Another Green Light Story

Shortshanks must be settling up some scores before he leaves:

• A $2.5 million pest control contract with a company with zero employees purportedly owned by a 97-year-old woman. It turned out to be a “front” for a firm owned by her son.

  A social service agency that owed $1.35 million in federal payroll taxes and used city grants for unauthorized expenditures, including car loans for personal vehicles, private school tuition and business expenses for the president’s husband.

  A now-bankrupt law firm hired to collect overdue city water bills that allegedly pocketed more than $200,000 that was supposed to be going to the city.

  Inspector General Joe Ferguson is doing his job digging for dirt — and still finding plenty of it, according to his latest quarterly report.

You can't swing a dead cat by the tail in City Hall without hitting twenty or thirty scandals. The surprise here should be he's finding so few rather than many at one time. A quarterly report? seriously?

Changes?

Did any of the rumored changes take effect?

Unless we're going to get one of those rare instances where there's a Saturday announcement for the exempt spots that are opening up due to retirements? It's been a while since we had something like that, but since promotions/changes usually end up coming on a the day before a payday, it wouldn't be unheard of. Supposedly, one promotee has already had her meetings with her supervisory staff.

Ask These Questions

Something the media here will never do:

• Mr. Emanuel, how many pensions are you currently eligible for and how are they funded?
• Mayor Shortshanks, how many pensions are you currently eligible for and which ones are you collecting at the moment? How are they funded?

Then start asking some other of our elected officials to see where the money has gone.

More Waste

Remember, it's the greedy cops and firemen causing all the problems - not this crap:

• She has a driver who makes $94,000 a year and a cleaning lady making $57,000 a year. Is Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas wasting tax dollars?

  In a joint investigation with the Better Government Association, CBS 2 Investigator Pam Zekman has been following these employees and found that their job titles have nothing to do with the work they actually do.

Gee Pammy, finally found some fish in the barrel that is Cook County, eh? We wonder who's giving her the green light.

Beale Moved

About time:

• Far South Side Ald. Anthony Beale (9th) has infuriated rank-and-file police officers by targeting their supplemental pay and proposing more power for “rent-a-cops.” He’s also been a driving force behind an impending plan to reallocate police resources to higher-crime districts.

  On Thursday, Beale lost the perch he has used to push for Police Department reforms in a City Council reorganization that gave him even more power.

  Under a plan crafted by Mayor Daley and unanimously approved by the City Council, Beale will become the new chairman of the City Council’s Transportation Committee, replacing former Ald. Tom Allen (38th), who resigned to become a Circuit Court judge.

Of course, we'd prefer this goof was moved off the public payroll, but we'll take this for now.

Sneed Heats Up the Rumor Mill

Not unexpected, but as usual during a transition:

• Sneed hears Police Supt. Jody Weis, whose tour in office has been pockmarked by brickbats and patches of praise, has been asked to stay on past his contract date.
  
  Translation: Weis, whose contract is up March 1, is expected to stay until May 16, Mayor Daley’s last day in office.
  
  The kicker: Is there some reluctance to put it in writing?

Of course there's some reluctance. If there was a contract, this couldn't happen:

• Obama drama: The hottest rumor floating around the police department: Former deputy police Supt. Mark Shields, a cousin of first lady Michelle Obama — whom Weis promoted and then demoted — would be named interim police superintendent by Mayor Daley until his successor names a replacement. (Shields is now head of security for the Chicago Public Schools.)

And confirmation on Brust leaving:

• Meanwhile, Peter Brust, an FBI veteran hired by Weis as deputy superintendent of professional standards, is leaving for the private sector — and is being replaced by former IAD chief Debra Kirby, who created the department’s domestic violence response — ascending to the second-highest-ranking female in the police department.

And of course, there are the rats in the shadows positioning themselves to continue the Department's pain (from the comment section):

• 3M has been working the circuit and burning up the phone lines trying to secure a top spot on the CPD.
  
  Well, it looks like he may have succeeded. 3M has been rubbing elbows with Rahm who is impressed by the Boy Wonder.
  
  There are rumors of some imminent moves. If Roussell and Ray Ray move up then we will know 3M is running the ship.

It sure looks like Rahm is writing off the police vote if this is happening. We wonder what his internal polls are showing.

Economic Reality

Quinn and Madigan are doing some dirty dancing to avoid the blame of the 67% tax increase just stuck to us all:

• Gov. Pat Quinn on Wednesday defended his plan to sign an income tax hike that's twice as big as he promised during his campaign, saying the state's "fiscal house was burning."
  
  The governor rejected criticism he had double-crossed voters when he cut an 11th-hour deal with fellow Democrats in the General Assembly to raise the personal income tax rate 67 percent.
  
  
• Chicago Democrat Michael Madigan, newly sworn in to his record 14th term as House speaker, blamed the state's deep budget problems on the national economic collapse and the resulting decline in tax revenue.
  
  "When you encountered a 25 percent (drop) in receipts, you have a serious, serious problem to contend with," Madigan said. "Lower receipts, along with overspending over several years, led to yesterday's tax increase vote in the legislature."

Businesses aren't happy:

• While the size of the state corporate income tax hike ultimately was whittled down a bit, Illinois businesses still feel gored, and neighboring states began circling immediately to woo relocations.

  The 11th-hour modification "is a joke," said Ty Fahner, president of the Civic Committee of the Commercial Club of Chicago. "It's like saying I'm going to hit you hard, and now I'm going to hit you a little. I believe it's disingenuous and it puts Illinois in a terrible spot in terms of creating or keeping jobs here."

And neighboring states are ready to move in and destroy the job market here:

• Ben Smith reports on this statement from Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, a neighboring state of Illinois:

  Wisconsin is open for business. In these challenging economic times while Illinois is raising taxes, we are lowering them. On my first day in office I called a special session of the legislature, not in order to raise taxes, but to open Wisconsin for business. Already the legislature is taking up bills to provide tax relief to small businesses, to create a job-friendly legal environment, to lessen the regulations that stifle growth and to expand tax credits for companies that relocate here and grow here. Years ago Wisconsin had a tourism advertising campaign targeted to Illinois with the motto, ‘Escape to Wisconsin.’ Today we renew that call to Illinois businesses, ‘Escape to Wisconsin.’ You are welcome here. Our talented workforce stands ready to help you grow and prosper.

Think it can't happen? It already has elsewhere:

• Last year, voters in Oregon voted to raise taxes on the highest income earners in the state, giving Oregon the highest tax rates of any state in the nation. It hasn't worked out too well for Oregonians, according to the Wall Street Journal:

  In 2009 the state legislature raised the tax rate to 10.8% on joint-filer income of between $250,000 and $500,000, and to 11% on income above $500,000. Only New York City’s rate is higher. Oregon’s liberal voters ratified the tax increase on individuals and another on businesses in January of this year, no doubt feeling good about their “shared sacrifice.”

  Congratulations. Instead of $180 million collected last year from the new tax, the state received $130 million. The Eugene Register-Guard newspaper reports that after the tax was raised “income tax and other revenue collections began plunging so steeply that any gains from the two measures seemed trivial.”

  One reason revenues are so low is that about one-quarter of the rich tax filers seem to have gone missing. The state expected 38,000 Oregonians to pay the higher tax, but only 28,000 did.

Those with the means to do so will leave Illinois. Those companies able to will move out. Illinois has committed itself to an economic death spiral and the only questions are at what point will it crash and how bad will it be?

Emanuel Wants It All

And he's telling everyone up front he's going to do it:

• In contrast to his main rivals in the mayor’s race, Rahm Emanuel has told labor leaders that he favors reducing pension benefits for the city’s existing work force and not just for new hires.

  Although Mr. Emanuel has not yet publicly detailed his plan to confront the city’s perennial budget deficits and the severely underfinanced employee pension funds, he told union officials in a private meeting on Dec. 15 that he thought it could be necessary to cut the pensions of all employees, said people who attended the meeting.

• “The sticking issue for all of us is the pension issue,” said a labor activist who attended the meeting with Mr. Emanuel. “I can’t tell my members we are going to support a guy who is going to cut your pensions.”

  The labor leader and others who attended the meeting said they did not want to be identified for fear that Mr. Emanuel would retaliate if he were elected.

At least Rahm is fitting right into the "benevolent dictator" mold that Shortshanks perfected so well.

Crime Still Down

Except where it's up against police officers:

• Police took an alleged gunman into custody Wednesday night after they said he fired shots at officers in the West Pullman neighborhood on the South Side.
  
  No one was wounded during the shooting about 9 p.m. in the 12000 block of South State Street, said Police News Affairs [...].
  
  There was no immediate information available about the circumstances behind the shooting, or whether the police fired back at the suspect...

This is something like the fifth attack against police so far this year so we're averaging an incident every other day or so. But hey, everything is just fine.

More Freebies

"Free lunch;" " free breakfast;" "free health care;"

• Chicago Public School students who have never had an eye exam or whose teachers suspect they have vision problems can now receive free vision screening at a new clinic run by the Illinois Eye Institute.

  By making vision care accessible to thousands of CPS students who need it, organizers hope to improve students’ academic performance.

Sure. We've thrown billions of dollars at the schools over our adult tax-paying lives and we've seen pretty much zero improvement in test scores during that time (we've only seen a lowering of standards in an effort to "boost" performance). Might as well have the government pick up the tab once again.

Won't somebody think of the children??!!

No Vacancy

Really nice:

• WBBM Newsradio 780 has learned that the cooler at the Cook County morgue is so crowded right now, bodies are doubled-up on some of the trays.

  Why are there so many bodies?

  “We had this huge upswing in deaths right at the end of the year, and with the holidays being on Saturdays, it really created a backlog because the funeral directors weren’t coming in,” Cook County Medical Examiner Dr. Nancy Jones tells WBBM Newsradio

• “The cooler really isn’t in bad shape right now,” Jones said. “We do have a fair number of bodies, but it has had more bodies in it at other times.”

  Jones says in some cases, bodies are doubled up on one tray.

  “My rule is, if you have two bodies on a tray, you have to have two thin bodies,” Jones says. “We’ve been doubling people up for decades.”

Sounds like poor planning and poor management from this end.

Thomas Maroney Esq.

We get e-mails. Sometimes we get really stupid e-mails. And once in a great while, we get a really stupid e-mail from a lawyer using his Cook County government e-mail address:

• From:"Thomas Maroney (Public Defender)" (thomas.maroney@cookcountyil.gov)
  
  
  To:"sccmaillist@yahoo.com"
  
  You have an awful lot of hate for someone who lives in Mt. Greasewood. Oh, wait that’s redundant.
  

Mount Greasewood? Would that be a slur against those of Mexican descent living in Mount Greenwood? Kind of like the "Garcia Ridge" slams we see every so often? And using a "cookcountyil.gov" e-mail address for a personal attack on an "insignificant" blog exercising their Right to free speech? Tsk tsk tsk counselor.

Anyone have Preckwinkle's office number? This wouldn't appear to be an employee she wants representing Cook County government on the time clock.

And is there a Mexican Anti-Defamation League that might want to get involved in this? Does anyone know where we can file a complaint?

How about a Mount Greenwood Anti-Defamation League?

UPDATE: We aren't a lawyer, a doctor or a priest and no one asked for confidentiality in this instance. We published the e-mail in its entirety and omitted nothing. The fact that it was sent from a Cook County government e-mail address is just an interesting tidbit aside from the message sent.

Can You Smell the BS?

Anyone else seeing the circular reasoning here?

• Police Supt. Jody Weis is forging ahead with plans to reallocate police resources to higher-crime districts — even though all four top mayoral contenders plan to dump him and one voiced opposition to crime-fighting solutions that “divide the city.”

You'd think an obviously lame-duck leader would just hold off and let the new people step into the breach. But that hasn't happened in Washington DC this past Congressional Session, or Springfield last week or here during J-Fled's last few weeks. It's like one last "f#$% you all" to the people.

• Ald. Anthony Beale (9th), chairman of the City Council’s Police Committee, said he talked to Weis on Monday and the embattled superintendent assured Beale he’s “moving forward” to honor a promise made and broken by at least four of his predecessors.

That means no fallout for Beale - he can just blame the guy who's leaving. Shortshanks is already out of the electoral picture, so no trouble there. And who cares what J-Fled is doing? He got bought off 3 years ago for almost a million bucks.

• “This is the right thing to do. It hasn’t been done in over 30 years. Moving these resources around will give communities that need them the most a better quality of life and bring down crime numbers across the entire city,” Beale said.

  “The superintendent is putting the resources where they’re needed to win the battle. Even if he’s out, this is something that needs to stay in place and we need to re-evaluate it on a yearly basis. And if it’s working, it will be virtually impossible for any mayor to undo.”

All we've seen over the past 30 years is resources being poured into these communities in the forms of school money, police resources, new civic buildings, street & electrical and sewer upgrades. And it's done exactly zip. And now, in an era of greatly reduced assets, the powers-that-be are going to strip the quiet neighborhoods of the thing that helps keep them "quiet." How does that make sense?

And now, Beale crowning achievement in bullshit:

• All four top mayoral contenders are vowing to dump Weis to reverse rock-bottom morale among the rank-and-file. Emanuel pointed to a “culture of preventive policing” under Weis where officers are “not doing their job because they don’t think anybody has their back.”

  Beale fired back in defense of the embattled superintendent.

  “For the life of me, I can’t understand why everyone is beating up on the superintendent when crime is at a 40-year low. They should be commending him and encouraging him to do more to fight crime and be creative,” Beale said.

Wait a minute - crime at 40 year lows? Then why the fuck are we moving police officers? If everything is at 40 year lows and we're on the verge of getting our third crime reduction ribbon in 4 years, maybe everything is working properly. There isn't a need to re-invent the wheel if everything is hunky-dory.

So which lie is the one to defend? Everything is fine and looking good after 40 years? Or J-Fled & Co. have been lying for 3 years with bullshit statistics and crime re-classification, so we're going to strip police protection from the tax payers and give it to the leeches? You can't have it both ways - that is, unless the media lets you get away with it. Again.

Again?

Disturbing:

• Found out today that Streets and Sanitation snow removal is up to their old tricks again. Remember last year when Sgt. Haymaker was killed in a traffic accident and there was some blame about Streets and Sanitation being ordered to stop salting. Well, today's snow response had the same order given. There was an order given about 2 hours ago to stop salting. Proves even more that the city does not care about safety, only the bottom dollar. What ever happened to the investigation into Sgt. Haymaker's death? chirp....chirp.

Whatever did happen to that investigation? We noticed that more than a few main thoroughfares we're less than ideally plowed and salted today and the snow coming down didn't seem like the type to actually overwhelm plowing efforts.

If an order was given to slow or cease salting or to lift plow blades, would we ever find out? We know all CPD radio transmissions are archived for a set period of time. Does anyone know if the Streets and San radio chatter is even saved at all?

Too many questions.

Welcome to Our World

This sounds familiar:

• The president of the Dallas Police Association, Glenn White, is concerned that new information officers have to provide on traffic tickets could come back and haunt them.

  The Dallas Police Department is now requiring officers to answer a question on the traffic ticket that reads “Race known prior to stop?” The patrol officer has to check yes or no when he stops the traffic violator.

  Dallas police spokesman LT. C.L Williams says, “New state law requires us to collect the information. We have no idea how the state plans to use it.” According to Williams, the information is not being collected to use against the patrol officers. The DPA president isn’t convinced.

  White recalls, “Eight years ago the department spent 3 million dollars on GPS systems for the squad cars. The police chief at the time said the GPS was for the safety of the officers and would not be used against the officers. Eventually they started using it to discipline officers.”

Oh yeah, we've were told the same thing about the Traffic Stop Safety Study Statistical Silliness Something Something Something (TSSSSSSSS) how many years ago? The Obama cards. Four years ago now? The state collected all this data, and when it showed that police stop vehicles for the infraction, not for the driver, they decided to extend the TSSSSSSSS until such time as they could prove racial profiling existed where none could be found.

We were also been told the GPS is for safety, so we can probably assume it will go exactly the way it's currently going in Dallas.

Crash Injures Two Cops

And someone ends up dead:

• A young father of nine was killed early today when the car he was driving collided with a police SUV responding to a call on the South Side, Chicago police said.

  Shawn Garrett, 25, of Chicago, was pronounced dead about 2:50 a.m. at Stroger Hospital.

  Police said two officers were traveling southbound in an SUV with its emergency signals activated about 2 a.m. on South Indiana Avenue. According to police, Garrett's car ran a red light while eastbound on East 69th Street and collided with the police car before crashing into a pole. Both officers were treated and released, but two passengers in Garrett's car were taken to different hospitals in critical condition, police said.

Father of nine? At age 25?

Runs a red light and gets clipped by officers responding to an emergency call?

And his rap sheet? Whoa nellie.

Of course, all this means that the comments at BreakingNews.com are guaranteed to raise your blood pressure a few notches.

Best wishes to the injured officers.

Fred Rice Passes Away

After a lengthy battle with cancer:

• Former Chicago Police Superintendent Fred Rice, the first African-American to hold the post, has passed away, the department said tonight. He was 84.

  Rice's 32-year police career began in 1955 with the now-defunct Chicago Park District force and culminated with his serving as police superintendent of the Chicago Police Department from 1983 to 1987.

  Family members say he succumbed this afternoon to lung cancer after a lengthy battle.

Anti-Gun Crowd Drooling

What a bunch of opportunistic morons. First up, Chicago's Moron-in Chief:

• Mayor Richard Daley expressed sadness and outrage in the wake of the Arizona shooting rampage, and said the incident is yet more evidence that stronger gun control is needed.
  
  [...]"It isn't what your beliefs are, it's basically access to guns . . . we have a killing machine going on because of guns," he said.

And a whole series of anti-gunners jump in:

• One of the fiercest gun-control advocates in Congress, Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-N.Y.), pounced on the shooting massacre in Tucson Sunday, promising to introduce legislation as soon as Monday targeting the high-capacity ammunition the gunman used.

• Another vocal supporter for gun control, Illinois Rep. Mike Quigley, told POLITICO that he hopes “something good” can come from the Arizona tragedy – perhaps discussion on a new assault weapon ban, sales at gun shows and tracing measures.

Never letting a crisis go to waste - again. But the gun was purchased legally. It wasn't an assault weapon. And it looks like everyone passed the buck on the shooter's mental state, allowing him to legally purchase and own a gun:

• In 2008 President George W. Bush signed a law expanding the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, which registered gun dealers use, to include more comprehensive reporting of mental health records. Under the current law, it is illegal for anyone who has been “adjudicated as a mental defective or committed to a mental institution” to purchase a firearm, according to the FBI’s website.

  However, Loughner did not fall into either of those categories, according to Josh Horwitz, executive director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence.

So no one knew he was disturbed, no one forced him to seek medical care, therefore no background check could have stopped him before he managed to get his hands on a gun. And the lead investigator, the sheriff of Pima County, who has been the most vocal partisan of blaming the Right for this tragedy, seems to have dropped the ball worst of all:

• Jared Loughner has been making death threats by phone to many people in Pima County including staff of Pima Community College, radio personalities and local bloggers. When Pima County Sheriff’s Office was informed, his deputies assured the victims that he was being well managed by the mental health system. It was also suggested that further pressing of charges would be unnecessary and probably cause more problems than it solved as Jared Loughner has a family member that works for Pima County...

  Every victim of his threats previously must also be wondering if this tragedy could have been prevented if they had been more aggressive in pursuing charges against Mr. Loughner. Perhaps with a felony conviction he would never have been able to lawfully by the Glock 9mm Model 19 that he used to strike down the lives of six people and decimate 14 more..,,

  The Pima County Sheriff’s Department was aware of his violent nature and they failed to act appropriately. This tragedy leads right back to Sheriff Dupnik and all the spin in the world is not going to change that fact.

Because only a Tea Party member could force a democratic sheriff to ignore numerous death threats against public officials in his jurisdiction because the offender had relatives on the Pima County payroll.

Eek! Snow!!!

It's still January, isn't it?

• The National Weather Service has issued a hazardous weather advisory as a storm heads toward Chicago that could dump as much as 4 inches of snow here by Tuesday -- possibly gumming up the evening rush hour.
  
  The snow is expected to hit northwest and west central Illinois this evening, then spread east reaching most of northern Illinois and Indiana by Tuesday morning, the weather service predicted.
  
  Areas to the south are expected to be hardest hit, but the Chicago area could see 2-4 inches before it's over late Tuesday, according to weather service meteorologist Kevin Birk said.
  
  "It could be a little dicey for the evening commute Tuesday," he said.

Dicey? It's January. It snows here all winter. Geez.

Another Scandal?

Par for the course:

• Overheard at City Hall - Inspector General's office is asking City's Human Resources for all paperwork turned in regarding promotion of Legal Officers by CPD. There is an allegation that your Chief of Staff strong armed the process to get his friend promoted over more qualified candidates Also an allegation that his friend once promoted did no legal work

We're wondering if this has anything to do with a former sergeant our regular readers are familiar with. It seems the head of the "Policy Group" was being paid as a "Legal Officer" at the direction of Masters Masters Masters. The head of Legal Affairs (DK) flipped when she found out because her office is swamped, but they won't assign an actual Legal Officer there, so she assigned the sergeant all the separation cases for review.

Guess what happened?

If you guessed that all the separation cases sat untouched in a file cabinet for almost a year, you'd be on the right track. No one had any idea where the cases had disappeared to until recently. And while between 20 and 30 officers sat at callback waiting for the resolution of their cases, the head of the Policy Group got a "meri-clout-orious" appointment to Lieutenant. He even managed to avoid the usual investigation that might have disqualified him from his current assignment (no open or sustained CR's) once they found the missing case files - guess who quashed that Initiation Report?

This is just another example of how the Machine works for the clouted individuals:

• Extra pay and a car for a position they never had any intention of actually performing the duties of;
• causing a shortage in another arm of the Department making everyone else there shoulder the load;
• waiting for a phone call to come through;
• then shifting over to a ready-made slot where they'll probably end up driving a unit into the ground

And here, people were thinking three years ago how an outsider might have had a chance to shake things up, but it turns out it's just business as usual.

And you coppers at Call Back who were wondering about the status of your cases? This ties in directly with J-Fled's supposed intention of terminating as many people on the "thirty pending" list as possible before he leaves to burnish his "reformer" credentials.

Another Cop Attacked

Though from the reports, it looks like a drunk that got tossed out of a bar just happened to pick on someone who was an off-duty cop:

• A south suburban man was charged with trying to grab away a pistol from the hands of an off-duty Chicago police officer in the Wrigleyville neighborhood over the weekend.

  The officer's Glock 21SF pistol fired during the struggle, but no one was struck, police said.

  William Miles, 50, of the 300 block of University Avenue in Glenwood, was charged with one count of attempting to disarm a police officer, police said.

• Miles had been put out of a nearby business and began shouting at the passing off-duty officer without any provocation, police spokesman Veejay Zala said.

  The altercation between the two escalated when Miles tried reaching into the cop's jacket, leading the officer to announce his office and pull his weapon, according to Zala and court records.

  When the victim identified himself as a police officer, Miles replied, "I don't care if you're (expletive) police, I'll ice your (expletive)," court records said.

The Officer suffered minor injuries.

UPDATE: Seems the altar boy has quite the rap sheet - 131 arrests. And to the unpublished moron, the cop was just walking down the street when the bar bounces tossed jagoff from the building. Jagoff proceeded to attack the first passer by since the bouncers had just handed him his lunch.

This Isn't Good

It's always a safe bet to do exactly the opposite of anything Luis Gutierrez does:

• Congressman Luis Gutierrez called Gery Chico “a neighborhood guy with neighborhood values” as he threw his support behind the mayoral hopeful at a press conference Sunday at the National Museum of Mexican Art in the Pilsen neighborhood.

  More than once Gutierrez invoked the late Chicago Mayor Harold Washington in explaining why he opted to endorse Chico. “I worked hard to elect Harold Washington, and I see the same qualities in Gery” said Gutierrez.

  [...] Chico spoke briefly after Gutierrez, saying he would combat crime in Chicago by adding 2,000 police officers, make the education system better, offer kids more after-school options and create more jobs. Mayoral candidate Rahm Emanuel earlier told the Sun-Times he would boost the police force by 1,000 officers — part of a plan he outlined at an event Sunday.

Harold was a nice guy to the police. Two-thousand cops would go a long way toward rectifying the on-going manpower shortages. But Luis and his terrorist supporting ways put a large damper on anything he endorses.

Sun Times Bullshit

What a pile of crap that rag has become:

• The safe observation for us to make now — you will hear it from others all week — is that the angry and irresponsible talk that might lead an unhinged person to pick up a gun is common across the political landscape, from right to left.
  
  But that simply is not true.
  
  Overwhelmingly today, the fear-mongering and demonizing flow from the right, aided and abetted by cable TV and talk-radio hosts. They may represent only the irresponsible fringe of conservatism in America, but they are drowning out the thoughtful voices of the vast majority of conservatives.

Gee, and all those protesters saying "We support our troops when they kill their leaders"? The near endless "Bushitler" posters? The stamps showing George Bush with a gun to his head being passed off as "art"? Or the supposed studies about how Conservatives are less intelligent and somehow subhuman for holding their own beliefs?

Well, that's just free speech you know.

If you're a Conservative or a Republican, you just better lie back, shut up and take all the filth the left and the media is piling on you. You're opinions are misguided tripe and your beliefs mean nothing. You must listen to your betters and understand it's all for the children and your own good and you better stop clinging to your god and your guns.

The Sun Times can't go under soon enough to suit us.

Highest Gas Prices

Along with #1 in corruption, #1 in unlivable cities, now Chicago has the highest gas prices in the nation:

• The twice-monthly Lundberg Survey has found the price of regular gasoline has risen about nine cents a gallon over three weeks to $3.08.
  
  The price of mid-grade gasoline is now $3.22 a gallon and premium is $3.33 a gallon, analyst Trilby Lundberg said Sunday. The U.S. average for diesel was $3.36, up 7.18 cents.
  
  Lundberg says the highest gas price in the country was recorded in Chicago at $3.35 a gallon. The low, $2.73, was in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Some economists are predicting $4 a gallon before summer.

Brust Gone?

Rumor that he put in his papers to leave 15 January. Can anyone confirm?

Of the evil that has been visited upon the Chicago Police Department, Brust was easily among the top three, the others being Masters Masters Masters and J-Fled himself. A completely colorless and personality deficient individual, his only purpose seemed to be to make everyone at HQ miserable and nit-pick rule violations.

We even have it from one of our HQ informants (a gold star no less) that none other than J-Fled himself stated that one of his biggest mistakes was bringing Brust along to Chicago, probably because so many of Brust's missteps ended up costing J-Fled necessary support that may have made his tenure easier.

Nepotism and Scandal?

That's silly! Silly I tell you! Haven't I been scrutined enough?

• Mayor Richard Daley on Saturday would not discuss his son's former involvement with a sewer firm whose co-owner was indicted by a federal grand jury last week on charges he took part in a scheme to garner city contracts by using a minority-owned business as a front.

  Patrick Daley and the mayor's nephew, Robert Vanecko, shared a 4 percent ownership stake in Municipal Sewer Services. Sources have said the company was one of two unnamed firms in the indictment that allegedly used Brunt Bros. Transfer Inc., a minority-owned business, as a "pass-through" to get more than $3 million in city work.

This brings to mind some of the biggest scandals that have never been adequately covered by the media in the past few decades. These "pass-through" contracts are merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg. So-called "set-asides" and "approved vendor" contracts make up so much waste in Chicago, it accounts for billions of dollars that is placed on taxpayers' backs simply to make connected firms rich.

An example - The City needs to buy something - 10,000 feet of rope for Streets, dog food for the Canine Unit, 1,000 spools of wire for the Bureau of Electricity, whatever. The City won't just go to Wal-Mart to get 100 foot bundles of rope, call Purina to get a few tons of dog food, or shop at Home Depot for insulated copper wire, even though any of those choices would save taxpayers hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars.

The city puts these things out for bid. And not just any bid, but a bid from "approved vendors." The vendors don't have to be manufacturers or even retailers. They just have to have an office somewhere with a phone and a mailbox, sometimes not even that. There are many of these "vendors" in existence. If you spend the time looking around city budgets and contract lists on line, you can find them here and there.

These vendors put in bids for whatever the request is (rope, dog food, wire) and the lowest bidder wins the contract. There might be a mechanism in place to make sure that certain vendors don't hog all the business and the pie is divided somewhat "fairly" in regard to which way the political winds are blowing. And here's the best part - the vendor goes to Wal-Mart, Purina or Home Depot, buys the material the city could have gotten at a bulk rate discount and delivers it after tacking on their fee.

Ta-da! This is how Outfit-connected companies manage to land all sorts of city business. The Duffs used "minority" vendors to keep their fingers in the pie. City Hall keeps vendors on speed dial for all sorts of these political rewards. Connected individuals of all types pass themselves off as legit businesses when all they do is add another layer to the costs borne by taxpayers.

That is what Patrick Daley and Robert Venecko were doing and that is what the casino investment group will be made up of once it all comes to fruition.

Always Classy

This from a comment yesterday:

• Last night the Apostolic Church held an appreciation ceremony for police and fire. It was a nice ceremony and the members of the congregation showed their appreciation for the job we as police officers do.
  
  There was a large number of exempts that attended including the Superintendent. All except J-Fed were in uniform. J-Fed decided that the proper attire for a recognition ceremony in church was blue jeans, a mock turtleneck and the new police fleece uniform jacket.
  
  This was a slap in the face to the members of the church who went out of there way to make everyone there feel welcome and appreciated.
  
  As soon as the service was over J-Fed RAN for the exit! He didn't stop to thank anyone from the church for their hospitality nor did he thank the members of CPD for attending.
  
  Dozens from the congregation commented about the attire and quick departure of the Superintendent.
  
  March 1st can't come quick enough!!!

So he wears just a portion of the uniform - the fleece? With or without patches? This guy is seriously out-of-touch. Either have the stones to wear the uniform - even if you haven't earned it and your merest touch is an anathema to everything it represents - or wear a suit-and-tie as you represent the Department. Jeans, a glorified t-shirt and the uniform fleece? In church? For a recognition ceremony after one of the most horrible years in recent memory for line-of-duty deaths? Who the hell is dressing this guy, Masters Masters, Masters?

Arizona Assassin is a LEFTIST

In case anyone has been living under a rock today - and judging by at least half-a-dozen comments, there were a few, the tragedy in Arizona Saturday was perpetrated by a member of the left wing hate machine, not a right wing extremist.

• His youtube.com account contains "favorite" videos of flag burning;
• His favorite books are listed as the Communist Manifesto by Marx (left wing) and Hitler's Mein Kampf (left wing);
• He is a self described atheist and hates the Constitution;
  
• His former classmates describe him as a "dope head" and "extremely liberal;"

And yet the lib-tards are insisting Tea Party activists must have had something to do with this:

• Krugman in the New York Times;
• Jane Fonda on twitter;
• AZ State Rep Linda Lopez (D);
• the local sheriff who promised not to enforce immigration law;
  
• The Daily Kos has scrubbed its entire website of articles published saying Representative Gifford was "dead to us" because she voted against the continuation of Pelosi as leader of the democrats;

We have had our regular troll(s) blaming everyone on the right, call us Tea Party members, baby-murderers, klansmen, Beck/O'Reilly/Rush supporters, etc. It gets tedious and boring but we guess tiny brained asshats have to find their entertainment where they can, even if it never sees the light of day. In any event, remember, it was a mentally unstable left-wing nut job slaughtering people in Arizona. Any other interpretation is bullshit.

Dude, Where's Your Head?

We're surprised this isn't happening more on this side of the border (yes, we know it has here and there):

• ACAPULCO, Mexico — Police found the bodies of 15 slain men, 14 of them headless, on a street outside a shopping center in the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco on Saturday.

  Police in the southern state of Guerrero, where Acapulco is located, said handwritten signs were left with the bodies, a common calling card of Mexico’s cartels.

  Acapulco has seen bloody turf battles between drug gangs in recent years.

  The bodies were found in an area not frequented by tourists. The victims all appeared to be in their 20s.

Thank goodness the cartels are thinking of the tourists.

Light Posting

Enjoying a weekend away.

Open post for now.

Citizen & Dog Save Victim

A good story about someone getting involved:

• A man walking his Great Dane, Scooby, rescued a 14-year-old girl who was being attacked in the Logan Square neighborhood Thursday afternoon and then held the attacker at bay until police arrived.

  The alleged attacker, Larry E. Smith, 28, of the 3700 block of South Wells, was ordered held on $200,000 bond on Friday.

  The attack happened at 4:44 p.m. in the 2800 block of North Whipple Street, according to Shakespeare District police Capt. Marc Buslik.

Wait a second - where did this happen?

• 2800 block of North Whipple Street

And where was the offender from?

• 3700 block of South Wells

Hmmm. We certainly hope 014 isn't one of those north side districts that J-Fled is going to strip the police protection from so he can send it to the south side. It already seems that there aren't enough police as it is seeing as how citizens have to hope someone is out walking their dog so they don't get raped or brutalized.

Maybe we ought to have someone look at Concealed Carry again.

What's This Crap?

Did anyone have any idea that there was even this policy in place?

• Former Gov. George Ryan was allowed to leave his prison cell and visit his ailing wife in her hospital for two hours Wednesday evening, prosecutors said today in a motion in which they opposed his release on bail.
  
  The visit came on the same day Ryan's lawyers had filed a bail motion for Ryan. In making that motion, they said Lura Lynn Ryan had only weeks to live.
  
  The disclosure of the visit came in a court filing by prosecutors responding to Ryan's motion.
  
  
• "Thus, through normal prison procedures, Ryan has been able to visit with his wife," the government said. "The district court correctly determined that Ryan should not receive treatment that other defendants would not receive based on his wife's medical condition."

Since he got his visit, now he can serve the rest of his time without Thompson braying to the media and the courts about how unfair life is for Ryan.

Another Police Shooting

And again the officers are not seriously hurt:

• Police shot and killed a man early Friday on the South Side after he dragged one officer with a car and attempted to run over another. A passenger in the car was taken into custody.

  At 1:33 a.m. in the 1100 block of West Marquette Road, Englewood District officers saw a car that matched the description of one involved in an earlier shooting, according to a police News Affairs release.

  The officers pulled the car over and ordered the driver and a passenger to get out, the release said. The passenger exited the car when the driver put the car in reverse.

  The car then struck and began to drag one of the officers before it hit a light pole, the release said. The driver then started moving the car forward in an attempt to strike another officer, who -- in fear for his life -- opened fire, fatally wounding the driver.

Good job by all involved. Best wishes to the injured Officer.

J-Fled Must Go

Well, it's just about unanimous - and now residency is in play?

• Police Supt. Jody Weis is a goner no matter who is elected mayor, but only Gery Chico and Carol Moseley Braun are committed to choosing a replacement from within the ranks of the Chicago Police Department.

  Miguel del Valle wants ten years to fill more than 1,100 police vacancies. Rahm Emanuel and Chico are open to letting police officers live outside the city, but Braun and del Valle want to keep the residency rule.

  All four major candidates for mayor are vying for the endorsement of the Fraternal Order of Police, which has been at loggerheads with Mayor Daley and Weis.

  Their written responses to an FOP questionnaire will not only help determine who gets the nod. The answers provide a window into their approach to public safety issues.

We hope that everyone who isn't currently registered to vote is rectifying that situation immediately. This is going to be one of the, if not THE most important local election in over two decades. Pardon our saying so, but if you don't vote, don't bitch about how things turn out. We have a chance to elect more than a few of our own to the City Council and other offices.

Thank You Sir, May We Have Another?

Remember that 2% raise? Guess what's about to be wiped out by Quinn, Madigan and the lib-tards in Springfield?

• Gov. Pat Quinn and top Democrats are pressing forward on a major income-tax increase and a $1-a-pack hike in cigarette taxes.
  
  The personal income tax rate would rise from 3 percent to 5.25 percent, Senate President John Cullerton said this evening. The amount tracks with what the Tribune reported today. After four years, it would fall to 3.75 percent, he said.
  
  The corporate tax rate on businesses would rise from 4.8 percent to 8.4 percent.

Get ready for corporate employers to flee the state in droves, saddling everyone else with the "projected" revenue streams. And then there's this tidbit:

• The plan also would provide $325 in property tax credits this year and a direct check to taxpayers in subsequent years.

So they're taking more money from us, then refunding it back to us? And we're supposed to be grateful for this why? Why not just stop taking our money and mailing it to the leeches?

And if we remember, Quinn campaigned on raising the income tax from 3% to 4.5% and still won by a narrow margin. Now he's going to raise it to 5.25%? We can't wait to get the hell out of this state.

Death Penalty on the Ropes

Let's see, no fear of the courts, no fear of prison, now no fear of the ultimate sanction:

• The Illinois House voted narrowly to abolish the death penalty Thursday, marking the first time either legislative chamber has moved to end executions since the death penalty was reinstated in 1977. The measure passed 60-54 and now moves to Senate.

You just know Quinn couldn't bear to execute what could be a potential democratic voter.

Good Job

Undercover cop eyeballs what turns out to be a homicide in progress:

• An Uptown man opened fire on two men in a van, killing one and wounding the other, all while an undercover Chicago police officer investigating drug activity was watching from a nearby vehicle, authorities said today.

  Brayant Rogers, 27, was ordered held without bond in the early Tuesday murder of Brian Green, 23. Rogers has a previous conviction for attempted murder, prosecutors said.

  Rogers approached a van in the 4500 block of North Magnolia Avenue at about 12:30 p.m. Tuesday and shot both occupants, fatally wounding Brian Green in the chest and injuring an undisclosed man in his left index finger, Assistant State's Attorney [...] said.

  The undercover officer called for backup and chased Rogers to his home in the 4400 block of Malden Avenue, located about a block away from the shooting scene...

Wait a minute.... "a previous conviction for attempted murder"? Another upstanding citizen framed by the police and due to spend the rest of his life behind bars - that is until Quinn releases him at some point in the near future.

Nice job Officer.

CAPS Dead - Again?

The zombie that will not die. Ever:

• Starting this month the Chicago Police Department will no longer conduct monthly CAPS meetings.

  “Chicago’s Alternative Policing Strategies” meetings, which emphasize face-to-face contact between the actual officers from each beat and local residents, have been moved to quarterly and bi-monthly schedules, depending on police district.

  The changes are a result of a city-wide shift of officers from administrative to on-the-street duties.

And a result of shrinking attendance, limited impact, fading revenue sources and who knows what else. A "mercy flush" for CAPS would be in order ASAP.

Rebuilding the J-Fled Brand

Someone must be looking to burnish the old resume for a future job hunt:

• Chicago Police Superintendent Jody Weis, suddenly a target of all the leading candidates in the city's mayoral race, likely has just a few months left as top cop in the nation's third-largest city. But he's confident he accomplished what he set out to do when he took the job nearly three years ago.

  The embattled police chief defended his tenure last week in a year-end interview with The Associated Press, as two mayoral contenders were calling for his replacement. On Tuesday, two more candidates — former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and City Clerk Miguel del Valle — said they too would not renew his contract when it expires in March.

  Also among those lining up against Weis are some rank-and-file officers who've viewed the former FBI agent as an outsider. The chief's critics cite low morale in the police force and community frustration with both crime and the reduced number of officers deployed on the streets because of budget cuts.

But statistics wouldn't lie, would they?

And the superintendent wouldn't conspire to hide the results of a morale survey he commissioned after publicly stating he'd resign if he was the cause of low morale, would he?

And a string of politically connected embarrassments

• like drugs and guns found in your #3 exempts condo;
• a lying sexual harasser being denied employment elsewhere and being re-promoted over numerous objections (but then, birds of a feather and all that);
• and not being able to appoint your own chief of staff but being saddled with another political pick who ran a complete end-around state firearm qualification processes

That wouldn't have anything to do with the perception that he isn't really in charge of jack shit?

Burke Security

Nice to be unaccountable to anyone, even the taxpayer watchdog groups:

• The Better Government Association filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Chicago Police Department alleging that the agency wrongfully denied the nonprofit's Freedom of Information Act request for records related to Ald. Edward Burke's security detail.

  The organization filed the FOIA request in August, requesting the names of the officers assigned to Burke and their titles, salaries, time sheets, reports and expenses. In a September response, the police department called the request "unduly burdensome."

  On Nov. 4, 2010, the Better Government Association sent a revised request to the Chicago Police Department, asking for the total amount that the agency spent on Burke's security detail in 2009, the total number of officers assigned to Burke in 2009, and the rank and security of all of those officers. Burke represents the 14th ward.

  The agency denied the request on Nov. 15, 2010, asserting that the requested disclosures "would defeat the purpose of the security by providing potential threats with information that could then be used to subvert the Department's efforts to effectively provide protection."
  
  The Chicago Police Department also said in its letter to the Better Government Association that it does not keep expense or travel records related to the security detail and referred the group to the alderman's office for that information.

The Department doesn't keep track of anything regarding taking care of the powerful evidently. But just let there be any sort of disaster, man-made or negligence related, and out come the A&A sheets and lists of vehicles assigned to clean up the mess and the Finance Division is sending out bills to private companies or even the Federal Government for expenses related to the event.

If It Looks Like a Duck....

Something rotten in Denmark again:

• Navy Pier will be leased to a freshly minted nonprofit corporation entrusted to manage and revitalize its operations under a plan announced Wednesday.

  The agency that owns both the pier and McCormick Place, the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority, would retain ownership of the pier, which is billed as the Chicago area’s largest tourist draw. The arrangement would be similar to the nonprofit governance of other institutions on public land, such as Lincoln Park Zoo and the Museum of Science and Industry.

• The pier would be governed by a separate 13-member board of civic leaders, many with deep ties to Mayor Daley. Reilly’s appointees to the board include Nora Daley, the outreach director for the civic group Metropolis 2020 and daughter of the outgoing mayor.

"deep ties" to the outgoing mayor. There's nothing this guy won't do before leaving office.

Another Witch Hunt or Two

You'd think that with crime down and ongoing manpower and redeployment issues, the powers-that-be would be more concerned about maintaining their supposed victories. You'd be mistaken:

• Hey SCC...I work at the credit union on Washington. For the past couple of business days there have been some VIPs (at least so they think) in suits and guns running around here with our bosses. The hub bub has ceased so I decided to start sniffing.
  
  Apparently there was a "breach of security" at one of your west side police stations that the suits were referring to as a "real cause of concern". They were really laying it on thick about needing cooperation from the credit union. Our bosses resisted initially, but eventually after checking with the legalese, decided to let the suits get their paws on what they were out for.
  
  I kept digging and found out what they were after was the digital video feed from one of our ATMs in the lobby of the 11th district. Since those ATMs are relatively new, they actually have impeccable images. Problem is they run on a 30 day loop...meaning if nothing happens for a month, the images are erased. So this "investigation" was time sensitive, hence the rudeness!
  
  But apparently the suits got whatever it is they were looking for. They left after making a few uploads. Im sure it has something to do with the recent photos taken, but my god! Does this department not have better things to do, bigger fish to fry than some copper having a good time at Jfled's expense? Take a joke, man!

Wow. Quite a bit of effort being put forth for what are pretty obviously staged photos meant as a practical joke at some people who are so full of themselves that they have a hard time recognizing humor. A little something called "past practice" virtually guarantees no discipline of any weight is going to come out of this.

Of course, this fits right in with Masters Masters Masters attempted abuse of the CPD's Complaint Register process a few years ago when he was attempting to get Log Numbers on anyone and everyone who even mentioned his name on the blog. And it ties in with his current efforts to rid the social media networks of material critical of himself, J-Fled and the CPD's boneheaded command structure.

We're big fans of the First Amendment. It provides a myriad of protections to those who wish to express themselves. Especially off duty, from the comfort of their own homes, on computers that they bought and paid for, on websites designed specifically for that purpose. In fact, we like it so much, we've devoted quite a bit of our time to developing and maintaining such a place for coppers to blow off steam.

Word from downtown is that J-Fled and Masters (Masters Masters) have stated in the presence of a number of witnesses that their #1 goal before leaving power is exposing the miscreants who run the Second City Cop blog.

We can't imagine that employees of a government agency would utilize Department and government resources along with countless man hours to track down people who publicize items of interest to coppers on what J-Fled himself has called an "insignificant blog." And that's not even mentioning the potential for a rather largish violation of civil liberties guaranteed by the Constitution, liability on the part of those directing the investigation, along with any number of others who were aware of the investigation and did nothing to stop it. We mean, these aren't the days of the Red Squad anymore. The CPD isn't infiltrating protest groups. Former IAD Lieutenant Barb West-Givens isn't running illegal First Amendment surveillance investigations of Department members in some misguided attempt to save her spot - at least she isn't running them anymore. The file makes for interesting reading, or so we've heard.

Anyone want to ask why a government agency is investigating a bunch of hurt feelings?

Multiple Police Shootings

At this time, all officers are OK.

First, south:

• Chicago police shot and wounded a man late Tuesday in the Bronzeville neighborhood.
  
  Police wounded the unidentified man at about 9:43 p.m. in the 4200 block of South Calumet Avenue, police said. He was taken in good condition to Provident Hospital of Cook County, said Chicago Fire Department spokesman [...].
  
  No police were reported injured. Police had no further information.

And a "two-fer" on the west side:

• Two people were shot and critically wounded by Chicago police on the city's West Side tonight, authorities said.

  The shooting occurred at about 9:35 p.m. in the 4400 block of West Roosevelt Road in the city's Lawndale neighborhood, according to police and the Independent Police Review Authority.

  Early reports had police shooting and wounding two offenders. Both were taken in critical condition to Mount Sinai Hospital, said Chicago Fire Department spokesman...

Updates as we can.

UPDATE: All the offenders will survive to offend again. Good shootings Officers.

(post moved from 2344 hours last night to the top as per usual)

Scott Suicide Further Explained

Financial malfeasance on a massive scale along with personal financial ruin after "No-lympic Glory:"

• An independent investigation into spending by Chicago Public Schools' board presidents has uncovered more than $800,000 in questionable expenses in recent years, including thousands spent at lavish restaurants and hotels at a time when teachers and the district's rank-and-file were being asked to cut expenses.

• Thousands of dollars given to local charities and fundraisers before the school board allowed such expenditures.
• $6,080 spent on food and refreshments at Soldier Field for the prep Chicago Football Classic, an expense the report calls "extravagant." Only $900 was spent at the same event the previous year.
• More than $12,000 to host holiday parties at a board official's home in 2006, 2007 and 2008.
• A tab of $5,333 for artwork to decorate an office.
• $3,000 to hire a company to conduct a sweep of board offices for electronic surveillance for eavesdropping devices around the time top officials were subpoenaed as part of a widening federal investigation into admissions at elite city high schools.
• $979 for a one-night stay at a New York hotel for an unspecified business meeting, a bill the report says reflected a "lack of judgment and fiscal responsibility."
• A $272 scarf from the high-end clothier Burberry.

But remember, it's First Responders' pensions that are causing the current financial collapse of Illinois.

Braun's Slow Fade Begins

Gee, it's almost like someone planned it all:

• Chicago mayoral candidate Carol Moseley Braun reported a negative income — $225,908 to the IRS in 2008 — the same year she took out a fourth mortgage on the spacious Hyde Park house she has put up for sale, records show.

  The former U.S. senator and ambassador released two-page summary sheets from her 2008 and 2009 tax returns in hopes of quelling a storm that erupted Monday when she said she wouldn’t release any of her tax records before the Feb. 22 municipal general election.

Four mortgages? $785 in taxes on $15,561 in income? Your humble servants here at SCC averaged nearly 5 times that and paid way more in taxes.

We know there are such things as accounting tricks utilized by businesses to avoid paying income taxes and claiming vast losses where one wouldn't suspect they exist (look at Hollywood), but these numbers either show a complete financial basket case or a connected insider using every accounting trick known to mankind to avoid paying taxes.

Not what voters can relate to at all.

Rahm Stays on Ballot

Saving a court challenge, Rahm now remains the front runner:

• Rahm Emanuel won another round Tuesday in his battle to stay on the ballot for Chicago mayor, but those trying to knock him off vowed further appeals that could take weeks.
  
  Early voting begins Jan. 31, and it's unclear whether the legal process will be finished by then. Veteran elections attorney Burt Odelson said he will file an appeal Wednesday of Cook County Judge Mark J. Ballard's decision. If Odelson loses at the Illinois Appellate Court, he said, he will take the case to the state Supreme Court.

Shortshanks wants Rahm to run, therefore the Election Board decision was a done deal. Shortshanks owns the judges in Cook County, therefore the court decision was pretty much preordained. We can't see this case getting to a high enough court quickly enough to prevent Rahm from running, and you can rest assured, every dirty precinct trick in the book will be in full force this Election Day.

Where's the Connection?

Follow the money:

• Taste of Chicago patrons would pay a $20 admission fee—and up to $65-a-head for a music stage that draws the biggest-name talent—if City Hall accepts the only bid it got to take over lakefront festivals.

  The Chicago Sun-Times reported last month that Chicago lost $7 million on Taste and six other lakefront festivals over the last three years, prompting City Hall to allow private operators vying to take over the events to sell naming rights and charge admission fees.

  As it turned out, there was no competition.

  The city received only one bid--from Celebrate Chicago LLC, a heavy-hitting joint-venture comprised of the Illinois Restaurant Association and two of the biggest names in the production of live entertainment: Chicago-based JAM Productions and AEG Live.

Gee, that won't be a hotbed of connected politicos and shady Outfit characters. Wait until the list of officers or investors of this company are revealed. We're betting those will be the movers and shakers of the next 25 years of Chicago politics. The head of one company is already one of Shortshanks' former Chiefs of Staff.

LEADS Certification?

Is this true? Is this even possible?

• CPD lost its LEADS certification today. Anybody know where the last microfiche issue is and a reader? I need to run a tag.

This would be embarrassing if true.

Car 47 to Retire?

And benefit from an end run around State Law?

• What about the other BIG and as yet not public news about CAR 47?
  
  Papers are in, has been employed by MPEA as Director of Security- in a no-pay status for now, but technically employed by them. Will now qualify for a second pension as he was hired prior to the new State law going into effect.
  
  Makes one wonder who else Shortshanks has quietly moved and placed as rewards for their loyaly service?

Who indeed. There's a whole bunch of people preparing for life A.S. (after Shortshanks) and those spots with additional pension perks are going to ensure that Illinois continues to circle the drain in terms of pension liabilities that has next-to-nothing to do with public safety employees and everything to do with connected politicians.

Marry Me or Else

Again, where do people get the idea this is OK?

• A woman from Chicago’s Northwest Side wanted to start the New Year with a marriage proposal, with help from police.

  [...] Ana Perez, 40, called 911 around 8:30 p.m. on Sunday, claiming her boyfriend was attacking her.

  When police arrived, she changed her story, admitting she was trying to scare her boyfriend into marrying her.

  Police in the Grand Central District were not amused, and charged Perez with disorderly conduct.

Between this and the sausage domestic below, one has to wonder if there isn't a severe case of stupid going around town lately.

We Heard of Turkey Leg Murders...

...but this is a step beyond:

• New Year’s Day fight over a Polish sausage has led to charges of unlawful use of a weapon and domestic battery against a 24-year-old man.

  Jermaine Cook “slapped his sister in the face because they were fighting over a Polish sausage,” prosecutors said on Sunday.

  Police were called Saturday to a home in the 3700 block of West Polk Street, where they allegedly found Cook outside holding a handgun.

Don't bring a gun to a Polish sausage fight evidently.

Penny's Pod Room

It's like a flop house with computers!



We want to thank our fans in 011. We've ended up with a pretty good week worth of material what with this, the video and the J-Fled visit. The comment sections are on fire with something like 500-plus comments in assorted posts. It's been fun to say the least.

Now word is coming in the FOP is looking into a Safety Grievance being filed seeing as how the computers are all in an unsecured room and the officers have to sit with their backs to the door because Henny Penny has stated she has to see what the officers are doing on the computers at all times. You can see what wanders into unsecured rooms from the above pictures. An e-mailer says this is the same room that a homeless mental ended up throwing computers around after he was denied access to the lobby.

The circus continues.

Final Changes?

Rumor mill heating up:

• **********Secret 35th news**********
  
  Looks like many changes are coming,and soon! Jfled is giving the last hurrah command changes,beat realignment (Low crime areas prepare to be high crime areas), units being changed plus more! Will be this week are you ready?

This has to be the worst kept secret in recent memory. Do we detect the mysterious hand of Shortshanks in the background? We think we do.

3M Strikes Again

Any idea if this is true?

• Is it true that MASTERS (3M) got a female PO dumped from the mailroom at E&RPS, and used his fellow Daley ball-warmer Picardi to do it?
  
  [....] Word is, 3M accused an officer on an E&RPS run of cutting him off in traffic and 'committing a traffic violation.' Picardi called the officer into his office to inquire if they had done such a deed. Copper states that they don't know who the Chief of Staff is, has no idea what Picardi is talking about. Officer is now on transfer order to 007. What is the FOP going to do about this? E&RPS may be a non-bid unit, but for Picardi to just toss this officer out of there because the (in)famous 3M felt slighted over an alleged traffic mishap--what kind of shit is this?

This wouldn't really be surprising as we have received word from more than one person that Masters (Masters Masters) has been attempting to generate CR numbers on officers that post less than flattering things about J-Fled or the Department on their social media pages like Facebook and Twitter.

Think about that for a second - an outsider with no police frame of reference, is attempting to jam up coppers for blowing off steam. Amazing.

Second, Third of the Year

Somehow, this didn't get predicted by the Crystal Ball Unit:

• A two-day New Year’s Eve party at a South Side motorcycle club came to a bloody and tragic end early Sunday when two men were shot dead and five others wounded.

  Emmitt Suddoth, who was recently indicted in a $35 million mortgage fraud scheme, and Bryant Glass, 39, of the 900 block of West 116th St., were both killed as the party at the Hawks Motorcycle Club’s headquarters at 149 W. 75th St. turned ugly about 1:40 a.m., police said.

Gee, a two-day party? We wouldn't classify that one as "...bloody and tragic..." We'd say that was foreseeable, preventable and expected. And seeing as how one of the "victims" was a recently indicted subject of a $35 million fraud scheme, we'd hesitate to even call it a great loss.

On a more serious note, three homicides in two days can be extrapolated out to 547.5 homicides for the entire year, meaning J-Feld's tenure has been a complete failure on this and many other counts. He should be fired as soon as possible.

First of the Year

As far as we can tell, this is the first homicide of 2011:

• A man who was left critically wounded from a stabbing Saturday has died.

  Henry Jones, 37, of the 1100 block of West Hollywood Avenue in the Edgewater Beach neighborhood, was stabbed in the neck and pronounced dead at 4:50 a.m. Saturday at Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office. His death was ruled a homicide.

  The stabbing happened about 3:30 a.m., according to police News Affairs.

If anyone has any info to the contrary, let us know.

Shots Fired at Police

No one injured, but harrowing to say the least:

• Shots were fired at police early this morning in the South Chicago neighborhood, police said, but no one was hurt and the shooter escaped.

  At 12:44 a.m., police responded to a call about a man with a gun in the 8600 block of South Marquette Avenue, according to police News Affairs [...]. Once there, someone fired shots at the police before evading law enforcement and leaving the scene.

  No one was hit, [...] and at least 19 shell casings were found on the street.

Be aware boys and girls.

A Pair of Aces

Or is that a pair of jokers?


Anyone who gets written up for a uniform infraction regarding unauthorized hats ought to have this picture as Exhibit #1.

Hey J-Fled, either wear the uniform or don't, but try to stick with some sort consistent decision, even if it's the consistently wrong decision.

Bears to Play or Relax?

Green Bay needs the win to control their own destiny. The Bears already have a bye and home field for the first round - but it's Green Bay and they'd love to play spoiler along with sweeping the division.

All the betting is Green Bay by 9 to 10 points.

Murder Rate Falls

Bad shots? Better medical care? Impeccable police work?

• Chicago recorded 435 homicides in 2010, marking the city's lowest murder rate in 45 years, according to preliminary statistics released Saturday by the Chicago Police Department.

  The 2010 total was down from 460 in 2009 and 513 in 2008, and is the lowest since 1965, when the city had 395 killings.

• Wesley Skogan, a crime and policing expert at Northwestern University's Institute for Policy Research, attributed some of the overall decline to smarter policing, including the use of technology to do real-time deployments of officers, and the higher incarceration rates in the 1990s.

  But a nagging concern for the department, and communities, is that violent crime still has a chokehold on some neighborhoods.

We're still waiting to see how Governor Quinn's early release program's recidivism rates are affecting the minority neighborhoods where crime seems to be a "nagging concern," but that seems to have fallen off the media radar for some reason.

Police Shooting

Officers all OK:

• A man in his 20s was fatally shot by police this morning on the South Side.
  
  About 2:20 a.m., police shot a person near the intersection of South Cottage Grove Avenue and East 79th Street, police said.
  
  The Cook County medical examiner's office confirmed the death of a man in his 20s. He was pronounced dead on the scene.
  
  A spokeswoman with Independent Police Review Authority could not confirm whether any police were injured, but did say the person struck was the person at whom police were firing.

The first five or six headlines on BreakingNews.com are all shootings, stabbings, dead people in the lake or man-versus-train incidents. Looks like it's going to be a messy year already.

Happy New Year

A little late, but we knew we were pulling extra hours tonight. We hope everyone got home safely and in one piece.

Best wishes from everyone here at Second City Cop for the coming year. It's been an interesting 2010 to say the least and 2011 is looking to start in the same direction.

Davis Drops Out

A "consensus" big-name candidate evidently:

• A dramatic 2010 in Chicago politics ended with one last flourish Friday night as U.S. Rep. Danny Davis dropped out of the race to succeed Mayor Daley and threw his support behind Carol Moseley Braun.

  “In unity there is strength. In strength there is success,” Davis said at his downtown campaign office, flanked by Braun and state Sen. James Meeks, two of his former opponents in the Feb. 22 election.

  “I just want to unify behind the best candidate. Everyone I know thinks Carol is the best candidate.”

In this case, it must have been a decision who had the least amount of baggage. Braun can appeal to a wider base in Chicago who nostalgically remember her Senate run and don't remember her general incompetence in the position. She'll also blunt Clinton's campaigning for Rahm.

2011 is already shaping up as fun politically.

Video Gone - WHOOPS, It's Back!

The phone calls must have been flying thick and fast all day between the 011 District commander's office and the Woodlawn Union MB Church member who posted the Henny Penny video. After a few thousand visits here and a few thousand more to YouTube, the video was yanked without explanation.

Thanks to all the readers who saw the video for what it was. Your comments kept us laughing for hours.

UPDATE: Back by popular demand and the quick thinking of an SCC reader, we re-present the legendary video that is fast becoming an internet sensation!!!



And once again, for our slower readers, SCC didn't post it, SCC isn't making fun of anything, SCC isn't treading on thin ice with God. God has a sense of humor, tiny brains do not. It's a scientific fact. Look it up.