Promotional Lawsuit

You go Sarge:

• A longtime Chicago police sergeant is suing the city of Chicago and others, including Supt. Eddie Johnson, challenging the lieutenant’s promotion system as rigged on behalf of favored candidates.
  
  A formal investigation by the city’s Inspector General found no evidence of wrongdoing, but Sgt. Hosea Word alleged in the suit that actions took place which enabled competing sergeants to be promoted “who had not fairly and honestly earned that right.”
  
  “It became common knowledge in the ranks that the chiefs decided to scrap the 2006 test results, in order to administer a new test so they could secretly give their wives and girlfriends the test answers, which helped them to get high scores, promotions, pay raises, and pension increases that they didn’t deserve,” Word said in a statement. “I and others feel cheated and betrayed.”
  
  In his lawsuit filed Monday, Word alleged Johnson, former first deputy Al Wysinger, and former Chief Eugene Williams, intentionally leaked answers to the test to benefit their wives or girlfriends.

The worst kept secret in the history of the CPD is that certain people have access to either:

• the test
• the answers
• or the people who develop the test

Any one of these or combinations thereof give a decidedly unfair advantage to those taking the test. And the unfair advantage translates into tens of thousands of dollars in salary and even more tens of thousands in unearned pension bumps. Taxpayers are't getting the "best and brightest." They get the connected, corrupted and cheaters while the morale of the rank and file is driven into the ground as it becomes painfully obvious that any chance at legitimate advancement approaches zero.

This is different from the Inspector General's report that was pretty much a whitewash and covered up wrongdoing by the simple expedient of placing Rahm's hands over his eyes and saying, "I don't see anything!"

This part of Ferguson's report was as laughable today as it was when he released it:

• “Overall, the analyses did not reveal any trends supporting the allegations of fraudulent behavior,” he wrote.

Would Joe like a list of the "trends" that fully support "fraudulent behavior" being the only logical conclusion? We're sure our readers can come up with a few.

CCL Again

We think we can officially call this a trend now:

• A 23-year-old man was fatally shot Monday evening by a 58-year-old man he was trying to rob in the South Side Austin neighborhood.
  
  Shaquille Gales, 23, of Bellwood, walked up to the older man about 5:45 p.m. in the 5500 block of West Thomas Street, pulled out a gun and demanded his property, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office.
  
  The 58-year-old, a concealed-carry permit holder, pulled out his own weapon and shot the attempted robber, police said.
  
  Gales was taken to West Suburban Medical in Oak Park, where he was pronounced dead, authorities said.

And take a look at this part of the article:

• An autopsy Tuesday found Gales died from a gunshot wound to the chest through his arm, according to the medical examiner’s office. His death was ruled a homicide. Police initially reported that Gales was shot in the back of the head.
  
  A weapon was recovered at the scene, police said.

There's a big difference between being shot in the back of the head and being shot in the chest. We have a hard time believing that any officer on scene would tell the media that, so that leaves a either a blatant disinformation attempt by Media Affairs to smear a Concealed Carrier or (more believably), a media lie to do the same thing at the behest of Rahm and the anti-gun agenda. And they get to blame the police for being incompetent enough to think a body shot is a head shot.

After all, an "execution" is a better sell to the lib-tarded crowd.

This Guy Makes Sense

Who does this guy think he is, criticizing the mighty sheriff?

• When Sheriff Tom Dart’s office announced last month that the Cook County Jail population had dropped below 6,000 inmates for the first time in a decade, the media was all over it. The Tribune. CBS. NBC. They all reported Dart’s chief policy officer’s talking points without any counterpoints. NBC even said there was "uniform support for bond reform by the head of the county’s court system, the sheriff and prosecutor, as well as County Board President Toni Preckwinkle."
  
  Oddly, not a single outlet seemed able to locate anyone with reservations about the jail story. Like the police chief in west suburban Riverside. He's more than happy to offer his thoughts. “I have been telling our state and county elected official that criminal justice reform, including bond reform, is not protecting our citizens,” Riverside Chief Tom Weitzel told us today. “My concerns fall on deaf ears.”
  
  Weitzel issued his own press release about the jail population. We could not find any media outlets that have reported on it. “Our elected officials in Cook County and the state keep calling me an ‘alarmist,’” Weitzel said today. “After 33 years in law enforcement I know I am telling the truth!”

Thirty-three years in law enforcement. That sounds like more than Dart, Prickwrinkle, Foxxx and Evans combined.

Maybe he ought to run for something.

Unaccounted OT?

How true is this?

• Off-topic: there was much made about the list of personnel from HQ of not swiping in and out. But what wasn't mentioned is that list also had the amount of overtime registered and not paid. Not only does the system calculate the hours worked, it also calculates hours of overtime worked. The city is required by state law to compensate emoloyees when the city is aware of who worked overtime. No one has been compensated yet because it's a test run, but the law doesn't exclude test runs. There are many people in HQ owed overtime by the city.

We don't know about everywhere else, but many places we have worked, officers stay the extra 15 or 30 minutes (or even an hour sometimes) it takes to finish a report, arrest, inventory, whatever. And instead of dropping a slip, their sergeant or lieutenant tells them they'll take care of them tomorrow with a late lunch. If administered fairly, the system works pretty well and the city actually ends up ahead in most cases. Think about it - a 30 minutes late lunch as opposed to 30 minutes of OT at time-and-one-half cash.

Swiping doesn't allow for that option. And nickel-and-dime accounting could end up costing more than expected. We doubt anyone from HQ is going to raise a stink because they'll get dumped. But others?

Crash

Two cops injured:

• Two Chicago Police officers were among four people hospitalized Monday night after a West Englewood neighborhood crash on the South Side.
  
  The officers were pursuing a suspected robber in a Hummer SUV when the vehicles collided about 8:30 p.m. near 67th Street and Marshfield Avenue, according to Chicago Police and the Chicago Fire Department.
  
  The two officers were taken to a hospital in serious condition, authorities said. Two other people were also at hospitals in good condition. None of the injuries were thought to be life-threatening.

Some comments said they had to be extracted from the squad. No further word. Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

Secret COPA Hangout

Thanks to a reader, we've been clued in to where COPA hangs out:

It's over on Clybourn, so if you're looking for a good time....

Whoa Whoa Whoa...What's This

Who hired this snowflake?

• Stay safe and be careful around these new recruits. Remember, they have been brain washed, and many are like Rahm, not even from "Shitcaga". They talk about "Change", but since they are new around here, they do not even know what they are changing from. Change to them may include getting rid of the Evil Cops who are the Real Problem. Don't forget the recruit who was assigned to 019 who went on line to check if the FTO he was assigned to had CRs. When he saw that the FTO had CRs, he "demanded" a Different FTO, because he felt the one assigned could be bad for his career!

We remember getting all sorts of advice from coppers with CR numbers. What not to do, how to write tight paper, how to answer the BS drama that came with OPS taking every single complaint that got called in without evaluating it for veracity, reality or even legality. We wouldn't want to be taught by someone who hadn't been around the block at least a couple times.

The Ed and Melissa Show

Another one of those "merit" people with a skyrocket attached to their ass:

From the February 2017 class with a graduation date of March - guess who's headed to the D Unit?

• Who is Sgt. Tom Crain? Merit? With less than a year in grade as a Sgt? What happened to Special Ed’s hard rule about moving newly promoted Sgt’s?!  Must be pretty special for Staples to move him to 620, on the Homicide Team, demand Commander RB put him on days and move another seasoned Det. Sgt off the team. This guy can’t stop running his mouth about how tight he is with Staples and how quickly he’ll ascend once she’s Superintendent. 

Must be nice to be able to parade your connections around and brag about it so everyone can see them. 

Crooked CPS?

This is from last week:

• Chicago Public Schools employees “stole or misappropriated” thousands of dollars worth of school-purchased gift cards that were intended to be used as incentives for students and families, according to an annual report from the district’s inspector general.
  
  In one case, a principal of a school for vulnerable students stole presents of at least “$500 in gift cards that were donated to the students and were intended to help address their specialized needs,” Inspector General Nicholas Schuler’s office found. The same principal gave to an acquaintance 30 new backpacks filled with school supplies that had been donated, according to Schuler.
  
  The misuse of gift cards was among a long list of alleged wrongdoing by teachers, principals and district families in the IG’s annual report, which was released Wednesday.

Who would have thought that in a monumental bureaucracy there might be a scandal or two lurking?

Crime-Free Zones

Why didn't we think of this? It's utterly brilliant:

• Immediately upon Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s recent declaration of the entire city of Chicago as an official “crime-free zone,” every criminal in the city suddenly and miraculously left the urban area, according to a statement released by the city council.
  
  “We declare every part of the city of Chicago a crime-free zone,” Emanuel announced in a Thursday appearance on CBS This Morning. “It is now physically impossible for any crime to be committed in our great city, because we declared it a zone of peace and harmony and criminals have no choice but to abide by our new rule.”
  
  Emanuel claimed he didn’t want to resort to such extreme legislative measures, but as the crime situation in Chicago didn’t seem to be getting any better, his hand was forced.
  
  “I finally decided to use the strongest weapon at our disposal: declaring things illegal,” he said.
  
  Stunned onlookers claim the second the legislation banning any criminals from the city was signed into law, dangerous gangsters, conniving drug dealers, and thieving hooligans fled the city on foot, as though compelled by some kind of strange, alien force.

Property values promptly tripled in some of the harder hit areas of the "community" so all those lots Daley and Rahm sold for a dollar are worth.....three.

Fifty-three? Stand Back!

Reinforcements have arrived!

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced Sunday 53 new police officers have been deployed to their first district assignments as part of the plan to grow the Chicago Police Department by nearly 1,000 officers.
  
  “We are putting more police on the street — from the far north side to the far south side to the west side and neighborhoods in between — and we are getting gangs, guns and drugs off the street,” the mayor said. “Each of these men and women who are hitting the street today know that they can make a difference, and each of them will help us all achieve a better tomorrow.”

Rahm must have needed some timely positive press. The ones in our District have been here a month, maybe more. There must be a wave of retirements in the offing that are going to leave the Districts strapped for manpower again. Or maybe a giant Airport bid? In the meantime, NYPD graduated it's smallest class in recent memory - 400 Officers.

Rahm seems to be falling a bit short (again) of his promise to hire "nearly 1,000" officers because those pesky officers keep retiring or moving on to other jobs. All of this, while those in charge of "screening" potential candidates manage to disqualify a disturbingly high number of applicants based on god knows what.

Where Did They Go?

Whenever we post about low bails in Cook County or mention the hundreds of missing criminals on Electronic Monitoring, someone invariably says, "There ought to be a website that tracks all these missing criminals. SCC, get on that!"

(We find it amusing that people are willing to volunteer our already limited time for something they are unwilling to expend the effort on.)

But someone is making the effort - the Crime in Boystown and Wrigleyville blog:

• About six months ago, we published our very first story about people accused of committing crimes in our area who had skipped bail and gone missing.
  
  Well, our list of bail-skippers has grown significantly since then, so it's apparently time for an update.
  
  With Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans ordering judges to lower bail amounts to something defendants can afford, we expect to continue seeing many more people going AWOL than in the past.
  
  The following information about persons missing on bail reflects court clerk information on January 5, 2018.

We aren't going to steal their content, so click the link up top and give them your internet traffic. Obviously, their efforts are centered around the neighborhoods they serve, which happen to be a politically active neighborhood with many willing to donate to causes and politicians. Hopefully the CWB blog efforts demonstrate to the citizens how poorly served they are by the Cook County criminal justice system.

Wrong

Here comes Dart and Prickwrinkle's minions whining about layoffs:

• Over 300 more Cook County employees were laid off Friday due to budget cuts, ABC 7 has learned.
  
  Officials with the Cook County Sheriff's Office said 77 people were laid off from the department, including deputies and high ranking department members.

Politics is raising its ugly head though:

• Over 100 employees with the Cook County Courts are part of the layoff, but a temporary court order has put those layoffs on hold.

And guess what they blame?

• In November, the Cook County Board of Commissioners approved a $5.2 billion budget that included the layoffs of 321 people and the elimination of 1,017 vacant positions to make up for the $200 million in revenue lost when the sweetened beverage tax was repealed.

The sweetened beverage tax was NEVER going to generate anything close to $200 million, just based on the receipts that leaked out from retailers. Not only that, it was costing the County tens of millions in additional sales tax revenue as people shopped elsewhere.

Furthermore, if Prickwrinkle hadn't spent the $200 million prior to actually, you know, collecting it, she might have had a better handle on her budgetary process.

And what's this "elimination of 1,017 vacant positions" to help balance the budget? If they were unfilled, then those salaries weren't being spent, right? Let's do a little math:

• 1,017 spots, at an average salary of $50,000 is just over $50 million.
• This being Cook County, the average salary is more likely in the $75,000 range, meaning over $76 million wasn't paid out.
• A couple of websites we checked out says that salary is around 68% of the compensation costs - Insurance accounts for another 31%. That's another $36 million that wasn't paid in for insurance for non-existent employees.

$112 million in savings just by eliminating 1,017 spots THAT WERE ALREADY VACANT and not costing you a thing? So what was the purpose of a $200 million tax hike when $88 million would have been fine?

Welcome to the wonderful world of political accounting - where you spend money you haven't collected, save money you never spent, and charge the taxpayers almost 150% of what you "need" to get by.

Nice Bar Scene Rahm

This is why Chicago shouldn't have nice things:

• Hundreds of people spilled into the street and broke into fights outside of a River North bar early Saturday, according to witnesses and police.
  
  More than a dozen Chicago police officers flocked to 149 W. Kinzie St. at the Old Crow Smokehouse bar on the Near North Side around 1 a.m. to try to disperse the unruly crowd that spread across the block near Kinzie and LaSalle Street.
  
  Patrons of Old Crow Smokehouse said some customers grew rowdy in the bar, and people began fighting, until police officers flooded the establishment.

A dozen officers are now considered a "flood" to quell a riot of "hundreds."

If only there was enough manpower to have a citywide response unit.

Who are we kidding - they'd all be ducking at 1230.

Copper Injured

Car accident:

• A Chicago police officer and two men were injured in a Near West Side crash after the officer was responding to shots fired Saturday morning.
  
  The officer was responding to a report of a person shot in the 2300-block of West Adams Street at about 2:49 a.m., police said. The officer was then involved in a three vehicle crash in the 2000-block of West Madison Street.
  
  The officer was transported to Rush Hospital, where he was treated and released.

Over 3,500 people got shot in 2017. Don't worry - there will always be plenty more.

Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

2017 Final Numbers

Disregarding the Department's extensive manipulation and outright lies, the final Butcher's Bill for Chicago is as follows (all numbers per HeyJackass.com)

• Final 2017 Totals
  Shot and Killed: 624
  Shot and Wounded: 2937
  Total Shot: 3561
  Total Homicides: 675

Remember, HeyJackass counts police shootings in their totals (9 CPD, 1 Amtrak, 1 ISP) so that leaves fourteen homicides the Department is hiding so far.

HeyJackass.com also sums up the year as follows:

• It’s that time of year when we make a piss poor attempt to summarize the year that was. We classified 2016 simply as a “shitshow”. We’re going to say that 2017 was slightly less shitshow-y, but a shitshow nonetheless.
  
  For more than half of the year, 2017 was running ahead of 2016 with such performances like the disastrous July 4th weekend that tallied over 100 shot or the annual Father’s Day Shoot-O-Rahm-a. By August-time, the idiocy, for whatever reason, retraced back to 2015 levels where rainbow farting unicorns grazed along the lakefront and songs of “#crimeisdown” filled the air.
  
  Come midnight Jan 1, 2018, 16.5% less people were dead and nearly 20% less people were found themselves with additional ventilation. Aside from comparing 2017 to the worst year in two decades, a decline in the incline is parade worthy (just don’t invite the carjackers or the $200 million overtimers).
  
  Fortunately, we fell way short with our 2017 prediction of 850 homicides and 3850 shot and wounded. 2018 may likely fall somewhere in-between 2017 and 2015 with 600-650 homicides and 2500-3000 shot and wounded. If the Polar Vortex decides to hang out for much the winter, we think we’ll end up closer to the lower end of that range.
  
  Finally, many thanks to everyone who visited, liked, retweeted, emailed and hit the tip jar this past year. Have yourself a safe and prosperous new year.

Maybe they were running out of people to shoot, leading to the end of year slowdown. We're still betting on well over 500 this year in any event.

Cook County West

Liberals never seem to learn, even from each other:

So something like a 66% sugar tax? Let's see if Seattle voters can sway their politicians like Cook County voters. They are way more liberal on the west coast though. They may like high taxes.

FOP Wins A Round

Who would have thought that the city actually has to follow Labor Law? Someone alert Rahm:

• An administrative law judge says the Chicago Police Department violated state labor law when it failed to negotiate expansion of its body camera program with the city’s largest police union, according to court documents.
  
  Administrative Law Judge Anna Hamburg-Gal found the city failed to bargain with the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police when it expanded use of body-worn cameras to 14 police districts in 2017. In a recommendation order handed down this week, Hamburg-Gal advised the city to begin a dialogue, as required by state law, on safety and disciplinary matters surrounding the 2017 body camera expansion.

The no-so-good news - the city can still drag their feet:

• The recommendation won’t have teeth unless adopted by the state Labor Relations Board, and does not stop police officers in those districts from using body cameras issued in last year’s expansion. Nor does it reverse any disciplinary action against officers based on footage obtained from the cameras, the ruling says. It does overturn any discipline meted out as a result of misuse or loss of cameras, and it halts any future disciplinary action until the city and the police union complete the bargaining process.

Hopefully the FOP doesn't squander this opportunity.

Hey 330 Third Watch?

You might want to review this Admin Fax Message:

We know it wasn't on the test.

CWB Confirms - No Cameras

As rumored here Wednesday:

• Chicago police officers who are assigned to sit outside of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s home at 4228 North Hermitage have been ordered to not work with the body-worn cameras (BWC) that other officers are required to wear. News of the development came this morning on the Second City Cop blog.
  
  Now, CWBChicago has learned that the no-camera order was issued by someone who “out-ranks” 19th District Commander and BWC champion Marc Buslik. Whether that person is a police executive or a member of the mayor’s office was not immediately clear.
  
  We have also learned of a gang-related foot chase, gun recovery, and arrest that took place just two weeks ago directly across from the mayor’s home. The apprehension of the suspect—who’s on parole for shooting a man in Uptown—was assisted by the no-camera house units.

So if these "no-camera house units" happened to use any sort of force during the apprehension of the gun offender, then what? Who's going to take the weight for that lawsuit when the defense (or future plaintiff) demands to know where the footage is since every single patrol officer now has a camera? The Commander? Rahm? The so-called "out-rank[er]" who ordered them not to wear cameras?

Not fucking likely.

And still, not a single mainstream media outlet picking this up, wondering why Rahm doesn't want cameras around the residence.