Parade Fines

Interesting:

• After being “hijacked by idiots” who drank themselves silly, as the local alderman put it, the South Side Irish Parade made a family-oriented comeback last March.
  
  Ald. Matt O’Shea (19th) wants to make certain there’s no going back to the bad old days.
  
  At Wednesday’s City Council meeting, O’Shea introduced an ordinance that would throw the book at those caught drinking on the public way within 200 feet of a parade in progress.
  
  The minimum fine for adults would increase five-fold — from $100 to $500. The maximum fine would double — from $500 to $1,000. The alternative to the higher fines would be up to six months in jail.
  
  Adults who relieve themselves in public within 200 feet of a parade in progress would face similar fines and anywhere from five to 10 days behind bars.
  
  Minors caught drinking in the shadows of a parade would be slapped with $500 fines or required to perform 25 hours of community service. 

So....is this enforcement exclusive to the South Side Irish Parade?  Because without a doubt, this would make Beverly and Mount Greenwood streets among the cleanest in the nation.

And with evenhanded enforcement, Bronzeville, Washington Park and Humboldt Park could end up being spotless for the first time since the turn of last century, too.

Look! Less Killings!

Take it where you can get it:

• In a year in which the rise in homicides has brought unwelcome national attention to Chicago, police on Thursday announced one encouraging statistic: October saw its second-lowest number of killings in at least 30 years.
  
  The month ended with 36 homicides, down eight from October 2011 and the second-lowest the department has recorded since 1982. The city had 34 homicides in October 2004.
  
  Shootings also fell in last month to 208, down from 231 in October 2011, the department said.
  
  Still, through the first 10 months of 2012, homicides have risen by a little over 22 percent over a year earlier, putting Chicago on pace to potentially record 500 homicides for the first time since 2008. Through October, there have been 442 homicides, compared with 361 during the same period last year.

So we're still up 80 homicides.....stop paying attention to that.

The grasping at small trends is a hallmark of CompStat is the obvious lesson here.  Talk up the supposed drop in burglaries one month.  Talk about less CTA robberies by downgrading everything to a Theft.  A one-month aberration in homicide numbers and all our strategies are working.

Preview of Things to Come?

Anyone else having this problem?

• I have been retired since April 2010 after 37 years of service. Over the last several months, my wife has been seeing a orthopedic physician due to severe neck pain. He prescribed physical therapy and my wife completed 6 weeks of therapy at a facility that we have both used in the past.
  
  We got notice from Blue Cross that they weren’t paying for the therapy and that they would review the claim. Today we received notice from them that they denied the claim because they feel it was “not a medical necessity.” We thought that maybe it was coded wrong or something like that so we called the therapy place and were informed that (at least at this place) the City has been denying ALL city workers therapy claims and that BCBS should have told everyone from the beginning.
  
  So I’m wondering if anyone else has had this type of problem or is Mayor Shortstack diluting our benefits without notice?

We know retiree healthcare is supposed to end in 2013. We're sure Rahm is looking to offload any and everything he can into Obamacare.  Is this a preview?

Someone is Lying

Not just lying - lending credence to the theory of a cover-up:

• She’s one of Chicago’s top cops — so highly rated that she was one of three finalists to replace former Supt. Jody Weis.
  
  But Debra Kirby’s account of her actions in the aftermath of disgraced officer Anthony Abbate’s notorious videotaped attack on a bartender was directly contradicted in sworn testimony Tuesday in federal court by another officer and an assistant Cook County State’s attorney.
  
  Lawyers for the beaten bartender, Karolina Obrycka, hope the three wildly differing accounts from Kirby, Sgt. Joseph Stehlik and prosecutor Tom Bilyk about a phone call Kirby testified she made three days after the attack will convince a jury that Kirby is a liar who tried to hush up Abbate’s attack.

Just knowing what we know, and some of our number having been through the wringer, we speculate as follows:

1. The prosecutor has no dog in the fight.  Anita has been looking to hang coppers for years and her predecessor didn't do us many favors either.  To think the States Attorney wouldn't have hung a copper out to dry in a heartbeat is nuts;
2. If this was in fact, a heater case as is being portrayed, there is no way a sergeant takes it upon himself to get misdemeanor complaints signed under unless he's part and parcel of any conspiracy.  We don't mind sergeants for the most part, but let's not kid anyone - they aren't allowed to make decisions of this sort of import. 
3. Kirby is throwing everyone she can under the bus in hope that the wheels jam up and save her the brunt of this one.

There is a reason that IAD reports directly to the Superintendent outside of any other chain of command.  It's the same reason the Superintendent reports directly to the mayor - political insulation.  And if there's a fire, insulation protects the "valuables."

From our e-mail:

• Why isn't anyone asking about how IAD tried to farm out the SOS investigation to the States Attorney and the feds for over almost two years while the crew ran amok?  Kirby was in charge then and sat on it.

True?  

Anyone Want to Gamble?

Has anyone seen a list of schools that will be handing out these $25 Walgreens gift cards?  We have a pretty good idea of what the map would show.

And here's a sure money bet:

• Report card pick up is 12/13 November.  Within 24 hours some Tact team somewhere picks up a dope dealer with at least two gift cards in their pocket.

Any takers on that one?  

Walgreens could use the publicity at some point - supporting the drug habits of negligent parents since 2012.

.05 per Bullet Shot Down

Someone must have steered Preckwinkle in the direction of an Econ 101 textbook:

• Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle today dropped plans for a five-cent bullet tax, but still wants to charge a $25 tax on every gun purchase.
  
  The compromise was negotiated over several days with Commissioners John Fritchey and Edwin Reyes, both Chicago Democrats, who had balked at the guns and ammo taxes.
  
  In exchange for their support, Preckwinkle agreed to create a $2 million fund to combat gun violence. Fritchey had proposed dedicating $1.4 million to anti-gun violence efforts. She also agreed to exempt law-enforcement officers from having to pay the tax, which helped convince Reyes to support the plan.

Evidently, she only absorbed half the lesson though. If we can get a gun for $25 cheaper in Kane or Will or DuPage county, we'll be doing that instead and picking up a few hundred bucks worth of ammo while we're there.

And if you thought for an instant that this was anything but a punitive tax on those who dare to own a gun, this ought to make it clear:

• The bullet tax was projected to raise $400,000 in revenue. The gun tax would raise $600,000, Budget Director Andrea Gibson said.
  
  The revenue would help defray the cost of medical care for people who are shot and then treated at county-run, taxpayer subsidized Cook County Hospital. The hospital treats about 670 gunshot victims at year at an average cost of $52,000, Preckwinkle said.

$1 million in new taxes to defray a bill of $34.8 million in gunshot care?  What a fucking joke.

Kirby on the Hot Seat

And supposedly melting in the kitchen:

• A high-ranking official with the Chicago Police Department denied on Tuesday that she pushed for misdemeanor charges for an off-duty officer who attacked a female bartender in a beating that was caught on videotape and went viral.
  
  Debra Kirby, who was the head of Internal Affairs Division at the time of the 2007 beating, testified she wanted to seek felony charges against the officer, Anthony Abbate.
  
  Kirby appeared tense on the witness stand in the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse as she answered a series of questions by attorney Terry Ekl, who is representing the bartender, Karolina Obrycka, in her federal suit against Abbate and the city.

Never let them see you sweat, Deb. But then, when you've got so many skeletons foisted on you by previous administrations and you're slowly coming to the realization that the closet you're supposed to hide them in is sorely lacking in space, then you've got problems on a scale unseen since Summerdale. How many other agencies were offered the SOS investigation?  And for how many years?

• Kirby and Ekl sparred over the first question, disputing whether she was called to the superintendent's "conference room" or "office" when the department brass first learned of the videotape of the beating at Jesse's Short Stop Inn on the Northwest Side.

Wow, the first question?  Talk about setting the stage.

• Kirby also denied directing Internal Affairs Division investigators to take a blank misdemeanor complaint form to Obrycka's house for her to sign.

She just threw the entire Internal Affairs Division under the bus.  Now the question becomes who catches the Rule 14?

Rahm Snorting Chlorine Again

Pay parents to pick up report cards - it's fucking brilliant!

• Is the lure of a $25 gift card enough to persuade a parent who’s not involved in their child’s education to get involved?
  
  Seventy Chicago Public Schools that have struggled to engage parents are about to find out.
  
  At Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s request, Walgreen Co. has agreed to provide $25 gift cards to parents who pick up their students’ report cards and participate in parent-teacher conferences during report card pickup days.
  
  “This is a way, in my view, of incentivizing responsible parenting,” Emanuel told a news conference at Field Elementary School, 7019 N. Ashland.
  

Is he serious? "incentivizing responsible parenting?" In what parallel universe is this unmitigated ass living in? If you "incentivize" (which isn't even a real word) bad behavior, what do you get? More bad behavior.

Every study in existence proves this. Example A is the entire welfare system - you pay someone not to work, you get a shitload of people not working. You give someone a check for pushing out babies, pretty soon the birthrate skyrockets and you have 15, 14 even 13-year-olds having babies. You know what reduced the teen birthrate back in the 1990's? Stopping the checks.

• Emanuel said he got the gift card idea during one of his morning workouts.
  
  “That’s what happens when I start swimming. I start coming up with ideas,” the mayor said.
  
  The mayor then approached Walgreen CEO Greg Wasson, who jumped at the opportunity to “give back” to the city where the company has operated for 112 years and now has 150 stores.
  

This explains part of  where he keeps getting these fucked up ideas - chlorine poisoning.

And these idiot businessmen and women who keep enabling bad behavior, not only on the part of the parent, but on the part of an out-of-his-mind mayor.

Delayed Penalty

Sorry about the hockey reference - the lockout is getting to us:

• A 16-year-old shot by a police officer during a foot chase on the South Side Sunday night has died, authorities said.
  
  Ricky Childs, of the 7900 block of South Ingleside Avenue, was pronounced dead at 9:51 p.m. Monday at the John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office.
  
  [...] During the pursuit, Childs fired a gun at an officer pursuing him on foot, police said.
  
  After missing, Childs pointed the gun again in the officer's direction, and the officer fired his weapon, striking Childs in the head, police said.
  
  Authorities said police recovered a gun at the scene.
  

Nice shot.

By the way, he was just about to turn his life around.

Mounted Unit

WGN did a nice piece on the Mounted Unit the other day. 

Here's a link to the story.

The Marquez family meeting the horse bearing Donny's name is especially touching.

All Right You Jokers

OK, who put the Romney bumper sticker on the Commander's ride? This just came through from a gold star fan of ours:

• Please ensure a supervisor visually inspects EVERY vehicle assigned to your district or parked at your facility by 0900 hours tomorrow morning. It has been raised that there may be a vehicle or two that have non-approved items affixed. Anything found will be removed immediately. If the item cannot be removed it will be transported to the appropriate garage where the vehicle will be taken out of service until the item can be removed.

Unless they're talking about that Direct TV dish we had installed the other day? 

NYPD in Trouble (UPDATE)

Comments here and over at TheeRant say that the 60th and 100th Precincts are being evacuated of police officers.  Buildings are being hit hard by flooding and have no power.  News reports across the board say Lower Manhattan is taking a beating and electrical grids are failing.

Prayers for our brothers and sisters in New York and all those affected.

UPDATE: A huge fire has already destroyed 50 homes in Queens.  FDNY can't get to the blazes due to impassible streets - and this is just a small corner of New York.  The entire eastern seaboard and surrounding states are getting trashed badly. 

You Go Chalkie!

Chicago surpasses the entire 2011 homicide totals in just 10 months:

• A father of four was on his way back from his morning ritual of getting his cup of coffee and morning newspaper when he was shot and killed, becoming the 436th homicide victim of the year in Chicago, surpassing the city’s murder count for all of last year.
  
  Carlos Alexander, 33, had just come back from the store a few hundred feet from his home in the 7900 block of South Escanaba when he was shot about 10:30 a.m. Monday.
  
  He was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where he died, police said.

Rahm decides to focus on the bullshit numbers that CompStat has been producing, none of which are based in reality:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel said today that it's "not good" the city has surpassed the homicide total for all of last year, even as he sought to keep the spotlight on what he said have been successes in fighting crime.
  
  "We have other milestones," Emanuel said. "One is, overall crime is down 9 percent in the city, has seen the largest drop ever. Second, we're tearing down the 200th building today where gangbangers and drug dealers hang out."

Crime still isn't down - it's under-reported as citizens give up waiting for police that never arrive in a timely manner as we're busy cleaning up a 25% increase in dead bodies and assorted maimings.

But hey, we have exactly the number of police we need - according to the mayor and supernintendo.

How long until someone claims "that's racist"?

November Retirement Numbers

We got a few e-mails recently and a few comments last month about November being a particularly heavy month of retirements:

• 4 to 7 captains
• over a dozen lieutenants
• 40 or more sergeants
• well over 100 officers

We're pretty sure someone out there has the exact numbers.

We'd also point out that the Academy has around 200 or so recruits and the 500 hires that Rahm promised  seem a bit of a fantasy so far.

More "Discrimination" at CFD

Everyone seems to be lining up with their hands out:

• A physical abilities test the city is using to hire African-American firefighters in settlement of a race discrimination lawsuit is discriminatory against women, a suit filed Friday in U.S. District Court charges.
  
  Godfrey et al vs. City of Chicago was filed by 20 female plaintiffs on behalf of all female applicants who recently took the test and failed.
  
  “The city hasn’t been served yet with the lawsuit, so we cannot comment at this time,” said city Law Dept. spokesman Roderick Drew.
  
  The women are already members of two other class-action suits. 

Not to be sexist pigs and all, but if you can't drag the equipment up two or four or forty flights of stairs, how are you going to actually, you know, fight a fire?  Anyone who insists there aren't any physical differences between men and women hasn't really been looking too closely.

*** SLOW READERS PAY ATTENTION HERE ***

That isn't to say there aren't any number of women qualified to do the job.  Many would probably out-perform us in various scenarios.  Running, climbing come to mind.  But you don't downgrade the entire testing process to accommodate people who can't do the basics.  If we need help, we don't care who rescues us....as long as they can actually rescue us.  Otherwise, what's the point?

Two More Police Shootings

And yes, one is in Englewood:

• Chicago police shot a man in the Englewood neighborhood Sunday at about 10 p.m., authorities said.
  
  The man was taken from the 5700 block of South Wolcott Avenue to John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County with at least one gunshot wound, according to reports.
  
  Englewood District officers were on patrol near 57th Street and Wolcott Avenue following reports of gunfire in that area over the last few days, authorities said.
  
  On Sunday night, they were in that area when they heard gunshots and saw at least one person among a group of four or five shooting at a house, authorities said, citing preliminary information. The officers approached the group and announced their office, authorities said. That's when more gunfire erupted, reportedly in the cops' direction.
  
  This prompted at least one of the officers to return fire, striking one of the suspects from the group in the leg, authorities said. The wounded suspect, a 27-year-old man, then tried to elude the police on foot, but was apprehended a short time later near 58th Street and Winchester Avenue, authorities said.
  
  He was taken to Stroger Hospital and a gun was recovered, authorities said. The rest of the group was still at large early Monday morning.
  
  Meanwhile, Chicago police Sunday night shot another person who pointed a gun at them near 82nd Street and Drexel Avenue, authorities said. A gun was also recovered in that shooting, but further details about it weren't immediately available.

Nice jobs all around.

And Another Thing....

....this "shot spotter" crap?

Even if it managed to beat a cell phone caller to the punch (which it hasn't);

AND police actually arrived on the scene within moments of the shots being fired (which has happened without shot spotter)

AND the program was able to determine an actual fixed address where the shots originated from (we have no idea of the software is that integrated);

...without actually seeing the shots coming from a house, does anyone realistically believe that we're just going to start kicking in doors and ransacking homes/apartments looking for the gun and/or shooter?

In this day and age?

With the amount of punitive damages and such being assessed against officers?

With the number of officers at callback?

With the brass we have in place who wouldn't back their own mother in a parking lot fender-bender?

And even if we did, without the gun being in the hand, let alone the same room as the suspect shooter, does anyone really think Anita is going to charge anyone with the felony?

That sound you hear is millions of dollars being flushed down the toilet - again. Millions that could hire more actual officers.

Home Visits?

Finally, a job that liberal bleeding hearts can go while supporting their dreams of nanny-statism and villages raising children:

• On Friday, Chicago Police Superintendent Garry F. McCarthy called for increased access to voluntary home visiting programs for new, at-risk parents to address the root causes of violent crime
  
  Pointing to a new report by the anti-crime organization Fight Crime: Invest in Kids Illinois, Superintendent McCarthy said research shows home visiting programs, which provide coaching for at-risk new parents, can cut abuse and neglect by as much as half and significantly reduce future violent crime. Home visiting programs provide trained workers, such as nurses or mental health professionals, to support new, at-risk parents starting before birth through the child’s toddler years. The services work on an ongoing, voluntary basis to help parents cope with the stresses of raising an infant or toddler, support the child’s social and emotional development and ensure infant and maternal health.

Reduce the police staffing numbers to dangerous levels, watch the homicide rates rise, blame everything but the number of police officers, and finally, introduce some new "feel-good" crap that we can see is just going to raise our taxes again and produce zero results for us since we already know how to raise functional human beings.

And does anyone else see the irony of McRevamp911 telling everyone how we're going to alter the way police answer calls, disregarding non-emergency and nonsense calls, while simultaneously pushing this non-police initiative?

We've completely lost our direction thanks to McColumbus.

Less Aldercreatures = Less Waste

Almost a year ago, Northside posted this comment comparing the number of aldercreatures to those of other cities. If Rahm was truly interested in saving some real money, instead of nickel and dime-ing everyone to death, this would deserve some serious consideration:

====================

WHY TWENTY-FIVE CHICAGO WARDS? TRY SEVENTEEN.

The U.S. Census Bureau is the source of the final 2010 decennial population data for the nation's eight most populous cities. The respective number of city council members is in parentheses.

1. New York City...8,175,133 (51)

2. Los Angeles......3,792,621 (15)

3. CHICAGO...........[see below]

4. Houston..........2,099,451 (11)

5. Philadelphia.....1,526,006 (17)

6. Phoenix..........1,445,632 (9)

7. San Antonio......1,327,407 (10)

8. San Diego........1,307,402 (8)

___________________________________

TOTAL (7 CITIES)...19,673,652 (121)

3. CHICAGO..........2,695,598 (50)

Excluding Chicago, the aggregate of the seven most populous cities in the nation have an average of less than 17 city council numbers per capita.

While New York City has a population over three times larger than Chicago, they have only 51 city council members, a mean of one per every 160,297 residents. Chicago has a mean of one alderman per only 53,912 residents.

WHY?

=================

Think of the savings, not to mention the reduction in graft, crooked contracting and having to divide the corruption pie so many different ways.

Pension Post (and CA 49)

This popped up in the comments:

• On 01 October 2012, our City Council conducted hearings regarding city pensions including the Police & Fire Pensions. John Gallagher, Executive Director of the Police Pension Fund took the stand along with others to answer questions from the aldermen.
  
  Mr. Gallagher is remarkable advocate for his constituents -the active and retired members of the police department. It was recently announced that Mr. Gallagher will be leaving our Fund. I hope the new Executive Director has the same fire as Mr. Gallagher.
  
  Below are some facts and myths debunked at the hearings:
  
  Facts:•Our Pension is currently funded at approximately 35%.
  •Approximately 11,800 sworn members are currently contributing to our pension fund.
  •3,200 sworn members are 50 years old with 20 years seniority (27% of all sworn members).
  •Approximately 55% of retirees continue to live and spend money in Chicago.
  Myth:The city does not make their full payments to the pension fund.
  Fact:The city has statutorily met all its payments to the pension fund.
  Myth:The 2 times multiplier the city currently contributes to the pension is enough.
  Fact:According to Executive Director Gallagher, he has repeatedly informed the city that the 2 times multiplier is NOT enough.
  Myth:The pension fund is not hitting its mark on investments.
  Fact:The Actuarial Assumption for our fund is 8%, the pension fund has actually averaged about 8.8% since 1974. The Fund is currently over 10% for 2012, year to date (October 2012).
  Myth:Active members will not contribute more than 9% of their salary to the pension.
  Fact:Most active members will agree to a slight increase in the amount they contribute to their pensions Myth: Police pension COLAs are compounded annually.
  Fact:Police Pension COLAs are NOT compounded.
  Fact:No one born after 01 January 1955 will receive a COLA until they are 60 years of age and that COLA will be 1.5%.
  According to a Chicago Tribune/WGN-TV Poll published on 16 October 2012, "Illinois voters overwhelmingly blame politicians for creating the state's public employee pension mess."
  
  Executive Director Gallagher has been sounding the alarm for years. Voters know this is not a problem that occurred overnight. However, Alderman Richard Mell at the hearings is quoted, "We have to solve the situation as quick as we possibly can." (Chicago Tribune, 02 Oct 12). I hope the alderman means long term plans are needed, not a quick fix, because a quick, knee jerk reaction will NOT solve this problem.
  
  VOTE "NO" on the proposed amendment to the Illinois Constitution, Resolution #49!
  
  One of these knee jerk reactions is the proposed amendment to the Illinois Constitution, Resolution #49. This hastily written amendment WILL send many pension issues to the courts because it is written with such vague terms. No one wants their pension money/payments tied up in the Illinois Court System!!
  
  Who will decide what a pension benefit increase is? Perhaps even the inequitable 1.5% COLA increase at age 60 will require a 3/5 majority of the legislature. Why let the courts decide on your pension! Please vote "NO" and tell your family and friends to vote "NO."
  
  Lt. James Maloney
  Pension Board Representative
  &
  Lt. Michael Dejanovich
  Headquarters' Representative

Makes sense to us.  Vote "NO" and spread the word.

CAPS is Dead? Finally?

Once again, the Reader leads the way:

• Chicago police officials are contradicting each other and withholding information about the future of the program designed to open communication networks with the community.
  
  On Friday afternoon, the director of the Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy, or CAPS, added the latest twist, denying that anything will be different next year—except where it is.
  
  "Nothing has been changed, so to speak," says CAPS director Ron Holt.
  
  Really?
  
  As I reported earlier, the budget for the CAPS central office has been cut from about $4.6 million this year to zero for 2013.

When your job (or your entire department/division/bureau) ends up as a line item of "ZERO," that usually means something is up.

• While monthly or semimonthly beat meetings are scheduled to continue, police superintendent Garry McCarthy said this week that he wants to dramatically revamp things so that district commanders decide what to do with CAPS beat by beat.
  
  "I want a philosophy of policing. I don't want a program, and CAPS is actually a program," McCarthy said. "We haven't finished all the details on this now, but the fact is that we're distributing all the CAPS folks out into the districts, into the district commanders' hands, where it's localized and they have a better handle on what's going on."
  
  Aldermen repeatedly asked just how this new form of community policing would work, but McCarthy struggled to explain it—probably because, as he admitted, he didn't know himself just yet.
  
  "This is all being built as we speak," he said.
  

That sounds ominous. But Wysinger has a different song book that he's singing from:

• First deputy superintendent Al Wysinger added that Holt and other top CAPS officials—those who've been responsible for implementing community outreach citywide—would likely be given other duties. "We don't know where they're going to fit per se," he said.

In the real world, that would be a kiss of death - but CAPS has had so many pronouncements of its demise (and it is the Halloween season where the dead walk....and vote) that we can't really believe it.

Bears Favored by 7.5

Well, last week we lost about 100.... "toothpicks" betting the spread.  The Lions scored late and covered.  This week, we're a bit wary of things.  Plus we're running low on toothpicks.

This Game is SOOO Realistic

You can't make this up:

• A 21-year-old man playing PlayStation was shot in the back through a first-floor window early Saturday morning on the West Side and died less than two hours later, authorities said.
  
  Devon Greer, of Lansing, was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he was declared dead at 5:22 a.m. after being shot in the back, according to the Cook County medical examiner's office. He was shot through a west-facing window in a home in the 3800 block of West Augusta Boulevard in the Humboldt Park neighborhood about 3:40 a.m., police said.
  
  Greer, of the 18400 block of Country Street in Lansing, was among four people shot on the West Side since about 7:30 p.m. Friday. Four other people were shot early Saturday morning on the Far South Side.

So now the question becomes was it an unintentional homicide or a hit in the war zone that is the west side. The odds have to be pretty bad for you to catch one while playing video games in the supposed safety of a friend's house, right?

Shot Spotter Part III

Once again, an effort that only points a great big glowing arrow at the manpower shortage:

• Hoping to quell rising violence on the South and West sides, Chicago police are again turning to sensors to more quickly track down gunfire in some of the city's most crime-ridden communities.
  
  The Police Department began using gunshot detection technology early last month in two 1.5-square-mile areas to try to better pinpoint the location of gunshots, Superintendent Garry McCarthy disclosed Thursday. The sensors sometimes give officers information before 911 calls are made, he said.
  
  In the past decade, the city twice installed the devices but ultimately removed them because of their high price tags and ineffectiveness. Since then the technology has improved "dramatically," McCarthy said.

From our 011 District correspondent however, a different tale:

• Don't believe the gun shot sensor hype SCC.  Even the dispatchers, after giving out calls of "shots fired," say over the air, "Now we are getting verifications/sensor readings/additional info" of loud reports.  It's BS.

After reading the rest of the article, we're inclined to agree:

• After a shot is fired, three or more sensors detect the sound and calculate its location. Trained acoustics experts in the company's 24/7 review center in California confirm if the sound came from a weapon and not a car backfire, fireworks or other loud noises. The technicians then pass the information onto Chicago's Crime Prevention and Information Center, which dispatches officers to the scene.

Really?   "Trained acoustic experts" from California are determining if there are shots being fired in Chicago and then telling CPIC about it, who can then send officers?  By the time that happens, the ambulance has already removed the victim, transported him to the hospital, and the doctor is making the first cut.

We give it a year before the California company outsources the entire operation to India.

Bad Day All Around

Are contract negotiations coming up or something?  In addition to the ongoing "Tow Scandal," we saw these stories today:

• A former Chicago police officer was sentenced to 18 months in federal prison today for using his police muscle to extort protection payoffs from heroin and crack dealers in the Ida B. Wells public housing complex.
  
  Kallatt Mohammed, 47, remained defiant at his sentencing hearing, telling U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman he was following the orders of his superior officer in order to be granted time off to visit his children in Ohio, not because he was interested in the cash.

And this one:

• Federal officials say they have foiled a grisly extortion plot involving two former police officers -- one of them released from Death Row nearly 15 years ago -- who plotted to abduct and dismember a man they believed had access to large amounts of cash from real estate holdings.
  
  Steven Mandell, 61, of Buffalo Grove, and Gary Engel, 61, of Homer Glen, are charged with attempted extortion and conspiracy to commit extortion. Mandell had been sentenced to death for murder and kidnapping but his case was overturned in 1998.
  
  Mandell, formerly known as Steven Manning, was a Chicago police officer for about 10 years until 1983. Engel is a former Willow Springs police officer.

Manning hasn't been a cop for almost 30 years, but it's right there in the headline.

And then there's the continuing Abbate crap with the bartender set to take the stand next week.

More Towing Indictments?

The scandal that won't die, always popping up when someone needs to paint the CPD in a bad light:

• Two veteran Chicago police officers were indicted on separate charges that each extorted payoffs from a tow truck driver in return for steering business to him.
  
  The two [...] who were both assigned to the South Chicago police district – were snared in an undercover FBI probe code-named Operation Tow Scam in which seven other additional officers already have been convicted.

So they're up to nine now, with seven already convicted?  This seems to be headed into SOS-type territory with a higher percentage of convictions already.

BINGO!

Once again, taking things to their logical conclusion (something that McDumbDumb can't seem to accomplish):

• “There’s no studies that show that more cops means less murders. It’s what those officers are doing,” McCarthy told the aldermen.

Then let's stop restricting Time Due. Down some beat cars. Leave the "box" to its own devices. Giving people time off when they want it is a win-win. Cops get to have some semblance of a normal life and it reduces future financial liabilities by burning up time on the books.

And McSmokingDope has guaranteed to the aldercreatures that the homicide numbers won't change a bit. It's on the record.

Lappe Wins

Congratulations to Mike Lappe for winning the Pension Board spot.

This, however, is shameful:

• Lappe 1300... 46.51%
  Flisk 540... 19.32%
  Koszola 432... 15.46%
  McCall 177... 6.33%
  Merck 176... 6.30%
  Campbell 102... 3.65%
  Jans 68... 2.43%
  
  
• 11,200 ballots sent out
  2,795 returned

That is under 25% rate of return. 24.9% to be exact.  With a pre-addressed envelope included.  Are you fucking kidding us?

Hey, Look - Side Jobs

Really?

• A downtown alderman floated the idea Wednesday that businesses should hire off-duty cops to conduct extra patrols on North Michigan Avenue where visitors last summer had to deal with some mob attacks.
  
  Those patrols would serve as a preventive measure and take pressure off a department driving to drive down homicides and shootings elsewhere in the city, said Ald. Brendan Reilly.
  
  "Business owners have expressed an interest in participating in that type of program with the interest being that you'd have additional coverage in these hospitality, tourism areas so that you're supplementing your regular beat cops there," said Reilly, 42nd.

Where to start with this one? The city is already hiring back between 300 and 500 cops most nights to do "violence reduction." That by itself shows were shorthanded in the extreme. So now, instead of the city paying OT, they seem to be trying to saddle it on businesses that already pay some of the highest property taxes in Chicago. These costs are then passed onto consumers who are already paying extra sales taxes in the touristy parts of town for food, shows, hotels, etc. Then people start (or continue) seeing that it's cheaper to go out to the 'burbs, Wisconsin, Michigan. And safer. And the downward spiral accelerates.

Tax Hikes

Isn't there some guy running for president right now claiming that he won't be raising taxes on the middle class - anyone making under $250,000 or some number like that?

• U.S. consumers will have to dig deeper into their pockets next year to pay for costlier healthcare, more expensive grocery bills and higher taxes, an extra drag on the country's already slow-moving economy.
  
  The additional outlays look set to test the resilience of consumers, whose spending accounts for around two-thirds of the U.S. economy.
  
  "We think it's going to be a difficult six to nine months," said Scott Hoyt, senior director of consumer economics for Moody's Analytics. "If anything, conditions are likely to get worse, particularly at the start of the year."

Wait a minute...costlier health care?  But...but....Obamacare?

Yeah, it's a giant swindle that will add about $10-to-20 trillion dollars to the national debt by 2020. Didn't you read the fine print?

And that housing recovery we heard about yesterday?

• Chicago-area foreclosures increased by 34 percent in the third quarter, although they dropped in most other metro areas around the country.
  
  RealtyTrac, a home foreclosure tracking firm, said the Chicago area tied with Philadelphia for the third-largest increase in foreclosures among major metro areas. Only New York, with a 69 percent increase, and Tampa, at 49 percent, had bigger jumps in foreclosure activity.

Four more years of this crap?

Aldercreature Slumlord

Not that this is anything out of the usual expected behavior, but usually, they keep it closer to home:

• For Ald. Jason Ervin, who represents a large swath of Chicago’s troubled West Side, drug activity in the area hits particularly close to home.
  
  That’s because until recently, Ervin owned what police and others portray as a “drug house” in nearby Maywood.
  
  During the decade or so that Ervin owned the three-flat at 1600 W. Madison in the Near West suburb, police were called to the property or the immediate vicinity roughly 150 times, often for drug-related incidents, but also for gunshots, assaults, trespassing and thefts, among other matters, according to records from the Village of Maywood.
  

Things that make you go, "Hmmmmm."

Englewood Police Shooting

Another one:

• Police shot one man in the chest and took two others into custody after responding to a report of shots fired in the Englewood neighborhood early Thursday, authorities said
  
  Officers with the Englewood District’s incident team arrived at the 6700 block of South Morgan Street about 2:15 a.m. and saw a vehicle speed off into an alley, according to a statement from police News Affairs.
  

What's 007 up to this year? About a dozen police involved shootings? More? Watch yourselves.

Anti-Gun Logic Insanity

Sometimes, the logic employed by anti-gun politicos amazes us.  Actually, it's a lack of logic:

• Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said today that he would like to see gun owners in Illinois have to report when their weapons are stolen, lost or sold – steps he said would lower the number of firearms in the hands of criminals.

Decent law abiding citizens already do that. A gun is a few hundred dollars worth of investment. If it disappears, that's a problem. But this stretches credibility:

• “We keep trying to pass comprehensive gun legislation,” he added. “And my recommendation is to really start small. The fact is that if there was a requirement to report the loss, transfer or theft of a firearm in the state of Illinois, that would significantly limit the number of firearms in the city of Chicago.”

It would? Can you explain exactly how that would work? Criminals would forgo bringing a stolen gun into Chicago because it was....reported stolen? Guess what? If they need a gun to kill someone, light up a corner, stick up a tourist, the last thing they're worried about is if the gun is on some hot sheet.

Is this guy for real? We knew he surrendered his testicles when he signed up for this job - all superintendents are the mayor's bitch - but to relinquish your brain?

Oh, and it gets nuttier:

• When Officer Del Pearson was shot in March the gun “was purchased by a 52-year-old woman in the state of Illinois in 1972. She died in Little Rock, Ark. in 2006,” he said. “Where has that gun been since 1972?

How about "none of your fucking business" Garry?

This is a logical argument?  On what planet? The gun appears to have purchased legally.  No one says if it was purchased in Cook County or maybe Tazewell, Massac or Randolph county.  The owner moved out of Illinois, as so many of us dream of doing one day, and passed away in Arkansas six years ago.  Who exactly is going to report the gun "missing?"  We guess since the dead vote in Chicago, now they have to report when guns change hands?

For all we know, it was willed to an heir of her estate in Arkansas who is under no obligation to report that an Illinois purchased gun has changed hands, if they even know where the lady got it in the first place.  We're also pretty sure that receipts for gun transactions only have to be kept for 10 years - this gun was already 34 years old when the owner died.

But this is what anti-gun folks cling to - nonsense, bullshit and a complete lack of logical thought.

We Don't Need No More Cops

So declares Rahm Emanuel and Garry McCarthy:

• As City Council budget hearings continued Wednesday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel was trying to deflect aldermanic calls to hire more police officers than already planned for next year.
  
  CBS 2 [...] reports the fight against crime on the streets of Chicago might become a fight inside City Hall.
  
  In 2011, there were 432 murders in Chicago all of last year, and there have been 426 so far this year. 

So we might manage to pass 2011's totals in October leaving us two entire months of "bonus time."   But don't worry, these brainiacs have it all figured out:

• During the Police Department’s budget hearing on Wednesday, Ald. James Balcer (11th) asked McCarthy, “Can you please tell me what is the difference about Chicago, and why we are seeing this level of violence?”
  
  “That’s a big picture question,” McCarthy said.

And that's a bullshit answer.

• Ald. Ricardo Munoz (22nd) asked McCarthy, “Can you help me understand what you believe to be full-strength?”
  
  “Full-strength” is a term McCarthy and the mayor have been using recently, when discussing the number of police officers they want on the street.
  
  Emanuel and McCarthy said that means having 12,500 officers on the streets by the end of 2013.

12,500, which is 1,000 under the numbers we had just about ten years ago.

Here's a laugher of an admission from Rahm:

• The mayor wasn’t ignoring the aldermen who want more cops than he’s already planning to hire, but said said at an unrelated event on Wednesday that he’ll keep the force at full strength while putting more cops on the street, by using about 600 officers he’s already shifted off desk duty since taking office last spring.
  
  “The police officers weren’t doing policing, they were doing paperwork. They were doing very good paperwork, but they weren’t doing policing. We’ve put them on the street,” Emanuel said. “And since that time burglaries are down 15 percent, auto thefts are down 14 percent, sexual assaults are down 8 percent.”

Rahm is hoping no one is noticing he's counting those officers twice.  You and McJersey already moved those guys...or so we thought.  Could it be they're lying again?  Crime isn't down - it isn't being reported because people figure they have better things to do than sit around for 2 or 4 hours waiting for a car that might never show up.  Call volume is up how much?  OEMC overtime is how far over budget? We're busier than ever and can't catch a break - that isn't because crime is down.  We're undermanned and crime is still ongoing.

And finally, get a load of this statement near the end of the article:

• Aldermen pushing for more cops might soon find themselves butting heads with the mayor and McCarthy over this issue.
  
  “There’s no studies that show that more cops means less murders. It’s what those officers are doing,” McCarthy told the aldermen.

Maybe not, but we have a pretty strong empirical case that says if you're down over a thousand cops, the homicide rate ends up climbing.  We'll leave it to the readers and pundits to figure that one out.

Bourbon Street

Cappas versus Pappas:

• There was some Comments posted in the Abbate Trial blog that state John Cappas, the Drug dealer is now affiliated with Bourbon Street. I've been getting calls and texts all day asking me about this. John Cappas has never been involved here, and has no affiliation with us what so ever. Its been owned by the same family for 13 years. We have heard this rumor before when we opened, our bar manager was John Pappas, and everyone thought it was Cappas, even though he was in jail.
  
  A large part of all of our customers are police and fireman, and I was hoping if there was anyway to make a post that this is a rumor and he has nothing to do with us. I figured after one call it was no big deal, but seven calls later, I realized this rumor spread quickly. Anything you could do to help us out would be greatly appreciated!

That should clear things up.

Weekend Totals Up One

He's dead Jim:

• A second man has died days after being shot along with two other people, one of them his cousin, on the South Side in the city’s Burnside neighborhood. 

Not a good weekend at all....if you were a thug that is.

Or if you're next up at the Thursday CompStat meeting.

Budget Oops

Can't quite bring ourselves to blame Rahm for this one - not completely:

• Chicago will borrow the $78.4 million needed to compensate nearly 6,000 African-American would-be firefighters bypassed by the city’s discriminatory handling of a 1995 entrance exam, Mayor Rahm Emanuel said Tuesday, compounding the cost of a settlement that’s already twice as high as anticipated.
  
  Emanuel said the city anticipated the higher-than-expected tab and tucked it away into a general obligation bond issue normally reserved for infrastructure repairs and equipment purchases. General obligation bonds are backed by property taxes.
  
  Since Chicago is self-insured against most claims, settlements are normally paid for with funds set aside in the city’s judgment fund.

We will however, blame Rahm for failing to prioritize.  Spending $55 million on a park tribute while the city verges on bankruptcy? Bad idea. Along with a few dozen other instances of pretending money grows on trees.

Marine Unit Again

Seriously?  We're getting amused at using these guys for comedic relief over and over again:

• The decomposed body of a female was found by a utility worker this morning behind a building in the Calumet Heights neighborhood, police said.
  
  Later in the day, people fishing in the Cal Sag Channel found what may be a human skull, officials said.
  
  The body was found by a utility worker about 10:05 a.m. in the 9100 block of South Harper Avenue, according to Chicago Police News Affairs [...]
  
  [...] At about 1 p.m., a crew on the Cal Sag Channel fishing for Asian carp discovered a skull on the southwest bank near the 13200 block of South Indiana Avenue, police said. Chicago Police Marine Unit officers responded.

On the bright side, the Tribune got to use a new photo and actually got it correct this time:

That shot is going on our Christmas cards this year.

In Case You Were Worried...

...Jesse Jr made it back to Minnesota in one piece:

• The Rev. Jesse Jackson says his congressman son has checked back into the Mayo Clinic for an evaluation.
  
  The elder Jackson told The Associated Press that Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr. was back at the Minnesota facility Tuesday. He was released from there last month following treatment for bipolar disorder and gastrointestinal issues.
  
  A Mayo spokesman and Jackson’s office didn’t immediately have an update.
  

No word if he made any campaign stops along the way, but his lead is still double digits without even showing up.

Another in a long line of traditional Chicago "no-show" jobs.

Kill the Taste Already

It's over:

• The shrunken and revamped Taste of Chicago still didn't come close to breaking even and may never return to profitability, a top mayoral aide said Monday.
  
  Cultural Affairs Commissioner Michelle Boone said the she's "still reconciling" the cost of city services before releasing a final financial report on the revamped 2012 Taste.
  
  But, she disclosed that Chicago's premier lakefront festival costs $6 million to stage and isn't "close to breaking even." That's despite the fact that individual restaurants saw their highest profit margins in five years.
  
  Taste of Chicago was once a cash cow that bankrolled the city's other music festivals. But, Boone said it may never return to profitability.
  
  "It's very difficult to find a financial model that creates profitability for a free festival," the commissioner said after testifying at City Council budget hearings . 
  

The individual restaurants are making money but the city isn't? Time to pull the plug, hand it off to a private firm (maybe Vanecko Festivals or someone), and charge a hefty admission fee where the City could get their cut of the entertainment tax.

Just Asking, But...

Isn't a "Code of Silence" when everyone shuts up about a misstep, misdeed, or misconduct?

How can anyone in the media seriously portray this as a code of silence when they play the tape every five minutes, the "cover-up" involves hundreds of phone calls and other city employees, and the plaintiff's lawyer is the one who released the tape in the first place?

Marine Unit Again (UPDATE)

This is about the one-hundred-fiftieth rescue this year by these guys:

• The Chicago Police Marine Unit rescued a 36-year-old city water department worker who may have suffered a heart attack this morning while four miles out on Lake Michigan.
  
  The marine unit received a distress call shortly after 11 a.m. that a worker on the Versluis, a tugboat, was having trouble breathing and chest pains, according to a spokesman for the marine unit.
  
  The rescue unit sped to the boat's location, which was about 3 to 4 miles out in Lake Michigan. It took the rescue responders about five minutes to get to the vessel, he said.

How come there isn't a TV series about these officers? "Chicago Water" or something.

UPDATE: Check out the photo the Tribune uses in their story about the Police Marine Unit:

The Fire Department boat. This is the level of fact checking that everyone who watches and reads the main-stream media has come to expect. If they can't be bothered to even make sure a picture matches a story, how can anyone trust the words written?

You can't.

Abbate Civil Trial

Get ready to see the video about 100 billion more times:

• Now, almost six years later, bartender Karolina Obrycka's lawsuit against Abbate and the city of Chicago is set to go to trial on Monday in federal court. While the videotaped beating remains the emotional center of the case, the trial will turn on whether Abbate, other officers and higher-level police officials engaged in a cover-up to try to protect the veteran officer and keep the damaging video from public exposure.

This thing has reeked since day one.  No one has ever admitted to, let alone investigated, how Abbate got through the hiring process with his background.  Any of a dozen red flags should have kept him off the job. Then his behavior from day one should have gotten him suspended and facing 30-pending on numerous occasions.  Nothing though.  A career rife with cover-ups, excuses and passing the buck.

Now the entire Department is on trial and the City is fighting so taxpayers (of which every cop is a part of) don't have to pay for this asshole's off-duty bullshit.  Quite frankly, we hope the City gets clear of this one, because if you think it's miserable now, just wait if the City has to pay for off-duty shit.

More from the article:

• Obrycka's lawyers said that another bartender, Patti Chiriboga, a friend of Abbate's, warned the officer's girlfriend the day of the beating about the damaging nature of the videotape. Abbate and his police partner made some 150 phone calls to other officers and detectives in the hours after the beating, according to court records.

One-hundred fifty calls?  Dude knows he has problems.

• That same evening, Gary Ortiz, another Abbate friend and city employee, went to the bar to ask Obrycka not to press charges, according to the lawsuit. Ortiz relayed that Abbate had offered to pay for Obrycka's medical bills and time off work if she did not complain to the department or file a lawsuit, her lawyers contend. Obrycka declined the offer. According to court records, the city has conceded that Ortiz's action was an attempted bribe.

Duh. Does that guy still have a job?

• In a conversation secretly tape-recorded by the bar's owner, Martin Kolodziej, Chiriboga allegedly explained how a desperate Abbate had angrily threatened her to help conceal the beating, even making a veiled reference about her brother at one point.
  
  "He goes, 'Believe me what I tell you.' He said, 'Your life, everybody in the (expletive) bar — this is, this is — I'm backed against the wall,'" a transcript quoted Chiriboga as saying. "'I don't give a (expletive). I did, I did that to Karolina,' he said, 'but I want the tape. I want the (expletive) tape.'
  
  "He calls me — he tells me, 'Do you love your brother?'"
  
  In the same conversation, Chiriboga told Kolodziej that Abbate threatened to falsify charges or plant evidence if necessary.
  
  "You tell Martin to get rid of that tape or there's gonna be people getting DUIs," she quoted Abbate as telling her, according to the transcript. "You might be driving with a pound of (expletive) cocaine on you." 

This isn't some "code of silence" or "blue wall" or whatever the media wants to portray it as.  This is a desperate drunk who finally realized he went far over any line previously passed and that a video was going to sink not only his career, but a bunch of people's lives and maybe even his ass in jail.  Too bad it didn't sink his enablers that got him on the job.

We haven't met one cop yet who didn't think Abbate shouldn't be fired.  Not one.  And we've been through a number of districts these past 6 years.  We also have met dozens who think he never should have been hired and are disgusted with the process that got him past his record into the ranks of the CPD.  That's what ought to be on trial - the process and the circumvention of safeguards that should have prevented this jackass from ever having a badge.

Police Shooting

Once again, quick response, shooter still in the area, and...:

• A gunman who allegedly shot two people, was wounded by police this afternoon after he tried to fire at them on the city's South Side.
  
  Officers from the South Chicago police district responded about 1:45 p.m. to the shooting at 98th Street and Merrill Avenue, where a gunman shot two people, one of whom was fatally wounded, according to Pat Camden, a spokesman for the police union, citing preliminary information.
  
  [...] Members of the Gang Enforcement Unit had received a description of the shooter and discovered him near the scene where the shooter shot at police, Camden said.
  
  Police responded by striking the man, wounding him, he said. The gunman was shot multiple times and fled the scene and police found him on the 9600 block of Chappel Avenue. He was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, police said.

Well done Officers.

As Predicted Here Yesterday (UPDATE)

The south side goes up:

• Six people were shot, three fatally in several South Side shootings this afternoon, police said.
  
  The most serious shooting occurred at 5:30 p.m. on the 9400 block of South Rhodes Avenue, police said.
  
  A 28-year-man and a 30-year-old man were both shot in the head and pronounced dead at the scene, said Chicago Police Department News Affairs...

And a week of 70's on tap. The rain may help, but there are plenty of scores to settle up before the snow flies. No better time than the present.

UPDATE: Sunday led the way with 3 dead out of 14 shot according to this Tribune article.

The Sun Times has the weekend totals at 7 dead, 21 wounded - a respectable weekend number for any of the summer months.

McCompStat is mysteriously silent after the carnage and Rahm?  Rahm might not even be in town.

Bears by 6.5 (UPDATE)

Give the points.  Detroit was lucky to have won the last game they did.

UPDATE: Seriously?  That late touchdown cost us one-hundred dol.....toothpicks.  One-hundred very expensive toothpicks.  Honestly.

Interesting Bail Observation

A sharp-eyed reader send these articles to us.  The first armed robbery:

• Bail was set at $350,000 today for a Northwest Side man who is accused of robbing a man by making him withdraw $100 from a Gold Coast ATM this week.
  
  Patrick J. Palumbo, 47, of 2800 block of West Diversey Avenue, was charged late Friday night with one count of armed robbery, police said.
  
  Palumbo was ordered held today in lieu of $350,000 bail, officials said.

He showed the victim a knife and got $100.

Now the second armed robbery:

• A judge set bail today at $100,000 each for three teen-age girls charged as adults with the armed robbery of two University of Chicago students this week near the South Side campus, authorities said.
  
  A gun brandished by a fourth suspect, a 14-year-old girl facing juvenile charges, discharged while the girl was pistol-whipping a 28-year-old female student early Monday, but no one was shot, police said. The woman was accompanied by another student, a 22-year-old man.

A pistol whipping and a weapon discharge, yet bail is just $100,000?  And the guy with the knife gets $350,000?

This just feeds into our opinion about the broken system we have here in Cook County.  See below for our judicial endorsements and tell us we're wrong to think this way after half a century of living here.

Judicial Endorsements

Seeing as how early voting started in Illinois the other day, we thought we'd release our usual list of judicial endorsements for this elections cycle:

• NO to all judges

While there may have been a judge or two who made our sympathy needle twitch slightly, our opinion remains that there is not one single judge in all of Cook County deserving of our unqualified support.  So once again, we will go into the voting booth and vote "NO" to every single judge and encourage all of our readers to do the same.

With all the assholes on probation, shooting at police, murdering citizens and continuously receiving slaps on the wrist for multiple felony offenses, can anyone honestly say that the Cook County judicial system isn't broken beyond repair?  Better to start from scratch.

You are welcome to disagree with our assessment - politely.  You can even tout a judge you feel worthy of consideration by providing an anecdote to support your reasoning.  But don't expect us to vote for them.

Guns on a Rampage

Inanimate pieces of metal and plastic started mowing down altar boys and boy scouts this weekend:

• Two men have been killed and another 11 people wounded in gun violence throughout Chicago since Friday afternoon.
  
  The latest fatality happened Saturday afternoon in the Garfield Park neighborhood, where police found a 36-year-old man dead with a gunshot wound to the head.
  

Darn guns. Walking around like they own the place, unaware that they're just guns.

And we've still go Sunday to go with a warm week on tap.

SCC Fan

Drop us a line when you get a chance.  Misplaced your e-mail.

Closed post.

Now We're Alarm Clocks?

Seriously? On a Saturday morning?

• There was no sleeping in the South Shore neighborhood this morning, as sirens woke up residents.
  
  At 85th Street and Exchange Avenue, the Saturday morning quiet was shattered by sounds of sirens.
  
  Police were summoning residents to a street meeting. 

We usually throw a boot at the cat when he starts wailing in the early AM hours, "Tom & Jerry" style.

We're surprised the aldercreature and police commander weren't walking the block with metal garbage cans and a 2x4 to make sure everyone got the message.

This is an "appropriate" use of police manpower? 

12-Year Old Blasts Home Invader

Oklahoma of course. You wouldn't catch this happening in Illinois:

• Authorities say a 12-year-old girl shot and wounded a man who kicked in the back door of her home. A television station reports the incident happened Wednesday in Bryan County. The girl told police that a stranger rang the doorbell, then went around to the back door and kicked it in.
  
  Police say the girl called her mother, who told her to get the family's gun, hide in a closet and call 911. Authorities say the man came into the room where she was hiding and tried to open the closet door.
  
  Bryan County Undersheriff Ken Golden says the girl opened fire when the man turned the doorknob.

She only wounded the home invader, but still a deserving nomination for NRA Citizen of the Year there, if there is such an award.

Nice Catch

Someone pointed out this in the "New 9-1-1 Policy" article:

• This March, there were 100,000 more calls than last March.
  

Even discounting a third of the calls to dupes and bullshit, that's a sizable increase.

And this?

• Also during Thursday’s hearing, aldermen hammered Schenkel about the perennial problem of 911 center overtime and about a dramatic increase in overtime spending — from $5.6 million last year to more than $7 million this year.
  

But crime is down? Is anyone in the media smelling the crap they're helping Rahm and Garry shovel?

What's This Crap?

Aldercreatures, among the most crooked of being, are extorting promises from people NOT to run for political office?

• Inspector General Joe Ferguson has a strained relationship with Mayor Rahm Emanuel, but the two men will apparently not be facing off against each other in the 2015 mayoral election.
  
  Under questioning Thursday at City Council budget hearings, Ferguson promised not to run for any public office that includes the city of Chicago for at least two years after stepping down as inspector general.
  
  Ferguson’s four-year term is due to expire in November 2013. That means if he serves out his term, he would not be eligible to run for mayor in February 2015.
  

Wasn't it just a few years ago a certain Illinois senator was vowing NOT to run for the presidency? How did that one work out we wonder?

And Fran Spielman says this means "he would not be eligible"? For a statement extorted under duress at a city council meeting? A city council that has declared itself above investigation by the Inspector General while nearly 30 of its members have gone to prison in the past 25 years.

We're pretty sure someone else has a say in the entire process - voters. If they want to hold Ferguson to a "promise" made under duress to a crooked legislative body, that's the voters' lookout. Besides, they voted in a convicted tax-cheat, more than enough thieves and quite a few Outfit-connected underlings. An Inspector General might actually be a step up.

Recession Continues

That "improved" jobs number that Obama is touting? Never happened, but you won't hear about it in the media, especially since the guy doing the counting in California is a major campaign contributor to the president:

• Marty Morgenstern, the secretary of the California agency that substantially under-reported unemployment claims last week, contributed to President Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential election campaign, The Daily Caller has learned.
  
  On Oct. 11, the federal government reported that weekly jobless claims were down significantly, suggesting a dramatic national increase in economic growth and a steep decline in layoffs. Jobless claims, according to the Labor Department, had fallen by 30,000 to 339,000, their lowest level since February 2008.
  
  The good news for the Obama administration spread quickly, with outlets like CNN and Bloomberg declaring, “Jobless claims fall to four-year low.”
  
  But within hours, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Labor Department analysts announced that one major state had failed to fully document jobless claims. They declined to name the state.
  
  [...]  Early Thursday, the federal government finally revealed that California had, in fact, under-reported jobless data, skewing the national jobless claims results. This week’s updated jobs report corrected the error and showed unemployment claims spiking back up by 46,000 to 388,000.

Seventeen days left.

New 9-1-1 Policy

Advocated here for years.  Maybe someone is actually listening?

• After years of discussion and delay, Chicago is finally ready to usher in a revolutionary change in 911 dispatch to free police officers to respond to the most serious crimes, a top mayoral aide said Thursday.
  
  Gary Schenkel, executive director of the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications, disclosed that Police Supt. Garry McCarthy has drafted a “general order” outlining the “call diversion” plan that will alter a dispatch policy that sends police officers to respond to 70 percent of 911 calls, compared with 30 percent in other major cities.
  
  It won’t be implemented until the public is educated and physical improvements to the 911 center floor are completed, he said.

Of course, that could take years.  Years beyond McNewYawk's tenure even.  And that delay could kill the entire project.

We imagine Rahm will demand a commensurate pay reduction since we'll all have 40 or 60% more time to spend on revenue generation once service calls are redirected to 3-1-1 or disregarded entirely.  We sense a long road ahead, with many bumps.  Bumps involving slowed hiring, more positions unfilled and a complete lack of advancement opportunities.

ABC Town Hall Meeting on Violence (UPDATE)

More claptrap from the media.

We'll link it here, but really, anything we'd want to say is only diminished by the inanity they pass off as "reporting." Town-hall meetings, useless platitudes, an entire community in thrall to a culture of violence and dependency they've created over the past half-a-century.

Just read below about the guy who tried to shoo the bangers off his front porch and got a few shotgun rounds in his body for his troubles. He's dead, and so is the other gentleman with a job who confronted the bangers a few weeks ago.

Epic fail.

UPDATE: To the so-called "grammar police:"

Thrall - Noun: The state of being in someone's power or having great power over someone: "she was in thrall to her abusive husband".

A slave, servant, or captive.

Synonyms:

slave - serf - slavery - servitude - thraldom - helot

No shit that communication isn't one big tweet. You just proved that in spades. Now go get a dictionary and your shine box you ignorant fuck.

Again - Why is This Asshole Out?

Someone want to answer this? Quinn? Alvarez? Evans?

• A man paroled two months earlier on two weapons charges traded gunfire with police in the West Pullman neighborhood after forcing a woman with three young children in her SUV to drive him about a mile from his home, prosecutors said.
  
  Anthony Maltbia, 21, was ordered held without bail on charges of attempted murder of five police officers prosecutors say he fired upon, as well as aggravated discharge of a firearm and unlawful use of a weapon by a felon.
  
• Maltbia made it to the home where he was registered for his parole and electronic monitoring, but left before police were able to search the home, prosecutors said.
  
  [...] At the time he traded gunfire with police, Maltbia was on parole for convictions in gun-related cases from 2009 and 2010, according to prosecutors and court records. He had been released on parole in April, according to the Illinois Department of Corrections.
  

Not one, but two weapons charges. Not only on parole, but on electronic home monitoring. Wasn't that supposed to be for "non-violent" offenders? Is anyone paying attention out there?

Gran Torino - Chicago Style

Unlike Clint Eastwood though, this guy got killed:

• A man was gunned down after he asked a group of people to leave the front porch of his South Side home in the Grand Crossing neighborhood, authorities said.
  
  Clinton Smith went back inside his home in the 1000 block of East 73rd Street after confronting the group around 6:30 p.m. Wednesday. Someone then knocked on the door and, as his brother watched, Smith was shot as he opened it, authorities said.
  
  Officers found shell casings and shotgun shells at the scene, but no signs of the killers.

Ask the dope boys to move it off your porch, get shotgunned to death.  We're rapidly approaching this state of being:

The community ought to step up one of these days.

Cop Injured in Collision

Hitting a semi:

• Two men were killed and a police officer was injured in separate traffic accidents overnight in Chicago, authorities said.
  
  [....] Hours later, a Chicago police SUV collided with a semi at about 1:40 a.m. in the 2600 block of West 79th Street in the Wrightwood neighborhood, said [...], a police spokeswoman.
  
  The officer was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn for treatment of hand and arm injuries, Greer said.

Hopefully, not too serious. Get well soon Officer.

Unfit for Office

Running away once again:

• Sneed hears U.S. Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., who is in a world of hurt and heat ­— medically and legally — may be returning to Mayo Clinic for treatment.
  
  A Sneed source who claims to have visited Jackson this week said, “Jesse wanted you to know he is finding it difficult to continue his treatment because the press is staking out his home and making access to his doctor, who is within a short walking distance from his home, incredibly hard.”
  
  “He said his doctors are considering sending him back to Mayo Clinic for treatment.”
  

That, plus the press is making it awfully difficult on the domestic front if JJJr. can't meet strange women in bars.

Juvenile Joke

You want to see what's the matter with Cook County courts?  Start at Juvenile Court:

• Embattled Chicago rapper Chief Keef belongs back in jail for violating his probation, prosecutors argued in juvenile court Wednesday.
  
  With the 17-year-old rapper listening, Cook County prosecutors outlined why they think the Interscope Records artist should be returned to juvenile detention.
  
  The rapper, whose real name is Keith Cozart, is serving 18 months of probation for pointing a gun at a Chicago cop. He was also found delinquent on two other felonies.

Simple case, right? Not once the judge gets involved:

• Cook County Juvenile Court Judge Carl Anthony Walker on Wednesday decided to hold a hearing next month on two alleged probation violations by the 17-year-old.
  
  The rapper, at one point Wednesday, was scolded by his probation officer for signing court papers “Chief Keef” instead of his real name.
  
  He also posed for a photo with a fan in a court hallway, did a little rapping — and predicted an eventual victory.
  
  “It’s a piece of cake,” he told a reporter.

Sure it is - especially when you get a pass how many times before this?

• Assistant State’s Attorney Jullian Brevard noted that on Sept. 30, Chicago police responded to a call of a gang disturbance in the 6300 block of South King Drive and found the rapper there associating with Black Disciple gang members.
  
  “I don’t know how he knows who is in a gang...and who is in the Boy Scouts,” [keef's lawyer] Berkson responded.
  
  The rapper has failed to provide his probation officer with a current phone number, authorities said. Prosecutors also suggested he should be taken off the streets for his own safety.

He's also failed to get his G.E.D. (also know as "the Starks") as ordered by the court.  So that's what?  Three, four blown chances here.  But he's an aspiring rap star, so it's all good.