Well Well Well

This is something:

The news picked up on it:

• Interim Chicago Police Supt. Charlie Beck on Tuesday told officers that he will not make any merit promotions during his time leading the department.
  
  In a Tuesday email to officers, Beck said, “I continue to hear that members have been dissatisfied and discouraged by the merit promotion system.”
  
  Beck added that he will recommend his successor also not use the much-maligned system and will encourage the department to hold promotional exams every two years in the future.

Mr. Beck, we address you directly now. Hopefully someone points you to this posting as a sort of educational missive - perhaps Mayor Lightfoot can read it, too:

• "Merit" was put into place to correct imbalances in certain representations. The fact is, not a single piece of paper, directive or order ever delineated what constituted "merit," so everyone correctly assumed it was political in nature. And then, as it continued, you had "merit" people picking "merit" people, people who were owed favors, until now there isn't even a handful of the brass that ever earned a score high enough to get promoted on their own. We're including the cheaters across the years, especially from HQ. The last "merit" board even disregarded it's own rules and voted on their own "merit" picks.
• As greedy people are wont to do, the 30% for "merit" wasn't nearly enough for the politically connected. Secret study groups were formed where the actual test was taught to certain people, so now, in addition to the 30% "merit," cops had to compete with 20-or-30% more who "made it by score," which was far from the truth. Check out a certain Chief of Patrol - his admin sergeants scored one and two on an exam for lieutenant....and then his next admin sergeant scored number one again. Either he was the best judge of talent in the history of the CPD or the test that he helped write ended up in someone's hands.
• The most recent lieutenant exam was a doozy. Gene Williams led a secret study group that placed six people, all from IAD and all friends of the then First Deputy's wife, in the top ten -  a statistical impossibility seeing as not a single one of them had gotten promoted to Sergeant on their own! The First Deputy's wife allegedly had a perfect score - again, an impossibility given her previously un-promotable score. Add to that the four or five husband/wife teams that had near matching scores and ranking, and the strange number of sons and daughters (and spouses of same) of a certain Captain (who just happens to be the cousin of the current First Deputy) scoring miraculously high on tests, and one has to wonder if any of it is legit.
• This means that instead of 70% of the slots being awarded to high scorers and (supposedly) more capable people, we were scrambling for 40% of the slots...40% on a good day. It was probably even less than that.

What did all of this mean? Well, we can say with a high degree of certainty, that upwards of 90% of CPD scandals centered on or were led by a "merit" pick. We hope you don't doubt us. Special Ops, Broken Star, Flagg's crew, pederast "merit" Sgt Elkins, "merit" Sgt Lesner's gun, Johnson's IRS scam, "merit" Sgt Elizondo, the continuing Escamerit follies, Johnson's johnson, the list is near endless and in every case, a "merit" supervisor or someone brought onto a team by a "merit" supervisor, even if the supervisor avoided direct responsibility.

You really want to see what's what? Head over to the Confidential Section of IAD. You're the Superintendent - you own it. Sit down and read those files. Hopefully, you'll be appalled at the "merit" bullshit that gets covered up on a weekly basis. The trouble is we wouldn't know who to tell you to trust to walk you though it all. We used to know a couple dozen cops we'd trust with anything and everything. Sadly, that number has dwindled to about half-a-dozen.

So, does this new policy survive Beck's three months? Or Lightfoot's single term?

FOP Wins Grievance

But what does it mean?

So we can kill people with impunity for the next few weeks until they come up with a negotiated policy? Because the voices in our heads have been demanding blood-tribute lately and we heard protestors are getting antsy since they haven't been able to blame the police for the thousands of other shootings and (nearly) five-hundred homicides this year.

Seriously though - what does it all mean? We assume we're still bound by previous Use of Force models, and since everyone has been taught under a system that doesn't exist for the moment, now what?

No Area 4 or Area 5?

Anyone heard this one yet?

• Off Topic. First NY, now LA. I was in a Detective meeting where they want to make a Central Homicide Unit out of Homan. Detectives will be on call, have a take home car, extra pay, and be assigned to teams in an Area, Just [like] LA. Also being told it will be called Robbery Homicide Division just like LA. Meeting with the Mayor this [week] to float the idea by her instead of reopening Area 4 and Area 5. 

Interesting.

The trouble here is that the "extra pay" means politics will play an oversized role in who actually gets assigned there. Perhaps not when Beck is nominally "in charge," but right after he leaves. Competency has no place in the D-unit and hasn't for many many years now.

Feds Ditch Investigation?

Once a dead body turns up, the feds bail - is that what we're understanding?

• Chicago rapper Juice Wrld suffered convulsions and went into cardiac arrest as police and federal agents were searching his and his entourage’s luggage for guns and drugs at a private hangar at Midway Airport over the weekend, according to law enforcement sources.
  
  The rapper’s girlfriend, asked by police if he had any medical issues or had ingested any drugs, replied that he takes Percocet, a painkiller, and “has a drug problem,” the sources said.
  
  The officers and agents had been waiting at the Atlantic Aviation hangar at Midway early Sunday because they suspected the private plane from Los Angeles carrying the musician — whose real name was Jarad Higgins — was carrying contraband, the sources said.

Contraband? Is that what this is called?

• The search turned up 41 “vacuum-sealed” bags of marijuana, six bottles of prescription codeine cough syrup, two 9 mm pistols, a .40-caliber pistol, a high-capacity ammunition magazine and metal-piercing bullets, according to the sources. Two men identified by police as working security for Higgins were charged with misdemeanor offenses for illegally possessing the guns and ammunition.

TMZ.com reports it was seventy pounds of weed and the deceased was downing Percocet pills so the feds wouldn't find them, leading to seizures and death. And then the feds bailed, leaving the mess in CPD hands?

But aren't undeclared guns on airplanes kind of frowned upon? Not to mention seventy pounds of weed, six bottles of unprescribed codeine syrup, and any Percocet they manage to salvage via the autopsy? Any word on how often and what else might have been transported over previous flights?

Thirty-eight Cars Torched

We hope these weren't snow tows or weed impounds or from some underprivileged families:

• Firefighters battled massive flames Monday morning after more than 30 cars were set on fire in two separate arsons in Gresham and West Pullman on the city's South and Far South sides.
  
  According to Chicago police and fire officials, around midnight someone entered a fenced in lot in the 300 block of East 115th street and set fire to eight cars.
  
  About 40 minutes later, officials said someone entered a private tow yard in the 8800 block of South Genoa Avenue and set approximately 30 cars on fire. The dozens of burning vehicles were fenced for hours as glass broke and tires popped from the heat.

The good news is even though it's thirty-eight cars, it's only two arsons, so Crimesha is pre-downgrading any charges in anticipation of the holiday season.

Stealing is Wrong?

Someone ought to notify the authorities:

• Chicago police said they are investigating at least three incidents in which customers had their phones and other personal belongings stolen inside different Starbucks locations in the city Monday.
  
  One of the victims told ABC7 Eyewitness News he was seated at a table the Starbucks at 40 North Clinton Street in the West Loop at about 1:30 p.m. with his phone resting on a book. He said a man in his late teens or early twenties grabbed the phone and ran. Another customer attempted to stop him before he could leave.
  
  [...] Police said similar thefts were reported around the same time at least two other Starbucks locations; the stores at Grand and Milwaukee in West Town and at Desplaines and Kinzie in the Fulton River District.

This part though:

• The early-afternoon crime wave left Starbucks customers shaking their heads.
  
  "I think it's despicable that people would go to that extent, to show up at a Starbucks just to take someone else's phone," said Elias Haddad, Starbucks customer. "It's wrong."
  
  "It's sad, it's sad," said customer Scott Larson. "You go to a place where you want to read or do work, and unfortunately you have to stay vigilant, even when you just want to relax."

Starbucks allows non-customers to come in, hang out, use the bathroom, shoot dope, etc. Their workers refuse to serve officers in uniform or write derogatory names on their orders. Voters have elected a social justice warrior who thinks theft isn't a crime, shoplifting has to reach double the threshold of State Law, and gun offenders deserve I-bonds.

Why would you (A) patronize these places and (B) be surprised when crime comes to where there are no consequences?

"Dear Hustler"

Special E's drama has pretty much run past the "Dear Penthouse" type of story and is falling rapidly into something pornographer Larry Flynt would be writing. We might have a handle on Special Ed's disastrous week and thanks to all the readers who have been chiming in with info and assistance. See if you can follow this shit - we still aren't certain that it's all correct, but it's slightly more accurate than what the media is reporting:

• Individual A - Wife. Sitting at home knitting and watching late night TV, gazing out the window every few minutes, awaiting the arrival of her special guy. She arrived at work two hours late, so she took four at the end to rest up and have a hot dinner waiting for her man.
• Individual B - Driver and drinking companion. Seen on video "canoodling" with Special Ed and (if the rumors are to be believed) up to ten other officers at a bar. No word if this is part of the exempt crew that has been treating the Academy like a recruitment center for bedmates. Following the drinking, B was dropped off at HQ (where her car was) so that Ed could continue on his merry way.
• Individual C - Fellatrix, picked up after Individual B was dropped off at HQ

Here's where it gets complicated. Special Ed got dimed out on a city phone. We're assuming that Individual B didn't go home, but followed Special Ed and discovered that she wasn't the only one that Special Ed was cheating with. Coupled with the fact that she wasn't on a recent "merit" list, she called in a Woman Slumped Over a Johnson Man Slumped Over the Wheel, which is why everyone and Fergie is looking for the SIM card for her phone.

The cover-up that Fergie is investigating isn't about Johnson interviewing a potential "merit" promotee, but about numerous body cameras that went "missing" and footage that didn't get uploaded, specifically of Individual C being observed in the car, which also explains why Special Ed drove off so quickly.

This would also explain why Individual B was transferred from Ed's detail to a cushy spot (where she's currently on the Medical Roll for falling off of a chair). Special Ed suspected (or knew) she had been stalking him and his extracurricular activities and was going to be a problem.

Now she's (allegedly) being interviewed by IAD, the IG and perhaps a three-letter agency that might be interested in a certain uniform store. We are assured that this is going to get far worse before it gets any better and Groot is going to use this push a few more exempts out the door. We'll see.

How Dare You Stay in Shape!

Don't you know you're supposed to stay fat, out-of-shape and never improve yourself?

• Disturbing video showing a Chicago Police officer slamming a man into the pavement went viral last week and continues to be the subject of an independent investigation by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA).
  
  [...]
  
  And while [the officer] can be seen on cell phone video lifting a man off his feet and slamming him to the ground, CBS 2 Investigators found he is a trained mixed martial arts fighter, and videos on Youtube show him using similar maneuvers in the ring.
  
  [...]
  
  [Scumbag's attorney] Stroth also said he believes [the officer] used his MMA skills as a “lethal weapon” when he slammed Kersh to the ground.

If he used it as a "lethal weapon," then scumbag would be dead, right? In any event, any copper taking any sort of self-defense class like Judo, Jiu-Jitsu, or even Krav Maga, is potentially opening themselves up to accusations of being Mel Gibson - a "lethal weapon" just by the fact of their existence. Is the entire CPD Judo Club aware that Beck might be registering them all as "walking weapons"?

Not a word about criminals who spend years in prison lifting weights every day, learning how to manufacture and conceal weapons, and practicing street combat skills on a near daily basis. A cop who takes it upon him or herself to improve their odds of surviving a street encounter that goes sideways is the bad guy/girl for daring not to be a doughnut-eating, latte-sipping pushover.

Bad Twenty-Four Hours

Three officers killed in a twenty-four hour span across the country:

• Huntsville Police have identified the 14-year veteran officer killed during a STAC team pursuit Friday night. During a news conference on Saturday, police said Billy Clardy III was the officer who was shot and killed.
  
  According to a Facebook post from Huntsville Police, STAC agents had set up a drug buy at a house on Levert Street. When officers arrived, Brown immediately shot Clardy, hitting him outside his bulletproof vest. Other officers on a perimeter captured Brown after a short foot chase.
  
  
• A suspect has been charged with capital murder in the fatal shooting of a Houston police officer who was responding to a domestic violence report, officials said Sunday.
  
  Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner announced Sgt. Christopher Brewster's death at a news conference late Saturday. Police officials said in a tweet that the 32-year-old officer was shot just before 6 p.m. The suspected gunman, Arturo Solis, was arrested without incident following a search after the shooting, police said in a news release Sunday.
  
  
• An Arkansas police officer has been shot and killed outside their police precinct. Officers with the Fayetteville Police Department were inside the building when they heard gunshots outside at approximately 9:42 p.m. on Saturday, according to a statement from the Fayetteville Police Department.
  
  When two responding officers went outside they located an armed suspect, later identified as London T. Phillips, directly behind the police department. Phillips exchanged gunfire with officers and was shot during the encounter, police said.
  
  The victim, Officer Stephen Carr, was later found shot inside his patrol vehicle that was parked in the police department parking lot, authorities said. Emergency medical personnel responded to the scene and treated the officer and the suspect but both of them succumbed to their injuries. and were pronounced dead on scene.

RIP Officers. Godspeed and deepest condolences to your families.

What's This?

Mope-rah must have hit detox again - she's making occasional sense (but no link for her until she makes sense consistently.) She's still drinking the Special Ed Kool-Aid a bit:

• Interim police Supt. Charlie Beck said it best when he summed up the downfall of former top cop Eddie Johnson:
  
  “Everybody makes mistakes,” Beck said. “But we have to live with that.”
  
  So I’m not dancing on Johnson’s grave. After a 31-year career, Johnson was tripped up by behavior unbecoming a married man and a police chief, behavior that ended with him slumped over the steering wheel of his car.
  
  Because Johnson had only weeks till retirement, Mayor Lori Lightfoot could have let him off. But she didn’t. Lightfoot fired Johnson, saying he lied to her and the public about what took place that night. His firing resulted in more than an ugly end to a stellar career. It has triggered an investigation into a possible cover-up.

Stellar? Not even close Mopey. But this set of paragraphs surprised us:

• Which brings me to the next cop incident that exposes expectations that sometimes are unreasonable.
  
  The police say that, on Thanksgiving, Bernard Kersh was drinking alcohol at a bus stop on the South Side and, when confronted by officers, “spit” in the eye and mouth of one of them. A cellphone video showed the officer throwing Kersh to the ground.
  
  Obviously, the video of a police officer body-slamming a man whose head is smacked against a curb is hard to stomach. Where I grew up, though, Kersh would have suffered a great deal more than being body-slammed. He would have been beaten to a pulp.
  
  I’m not suggesting that’s what the police should have done. But the police reform effort is working. The city’s Civilian Office of Police Accountability moved quickly to strip the officer of his police powers after the video surfaced on social media. A second officer was later stripped of his powers while COPA does a “use-of-force” investigation.
  
  Kersh ended up in a hospital and remains in custody on charges including aggravated battery of a peace officer. I think these police officers showed a lot more restraint than many of us would have. And if body-slamming is considered excessive force under these circumstances, I’d like to know what we expect police officers to do.
  
  They are not robots. From the top cop down to patrol officers, they are flawed human beings like the rest of us. Sometimes, we need to be reminded of that.

Well Mopey, you're certainly in a position to do a bit of that "reminding" you speak of. Can you imagine the outrage if someone of a pale-complexion gobbed on you? You'd have material for a few columns, maybe for a few years. We on the other hand, racked up our third spitting incident just this year the other day, this time as a witness. The incidents didn't make the news because no cameras were rolling other than Department ones, and no one seems to care. Why is that?

Slow Weekend

No homicides as of yesterday morning and the weather wasn't that bad.

HeyJackass.com has Chicago at 482.

Eighteen to hit 500, twenty-three days left in 2019.

"Dear Penthouse,"

"I never would have believed it would happen to me, but...."

• Before he was captured on video dining with a woman at Ceres Cafe, fired Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson visited a Black-owned bar in the South Loop where he drank with a handful of officers, according to multiple sources who spoke to the Crusader.
  
  The sources said that was the beginning of a night that started with a lot of booze.
  
  [...]
  
  After police responded to a 911 call at the intersection of Aberdeen and West 34th Street, sources also told the Crusader that [Cynthia] Donald performed oral sex on Johnson as he sat with his head laid back giving the appearance that he was asleep in the car. When the officers approached the plain, black police SUV, Johnson flashed his badge before he drove away. Last year, Officer Donald filed for divorce.

ChicagoCrusader.com is having a field day with this, taking Groot's "we don't want to embarrass Special Ed's wife and child" comment.....and running completely the opposite direction, naming names, torching reputations, and plastering a Scarlet Letter on everyone in sight.

(posts appeared in wrong order last night - we just bumped this one to the top)

Evidence of What Exactly?

Things are getting nuttier.....if that's possible:

• The woman who sources say was out drinking with then-Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson the night he was found asleep in his vehicle has been accused of tampering with evidence amid the city watchdog’s investigation into the incident, the Chicago Tribune has learned.
  
  The woman — a Chicago police officer on Johnson’s security detail at the time of the October incident — was accused of removing a SIM card from a cellphone that had been sought as evidence by the office of city Inspector General Joseph Ferguson, according to a document obtained by the Tribune. SIM cards store the data on cellphones.
  
  The document obtained by the Tribune through an open-records request indicated a sergeant in the bureau where the officer is now assigned filed a complaint making the allegation against her.
  
  “The accused officer is alleged to have removed a SIM card from a cell phone that was requested as evidence by the OIG,” the document said. The document doesn’t describe which investigation but lists a “date of incident” of Nov. 21. Ferguson’s office has been investigating Johnson since soon after officers found him asleep in a running vehicle near his South Side home after a late weeknight out in mid-October.

We've seen a couple people saying that Special Ed doesn't have to cooperate with Fergie since he's no longer employed by the City, but there is previous court precedent that says the City can force the issue. That would be the McDonald case (of all things) against the lieutenant who retired rather than tell the IG why all those exempts declared the shooting justified.

So what are they looking for on the city phone? If she was "busy" with Johnson's johnson as the ChicagoCrusader article up top suggests, then she isn't the one who made the 911 call. Are there pictures? Is Fergie looking for GPS data? This investigation seems to be a lot more involved than anyone thought.

Sneedlings

Obviously, Sneed is being used to further Groot's agenda:

• Sneed hears Mayor Lori Lightfoot has drawn up a Chicago Police Department exempt-rank purge list of at least six names, one of whom was a college buddy of fired former Chicago top cop Eddie Johnson.
  
  Sneed also hears rumbles Melissa Staples, chief of the detective division, may also be on the chopping block and word is the mayor is seriously contemplating disbanding the Organized Crime Unit to get more cops back on the street — which is causing a lot of CPD angst.

That isn't just angst - that's a lot of people headed to First and Third watches across the city via some sort of twisted process where Patrol holds a "super bid" to half-a-dozen undesirable Districts and then freezes movement by not offering bids anywhere nicer for a year or two. We wrote about it nearly ten years ago after the Department disbanded TRU and MSF, trapping all sorts of people far from home and far from assignments they might have otherwise made. Are we returning to those bad old days?

Sneed also hears that one completely unqualified civilian is on the chopping block:

• Finally, Sneed is told one of the names high on the “removal” hit list is a well-known former female Chicago media personality who is a CPD community relations liaison.

Robin Robinson somehow managed to nominate people for promotion as some half-assed "director" at six-figures. Her "nominees" were always connected to some higher-up (sometimes by certain "intimate" body parts) that the bosses couldn't nominate on their own lest the wives find out. The mayor might want to look into the backgrounds of Robinson's nominees to spare herself embarrassment down the road.

And finally, Sneed drops this bomb - the return of Granny Clampett?

• Does Lightfoot have her eye on Anne Kirkpatrick, the former Spokane, Washington police chief who now heads the Oakland, California police department? The former head of the Chicago Police Department’s Bureau of Professional Standards, she is a highly qualified female top cop, who is credited with breaking up the notorious Oakland Police Department frat house.
  
  Kirkpatrick was a member of the top three finalists chosen by the Chicago Police Board headed by Lightfoot before Rahm ditched the list and chose Johnson as his top cop.

We certainly hope this would be true - the material would keep us occupied for the remainder of our careers. But Lightfoot, for all the hassle we give her, isn't a moron. Granny threatened to sue Rahm for going outside of the prescribed process and she was given the Professional Standards spot to derail the lawsuit. She accepted the "payoff," but was never granted actual staff or power to effect change, so she started shopping her resume anywhere else, and bailed at the first offer.

Lightfoot values loyalty. Kirkpatrick has none, and is merely an alternative lifestyle mercenary. We have a ton of unused material from Granny's last trip through town. She would be a useful idiot for the mayor, that's for sure.

Off Duty Shot At

We missed this one from a couple days ago:

• Someone shot at an off-duty Chicago police officer Tuesday in Wrightwood on the South Side.
  
  The officer was in his personal vehicle about 9:57 p.m. in the 8100 block of South Washtenaw Avenue when a male got out of a gray-colored caravan and fired shots at him, Chicago police said.
  
  The officer wasn’t injured, and he didn’t return gunfire, police said. His vehicle was struck by bullets, and the suspect fled in an unknown direction.

In a conversation, someone said he was followed from work? We can't find that report and have no idea if it's true, but one should always try to be aware when leaving work if someone is following you from a police facility. Be careful.

Direction from the Top - Fetal

What's the point of having laws if politicians are telling us not to enforce the actual laws:

• Mayor Lori Lightfoot and interim Chicago Police Supt. Charlie Beck issued a statement Thursday clarifying the CPD’s new pot enforcement plan after the Sun-Times reported that Chicagoans could be still ticketed for using marijuana in backyards or on porches or balconies that are visible to the public when the drug is legalized next month.
  
  “The Chicago Police Department recognizes that an individual using cannabis in their own backyard or balcony poses no direct threat to public safety, and no resident should be arrested or ticketed solely for such a scenario,” the statement reads. “Any characterization to the contrary is simply wrong.”
  
  That statement, however, made no mention of whether smoking pot on a front porch would be treated differently.
  
  In an interview, CPD spokesman Anthony [Google-me] said that the new law does allow officers to issue citations for some use on private property, but that won’t be a priority.

We used to think that there was a legislature that passed laws and htat lawmakers were responding to the concerns of the people who voted them into office. After laws were passed, the executive branch (through the police force) would be responsible for enforcing the laws and the judicial branch would apply the penalties.

But that was before Crimesha took it upon herself to rewrite all the shoplifting and theft laws of Illinois, and apparently Groot and Beck are taking their cues from her. You know what else used to be against the law? Drinking on the public way in a bus stop. But now we guess you can do that along with licking and spitting on the police and potentially costing two cops a bunch of time in the penalty box.

Does everyone see what is being said? Do NOT enforce the law as written...a.k.a. Stay Fetal. Right from Groot and Beck.

Soap Opera Continues

New allegations of impropriety:

• As the scandal around Chicago Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson widened in the weeks after he was found asleep in his car after an evening of drinking, the former top cop reassigned a female subordinate who spent that evening with him at a downtown bar.
  
  The Chicago Sun-Times reports the two were recorded by the bar’s security system repeatedly kissing. A Chicago police department spokesman confirmed the officer was transferred out of a plum assignment on Johnson’s security team a few weeks later.
  
  The transfer by Johnson could be in violation of city policy, which prohibits employment decisions from being made based on an employee’s “submission to or rejection of” a supervisor’s sexual advances, and is one more ripple in the fast moving scandal.

So are taxpayers looking at yet another payout?

• Employment attorney Megan O’Malley, who has sued the city of Chicago on multiple occasions, said if Johnson and the officer were romantically involved, the sequence of events raises “significant red flags.”
  
  “Any time you have a supervisor or superior officer in a sexual relationship with a subordinate, that is your first enormous red flag,” O’Malley said. “He obviously used his position to bring her into his security detail, and whether he did that as a favor because they were already involved or whether he did that beforehand and then used his access and authority over her to pressure her to get involved is an unknown, but either one of those situations would violate the law.”
  
  Then, O’Malley said, the fact that the officer was transferred shortly after the scandal came to light could indicate sexual harassment or gender discrimination.

WBEZ is all over this thing, to the point that we have to consider someone in the Administration is feeding them info. Word from Fort Fellatio sources is that the involved female is also spilling every bit of info she has on various incidents and exempts.

More Photoshops

Just needed to fill a post tonight:

Oops

Fun times.

West Side Shooting

Armed assailant shot by police:

• Four people were shot Wednesday in Chicago....
  
  [...]
  
  Later Wednesday evening, a man was shot by Chicago police during a chase in the East Garfield Park neighborhood on the West Side.
  
  Officers responding to a disturbance before 8:30 p.m. near Springfield Avenue and Wilcox Street tried to stop the man during an investigation, but he ran away, according to Ernest Cato, deputy chief of Area North. The officers got out of their car and chased the man, who then turned toward the police and showed a handgun, Cato said. An officer then fired shots, striking him in the leg.
  
  The suspect, a man in his 20s, was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, Cato said. He was expected to survive his injuries.

Officers are all okay. Good job.

Finally, a Contract Demand

This is a promising development:

• Fed up with the 2 1/2-year wait for a new contract, the Fraternal Order of Police board has voted to put their demand for an 18% pay raise over three years in the hands of an independent arbitrator.
  
  With his own union election just over four months away, Fraternal Order of Police President Kevin Graham accused Mayor Lori Lightfoot of “stalling” negotiations with a union with whom she has engaged in a cold war.
  
  “We have gotten nowhere….City attorneys have come to the table and it has been the exact same thing. They are unwilling to negotiate any single item. They’ve offered us 10% over five years, but they offered the teachers 16” percent, Graham said.

As an e-mailer wrote to us and going strictly by the results Special Ed and Google-me released every damn month for the past three years, crime has gone down. And so have reading and math scores.

One is a positive, the other is a negative, and you shouldn't be rewarding the teachers for fucking up their jobs while we're succeeding on a year-over-year basis.

When does the Arbitration begin?