Tony, Is That You?

We thought we recognized that stench:

• A high-ranking Chicago Police Department official was forced to resign in recent months after making “intentionally false and deliberately incomplete” statements under oath during an internal investigation, according to Inspector General Joe Ferguson.
  
  The explosive information is contained in a quarterly report that coincides with Ferguson’s reappointment to another four-year term.
  
  As always, the report merely includes a summary of pending and concluded investigations and does not identify the targets.
  
  It simply states that a “senior official” in the Police Department made “intentionally false and deliberately incomplete material statements” to the inspector general’s office while under oath, violating the municipal code, Police Department regulations and city personnel rules.

Odds on favorite is Carothers. We can't think of any other really obvious ones with the links to corruption, jailed aldercreatures and unexplained sudden leavings.

Now how about a judge with the same connections?

Oh Joy!

Just in time for the holiday robbing season!

• An Englewood man calls the opening of the new South Side Red Line a “blessing.” Mayor Rahm Emanuel dubs it a “historic” investment for the South Side.
  
  After 154 days of construction and thousands of rerouted trips for thousands of riders, the CTA will reopen the Red Line between Cermak-Chinatown and 95th Street on Sunday at 2 a.m.
  
  “This is a new Red Line and a new day for the South Side of the city of Chicago,” Emanuel said Thursday at the 47th Street Red Line station, one of nine stations shuttered since May 19.

Hopefully, the warm season is over, but still, be aware boys and girls.

63 Officers Suspended

Quite a to-do in Cleveland:

• Eleven months after a November 2012 car chase that involved 104 police officers and ended with two deaths, Cleveland Police Chief Michael McGrath has announced that 63 of the officers will be suspended.
  
  Of the 104 officers, 75 broke rules and 63 were suspended for excessive speeding and failing to request permission to take part in the chase, McGrath said Tuesday.
  
  The 13 officers who fired the 137 shots are not among the suspended, though they may still face disciplinary and possibly even criminal charges, authorities said.

If the chase tapes aren't already out there, they probably will be shortly. This must have been some egregious shit to have 104 officers involved, 63 suspended and a number of supervisors suspended, demoted or terminated. And criminal charges still pending? Holy crap Batman.

Was He a Tourist?

Or was he a transplant?

• A 55-year-old Arkansas man was shot dead early Thursday when a trip in a friend’s car went awry.
  
  Robert Franklin died shortly after his friend rushed him to John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County with four gunshot wounds to the back just before 4 a.m., authorities said.
  
  Police said the friend told officers the two got lost while driving around during the early morning hours. Police said it is unknown where the shooting happened because the driver was lost.
  
  The friend told police they stopped to ask for directions, but a man climbed into the car, pulled out a gun and robbed them, police said.

No location for the shooting - are they going to push it off to Cicero or Stickney?

Aldercreature Pushes for Retro

The vote is now 49-to-1:

• A Northwest Side alderman whose ward is home to scores of Chicago Police officers urged Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday not to use a paperwork mistake made by the police union president to deny rank-and-file police officers their automatic right to a retroactive pay raise in 2012.
  
  Ald. Mary O’Connor (41st) said she introduced the resolution at a City Council meeting in response to concerns voiced by police officers who have called her office and stopped her on the street.
  
  “People feel there’s a rift between the mayor and the FOP president and they’re caught in the crossfire,” O’Connor said Wednesday.
  
  “The perception out there is that they are going to lose income because of a deadline that was missed. That should not be the case. It’s a clerical error made by their representative, but it impacts 10,000 police officers. It has an impact on their livelihood and their families. That would not be fair to the police.”

Now if we could only get 25 more aldercreatures to vote for this, we might get somewhere.

Once Again, a Racial Divide

And the NRA position lines up more with that of the black aldercreatures, though for different reasons:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel has touched a nerve with his demand for a mandatory minimum, three-year sentence for gun crimes with a requirement that defendants serve 85 percent of their sentences.
  
  That much was obvious Wednesday when a City Council bitterly divided along racial lines went on record urging the Illinois General Assembly to impose stiffer sentences for gun crimes.
  
  The resolution talked about truth-in-sentencing. It made no mention of the three-year minimum. But it triggered a debate aldermen were itching to have.
  
  White aldermen were all for the bill championed by Emanuel and Police Supt. Garry McCarthy.
  
  African-American aldermen had such reservations, they threatened to send the resolution back to committee. They argued that mandatory minimum sentences failed miserably in the war on drugs and a similar approach to gun crimes would result in more of the same.

So the African-American aldercreatures oppose the law on the basis that too many black and brown folks/people will bear a disproportionate brunt of the penalties because....well, they aren't saying it's because a disproportionate amount of black and brown persons are committing the crime. They don't want you to look at that. Just ignore that fact that police are targeting guns crime, not black/brown crime, and remember guns are evil!

And the NRA position:

• The National Rifle Association is stepping up its campaign against a proposed gun control measure in Illinois that supporters argue will help combat and prevent street violence by increasing penalties for gun crimes.
  
  The bill, sponsored by Democratic state Rep. Mike Zalewski, calls for more time behind bars for possessing illegal weapons. It increases penalties for unlawful use of weapons, including by felons or gang members. It would make probation less likely, imposing minimum prison sentences of three years in many cases. It would also require that offenders serve at least 85 percent of their sentences, up from 50 percent.
  
  The NRA's Institute for Legislative Action wrote in a website post that the bill will jeopardize concealed carry in Illinois by imposing tough penalties for individuals who carry a firearm without a concealed-carry permit or firearm owner's identification card.
  
  "This specific provision incorrectly targets otherwise law-abiding citizens, rather than deterring violent criminals with harsher penalties," the group said in an Oct. 10 statement.

The NRA recognizes that decent people, especially those living in crime-ridden neighborhoods might have more need of a gun than those in lower crime areas. And due to the racial makeups of crime-ridden neighborhoods, the decent people are going to be disproportionally minority. That isn't the NRA's contention - the NRA doesn't mention race in their position - that's our observation of reality.

And that is greatly amusing to us, that an organization painted by the left as a rich, white, oppressive, Republican stalwart is actually fighting for the Rights of poor, minority, victimized Democrats to be able to protect themselves without being subject to a three-year prison minimum for first time offenders who might not understand all the intricacies in the new laws governing Concealed Carry and gun ownership.

This is a very exploitable opening for the NRA to peel away a section of a monolithic voting bloc. Pro-gun, pro-self defense, pro-responsible gun owners who happen to be black? That would terrify Rahm more than anything we can think of at the moment.

Englewood versus "Bait Car"

Bait Car comes to Englewood - guess who wins?



Englewood - 1; TRU Network - 0

Crime Stats Are Not to be Believed

Is the CompStat model showing a bit of wear-and-tear?

• You won't hear Lakeview's top cop talk statistics at community meetings anymore — even if numbers suggest that crime is down from the year before in the neighborhood.
  
  Town Hall Police Cmdr. Elias Voulgaris said the biggest way to tell if things were going well was listening to feedback from residents. Besides, many in the community didn't believe police numbers anyway, he said.
  
  "You'll notice I didn't bring up stats," he said at a recent community policing meeting. "No one believes the stats. The biggest barometer is feedback."
  
  It was a rough summer for Voulgaris. At a heated August policing meeting, residents both decried the statistics showing crime was too high — a beat in Lakeview led the city in robberies — and questioned whether the official data could be believed.
  
  Crimes are only documented when the victim files a report, and some neighbors and a well-read neighborhood crime blog, Crime in Wrigleyville and Boystown, frequently point out that not all robberies are documented.

Perception is part of the key to people "feeling safe." The other part is actually being safe, having a visible patrol presence, being seen making arrests, performing traffic stops, and interacting with the public. That isn't happening in most "safe" neighborhoods because the manpower has been stripped (or retired without replacement) from those areas.

Add in a massive reclassification of crime, increased response times to discourage reporting of crime, making the 3-1-1 (Alternate Response) a nightmare to navigate through and you have all the makings of betraying trust with the community when they can see the uptick in crimes with their own eyes and they no longer believe your numbers.

Most of the credit is due to the Crime in Wrigleyville and Boystown blog. They have been relentless in their coverage of robberies blowing up across what is one of the biggest night life spots in Chicago. Perhaps they can kill CompStat in the process.

NYC Ends Streak of No Killings

We're sure this is making McCompStat green with envy:

• An 18-year-old man shot and killed on a Brooklyn street Monday ended a seven-day stretch with no homicides, police records show.
  
  The unidentified teen took a bullet to the back near 53rd St. and Avenue J in Flatlands about 10:15 p.m.
  
  Emergency workers rushed the bleeding victim to Kings County Hospital, where he died. No arrests were immediately made.
  
  NYPD data shows it was the first killing in a week. Cops investigated eight murders during the same week last year, according to the records.
  
  It was the longest murder-free period since the nine days from this past Jan. 17 to Jan. 25 — a streak that coincided with a bitter cold snap, officials said.

Cold snap? Weather affects crime? Who knew?

Anyone know what Chicago's longest streak is without a killing? We recall three different occasions where it was trumpeted to the media that Chicago went 24 hours without a shooting, but actual homicides?

Englewood Overrun by Rats

This article was entertaining on many levels. Some highlights:

• The rats in the 7000 block of South Parnell Avenue have become a problem, Ruthie Shivers said. A big problem.
  
  Shivers, 83, said she no longer barbecues or lets her small dog, Bella, play in her backyard.
  
  "I'm afraid if I let her in the backyard she will be attacked by those rats," she said.

Rats are a fact of life in the big city. But you can make your neighborhood less "rat-friendly" if you make some effort.

• Residents said they have called the Streets and San several times since July, but nothing has happened.
  
  "All they say is 'We'll look into it and get back to you.' One time I was told when I called that it is the owner's responsibility to clean up the site," Shivers said.
  
  Bill McCaffrey, a spokesman for Streets and San, said he didn't know what residents were told and did not know if the city has the authority to clean up private property. He said he'd look into the problem.
  
  Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6th) said it is true that the city cannot trespass on private property to clean it up, even if it's abandoned.

So it's no one's problem evidently. But everyone knows exactly who's to blame:

• "People Downtown think because we live in Englewood we are a bunch of savages, [that] we do not care about where we live, but they are wrong," said Robert Coley, 62. "The city could easily come out here and clean up these lots and send the bill to the owner. But because it's Englewood, they have a 'I couldn't-care-less' attitude. We pay taxes, too, and deserve better."

The neighborhood could do something about it, too. Rent a dumpster, bait the property, fill the holes, stop dumping trash onto abandoned property, tell your neighbors to stop it, and send the bill to the owners or alderman's office. Expecting the government to come in and fix things isn't a solution. Well, unless you promise to vote for them.

Which someone must have done - DNAInfo reports that the city came in and cleaned up everything. We'll bet a dollar that it's a fucked up again before the snow flies.

A Glimpse of the Future

Thanks to Wal-Mart and Xerox, we now have a preview of what will happen when the system fails. And fail it will - it's an unsustainable scheme. First, a bunch of EBT cards (electronic food stamps) failed to read a balance:

• Customers staged a disturbance, took unpaid for groceries and walked out of a Mississippi Walmart after they were unable to use their food stamp cards on Saturday.
  
  People in 17 states found themselves unable to buy groceries with their food stamp debit-style cards Saturday after a routine check by vendor Xerox Corp. resulted in a system failure.
  
  The mini riot, happened at the Walmart in Philadelphia, Miss. Shortly thereafter, managers decided to temporarily close the store.

And then when the system was fixed, numerous cards started reading "no limit." Any guesses as to whether people did the honest thing or did they try to take advantage? C'mon...you're (mostly) cops...you know exactly what happened:

• Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Xerox Corp blamed each other on Monday after Louisiana food stamp recipients stripped bare the shelves of some Walmart stores when a computer glitch left their debit cards with no limits.
  
  Managers of Walmart stores in the small, north Louisiana towns of Springhill and Mansfield alerted police on Saturday night that throngs of shoppers had flooded into the stores and were buying groceries using electronic benefit cards that contained no credit limits.
  
  EBT cards are debit-type cards issued under the state's food stamp program and coded to show the amount of money available for individuals to spend. Food stamps are a federal government subsidy program for low-income people that is administered by the states.
  
  When word got out Saturday that the EBT cards were showing no limits, card holders rushed to area Walmarts to take advantage.
  
  "Some people had eight or 10 shopping carts full of groceries," Springhill Police Chief Will Lynd said on Monday.

We sure the Department has a plan in place in case something like this happens around here.

No Guns at NFL Games

Because, you know, there have been so many dozens of shootings involving cops at NFL events:

• A new NFL policy bans off-duty law enforcement officers from taking their guns into stadiums.
  
  As CBS 2′s [...] reports, many officers are calling foul, and fan support for the policy is mixed.
  
  First it was the NFL’s new bag policy not scoring any points with fans this season. Now, the league’s ban on off-duty officers carrying weapons into stadiums is coming under fire.
  
  “It’s a terrible idea because you have so many people who coming to a stadium that if an incident happens, how are the police supposed to protect and serve?” Bears fan Jeff Atkinson says.
  
  In a statement, an NFL spokesperson says: “We believe that the interest of public safety is best served by limiting the number of weapons inside stadiums to those required by officers that perform specifically assigned law enforcement working functions and game-day duties.”

Which would be all well and good....if the NFL actually owned all the stadiums. In many cases, they don't. They lease/rent the facilities from a city, state or sports authority. Soldier Field is Park District property, so Park District rules ought to apply.

Texas handled this with its usual level headedness:

• The National Football League has implemented a new stadium policy that would ban off-duty police officers from carrying guns into games…except in the state of Texas.
  
  According to the NFL memo, “off-duty officers who attempt to bring firearms into an NFL facility will be denied entry.”
  
  But a Texas state law overrides the NFL policy. As long as officers attending the game check in at a specific gate and inform Security where they are sitting – they can have their gun.
  
  Ron Pinkston of the Dallas Police Association says that the Texas law is sensible.
  
  “Our officers are 24/7, on or off duty, and if they run into a critical incident – they are required to take action” says Pinkston. “Our officers will be allowed to carry their weapon into [the] Stadium and other football stadiums in the State of Texas due to Texas law.”

We know a bunch of people who used to side job for various security firms inside Soldier Field and other stadiums, usually in those fluorescent jackets, and to a man they related that they were unarmed. In this day and age of the big splashy terrorist attack, the Texas solution would seem to be the sensible option.

One Bidder

This sounds so very....Chicago:

• Federal officials considered only one firm to design the Obamacare health insurance exchange website that has performed abysmally since its Oct. 1 debut.
  
  Rather than open the contracting process to a competitive public solicitation with multiple bidders, officials in the Department of Health and Human Services' Centers for Medicare and Medicaid accepted a sole bidder, CGI Federal, the U.S. subsidiary of a Canadian company with an uneven record of IT pricing and contract performance.
  
  CMS officials are tight-lipped about why CGI was chosen or how it happened. They also refuse to say if other firms competed with CGI, or if there was ever a public solicitation for building Healthcare.gov, the backbone of Obamacare’s problem-plagued web portal.

Gee, a Canadian firm with no competing bids for a program that is supposed to somehow run fully one-sixth of the US economy. What could possibly go wrong....besides everything.

Here's Part of Your Raise

Presented by Shortshanks himself:

• Former Mayor Richard Daley offered in inside look at Maggie Daley Park Monday.
  
  The space in Grant Park is still under construction, and is dedicated to Daley's late wife who lost her nine-year battle with metastatic breast cancer on Thanksgiving Day in 2011.
  
  Daley led an Ideas Week tour of what will be Chicago's newest park and offered NBC 5 exclusive access.

You can bet Channel 5 isn't going to ask a single question about the parking structure repairs underneath that make up a large part of that #55 million.

City Cries Poor....But....

Some insight:

• off topic.
  
  City crying broke over the NATO 6th day award. They have filed an extension to pay order with the courts allowing them a 364 (one day short of a year which is the limit for an extension) to pay the award. If successful that means that expect the pay for the 6th day wont come until just about 1 year from the arbitration award which was about a month ago... What say you FOP?????
  
  10/12/2013 02:36:00 PM
  
  Wait a minute, didn't the City get money from the Feds to cover the cost. Also, hasn't the City been spending "leftover" NATO money on other projects?

There was a few million left over from NATO. We don't think all of it was Federal money - there are rules for Federal money and if you misspend it, there are penalties (usually). But Rahm has been giving it away to community groups and parks, knowing that this arbitration hearing was to be decided at some point and it probably wasn't going to be decided in favor of the City.

Hopefully, the FOP points this out to the Arbitrator or whomever is hearing the City's request for extensions. Poor planning on Rahm's part isn't our problem. Getting paid in a timely fashion for work we did over a year-and-a-half ago is.

Um....Duh? Again.

Guess what the eggheads at the U of C discovered? If there is actual punishment, real honest-to-goodness penalties for committing crime, people usually stop committing crime. Honest! And if there is no punishment, then guess what they do?

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s argument for stiffer firearms sentences is bolstered by a new study showing gun possession offenders placed on probation are more likely to get re-arrested for murder than other felons, his police superintendent says.
  
  The University of Chicago Crime Lab studied whether those convicted of aggravated unlawful use of a weapon — a gun possession charge — have higher arrest rates for murders and non-fatal shootings than other felons.
  
  Using Chicago Police arrest data, the study found that aggravated UUW offenders were four times more likely to be re-arrested on murder charges and nearly nine times more likely to be locked up for nonlethal shootings than other felons.

Golly. If these guys spent as much time studying pathogens, their effects on human physiology and how to reverse it, as they do on something a Probationary Police Officer is taught his first week on the streets, we'd have a cure for cancer already.

There is a bill before the legislature to increase the penalty for felons caught with guns, but as usual, Chicago pols have screwed up the language and the NRA has helpfully pointed out how a simple change would actually garner their support for the bill:

• A bill backed by the Emanuel administration and Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez would raise the mandatory minimum sentence for aggravated UUW from one to three years and would require offenders to serve 85 percent of their sentences — a “truth in sentencing” provision.
  
  [...] Todd Vandermyde, a lobbyist for the National Rifle Association in Illinois, said he remains opposed to the legislation because he’s concerned first-time offenders could get trapped in the same net as felons.
  
  [...] Vandermyde said he doesn’t have a problem with boosting the penalties for felons caught with guns. But he’s worried about first-time offenders getting three-year prison terms.

Well, you can pretty much be sure that they'll never change the wording now. God forbid the NRA makes sense.

Good Behavior a Headline?

Amazing. These rapscallions behave for once, and it's a top story on ABC News:

• Rival high schools meet on the football field in a game that is closely watched, but not only for the final tally on the scoreboard.
  
  Students from Rich Central and Rich South were involved in a recent brawl that put their schools in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons and left nearly a dozen students facing charges.
  
  [...]It's the first football game between the competing suburban Chicago schools since a brawl broke out late last month between students from the two high schools.
  
  [...]Parents, friends and supporters were able to attend the much-anticipated game after the school district reversed its decision banning all spectators from the stands citing safety concerns.

Isn't that what kids are supposed to do at school football games? Behave, enjoy the game, cheer your team on, maybe some good old fashioned jeering back and forth across the field, your marching band and cheerleaders maybe with some not-so-subtle chants back and forth?

Sorry. Reminiscing. A simpler time we suppose.

Still an Asshole

Evidently, almost a year-and-a-half in jail hasn't mellowed this jagoff:

• One of the “NATO 3” protesters facing trial on terrorism charges from protests during last year’s NATO Summit in Chicago has been charged with aggravated battery, accused of squirting a shampoo bottle filled with urine and feces on a Cook County Jail guard.
  
  Prosecutors said Jared Chase squirted the officer with the substance from inside his jail cell on Oct. 4.
  
  Chase, 29, of Keene, N.H., appeared in court Saturday and was ordered held on $100,000 bail.

Remember, "peaceful" protestors. He probably just heard that Cook County runs their sentences concurrently instead of consecutively, so he figures he's safe from additional time.

A Heartfelt Thank You

An e-mail we decided to share:

• I would like your readers to know of incredible kindness of the Ninth District and Commander Gorman after the unexpected loss of my sister, Alice Ostrega, a time keeper for 009. The support, generosity and professional courtesies shown by the Ninth left our family speechless and helped ease the pain of our loss. The turnout by so many Officers of Nine to express their sympathy warmed our hearts, and to know she had so many friends in Blue made us proud. A "Thank you" cannot begin to convey our gratitude to the men and women of the Ninth District
  
  God Bless and Stay Safe,
  
  The Family of Alice Ostrega 

Our sympathies for your loss.

Sgt. Exam Info

Make you sure you send an e-mail confirming your attendance that you were notified of via snail mail before the 15th of October.

Sheesh.

FOP site has details if you've lost anything.

Captains / XO's List

What we have so far:

• Klich 001
  Watson 003
  Loughran 005
  Chambers 007
  Sanchez 007
  Nieves 016
  Looney 115
  Murphy 115
  Pigott 124
  Judon 126
  Lott 140
  Devereux 189
  Cesario 606

A lot of heavy names on that list.

Ka-Ching!

Better slow down:

• Speed cameras installed around four Chicago parks churned out 204,743 warning notices in just 40 days — and would have generated $12.2 million in fines — if tickets had been issued, as they will be starting next week.
  
  Mayor Rahm Emanuel has insisted that his plan to install 50 speed cameras around schools and parks by Dec. 31 — and as many as 300 by next year — is about saving lives, not raising sorely needed revenue.
  
  But the warning notices flying around McKinley, Marquette, Garfield and Gompers parks shows there’s a windfall coming, no matter what the mayor’s motives.

The Pension is saved! Oh wait, Rahm isn't going to fund it. Never mind.

No Beretta 92 FS Allowed

This is the new sign the State Police are making available on-line for businesses to post banning handguns on the premises:

And the article accompanying it:

• With some businesses eager to let people know guns aren’t welcome, the Illinois State Police on Friday released the official sign to indicate a concealed carry ban.
  
  Businesses can download the state-approved sign for banning concealed carry on the Illinois State Police Web site.

We read this as all Beretta 92FS weapons are banned. So if you carry a Glock, Smith and Wesson, Ruger, Sig, or other handgun, you ought to be fine.

Krokodil - The New Big Thing

It's pronounced "crocodile," and quite frankly, we can hardly wait:

• A street drug has hit the streets of suburban Chicago. It can cause deadly gangrene infections just days after it’s used. [...]
  
  Doctors at Presence St. Joseph’s Medical Center are treating three people with horrific symptoms of a new and deadly drug that originated in Russia. Because of its effect on skin and muscle, it’s called Krokodil as in Crocodile. It rots flesh and rots it fast.
  
  One of them is a 25-year-old woman, a heroin user for 10 years, who started using the new drug a month ago. Now she is in extremely critical condition.
  
  [...] The dirt cheap drug, also known as Desomorphine, is essentially home- made heroin, using among other things, codeine mixed with gasoline or paint thinner. It is usually injected.

Injecting gasoline and paint thinner into your body? That sounds so fucking intelligent that we can't wait for this to hit the streets. Dupe every single one of these calls to the ambulances transporting them and forget about it. Don't waste time, paper or investigative resources on people this stupid. Inside of three years, it burns (literally) through the junkie community and ::voila!:: no more dope problem.

Stop Working

No, that isn't a suggestion to the readers. That would be a violation of the Rule stating that advocating a job action is punishable by termination. We aren't falling for that one.

That's the title of an interesting article that appeared at "LawOfficer.com" about a month ago regarding the state of policing in the country today.

Now, he doesn't literally mean "stop working" in the most basic sense. Unfortunately, many took the title as it was written and it necessitated a follow-up article entitled "A Reply to My Critics" to clarify what we found to be a pretty obvious message the first time around.

Both articles are recommended reading. Any bosses or politicians who have trouble with the bigger words are welcome to post questions here or ask someone to help them find dictionary.com. It explains a lot of the frustration that we see on a daily basis and why morale seems to be in the basement not just in Chicago, but in many departments nationwide.

Rule #7

We have a couple basic rules on the right hand column - 9 actually if you include Rule #0.

We had a spate of violators regarding Rules 6 and 7 yesterday, specifically directed at the "Hey Look - A Quota" posting.  If you read the post, you can probably guess which way they were headed.

We don't really care what point you're trying to make - if it includes the phrase "...if you don't like it, quit," or something similar and we manage to catch it, it's getting flushed, no matter what else you might have to say. No one is going to voluntarily leave the job because you tell them to, especially if they've committed a sizable portion of their working life to the job and regardless of what imagined offense they've committed in your eyes.

Cops bitch about the job. They have since the beginning of time. Prehistoric officers were writing on cave walls with charcoal sticks. The bitched during the Dark Ages and they complained during the Enlightenment. They've been doing it here in Chicago since forever and have gone through a few underground publications (The Gallows) and a few websites (Second City Cop Network, Shaved, SCC).

Instead of calling everyone "crybabies," how about a few creative responses, putdowns or sarcastic comebacks to illustrate the futility of pleasing everyone all the time and just dealing with the shit sandwiches we're getting served all the time? It'd make for more interesting reading and you might actually see what you wrote making it past the screening process.

Hey Look....a Triple

We haven't had one of those in a while:

• Four people were shot to death Wednesday night, including a 16-year-old boy and two men killed when several gunmen opened fire in a South Shore courtyard in this year’s first triple homicide, authorities said.
  
  The three were standing in the courtyard in the 6700 block of South Chappel Avenue when the shooters walked up around 8:45 p.m. Wednesday, Police News Affairs [...] said.

Along with a few more shootings and a pair of stabbings, there have been something like seven or eight murders the past two days. Not bad for a Wednesday/Thursday midweek in October.

Rahm's Going to Love This

Licensing bicycles:

• Three Georgia legislators have proposed licensing bicycles in the state, in what could become the first mandatory statewide registration of all bikes.
  
  Hawaii now is the only state that requires registration, said Douglas Shinkle, senior policy analyst at the National Conference of State Legislatures. It has a one-time $15 fee for bicycles with wheels 20 inches or more in diameter; owners get a decal to attach to the bike's seat post.
  
  Other states — including California, Michigan and Ohio — allow counties or cities to enact bike license laws but none would be as broad as Georgia House Bill 689, which would revise portions of state motor vehicle law to include bicycles and place specific rules on groups of riders.

And of course, it's for your own good:

• One benefit from such a law would be to prevent bicycle theft and allow bikes that are stolen to be returned with greater frequency to their owners, Shinkle said. Oregon and Vermont proposed legislation earlier this year that tried to make bike registration mandatory, but neither bill was successful.

And the fact that cyclists don't contribute to the state coffers in the form of gas taxes or red light cameras or speeding tickets, thereby starving the government of revenue has nothing at all to do with it, right?

Hey look! A shiny ball! Look at the pretty shiny ball!

Rahm Saves Retirees $1,700

Instead of health care costs going up $6,100, they'll only go up $4,400!

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s decision to forge ahead with a three-year phaseout of the city’s 55 percent subsidy for retiree health care will force individual retirees to pay as much as $4,440 more in 2014, City Hall acknowledged Thursday.
  
  Two days after City Hall disclosed the mayor’s decision to count on $23.7 million in savings from a subsidy cut next year, the Emanuel administration talked turkey about the financial impact on individual retirees.
  
  Out-of-pocket increases will depend on when employees retired, whether or not they are Medicare-eligible, are married and have children.

The class-action lawsuit by retirees continues apace:

• Krislov’s class-action lawsuit argues that the Illinois Constitution guarantees that municipal pension membership benefits are an “enforcible contractual relationship which may not be diminished or impaired.”
  
  The lawsuit further contends that retirees “have a property right to a lifetime health care plan” from the city “unreduced from the best terms” during their participation. Anything less would be a “depreciation of property rights” guaranteed by the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, the lawsuit states.

You can bet a lot of people are watching this one carefully.

Two More Convictions

This is the second offender convicted for the murder of Officer Valadez:

• Kevin Walker, who prosecutors said went by the nickname of "Killer Kev," has been found guilty of the slaying of Chicago Police Officer Alejandro "Alex" Valadez.
  
  Prosecutors said Walker was driving a car on June 1, 2009, when two passengers opened fire at Valadez, a 27-year-old expectant father who was responding to an earlier call of shots fired in the West Englewood neighborhood. The jury deliberated about 10 hours before handing down the guilty verdict this morning.
  
  A second man, Shawn Gaston, was found guilty in the officer’s death in 2011 and sentenced to 125 years in prison.

And another jury is deliberating on the third offender:

• Just hours after a Cook County jury convicted the getaway driver in the fatal shooting of Chicago Police Officer Alejandro “Alex” Valadez, another jury Wednesday began deliberating the fate of the alleged gunman in the officer’s murder four years ago.
  
  Christopher Harris admitted to detectives that he stuck his arm out of a Pontiac G6 and shot a .357 revolver in the early morning hours of June 1, 2009, prosecutors Jeffrey Allen and Anita Alvarez said.
  
  “I shot the .357, but I didn’t mean to aim at anybody,” Harris is seen saying in the videotaped statement that was presented in closing arguments Wednesday.
  
  “I shot four or five [times] at the most.”

Only four or five times? Well that makes it all okay, right? What an asshole. 100 years for this jagoff would be a blessing to society. Death would be a cause for celebration, but that isn't on the table.

UPDATE: Convicted!

• A Cook County jury convicted the gunman in the fatal drive-by shooting of Chicago Police Officer Alejandro “Alex” Valadez of murder and attempted murder after nearly seven hours of deliberation late Wednesday night.
  
  Christopher Harris, 24, was the third of three defendants to be found guilty on charges connected to the June 1, 2009, killing in a vacant Englewood lot.
  
  Earlier Wednesday, a separate jury found the getaway driver in the shooting, Kevin Walker, 25, guilty of the same charges.

Finally.

Hey Look - A Quota

And written down on paper no less. And signed:

So the 014 District now has to "justify" their tour of duty. And all time due, hours that you have earned for use at a later date, is denied completely without explanation.

The only thing missing here is a list of numbers that will "justify" your tour. And we're sure we'll be getting that letter just as soon as they issue it.

In the meantime, maybe someone in 014 can explain why the Field Lieutenant is pulling 5-hour days while everyone else is being denied used time that is owed to them by the Department? We're sensing some sort of double standard here....Bueller? Bueller?

If a few hundred of our readers could just forward this to the FOP, we're sure they'd appreciate the heads up.

Want to Save Money?

An interesting proposal:

• heard from 35 th the new DSS order is about to come out. in the order, the DSS position will be filled by sergeants only. under no circumstances will a Lt. ever act as DSS. if available, Lts will be designated as filed Lts. Couple that with the fact that no Lt will ever be assigned as XO, there is now a needless rank in the department. A watch can operate without a field Lt, which means that other than feeding the exempt ranks and captains ranks, there is no real use for Lts, who are now suddenly in surplus. Don't expect a class anytime soon with the rank likely to go to appointment only, much cheaper with no lawsuits. They say the current list has already been scrapped.

Since they can't seem to eliminate the rank of captain (they just rename it), maybe they can eliminate lieutenants.

We don't see it happening, but it's nice to dream.

Bears by 7.5

The winless Giants come into town for a Thursday night game. The Bears got outplayed pretty badly Sunday. If they're angry enough, the Bears run away with it early.

Another Dirty Sergeant

And another opening for someone off the list:

• A dirty Chicago cop who swelled his city paycheck by shaking down drug dealers was slammed for his “unconscionable” behavior Wednesday by a federal judge who sentenced him to 22 months in prison.
  
  Former Sgt. Ronald Watts, 50, taught young people growing up in poverty in the Ida B. Wells housing projects “not to respect anything” when he demanded protection money from criminals, U.S. Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman said.
  
  Dressing down the former Army soldier and 20-year police veteran, an angry Coleman said she believed he’d been guilty of far more widespread corruption than the single count of stealing government funds he plead guilty to in July.

Good riddance.

Carter Harrison Awardees

Two cops who both got shot in the head and one still managed to return fire and wound the gunman:

• City officials presented the top awards for extraordinary bravery to Chicago police officers and firefighters Tuesday morning at a ceremony at City Hall.
  
  WBBM Newsradio [...] reports, the city’s Carter Harrison Award was presented to Police Officers Jeffrey Friedlieb and Ruben Del Valle, who shot and pursued a drug suspect, after he shot them.
  
  Friedlieb managed to shoot the suspect after both officers had been shot in the head.
  
  “After I got shot, I went down, and luckily I was still conscious, so I was able to fire back, and wound the offender,” he said.

Congratulations Officers.

UPDATE: Title changed - as someone pointed out, it isn't really a competition, so there aren't any winners. No one in their right minds competes for what these guys went through.

These Idiots Have Brains?

You can't have guns - it will cost too much to imprison everyone!

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel is pushing for tougher sentences for illegal gun possession, but state officials are now warning they would have to build more prison capacity to house the extra inmates.
  
  For months, the mayor, police Supt. Garry McCarthy and Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez have been urging the Legislature to approve stiff mandatory minimum sentences for illegal gun possession.
  
  On Tuesday, an Illinois Department of Corrections spokesman said the legislation would carry a hefty price tag — almost $1 billion over 10 years to house an additional 3,860 inmates in the prison system, which currently holds about 49,000 inmates.

Well we've got a perfect solution - Boot Camps!

Oh wait, that solution didn't work last time.

How about this - law abiding people carry firearms, concealed. After a few bad guys get shot while doing their stickups and such, they might learn a little bit of restraint, something they obviously never learned from their parent, school, community or society at large. The number of people actively committing criminal acts will fall as it has in 49 other states, and the savings from not incarcerating them can be a windfall refunded to the taxpayers or cut from their tax bills.

But Rahm and McDoofus aren't allowed to take credit as they never offered support in the first place.

Retirees Health Care

Welcome to ObamaCare:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel expects to save $18 million next year by starting a three-year phaseout of city-subsidized health insurance for most retired City Hall workers.
  
  The administration said Tuesday that the previously announced phaseout will start as planned Jan. 1, even though the move is being challenged in court.
  
  The savings would chip away at a projected budget shortfall of $339 million. Emanuel, who is scheduled to deliver his budget address Oct. 23, is expected to announce a series of cost-saving measures. He also hasn't ruled out increasing taxes and fees.
  
  Although retired city workers will see no increase in copays and deductibles, they will have to come up with more money to cover the cost of the insurance.

You won't be keeping your doctor either, regardless of what Obama promised. And those "average savings" of $2,400 a year? Some folks in California are finding their premiums going up by $10,000 a year:

• Cindy Vinson and Tom Waschura are big believers in the Affordable Care Act. They vote independent and are proud to say they helped elect and re-elect President Barack Obama.
  
  Yet, like many other Bay Area residents who pay for their own medical insurance, they were floored last week when they opened their bills: Their policies were being replaced with pricier plans that conform to all the requirements of the new health care law.
  
  Vinson, of San Jose, will pay $1,800 more a year for an individual policy, while Waschura, of Portola Valley, will cough up almost $10,000 more for insurance for his family of four.

Any guesses on who's to blame for a lot of this? Any mirrors around?

• Labor unions are among the key institutions responsible for the passage of Obamacare. They spent tons of money electing Democrats to Congress in 2006 and 2008, and fought hard to push the health law through the legislature in 2009 and 2010. But now, unions are waking up to the fact that Obamacare is heavily disruptive to the health benefits of their members.
  
  Last Thursday, representatives of three of the nation’s largest unions fired off a letter to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi, warning that Obamacare would “shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class.”

So republicans, who have been telling the truth about the disastrous train wreck that is ObamaCare, are actually fighting to delay the implementation of something that will harm, even destroy, union workers benefits? The world is upside-down.

Insurance for Judges

Guess how much they pay for health insurance?

• Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle fired another shot at Cook County’s Chief Judge Timothy Evans Monday, proposing to cut off the nearly-free health insurance the county offers to judges.
  
  Thanks to an obscure state law, circuit court judges are classified as county employees, because they get $500 a year from the county. So they are currently eligible for county health insurance for a percentage of their salary that works out to less than $1 a month.
  
  The actual cost to the county ranges from $440 to $1,700 a month, Preckwinkle’s office said.

Gee, and our retirees are about to be forced into ObamaCare that might leave many bankrupt and eating cat food. But Preckwinkle has a plan!

• Under the proposal, employees considered part-timers would no longer pay a percentage of their salary, but would have to pay the actual cost of the insurance or get it somewhere else, such as the new health insurance marketplace created under the Affordable Care Act.
  
  About 30 crossing guards, as well as commissioners of the Chicago Board of Elections, would also get the same deal, but most of the 400 people affected would be judges, the county said.

Because at salaries ranging from $174,000 to $183,000 per year, you'd think that they could spend a little more on their own care.

Electronic Monitoring?

How about jail, conviction and deportation?

• A man busted for drinking in his car threatened and taunted the cops who arrested him, even insulting one of the cop's wives after the man was asked to take a Breathalyzer, police say.
  
  He also claimed that his boss was the infamous Mexican drug lord "El Chapo," according to police reports.
  
  Octavio Cazarez, 44, was sitting in his convertible early Sunday downing Heinekens when police spotted him in the 1900 block of West 36th Street, police said.
  
  Cazarez tried to escape, speeding through a stop sign toward Damen Avenue, according to a police report. He eventually pulled over and was arrested.
  
  But at the Deering District police station, the slurring, stumbling man started hurling insults and threats when police repeatedly asked him blow into a Breathalyzer, police said. He refused, the reports say.
  
  "Blow my c--k. Wait, your wife did that last night,'" he said, according to the police reports. "I'm not taking any tests, I've been drinking all day long. Good night. I'm going to sleep."
  
  Cazarez also told cops that he works for an infamous cartel kingpin known as "El Chapo," according to police.
  
  El Chapo, whose real name is Joaquin Guzman, is generally believed to be among the most powerful drug lords in the world and one of Mexico's richest people. He was named by the Chicago Crime Commission as "Public Enemy Number One."
  
  "Remember who I work for. Viva Chapo, and f--- the USA," Cazarez also said, according to the reports.

Anyone got a number for the "El Chapo" character? Maybe blow a call into him, let him know his "employee" is running his mouth off?

And what did the judge set bail at?

• A Cook County judge ordered him released from jail and put on electronic monitoring Monday. If Cazarez violates any conditions of his bond, he'll automatically go back to jail and be held on $25,000 bond.

Shouldn't be any problem for a big deal like Octavio who likes to name drop the names of cartel drug lords.

Half a Dozen Shot

A cool Monday afternoon, crisp even. Punctuated by the sound of gunfire:

• Five people were wounded this afternoon and early evening in separate shootings on the South Side in the city's Englewood and Grand Crossing neighborhoods.

And another wounding during school hours in 010.  Just a typical Chicago morn.

Only 17% Shutdown

So just how much of the government is still operating in the midst of the "shutdown?"  83% according to a report linked by Drudge:

• I asked a Republican source on the Senate Budget Committee for an estimate. This was the answer: "Based on estimates drawn from CBO and OMB data, 83 percent of government operations will continue. This figure assumes that the government pays amounts due on appropriations obligated before the shutdown ($512 billion), spends $225 billion on exempted military and civilian personnel, pays entitlement benefits for those found eligible before the shutdown (about $2 trillion), and pays interest costs when due ($237 billion). This is about 83 percent of projected 2014 spending of $3.6 trillion."

And what part of the government is shut down?  Here's a pretty extensive list right here. It includes National Monuments (that are open 24/7/365 every other time of year), Armed Forces Network sports broadcasting (no NFL this past weekend - funding restored for next week), scenic overviews of other National Parks (that were also open 24/7/365), eleven-hundred square miles of ocean, privately owned homes, numerous other parks that receive ZERO federal funding but are on the National Historic Register.

There are many others, all outrageous, all designed to inflict maximum inconvenience on tourists and visitors to places that in some cases are once in a lifetime opportunities, like the World War II Memorial, whose veterans are dying at something over hundreds a day. It's disgusting to say the least and a shameful display of Chicago-style bullshit that we've become too inured to around these parts, so it doesn't phase many on a national level. But it's aggravating.

Shots Fired - No Hits

About 24 hours ago:

• Police fired shots but did not take anyone into custody in the West Side's Lawndale neighborhood early this morning, police said.
  
  The police-involved shooting happened at 1:26 a.m. in the 700 block of South Cicero Avenue, Chicago Police Department News Affairs [...] said. No injuries were reported.
  
  The circumstances surrounding the shooting were not immediately released.

Traffic stop gone wild is the report we got. No officers hurt, so that's a good thing. No bad guys turning up at the hospital...yet.

Family Pictures

From our friends over in the Chaplains Unit:

Oh Captain, My Captain

Word from a pretty reliable source that a Captains List is done and due to be announced at any minute. Or maybe it's an XO list? We aren't sure what they're calling it, but it's coming, maybe by Friday, and we don't mean "BIG CHANGES!" Friday either. This is a minor event at best.

October Starts with a Bang

Cooler weather doesn't seem to have slowed things down:

• Four men are dead and at least 12 others have been wounded in violence across the city since Friday afternoon, according to Chicago Police.

And that doesn't include the discovery of the guy in pieces in the Scottsdale neighborhood.

Study Study Study

Under 20 days until the promotion exam. Are you studying? We are. And we might see some delays in posting comments or headlines here and there. Don't sweat it, we'll be around eventually.

Open post for a Monday in the meantime. Maybe we can share study tips and secret questions/phrases that will get everyone promoted.

Welcome to the Party Pal

Gee, something that cops everywhere here have been saying for years:

• Damarcus Dotson was caught with a loaded .38-caliber revolver in his waistband as he tried to ride away from the police on a bicycle on Aug. 11, 2010 in the Austin neighborhood on the West Side.
  
  Dotson — then 17 — pleaded guilty and faced hard prison time.
  
  But Judge Vincent Gaughan gave the teen a break and sentenced him to the Cook County Jail’s boot camp — a four-month program with eight months of supervision.
  
  [...] Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy pointed to Dotson’s boot-camp sentence as an example of what’s wrong with criminal justice in Illinois.
  
  “Eighty-five percent of murders in this city are by gunfire, so what message does it send about our priorities when state law doesn’t provide stiff punishment for criminals who carry illegal weapons?” McCarthy said in a prepared statement.

Well, how about pointing out that Cook County Board President Preckwinkle and others think too many "persons of color" are spending time in jail. And Governor Potato is releasing all sorts of prisoners early (including violent felons slipping through the cracks) and shutting down prisons. It's a systemic problem to say the least and the bad guys know how to exploit it.

Retro Pay Again

Guess who's getting retro pay for not even working?

• The House voted unanimously Saturday to retroactively pay back federal workers who are not receiving a paycheck because of the government shutdown.
  
  Members approved the Federal Employee Retroactive Pay Fairness Act, H.R. 3223, in a 407-0 vote, with 25 members not voting.
  
  Workers will not be paid until the shutdown — now in its fifth day — ends. About 800,000 workers have been furloughed.

They must have remembered to send the letter.

Saints Favored by One

Bad feeling about this one - nothing specific, just a feeling.

How Fast it Goes South

Amazing video out of Oregon:

The cop was wounded in the side. The gunman was found half-a-mile down the road dead with a single gunshot wound to the chest...and his three kids in the car. All over a speeding ticket.

Unearthing Bodies

This sounds particularly gruesome:

• Police spent hours on Friday searching for evidence in a yard at 83rd and Scottsdale in what Chicago police are calling "a death investigation."
  
  It's a mystery as to what unfolded at this Scottsdale home, however, the medical examiner's office says a man's body was discovered there.
  
  There were emotions and tears Friday night after a gruesome discovery.
  
  "They have found body parts down there. Exactly how many body parts and how many bodies, I do not know," said Dave Weller, neighbor.

Death investigation - yeah, that's the ticket.

And then this lovely tidbit:

• Neighbors say a husband and wife live in the home, along with their teenage daughter. Neighbors say the teenager has 3 children and is expecting a fourth, and was having trouble with different fathers. 

Trouble? We'd say there's a bit more than "trouble" in that household, aside from the  dead bodies magically appearing in the yard.

Criminal Charges in California?

If we were a firefighter, we'd be steaming mad about now and looking to organize some sort of show of support for one of our own:

• California prosecutors will determine if a firefighter will face charges in the death of a teen passenger who was aboard an Asiana Airlines jet that crashed at San Francisco International Airport. The girl was killed when a firetruck responding to the crash ran over her.
  
  Investigators completed their probe into the incident last week and turned over their findings to prosecutors who will determine within the next two weeks if the firefighter broke any laws or whether it was an accident, said San Mateo County Assistant Dist. Atty. Al Serrato.

A plane crash is chaotic enough. A plane crash with survivors has to be hundreds of times more insane. A plane crash with survivors and bodies lying all over the tarmac, taxiways and grass...you get the picture. And they want to even consider criminal charges against the driver? We'd say "only in that liberal cesspool of California," but we can see it happening here, too.

Still Number One!

But at a slower pace:

• Through the first nine months of this year, homicides in Chicago have declined significantly over a disastrous 2012 that saw killings surpass the 500 mark.
  
  The pace of improvement, however, has slowed sharply in recent months, putting the city on target to finish the year with close to the same number of homicides as in 2011.
  
  Despite the year-to-year improvement, Chicago still leads all major U.S. cities in the number of homicides.

Gee, the same number as 2011 - who suggested that the media look at that? Oh yeah, everyone not connected with Rahm, McStreetlightAssassin and CompStat.

There are some other hidden gems in the article, too:

• Shootings, though, are down substantially through the first three quarters of 2013, not just over last year's figures but also compared with 2011's. Through September, shootings have dropped 22 percent over last year and about 14 percent over 2011, the statistics show

Um, yeah, since they count multiple victim incidents (like the 13 shot in the park) as "one incident." And anything without a victim (shots fired, no hits) isn't even counted in the stats - being a poor marksman is aplus under CompStat.

• The department also spent tens of millions of dollars on overtime pay to, at one time, more than 400 cops a day to work in the city's most crime-plagued neighborhoods on their days off. Additional rookie cops have worked straight time in those neighborhoods on foot patrols.

Burning through the entire overtime budget even before summer had rolled around - that was great.

• While McCarthy scoffs at the weather as a factor, criminologists said the unseasonably warm start to 2012 contributed greatly to homicides topping 500 last year for the first time since 2008. The more typical winter weather early this year helped produce sharply lower homicide figures through the first three months.

Criminologists (people who actually study crime) agreed with our readers (cops whose field observations are the envy of any criminologist). Imagine that.

• Even with the improved numbers, Chicago remains far ahead of other big cities with its number of homicides so far this year. New York City has had 240 slayings and Los Angeles has 203, according to police statistics from late September, the most recent numbers available for the two cities. As of Thursday, Philadelphia had recorded 189 slayings.
  
  The Chicago Police Department's official homicide tally, which is reported to the FBI for its annual Uniform Crime Report, did not include four killings — three of which took place within city limits on expressways patrolled by state police. The homicide figures also do not include "death investigations" that could later be reclassified as homicides.

Ah yes, the number-fudging. That would be another article entirely.

Washington DC Shooting

Watching a bunch of this unfold today, we were struck at how it was portrayed by the media and the inconsistencies throughout. For starters, you had the New York Times connecting it tho the government shutdown in their twitter feeds. This was while the entire incident was unfolding, no statements had been released by law enforcement, nothing was known at all - except that it HAD to be related to the government shutdown!

Then you had Wolf Blitzer making this ridiculous connection:

• While concluding his interview Thursday afternoon with Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-TX), CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked whether the shots fired outside the U.S. Capitol building will propel both parties to get “back to work” and come together to end the government shutdown.

Huh? A shooting is supposed to make Congress do work?

We realize that reporting a breaking story as it happens isn't the easiest thing in the world, but what we saw on CNN and MSNBC about a "gunfight" and subsequent "tweets" wishing death upon republican leaders in Congress was just typical of the leftist media and its followers. We laughed out loud when the press started pointing out that this wasn't "terrorism" since it has been Obama, Reid and Pelosi comparing the opposition to terrorists, suicide bombers and hostage takers - nothing like walking back the rhetoric of the last few days in order to protect the democrats.

And you could almost feel the disappointment in the media once again when it was revealed who the "shooter" actually was:

That's her on the right. A dental hygienist with a history of mental issues. Oh, and she happens to be black, which really killed the media to have to report that. All we know is that she injured a couple of police officers with her car and it's lucky she didn't kill a few.

It was also amusing to see the media having to actually explain (probably for the first time ever) how the Capitol Police were authorized and justified in using deadly force against an unarmed female with a child in the back seat. There were a couple use of force experts walking the talking heads through the facts that she was disobeying lawful orders, struck a cop with a 3,000 pound piece of metal machinery, rammed at least two police cars and continued to disregard orders to stop.

We saw one picture on a news channel of the vehicle surrounded by crime scene markers and the numbers on the markers were in the "40's" and "50's" ranges - we aren't sure how many shots were fired, but it looked like a few. We couldn't help but compare it to a number of shootings here in town where a lot of lead was flying, a car was used as a weapon, a minority was the offender, a child was around somewhere in the vicinity, and a gun wasn't part of the equation. We remember the Department being flogged mercilessly by the media, "reverends" and the community. We don't see that happening in Washington for some reason.

So best wishes for a speedy recovery to the injured in DC. You've always been friendly during the Memorial festivities. And if someone has a mirror to hold up to the media...never mind, they're a lost cause.

Anti-Gun Insanity

Now this is just stupid:

• A police officer who dropped off his daughter at her Phoenix elementary school was asked by the school’s principal not to wear his uniform to the school because other parents were concerned that he was carrying a gun, MyFoxPhoenix.com reported.
  
  Scott Urkov is a police officer for the Coolidge Police Department. The department told him not to comment to media inquiries, but immediately after he received the no-uniform request, he posted on Facebook.
  
  "Nothing like your kids school calling and asking if I could not come to pick up my daughter in uniform cause parents were concerned when their kids came home telling them there was a man at school with a gun, “ he posted. “Are you freaking kidding me?"

A cop, in uniform, dropping off his daughter, IN ARIZONA, and certain people are afraid he might be carrying a gun, when in actuality, dozens of people in Arizona are probably dropping off their kids with guns in their purses, on their hips or somewhere in their vehicles.

Funeral Impounds

After a spate of complaints and a bunch of YouTube videos, the ubiquitous gangster funeral/bumper car processions might be under severe scrutiny:

• Gang members — or anybody else in Chicago — who drive recklessly during a funeral procession could lose their wheels under a crackdown advanced Thursday to stop “idiots” from wreaking havoc on their way to Mount Hope Cemetery.
  
  Mount Hope has long been the “cemetery of choice” for gangbangers gunned down on Chicago streets and the ride to and from the cemetery goes through Beverly and Morgan Park.
  
  Local Ald. Matt O’Shea (19th) said that has forced his constituents to endure an array of intimidating behavior. It ranges from hanging out the window flashing gang signs, red-light running and driving into oncoming traffic, to high-speed chases down side streets, verbal altercations with other motorists, shooting out the window and throwing out loaded guns.

Of course, manpower availability will always be an issue here as these funerals are held during the day when watches are 99-units. But it is a tool that might be used at some point.

No Bid Spots?

An interesting "taken to the extreme scenario" regarding sergeants:

• Ok SCC, heard that the city and PBPA are going to take away all the district bid sgts. and rebid citywide, all districts, and those Sgt.s will be new district bid holders. Looks like JA from PBPA and Rahm are looking to stick it to the sgts for shooting down that bs contract.
  
  This should completely throw all districts up for grabs. There is no wording or language to do this but this is based on perceived interpretations by JA and Cmdr Oneil MSLA. By the way they are personal friends outside of the job so I can see this possibly happening. All incumbent district bid sgts. will have to rebid, wow, will this happen after watch bids? Because watch bids have to be kept after successfully bidding for them.
  
  So in theory can you have 15 sgts. bid into a district successfully and all them having 2nd watch bids from their respective districts from whence they came. I can see it now, 2nd watch in 001 with 15 sgts. This could be a real circus act to watch.
  
  If they can do it with PBPA can they do it with FOP? Can they rewrite district staffing levels then have a citywide bid thereby reducing the manpower in so called slower districts and thus filling westside and south side districts with officers who would normally be in north side districts due to their prior bidding and or assignments? Can the department say they only need 250 officers in 019 not the 300 they have now and reassign the 50 to other districts? What if 020,024,017,016,019,018,001, have their staffing levels reassessedandd lowered, where would the surplus officers go? A citywide rebid could possibly achieve this. I would not put this past Cmdr DO to write up such a policy, after all he back doored the Lt.s to get a Cmdr star, what will he do for a higher spot?

This is the trouble with lawyers and loopholes. Always the attempts to reinterpret language to the benefit of some and detriment of others. Anyone want to chime in on the possibility of something like this being used against the sergeants? Or against Officers, too?

Here's All the Guns

Eighty-thousand of them:

• For evidence of the scope of Chicago’s illegal gun problem, look no further than a nondescript warehouse on the city’s far West Side, not far from some of the city’s most violent neighborhoods. There, the Chicago Police Department has packed 80,000 illegal firearms into row after row of shelves, meticulously labeled and guarded by police officers who wait for the green light to destroy them.
  The guns, almost all of which were seized by the department during criminal arrests, range from the common handgun to military rifles to “street sweepers”—guns with oversized, rotary magazines and so much destructive power the National Firearms Act places them in the same category as grenades, mines and poison gas.

Of course, vast numbers of these guns were "illegal" by definitions since ruled unconstitutional by the highest court in the land. We don't envy the lawsuits peeking over the horizon and we are forced to ask ourselves why the Department is broadcasting decades worth of overreach on the part of our political masters? Are they drawing a map for injunctions or what?

As an aside, we were amused that they admit the "ventilation" system does very little to alleviate the smells (and side effects) of literally tons of marijuana stored in the building. That complaint has been ongoing since ERPS occupied the building and ended up being the basis for a number of safety grievances.

Rahm Saves Millions!

Well actually, it's only $1.5 million:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel will order a 90-day hiring freeze on “non-critical” personnel when he takes the wraps off his 2014 budget on Oct. 23, City Hall sources said Wednesday.
  To save $1 million, the hiring freeze will begin Jan. 1 and continue throughout the year as jobs become open. It will not impact police officers, firefighters or other public safety employees. As many as 20 already vacant jobs will also be eliminated to save $500,000.
  After a three-year hiring slowdown, the police academy is churning out regular classes of recruits to keep pace with retirements. Emanuel has pledged to continue hiring at that same clip to keep the Chicago Police Department at full-strength—even as aldermen demand additional officers.
  The $1.5 million expected to be generated by the hiring freeze and job cuts are just a trickle compared to the $338.7 million shortfall in next year’s budget that Emanuel is struggling to close—and the $1 billion gap Chicago faces next year without pension reform.

$1.5 million.

In a budget of something like $4 billion, with a "B."

That's not even a rounding error.

"No Ulterior Motive"

Sure there isn't Rahm:

• Red-light cameras are coming down at 18 Chicago intersections because they’ve reduced accidents — not to soften the blow of speed cameras around schools and parks, Mayor Rahm Emanuel insisted Wednesday.
  The timing of the mayor’s announcement — just as speed cameras are about to start churning out $35 and $100 tickets in those areas — makes it look like Emanuel is throwing motorists a bone.
  He appears to be giving drivers a small measure of relief from Big Brother surveillance just as they’ll be forced to endure even more of it — with 50 speed cameras in place by Dec. 31. Nine of those cameras already have been installed — around Gompers, Garfield, McKinley and Marquette parks.

If Rahm says it, is must be true....for the children and all that pap, right? We know he's the mayor and all, but his record of "truthful" statements leaves a bit to be desired.

EXAMSCAM - the Movie

Many of the younger readers will have seen/heard passing references to "ExamScam," the notorious cheating scandal that should have rocked the Department to its foundations. In it, it was conclusively proven that people who used the phrase "Notify the Watch Commander," a phrase that appeared nowhere in the study material were promoted to lieutenant at a rate that could only be called "statistically impossible." Former NBC investigative reporter Peter Karl brought massive amounts of heat on the Daley administration until mysteriously falling silent and landing a highly paid gig as the CAPS spokesman.

Here are the clips from NBC, presented as a compilation for, as far as we can tell, the first time:

A lot of decent, intelligent people lost a shot at promotion due to these shenanigans. There were the usual accusations of people having access to the answers or studying the actual test, but the Oral Boards and accompanying videos were damning (and painfully amazing) in their audacity. It called into question pretty much all promotions that ever occurred under Shortshanks and the echoes still reverberate today with "meri-clout-orious" promotions, entire teams scoring within mere fractions of one another, and certain office people working for "subject matter experts" scoring near perfect on exam after exam.

Sgt. John Northen put this together and is taking questions via e-mail - you can find details at his blog linked here. In light of the city finally offering a promotional exam for the first time in seven years, this is timely info that ought to keep a spotlight on the process that is too easily corrupted in this most corrupt of cities.

Patience Pays Off

Patient. Professional. Everyone goes home in one piece:

• A standoff involving a man with a rifle and a large knife that started late this morning at a South Loop rail yard ended peacefully a little after 1 p.m.
  
  Police were called to the scene of the standoff south of Roosevelt Road at Lumber Street, west of the Chicago River, a little before noon, according to the Chicago Police Department. The situation ended peacefully with no injuries and the man was taken to the University of Illinois at Chicago Medical Center for evaluation, officials said. Roads which had been closed in the area were reopened soon after.
  
  Amtrak police discovered someone trespassing on railroad property and the person may have been threatening suicide, police said. Amtrak police, with the help of Chicago police, had been dealing with a person who was trespassing on railroad property, an Amtrak spokesman said.
  
  An older man with what appeared to be a rifle and a butcher knife got into a standoff with police on the west bank of the Chicago River, at the east end of the rail yard, police said. At times, he covered the rifle with a jacket or blanket but also pointed it at police.

At any point, someone could have drilled this guy when pointing the gun at police. It's a measure of the professionalism of the Department that no one did and a peaceful resolution was achieved. Very good job Officers.

Red Light Cameras Being Removed?

Only 36 though:

• Chicago motorists are getting some relief from video surveillance just when Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s speed cameras around schools and parks are about to start churning out $35 and $100 tickets.
  
  City Hall is removing 36 red-light cameras at 18 intersections where cameras have succeeded in reducing right-angle crashes caused by red-light running and most likely to cause death or serious injury.
  
  That will leave Chicago with 348 red-light cameras at 172 intersections.

Ah, we see it now - the City is declaring success in reducing accidents at these intersections, therefore, the cameras are no longer needed. Brilliant.

Of course, it was pointed out that most of the affected intersections didn't need cameras anyway:

• Earlier this year, Inspector General Joe Ferguson concluded there was no evidence to substantiate the city’s claim that red-light cameras have either reduced accidents or are installed at the most dangerous intersections.
  
  Under former Mayor Richard M. Daley, the Chicago Department of Transportation claimed to have chosen intersections with the highest number of “angle crashes” caused by red-light running to pump out $100 tickets that now generate $72 million in annual revenues.
  
  But Ferguson said CDOT was unable to produce evidence that accident data was used in the selection of red-light camera locations or that CDOT continually evaluates accident data to relocate cameras to the most-dangerous spots.

Money grab, plain and simple. And as the revenues declined due to people learning a painful lesson, you can bet that Rahm is looking for 36 new places to put cameras to make up the shortfalls.

Another Police Shooting

Cops are ok, bad guy will live, gun recovered:

• A Chicago police officer shot a 22-year-old man in the elbow during a foot pursuit in the South Side's Gresham neighborhood Monday night, police and residents said.
  
  About 9:30 p.m., police responded to a call of a man with a gun in the 1300 block of West 76th Street, Fraternal Order of Police spokesman Pat Camden said. When officers arrived on the scene, they spotted a group of people standing on a corner, he said.
  
  A man standing in the group began running, and uniformed police officers gave chase into a fenced area bordered by nearby row homes, Camden said.
  
  During the chase, the man turned toward police with a gun his hand and an officer fired in self-defense, Camden said.
  
  The man was taken to Holy Cross Hospital in good condition, Camden said. Police found a semiautomatic handgun at the scene, he said.

And the usual ghetto drama ensues thereafter:

• After learning of the shooting, the man's mother went to the hospital, the scene and two police stations hoping to learn what had happened, she said.
  
  As of early this morning, Lavita Jones, 38, still had few answers.
  
  “They’re still not giving me no information about my child, period,” she said. “I haven’t heard anything but [that] the police shot him.”
  
  Near the scene of the shooting, residents questioned whether the shooting was justified.

Good job Officers.

Off Duty PPO Injured

At last report, in a medically induced coma:

• A PPO was hit by a car while crossing the street in rosemont last night. Car did not stop at the scene, the PPO has less than a year on the job and is currently in a medically induced coma due to skull fractures.

Anyone have an update? Prayers for his recovery.

Overheard at Roll Call

Two cops busting balls over the Cubs and Sox over who sucked less, a toss-up at the Cubs actually had a better season (66-96 vs 63-99).

At least hockey starts tonight

Police Limit

Sounds vaguely.....familiar:

And just a suggestion, the Police Limit collection (available in the right hand column) would make a nice Christmas present for someone with a dark sense of humor.

Feeling Bad About Crime?

Rahm has a new initiative to brighten your day, especially in those well-to-do neighborhoods who aren't used to seeing the yellow tape adorning their fences:

That Rahm....always thinking ahead.