

He's trying to get clocked, hoping for a big payout. In fact, he's probably trying to get shot, grabbing at coppers' guns. And in the event it actually happens, we don't have any doubts about what your actions are going to be. Not a single doubt.

UPDATE: Word from some County guys - Green is currently being housed in Cermak Hospital, the medical facility on the grounds of the jail. He's in isolation because, you know, jail is dangerous. No word if he's faking an illness or just a giant wuss who only attacks cops from a crowd while his victims are constrained by rules.

And the Winner is....

With 62% of the vote:

• Special Ed

We'll use this as the primary designation for EJ, though you're welcome to use any that come to mind and we might vary it up a little - we used half-a-dozen for McCompStat.

Luckily, we don't even have to run a poll for his cheating Lie-tenant girlfriend:

That one was the only entry.

Zorn Says "Stay Fetal"

In a career made up of dumb ideas, this one has to be one of his dumbest:

• Dear local and state government officials:
  Direct your police officers to stop pulling motorists over for minor violations

Whoa. Seriously?

• A traffic stop for an allegedly broken taillight was the precipitating event for the incident in which Philando Castile, a 32-year-old African-American man, was shot and killed by police Wednesday in the suburbs of St. Paul, Minn. That shooting was one of the precipitating events for protests in Dallas, Chicago and many other cities Thursday.

Actually, that story is falling apart as we speak. Both his tail lights were working, and the radio tapes already leaked show that the officer was pulling Castile over because he matched the description of a wanted offender from a few days ago.

• [...] Traffic stops are fraught. They put officers in danger, make drivers resentful and can have racial overtones due to a history of incidents and disproportionate use against minorities. Reserve them for serious violations. Use cameras and other technology to transmit safety warnings, enforce sticker and plate requirements and strike fear into the hearts of those who change lanes without signaling.
  
  If you want to build goodwill between your police and your community, that would be a good place to start.

Back in 1977, a madman who claimed he was taking orders from a demonic spirit in a dog, killed 6 people and wounded 7 others in a series of attacks that lasted a year. The Son of Sam was captured because of....a parking ticket.

In 1997, a serial killer ran loose for three months killing at will. Among his victims was real estate developer Lee Miglin and designer Gianni Versace. Andrew Cunanan was identified via a Chicago parking ticket and added to the FBI Most Wanted List.

Does anyone remember how Timothy McVeigh was apprehended after the Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people including 19 children? It was a license plate violation.

And since this seems important to Zorn, those were all white guys.

So-called "minor violations" can become a big deal rather quickly. So if Zorn would care to outline a list of laws that certain "communities" aren't required to obey, we'd love to read it and publish it. Because people who don't renew their plates, don't buy city stickers, don't obey traffic laws, don't cost taxpayers anything, right? And people who don't carry insurance, who don't maintain their 3,000 pound car, who don't have a valid license because they never passed a road test, well, they didn't mean any harm when they cut in and out of traffic, ran those red lights and plowed into grandma crossing the street.

And if they actually got convicted, Zorn could have his buddies at the "Innocence Project" make up some bullshit to spring them like they did other murderers.

March Scheduled for....

Who are we kidding - there is none:

• A 4-year-old boy shot and wounded in Englewood is the fourth child to be shot in Chicago in just three days.
  
  At 5:45 p.m. Wednesday, the boy was outside a home in the 5700 block of South Morgan Street when a car drove up and someone inside the car fired shots, said [...] a Chicago Police spokesman.
  
  [...] On Monday, a 5-year-old girl and 7-year-old boy were shot just blocks away from Wednesday's incident. An 11-year-old boy was shot in Heart of Chicago the same day.

After all, the cops didn't shoot these kids....as far as we know.

SCC Poll

People have been asking for a nickname for the supernintendo. Usually, one presents itself, either by word or by deed, and we run with it. J-Fed morphed into J-Fled following the brazen cowardice fleeing the scene of a shooting. McCarthy earned a few sobriquets - McJerseyShore, Streetlight Assassin, McCompStat, etc. Escalante was blessed with Mr. Six and De-Escalante. There have been others.

We've come up with a short list, gleaned from comments and conversations. Vote in the comment section.

EJ's nickname shall be

Special Ed

The Accidental Supernintendo

Well Fed Ed

Big Headie Eddie

Pillsbury

The Crisco Kid

other

 

pollcode.com free polls

We're sure there will be more - these might inspire some other good ones, especially as the cheating scandal continues to simmer, the shooting rate climbs and murders spike in July and August.

Unsuccessful Suicide by Cop

South side:

• A Chicago police officer shot a man in the leg in Calumet Heights on the South Side early Sunday after getting a call from someone threatening suicide, authorities said.
  
  Just before 1:10 a.m., a person called 911 saying he was in a second-floor apartment in the 1800 block of East 87th Street and was going to kill himself, a source said. The caller said he had a 9mm handgun, according to the source.
  
  About 1:15 a.m., police arrived to assist with the EMS call, according to Chief of Detectives Eugene Roy. Officers found a man in the apartment "holding what appeared to be a handgun" and they told him to drop it, Roy said.
  
  The man pointed the gun at the officers, and one of them deployed a Taser while another officer fired his gun, Roy said. The Taser connected with the man and he was also shot in the leg, Roy said.

We'd just like to take this opportunity to remind future protestors that the police were called to the scene - they weren't looking for this guy. He was described as suicidal. The caller also stated he was armed. That pretty much dictates how things go from that point forward.

In any event, nice job by the Officers.

Hey Liberals?

You're going to let them beat up horses?

• Protesters threw bottles at police and their horses Saturday night in the South Loop. The group had marched for hours throughout downtown Chicago protesting police brutality.

And CrimeInBoystown posted this in the comments:

• Stumbled across this while reviewing yesterday's arrests....
  
  NAME: JAMAL D GREEN
  AGE: 20
  CB NUMBER: 19340113
  ARRESTED: Saturday, July 9, 2016 7:22 PM
  ARREST LOCATION: 900 N MICHIGAN AVE
  Charges:
  720 ILCS 5.0/12-3.05-D-4 AGG BATTERY/PEACE OFFICER
  720 ILCS 5.0/12-2-B-4 AGG ASSAULT PC OFFICER/VOLUNTEER
  720 ILCS 5.0/31-1-A RESISTING/OBSTRUCT/PC OFF/CORR EMP/FRFTR
  720 ILCS 5.0/31-1-A RESISTING/OBSTRUCT/PC OFF/CORR EMP/FRFTR

Funny how this isn't reported in the media. Word is he slugged a commander on the street. Rumor is that when he got to the lockup, after the obligatory "Don't you know who I am?" bullshit, he was asked if he wanted to make a phone call.

He called Eddie Johnson's cell phone.

Minnesota Riot

102 arrests. 21 cops injured:

• St. Paul leaders condemned the violence that broke out over the weekend when a peaceful protest over the police killing of Philando Castile turned into what they called a riot.
  
  Castile’s family called for peace Sunday, and activists distanced themselves from those who hurled rocks and other objects at police on Interstate 94. The attacks injured 21 law enforcement officers.
  
  Between the highway protest — and a march that followed on St. Paul’s Grand Avenue early Sunday — police arrested 102 people.
  
  “What happened last night and early this morning does a disservice to those that have lost their lives this last week, whether it was Philando Castile in Falcon Heights or the officers (who were killed) in Dallas,” said St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman Sunday morning. “This is not about grief, this is not about protest, this is about rioting, this is about violence. … This doesn’t honor anyone’s memory.”

Well, when you combine low-information individuals with a media-propagated lie, this is what you reap.

This is Helpful

No wait, not really:

• An Illinois appeals court on Friday vacated an injunction obtained by the Chicago police union that barred the city's release of disciplinary files dating back decades.
  
  The Fraternal Order of Police sued to block the release after a March 2014 appellate court ruling that documents dating back to 1967 should be made public. Several news outlets had requested the records.
  
  As a result of the 2014 ruling, the Invisible Institute, a nonprofit journalism organization, obtained 11 years of records and published an interactive database of police misconduct.

Records dating back through 1967? We weren't even born in 1967. These files shouldn't even exist. And what would be the purpose of releasing them anyway? The vast majority of these are undoubtedly "not sustained" and and statute of limitations ran out decades ago for 99% of these files. We'll bet half the cops named have gone on to their heavenly reward - or hell in some cases.

The only ones worth reading about, and maybe the Invisible Institute can point these out, are the ones naming certain bosses that subsequently got promoted. There might be a clout cover-up list that would connect all sorts of dots and give names to the apocryphal locker room stories of years past. Exempts who got caught climbing in certain bedroom windows, others whose drunken escapades were the stuff of legend, some who got promoted to keep their mouths shut about all sorts of shenanigans. Those investigative files would explain a lot about how we got here.

More Protests, More Ignorance

All based on false narratives (i.e. lies):

• With the nation continuing to reel from the recent killings of two African-American men by police, as well as the deadly attack on Dallas officers, activists in Chicago snarled traffic downtown on Saturday and successfully took their protests inside the annual Taste of Chicago festival, into the Loop and up North Michigan Avenue.

The nation isn't reeling. The nation is concerned. We've been thanked more in the past two days by citizens of all races since 9/11. The nation is dismayed by the divisiveness being exploited by various political actors.

• Activists affiliated with the local Black Lives Matter movement and their supporters also called for tourists to withhold spending on the Magnificent Mile to punish City Hall for failing to penalize officers who kill civilians.

Sure. That'll work. Makes perfect sense to penalize officers who are acting within the scope of their duties and the law without any sort of investigation or finding.

• From Grant and Millennium parks to the Loop and North Michigan Avenue, familiar chants echoed through the crowd from early afternoon into the evening: "No justice, no peace. No racist police" and "You can't stop the revolution" and "Hands up, don't shoot."

Again, none of these chants were heard during the shootings of over 2,000 people so far this year, 80% of whom were shot by other black folks (or people). And we have yet to see a scintilla of evidence of racism - Correlation does not imply causation. As far as this being a "revolution," it would be a lot messier if it was. And the tired refrain of "Hands up, don't shoot" was debunked by none other than the Obama Justice Department - it didn't happen.

• Protests have popped up in Chicago and in cities across the nation in recent days, with officers across the country under close scrutiny over what some see as indiscriminate use of deadly force against blacks.

Again Your Honor, facts not in evidence. This is a media driven movement, leaping from conclusion to conclusion without any regard for a proper investigation. And once the investigation is actually completed, ignored as if it never happened, the narrative being set in concrete by the actors who stand to make money or gain power.

Exhibit A - Ferguson
Exhibit B - Baltimore

Facts are pesky things. In Baton Rouge, the dead offender had threatened a homeless man with a gun. Police were called and responded. They saw a subject matching the description and took police action. The offender resisted as the police used hands on, escalated to a Taser (which didn't work) and when the one officer determined the subject was armed and attempting to get to his pocket, he was shot. The gun was recovered. What's the problem? Oh yeah, the officers are the wrong color. Bad Officers!

In Minnesota, the dead offender matched the description of an armed robbery offender - the "broken taillight" story narrated by the girlfriend is a lie - the authorities released the radio tapes from the officer about his intent to pull over a car with a "BOLO" (Be On the Look Out For) offender. The Concealed Carry narrative is still being investigated. There's a warning screen that usually pops up on police systems, and one Minnesota sheriff has already stated that the dead offender didn't have any permit issued by his office. Is anyone else suspicious how the media isn't trumpeting every quarter hour about how a cop shot a Concealed Carrier? We are, but we're waiting to see how the investigation unfolds. And oh yeah, the Officer is Latino, but the media is calling him white the four times we bothered to listen to the news today. [race corrected]

But the ignorant train keeps rolling along.

Ignorance

Reagan once said, "...the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn’t so." The same could be said about so very many people every time there's a police shooting. The arm chair quarterbacks, street corner lawyers and community organizers pop out of the woodwork with all sorts of ways to "fix" the police instead of having citizenstake actual responsibility.

Take this moron posting on social media:

• An Evergreen Park woman is accused of posting a threat on Facebook to shoot any police officer who pulls her over and asks her to get out of her car.
  
  Jenesis Reynolds, 24, was arrested Friday at her home and charged with disorderly conduct. She’s accused of posting a Facebook message saying: “all I know is if the police stops and request me to get out of the car I’m shooting instantly.”

Has anyone pointed out to her (or those like her) that the police have an absolute right to order you from your car? Pennsylvania v Mimms gives police that authority. Yet here is an ignoramus saying she's coming out "shooting instantly." And she is hardly alone in her ignorant thinking. You think that doesn't play into the scenarios running through police minds?

But this attitude (and worse) runs through the ignorant portions of certain communities, claiming the police have no "right" to stop them, to direct them as to proper lawful behavior, to restrict their movement and indeed, their freedom of movement, especially during an arrest situation. If certain people (or folks) would merely comply with lawful orders, things would be a lot simpler and less violent. A street cop knows way more about the law and what they are or aren't allowed to do.

There is no right to resist - it's written into the law. It's also written that an officer need not retreat in the face of resistance. The government wrote it that way on purpose. Sorry.

The populace have civil remedies in the face of unlawful actions, but two wrongs don't make a right. If a person thinks they were unjustly detained, hire a lawyer and sue the authorities - it's the American way.

You fight it out on the street, a whole bunch of people are going to get hurt or worse.