Are These People Stupid?

We guess the answer to that question is "Hell, yes."

• A group of Chicago ministers aired their concerns about allegations of excessive force by Chicago police officers and other police-related complaints Tuesday.
• Just over two weeks after Rosensweig's appointment, 18-year-old Aaron Harrison was shot and killed by a Special Operations Section officer who had pursued the teenager from a street stop. Witnesses said the young man was unarmed, but police say they found a handgun near his body. Three and a half months later, the revamped OPS still has not issued a report.
• And the ministers told Rosensweig to not only obey but to publicize the city ordinance that puts a six-month limit on OPS Investigations.

So what are these morons complaining about? According to our calculator, she still has two-and-a-half months left to conduct her investigation. Oh, that's right. They're "reverends." They're important. The rules apply to everyone except if the "reverends" get on your case. Then you better have answers and you better have them yesterday.

We heard that Aaron Harrison (known vice lord, convicted drug dealer, armed felon, future heart surgeon and current worm food) was also working on a time machine so the "reverends" could have all their answers yesterday for an investigation that isn't scheduled to be over until February of 2008.

Welcome to Chicago Ms. Rosensweig. Hope you enjoy your temporary stay.

Chuckle-Heads

Remember when we used to be able to shoot burglars?

Yeah, we don't either. Before our time. But the old guys have some stories. This is funnier:

• MICCOSUKEE TRIBE INDIAN RESERVATION, Fla. - A man who jumped into a lake to flee police was killed by an alligator more than 9-feet long, officials said Tuesday.

  The man, whose name has not been released, was allegedly burglarizing a vehicle in the parking lot of the Miccosukee Resort and Convention Center on Thursday. He ran when police arrived at the scene, said Dexter Lehtinen, one of the tribe's police legal advisors.

  Tribal police divers searched for the man that night, then again Friday morning and afternoon. During the third dive, the body was recovered. It bore alligator teeth marks on the upper torso.

Hilarious - fleeing felon eaten by a reptile. Insert punchlines in the comment section.

And if that wasn't stupid enough:

• A man trying to loosen a stubborn lug nut blasted the wheel with a 12-gauge shotgun, injuring himself badly in both legs, Kitsap County sheriff's deputies said.
• From about arm's length, the man fired the shotgun at the wheel and was "peppered" in both legs with shot and other debris, with some injuries as high on his body as his chin, according to a sheriff's office report.

But he lived, so it's not as funny as it could have been.

Two More Shot in Philly

Both will survive, offender in custody:

• A suspect is in police custody in connection to the shooting of two Philadelphia undercover narcotic officers in Frankford Tuesday evening.
  
  According to police, the officers, along with uniformed officers, were serving a warrant at about 6:30 p.m. EDT.
  
  Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson said police knocked and rang the door bell several times before several gunshots were fired from a window inside the home, striking the two plainclothes officers.

Philadelphia has been having a very rough fall with numerous officers shot and one killed. Keep them in your prayers.

Um, FOP? Lil Guidance Here?

From the comments section:

• I don't know if you want to start a new thread or leave this here, but yesterday (11 Nov 07) Area 5 HGS had a closed door roll call. During this roll call certain detectives were informed that future police involved shootings are going to be investigated by OPS and the State's Attorney's Office, while experienced homicide detectives just stand by doing nothing.
• Most of us know that the majority of "witnesses" to police shootings are nothing but lying pieces of shit with an agenda, and more often than not we (the detectives) can prove their full of shit based on the evidence.
• I know many patrolman don't like the detectives but the detectives assigned to police shootings across the city are usually some of the most experienced detectives around. If the malcontents from OPS and the ASA's office begin to take over they are going to take the word of the lying gangbangers on face value without any corroboration or challenging their version of what happened. The minute one of these "witnesses" alleges some type of police misconduct I can see the focus of the investigation switching directly to a criminal investigation, and maybe charging, of the police officer(s) involved.
• The clowns from OPS and the ASA's office are not experienced investigators and wouldn't know how to conduct an investigation if their political hack lives depended on it.
  If this idea does in fact come to be our UNION better step up, because if they don't I can see good, honest, and innocent cops being railroaded by two agencies hell bent on making a name for themselves.
• To all you guys and gals on the street I offer one bit of advice: If your life or the life of another police officer is not in jeopardy let these assholes kill one another. Forget the protection of life policy when it comes to anyone but the police. Be careful.

We've asked for this a couple of times already - when do your rights against self incrimination kick in? At some point, this is going to come up and we can only imagine it'll be at the next police shooting. So rather than having an officer face criminal charges for statements he is forced to make administratively, maybe a new or updated direction from someone at FOP is necessary?

But as far as we know, an ASA and OPS (IPRA) are not members of the chain of command and cannot order you to answer questions. And any boss who orders you to answer questions in front of them in this political climate really ought to be up-to-date on legal and contractual protections officers are entitled to.

Hey Goudie - Investigate This

Since out of control bars seem to be your new specialty - especially connected out of control bars:

• Woman shot, man stabbed in fight at nightclub - A Chicago woman was shot and a Riverdale man was stabbed early Sunday after a South Loop nightclub fight that spilled into the street, police said.
  
  The woman, 18, was in Chicago Legends, 2109 S. Wabash Ave., about 1:45 a.m. Sunday when the fight broke out, Officer Amina Greer said. It was unknown what started the fight, she said.
• In January 2006, a Chicago man was shot to death at Chicago Legends after quarreling with another man on the dance floor. In February 2004, a South Holland man was badly beaten after he fought with two men who were flirting with his wife. A Melrose Park man who came to the man's aid was shot in the thigh.

Seems like another problem joint, like Chromium was. Here's how MetroMix.com describes the bar:

• Now located in the space that Mr. Ricky's Restaurant once occupied, Chicago Legends offers a full bar cocktail lounge for the 25-and-over after-work crowd.

Hmmmm. The "25-and-over after -work crowd." And an 18 year old woman gets shot after stepping out of the bar. Anyone see a few license violations here? Anyone want to bet that nothing happens unless Goudie and his I-Team start poking around? After all, no one has to follow the rules if you pay the right people. Rules are for lesser mortals, like unconnected cops and poor taxpaying schmoes.

Dead Sex Offender in Michigan

This popped up in a number comments. And while we have a fit of trouble mustering up sympathy for a deceased sex offender, the circumstances of his conviction seem a bit out of the ordinary:

• Sorenson was convicted in Illinois when he was 17 of having sex with a 14-year-old girl, said Northville Township police Lt. Greg Rhodes.

This is the unintended consequence of prosecuting high school kids who have sex. Still, this was a pretty bad way to go:

• Two thrill-seeking teenagers stabbed an adult acquaintance, took a blowtorch to his corpse and threw his severed head into a river, prosecutors said Monday as they charged the pair.
• Sorenson, who had worked as a bouncer, was stabbed multiple times in the back, his head sawed off and his body wrapped in the tarp, authorities said. Orlewicz and Letkemann burned his hands and feet with a blowtorch, possibly in an effort to conceal his identity, Worthy said.
• The teens loaded Sorenson's torso in a pickup truck, dumped it in a cul-de-sac and set it on fire using gasoline, Worthy said. A utility crew found it Thursday morning, police said.

All for the thrill of it. Amazing. We remember when a "thrill" was stealing some tires to roll down the alley, painting our names on garages and tipping over some cranky old lady's flower pots.

And the Beatings Continue

Lovely editorial in the Slum Times:

• If an employee's misconduct cost a private company millions of dollars or caused public embarrassment, that employee would be fired. No doubt about it.

  But no such punishment faces Chicago police officers found liable for abusing the people they have sworn to serve and protect. Instead of firing those cops, the city keeps paying the victims -- hundreds of millions of dollars over the years -- for beatings, false arrests or illegal searches. And the cops get to keep their jobs. How much more will it cost before the city gets rid of rogue cops?

And accompanied by this cartoon:

The two examples cited by the editorial writers are as follows:

• The $4 million payout for the screwdriver "sodomy"
• The $2 million payout for "trumped up" kidnapping charges

In the first example, no mention is made of the judge who banned the testimony that stated in part that NO determination could be made where the DNA on the screw driver came from (animal or human) . And no mention is made at all that shoving the pointed end of screwdriver in someone's rectum is going to be leaving great gaping tears, not a quarter inch slit.

The second case was strong enough to have a State's Attorney approve charges and tried in front of a jury. The guy charged was prosecuted on a number of incriminating statements he himself made to the State. Yet the police are the only ones liable?

And of course, the writers bring up the Abbate video, ignoring the fact that Abbate was a drunk and the warning signs were ignored by quite a large number of higher up supervisors because of the political connections. Maybe instead of asking how much "rogue cops" are costing the city, someone ask how much connected and "meri-clout-orious" political animals are bleeding the taxpayers?

Baggage

Is there any exempt anywhere on this job that doesn't have a closet full of skeletons that would preclude them from becoming Superinendent? Anyone? For that matter, is there anyone at the rank of Captain who doesn't have the same baggage (besides Farrell)?

Every time someone's name comes to the fore, we get a comment or three that would call into question anyone from within the Department ever getting near the top job.

It seems like to get that gold star, you have to have committed some heinous sin that someone in power is willing to overlook or cover up for until that big day arrives and then ::BAM!:: they pull it out, show that they own you, and then let you do their bidding from the shadows.

It's like they've sold their soul.

Custodial Death

Cha-Ching!

• An unidentified man died in custody early Sunday after scuffling with officers on a CTA bus, Chicago police said.
  
  Officers were called to the 7900 block of South Vincennes Avenue after the man caused a disturbance aboard the bus, Officer John Mirabelli said.
  
  "The offender became combative, resisted arrest and physically attacked the officers," Mirabelli said.

And then, for no obvious reason, the subject died.

So-called "civil rights" activists, storefront "reverends" and all manner of ambulance chaser will be lined up before the body has been autopsied or chemical tested to declare that the police beat, tied up, strangled, cuffed, stuffed and sodomized the deceased with a screwdriver before leaving him to die in the parking lot of the 006th District.

Then the City will give someone a few million dollars and everyone will be happy.

Except the coppers from 006 who will be dragged through the mud, be tarred, feathered, publicly scolded and lose more than a little bit of sleep over the next few days, months and possibly years before being cleared.

Dead Tree Media Fading

The slow death of newspapers continues:

• Circulation fell 2.6% at major U.S. daily newspapers in the six months ending in September, according to figures released Monday, the latest decline as readers continue to migrate to the Internet for news, information and entertainment.

The Tribune was down 2.9% and this humorous tidbit:

• The Chicago Sun-Times again did not report circulation figures, following its censure in 2004 for misstating circulation figures.

A bit of good news - SCC readership is up almost 80% from one year ago. We've gone from 2,400 visits a day to well over 4,000 on a regular basis, most days near 5,000 (the weekend brings down the average). So thanks for that readers.

Buy Them Off

Interesting article in the Sun Times. Seems they might actually have an investigative reporter running around. Maybe two or three:

• As a young lawyer, Allison S. Davis was a City Hall outsider.

  He criticized Mayor Richard J. Daley over the 1968 riots. He worked to integrate Chicago neighborhoods. And he fought to elect judges based on legal ability, not political connections.

  Today, Davis is a consummate City Hall insider.

And how did he get there? Shady land deals, some of them free. Questionable loans. Business partners going to jail. Some guy named "Rezko" and a bunch of overlapping Federal investigations.

In other words, business as usual in the crooked town of Chicago. Corruption is so ingrained here, that it's a wonder anyone can get any honest business done anymore.

The Second Half

Do they suck too badly to make any headway in the second half of the season? Can they win 7 of the next 8 to even have a shot at the playoffs? Does anyone really care?


Hey! We heard the Blackhawks are on free TV today. And they actually have a winning record for the first time in a decade or so (9-7-0). And they're playing Detroit, who they've already beaten twice this year - which hasn't happened in like 90 years or something.

UPDATE: Oh lord, is Rex back to stay?

Bye Pat! Bye Monique!

Please tell us that they cut these salaries out of the budget as well?

• For years, dapper police spokesman Pat Camden was on TV giving reporters the department's version of events in shootings by officers.

  No more.

  The Office of Professional Standards, which investigates shootings by Chicago Police officers, is taking over the job.

According to the Better Government Association website, the Orange One is pulling down $118,260 per year while Monique Bond gets $122,844 for telling the media that Contact Cards are "warning tickets."

Now that OPS (IPRA to be) is going to be...well, we'll let you read it:

• Now, OPS will discuss "undisputed facts" but will not give any "conclusionary statements" until the end of the OPS investigation, which can take years.

Years? To investigate a shooting? This should be entertaining. So is this going to be "years" at callback? "Years" of this whole incident hanging over officers' heads? "Years" of waiting to see if the City is going to back you up, indemnify you, let you keep earning a living? "Years" of letting an officer go out, do their job, then springing a surprise indictment on them years later, and having all the bottom feeding lawyers contest every bit of courtroom testimony from the past years based on this "investigation" which will result in millions of dollars more in payouts when Corp Counsel won't fight anything?

At least Pat will have more time to work on that blog site of his since he won't be appearing in front of the cameras anymore. $118,260 to run a blog that no one reads? We're in the wrong business.

Thank You Veterans

Veterans Day.

From all of us here to all Veterans, living, deceased and yet to serve, thank you.

It's also about time to start getting Christmas cards together for the season. If you have a spare card or two, think about mailing one or two this direction:

A Recovering American soldier
c/o Walter Reed Army Medical Center
6900 Georgia Avenue, NW
Washington ,D.C. 20307-5001

And if possible, one this way also:

Mr. Michael A. Mette, #6520284
Iowa Medical & Classification Center
Box A - Highway 965
Oakdale, IA 52319

UPDATE: Evidently, the address above is not accepting cards addressed as such. From the SNOPES.com website:

• The Walter Reed Army Medical Center is ONLY accepting phone cards, CDs, individual small packets of candy, things like that; which they will distribute among the soldiers (as they have a lot of in and out patients). They are not accepting Holiday Cards, as they don't have the human resources to distribute them.
  
  You may send your packets to:
  
  American Red Cross
  Walter Reed Army Medical Center
  6900 Georgia Avenue NW
  Washington, DC 20307-5000

More Statistics

Steve Chapman has an interesting take on the debate of "More Cops = Less Crime."

• The Democratic theme song is "Happy Days Are Here Again," and nowhere do Democrats think that axiom applies better than in the realm of fighting crime. They recall that thanks to legislation passed in 1994, President Bill Clinton put 100,000 cops on the street, and the result was an abatement of violence. Give Democrats their way, they suggest, and we can repeat that success.
• But anyone who expects this approach to work as promised should take a closer look at what happened the last time. The 1994 bill didn't make good on its goal of adding 100,000 cops to the streets. A study commissioned by the National Institute of Justice estimated it produced a net increase of just 82,000, while allowing that it might have been as few as 69,000.

The 100,000 number turned out to be pure fiction and the studies completed afterwards showed just about zero effect on crime. The only thing the millions of dollars did was allow Clinton to run as a "Law and Order" candidate, while he and his wife committed felonies by the bushel.

In any case, the shortages we see day in and day out are beat cars not being manned, down a wagon, tact/gang short, zero rapids - in other words, no backup. Which might explain while crime may be down, assaults and batteries on the police seem to be way up.

Early Posting

Plans tomorrow - posting everything early. Updates as available.

Sneed's Push

From the Sun Times:

• Hmmm. Is the thin blue line moving into mauve?

  Sneed hears rumbles the city may be heading in the direction of selecting its first female police superintendent.

• To wit: Calumet Area Deputy Police Supt. Tina Skahill, 47, a lawyer and 25-year veteran with the Chicago Police Department, has applied for the top job — replacing Phil Cline, who retired this summer.
• Translation: Although the screening committee and the Chicago Police Board have not finished their search, the success of Washington, D.C.’s top cop, Cathy L. Lanier, who began her career in 1990, and Detroit’s Chief-of-Police Ella M. Bully-Cummings — who, like Skahill is a lawyer and African American — has the law enforcement community taking notice.
• Backshot: Skahill, a former patrol and youth officer who was shot in the line of duty but managed to kill her assailant in 1987, was named commander of the Englewood District by Cline during a major shakeup of his top command staff in 2003, and has since been promoted to Calumet Area deputy chief.

So after all the slop and crap Sneed's been pushing onto Starks as the Interim (likely at the behest of Cline's people according to certain rumors), now she's pushing one of Cline's command staff picks? Hmmmm.

Emergency Call

We can see a point in the future where we actually answer calls like this:

• Hebron, CT: 35-year-old Brian Poulin of Hebron was arrested Sunday after police said he called 911 several times and asked them to bring him beer.
  
  Poulin was charged with disorderly conduct.
  
  Police said he called 911 numerous times and told the dispatcher he was out of beer and asked them to pick up more for him.

It's an emergency to Mr. Poulin. And we want to respond to emergencies, right?

Pool Buses?

We've bitched and we've heard bitching about the sad state of Fleet Management. We are chronically short pool vehicles and Fleet can't keep anything up and running to save their lives. It's a pathetically mismanaged agency that hides lord knows how many political hacks and pay rollers. It's hard to believe there'd actually be an arm of government that makes Fleet look reasonably competent.

• The CTA says it is more than $6 billion short of adequately modernizing its rail and bus lines, a staggering number lost in the debate as the agency lurches from one "doomsday" to another searching for the tens of millions of dollars it needs to keep operating.
  
  The result is that more than 500 CTA buses, one-fourth of its fleet, have been on the road for 16 years, logging an average 580,000 miles apiece.
  
  It's not just traffic that can make the wait for a CTA bus so long. The oldest CTA buses miss thousands of scheduled runs each month because of equipment breakdowns that keep them idle in the garage.

And of course, this infrastructure failure is a completely separate disaster from the upcoming "Doomsday" scenario bandied about daily by Huberman and his train wreck in waiting.

Time to let the CTA fail.

Funny Coincidences

John Kass has a bunch of them:

• According to Florida real estate records, DiPiazza spent $5 million to purchase Penthouse 201 at the lush Madeira on Marco Island development on Sept. 18, 2006. That same day, Fred Bruno Barbara purchased Penthouse 202 at Madeira, for $5.5 million. Barbara didn't take any loans to buy the property, at least none leveraged against the penthouse. The penthouses were estimated between 7,000 and 9,000 square feet.
  
  Also on Sept. 18, 2006, another DiPiazza/Barbara buddy and 11th Warder, city worker Charles Scalfaro, purchased Unit 1504 at Madeira, for $1.9 million. Scalfaro makes around $60,000 a year overseeing paving for the city's Department of Transportation. Collier County real estate records show that no loans were taken out to purchase Scalfaro's condo.
  
  Living on about $60,000 a year, no loan, Scalfaro must be a good saver.

So the feebs and Fitzgerald are poking around a bunch of Florida real estate deals while hunting for scalps at City Hall. Chicago - Florida. Chicago - Florida.

Didn't Capone have a place in Florida? Seems the tentacles of Organized Crime know a good thing when they see it. Hopefully, the crime family currently running things around here is feeling more than a little heat.

Terror Alert

"Third hand" information, but getting play in some of the media outlets:

• A non-specific warning was passed onto law enforcement agencies regarding a possible threat against shopping malls, according to Chicago FBI Special Agent Tom Simon.
• Based on intelligence the FBI received in September, al-Qaida planned to strike shopping malls in Chicago and Los Angeles during the 2007 Christmas season, hoping to disrupt the U.S. economy, the FBI said.

When you think of the damage two, maybe three people could do in a single mall with half a dozen grenades, a rifle, a pistol and a suicide vest...

And then you think that even three teams hitting three malls just in the Chicago area over the course of a day or two...

And then to do it in two or three cities simultaneously...

Better hope that mall security has some heavy weapons around.

Mette Mail

From our e-mail and appearing in the comments section, a way to write to Mike:

• Mr. Michael A. Mette, #6520284
  Iowa Medical & Classification Center
  Box A - Highway 965
  Oakdale, IA 52319

Letters only. No packages, gifts and we're assuming nothing with paper clips or staples. If you want to make sure it gets to Mike, keep it simple.

Mope-Rah Mention

On Steve Dahl's show:

• 09:35 Caller Bob is a cop, most of the guys who carry tasers are sergeants. The people who check up on the elderly are non aggressive agents.
• 09:36 Bob was wondering if Steve wants to know what he and his colleagues refer to Mary Mitchell as. Steve does not want to know that. That's would just mean a series of columns about him. He doesn't even want to be tempted by knowing it.
• 09:37 Actually could Brendan write it down and give it to Steve? Buzz wants to know too.
• 09:45 Turns out the nickname the guy had for Mary Mitchell wasn't racist or anything. It's Moprah, which is just clever.

So Steve Dahl thinks our readers are clever. He probably doesn't know that they are our readers though. Regardless, Dahl came down on the side of the police and now that Mope-rah is getting some big name coverage, maybe we'll see the name spread.

Yeah, Right

He don't know nuthin:

• Mayor Richard Daley said Thursday that he knew nothing about allegations his administration pressured business owners to sell property in Bridgeport to clout-heavy residential developers.
  
  Daley also said he was not aware the FBI is now investigating the matter.
  
  "I never heard of that," Daley said of the allegation.

What this goof doesn't know would fill three or four encyclopedias. Faster Mr. Fitzgerald.

Huh?

We don't know if Fran Spielman actually asked this question, but she published it in her report. Someone in the media has definitely been riding the short bus though:

• Ald. Isaac Carothers (29th), chairman of the City Council's Police Committee, said the incident exposed by Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell could have been a lot worse.

  "It's very unfortunate that it had to result to that, but I certainly understand. I'm pleased that they decided not to shoot her and they decided not to tackle her and that they didn't use the night stick, which may have been options if someone is swinging a hammer at you," Carothers said.

  Carothers was hard pressed to explain why the officers did not simply leave the scene when Fletcher refused to put down the hammer she was waving.

There it is folks! The most brilliant thinking the media could come up with - why not simply leave the scene of a crazy woman waving a hammer? God damn fucking brilliant!!! We are impressed. Citizens of Chicago - we give you your new and improved Police Department! This is what passes for "journalism" nowadays.

Next time a 10 year old gets executed over a bicycle, or a high school goes up for grabs, or a pregnant woman gets killed in the crossfire, we are authorized by the media to simply retreat because someone might have a hammer or a knife of a gun. Amazing...simply amazing.

Lucy! Oh Lucy!

You got some 'splaining to do! And so does Bolingbrook PD:

• Medical records and letters obtained from Savio's relatives outline a pattern of alleged abuse and frustration with a lack of action by Bolingbrook police.
  
  Bolingbrook police officials issued a statement this week in which they confirmed 18 domestic calls to the home, but said they always investigated fully. They also noted that they turned the Savio investigation over to the state police, as they have the Stacy Peterson disappearance.

Eighteen domestic calls at a police officers home? A police officer who's third wife died under mysterious circumstances? A death which the coroner is now re-opening?

It'll be interesting to see if heads roll in the suburbs as they'd be expected to roll here.

New Nickname

In light of the recent emergence of Dawn Turner Trice being described as a "poor man's Mope-rah" and the difficult in typing out "Turnip Trice" all the time, she will now be known by the following moniker:

• Dope-rah

So remember:

• Mope-rah = Mary
• Dope-rah = Dawn

Just trying to keep the talentless, race baiting hack writers separate so everyone knows who we're ripping on.

As Predicted...

A new Doomsday scenario!

• Just days after the CTA postponed steep service cuts and fare hikes, the transit agency decided Wednesday to impose even more severe hardships on commuters effective Jan. 20 if the state government fails to work out a funding deal.
  
  The CTA board voted 7-0 to eliminate 81 bus routes, raise fares to as high as $3.25 a ride and lay off more than 2,400 employees in the latest threatened transit "doomsday."

Will somebody...ANYBODY in Springfield call their bluff?

It's long past time that the CTA sinks or swims on their own abilities. If public transit sucks, people won't ride. If people are sick of $3.25 a gallon of gas and hour long commutes, they'll ride, and the CTA can charge them the appropriate fare. More riders, price goes down.

An Interesting Proposal

From the comments section in the "IPRA?" post:

• Personally, I would like to see the new IPRA [take] over all investigations. Cut the supervisors out of investigations of the people they supervise daily ALTOGETHER. It never made sense to me anyway, unless you wanted the investigations to go in one direction only.

This is an option we haven't seen proposed or discussed at all.

We'd imagine that one of the major issues coming to the fore is that SOS sergeants and lieutenants were allowed to investigate complaints against their own teams. One might be safe in presuming that the investigating sergeants had a vested interest in seeing that the investigations went nowhere, especially if the recent Sneed droppings concerning motorcycles, cars and gifts have any validity to them. Why even present the media and the other people questioning everything we do this easy club to beat us with?

Wouldn't it make more sense to remove the supervisors from the equation? Personal friendships and (in certain videotaped bar cases) the participation of supervisors in the alleged wrongdoing might be assumed to color the investigations.

The Lies of Mope-rah

Does she even bother to check anything she writes? Or anything that other people write about the same incident she does? From Mope-rah's latest article:

• By late Tuesday, 7,967 people had responded to the Chicago Sun-Times Web site poll question: Should cops have Tasered an 82-year-old?

• Sixty-three percent responded no.

  But 37 percent, or 2,940 people voted yes -- Lillian Fletcher, the elderly and mentally-ill grandmother who was Tasered by police who burst into her home, should have been Tasered because she was wielding a hammer.

First up, it's a typical loaded polling question. The poll doesn't say that the 82-year-old was wielding a hammer - that might sway some of the readers a different direction if all the facts were known. Second, the choice was limited to two picks and we've already pointed out that by Use of Force guidelines AND State law, killing granny was a third (and authorized) option.

For the record, we checked that poll numerous times last night, and never once did it show a majority responding no, and certainly nowhere the ridiculous 63-37% spread Mope-rah claims. She says 2,940 people say it was OK to TASE granny, meaning 5,027 say no. Since that time and as of 1700 hours tonight, the results are 6,171 supporting the police and 5,868 saying the police were out of line. How did the votes suddenly go 3,200 to 800 in our favor? Mope-rah appears to be making up bullshit and hoping people who read that rag don't go online and check her numbers.

Here are a few more quotes:

• In fact, she didn't grab the hammer until officers forced their way into her garden apartment.
• After the Tasering, Fletcher, who suffers from dementia and schizophrenia, was hospitalized for five days and may have to undergo surgery for fluid on the brain.

From the channel 7 website, we gather the following:

• Workers with the city's Department on Aging were making what is called a "well being check" at Fletcher's home on the city's southwest side the afternoon of Oct. 29, police spokeswoman Monique Bond said.

  "The woman was seen at the window with a hammer in her hand, swinging it back and forth," Bond said.

  The social workers called police.

So evidently, the police did not (as Mope-rah alleges) refuse to take no for an answer - they responded to a call of a known mental observed swing a hammer. Perhaps someone ought to investigate? Or is Mope-rah going to demand police stop taking calls from the Department of Aging and checking on the elderly? We'd actually support that decision - we're police, we're not supposed to be doing social work. But that isn't the most blatant contradiction:

• A landlord opened the door with a key and when the officers stepped inside, the woman was swinging the hammer

Oops. So the police didn't violate any one's living space. Strike two against accuracy by Mope-rah. And we'd love to see the TASER study that list "fluid on the brain" as any sort of a side effect of being shocked. Here's a clue though - it doesn't exist. And the reason that she didn't have a hammer when Mope-rah came to visit is probably the police, the Department of Aging or granddaughter finally took the damn thing away and hid it so granny didn't get killed next time the family left her alone long enough to get into trouble.

This is priceless:

• "She can be belligerent," Traci Taylor told the newspaper, adding that her grandmother is 5-foot-1 inches tall and weighs no more than 160 pounds.

So it's a belligerent mental with a hammer. Nice.

Any Sun Times editors want to weigh in? Do your columnist routinely falsify poll data to back up bullshit conclusions? Isn't that a "Dan Rather School of Journalism" trick?

UPDATE: FOP noticed the flawed polling data, too.

The SCC Challenge

From Mope-rah's article:

• "My grandmother is easily confused," her granddaughter, Traci Taylor, said Monday. "She probably didn't know what was going on."

  Taylor is one of her grandmother's caregivers. She said her grandmother has schizophrenia and dementia.

• "There has to be another way to stop her -- use your stick and block the hammer," she said. "Knock it out of her hand. How hard is that?"

We hereby issue the following challenge:

• In a boxing ring we construct two rooms, separated by a single door, secured only by a chain bolt.
• In Room A, we will have a standard 20 ounce framing hammer placed at the point furthest from the door.
• In Room B, we will provide a CPD issued baton, a canister of 10% Oleoresin Capsicum solution (OC spray), a fully functional TASER device in a holster with 2 spare cartridges and a pair of handcuffs.
  

To populate Room A, we will provide a list of 30 CPD cops. These Officers will cover the spectrum of the population - white, black, hispanic, male, female, overweight, thin, gay, straight, body builders, runners, smokers, older and younger. Fifteen of the officers will be retirees at least 70 years of age. Five others will be light duty officers with heart conditions. These officers will play the "offender."

In Room B, the following three individuals will be present and play the "officer":

• Ms. Traci Taylor - concerned granddaughter and "expert" on police tactics
• Mope-rah - alleged journalist and anti-police race baiter
• Dawn Turnip Tripe - alleged journalist and all around ignoramus

In an order to be determined by "Rock, Paper, Scissors," the "officers" will be allowed their choice of weapon and handcuffs. They will also be allowed to view and chose their opponent from the pool of thirty officers. At the sound of a bell, each "officer" will be required to kick the door open through the chain bolt (a simple task), advance upon the chosen subject, subdue and handcuff the subject using only "verbal judo" and the chosen weapon. Also at the sound of the bell, the "offender" must retreat to the hammer and arm him or herself. The game ends when either the "play officer" successfully subdues the "assailant" or the "assailant" gets in one single whack with the hammer on any part of the "officer's" body.

Admission will be $20. We will guarantee an attendance of at least 5,000 officers and family members who would gladly pay triple that to see anyone of these asshats beaten with a hammer. If we can get Rocky Wirtz to donate the United Center for the event, that's an even $100,000 minimum gate. We will split the money with the three named "officers" and our $25,000 will go to the police charity of our choosing. If any of the three "officers" lose their challenge, the money will go to SCC for disbursement to the police charity of our choosing.

Just to make it interesting, we will include ourselves among the pool of 30 officers. We await their reply.

PS: Our lawyers say we have to provide a disclaimer for injuries suffered at the hands of the "officers" as we are engaging in a sport. We don't think there is much chance of any of these three landing a single blow, but if they agree not to prosecute getting beat with a hammer, we'll encourage the cops not to complain about getting sprayed, hit or TASERed.

Dear Mope-rah

Originally published at 1700 hours on 06 November 07. Bumped up to keep it near the top for a full day seeing as how much interest it's generating

Just for your edification, the Use of Force Model, based upon and actually more restrictive than State Law as a "Preservation of Life" policy espoused by the Chicago Police Department (you read that correctly - CPD policy is more restrictive than State Law):

If you notice the red and orange box near the bottom, it says TASER. If you follow that upwards you see it intersect with the boxes labeled "Active Resister," "Assailant... without weapons," and "Assailant... likely cause serious injury." That means that a TASER can be lawfully and justifiably used in these circumstances.

Last time we googled "killed with a hammer," we got 1.9 million hits. See that dark red bar on the side of the graph that says "Firearms and Other Lethal Force" and how it intersects with the top of the graph at "Assailant... likely cause death or serious injury"? We'd say the officers used quite a lot of restraint in using the TASER option when simply killing her would have been completely justified. If you read the entire Use of Force model (which you won't as it doesn't fit into your world view), you'll notice there isn't a single word regarding the elderly or the mentally ill - that's on purpose.

Your ignorant and blatantly anti-police article, especially when taking the police to task for acting completely within the scope of their duties and the law, belies an agenda the likes of which we have seen only in the deepest bowels of various fringe groups, both right and left.

This was a "Check the Well Being" call. The officers were confronted with a hammer wielding subject. The restraint shown by these officers is nothing short of heroic and you do no service by claiming that officers shouldn't have used the tool that spared this woman's life. You wanted them to use a stick, maybe a gang tackle? If grandma ended up with seven broken ribs and a shattered arm from that option, we're sure you'd be oh-so-understanding and wouldn't write that they should have used feather pillows and balloons to take a mentally ill woman into custody.

Fuck you Mope-rah. Fuck you and all your ilk who might someday make an officer hesitate to protect his or or her life and never make it home to their family. Just because your paper has decided to regularly ignore the political corruption that is bleeding this city dry and instead choose a bullshit target of convenience, despite the fact that everything was done within the rules, regulations, laws and policies of the City of Chicago and State of Illinois, makes you nothing but a hack writer, a shallow human being, and a shameful representative of minorities who strive to rise above the cult of victimhood you perpetuate.

Hahahahahahahahaha

Rot in hell George Ryan.

• ''To the people of Illinois, I'm not blind to the sentiment that some hold but I want you to know that I did my best,'' Ryan said.

  Ryan was due to report to the correctional center before 5 p.m. Wednesday.

Thanks for nothing you complete and utter ass.

Coverage of this happy event at Channel 2, Channel 5, Channel 7, Sun Times and Tribune.

Only one thing would make us happier than this and it would center on 121 N. LaSalle.

SWAT Tryouts

Open to city wide applications.

Applications on the Department intranet.

Are current SWAT members required to try out and re-apply for their jobs? Or are they just going to make a list that will fill the spots that the Interim dumped people out of?

And will 20% of the spots go to "merit" picks who couldn't actually qualify on their own, thereby short changing the citizens of the City of Chicago from receiving the best qualified SWAT team available, regardless of race, gender or other politically correct nonsense?

We're Just Asking

A question brought about by this article:

• This week, the Cook County Board will be asked to approve a $96,678 contract with KTD Group, an Orland Park-based consulting firm that now employs Cline.

  If it's approved, Cline will begin work this month and spend a year using the same computerized mapping system that he used to identify crime patterns and hot spots in Chicago.

And this comment:

• REMEMBER A WHILE BACK I RELATED THAT CLINE RAIDED RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT AND SNAGGED ALL THE GOODIES THE CITY OF CHICAGO PAID FOR W/ OUR TAX MONEY.
  
  IT SEEMS CLINE IS SELLING THE INFO TO THE COUNTY THROUGH A PRIVATE COMPANY KTD GROUP.
  
  HELLO INSPECTOR GENERAL???
  
  ALL CITY PROGRAMS SHOULD ONLY BELONG TO THE CITY UNLESS A KICK BACK IS COMING BACK TO DA MAYOR.
  YOU WILL MOST LIKELY SEE CLINE BECOMING A DONATOR TO VARIOUS POLITICIANS BECAUSE ETHICS NO LONGER APPLIES.
  
  I DONT REMEMBER CLINE OBTAINING A COMPUTER PROGRAMMER DEGREE ON THE JOB EITHER. SO WHATS HE SELLING?

We realize that the helicopter was paid for with a combination of City, county and other municipalities kicking in for the costs. We know that I-CLEAR is supposed to be an integrated system, paid for by numerous government agencies and able to be utilized state wide.

So our question is what program is this supposed to be that County doesn't have access to it unless they hire the former superintendent? What blinding insight is the former superintendent supposed to bring that he can be paid $96,000 of our tax money for what is described as "using the same computerized mapping system that he used to identify crime patterns and hot spots in Chicago" - that sounds exactly like a data entry position, and we don't know too many data entry people making $96,000. Not even Review Officers make that much and they've been threatening to civilianize and automate that job for years.

Sun Times Video

Another video:

• Chicago Public Schools officials are investigating whether Corliss High School security officers -- including one captured on video with his knee on a subdued student's upper back -- were abusive in detaining the 14-year-old freshman just inside the school's front door.

  A tape obtained by the Sun-Times shows part of a fracas that resulted after Shaquille Griffin arrived at Corliss on Thursday morning out of uniform.

We spent the better part of a half hour downloading and watching this video tonight and encourage everyone reading this site to do the same. The video starts with the offender already on the floor. It shows him non compliant. It shows him with his handcuffed fist in the officer's face and a takedown following the fist near the face. It shows him following direction when Department approved pain compliance techniques are utilized.

It does NOT show a head butt. It does NOT show "banging" the offender's head on the floor.

In other words, THE TAPE COMPLETELY JUSTIFIES THE OFFICER'S ACTIONS ACCORDING TO DEPARTMENT POLICY AND STATE LAW.

The audio has the girl filming saying that the security could have just given the offender his hat back, leading us to believe that he was not only representing with colors, but by the typical hat to the side BS, too. The tape also shows someone else holding back another offender from jumping into the fray and some uniformed female cop who never once put down her water bottle and paperwork to assist the off duty cop in the middle of what could have been a riot - and that pisses us off to no end.

We take great pains to avoid speaking of anything that could be construed as constituting a job action lest some enterprising boss downtown gets the idea that it might be fun to make us the subject of a rule violation, but we don't think we'd be out of line suggesting that unless we get 100% backing on situations like those depicted in this video, situations that are in complete compliance with Department directives, perhaps officers really ought to consider not working for the schools off duty. The school principals can be hired and fired by the local school councils, and that's a whole other set of political payback that we have to worry about of duty.

Investigate This

Since the media is regularly trolling for scandals on the blog, both real and imagined, we thought we'd share a little tidbit about the coroner. Let's see if an aspiring investigative reporter can come up with something. Even though we've managed to put two and two together, we highly doubt the media will get to four.

On 03 November, we received the following letter from a south side officer:

• Hey scc, I was on the scene of a "death investigation" where a junkie overdosed and the dicks were asking witnesses about when someone last saw him for a time of death estimate. My PPO asked if the ME could come up with closer time of death when they did a body temperature on the deceased. The detectives laughed and told the kid he watched too much Law & Order. When the person from the ME's office showed up and the kid asked him the same question, the guy just smiled and shook his head. You think the ME is taking shortcuts on these "death investigations"?

Personally, we think the ME's office is full of incompetent political hacks who wouldn't recognize a dead body if it bit them on the ass given their pronouncements of odd causes of death even when the dead body has double, triple and higher fatal concentrations of narcotics in their systems. But this letter rang a bell in our minds so we looked around a bit. On 10 October 07 in the Sun Times, the following paragraphs were published regarding the death of a Chicago Marathon participant:

• The doctor who performed an autopsy on the Michigan police officer who died during the Chicago Marathon said Tuesday she's certain heat had nothing do with Chad Schieber's death.

  "He didn't have a documented elevated body temperature," said the Cook County medical examiner's office staffer, who asked not to be named. "That's very important when you're going to put 'heat stress' on a death certificate."

"He didn't have a documented elevated body temperature" from an anonymous staffer. We aren't lawyers, but we can smell bullshit from miles away. Maybe the reason the dead marathoner (and Michigan cop) didn't have a "documented elevated body temperature" is because nobody bothered to check it? That sure would go a long way to explain why the ME's office was so eager to blame the death on a heart condition rather than the heat that sent a few hundred other runners to the hospital. Can't embarrass LaSalle Bank or the mayor during the run up to the Olympics, gosh darn it, even though TWO cardiologists disputed the findings of the ME.

Evidently, it's an open secret among the Detective Division that their best bet for narrowing down the time of death is eyewitnesses who may have seen the deceased rather than the ME's office who can't be troubled to actually, you know, follow accepted procedure in documenting what ought to go on a legal document (i.e. a death certificate). Just toss that body on a tray, load it into the cooler and we'll get to the autopsy Monday morning if everyone shows up. Remember, they've got bodies in there from almost two years ago. One more shortcut shouldn't matter.

And Another Thing...

As a sharp commentator pointed out, didn't the aldercreatures pass an ordinance a few years back making themselves exempt from investigation by the Inspector General?

Anyone have a list of which aldercreatures voted in favor of that ordinance who also signed the petition for the list of officers?

Just another shining example of how the City that Works, doesn't.

What a Crock of Shit

We know Mope-rah.

And Dawn Turnip Tripe is no Mope-rah. We sample her writing here:

• Mayor Richard Daley demonstrated his lack of understanding last week in responding to the 28 aldermen who petitioned a federal court to release the names of Chicago police officers most often accused of using excessive force.

And Turnip Tripe demonstrates her complete inability to begin a column that has anything resembling truth in it. "The List" isn't officers most accused of using excessive force - the list is officers identified in Complaint Register investigations. As the FOP helpfully pointed out, many of these officers named are merely accused of various rule violations that are addressed through the CR process and have nothing at all to do with excessive force. And she completely glosses over the aldercreatures attempt to circumvent the judicial process for political reasons.

• Daley said, in essence, that the aldermen would better serve their communities by dealing with gun violence that, in a matter of five days, claimed the lives of two Chicago public school pupils, Samuel "Sammy" Benavente, 14, and Arthur "AJ" Jones, 10.
  
  "How about a petition to the courts about putting people in jail who commit violent crimes?" Daley said in a tirade. "Where are [the aldermen] when it comes to violence in their own communities? How about a petition there -- all 28? How about looking at more and more children being killed?"

Shockingly, Daley actually has it correct. Granted, he's playing politics to attempt to protect various connected persons and to hide the missteps of politically appointed hacks in charge. But the aldercreatures are playing their political games, too, catering to the gangs and their supporters. Don't believe us? Look at their spokespeople and run their names.

• I fully understand the mayor's anger about the deaths of these children. You look at the grieving families and you can't help but feel a kaleidoscopic array of anger and sadness and frustration. But to suggest that the aldermen should be focused on street violence instead of the identities of rogue officers misses one factor that contributes to the pathology of a tough neighborhood. To be clear, there are many factors, including persistent fatherlessness, failing schools and the easy availability of guns.
  
  But the focus here is on rogue cops. They have the power to shape the perceptions of the entire community and, even worse, pervert the entire system.

Let's just take a look at that focus, shall we? Abbate, Finnigan plus 6, the Jefferson Tap 3, who have we missed? A total of 10 officers. Using a most generous estimate of 10,000 officers, that's one-tenth-of-one-percent you can label as "rogue." Even going back a few years and adding in the DUI convictions, Broken Star, Englewood Rangers and others fired for various rule violations, you won't break half-a-percent.

But we have 56% of the City Council attempting to do something that they'd scream bloody murder about if it we tried it on people with real criminal backgrounds. So Turnip Tripe is just jumping on the aldercreature bandwagon and ignoring the other factors she names - broken families, broken schools and that tired old saw, "easy guns."

The article goes downhill from there, hits bottom and begins to dig. Then she throws out this laugher:

• I am not an apologist for civilians who terrorize neighborhoods, particularly those who kill children.

Sure you are. Otherwise you'd be actually taking the community to task for shielding the lawbreakers the way you accuse the Department of covering up things. You'd actually do some research and wonder why convicted felons are the spokespersons for certain groups with axes to grind. You'd wonder at the lack of hue and cry from the race hustlers regarding the recent deaths of a 10 year old boy, a pregnant mother and a 14 year old executed for a bicycle.

You'd actually be trying to make a difference, rather than following the lead of political grandstanding morons.

Take a Stand

We can respect this guy - sort of:

• When Malachi Ritscher lit himself on fire alongside the Kennedy Expy. last November to protest the war in Iraq, his death initially garnered little attention.

  But since then, the drastic statement by the Chicago anti-war activist and jazz musician has attracted international interest. He inspired a play at a local theater and articles in publications around the world. Two documentaries on his life are planned.

• "He made himself into an icon," [Jennifer Diaz] said.

A great big flaming icon evidently.

He disagreed with the Iraq war and self immolated to protest it. He also set up a video camera to film while he torched himself in the early morning hours near the Ohio feeder ramp. Heavy stuff, but hey, if you believe in something...

We'd like to see a few hundred thousand more war protesters with the same dedication to the cause make themselves into "icons" in the near future. Winter is coming and firewood just isn't as plentiful as it used to be.

Heard This One Lately?

Stories from Iraq:

• BAGHDAD (AP) - In a dramatic turnaround, more than 3,000 Iraqi families driven out of their Baghdad neighborhoods have returned to their homes in the past three months as sectarian violence has dropped, the government said Saturday.
  
• "In the past three months, the ministry did not register any forced displacement in the whole of Iraq," said Nawrous, who is a Kurd.

Gee, refugees headed back into Iraq? What do they know that we don't?

• The number of attacks against U.S. soldiers has fallen to levels not seen since before the February 2006 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra that touched off waves of sectarian killing, according to U.S. military statistics released Thursday. The death toll for American troops in October fell to 39, the lowest level since March 2006, and the eighth-lowest total in 56 months of fighting, according to the Web site icasualties.org, which tracks military fatalities.

Lower casualties? And why isn't this front page news?

• While the Air Force has already dropped more than four times as many bombs in Iraq in 2007 as it dropped last year, pilots say that trend has surprisingly changed in the past month. Just as the number of U.S. deaths and insurgent attacks in Iraq have hit new lows for the year, the pilots have noticed a lull in the calls for airstrikes.

Seems like the troop surge is working. Seems like the calls for withdrawal by Pelosi, Reid, Clinton and Obama were a bit premature. Seems like the good news gets buried in the hopes that no one notices.

A Disturbance in the Force

We sense a change.

Seiser is moving to the 018th District.

That is all.

Olympic Spin

Here it comes:

• Members of the International Olympic Committee are pulling no punches Saturday night – they're calling the World Boxing Championships in Chicago, 'the best ever.'

"best ever."

That's the typical spin the President of the International Olympics Committee puts on his closing speech for each and every Olympics (except for Atlanta, where the IOC President pointedly skipped that compliment in light of the bombing).

We're still a year and a half from any type of announcement and already, the "best ever" moniker is being tossed about for an event that probably drew a few thousand less than a single Bears home game.

Get the shovels out.

Don't Show Up Early

You get an extra hour of sleep tonight.

Don't waste it like we're doing.

Not Good News

This bodes ill for all future shootings:

• The Cook County state's attorney's office is considering pulling out of the police shooting roundtable process because of concerns about the integrity of the preliminary reviews of officer-involved shootings, police and other law-enforcement officials confirmed Thursday.

The cynic in us figures that the only reason that the State's Attorney would be pulling out of round table investigations is so that they could claim impartiality when they charge officers with manslaughter (or worse) at a later date.

Not that that would ever happen, would it?

And the Olympics go to....

Anyone else thinking what we're thinking?

• Chicago pulled out all the stops Friday to wow an Olympic VIP. [...T]he city made a concerted effort to make its case to International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge.
  
  More than two dozen Olympians, including Nadia Comenici, Edwin Moses and Jackie Joyner Kersee, and the chairmen of some of the world's biggest corporations were among the more than 800 people gathered to greet the man who'll preside over the election of the host city of the 2016 Summer Games.

Making a special (though unpublicized) appearance:

After all, a $200 million hole in the budget doesn't mean that chronic waste, mismanagement, crooked land deals and contracting scandals are finally coming home to roost, does it? It must be something else.

False Alarm Again

CTA Doomsday goes kablooie:

• Chicago-area commuters breathed easier Friday after a $27 million state bailout of mass transit systems spared them a ''doomsday'' of major headaches during Monday morning's rush hour.

And once again, Huberman and various politicos will ramp up the fears of the 1,000 people who might actually be tempted to use the CTA in a pinch and pretty soon, the public will be saying, "HERE!!! Take my money! Raise my taxes! Just shut the f#$% up already!"

We give it about two weeks before everyone is whining again.

They're Heeeere!

Here we go:

• The Chicago Police Department is taking advantage of a rarely used purchasing power to speed the installation of the 280 squad car cameras promised by Mayor Daley seven months ago.

  Instead of putting the contract out to bid or renegotiating a new agreement with Coban Research & Technology -- the company involved in the initial, 30-camera experiment -- the city has awarded a $12.2 million contract to Coban under terms negotiated by Forsyth County in Winston-Salem, N.C.

  It's called a "reference contract" -- a power authorized by the City Council in April 2006, but seldom used. It allows City Hall to piggyback on terms negotiated by other government agencies. In this case, Forsyth County negotiated the terms after competitively bidding the contract.

Installation to begin shortly.

Killing Chicago

The pieces are falling into place. From the Sun Times, we're going to deconstruct this thing in pieces:

• The mayor tightened the bureaucratic belt one more notch as aldermen introduced a flurry of property tax alternatives at Wednesday’s City Council meeting.

  They include: raising the fine for red-light camera violations from $90-to-$100;

We don't know what the point of diminishing returns is here, but we imagine the City is coming close. People who get tagged once or twice are learning where the cameras are and modifying behavior at that point. Others who never paid fines because cars aren't registered to them continue to flout the law.

• increasing from 15 cents to 25 cents a development fee on every square foot of buildable floor area;

Way to kill the desire of companies to want to relocate to Chicago...especially manufacturing jobs which are the lifeblood of any economic engine, not to mention the jobs for people to afford to live in the City. Might as well move the entire manufacturing sector to Mexico and China...oh wait, did that.

• raising the city tax on consumers who purchase their natural gas from third-party providers
  

Brilliant! Tax people extra for doing what comes naturally in a capitalistic system - shopping around for the best deal. This ought to put a dent in Daley's reputation as a "green" mayor. Where's the incentive to go green if the mayor's cronies can tax you for making economical choices? And we bet that connected clout companies are the ones who pushed this through.

• and increasing — from 50 to 75 percent -- a liquor tax hike that neighorhood bar owners are already screaming about.

Maggie Daley's campaign against neighborhood bars continues apace. With the statewide smoking ban about to hit next year and this tax hike, you can bet the small, quiet neighborhood bar is on the way out. It's no coincidence a few thousand bars have closed in town in the past 20 years while taxes went up on everything else. Bars were a great revenue generator.

And the kicker:

• The police hirings will be delayed until the third quarter of next year and, instead of 50 officers, the mayor will hire 75. None are expected to hit the streets in 2008. [...]
  

  And “more and more” of the 1,372 vacant positions created by a May hiring freeze will be eliminated, including most of the Traffic Management Authority positions that would have been assigned to direct traffic downtown.

You thought the manpower shortages were acute this year? We're losing 50 officer a month to retirement and we're approaching another wave of "20-and-out" people. Combine that with the hiring freeze on TMA's and you can expect PPO's to be detailed out for events. Cancel a bunch of promotional classes, too.

The slow death continues.

Craziness in 017

What the hell is happening up there? We're getting mixed reports, but the gist of each is as follows:

• Off-duty sergeant sitting at home gets two chunks of concrete thrown through his front window;
• He suffers injuries, yet still manages to get outside and arrest one of the offenders;
• 1st Watch Captain in 017 handles the situation, by all accounts properly;
  
• 2nd Watch Captain turns the entire incident into a "victim becomes an offender" type situation

Who has some good info on this one? Reading the initial accounts, it would seem that whatever is in the water or air in Iowa where you aren't allowed to defend yourself if you're the police has infiltrated the water in 017. Keep criticisms of the Captain (JR-D) limited to her actions, not her "merit" qualifications.

Kass Sums it Up

And pretty well, too:

• There was that other officer who beat a female bartender in a tavern, the video of the beating a YouTube sensation. And another police fight in another tavern. And a conviction of an Outfit-connected Chicago cop.
  
  Most recently, there have been reports of a federal investigation into the highly political unit called Special Operations Section, with allegations of robbery and murder-for-hire, and now the investigation moves upward, toward the highly political police brass.
  
  Mike had nothing to do with any of it. What happened in Iowa occurred long before any of those other incidents came to light. Yet he's been unjustly mixed in that vile public relations stew, spiced with proper public horror toward allegations of police torture by former Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge.
  
  "It's a bad time to be a Chicago cop. And Mike got lumped in with all that other negative stuff about cops, and some people turned away," Bob said. "It hurts."

Go read it all.

All Things Considered...

We'd rather be in Philadelphia - they could use the help. A frequent reader, commentator and fellow blogger KateyKakes writes to us:

• I wanted to know if you could make mention of the assassination of Philadelphia Police Officer Charles Cassidy. He was shot yesterday (Halloween) as he was making his rounds in the neighborhood of businesses that had been previously robbed. As he was going into the Dunkin' Donunts that had been robbed on 9/18/07, he walked into a robbery in progress. P/O Cassidy, with very little time to react, had his hand on his gun as he shot in the head. After the POS (piece of shit) shot Cassidy, he ran back and took the officer's gun and fled the scene on foot.
  
• Officer Cassidy was given last rites at approx. 3 P.M. yesterday, and managed to hang on through the night. He was pronounced at 9:40 A.M. today.
  
• The scumbag is still on the loose and there is a reward of $115,000 for his capture.

This is the latest in what has been a rough few weeks for the Philly PD:

• I wanted to also note that in less than six weeks time, two retired Philadelphia officers (Ret. Sgt. Joseph Alullo; Ret. Sgt. William Widmaier) were murdered as they were working their jobs as armored-car guards, as well as three other PPD officers (P/O Richard Decoatsworth, P/O Sandra Van Hinkle and Traffic Officer Mario Santiago, and now P/O Charles Cassidy.

This is going down as a bad year all around in law enforcement, and we don't mean the scandal ridden CPD. Be careful out there.

Time to Stock Up

Here's the official website link.

The aim is for all 75 million gun owners in the US to each legally buy 100 rounds of ammo. That'd be 7.5 billion rounds in private hands which in one fell swoop gives gun grabbers heart palpitations and the mayor nightmares for several weeks.

Personally, we hope to account for more than our share - we could use a bit of practice.

Thanks to Kim du Toit for reminding us of the impending holiday.

SWAT Undermanned?

From Channel 7:

• A few weeks ago, when the controversial Special Operations Section of the police department was disbanded because of officer misconduct, interim police superintendent Dana Starks promised that certain crucial units within SOS would remain intact.
• But the I-Team has learned that 24 hours after pledging to leave SWAT alone, Superintendent Starks ordered some major changes. SWAT has always been one of the city's most dangerous, demanding and desirable police units, intended to be 60 of the bested-trained, highest-skilled paramilitary cops to handle the diciest calls.
• The I-Team has learned that interim superintendent Dana Starks has transferred at least 16 officers and support personnel to other department jobs, including some officers with skills not easily replaceable, such as a person trained to operate this thermal imaging device used to track down hiding suspects.

Of the 16 dumped, at least 4 have been quietly reinstated, but that still leaves them a dozen officers short. And the allegation that training has is disturbing in that a regular schedule of drills is what keeps the unit operating at peak efficiency. We're heartened that the Department is finally going to offer citywide tryouts, but is it going to be a truly stringent test? Because applying 20 or 30% "merit" or clout spots is dangerous to the public that has every right to expect the best if the shit hits the fan. It's also very dangerous to the police going into situations where you better have the best officer available backing you up.

IPRA?

That didn't even make the cut in our "Rename OPS" contest:

• The agency charged with investigating police brutality in Chicago would get a new name - the Independent Police Review Authority - under an ordinance introduced at Wednesday's City Council meeting.
• "This [new] name indicates what it is - it's now independent. They are reviewing the various complaints against police officers. They have authority to make recommendations," Carothers said.
• Earlier this year, the City Council agreed to sever OPS from the Police Department and turn it into a separate city department with subpoena power and a chief administrator who reports directly to the mayor. Firm deadlines were established for completing investigations and acting on OPS recommendations.

First of all, anyone who reports directly to the mayor is far from independent. They're tools, political tools (usually hatchets) who exist solely to prevent the mayor and his people from being overly embarrassed by scandal.

Second, the "authority" to make recommendations is nothing new. OPS always had that. So did the Police Board. As political appointees though, they just did what the mayor told them to do anyway. This new head of IPRA merely replaces a level of bureaucracy with another - big deal.

Third, the FOP ought to come out with some new directives shortly about how this "subpoena power" affects officers. Is it going to be administratively the same where a supervisor will order you to answer questions? Do rights against self incrimination come into play at some point? Representation? Because if the Administration is making a big deal about how this "reformation" is going to make everything all buttercups and sunshine, then they must feel that they will be able to circumvent some protections that we had in place. You know, like the one where they'd prosecute people who lied on sworn affidavits? Hahahahahahahahaha!

Sneed Droppings

Might as well use the whole section of her Wednesday article:

• Cheep! Cheep! Sneed is told the canary birdcage now housing accused corrupt cop Jerome Finnigan is expected to grow larger.

  • • Translation: "A majority of the six Chicago cops who were members of the once elite Special Operations Section are expected to plead guilty before the end of the year on various charges stemming from allegations of shakedowns, kidnappings and home invasions," a top source tells Sneed.

  • • The shocker: "They are also expected to cooperate with the ongoing criminal probe," said a top source.

  • • Further translation: The thin blue line is now looking red hot.

"A majority of the six" will plead guilty meaning at least four? Then we have the twelve cooperating witnesses, most of which will have admitted to Administrative Charges of some sort leading to suspensions and firings. And we've heard there are at least a few resignations that have been processed already.

The grand total of people losing jobs, resigning in disgrace or going to prison? It's going to be large.

Lawsuit - Again

Didn't we cover this one before? And we assumed there would be a lawsuit. There is:

• Chicago police say a man who died after they tried to subdue him with a taser was high on cocaine.
• The family of Geffrey Johnson said excessive police force played a role in his death.

But why did the police show up? Why on earth would they suddenly appear at someone's house and use a TASER on people?

• Johnson's mother called police to her South Side home in the 8100 Block S. Green on August 4 because he was breaking mirrors and damaging property.

No surprises here - sued for doing your job with the tools the City provides. Expect TASERs to be taken away before long.

Your Name on the Internet

Anyone and everyone:

• Go to this site here and type in your name.

Type in your sergeant's name. Type in the Interim Superintendent. Try the mayor or his brother. And it's all drawn via FOIA.

Now how about the promotion lists?