Help is On The Way!

Just hold out for 6 more months!

• A day after off-duty Chicago Police Officer Michael Bailey was killed, City Hall revealed plans Monday to hire 100 new cops, and the FBI joined the hunt for the killer.
  
  Sources said the Police Department was analyzing surveillance video, and officers were "hitting the gang-bangers hard" to shake loose any information about the killing, one of three slayings of Chicago Police officers in two months.
  
  A shortage of officers is emboldening criminals, said a former high-ranking Chicago Police official who said he's "terrified" for officers because felons no longer fear the police. A two-year police hiring slowdown has left the Police Department understaffed by more than 2,230 officers a day, below the city's budget-authorized 13,200

There's a number we haven't seen yet - 2,230. That's a BIG number for those of you keeping score at home.

And that "six months" is just an estimate seeing as how they haven't even sent out a letter for the POWER test and other procedural hurdles to actually hiring officers.

Figure at least nine months until help arrives...and then it'll be 1.3 officers per watch.

No Big Deal

A very well written column about societal norms being skewed:

• Thor Soderberg was a Chicago Police officer who was just finishing his day of doing his job in the afternoon of July 7th. He got jumped and shot just outside a police facility on the Southside of Chicago by a man who some now say is mentally unstable. They struggled. The man grabbed his gun, shot him in the head and ran away. (Later, he got shot and was captured by police. He turns out to have a lengthy criminal record.)
  
  Many in society have become numb when it comes to a tragedy like this involving a police officer and there are huge consequences when that happens. I guess it’s “no big thing anymore” to many people and it’s just taken with a shrug of the shoulders as the person is more concerned about “more pressing issues” like, “What team did Lebron James choose?”

The column is even more disturbing seeing as how it was written on 13 July, mere days before a second Chicago Police Office lost his life.

So much time has been spent demonizing the police, it isn't all that surprising we barely rate a full week of coverage when we're murdered on the streets.

Medical Roll

Is there some new policy that allows officers to work with a cast on?

We're only wondering because we've gotten a whole bunch of letters that the Central Control Group Deputy is working with a leg cast and the 011 District Commander is showing up to work with a broken arm.

The second one is kind of silly because she has to re-qualify regardless of which arm got broken. If she has to re-qualify, that means she can't carry a gun in the mean time. If she can't carry a gun, she shouldn't be working - at least not as the police.

Two sets of rules again?

Hello? Society? Are You Listening?

Or are you asleep at the wheel - just like the past few decades?

• A domestic fight led to a shooting that critically wounded a little girl in stroller in a Grand Crossing park early Monday on the South Side.

  At 12:06 a.m., a 1-year-old girl was shot “through and through” the shoulder in the 7600 block of South Dobson Avenue, according to police News Affairs[...].

  The little girl was in a stroller outside in a park at the Dobson address when she was shot, and left in “very, very critical,’’ condition, a Calumet Area detective said.

  A group of people including several relatives were in the park when the incident began. Two men who both have children with a young woman who was also on the scene began arguing, according to a Gresham District police lieutenant.

Two sperm donors meet up with their breeding receptacle and assorted other relatives and begin to discourse the worldly events of the day (gold prices, BP oil, the coming double-dip recession) , when one pulls a gun and blasts a one-year-old child AT ONE O'CLOCK IN THE FUCKING MORNING.

Anyone else see a whole laundry list of problems here that isn't being addressed by Jesse, Al, Phluck-head, Meeks and the rest of the "holy rollers" and poverty pimps?

Bike Ride for Slain Officers

A pall was cast over the whole event by Sunday's tragedy:

• A normally somber event here was even more so Sunday as police officers gathered for an annual bikeathon to raise funds for families of slain officers following news the third Chicago police officer this year had been gunned down that morning.

  “We really lost an absolutely terrific man, not just a great police officer, but a great man,” said Chicago Police Sgt. Darren Easterday, who worked with Bailey at the First District for about three years. “It’s crime without fear,” he said after hearing that he was in uniform when he was killed.

  Police officers and families of slain officers took part in the ride.

  “It’s like a real bad nightmare, but it’s real,” said Donna Marquez, whose brother, officer Donald Marquez was shot and killed in the line of duty in 2002. “The department is in shock. We don’t know what to say.”

  “It’s really hard to get over the trauma. It seems like the trauma is continuous,” said Chicago police officer Yolanda Nowells.

  Angel Mendez, who has been a Chicago cop for 10 years, lamented what he labeled the emergence of a new type of criminal over the years.

  “Unfortunately in this day and age right now, criminals that are out there, they don’t have any respect for life, let alone for police officers,” he said.

Respect? We'd settle for a healthy dose of fear and 2,000 more cops so we weren't running 33% empty beat cars on midnights.

Remembrance Post

We gave everyone pretty much free rein in yesterday's thread to vent their spleens in regard to Officer Bailey's death. It's been a rough two months here and it doesn't look like it's getting any better in light of the headlines we have just below here.

Prayers and thoughts for the fallen only in this thread. RIP Michael Bailey.

Bad News All Morning

Just perusing the headlines and it's damn depressing:

• On Sunday, five men were charged in attacks Saturday that left three police officers injured, including a correctional officer.

  Charles Rush, 23, is charged with aggravated battery with a firearm in a shooting that left an off-duty Cook County correctional officer hospitalized with a bullet in his stomach...
  
  The officer showed his badge and Rush walked off the porch saying, "I've got something for the police," before returning shirtless with a gun, Tristan said.
  

• About two hours later in the Pilsen neighborhood, an off-duty Chicago Police officer was attacked by three reputed gang members, police said.

  One man struck the officer with his fists while two others came at him with a manhole sewer cover,...
  
  
• Saturday afternoon, an officer was slashed in the face while responding to a domestic disturbance on the South Side.

• Police took two people in custody Sunday night for firing a weapon in their direction in the West Woodlawn neighborhood.

  About 11:23 p.m., police pulled over a vehicle during a traffic stop in the 6100 block of South Eberhart Avenue, said Police News Affairs

• Police fired shots at a suspect they say pulled a gun on officers during a traffic stop this morning in the city's Lawndale neighborhood.

  The shooting happened about 12:05 a.m. in the 4200 block of West 21st Place, said Police News Affairs

We don't give a fuck what numbers J-Fled and Shortshanks are pulling out of Masters Masters Masters' ass - we are under siege, badly undermanned and the enemy is inside the wire.

Kass Connects Cost of Corruption

Phil Cline puts it into words:

• Chicago's political class can't admit to losing control. They dare not even hint at it, particularly the mayor, what with his election coming up and his poll numbers tanking.

  But just about every cop in the city must feel it, with the murder Sunday of veteran Chicago police Officer Michael Bailey outside his home.
  

• "This has just been a terrible year, and I don't remember anything this bad, maybe if you go back to the early '70s when we came on and we were losing, what, maybe 10 guys a year? And that was before bulletproof vests," former Chicago police Superintendent Phil Cline said.

• "I think what you're seeing is that the gangbangers have lost their fear of the police — and that's not a good thing," Cline said. "The balance we always wanted was that the good citizens in the neighborhood to like the police, the gangbangers to fear us. Evidently, we've lost that.

  "And that's something the department is going to have to work on, to take back the street from these gangs. The city is going to have to bite the bullet and hire more police."

We're coming to the realization that no matter what happens in the next few weeks, months or years, the streets will never be ours again. Not like it was 30, 20, even 10 years ago. We can't do it. Even if we had the ability to project that amount of force (which we don't), we wouldn't be permitted to exercise it.

We've given Phil a pile of shit over the past years for promoting incompetent and unqualified hacks into positions where they could do a lot of damage to this department, and we still believe it to be deserved. But J-Fled has torn the heart out of this place, albeit at the direction of the demented dwarf, but it's his name on the door.

We are so screwed. It isn't going to take years to fix this place - it'll be decades. And it will never be the same.

Mayoral Challengers

Who's up?

• Freshman Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd) said Friday he’s seriously considering running for mayor — whether or not Mayor Daley seeks a seventh term — because he’s fed up with the corruption, waste and mismanagement that have dogged the Daley era.

  A new poll released Saturday suggests he may not be the only one.

Many of the names we cited the other day popped up in the Sun Times article.

But here's the serious question - how many of our readers are registered to vote? Because unless we have a presence in the voting booth, we aren't going to have any impact on the election and the any input on the direction of any changes that might happen.

We heard FOP was going to have Unit Reps as deputy registrars or whatever they are calling them nowadays. If true, we have yet to see any concerted effort to have cops (and their families) registered to vote. If the under-25% number is correct, then the registrars really ought to be busy as hell over the next few months getting people signed up.

Anyone have any info?

Poll Numbers Don't Matter

So says Shortshanks:

• Mayor Daley is defending his performance in light of a new poll that shows he has record low job approval ratings.

  When asked by reporters about the Tribune survey of Chicago voters that had his approval at 37 percent, the mayor initially brushed aside the subject saying the numbers don’t matter.

  Instead of worrying about poll numbers, Daley said politicians should focus on their actions.

Oh. OK. Let's do that. Explain McCormick Place. Explain the parking meter fiasco. Explain TIF corruption. Cost overruns at Millennium Park, the Monroe garage, the O'Hare expansion, just about every project under the sun, illegal hiring of unqualified minors, inspectors, blatant cronyism and fixed promotions.....

Do you really want to go there Shanks?

Off Duty Killed

In front of his home, in uniform. And retiring next month:

• An off-duty police officer was shot and killed near 74th Street and Evans Avenue at about 6:20 a.m., police said.

  A police detective on the scene said the officer was pronounced dead at 6:41 at Northwestern Memorial Hospital and that he was coming home from a midnight shift.

  He was outside cleaning the glass of his recently purchased 2010 black Buick when three suspects approached the detective said.

Sun Times coverage here.

Last Night's Totals

Not out of line with the past few Friday nights:

• Two people were killed and at least 15 people were wounded in a spate of shootings across the city late Friday and early this morning, Chicago police said.
  
  A man was fatally shot in the head at 12:34 a.m. on the West Side in East Garfield Park, according to police News Affairs Officer Ron Gaines. The shooting occurred in the 3900 block of West Wilcox Street. The 28-year-old man, identified as Reggie Coles, 1200 block of North Keeler Avenue, was pronounced dead at Mount Sinai Hospital.
  
  Separately, a man was killed and a woman wounded in a shooting that happened about 10 minutes later in the 2100 block of North Springfield Avenue in the Logan Square neighborhood, police said.

And it continued throughout Saturday:

• A man believed to be in his 50s was shot and killed this afternoon in the West Side's Lawndale neighborhood, Chicago police said.
• A man about 18 years old was shot in the neck in the South Side's Parkway Gardens neighborhood tonight, authorities said.

The "Ernie Brown Watch" has officially begun.

Cop Stabbed

Going to be OK, but more than a few stitches:

• A Chicago police officer was stabbed in the cheek this afternoon by a suspect while responding to a domestic-related call in the Far South Side's Morgan Park neighborhood.

  The officer was taken to an area hospital, before being treated and released. The suspect, meanwhile, was in custody.

  The officer responded to the call in the 1000 block of West 115th Street, police said.

  No charges have been filed against the suspect as of this afternoon.

Speedy recovery Officer.

Blago Ring Tones

They're free:

• Now you can enjoy the profanity-laced tirades of Illinois’ least-favorite son when you’re on the go. Beginning today, The State Journal-Register is offering free Blagojevich ringtones for your (bleeping) phone.

We don't know if the ringtones are bleeped out or are in all their uncensored glory, but it would certainly be an amusing to have Blago mouthing off whenever the phone rang.

Command Changes

How does that ass taste J-Fled?

• Chicago police Superintendent Jody Weis named a 27-year police veteran today to oversee the department's patrol division a few weeks after his predecessor was reassigned after a surge of weekend shootings and homicides.

  Ernest Brown got the official nod as a deputy superintendent three weeks after he was appointed acting head of the patrol division. He succeeds Dan Dugan, who was reassigned after one weekend last month in which more than 40 people were shot and eight killed.

  Weis also promoted Brown's deputy chief, Nicholas Roti, to head the organized crime unit, and Lt. Anthony Carothers to commander of the Englewood police district on the city's South Side.

Has any reporter even done a cursory search of Cook County court records about Downtown Brown? Or a LexisNexis search on certain "resumè problems?"

And don't even get us started on the former aldercreature's brother - has Ike even reported to prison yet? We can only assume the commander spot is a family payoff for Ike tipping the rest of the City Council and mayor that he was wired for sound all those months. God knows how many aldercreatures were spared prison time by Ike taking one for the team.

Hey J-Fled? Want to spout off again about how "qualified" your staff is? Or maybe the "Earned, Not Given" motto created in direct contrast to what we all see with our own eyes? Because you seem to be "giving" out quite a bit of bullshit today. What a joke.

Low Polls, But No Challenger

No challenger yet, hopefully:

• More than half of Chicago voters say they don't want to see Mayor Richard Daley re-elected next year should he decide to run for a record seventh term, a new Tribune/WGN poll shows.
  
  The mayor has been buffeted by a spate of summer violence, a weak economy and a high-profile failure to land the 2016 Olympics. Dissatisfaction abounds, the survey found, over Daley's handling of the crime problem, his efforts to rein in government corruption and his backing of a controversial long-term parking meter system lease.
  
  As a result, the poll found only 37 percent of city voters approve of the job Daley is doing as mayor, compared with 47 percent who disapprove. Moreover, a record-low 31 percent said they want to see Daley re-elected, compared with 53 percent who don't want him to win another term.

But who's in the wings? Daley has managed to keep any potential challengers either out of the city or moved around internally so as to prevent any consolidation of power. Look at a partial list of potentials:

• Vallas - out of town
• Santos - felony record
• Dart - baggage
• Jesse Jr. - Washington DC and Blago damage
• Hoffman - election loser
  
• Emmanuel - Obama baggage
  
• assorted aldercreatures - jail, baggage, etc.

There just isn't a strong contender at all.

No, we aren't running either.

Who Doesn't Love Dogs?

Mayor Daley evidently!

• Chicago's Animal Care and Control Department should not be demonized because four dogs were wrongly put to death at the city pound four years ago, Mayor Richard Daley said Friday.

  The West Side compound handles huge numbers of dogs, the mayor said. He called on the media not to overreact to the cases of mistaken euthanasia between February and July 2006.

  "Mistakenly? Four. Four," said Daley, who leaned into the microphone when asked about the issue. "Look, mistaken, it's an accident, so they corrected it."

It isn't the mistake that's the problem Shortshanks. It's the incompetence displayed by your administration, your appointees and the cover up that followed. And we highly doubt it was only "four" animals.

Is this the opening salvo in an effort to demonize Daley as an animal hater? Or is it just a slow news Saturday?

Soderberg Memorial

Final remembrances of a good cop:

• The widow of slain Chicago Police Officer Thor Soderberg told his fellow officers this morning to smile when they thought of her husband, and she said her husband knew he could always count on his brothers in blue.

  "I know you always had Thor's back," Jennifer Loudon said, speaking at the University of Chicago's Rockefeller Memorial Chapel. "Thor always knew you had his back." Loudon spoke without tears, wearing a red dress she said her husband had helped her pick out.

Rest in Peace Thor Soderberg, until we meet again.

No Range for You!

If the "greenies" get their way:

• Environmental groups have put a bull's-eye on Southeast Side landfill property the Chicago Police Department hopes to develop into an outdoor firearms range for its officers.

  The city is proposing to build the range in a landfill at 134th and Jeffery near the Calumet River. City officials are negotiating a lease with the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago and plan to start operating the range in the spring, Chicago Police Sgt. Ray Hamilton said.

  Hamilton said the nearest city neighborhood is about a mile away and the nearest suburbs are about three-quarters of a mile away. Studies have shown the range wouldn't create noise problems for those residents, he said.

  The plan is to build an earthen wall at least 20 feet high and fire bullets into it, Hamilton said. A front-end loader would periodically excavate several feet of soil and the bullets would be sifted from the earth to prevent the possibility of lead leaching into ground water, Hamilton said.

  But the Southeast Environmental Task Force didn't know about the proposal until it was placed on the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District's agenda in June, said Peggy Salazar, the task force's interim director.

  The task force has sent letters to the city's Department of Environment and to police Supt. Jody Weis with questions about possible noise and lead pollution, Salazar said. She also said the task force envisioned the property becoming open land for recreational use.

Last we checked, shooting was listed as a recreational sport. But now that the "green" movement is dead set against having the police well trained and adept at weapons usage, we expect Shortshanks to shit-can the project.

The link is from PoliceOne.com, but this article was written by Frank Main of the Sun Times. Not sure where we missed this one. It even quotes Ray Ray of policy group fame and the allegedly "legitimate" SWAT testing processes. That "legit" process lasted about all of twenty seconds.

Sound Familiar?

We certainly hope not:

• The advisories were issued as the Chicago area sweltered through a second day of heat indexes hovering at 100 degrees. It was the hottest-feeling day of the year, with O'Hare Airport hitting 90 degrees and Midway Airport 92, according to the Chicago Weather Center blog.

  There may be little relief from the stifling heat the rest of July, according to the weather service. "It looks like we could see this hot weather for an extended period," said Andrew Krein, a meteorologist for the National Weather Service.
  
  According to WGN Channel 9 chief meteorologist Tom Skilling, supercomputer model projections through the remaining two weeks of July indicate a steady string of 90 plus-degree days.

Remember this?

• This week marks the 15th anniversary of the 1995 Chicago heat wave, a five-day scorcher that was blamed for more than 700 heat-related deaths.
  
  That week, the heat index reached 119 degrees at O'Hare and 125 degrees at Midway Airport.

It rings a bell when we saw this tonight on the news:

• About 150 people were evaluated by paramedics for heat-related ailments they suffered while waiting for a bus outside the Loop's Union Station on Thursday.

  Fire personnel responded to 315 S. Canal St. about 5:15 p.m. on a report about 150 people suffering from heat exhaustion, Fire Media Affairs spokesman Quention Curtis said.

  The people were standing outside Union Station awaiting a bus, Curtis said. A CTA cooling bus was sent to the scene and paramedics evaluated the people.

We haven't hit a stretch of 100 degree heat indexes yet. This time around though, the body-snatchers might be doing the brunt of the work, with wagon crews earning D-3 (or E-3) as they picked up the slack for private haulers. Assuming the watch has enough manpower to put up a wagon that is.

Another Layoff Article

These things keep coming to our attention, via comments and e-mails:

• FORT COLLINS, Colo. (July 13) -- The sheriff will be walking the streets again in San Luis -- the oldest community in Colorado. But it's not a return to the Wild West; the town fired its entire police force to save money.
  
  Around the country other towns -- large and small -- are also eliminating their police departments. The Los Angeles suburb of Maywood, Calif., fired its officers, as did rural Bethel, Maine. Near Pittsburgh, Fallowfield, Pa., also voted to disband its police department.
  
  The towns have been turning law enforcement over to county sheriffs, a decision that Jim Pasco, executive director of the National Fraternal Order of Police, called "penny wise and pound foolish.

While we don't see this is Chicago's future, the fact is we're doing more with less, somehow, some way. We don't know what Daley's floor is, but it's down here somewhere. Can redistricting be far behind?

199 Years = Just 43 Years

This must be part of the "new math" we always hear about:

• When Robert Nagle learned recently that the man who murdered his father was scheduled to be paroled, Nagle's first thought was about whether Henry Michael Gargano was still a cold-blooded killer.
  
  "And then I was surprised at the justice system," Nagle, 49, said Wednesday. "Then again, I know that the justice system doesn't always serve justice."
  
  On Oct. 27, 1967, Gargano and two other men unleashed a torrent of gunfire at police officers during a robbery at the Northlake Bank, killing Detective Sgt. John Nagle and Officer Anthony Perri. Two other officers were wounded.
  
  
• But also astonishing to Northlake police and the relatives of the two dead officers was news that the U.S. Parole Commission had set Gargano's release date for Sept. 3 without notifying them. Gargano and the other two men each had been sentenced to 199 years in prison, and the victims assumed that meant they would remain behind bars the rest of their lives.
  
  Two weeks before the Northlake killings, the men had wounded two Ohio police officers in a similar shooting during a grocery robbery.

And people wonder why cops are always so down on prisons, courts, early parole and society in general. It's for reasons like this where an asshole who killed two cops, wounded four others and never expressed an iota of remorse isn't dying in a concrete box where he was scheduled to rot decades ago for robbing a community of its protector, a wife of her husband and children of their father.

Mugged on Michigan Avenue

An eye opener - if you haven't been paying attention for the last few years:

• Here's what went down: I walked up to the bus stop at the corner of Michigan and Grand to take the 151 to my home in Lakeview. I sat down on the black metal railing that fences off one of the large flower gardens, put down my bag of groceries and pulled out my new iPhone to check my e-mail and send a text message to my wife letting her know I would be home soon.
  
  The sidewalk was packed with tourists and shoppers, but I felt a strange energy when a kid, probably about 14, sat down close to me on my left while the guy he walked up with stood on my right. It just felt wrong.
  
  Then, literally in a flash, the kid on my left grabbed my iPhone and tried to bolt. I had heard all of the warnings about people snatching iPhones and iPods, but because the street was so crowded I never thought it could happen there and then.

Did anyone who isn't reading here right now not see this one coming two years ago? Anyone? Bueller? We didn't think so. This is almost a daily occurrence nowadays.

Now imagine you're Bob or Suzie Yuppie without a newspaper column to bitch about being strong-armed in broad daylight on what is one of the top three pedestrian avenues in Chicago.

But here's the kicker - the writer, someone named John D. Thomas - even after getting attacked and knocked around and robbed, manages to get in a dig at police officers!

• I went after the two kids, still gripping the T-shirt I had torn off one of them. I saw them go east on Ohio Street and I booked it in hot pursuit. When I got to St. Clair, I didn't see them, but my lifetime of watching TV cop shows told me they had sprinted down a dark alley next to the Dunkin' Donuts.

Even though it is Shortshanks that has allowed the number of police on the streets to dwindle to the point where strong arm robbers feel little-to-no hesitation in mugging people in broad daylight on Michigan Avenue, John D. Thomas has to throw in the tired old saw about "Dunkin Donuts" and cop shows.

At least he didn't go with the "poor downtrodden under-privileged youth who don't know what they're doing and I probably deserved to have my personal property forcibly removed from my person" route. That would have been a bit too much.

Thank Goodness

Deficits topping a trillion dollars a year for two years running now, but the Congress finds time for this crap:

• The U.S. Senate voted unanimously late Wednesday to name a post office near Wrigley Field after the late folk singer and Cubs fan Steve Goodman.

  By unanimous consent, the Senate gave the go-ahead to the resolution, which was sponsored by U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley D-Ill. and which passed the U.S. House in April in a 371-0 vote, to rename the Lakeview post office at 1343 W. Irving Park Road the "Steve Goodman Post Office Building."
  
  A Chicago native, the Grammy-winning Goodman died at age 36 in 1984 and is known for, among other things, having written the Cubs-themed songs "Go, Cubs, Go," which fans sing at Wrigley Field after every Cub victory, and "A Dying Cub Fan's Last Request."

"The Lincoln Park Pirates" was a much less annoying tune.

Now how about un-screwing up the country?

Soderberg Visitation

A solemn vigil up north tonight:

• Channel 2
• Channel 5
• Channel 7

And a reminder that we are all targets:

• An alderman who discovered graffiti on a South Loop building that said “we kill cops” just days days after a police officer was gunned down on the South Side wants the defacement removed immediately and criminal charges against its creator.

  Ald. Robert Fioretti (2nd) said he found the graffiti on a building at 1234 S. Michigan Ave. as he was “driving by in the neighborhood.”

  “I alerted Graffiti Busters first” to get the graffiti removed as soon as possible, then police were notified, he said. “It sent such a wrong message, I wanted a criminal investigation.”

The Memorial Service is to be held Thursday on the University of Chicago campus.

You're On Your Own!

Oakland PD is scheduled to have laid off 80 officers Tuesday. That's around 10% of their entire force. As a result, the Chief has made a list of 44 specific situations his remaining officers won't be responding to. A partial list includes the following:

• burglary
• theft
• embezzlement
• grand theft
• grand theft:dog
• identity theft
• false information to peace officer
• required to register as sex or arson offender
• dump waste or offensive matter
• discard appliance with lock
• loud music
• possess forged notes
• pass fictitious check
• obtain money by false voucher
• fraudulent use of access cards
• stolen license plate
• embezzlement by an employee (over $ 400)
• extortion
• attempted extortion
• false personification of other
• injure telephone/ power line
• interfere with power line
• unauthorized cable tv connection
• vandalism
• administer/expose poison to another's

Now everyone knows California is a basket case. It could never happen here, right?

Wrong:

• Squeezed by budget cuts, several suburban police departments have talked with Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart’s office about policing their towns — but Cook County Board members say those law enforcement agencies would have to cover the costs and get county board approval.

  “We don’t have the resources to take on another police department,” said Commissioner Peter Silvestri, a Northwest Side and suburban Republican.

  [...] The move comes two years after the sheriff’s office took over policing in Ford Heights, whose department dissolved amid financial problems. The south suburban village was expected to pay for services, but hasn’t,...
  

Some suburbs are actively seeking to disband their police departments and have the County take over.

We saw this comment the other day in the "Gun "Rules" Begin Today post:

• Seriously? You're a cop and you want more guns in the hands of citizens? I don't think you've thought this through.

Well Mr/Ms Anonymous, you keep basking in that self righteousness of non-gun ownership while Oakland lays off 10% of it's force, numerous municipalities in Cook County attempt to pass off policing to the sheriffs, and the Chicago Police response times increase to tens of minutes for "in progress" calls.

Just make sure you have current ID and photo available in case we can't recognize your corpse when we finally get there.

No Hoops?

Get a load of this quote from Shortshanks:

• Today, Daley was asked whether he’s hoping all of the requirements put together would discourage people from buying and registering guns.

  “No, no. If people want to have a handgun, they [can] have a handgun,” the mayor said.

  But, he added, “If you go in the military, they have months and months of instruction. The Chicago Police Department has months and months of instruction to fire a handgun. Handguns are used to kill people. When you take a gun and point it at somebody, you have to kill that person in your home. … That’s why instructions are so important.”

Wow. Just wow. And this is the Mayor of Simpleton.

As for his insistence he isn't making gun owners jump through hoops, he and has city council have banned gun shops, banned gun ranges, and expects you to come up with $100 in addition to tuition fees for a "safety course."

But those aren't hoops? Keep digging that hole Shanks.

"Merit" Letter Out

For Officers wishing to become Sergeant.

Supposedly due in by 27 July, but those deadlines usually get kicked back 2 to 3 weeks because certain commanders and aldercreatures don't have their shit together.

The last number we heard in the Districts was a class of 30, so be sure your "meri-clout-orious skills" are up to date!

Registration Comment

Once again, WBBM 780 plays a piece of audio tape, then doesn't post it anywhere were we can link it or dissect it. We're going from memory here, but J-Fled made another dumb comment about how the gun registry is necessary so "we know where the guns are."

Huh?

Those aren't the guns that are causing all the problems you twit. Shortshanks and J-fled are making law abiding citizens jump through hoops and come up with hundreds or dollars for a Right all citizens should be free to exercise, yet we'll guarantee tens of thousands of gang bangers won't be rushing in to register weapons.

Who's keeping track of those weapons J-Fled?

If you're interested in registering a weapon so Daley can come confiscate it at a later date, here's a link from Channel 7 with .pdf files for people to sign away their Rights "to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures" if you're so inclined. But if you aren't keen on inviting the government into your home or onto your property...

UPDATE: The Sun Times has the quote WBBM doesn't:

• "We want to know who has weapons so that first responders can be aware of that information before they enter a home," said Police Supt. Jody Weis at a news conference.

Any officer who goes into a home not thinking there might be a gun inside is forgetting one basic tenet of policing - THERE IS ALWAYS A GUN THERE. AND YOU BROUGHT IT.

We don't know about you, but we're a bit insulted that J-Fled and Shortshanks keep using the argument, "Won't someone think of the first responders!" the way Helen Lovejoy screams, "Won't someone think of the children!" in The Simpsons. It's a tired and hackneyed phrase liberals use when they want to shut down intelligent debate.

Security Step #1

Here's a bit of free advice for J-Fled and the Policy Group (hey, that's a catchy name for a band!):

• Create and enforce an order that forbids the homeless from camping out in stations.

These people don't belong in police facilities. Yeah, we know the mayor has declared police stations "warming centers." And lord knows what these zombies bring into stations - TB, hepatitis, lice, scabies, all manner of parasitic infestation and pathogens of all shapes and sizes. And that's not even taking into consideration their mental states, many of whom are full blown schizophrenic or bi-polar or full-on-nut-cases.

How many votes does the Bum Union actually control that their executive board has to camp out in police lobbies all the time?

New Wake Info

And for the Memorial Services:

• The visitation is scheduled for Tuesday from 3 to 8 p.m. at Malec and Sons Funeral Home, 6000 N. Milwaukee Ave.

  The memorial service is scheduled for Thursday at 10 a.m. at the University of Chicago's Rockefeller Memorial Chapel, 5850 S. Woodlawn Ave.

  The visitation will be open to all police, while the memorial is also open to the public.

Informational post only - comments closed.

Best and Brightest?

The Department of Homeland Security is advertising job openings.

On pizza boxes:


We're speechless. We're also wondering if we're ever flying anywhere ever again.

How Safe is Your Station?

J-Fled says something stupid:

• ...Weis responded Friday to questions about whether there was enough security at the building.

  Asked about what could be done about security at police parking lots, Weis said police facilities have video surveillance but added that little could be done to prevent such attacks by people with little regard for human life.

  "There's really no level of security you can put up that will prevent a person like that from attacking someone," he said.

Yeah, like video cameras have ever secured anything. Our readers respond:

• really, let's go to the FBI Chicago field office on Roosevelt and see if you can get into their parking lot with a ladder or grappling hook. aint going to happen. They have gates, turnstiles, armed guards and ...wait for it...
  
  A SECURE F'KIN COVERED GARAGE ACCESSIBLE ONLY BY VETTED EMPLOYEES
  
  
• Go to any suburban police department and try to trespass around their facilities like the shitbirds do around ours.
  
  Or perhaps go to the FBI facility at 2111 W. Roosevelt Road in Chicago and try to get in.
  
  Or any police facility around here, except ours. and try to tresspass.

Obviously, we aren't going to publish exactly how to access our woefully pathetic security measures. But vague generalizations demonstrating how un-secure District stations are would be an eye opener to many. Maybe it even gets General Services interested in fixing a few more doors and leaky ceilings.

Food Fest Attendance Up!

Up 2.5%!

Did we mention it's in Milwaukee?

• Attendance at Milwaukee's Summerfest rose 2.5 percent this year, aided by a long stretch of rain-free weather.
  
  Summerfest is an 11-day lakefront music event that bills itself as the world's largest music festival. It wrapped up last Sunday.
  
  Milwaukee World Festival Inc. is the company that stages the event. It says this year's attendance was 856,000, up from about 835,000 last year.

Did we mention it's a "pay event"? Why does that matter?

• About 700,000 fewer people attended this year’s Taste of Chicago food festival on the city lakefront and city officials say it’s likely because the annual July 3 Grant Park fireworks were canceled.
  
  Last year 3.35 million people attended the festival and this year attendance was 2.65 million.

And that's for a FREE event.

Gun "Rules" Begin Today

And should fall after court challenges. Some highlights from ABC 7:

• Chicago's new gun ordinance goes into effect Monday, allowing residents to have handguns in their homes.

"...allowing residents"? The City cannot "allow" what is an inalienable Right enshrined in the Constitution. This "allowing" bullshit is the media, once again, catering to an egomaniac who is attempting to circumvent citizens rights.

• The new ordinance has a number of strict requirements. It will require training before residents apply for a city firearms permit that will cost $125. Only one gun a month per adult may be registered, and owners must have no violent crime or DUI convictions in their history.

$125? That seems certain to be struck down at some point. Charging an exorbitant fee for a Constitutionally guaranteed right? The "registering one gun a month" provision is in effect criminalizing people who are able to buy multiple weapons at a time. It appears the City is attempting to create their own "bottleneck" at the registration step and the Courts may look upon that as a bad faith effort on the City's part - kind of like when they negotiate a contract.

• A spokesperson for the city of Chicago said the Chicago Police Department is still hammering out the specifics on the training requirements and regulations needed to get a city gun permit.

  Sources say that should be completed by Sunday for Monday, when Chicago's new handgun ordinance goes into effect.

We sense a lot of problems on this end.

Another Bloody Weekend

Thanks goodness someone told the gang leaders to "knock it off," otherwise this could have been a really bad weekend:

• Two people are dead and eight others were wounded in street violence incidents late Saturday and early this morning around the city, police said.
  
  
• At least 19 people were wounded and two people were killed in shootings since Friday.

And in case anyone was keeping track at home for the 04 July weekend, we had written this:

• The over/under in Vegas for the upcoming weekend is currently 40 shot, 7 of those dead. That covers 1700 on 02 July (Friday) to 1700 on 05 July (Monday holiday observance) - a 72-hour span.

A friend tallied the numbers and came up with the following:

• 40 shot, 9 dead.

Official? Not really. But close enough to make us think we ought to try picking some lottery numbers so we can retire more comfortably.

No Wake; Memorial Service Only

The wishes of the family appear to be very clear in this matter:

• A memorial service for slain Chicago Police Officer Thor Soderberg has been set for Thursday, although a location has not yet been settled on, the Police Department said today.

  [...] Soderberg's family will hold private services for Soderberg; a separate memorial service for Soderberg will be held on Thursday at 10 a.m., although a location for the memorial has not been determined, according to a statement issued by police this afternoon.

J-Fled sent out an e-mail confirming this late Saturday.

Prayers for Mrs. Soderberg during this most difficult time.

Shots Fired At, By Police

Humboldt Park area:

• Police exchanged gunfire with alleged gang members shooting at a Humboldt Park porch early Saturday on the West Side.
  
  About 2 a.m., officers saw gang members firing shots at a porch at 1400 N. Campbell Ave. and a chase ensued, according to police. During the pursuit, one of the gang members fired at least one shot at an officer, who returned fire, police said.
  
  Nobody was wounded in the exchange with police, but a person on the porch was taken to Saint Mary of Nazareth Hospital Center with a gunshot wound to the shoulder, police said.

Be careful.

Gun Lawsuits

The inevitable follow-up lawsuits begin:

• As Chicago prepares to implement its new firearms ordinance Monday, gun advocates have begun a legal assault, filing two lawsuits that constitutional law experts said could be the next round of challenges to how cities can regulate personal gun ownership.
  
  Less than two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for citizens to have handguns at home, Chicago was hit with the lawsuits that target, among other things, the city's ban on gun shops, a controversial and untested regulation that lawyers said could be the next frontier in the battle over firearm rights.
  
  Though Chicago officials said the ordinance, adopted after the court gutted the city's 28-year-old handgun ban, was designed to withstand legal challenges, law experts said some aspects of it might not hold up. While it is impossible to know how far the two federal lawsuits will go in court, experts said banning gun sales, limiting permit holders to one ready-to-fire weapon in a home and prohibiting guns in garages, porches and yards could pose problems for the city in the long run.

These will only be problems for Chicago as long as Shortshanks is wasting taxpayer money defending poorly written ordinances.

There are a number of elections coming up. Are you registered to vote in them?

J-Fled Surfaces

And once again, comes up with a comment that just shows how out-of-touch he is with police work in general:

• "I simply cannot understand how a person can have such a total disregard of life and for those who keep order on our streets that he could attack, disarm and then shoot and kill a uniformed police officer in broad daylight," Weis said at police headquarters...

And one of our commentators had the perfect comeback:

• Work patrol...you will understand.

Short and to the point - and that, ladies and gentlemen, is the entire problem in a nutshell. Have a look at Sneed's column yesterday:

• No human being should have to see what a cop sees when he walks in on scenes choreographed in hell.

  "What they see and smell and touch and taste, no human being should have to endure," a Chicago Police chaplain told me.

  • To watch someone shoot and kill a 3-day-old baby.

  • To see an infant microwaved in an oven by a crackhead.

  • To walk into a house where a 92-year-old woman has been confined to bed for seven years in feces and toenails seven inches long.

  • To witness the physical and emotional damage done to children used for sex by drug addicts.

  • To stand over the body of a 5-year-old girl accidentally shot by a gang-banger while riding her big wheel down an alley.

We don't know if Sneed was quoting one of our fine police chaplains. Our opinion is that she's carried too much water for Daley over the years to actually have this sort of insight on her own.

But it is true. If the experiences of the entire Chicago Police Department from one single 24-hour period could be condensed into a five minute video and shown to the public, there is no doubt in our mind that most citizens would head for the hills screaming, never to return. What we see, hear, smell, or touch every day changes us in ways normal people cannot comprehend. Our families barely understand it sometimes, but mostly they stand by us throughout it.

J-Fled, Masters (Masters Masters), Brust, O'Keefe and all the other pretenders playing dress-up will never understand it. Never. And J-Fled is reduced to expressing his disbelief that anyone could be so callous as to attack us in our own backyard in broad daylight, while we not only understand it could happen, it has happened before, many times, and it will undoubtedly happen again in the future.

The biggest thing that has changed is how we aren't able to react to it.

"Boutique" Gun Store?

Sounds fun!

• A north suburban gunshop owner hoping to open stores in the Loop and Lincoln Park has filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Chicago and Mayor Daley alleging the new gun ordinance infringes on the constitutional rights of residents.

  Joseph Franzese, owner of Villa Park-based Second Amendment Arms, and Robert M. Zieman Sr. filed the suit Friday in U.S. District Court against the city, the mayor, Police Supt. Jody Weis, City Clerk Miguel Del Valle and Corporation Counsel Mara Georges.

  Franzese wants to open "boutique" type gun stores in Lincoln Park and on Michigan Avenue downtown, according to his lawyer Walter Maksym, one of Drew Peterson's lawyers in his pending murder case.

Maybe they could serve tea and those little cakes while you look for the latest .45 caliber semi-auto to protect your Lincoln Park condo property that's losing value hand-over-fist.

Daley would crap a brick.

No Bail

As expected:

• Before ripping away Chicago police officer Thor Soderberg's handgun and shooting him dead with it, Bryant Brewer, a felon with a long arrest record, inexplicably tried getting inside the last place anyone would expect him to go: a renovated police facility full of cops.
  
  Moments before Soderbergh, an 11-year police veteran, was killed Wednesday, Brewer strolled down 61st Street, screaming and hollering at no one in particular before he tried opening a locked door to the old Englewood police station that now serves as a police deployment center, according to a witness.

Someone appears to be setting up an "insanity" defense for the shithead.

Reinstating the death penalty for cop killers and other heinous criminal acts could be a winning election issue this fall. It's long overdue to start remedying George "convict" Ryan's blatant political moves.

Kass Column

If you haven't see it yet, click here:

• As Chicago waited almost desperately Thursday for a star to become the city's basketball savior, another star rose on the South Side, at 61st Street and Racine Avenue.
  
  It was a simple star of gold on a field of purple and black, the flag of mourning for Chicago police officers.
  
  That gold star belongs, at least for a time, to police Officer Thor Soderberg, 43, shot to death the day before, not 100 yards from where that flag was raised.

Now how about a few columns from the writers across the city pointing out how someone who shot his own brother four years ago wasn't serving time for Aggravated Battery and UUW. Last we checked, those charges were worth at least a decade behind bars.

Never in Cook County though. Hmmm.

Assailant Killed

An offender tried to kill an officer with a vehicle and is removed from the gene pool:

• A person was fatally shot by a police officer in the South Side Park Manor neighborhood on Thursday afternoon.

  About 12:45 p.m, a person was shot to death in a incident that involved police near the intersection of 75th and Lafayette streets, according to News Affairs [...].

  The police officer was also struck by a vehicle...

The Officer suffered minor injuries and we pray for a speedy recovery.

An Inspiration

How many times do we hear about someone this giving being taken so unfairly?

• "I want people to know that he's a great man and gave the Chicago police a great name," said Mazen Istanbouli, a DePaul University professor and close friend of the officer. "He was a giver. He never thought of himself and always thought of others."
  
  Istanbouli, who is blind, said he and Soderberg had known each other for about three years and met because they shared a love of running. He said the officer helped him train and competed by his side in triathlons in New York and Chicago, running, biking and swimming alongside him and serving as his guide.
  
  The two most recently ran together this spring at a race for fallen police officers in Chicago. Istanbouli said he brought up Soderberg's name earlier Wednesday because he wanted the officer to accompany him at an upcoming bicycle race.

Not just training and participating in triathlons, which is incredibly demanding. But doing it with someone who would otherwise have no chance of ever fulfilling their ambition to run, swim and bike because of crappy hand life dealt them.

This should be Thor Soderberg's legacy. He helped others succeed and overcome obstacles and live their dreams. Truly an inspiration to all he touched.

And we should also never forget that he was stolen from us by someone with none of that.

Once Again, the Airport

A cesspool of corruption, waste and who knows what else?

• Mayor Daley likes to talk about cutting the city payroll to the bone, eliminating waste and inefficiency.

  But you'd never know it by looking at the management flow chart at Chicago's Department of Aviation.

  It includes a dizzying array of 49 boxes, each with a title and lucrative salary. Nearly 60 percent of those managers have salaries that top $100,000.

And we thought the CPD and CFD were "top-heavy" with overpaid managers. The airport operates under a different set of rules though, seeing as how much of the graft and corruption is paid for by the airlines themselves, who subsidize the financial end of things by charging passengers a buck or less in fees. If you spread the money out over the millions of people traveling through O'Hare, you can hide an awful lot of six-figure salaries.

It's a wonder the Outfit hasn't set up shop out at the airports. Oh wait....

RIP Officer Soderberg

Sarcasm and Silliness are on hold for the time being. It would seem inappropriate to do a post about sports or Shortshanks or some other nonsense when once again, the Department is reeling from the death of an officer.

Here are the latest media links to Officers Soderberg's death:

• Channel 2
• Channel 5
• Channel 7
• Channel 32
• NewsRadio 780
  
• Sun Times
• Tribune/Breaking News

Remembrances and prayers for the fallen only in this thread.

Open Thread

As explained immediately above this post, we're laying off the Sarcasm and Silliness for a moment. Anything you'd like to discuss that isn't related to yesterday's death of Officer Soderberg, leave it here and we'll get to it. Eventually.

Open post.

Officer Killed - South Side (UPDATED)

Word trickling in - officer shot on the south side, possibly 61st and Racine.

Will update as able.

UPDATE: Chicago Breaking News:

• A Chicago police officer and another person were shot near West 61st Street and South Racine Avenue at about 3:50 p.m., officials said.

  The shooting occurred at a police facility used to house special units. Preliminary reports indicate the officer was shot in the head while walking out of the building.

Ambush? This is not good at all.

Shooter in custody and wounded. Chicago Breaking News changing the story as we try to update. Sorry if the links are out of date as soon as we post them.

UPDATE: Channel 5 reporting the Officer has died of his wounds.

UPDATE: Police Officer Thor Soderberg was shot and killed on today's date following a struggle with an offender who disarmed him. He leaves behind a wife and countless friends and coworkers.

We apologize for deleting numerous comments listing Officer Soderberg's name prior to proper notifications being made. That is standard practice here. We also had to delete a number of comments placing blame for the officer's death. There is a time and a place for those types of comments and this isn't the time or the place.

A Masterful Explanation

Either Masters Masters Masters is back reading the blog or the policy group is bucking for a promotion - Ray, don't worry, that lieutenant spot is all gift wrapped, you're golden:

• Masters did attend the Suburban Law Enforcement Academy(SLEA) through the College of DuPage in Glen Ellyn. Its a 10 week course that suburban departments use to certify recruits. He is a certified peace officer in the State of Illinois. He was a "student at large" during the Academy. They made some exceptions for him due to his position. He is certified through the State and therefore can carry a firearm and has arrest powers. Hope this clears the issue.

That does sound like the sneaky way J-Fled and Shortshanks would make sure their boy can carry a weapon while citizens have to fight tooth and nail to the highest court in the land just to be able to keep a gun in a safe in their house.

That "student at large" thing though. We'd hate to think someone was falsifying training records by asking instructors if they remembered someone sitting in on classes that were never attended. Or is that a different scandal we aren't remembering?

I Do Not Like That Sam I Am

Especially when he's running over on-duty police officers in the 016 District at the scene of an accident:

• PO in 016 on third watch hit kamikazee style by a LT.SC last night. Instead of concern for po he wants CR.
  
  
• I was there, nice coverup, what a jag in station mfing everyone! Can you imagine if it was blueshirt?
  
  
• you can do like SC did last night, you can strike an on duty police officer with your car while on the phone, disobeying a police order, .... And walk out of 016 screaming how your going to get a CR on the woman you sent to the hospital. What a whiteshirtwash that was. All the PO's in 016 got a good lesson last night on where we stand with our own management.
  
  
• "Got to see the retired deputy chief in the back seat of the squad car in 016 after he hit a police officer while she was directing traffic. Good thing he is retired now, he will have the same rights as everyone but the police! Captain Chrissy handling it; will she, the reformed one, have sympathy?"

How about an apology instead of acting like a total dickhead? And how about the Captain does a little explaining, too? Don't we have a whole bunch of coppers with their asses in the wringer over exactly this type of behavior? Yet a how-many-time merit promotee leads people down the same path while an Officer is sent to the emergency room?

Police Limit Hits a Homer

By Garey McKee:


How very true.

Skinning a Cat

As the saying goes, there's more than one way to do it, and the CFD found a way:

• Chicago taxpayers are “hemorrhaging” money, thanks to the “liberal” and “standardless” award of overtime pay to Chicago Fire Department brass that wiped out savings generated by mandatory furloughs, Inspector General Joe Ferguson has concluded.

  In a preliminary report issued Tuesday, Ferguson concluded that straight overtime payments to the Fire Department’s 50 “exempt” employees skyrocketed — from $18,516 in 2008 to $311,180 in 2009 and $191,293 during the first three months of this year.

  If straight overtime continues at the current pace, Fire Department brass will rack up $765,174 in straight overtime payments in 2010, a 245 percent increase over last year’s “inflated total.”

Thanks for taking the heat there guys, though we don't know why your exempts get OT and our don't. We'd bet that's about to change.

Police Shooting

In the middle of the mayhem on 04/05 July, offender with a gun is shot by police:

• A Chicago police officer shot a male suspect who pointed a gun at him and at least one other officer early this morning after they tried to disperse a large crowd in the street, police said.

  A spokesman for Police News Affairs did not know the condition of the wounded person.

  The shooting happened about 2:15 a.m. in the 100 block of North Leamington Avenue in the South Austin neighborhood on the West Side. In a statement, police said uniformed officers responded to a call of a disturbance at that location and found a large group gathered in the street.

Officers are OK. The usual outcry that the police should have subdued the gunman with tickles and feather pillows has ensued.

Masters Masters Masters Gun?

Once again, the rumor rears its ugly head:

• Speaking of Masters, did anyone see him and Hamilton at montrose harbor last night for the fireworks. Masters had a gun belt on with a gun holstered and vest on.

We were just going over the list of recruits who have graduated the Academy over the past two plus years and Mike Masters doesn't appear on any list.

Can someone explain how he can carry a gun?

Over/Under Results

Five more shot in the waning moments of the listed time frame.

And the obligatory investigation comment:

• No one was in custdoy [sic] for any of the shootings. Harrison Area and Wentworth Area detectives are investigating.

So if anyone can cobble together the 24-hour reports, we're pretty sure Chicago covered the 7 dead/40 shot easily. Hell, Englewood accounted for almost half the killed total for the entire weekend.

Fewer Taste Arrests

J-Fled touts this as good news:

• Arrests were down from a year ago during the city's revamped fireworks display of three smaller shows along the lakefront, Chicago police said Monday.

  Police Supt. Jody Weis said there were seven arrests Sunday night. Last year, there were 30 arrests during the single fireworks show at Grant Park.

  "If you look at the results, we had pretty much an incident-free night," Weis said of the fireworks shows during a news conference at police headquarters. "It did take away the massive push in Grant Park."

  In all, 1,000 police officers fanned out to cover the 26 miles of lakefront on Sunday.

But then the Sun Times takes some of the air out of his sails:

• Far fewer people tasted Chicago this year than in recent years.

  The 2010 Taste of Chicago drew 2.65 million people, about 700,000 fewer than the 3.35 million who attended the summer chow-fest in 2009.

  The 21 percent attendance drop was mainly because the city canceled the July 3 Grant Park fireworks, an event that would bring more than 1 million downtown and through the Taste booths on that day alone, said Cindy Gatziolis of the Mayor's Office of Special Events.

A 21% drop in attendance would produce fewer arrests. So would a Department that is so far into survival mode, it wouldn't take anyone into custody on questionable grounds even at the direction of Shortshanks himself.

In any event, all the police went home safe. That's cause for celebration in and of itself.

Lakefront Quiet-ish; Englewood Not

When it blew up on the Fourth, it blew up south:

• At least four people were left dead and 12 wounded in overnight shootings in Chicago, most on the South Side, officials said.

  The most recent homicide occurred at 5:06 a.m. this morning, when police said an unidentified man was found dead in the 7900 block of South Ingleside Avenue in the East Chatham neighborhood after being shot in the chest. No other information was available.

Go read the whole list - all south except one. The midnight shortages continue to plague the city and it only gets more obvious as time goes on. Luckily, most decent people of all stripes are in bed overnight and the people being shot aren't exactly pillars of society. Maybe that will be J-Fled's saving grace? Fewer legit victims?

Real Leadership

No "Gotta Run" here:

• A Fourth of July celebration in Elgin turned ugly when a fight among neighbors near the route of the northwest suburb's annual Independence Day Parade resulted in two injuries and four arrests.

  The fight started in the 200 block of Douglas Avenue in the northwest suburb about a half hour after the parade began at 10 a.m., Elgin Police Chief Jeffrey Swoboda said.

  The chief was leading the parade riding in a police department Jeep and jumped out to respond because "it was half a block in front of me, and I was the closest" police officer to the scene, Swoboda said.

  [...] About eight people were involved somehow in the fight, Swoboda said; he ran after and tackled one of the suspects, he said.

Bet he'd work for under $330,000 a year.

Shakedown Opportunist

Jesse's at it again:

• Flanked by men charging abuse at the hands of Chicago Police, the Rev. Jesse Jackson called on Gov. Quinn on Saturday to immediately appoint members to a torture commission enacted last year.

  "Men who were beaten with telephone books until their ears rang, men who had torture upon their testicles, tortured until they bled," Jackson said during a news conference at Rainbow/PUSH headquarters. "We speak out about torture in Abu Ghraib, torture in Guantanamo, we should speak out about torture in Illinois. We want [the torture commission] to be fully functional in a matter of days."

Abu Ghraib was fraternity type hazing, not torture. Guantanamo wasn't torture by any stretch of the imagination, nor by any definition of International Law. And no one has been convicted of torture in Illinois either, only perjury. If Jesse wants to solve some problems, he could address the ongoing slaughter in the black community by black offenders, each death being more than what occurred at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo or Area 2.

Illinois Stops Paying Bills

Quinn refuses to stop the bleeding:

• For the last few years, California stood more or less unchallenged as a symbol of the fiscal collapse of states during the recession. Now Illinois has shouldered to the fore, as its dysfunctional political class refuses to pay the state’s bills and refuses to take the painful steps — cuts and tax increases — to close a deficit of at least $12 billion, equal to nearly half the state’s budget.

  Then there is the spectacularly mismanaged pension system, which is at least 50 percent underfunded and, analysts warn, could push Illinois into insolvency if the economy fails to pick up.

  States cannot go bankrupt, technically, but signs of fiscal crackup are easy to see. Legislators left the capital this month without deciding how to pay 26 percent of the state budget. The governor proposes to borrow $3.5 billion to cover a year’s worth of pension payments, a step that would cost about $1 billion in interest. And every major rating agency has downgraded the state; Illinois now pays millions of dollars more to insure its debt than any other state in the nation.

Borrow $3.5 billion and cost Illinois another $1 billion in interest payments? That's what passes for fiscal discipline in Illinois? At some point, someone is going to have to act like an adult and put an end to this runaway spending by the Illinois Combine. We're aren't headed for a bad patch anymore - we're in the middle of it.

Happy Fourth of July

Everyone have a safe holiday, especially those of us working at any of the fireworks displays that will be stretching limited resources to the breaking point. The important thing is that the same number of people who attended roll call, attend checkoff, and with the same number of body parts attached. Be safe boys and girls.

J-Fled Spin Control

Even we're getting dizzy:

• An additional 600 Chicago Police officers will be on duty Sunday to help accommodate demands at Taste of Chicago and the city's three lakefront fireworks shows, Police Supt. Jody Weis said on Saturday.

So are these the canceled days off people or the canceled cancellations from today? Because we know for a fact that pulling 600 officers from anywhere but the RDO groups is an impossibility. That means HQ people mainly.

Then J-Fled is fluffing for Shortshanks, who seems to be mysteriously silent:

• Chicago's top cop on Friday sought to reassure the public that his force could maintain order at the Taste of Chicago over the weekend, a day after three people were stabbed near the festival.

  "For the first six days this has been a terrific event," said Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis. "Last night things got a little bit out of hand, and we were able to quickly bring it back into line."

  Sources said Weis plans to beef up the police presence during the afternoon shift Sunday, the last day of the Taste, and for the fireworks on the lake. The sources said all officers who normally work that shift -- including some who had been scheduled to have the day off -- will be working and in uniform, including some plain-clothes detectives. Police spokesman Roderick Drew would only say that there will be "additional resources . . . throughout the city.''

The guy under the bus is always the last to know. Anyone else getting that vibe?

And does anyone have the numbers so far for shootings/killings? The over/under was 40 shot/7 dead and we heard its right on pace. Vegas didn't consider stabbings though.

You See This? This is a Contract

Does everyone remember when J-Fled came to town? He was just a little J-Fed then, but he didn't hesitate in making some serious errors.

First, he dismissed a while bunch of exempts. He told them their services weren't needed any more. So the exempts said, "OK, where do we go tomorrow?" J-Fled was amazed to find out that there was such a thing as "career service rank" that the exempts had to be returned to so they could continue to be the police.

Then there were the times when he and his contract-ignorant staff issued orders and directives that had to be rescinded days later when it was explained that there was a contract in effect that forbade certain things without speaking to the FOP.

Now, as Shaved points out in a post, the mere fact that the Department called people at home on their off hours and canceled their days off, then recalled a bunch of them and canceled the cancellations, entitles you to fill out a Time Due slip for OT. The city will probably end up fighting this and the FOP should grieve it (and win), but it shows once again, the inability of this department administration to operate within the bounds of the contract. The cost of keeping the peace this weekend is going to be astronomical - and this is an event that had been running smoothly for years, even decades.

Canceled Days-Off Uncanceled?

Can someone wake us up when a real Superintendent arrives and actually takes charge?

Who the hell is running this show? Dugan? He's gone. Ernie? He just walked in. Bea? She's counting paper clips and getting the drink menu together for the Christmas party. Jimmy? Jimmy??? Someone wake up Jimmy. Steve? Steve's busy making excuses for the D unit and alienating everyone he comes into contact with.

Why do we think Special Events is going to take the hit on this disaster? Someone needs to get axed, and deservedly so, but the axe never hits as high as it should.

Hiring Scandal? (UPDATED - no scandal)

Can anyone verify if this is true?

• 20 Year OLD RECRUIT IS CURRENTLY IN THE ACADEMY ?!?!
  
  The CPD has only hired 60 recruits this year as of 16 April 2010. ALL of the recruits are at least 25 years old since it has been several years since the last entrance exam.
  
  HOWEVER, there is one male recruit; J.P. who was only 20 YEARS OLD on 16 April when he started his first day!!!
  He is now 21.
  He would have been 17 when the last exam was given – WAY too young!!!!!
  
  What gives???
  Does anyone have the rundown?
  
  Perhaps POULOS Construction has something to do with it???
  [ poulosconstruction.com ]
  
  A connected construction outfit that does jobs for the corrupt city of SHIT-CAGO??

True or not? Inquiring minds want to know if Shortshanks and J-Fled are circumventing hiring rules again for the clouted ones.

UPDATE: We've been contacted by a number of people, inside and outside of the Department, who relate this is a clerical error and the recruit in question is actually 25 with relatives on the job. They also aren't related to the construction company magnates, which is too bad since we're looking for a decent contractor at the moment.

WBBM Report on Taste

We listen to the news semi-regularly. It pays to be informed. Unfortunately, WBBM doesn't always throw up transcripts of its reports the way some of the TV stations do, so if we hear a good quote or report or whatever, we're usually stuck listening later and trying to transcribe it ourselves.

Today was one of those days. J-Fled had a rambling statement about how everyone should come down to the Taste and not let a few people who couldn't behave mar an otherwise good time. WBBM then stated that over 20 people had been arrested Thursday night in addition to the 3 stabbed.

The report on the stabbings was what really caught our attention. The first stabbing occurred when the victim wandered through a gang fight in the area of State and Jackson. The second and third stabbings happened simultaneously when the other victims walked through the same gang fight - 15 minutes later! So for a quarter-of-an-hour, the Chicago Police Department was unable to muster any significant response that could quell a gang fight in the middle of downtown?

The message J-Fled is inadvertently giving is "The Chicago Police Department CANNOT guarantee your safety in the middle of the largest food festival in Illinois."

The message we're receiving is the Department is run by morons, idiots and fools of assorted calibers, and even if they were capable of "having your back," there's no possible way to do it.

Watch your asses this weekend.

UPDATE: Here's a report of the stabbings.

Tampa Manhunt Continues

Spree killer of two Tampa cops remains on the loose:

• A manhunt for the convicted felon accused of killing two Tampa police officers - and wanted for questioning in three other homicides - spread to north Florida on Thursday.

  Jacksonville sheriff's officers received a tip that Dontae Rashawn Morris, 24, was in a neighborhood in that city, some 200 miles from where he is accused of gunning down two Tampa patrolmen early Tuesday morning.

  Detectives in north Florida said they didn't find Morris, who has eluded capture despite an intense search that involves local, state and federal officers and a $100,000 reward.

We were reminded of an eerily similar crime spree in the mid-1980's by Alton Coleman and a female accomplice that ran through 6 states over nearly a month-and-a-half. It began and ended in Waukegan, Illinois and 7 people lost their lives along with another 13 injured. Coleman was executed in 2002.

What is a bit disturbing about this incident is that while Coleman and his accomplice operated outside of a support system, this time a significant part of the community seems to be sheltering and abetting the hiding of this asshole who was already wanted for three homicides before killing the two Tampa Police Officers.

Prayers for the fallen only in this post.

Days Off Canceled?

Cha-ching!!! Right?

Well, not really:

• FOP Contract Section 11.2 - Compensation for Holidays
  
  Section C
  
  Employees whose regular day off coincides with an established holiday, and who are required to work a regular tour of duty (eight hours) on that holiday, will be credited with twenty (20) hours compensatory time and four (4) hours of compensatory time or additional pay, as the officer elects.

So 20 hours time due plus 4 hours pay OR 24 hours on the books. We don't know if the change in Start Time (+/- two hours) still takes effect, but if you work days and they start you at 1600 hours, there might be an additional Time Due slip to fill out.

This is without a doubt, the worst run event we've seen in years. If the mayor's Special Events people and the Department's Special Events Section paid even the tiniest amount of attention to the past three years, the Taste has been getting progressively worse, yet they aren't detailing nearly enough people to control the crowds. Now the proverbial shit is hitting the fan and the brass is in a panic, canceling days off and sending every warm body they can find to a detail that should be a matter of routine after 20-plus years.

Dismantling a Champion

Not unexpected due to salary cap restrictions but still, painful to watch.

• There's a price for winning and having players who perform exceptionally well. For Blackhawks general manager Stan Bowman, that means clearing salary-cap room for the roughly $4 million in bonus overages.

  [...] Bowman traded restricted free agent Andrew Ladd to the Atlanta Thrashers on Thursday -- the opening day of free agency -- for defenseman Ivan Vishnevskiy and a second-round pick in 2011 and watched unrestricted free agent and popular agitator Adam Burish sign with the Dallas Stars.

  The trade came less than 24 hours after Bowman sent Kris Versteeg to the Toronto Maple Leafs and a week after he traded Dustin Byfuglien, Brent Sopel and Ben Eager to the Thrashers and Colin Fraser to the Edmonton Oilers.

Hopefully, it isn't another 49 years for the next Stanley Cup.