Ten Shot, Stabbed, Bricked

Another fun weekend as the temperatures climb:

• At least ten people were injured overnight in separate violent incidents around the city, police said.

This list of mayhem from Friday into Saturday can be found at this link. Looks like Tommy Skilling might be in line for another award as rain moves in to tonight keeping the violence at an ebb. But the rest of the week?

Another Mob Incident

In case you were distracted by everything else going on, Rahm's promise that downtown is safe and adequate manpower is available to preserve law and order? It's working just great!

• The teenage robbery mobs are at it again on North Michigan Avenue.

  Some 50 young people barged into a Walgreens at Michigan and Chicago on the Magnificent Mile on Tuesday afternoon. They took bottled drinks and sandwiches off the shelves, then ran off, CBS 2′s [...] reports.

  A police report says authorities were able to nab three of the thieves.

Must have been a test run for the Taste.

McNutty?

We still haven't settled on a nickname for the Supe and the comment sections are alive with half a dozen monikers. This is a good response from the Illinois State Rifle Association though:

• In a blistering counterpunch, a leading pro-gun advocate Friday called Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy’s racially loaded attack on the National Rifle Association as “too nutty to dignify with a response” and denigrated the city’s new police chief as a “political hack.”

• “As much as we wouldn’t expect to hear McCarthy speak in opposition to gun control, it is equally certain that few of us were prepared to hear what actually came from McCarthy’s mouth when he spoke to the St. Sabina’s congregation,” said Richard Pearson, executive director of the Illinois State Rifle Association.

  “After several minutes of gratuitous self-promotion, McCarthy launched into a racially charged tirade in which he accused the NRA and law-abiding gun owners of participating in a government-sponsored program to kill black people. Like most of you, we believe an assertion such as McCarthy’s is too nutty to dignify with a response,” Pearson said in statement posted Friday on his group’s website.

• “But, then again, any suggestion that McCarthy is a law-enforcement officer is a sham. Rather, McCarthy is merely another in a long line of political hacks who have resided in the office of police superintendant,” Pearson said. “McCarthy’s job description has nothing to do with law-enforcement and everything to do with enforcing the political agenda of his boss, Rahm Emanuel.”

The department spokes-weasels cower in their holes:

• A statement issued by McCarthy Friday did not address Pearson’s criticisms nor the St. Sabina flap, other than offering a toned-down assessment of the scourge of illegal guns on Chicago’s streets.

Oh, illegal guns? But there are already rules against those, right?

WLS AM spent a good portion of their morning show on this story. All the networks, too. Even the Drudge Report and the NRA themselves picked up on this embarrassing display.

Does anyone know if ISRA's Richard Pearson is running for anything? Because that was a Class-A pasting he just gave McCarthy.

FOIA Falls Short (UPDATED)

Evidently, there are no real reporters left in Chicago if they have to keep coming here for ideas, hints and clues. They spent most of Friday reporting on the Department's response to the 911 tapes:

• In a statement released late Thursday evening, police officials said the release of the calls changes nothing, and maintained that the decision to close the beach was made "in the interest of public safety and public health."

As one of our commentators suggested, how about looking at the radio traffic tapes? The calls show what people phoned in and we have no doubt the City was happy to release those because they can spin them. They just made the media jump though hoops because they can and time works in their favor now. The radio tapes would be the damning evidence needed to really give Rahm a kick in the shorts and show how inadequate the manpower has become.

But they're only required to keep those available for 30 days unless a hold is put on them, right? Tick tock. Tick tock.

UPDATE: We didn't notice, but a sharp eyed reader did. Of the 20 or so calls covered by the media, not a single one of them dealt with a medical emergency or heat-related illness. They were all about crime at the beach. So once again, the "in the interest of public safety and public health" excuse must be code for something else.

The Taste Begins

It used to be they touted all the great restaurants, the great family atmosphere, the fireworks extravaganza. This year there are no fireworks, so what's the draw?

• Following a series of police incidents in recent weeks on North Michigan Avenue that have led to anxieties about crime downtown, city officials also employed one more noticeable change: more police.
  
  Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy announced earlier this week that there would be more plainclothes officers in and around the Taste this year, working at “choke points” such as train stations near Grant Park.
  
  In addition, uniformed officers and private security guards would be stationed around the festival to ensure a smoother food-sampling experience than in years past, when some Taste events have erupted in violence, McCarthy said.

WBBM Newsradio 780 actually had a piece about how "you and your family will be safe this year" playing this past evening. But hey, everything is under control. Nothing bad here. What gang problem? If it gets bad enough, we'll just blame the "heat" and close down a single beach because those damn paramedics can't answer a call that they've handled every summer for 100 years.

Columbo Dead

Although we prefer, "Serpentine Shel! Serpentine!"

• Peter Falk, the gravel-voiced actor who became an enduring television icon portraying Lt. Columbo, the rumpled raincoat-wearing Los Angeles police homicide detective who always had "just one more thing" to ask a suspect, died Thursday. He was 83.
  
  
• The show often made light of Columbo's lack of fashion sense. Taking note of the detective's tatty attire, a suspect once asked him, "Are you undercover?" Replied Columbo, "No, underpaid."

Monument for What?

Remember when Heroes used to get parades and statues? Monuments are supposed to be grand things. Large, sweeping, majestic pieces of architecture, statues, fountains, etc. designed to inspire and memorialize heroic deeds, sacrifices or individuals. They should move us. Washington DC is filled with shining examples of such: The Washington Monument, the Lincoln and Jefferson Memorials, the National Law Enforcement Memorial.

Chicago has its share of monuments and memorials all over downtown and in most of the larger parks. Sculptures, statues, fountains.

Now someone wants this?

• Chicago attorneys and activists are planning a monument to memorialize the victims of police torture.
  
  The group is asking artists to submit proposals for the monument.
  
  Group members say their goal is "to honor the survivors of torture, their family members, and the African American communities affected by the torture."
  
  The launch for the project is set for Tuesday at the Hull House in Chicago.
  
  The launch will include attorneys who have represented police torture victims and a man who says Chicago police tortured him into confessing to murder.

Has anyone actually looked at who these "victims" are? Lifelong scammers and criminals, many of whom were released on technicalities, manufactured evidence and "foggy" memories that surfaced decades after the fact. Many were backed by a university professor who has been accused of offering better grades to students who could come up with "evidence" or witnesses to clear convicted offenders, using a young co-ed as eye-candy to at least one inmate, and who recently resigned his tenured position due to his questionable tactics.

More than a few of their "innocent torture victims" have already returned to a life of crime and are headed back to prison. One of their more famous releases was the subject of a parallel outside agency investigation that concluded he probably did set the fire that killed seven people, including children.

These are to be the subjects of a "memorial" to uplift and inspire us? All we're inspired to do is take a leak on this thing.

The inmates are truly running the asylum.

The Wall of Lies Crumbles

Gee, who'd have thunk it? A Chicago mayor lying and his handpicked supernintendo keeping the public in the dark?

• A number of emergency calls on Memorial Day could pose a credibility problem for Mayor Rahm Emanuel and his new police superintendent.

  The official word from city officials has been that North Avenue Beach was closed that holiday due to concerns for public health. But calls made by beach-goers to Chicago's Office of Emergency Management and Communications seem to support claims that gang activity was also at play.

  "There's a fight breaking out on the beach, because there's nothing but animals covering this beach today," one caller is heard saying in recordings obtained by WLS-AM radio through a Freedom of Information Act request.

  "You can't even walk along the bike path or ride along the bike path. There's the crowd control. What the hell is going on?" the caller fumes.

"What the hell is going on" indeed. Go through the last couple of years of our archives and it will explain quite a bit of what's "going on."

And the bigger the lie, the bigger the rush to defend it:

• In a statement released late Thursday evening, police officials said the release of the calls changes nothing, and maintained that the decision to close the beach was made "in the interest of public safety and public health."

  Indeed, with temperatures in the 90s, about a half-dozen people at North Avenue Beach were treated for heat exhaustion. Police Supt. Garry McCarthy said ambulances could not get to victims.

CFD has been responding to the beaches for at least the past 100 or so years, probably even longer than that, so McCarthy's excuse holds as much water as his Sabina speech. And since the Department is now labeling gang fights as "public health" matters, maybe there's some CDC funding we could tap into to alleviate the $500 million deficit Shortshanks left Rahm?

War is Hell

And this is how we blow it up:

• Police Supt. Garry McCarthy declared war on the Maniac Latin Disciples after two young girls were shot in a Northwest Side park earlier this month.

  The shooter was a member of the gang and was gunning for rival Latin Kings when the girls, ages 2 and 7, were wounded on June 8, prosecutors said. The younger girl was grazed in the head and the 7-year-old was seriously wounded in the back.

  “We’re going to obliterate that gang,” McCarthy told a roomful of police supervisors shortly after the shooting. “Every one of their locations has to get blown up until they cease to exist.”

  Two weeks later, 120 Maniac Latin Disciples have been arrested and seven guns recovered in what police are describing as phase one of their effort to cripple the gang of 300 to 500 members.

The count so far?

• Of the gang members arrested since the shooting, 19 remained in jail while the others posted bond.

  About five have been sent back to prison for parole violations such as testing positive for narcotics

We certainly hope this is the basis for a longer conspiracy-type investigation with hard prison time at the end for some people, because we have our doubts that one-hundred-one I-Bonds are going to "cripple" these jagoffs, but it's a good start on short notice.

Video Gains Traction

05 June, the superintendent gives a speak so chock full of bullshitty goodness, it attracted the attention of a number of our commentators. The blog was in the middle of the sudden media interest of downtown "flash mobs/wildings" so we deferred the story for a few days. We covered the story on 11 June before knowing the Sabina tape existed, then more in depth on 20 June, then the attempted hiding of the video on 21 June before it was unveiled again on Shaved's site.

Now it's the top story on Channel 5 news, eighteen days later:

• The pervasion of illegal guns in America's black and Latino communities is a result of "government-sponsored racism," akin to "slavery, segregation, black codes [and] Jim Crow," Rahm Emanuel's new police chief, Garry McCarthy, told parishioners at St. Sabina's Church earlier this month.

  "This is sensitive. You know, because everybody’s afraid of race. Have you noticed that? Everybody’s afraid of race. I'm not afraid of race," said McCarthy, who told of growing up in the Bronx with guns, gangs and drugs plentiful.

  "Let’s see if we can make a connection here. Slavery. Segregation. Black codes. Jim Crow. What, what did they all have in common? Anybody getting scared? Government sponsored racism."

We'll just point out that his list was part and parcel of the democratic party platform for years, so besides being just plain dumb and a panderer of the highest order, he's historically ignorant.

And his speech sucked on many levels, especially describing walking through a crime scene destroying evidence. How does that sound to the greenest rookie in the field who knows better than to wander into a scene and start kicking over things. It sounds like bullshit.

And the Palin crack? She wasn't there because law abiding citizens don't usually hang out at crime scenes they have no connection to. And in case you forgot, those shows are taped weeks and months in advance. So you seeing her hunt caribou in Alaska probably happened a long time before your evidence destroying rampage.

Honest to pete, this speech gets dumber every time we see it. And it's not just us - the comments on the NBC site are shocked, amused and disgusted, too. A great impression being made.

Uh...What Now?

This is rich beyond words:

• The new chief of Chicago Public Schools wants teachers to visit students at home, even in violent neighborhoods.
  
  WLS-TV in Chicago reports that Chicago Public Schools CEO Jean-Claude Brizard said at a Thursday news conference that "our students go there every day. Why can't we?" Mayor Rahm Emanuel also was at the news conference.
  
  Brizard says teachers and staff should each be assigned about ten home visits to students each year. Chicago public schools have about 430,000 students.

Is this guy truly that much of a dumbass?

First up, the teachers aren't going to do this for free. Their time is worth money, perhaps not as much as they think it is, but it's certainly worth something. Many teachers don't live in the neighborhoods they teach in, but you want them to burn extra gas on their days off to "home visit" certain students? If we recall correctly, your School Board just voted to disregard contractually negotiated raises while jacking up executive compensation. You're also wanting them to work longer school days this coming year. Anyone else see the danger ahead?

Second, how can we put this politely Jean-Claude? There are certain neighborhoods where some of these teachers are going to stick out like a sore thumb. And if they stick out, they are going to get hurt. Some might even get hurt badly. There are neighborhoods in Chicago where we wouldn't even think of wandering without a gun, a partner and a radio. And you expect teachers to just show up there on their own time? Are you insane?

Home visits and the like are no substitute for poor parenting and outright neglect. It's almost like this asshat and the mayor are deliberately provoking the teachers into a job action. Even old man Daley wasn't that dumb. Teachers aren't like auto workers, truckers, dockworkers or any other union members. Teachers are sympathetic strikers and they end up affecting large voting blocs.

Video Resurfaces

Nothing ever truly dies on the internet. A bunch of readers pointed to the Google cache and Shaved had this video up all day. For those of you who missed it previously, here it is in all its glory:



After you watch the nonsense, make sure you click on the NRA and ISRA buttons in our right hand link page and join up.

Residency Waiver?

Either the rules apply to everyone or they apply to no one. Unless you're in Chicago politics:

• Chicago's school board is expected to decide today if it will grant a waiver allowing its new chief administrative officer to live outside the city.
  
  Mayor Rahm Emanuel has endorsed the two-year waiver so that Tim Cawley, the third-ranking CPS executive, can continue to live in Winnetka.
  
  CPS grants waivers for teachers in high-need areas like special education and math, but this would be a first for an administrator, district officials said. And the waiver would come at a time when the district has been vigorously enforcing the residency rule.

Rules are for peons, not big politically-connected individuals who stand to make hundreds of thousands in tax payer money from being in Rahm's good graces.

And this is going to provoke a strike shortly:

• More than 1,000 angry teachers encircled the Chicago Board of Education Wednesday, chanting “Rahm Emanuel has got to go,” just before Emanuel’s hand-picked school board members voted to approve raises for top executives a week after they rejected raises for teachers.

  The throng — as many as five deep — wound around the entire block, stopping morning traffic and urging drivers with their signs to “honk if you support teachers.” As a result, blaring car horns often accompanied chanting protesters.

For being so pro-union, all the screwing around these here parts seems to be done by democrats.

Let's See the Order

We're surprised some enterprising reporter hasn't filed some kind of FOIA to get a copy of the supposed Burke court order.

As a number of our commentators pointed out, even Orders of Protection come with expiration dates and fall under a semi-regular reevaluation process. Can anyone else imagine a court order lasting in excess of 25 years without any sort of review, adjustment or evaluation?

But the media eats up the bullshit excuse and Rahm says he's "not focused" on the issue:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel said today he's not focusing on the size of Ald. Edward Burke's bodyguard detail, which he suggested during the mayoral campaign would need to be cut in the spirit of shared sacrifice.

  Emanuel said he's concentrating on getting large numbers of police officers back on the street rather than whether Burke, 14th, should continue to have six Chicago police officers assigned as his guards.

  "My main goal wasn't about the six officers related to Ald. Burke, but the 650 officers we put into the streets. And now the commanders have the resources to do what they need to do," Emanuel said.

The 650 officers, 500 of which came from street units and were returned to the streets they were already patrolling. Right.

Remember, this is going to be a "transparent" mayoral administration. The lies certainly are transparent so far. Stevie Wonder called and asked what the hell is gong on in Chicago. And being aided by the willful blindness of the media doesn't hurt matters any.

WANTED!

From a fan:


With a $310,000 per year salary, the $76,000 vacation buyout raises J-Fled's asking price to a cool million over the span of the now expired contract.

A government employee paid with taxpayer funds...that contract ought to be public record, right? But funnily enough, it never was. Or if it was, the media did a wonderful job of not looking for it and publicizing it.

NATO Coming to Town

5A and 5B furloughs just got a bit more desirable:

• World leaders will gather in Chicago next spring to assess the situation in Afghanistan and discuss the future of the war effort there, President Barack Obama will announce in an address from the White House tonight.
  
  The NATO summit will serve as a chance to review goals laid out by the security alliance in Lisbon last fall, when leaders agreed to begin transition to full Afghan responsibility for security in 2014, a senior administration official said.
  
  The summit, to be held between May 15 and 22 of next year, will coincide with another international meeting in Chicago as the Group of Eight industrialized nations convenes to focus on global economic issues.

Rahm's already begging for money to pay for the security arrangements for the back-to-back conferences. We'd hope there are going to be plenty of hire-back opportunities.

Flyover Englewood

At first, we were hoping it was a helicopter gunship or strafing run. This sounds almost as good:

• The state signed a deal Wednesday with the Norfolk and Southern Railway to build the long-awaited “Englewood Flyover” that would clear up delays on the Rock Island Metra line.

  The $133 million project should begin this year and be completed in two to three years, according to the Illinois Department of Transportation.

"Flying over" sounds like a good idea. In fact it sounds so good, they ought to look into relocating every major street, highway and thoroughfare so it can pass directly over Englewood without stopping, passing Go, or collecting $200. Then they can look into doing the same thing with the west side.

Scam!

This stinks to high heaven:

• Former Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis walked out with a $76,308 check for accrued vacation days when he resigned his $310,000-a-year job on March 1 — a lump-sum payment for 64 unused days that’s raising eyebrows at City Hall.

  His former $168,438-a-year chief-of-staff Mike Masters left police headquarters with a check for $30,448. That’s the equivalent of 54 unused vacation days

Masters Masters Masters strikes again, along with J-Fled. And look at this:

• Weis’ lump-sum payment — for the equivalent of 56.2 percent of his allotted total — raises eyebrows for several reasons.

  For one, he started work on Feb. 1, 2008, but still claimed 25 vacation days that year when he was eligible for none. The former superintendent also got 25 vacation days in both 2009 and 2010, even though civilian employees are only eligible for 13 vacation days.

And the biggest insult of all:

• In June, 2010, after entering the final year of his three-year contract, Weis made a policy decision that increased his vacation payment even more.

  He changed the policy governing vacation carryover to allow “command staff members” including himself and Masters to carry up to 39 unused vacation days from one year to the next “when circumstances prohibited the use of current and prior year’s allotments.”

  [...] Copies of Weis’ so-called “command staff vacation carryover requests” obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times show that Weis and Masters took full advantage of the policy change—by carrying over 39 unused vacation days from 2010 to 2011.

  Both men used identical wording to justify the request: “Unable to use due to operational needs.”

So he (and Masters) directly benefited from a policy change decision that originated on J-Fled's own desk? There's a word for that, too. And we're pretty sure people have lost jobs, positions, promotions and maybe even gone to jail over decisions like that. This reeks of impropriety at the highest levels of government.

That must have been a helluva contract Shortshanks signed with J-Fled. Someone must have had Daley dead-bang on some dirty paper or a wiretap.

Details Safe for Now

Guess who runs it?

• New Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s campaign trail idea of taking away Ald. Ed Burke’s security detail to put a few more Chicago police officers on the streets won’t be coming to fruition.

  The mayor’s handpicked police superintendent, Garry McCarthy, said today that he can’t pull back Burke’s police bodyguards.

  “It's mandated by a court,” McCarthy said. “So I don't have the authority to change a court decision.”

What court was this? A court can order up police details? Based on what? Threats from 30 years ago? And that other threat that just happened to pop up after Rahm initially made noises of cutting the Burke detail? That was awfully convenient and predicted here weeks in advance of the actual occurrence.

Oh wait - it must have been Judge Ann Burke, right?

Imaginary Smoke

When you're reduced to claiming 500 additional officers on the streets by disbanding two street units and putting them "back" into the exact same districts they already worked in, making up imaginary officers is easy as pie:

• The city plans to increase the number of undercover officers patrolling the upcoming Taste of Chicago to head off problems before they start, Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy announced on Tuesday.

  The move comes in the wake of recent mob attacks downtown — and the possibility that those roving groups of young men could head to the Taste — which runs Friday through July 3.

  “We’re deploying the same number of uniformed officers we’ve used in the past, [but] we’re deploying more undercover officers,’’ McCarthy said a news conference at Buckingham Fountain. “We’re not going to tell you the numbers [of officers] because that would be imprudent for us to do that.”

"Trust us."

"The check is in the mail."

"We're going to have lots of undercover officers at the Taste, but you might not see them because they're undercover!"

And where are these officers coming from? The Department has already stripped the units, front offices, desks and lock ups. We aren't hiring. The D-unit isn't in uniform. Tact teams are already scheduled for their days off. We haven't heard they're doing Special Employment. We'd certainly like to see these people.

This sounds like more robbing Peter to pay Paul:

• Sources said that 40 probationary police officers will be reassigned from Michigan Avenue to the Taste on Thursday. The officers-in-training — who have completed two of their three required training periods in police districts after graduating from the police academy — had been assigned to Michigan Avenue in wake of the high-profile mob attacks. Their reassignment raises questions about who, if anybody, will take their place on Michigan Avenue.

  “They’re out to give people the illusion that there are a lot of police officers on Michigan Avenue,” said one 18th District police officer, who asked to remain anonymous. “They don’t even have enough radios for these guys.”

  McCarthy, asked whether Michigan Avenue was losing its beefed up police presence, declined to talk specifics, but said: “We’re going to be covering everything, that’s what it boils down to.”

What is that smell? Did we step in something?

Hopefully, they'll dress up a few cops as clowns and they can blast a few assholes back to kingdom come.

No CHA Drug Testing

The one good idea to come out of that agency in forever:

• A controversial proposal to require all adults who currently live in, or apply for Chicago public housing to be tested for drugs — including senior citizens — is dead, the Chicago Sun-Times has learned.

  Also, the agency decided to keep the so-called “innocent tenant defense” for residents, referring to evictions initiated when a drug-related or violent crime has been committed by a relative or guest of the leaseholding tenant — without the tenant’s knowledge or involvement.

• “CHA is not making any changes to its ACOP regarding the proposed drug testing policy and the proposed revision to the tenant defense,” CHA spokeswoman Kellie O’Connell-Miller confirmed. “The CHA received a tremendous amount of feedback during the public comment period, and simply, the result of that is that CHA will not move forward.”

Where did all that "input" come from? Because everyone we talked to thought it was an extremely good idea. Of course, we spoke to taxpayers, people with jobs, people with houses and kids in schools, people who haven't been on the public dole for three, four, five or more generations. In other words, people not beholden to the government for their every need.

Double the Cameras

But not double the officers watching or riding the trains:

• The Chicago Police Department has boosted patrols on the CTA by deploying officers alongside commuters, and plans are under way to double the number of cameras at train stations, CTA officials said Monday.

  Officers formerly assigned to schools have already begun riding trains in highly visible “Wolfpack” teams of four to six members to deter crime, Lt. John Wittenberg said.

  The increase in security also includes plainclothes officers who will concentrate on preventing the theft of electronic devices, CTA President Forrest Claypool said as he unveiled the summer initiative.

Initially, school officers not assigned to summer school sessions will be augmenting the police presence. The Department and the CTA declined to say what would happen when school was back in session, but we have a small idea - the force will be scaled back in the hopes that the trouble makers will be in school.

This little tidbit was on the WBBM Newsradio 780 report:

• CTA President Forrest Claypool says more cameras will catch more thugs in the act of committing crimes.

But the cameras will only bear silent witness to the attacks seeing as how they can't actually arrest anyone. Which should be comforting to the victims as they recover from their injuries.

Brilliant F#$%ing Plan

Way to go Schenkel:

• After a five-month post-mortem about the Blizzard of 2011 fiasco, Chicago’s top emergency officer was asked Monday how he intends to prevent another shutdown on Lake Shore Drive.

  Gary Schenkel’s answer had nothing to do with the 12-page report’s proposal to install cuts in median planters along the Drive to provide access for emergency equipment and give stranded motorists a place to turn around.

• “We’re gonna pray a lot and hope that God doesn’t dump another 40 inches of snow on us,” said Schenkel, executive director of the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications.

Wow. We supposed praying will save a bunch of money, but you're going to run into problems with the atheists and the different religious factions claiming their god is best.

And this is just ignorant:

• Asked whether anybody needs to be taken to the woodshed for what happened on Lake Shore Drive, Schenkel replied, “Absolutely not.”

  In fact, if he had it to do all over again, Schenkel said he would “probably not” close Lake Shore Drive before the storm hit. Instead, he would “wait for the situation to develop” as his predecessor did on Groundhog Day.

Then you're probably an idiot who took lessons in disaster prevention from Henny Penny. Prayer? Anyone working that zone could have told you after the first spin-out that the Drive had become impassable. Any plow driver could have told you they weren't keeping up with the drifts, winds or lake effects. But no one wanted to admit to Shortshanks that his neglect of the snow removal plans had led directly to being unable to cope with a large amount of snow. If you promote nothing but "yes-men," then one day, you're going to get bitten in the ass by piss poor planning and lack of preparation, like this past February.

So Who Did It?

Within 9 hours of our posting about the Supernintendo's anti-gun, anti-NRA, pro-government conspiracy speech at Pfather Pfleger's Pfchurch, the video is down and listed as "unavailable."

Did Pfleger the Pfaker pull it on his own, realizing what a political boondoggle it was?

Did McCarthy call to have it removed, realizing what an ass he looked like?

Did Rahm have it pulled since it isn't going to play well when he runs for president in 2016?

Regardless, you'd think one of these big three thinkers would have the balls to stand by such a decision or the words spoken or the ideas presented.

Actually, no you wouldn't. And neither would we. We're not idiots, even though these jackasses think we are. Typical Chicago spineless politicos.

Guess What?

Another police shooting:

• Police shot a man and three officers suffered minor injuries Sunday near Father’s Day celebrations at a South Side park, officials said.

  The man was critically wounded after he allegedly shot at police in the Grand Crossing Park at 76th and Ingleside, police said. The officers, who were not shot, were taken to a local hospital in good condition, fire officials said. It is unclear how they were injured.

Good witnesses, all saying the gunman was armed, shooting in the air and at the police without regard for anyone before being shot. Three officers were also injured in the ensuing chaos.

But guess what else?

No comments open. Even when the police do good work, have the support of numerous witnesses quoted in the article, and are injured in the performance of their duties, the Tribune Company can't find it in their liberal makeup to open the comment sections to a tiny bit of praise from the citizenry. But you can bet they'll have them open the instant there's even a tiny question about police actions. You can bet the house on it.

Sickening

Hopefully, you have a high speed internet connection. This video file is rather large. Plus, you'll want to skip ahead around the 62:00 minute mark.

• The place: St Sabina
  
  
• The date: 05 Jun 2011
  
  
• The featured speaker: Supernintendo McCarthy

This is the "The NRA doesn't like me" speech. It's nauseating. He riffs on guns, throws in a nonsequitur about Sarah Palin hunting moose (attempting to equate legal hunting with a rifle to the bloodbath thugs perpetrate on the streets of Chicago), and claims a government conspiracy against brown and black people. In short, exactly the sort of bullshit you'd expect in Pfleger's church, but not from a superintendent who's supposed to be concerned for the public safety of all citizens.

What a joke. But it seems a good time to remind everyone to join the NRA and the Illinois State Rifle Association. Links are in the right hand sidebar.

More Tribune Nonsense

What's the difference between these two stories?

• Story #1 -The groups predict the cost of wrongful convictions will rise because 16 civil lawsuits filed by exonerated individuals still need to be settled or go to trial, including some by men who allege torture by officers under a decorated former Chicago police lieutenant.

  Former Lt. Jon Burge was convicted last year of federal perjury and obstruction of justice charges for lying about torture. Suspects for decades had alleged that Burge and his officers tortured them into confessing to crimes ranging from armed robbery to murder.

  Burge reported to prison in March to begin serving a 4½-year sentence. He was fired from the Chicago Police Department in 1993 over the alleged mistreatment of a suspect, but he never was criminally charged in that case or any involving alleged mistreatment.

• Story #2 - Some of the last words Adelina Najera spoke to her 16-year-old son Freddy were warnings that he shouldn't stay out late with friends.

  Just hours later, however, Freddy Najera was one of three teens killed in a Prospect Heights crash that ripped the car in two. A fourth passenger in the car – an 18-year-old man – was hospitalized and is expected to survive, according to police.

  As her niece translated from Spanish. Adelina Najera said today that she asked Freddy around 10:30 p.m. not to leave their apartment with his friend, who was over for the night. But after she went to sleep, the teens did leave the apartment and were picked up by the two girls who were also involved in the crash, she said.

Story #1 is about taxpayers paying out damages for wrongful convictions, to the tune of $214 million so far. Burge plays a prominent role in the story.

Story #2 is about four teens out joyriding in a stolen car at 3:30 AM, wrecking and killing three of them.

We'll give you two guesses about which one the Tribune has the comment section open for, and the first guess doesn't count. Remember, only one story is worth reader input. Colonel McCormick is spinning in his grave.

This is a Bright Idea

Brain surgeons:

• Three north suburban men face charges of pointing a laser beam at a Chicago Police helicopter Saturday night, police said today.
  
  Arrested were Alvin Kang, 25, of Northbrook, Jeremy A. Smith, 24, of Skokie, and Mark P. Lawrence, 25, of Winnetka. The three face misdemeanor charges of unlawful use of a weapon -- pointing a laser at a police officer, according to a release from Chicago Police News Affairs.

Um, dumbasses? It's a helicopter. It doesn't have to circle around for another flyover to pinpoint your exact location. It kind of stops, hovers and picks out your location. A laser has two ends if you've forgotten - one on the "target" and one at the source.

Too bad we didn't get the Hellfire Missile package with the chopper, but Shortshanks thought that might be intimidating.

Thank You Readers

The comments in the "One Bad-Ass Clown" thread have had us laughing for hours. We haven't had that much amusement in quite a while.

Use this as an open thread for Sunday.

"Test of Nerves"

Sounds like a neighborhood under siege:

• For years, the neighborhood has been terrorized by rival gangs battling over open-air drug markets, said a retired gang investigator for Chicago Police.

  Since 2007, there have been 70 crimes that involved guns — rape, robberies, unlawful possession of a handgun, aggravated battery and murder — around one block of Kildare and Hirsch.

Sounds like there ought to be more police there....oh wait:

• An officer safety alert warning that cops are at a heightened risk of being shot in the area has since been put in place, police sources said.

  On Friday night, dispatchers had been instructed to send two beat cars to all calls for service in that part of town.

So even though they're under siege from gang banging pieces of crap, the cops are going there en masse because you know it's all the polices fault.

Time to stop the fest. Actually, the time was probably 20 or 30 years ago, but no better time than the present. Have Rahm plead poverty, we can't afford it, unwise use of resources, etc. It's outlived its usefulness.

One Bad-Ass Clown

Off duty cop disarms and kills a teen with his own gun:

• An off-duty Chicago police officer dressed up as a clown for a South Side fundraiser shot and killed a teen who held him at gunpoint tonight after the event, authorities said, citing preliminary information.
  
  The officer, who is assigned to the Near North police district, was in his clown outfit for a fundraiser for a day-care business, attended by about 50 children near West 87th Street and South Damen Avenue.
  
  At 10:10 p.m. after the event ended, the officer went to his car and a teen approached him, asking him for money, authorities said. When the officer said he had no money, the teen pulled a gun on him, authorities said.
  
  During a struggle with the teen, the officer grabbed hold of the gun, opened fire and killed him.

Who's laughing now!!!! We mean, seriously. Who the hell tries to rob a clown at a charity event? Aside from the car, what's he going to take? The squeaky shoes? The red nose? A few balloon animals?

A damn fine job Officer.

Humboldt Park Chaos?

Our comment section started lighting up just before 9 PM, but there doesn't appear to be any coverage on the networks, radios or websites.

We're getting unconfirmed reports of stabbings and massive gang fights across the entire park. Supposedly, Tact, Gang and Response Teams are being called out from districts across the city to go to the Puerto Rican festival in full riot gear, even gas teams being assembled?

Anyone have the actual story? We can't imagine anyone missed this one coming. Its been building for days and the weather is only going to aggravate it.

UPDATE: A couple of veterans saying it was normal behavior for the fest, just a couple of larger half-assed fights, mass dispersals and the like. They say it looks worse because we're undermanned and won't fill the wagons.

Warm Weekend Begins (UPDATED)

Here it comes:

• Four people were wounded in two separate shootings this afternoon on the West and South sides, officials said.
  
  Three people suffered minor wounds when someone fired a shotgun in the West Side's East Garfield Park neighborhood, striking them with pellets, said police.
  
  That shooting happened a little before 1 p.m. on the 700 block of North Trumbull Avenue. There was no information available on the ages or exact conditions of the wounded people, but police described the victims as two males and a female.
  
  An 18-year-old man was shot in the arm this afternoon in the Washington Park neighborhood on the South Side, police said.

That was Friday afternoon. Who knows what Friday night might bring.

UPDATE - Here's part of what it brought:

• Two men were wounded in separate shootings on the West Side this morning.

  At 12:35 a.m. in the Humboldt Park neighborhood, a man was found shot on the street in the 2600 block of West Haddon Avenue, according to a release from police News Affairs.

  He was taken in serious condition to Norwegian-American Hospital.

  About the same time in the Lawndale neighborhood, a 29-year-old man was shot in the 2100 block of South Pulaski Road, the release said.

And of course, it wouldn't be the weekend without someone shooting at the police:

• Several people were arrested after shots were exchanged with police in the West Pullman neighborhood on the Far South Side, police said.

  At 11:05 p.m., police exchanged gunfire with people in the 300 block of East 117th Street, according to police News Affairs [...].

  No one was hit....
  
  Several people were taken into custody

Hotter on Saturday and Sunday.

Thank You CFD

Working to save one of our own:

• As Engine Co. 117 and Tower Ladder 14 roared toward the still and box fire in the 4900 block of West Concord Place, the report over the radio said there were multiple calls about people trapped inside one of the burning bungalows.

  Upon arrival, Engineer Paul Strubee barged into the front door of the 1 1/2-story bungalow at 4928 W. Concord, finding a woman in her 40s collapsed in a front room, suffering from smoke inhalation after apparently trying to make it to the front door. Pushing deeper into the thick, smoke-filled rear of the home, firefighter Jason Risley would find a victim worse off.

  The firefighters and paramedics who responded to the fire that broke out about noon on the West Side Friday are credited with saving the lives of the woman and a 63-year-old, retired Chicago Police sergeant who lived there.

The sergeant is going to owe a lot of beer to that firehouse. Thanks CFD.

Worth 1,000 Words

Remember all the denials about the supposed gang involvement of the two recently departed souls in the vicinity of Hirsch and Kolin? Once again, we've taken some heat in the comment sections, some of which never made it to publication based on the bullshit and nonsense contained within. If the liberals in the crowd would care to explain this, we'd be most appreciative:


That's both the dead individuals practicing some nifty little hand moves. Maybe they shoot marbles with that or flip tiddly-winks or something? Channel 9 was kind enough to run the entire picture during their coverage - something the editors at Channel 7 felt they had to blur out for some reason.

You wonder why cops are cynical bastards? Stop believing the neighborhood bullshit and start listening to the guys and gals who work in the shit every single day.

Describe a Mushroom

"Something you keep in the dark and feed horseshit all day long."

It seems that the Superintendent was surprised to find out that all his plainclothes have been in uniform for the past month plus. When he asked why this was, no one had a good answer and no one was willing to throw the person signing off on the order under the proverbial bus.

The order was countermanded immediately and the teams are going back to CD. Good decision. Now how about demoting the mope who signed off on the order? In any event, the current command staff appears to have not related (by accident or by design) all of what's going on in the field. One might believe that the current gold stars are pretty much a collection of political hacks and incompetent double, triple and quadruple "merit" promotees.

Also, there is a new order to be released today stating that Tahoes will not be used in car chases. Ever. The Tahoe will be like a squadrol evidently, even though the Tahoes have been purchased with a police performance package. We are torn on this decision for a number of reasons:

• Anyone being stopped by an officer in a Tahoe now has an incentive to flee;
• Of the 300 or so Tahoes out there, all are camera equipped. By taking them out of pursuit business, you've now denied officers the video evidence needed to justify pursuit actions. We're going back to a system of "he said, he said," and we all know how the cases are going to go once they reach the Traffic Review Board - "here's your suspension and driving school."
• On the other hand, one only has to look at the Densey Cole crash. McCarthy says he lost two officers to SUV crashes, so we can appreciate his concern for the dangers posed by crashes in the trucks.

Debate in the comments.

Camera House

This citizen has been in contact with us for a little while now. His house was just featured on the Channel 2 News because he's wired the exterior with security cameras due to increased gang activity in his Humboldt Park neighborhood:

• A long time Humboldt Park resident is increasingly worried about gang activity in his neighborhood and is doing something about it. He’s set up live video surveillance around his property and hope the next time there’s trouble, he’ll have the evidence.

  [...] As he walked through his neighborhood, Bruce Barnes said, “We’ve had 15 shootings, we’ve had four people killed or injured within 15 blocks of this house. There’s no excuse for that.”

• Last year he photographed dozens of apparent gang members congregated outside his house during the annual Puerto Rican Day Festival. He says a Chicago Police detective “admitted that this intersection and the Puerto Rican Festival are a magnet for gangs all over the country. It’s a Disneyland for gangs in Chicago each year.”

He's offered his camera feed to the 014 District and the 911 Center in an effort to head off what might be a bloody festival weekend. WBEZ, Channel 7 and Channel 2 are receiving video updates all weekend.

We're posting this to make all officers aware that there are outside cameras filming at all times. Mr. Barnes seems genuine in his support of the police, but has expressed quite a bit of frustration dealing with our bureaucracy. No surprises there.

He's also a fan and has mentioned the blog to Commander Flores, who promptly flipped her shit:

• I told her I already has a small video surveillance system and would be expanding it this year. I also offered to make a feed available for CPD's use as there was nothing close to that intersection. During our conversation the subject of your blog came up and she was so unhappy that I knew about it that she started to literally fly across the table at me - almost threatening me for bringing your blog up stating that you were totally wrong in your statements and criticisms of CPD's leadership.
• The Channel 2 news item, which can be seen at http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2011/06/14/camera-house/, has so thoroughly pissed off the District Commander, Flores, that she has commanded a meeting with the homeowner tonite - after 16.30 hours - with a 3 hour window - depending on how busy she is.
  
  She will probably bring her gang of enforcement thugs with her - the same ones who were present at the meeting with the homeowner in the 014 conference room, last November - when she finally responded to the homeowner's complaint about 19 June, 2010.

So you see, citizens are to be summoned by their police masters when they dare to rock the boat in regard to completely legitimate criticisms raised by those same citizens. Now imagine actually working for this psycho. Perhaps this could be addressed at the next CompStat meeting?

Wildings - With Guns

Remember Rahm's bold statements from four days ago?

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel says he’s confident the city has a plan to prevent any more mob attacks this weekend.

  [....] “But I'm confident in the public safety of our city regardless of what neighborhood you live in. And that we have a strategy of putting more resources, of putting police on the street which is where we need to put those resources. So I am confident as it relates not just to this weekend, but during the week and every weekend in every neighborhood."

Meanwhile, back in the real world....:

• A 15-year-old boy was mugged at gunpoint and struck on the head by a group of teens near the Ogilvie Transportation Center in the West Loop on Tuesday evening.

  The incident happened about 6:30 p.m. near an alley at 101 N. Clinton St., according to police News Affairs Officer [...].

  The victim was approached by a group of seven male teens,....

  One, who was armed with a handgun, approached the victim and demanded his money, according to police. A second teen struck the victim on the back of his head,....

  The group got the boy's cell phone, cash and a bus card, police said.

Rahm had another press conference:

We're betting he drops that "f-bomb" any day now.

Getting Safer Every Day

At least, that's what we assumed:

• Chicago police today released a community alert warning of the attempted kidnapping of a jogger on a lakefront bike path.
  
  The 30-year-old woman was jogging Friday on the path at about the 3500 block of South Lake Shore Drive when the attacker grabbed her from behind in an attempt to pull her to an unspecified location, police said in the alert issued Wednesday night.
  
  After a brief struggle the woman broke free and escaped, while the attacker fled northbound on the bike path, police said.
  
  The alert describes the attacker a black, 19-21 years old, 5-foot-11 to 6-foot tall, 200 to 210 pounds with a dark complexion, He was wearing blue jeans with blue boxer shorts, and no shirt.

Holy Crap! A description? By the Tribune Company? But race doesn't have anything to do with the crime, right? Asshats.

Any bets on (A) the return of Summer Mobile or (B) the return of a Lakefront Overtime Initiative? Or is Rahm just going to pull one of these out of his hat?


You just wave it over your head Rahm - like the French Army.

We Need More Dynamite

Summer has arrived:

• Two teenage girls were hospitalized this evening after being wounded in separate shootings on the South Side, officials said.
  
  The first shooting occurred at about 5:07 p.m. on the 600 block of East 42nd Street in the Bronzeville neighborhood, said Chicago Police News Affairs [...]. The location of the shooting is near Sumac Park, 4201 S. Champlain Ave.
  
  
• In the second shooting, a 14-year-old girl was shot at about 5:30 p.m. near the area of 116th and State Streets in the Pullman neighborhood...
  
  The girl was shot in the buttocks while she was standing on the sidewalk.

Just curious, but which gang is at the top of the "blow up" list now? Because we're going to need that list up and running on the PDT's as soon as possible.

Overheard at the Crystal Ball Unit

Fly on the wall at 35th Street:

• "I'm telling you, Kolin and Hirsch - we've missed it three days in a row now. We don't want to miss the fourth..."

Nice plan guys.

BREAKING: Another Police Shooting

On the exact same block that has seen a murder and a shooting in two days:

• A person was seriously wounded in a police-involved shooting in the West Humboldt Park neighborhood on the West Side -- on the same block where a 15-year-old boy was gunned down earlier this week on his birthday.

  The shooting occurred around 4:50 p.m. near the intersection of Kolin and Hirsch avenues, said Chicago Police Officer Darryl Baety. The shooting was police-involved, but no further details were immediately available, although it did not appear a police officer was shot, said a spokesman for the Independent Police Review Authority.

  The victim was taken in serious to critical condition to Mount Sinai Hospital.

Rumor in the comment section said it may be the brother of the recently deceased non-gang banger.

UPDATE: Turns out to be a "friend" of the deceased, probably out looking for revenge. Be very very careful out there boys and girls. With the fest this weekend and everything, this isn't looking like a good omen.

UPDATE: This is priceless:

• The elder Gonzalez described his son as a good kid who wasn't part of a gang.

There sure are a lot of non-gang bangers running around with guns and getting killed over that direction.

Police Shooting

105th and State. Bad guy dead, cops fine. Details still coming in.

Thanks to Shaved for the tip.

"He Wasn't In a Gang"

Tragedy in Humboldt Park:

• A boy celebrating his 15th birthday Monday night was shot and killed in the city's West Humboldt Park neighborhood, officials said today.
  
  Killed was Jovany Diaz, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office. Diaz was a freshman at Amundsen High School, according to his family and school officials.

Then someone gets shot on the same block a day later:

• A man was wounded in the legs when shots rang out in the West Humboldt Park neighborhood this afternoon, officials said.

  The 24-year-old man was taken to Illinois Masonic Medical Center in good condition, said Chicago Police News Affairs [...].

  The shooting happened around 2:30 p.m. on the same block where 15-year-old Jovany Diaz was shot and killed about 10 p.m. Monday while celebrating his 15th birthday.

And one of the witnesses is our old acquaintance Kim Janssen:

• The expected makeshift sidewalk shrine, complete with dozens of candles, empty liquor bottles, hand-written notes of condolence taped to the railings, a graffiti-covered basketball and two photocopied pictures of the dead boy, was well-established when I arrived at the corner of Hirsch and Kildare Tuesday afternoon to interview friends and relatives of Jovany Diaz.

Because empty liquor bottles and graffiti covered walls are always on hand at non-gang associated street corner memorials. Oh, and the guns. No non-gang memorial is complete without at least two guns and shots fired in broad daylight:

• I knew the gun couldn’t be real because the shooting always happens before I get there.

  Even when the crazed teenager standing five yards from me on the corner fired two warning shots into the sky, it didn’t sound loud enough.

  Nobody in the crowd of 25 to 30 mourners seemed to believe he could be so brazen.

  Then the gunman lowered his snub-nosed black revolver, aimed down Kildare and fired two or three shots, and we stopped rationalizing and ran for our lives.

• As we bolted I glanced up at the second floor balcony above Diaz’s shrine and saw a second teenager take a running jump over the iron railing and 15 feet down into the street and towards the shooter.

  Holding a semi-automatic handgun in his left hand and wearing shiny white Nike Air sneakers, the youth lept with the balletic grace of Michael Jordan at his peak. I was still marvelling at it when the original gunman ran past on the other side of the street, and a man opened his front door to me and shouted “Get in!”

And the non-cooperation of neighborhood residents:

• A minute later I’d returned to the scene and found the tattooed victim, sitting in a plastic chair, bleeding from the leg and turning a shade of greyish green.

  A tableau of friends gathered tightly around him and glared at me. I asked him his name and he shook his head, grimly, before police and paramedics arrived and his friends split in a hurry.

  “Nobody’s talking,” I heard a sergeant say into his radio. As I made myself scarce, a passing dreadlocked witness said to himself, “I didn’t see nothing, I didn’t hear nothing, I don’t know nothing.”

As someone once said, "What gang problem?"

Rahm "Concerned"

Maybe that should read "terrified"?

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel today said he's concerned by the Car Care World Expo's decision not to come to McCormick Place and pledged to be aggressive in trying to keep costs down at the lakefront convention center.
  
  Emanuel said the trade show's decision is not necessarily an indication the McCormick Place reforms passed by the General Assembly last year have to be reworked, but more that a federal court case over that piece of legislation has to be settled so that trade shows have certainty about what their costs will be if they come to Chicago.

McCormick Place, like the airports, is an "economic engine." And if the engine isn't running on all cylinders, neither is the city or anything else for that matter. McCormick Place is one cylinder. Air travel is another. Tourism is a third. All three of those are in serious trouble and who knows how many others haven't been maintained or tuned up in years.

This is also an article to read:

• Motorola Solutions will add 400 jobs in Chicago by end of 2012, Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced today.
  
  The jobs will be new positions in service, sales support and other areas, Motorola President and CEO Greg Brown said at a downtown news conference with the mayor.
  
  [...] Motorola received no tax incentives as part of the deal, Emanuel said.

  Spokesman Nicholas Sweers said the company has not yet determined how many of the 400 positions will be new and how many will involve relocating workers from elsewhere. But he said the relocated workers will come "primarily from outside the greater Chicago area."

"No tax incentives from Chicago" they mean because we're pretty sure they got a few dozen millions from Quinn a little while ago.

So an unknown portion of workers will be "relocated" from other parts of the country, meaning it isn't truly 400 jobs unless you're using the new "Rahm-math" method of accounting. And the jobs are in the "service, sales support and other areas," which means they can be outsourced in a matter of minutes once the cost of doing business here exceeds the amount of cash that can be gotten from taxpayers.

Illinois Almost Alone

Concealed Carry is halfway to law in Wisconsin tonight:

• Republicans said the measure would help people take control over their own safety, particularly because some felons obtain guns even though they're not supposed to have them.
  
  "This is about allowing law-abiding citizens to protect themselves," said Rich Zipperer, R-Pewaukee.
  
  Under the measure, weapons would be allowed everywhere except police stations, jails, courthouses, government buildings that screen for weapons and beyond airport security checkpoints. Weapons would also be prohibited in places where posted bar them, and also in specifically exempted sites such as Milwaukee's Summerfest music festival. The bill keeps the current ban on guns in schools in place.

In Illinois though, only the law-abiding are required to unarmed and victimized.

J-Fled Still Here

And touting his "almost changed the world" plan:

• The plan began with a study of 911 calls, but expanded to include other information on crime trends. The plan would have shifted 300 patrol officers from 11 districts to the remaining 14 districts. In addition, the study found that those 11 districts could still stand to lose another 60 officers, Weis said.

  In the past, patrol officers were reallocated based on “gut feelings” of their supervisors, Weis said. Chicago hasn’t conducted a comprehensive analysis of where patrol cops should be deployed in at least 30 years, he said.

So Weis ran into the brick wall that was Shortshanks because of one simple fact:

• Surprisingly, the study showed all of the districts on the Northwest Side needed more patrol officers, even though department statistics show two of them — Jefferson Park and Albany Park — are among the least violent ones in the city. Another low-crime district, Morgan Park on the Southwest Side, would have gotten more cops, too. They get a higher proportion of calls about property crimes such as burglary, which can take longer to process than calls about some violent crimes such as “shots fired” because many of those calls are bogus or can’t be substantiated, Weis said.

  High-crime districts on the Far South Side and Southeast Side would have gained officers, as would Austin and Harrison on the West Side and Marquette on the Southwest Side. And every North Side district east of the Chicago River, including the Near North District that covers the Magnificent Mile, would lose patrol officers. Several high-crime districts on the South Side, including Englewood, would have lost cops, too.

Aldercreatures and "reverends" wouldn't have stood for moving cops out of their 'hoods.

Once again, this is just more proof that a serious look has to be given to redistricting - not only redistricting, but redistricting on a semi-regular basis, like every three years or so. Not the 30+ years it's been now.

Hey Rahm?

Hire back full-duty officers to work in their districts on one of their days off at time-and-one-half.

They know the streets, they know the players, they're covered by all the rules, regulations, laws and ordinances.

You'll have hundreds of volunteers to rotate through on an endless basis. They'll volunteer in the shitty districts and if someone in a slower district wants an opportunity, they'll bid to the shithole districts like you want.

It's cheaper than running an academy class and you'll save on training.

They're already doing it for Tact Teams in 001 and/or 018 (we've heard both).

Or does the thought of an officer actually making money to get by in a shitty economy engineered by you make you that uncomfortable that you won't do it?

Cop Injured

Subject in custody:

• Chicago police this morning were holding a motorist who they said struck a police officer after turning to avoid a traffic safety check and then took off.
  
  The officer, assigned to the Near North police district, was conducting a traffic stop when he was struck by a Jaguar at about 2:10 a.m. in the 1500 block of North Sheffield Avenue in the city's Goose Island neighborhood, police said. The collision occurred in an area home to several trendy night clubs.
  
  The officer, who WGN-TV said was a 19-year department veteran, was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he was treated for serious but non-life-threatening injuries to his legs, police said.

Best wishes to the officer for a rapid recovery.

The Bleeding Continues

Better get those slot machines installed quick!

• Car Care World Expo has reversed its decision to book McCormick Place for 2013, becoming the first trade show to exit Chicago after a federal court ruling invalidated labor changes enacted by the state legislature last year.

  "Until the work rules are on par with Las Vegas, it’s a no-go for us," said Eric Wulf, chief executive officer of the International Carwash Association, a Chicago-based trade group that has held its show in Las Vegas for the past five years. The 2013 show will now be held in Las Vegas.
  
  The show would not have been one of Chicago’s largest, but it attracts about 6,000 exhibitors and attendees, who together would have spent an estimated $8.5 million in the area.

According to the article, six other shows have filed notice to hold their events elsewhere. Along with Rahm pulling coppers out of thin air, he better be able to pull a few hundred million dollars out of his ass shortly.

License Ads

Here it comes:

• Hard up for money, Illinois is considering of selling advertising space on its state license plates.
  
  The idea is to allow corporate sponsors to put their business logos on the plates, which would be offered to drivers at a discount.
  
  Lawmakers voted last month to have the secretary of state study the pros and cons of corporate plates. The study, meant to gauge interest and potential revenues, should be finished by Jan. 1.
  
  Sen. John Mulroe, D-Chicago said he hopes corporate plates will be a way to bring in more money without raising taxes.
  
  Texas already allows corporate plates, which are produced by a firm called My Plates. The companies that have signed up include the Re/Max real estate business and a hamburger chain called Mighty Fine Burgers.

The humor potential here is endless.

Sneed Stealing Blog Comments

Again, and without fully realizing what they mean:

• Cop shop . . .

  The tsunami of new flash mob violence on the lakefront is a threat to tourism, business, Chicago’s economy — and the infancy of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s promising new administration.

"Promising?" Way to suck up there Sneed - good to see you haven't lost a step with the new administration.

But duh! It's been going on for a few years now, not that Sneed would notice seeing as she carried water for Daley and Burke all those years. Remember, she stays at Burke's castle in Ireland when she visits.

• "There was trouble on the lakefront before — but nothing like this," a top cop source said. "It’s like the bad economy has forced the gangs to enter into rich man’s land. If the city loses the lakefront to the flash mobs, there goes the economy."

Again, duh. And again, not reporting the crime doesn't mean it isn't occurring. Remember, they were shooting at the Taste years ago. And a quick youtube.com search shows the helicopter being used in the midst of a couple of huge gang fights by Buckingham Fountain years ago. But since it's happening in "rich man's land," it's finally getting covered.

• Sneedless to say, it’s one helluva way for new Police Supt. Garry McCarthy to cut his prodigious incisors — especially because Chicago is reportedly short police manpower.

"reportedly"? It's your own damn paper that's citing the 2,000-plus number Sneed. Don't you ever talk to Frank and Fran?

• So here’s a Sneed tip . . .

  Why not hire retired police officers for part-time work and let them work a few days a week shoring up the areas that need protection?

  Retired cops — nearly 2,000 in the past few years — are always looking for second jobs and part-time work.

  They’ve got their uniforms, their weapons, their equipment. Many of these guys have 30 to 40 years of police experience.

"Always looking for...part time work"? Some maybe, not all. And many have second jobs that have nothing to do with chasing bad guys or police work. Many wouldn't come back here if you paid them blood money. Most probably sold their uniforms the first chance they got, probably at the FOP resale event that we hold twice a year. They couldn't wait to get rid of the damn things. And their 30 to 40 years experience is telling them to stay as far away from this superintendent, mayor and city as they can.

• The city wouldn’t have to pay into a pension plan because they are already collecting their pensions — and have free medical care until they are 65.

Yet another reason to stay away. They got all their repairs done before they left. Why jeopardize the new hip, knee or shoulder?

• The retired cops are still paying union dues.

Those are "fraternal" dues Sneed. They get to come to meetings, go to the golf outing, fish, get a newsletter, etc. They even get to vote. But the union can't negotiate employment for them. They can't provide them legal representation. They can't determine seniority issues, pay scales, work rules or hours. It's a near impossibility.

• They wouldn’t be replacing cops or taking jobs away, just filling in the blanks until new cops could be hired.

Actually, they would be taking jobs away. Special employment and other such opportunities that are already provided for in the Contract. You can't just hire an entire class of workers and plug them into jobs already held by active members. There are laws against it. Here's a question - how are you going to indemnify these guys if they end up catching, fighting and shooting one of these fine honor roll students? That debate would last about Rahm's entire term of office.

• Sound like something worth thinking about? Just asking.

Well, why not just shut up then? It is barely worth addressing, but we needed a filler piece tonight.

150 More Cops to the Street?

That Rahm...he's a miracle worker alright:

• 150 extra Chicago Police officers will be ready to patrol city neighborhoods by the end of the coming week. That promise came today from Mayor Emanuel and the new Police Superintendent.

  As CBS 2’s Mike Parker reports, during his campaign, Rahm Emanuel pledged to put 1,000 more police officers on the streets of Chicago. Within days of taking offic[e], 500 officers had been reassigned to beat duty. On Sunday, he said 150 more cops are now being added to neighborhoods across the city.

Read paragraph #2 again:

• Rahm Emanuel pledged to put 1,000 more police officers on the streets of Chicago. Within days of taking offic[e], 500 officers had been reassigned to beat duty.

That was the TRU/MSF disbanding. Those officers were already working in 006, 007, 011 and 025 about 95% of the time. Aside from the benefits that come from working in a unit, these 500 officers were already working the street. Moving them from a unit into beat cars isn't really a net gain of 500, but Rahm and his people are all over it, claiming it as half of his promised "1,000" and there's Channel 2's Mike Parker aiding and abetting the smoke and mirrors. (there were also some inside spots and a couple of extraneous removals from certain units added in to make it a round 500.)

Today, they come up with another 150 bodies for the street. Where did these 150 bodies come from? We haven't heard of anyone else being disbanded. The Shortshanks detail remains intact. Callback seems fully staffed with POW's and light-duty, long-term medical people. You'd think we'd hear about 150 people being removed from spots - in fact, we would get a dozen e-mails about it and more than a few dozen comments, but we haven't heard anything.

Could this comment be the reason?

• Our district received 5 po's to help the numbers. the only thing they forgot to say about it, we received 5 ppo's who will be po's in 2 weeks.

Aha. That would make sense. He really is pulling numbers out of thin air. The Probationary Police Officers are about to "graduate" to full-duty status, so now we can count them as "Officers" instead of PPO's. It's fucking brilliant! Well done Rahm. Now if you can just find another 350 people squirreled away somewhere and "reassign" them to street duty, you can make a little check mark next to that campaign promise and cut a commercial for your Senate run in 4 years.

And this is just pathetic:

• Shakespeare District Commander Linda Flores is in charge of police activities in the Logan Square neighborhood. Of those dozen or so new cops she’ll be getting, she said “There’s a lot of different things that I have in mind…my mind is rolling with what I’m going to do with them.”

  She wouldn’t talk in detail about her plans for the additional officers. She smiled and said, “The bad guys will never know.”

First of all, your mind is rolling commander because there's so much extra space in there for actual ideas that don't involve yelling at subordinates and locking yourself in the office rereading the General Orders to make sure you didn't screw up another decision. Second, the bad guys will never know because they won't even notice the seven "extra" people you're getting on midnights because they're already there.

The circus continues.

Tales from the Street

Most cops we know like to hear war stories. What we hear nowadays aren't truly "war stories" in the traditional sense of the word, probably because the Department is actually a very young Department at the moment. And probably because we're on the verge of becoming the dinosaurs we used to snicker about years ago. But it was a good-hearted snickering back then, in the finest traditions of ball-busting and such. And when we'd go out to the bars, there would always be an old-timer or two sitting on a well-worn stool in the corner, drinking a tad too much and shooting the breeze, remembering years and coppers and bosses gone by. We knew many of these guys from the stories our father used to tell (the clean versions) and some of the names they talked about weren't unfamiliar to us.

We mentioned this website a number of months ago and we recall hoping that it would turn into something bigger than it was, because we miss those old stories, those old-timers, those good times (we certainly aren't going to call them "innocent times.") We're mentioning it again because we went back and the archives are slowly getting bigger and the stories are exactly as we remember.

• Tales from the Street - by Jim Padar

Any old-timer thinking of memorializing their careers could get some good ideas from this blog. Any aspiring authors could pick up a lot of good hints from Jim Padar's writing. And anyone who remembers the old warhorses telling stories over a shot-and-a-beer at the tavern across the street might recall an era that is slowly fading from memory.