Did Rahm Take This Meeting?

This popped up on assorted radars over the past week:

• Over the past 5 years there have been over 300 shootings by Chicago Police Department officers, resulting in over 90 fatalities. On Monday, March 16th, at 12:30 p.m., the families of some of these shooting victims will meet with Mayor Rahm Emanuel. At 4:00 p.m. that same day, these families and their supporters will report back from their meeting with the mayor and rally outside his City Hall office.
  
  At a March 5th press conference at City Hall, families of Chicagoans killed by police demanded a meeting with the mayor. Shortly after the event, the office of Mayor Emanuel reached out to those families to schedule a meeting. Those participating in the meeting with the mayor on March 16th at 12:30pm include the mothers of Rekia Boyd, Dakota Bright, Roshad Mcintosh, Ronald Johnson, Darius Pinex, and DeSean Pittman. One other family member or friend of each victim will accompany the mothers.

This should have been an interesting meeting, seeing as how 5 of the 6 were pointing guns at the police, guns that were recovered on scene. And in the sixth case, the detective has a scheduled trial date already, so the justice system seems to be working as slowly as it always does, which is never fast enough for those who just want lynchings and payouts.

So did Rahm meet the with the families that the criminals left behind? There were a few posts that said WGN covered this on the evening news, but ::surprise!:: the WGN site has been off the internet for a few hours now, so we can't find any info.

Hey Dean - will this affect the endorsement process? Chuy has his family issues, but we aren't ones to blame the father for the sins of the son - look at Daley, Burke, Rahm, etc. But the mayor meeting with people whose family members actively attempted to kill police officers? Rahm can pound sand along with any aldercreatures he endorsed.

VRI Check Goes "BOING!"

Someone got some explaining to do:

• Speaking of VRI.....
  
  Minutes ago, I talked to an old timer in 1600 hour Michigan Ave VRI roll call. He works in 016 and said when he went to deposit his 16 Mar regular payroll check in the drive-thru of a Bank of America location, IT BOUNCED. The teller told him it was Insufficient Funds, and that he needed to come inside to see a manager. The manager confirmed that there was insufficient funds to deposit the check. He immediately notified FOP, and - hard to believe here - they told him it "wasn't their problem" and that he should contact Finance. A call to Finance went unanswered.

Anyone else have this problem with a hard check?

Rahm Leads by 10

But that's with 16% undecided:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel's latest moves in his re-election campaign appear to have steered voters in his favor.
  
  The latest poll numbers show Emanuel with a comfortable lead over challenger Jesus "Chuy" Garcia, but the mayor remains shy of the majority of votes with just a few weeks to go until the runoff election April 7.
  
  Ogden and Fry released a poll Saturday that showed Emanuel with 47.1 percent of the vote and Garcia with 36.7 percent. The poll takes into account undecided voters as well, who came in at a high 16.2 percent.
  
  These undecided voters are key to winning the election, the poll makers noted. The conventional wisdom is that undecided voters usually do not break for a well-known incumbent, meaning Emanuel could still be in trouble, despite his lead.

We think it was Kass who pointed out an interesting fact the other day. In the just-past election, Rahm polled at something like 45% with a lot of "undecided" folks refusing to commit to a candidate. Rahm's total for the election? 45.4%. That means that he certainly didn't inspire a lot of fence-sitters to commit to him. It also means that turnout is going to be the key, and a rainy-bad-weather-type day could significantly affect portions of the electorate. Rahm hasn't gone full negative yet, but you can see his media lapdogs already attempting to suppress voter turnout by touting the polls (Rahm leads!) and poking at Garcia for not having a concrete plan (but failing to point out Rahm's own lack of a plan).

Rahm has an edge in polling, but not an insurmountable one.

Dean, What's This?

First of all, this arrived in the mail Saturday:

But you've already announced that no endorsement will be forthcoming. Maybe you could release the actual totals so we can all have a good laugh?

But this here is actually more disturbing. We got this in an e-mail:

• The FOP endorsed Amy Crawford for alderman of the 46th Ward. She's in a runoff with James Cappleman, who got the Police Sergeants endorsement.
  
  Crawford has Marc Kaplan working with her campaign. Familiar name? Marc Kaplan, the guiding light behind CopWatch. The roving band of misfits who listened to the scanners and jumped on their bikes to film the cops. The same Marc Kaplan who was sued by an officer for encouraging kids to make false statements on police reports.
  
  The third candidate, who didn't make the runoff, was Denise Davis. Kaplan worked for her campaign. The campaign manager, a guy named Cortez Duqette, has gone rogue. He's spilling the beans on what went on behind the scenes.
  
  Here's the email linking Kaplan and candidate Crawford. https://www.facebook.com/150856738458364/photos/a.151266755084029.1073741828.150856738458364/344204319123604/?type=1
  
  Duqette says that Crawford's campaign also paid former Aldercreature Helen Schiller's son consulting fees. He's a lawyer who sues cops for a living. http://secondcitycop.blogspot.com/2011/04/whats-in-name.html
  
  All tied up with a bow. The FOP-endorsed candidate in bed with the head of CopWatch and a lowlife lawyer who loves to sue cops.
  
  It happened the same way in 2011. FOP and Kaplan endorsing the same candidate, Molly Phelan. http://www.uptownupdate.com/2011/04/endorsement-tracker-marc-kaplan.html
  
  I wish FOP would stop making endorsements.

You know what? So do we. Hey Dean, what the fuck?

How Does This Happen?

The state is billion in debt, yet this sort of thing thrives:

• A southwest suburban man used more than 3,000 LINK cards to steal almost $1 million in government funds, purchasing "massive amounts of energy drinks and candy" and selling them to West Side stores, officials said.
  
  Wael S. Ghosheh, 46, has been charged with theft of government property, identity theft, money laundering, unauthorized use of food stamp benefits and wire fraud, all of which are felonies, records show.
  
  Ghosheh, of the 5500 block of West 84^th Street in southwest suburban Burbank, is in Cook County Jail after appearances Wednesday and Thursday at the Leighton Criminal Court Building, during which bail was set at $50,000, records show.

The level of fraud here is astronomical. And from what we observe, hear and can deduce, barely scratches the surface of some of the crap that goes on when there is no accountability in the system, no oversight by the authorities and the watchdogs are busy licking their balls and the balls of those in power.

Klansman Arrested in Ferguson

Offender who shot two cops is in custody:

• An arrest has been made in connection with the Thursday shooting of two police officers in Ferguson, Missouri, St. Louis County police announced Sunday afternoon — but the suspect claimed he was shooting at fellow protesters, not police.
  
  Ferguson demonstrator Jeffrey Williams, 20, was charged with two felony counts of first-degree assault, firing a weapon from a vehicle and three counts of armed criminal action, St. Louis County prosecuting attorney Robert McCulloch said.

This a picture at the link above and we have to say, those southern folks (or people) are certainly a lot more inclusive than the old newsreels would have you believe.

Changes

Four moves occurring at midnight tonight:

• Deputy Chief Riccio (Detectives) to Acting Chief of OCD (Homan Square black site)
• Commander Roy (Area Central) to Acting Dep Chief of Detectives
• Cmdr Watson lateraled from 005 to 007
• Lt Johnson (not that one, the other one) from 003 to Acting Cmdr 005

The "acting" portion gets dropped after the next City Council meeting we suppose. Here's a question though - why do Rahm and McCarthy hate Cmdr Watson? They're paying him less than Deputy Chief of the 007th District Ric Flair to do the same job that Leo had for years. Is it because Watson is....black!?!?!!??!

Racism!!!

Or Cmdr Watson must have endorsed Chewie.

So....

...what were the survey results?

FOP asked everyone to let them know what the membership wanted, then didn't endorse anyone.

Is this going to be like that "morale survey" that J-Fled ran with the promise that if it was negative in nature, he'd resign and go away? No one ever saw hide nor hair of that survey after that statement. But there's J-Fled, walking with Chuy Garcia in the parade downtown today.

Another Good Budget Move

Stop subsidizing failing business models:

• Gov. Bruce Rauner's proposed state budget would cut 40 percent from Illinois' funding for Amtrak trains during a time when ridership has been climbing.
  
  Passenger numbers and ticket revenue have grown during the past five years.
  
  The Lincoln Service train between St. Louis and Chicago, for example, saw more than 633,000 passengers during the most recent federal fiscal year. That's a 25 percent increase from five years earlier.

Whoop-dee-doo. A 25% increase.....and it's still bleeding money if it needs state subsidies. Amtrak hasn't made money in years, and if the government stopped funding it, it would disappear to the savings of billions of dollars.


Then, a miracle would occur - small companies would pop up to fill the demand. They would set prices to the point where they operated at a profit and survive, thrive or die based on market considerations and the government would be out of the business of deciding why a failing business model should move forward when money is scarce.

Econ 101.

Good Budget Move

Now do this a few hundred times and Illinois might actually have a balanced budget:

• Hundreds of conservation-minded home owners who are waiting on thousands of dollars from the state of Illinois may end up empty-handed.
  
  As CBS 2 [...] reports, they are the latest victims of the state’s budget crisis.
  
  Estimated heating bills for Linda Foster were nearly $900 a month before she and her husband did major upgrades to their furnace, insulation, windows and — the biggest saver – they installed solar panels. Now, their home is cheaper to maintain.
  
  The big savings came with a significant upfront cost — $20,000. But it also included a 20 percent discount from U.S. Solar, the company that installed the panels; a 30 percent tax write-off; and a 30 percent rebate from the state that was expected to be $6,000.
  
  But Foster’s husband, Edmondo Lupieri, says an email from the state of Illinois delivered some bad news. Officials said they had a record number of applicants and not everyone would be reimbursed. Only 359 owners – randomly selected – would be reimbursed, with another 240 people not being reimbursed for installing solar panels.

We'll bet the politically connected got their rebates. But in reality, if the technology can't pay for itself, then it should succeed or fail on its own merits or shortcomings. The state in general and this state specifically, shouldn't be in the business of subsidizing technology that is wasting money to make the green lobby feel good about itself. There are studies that show all those windmills will never recoup the money spent to build them. Ever. That's billions, maybe trillions of money pissed away that could have been better spent repairing infrastructure, building nuclear plants, improving air-cleaning technology at existing power plants.....funding pensions.

FOP Sits This One Out

Probably the smart play?

• The Fraternal Order of Police on Friday said they decide not to endorse either political candidate in the race for mayor of Chicago.
  
  Both Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Jesus “Chuy” Garcia met with leaders of the FOP in person Thursday afternoon.
  
  Four years ago, the FOP endorsed Gery Chico for mayor.
  
  The move comes on the same day both candidates revealed their plans to fix some of the city’s financial woes.

Dean can't afford to surrender any of his dwindling support at the Lodge.

Krazy Konspiracies

People like this actually live and breathe on their own - and get elected to public office:

• A city manager from North St. Louis County named John Mohammad told [...] FOX News that the police shooting last night was an inside job.
  

  “I think it was a complete set up. I think it was a setup of the police fraternities, what I like to call them. I think they operate just like the KKK. I think they did it to make themselves look like the victim, when honestly the victim are black people. I think it was a just a publicity stunt. No more than that.”

  John Mohammad went on to say maybe the KKK was behind it.

Sure, because getting shot in the face and shoulder are exactly what cops like to have happen to them to "set up" a sympathy play. But actual video of Black Panthers intimidating voters at a polling place doesn't even elicit a peep from Holder's Justice Department.

Hey Dart

Maybe this is what Dart is complaining about "his" jail being crowded:

• Went to misdemeanor court this week and once again of the 15 cases called only TWO defendants showed up and ZERO complainants other than the two officers there! Last month it was 20 cases with THREE defendants and ONE complainant that took the time to make an appearance. No warrants, minimal fines that will never be collected and thousands of dollars spent on a system that is a complete fucking joke!  

How many ended up as Bond Forfeiture Warrants? How many were multiple warrants issued? Those folks (or people) sit with Dart until the issuing judge gets to them and repeat offenders get higher bonds (usually).

It'd be interesting to have a few officers post Court Branch, number of cases called, number of BFW's issued from various branches here over the next few days.

And looking over Dart's main complaints from a few days ago, we'd like to see the following:

• post the name of the "plum thief" and make her available for interviews by the media
• post her rap sheet
• same for the Snickers/scissors guy

Petty thieves might not deserve to sit Cook County Jail, but they certainly might have earned their way there.

Gee, We Wonder Why

Somebody in the media finally noticed what the surveys and moving companies have been telling everyone for a few years now:

• In a state with a massive budget deficit, it’s disturbing news: For the first time since the late-1980s, the population of Illinois is shrinking.
  
  CBS 2 [...] takes a look at what’s luring people away.
  
  Weather, work and money.  Those are three of the biggest reasons people are leaving.
  
  According to the Illinois Policy Institute’s Michael Lucci, some 95,000 people moved to other states last year.
  
  “We actually had more people leave Illinois than were born in Illinois,” he says.

Crappy job market, shitty political situation, taxes out the ass, government interference up the ass, crushing debt. There's five quick reasons right there.

No Tax Zones

Count us in!

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel, locked in a tight election campaign, is rolling out a plan to boost job creation in some depressed neighborhoods by waiving all state and local taxes on businesses and taking other unusual steps to lure employers.
  
  The so-called Right to Thrive zones—a pumped-up version of the Enterprise Zones of recent decades—would feature no property, income or sales taxes on businesses that open in these areas for an unspecified time "as long as they create jobs in the surrounding neighborhood," Emanuel says in an op-ed article written for the Chicago Tribune.
  
  Businesses in the zone also would get what Emanuel dubbed "concierge service": a special unit of city bureaucrats tasked with slashing zoning, licensing and other red tape for investors. And they'd receive export, marketing, employment and financial assistance.

A neighborhood with no motivation to produce, no pride of ownership, with a newly created unelected bureaucracy with no deadlines to meet. What could possibly go wrong?

Does this pandering make Rahm look electable?

Ferguson Shootings

Thanks Holder - come in, incite the community, leave. Then everything you supported turns out to be a lie and everything you spread gasoline on starts to burn:

• The shooting of two police officers during a protest rally in Ferguson, Missouri, sparked an intense manhunt for suspects on Thursday and ratcheted up tensions in a city at the center of a national debate over race and policing.
  
  U.S. President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder condemned the attack on the officers, who were treated at a local hospital and released. Hours after the shooting, police said they were questioning an undisclosed number of people following a raid on a home in the St. Louis suburb.
  
  "What happened last night was a pure ambush," Holder said at a press conference. "This was not someone who was trying to bring healing to Ferguson, this was a damn punk."

Yeah, now you support the police when your president and his legacy of race baiting is going to get burned.

Utah Pulls the Trigger

Not literally....at least, not yet:

• Lawmakers have passed a bill that would make Utah the only state to allow firing squads for carrying out a death penalty if there is a shortage of execution drugs.
  
  The passage of the bill by the state Senate on Tuesday comes as states struggle to obtain lethal injection drugs amid a nationwide shortage.
  
  The bill's sponsor, Republican Rep. Paul Ray of Clearfield, touted the measure as being a more humane form of execution. Ray argued that a team of trained marksmen is faster and more humane than the drawn-out deaths that have occurred in botched lethal injections.

Meanwhile, here in Illinois, a woman who cut off a baby's head with a circular saw, will be living off the taxpayers' dime for years.

This Looks Like Good News

From the state supremes:

• A lawyer for the state faced skeptical questioning from Illinois Supreme Court justices Wednesday as she defended a landmark pension reform law by arguing that benefit cuts to public workers were a response to a financial emergency tied to the Great Recession.
  
  But lawyers for public employee unions reminded the court that the Illinois Constitution barred changes that "diminish or impair" pension benefits, adding that if an emergency exists it's the state's fault for decades of poor financial management.
  
  After nearly an hour of legal arguments before the state's highest court, there was no indication of how or when the seven justices would rule. But the eventual decision will have widespread ramifications for state taxpayers as well as those in Chicago and towns throughout Illinois struggling to cope with growing pension debts that are straining government budgets.

It's truly sad that a lawyer, after how many years of school, has to be educated by the Illinois Supreme Court as to the fact that words have meaning, and laws made up of words have meaning, too. This is not a financial emergency - this is years and years of deliberate mismanagement on the part of Springfield and Chicago, buying off certain constituencies with money that should have been set aside - was in fact required to be set aside - for promises made. People should be in jail for what is going on, but again, the entire legislature, most recent governors and lord knows how many mayors, starting with Shortshanks, would overcrowd the prisons.

What About This Money Rahm?

Still wasting it:

• Nine months after vowing to trash the perks, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s Department of Streets and Sanitation is still spending millions of dollars to provide free garbage collection to ineligible multi-unit residential buildings and to nonprofits whose garbage freebie was never authorized, the city’s inspector general concluded Wednesday.
  
  Emanuel acknowledged that he hasn’t gotten around to making the change that Inspector General Joe Ferguson proposed last summer because he was too busy making even bigger changes to the way Chicago collects its garbage.

So, you're saying it isn't a "financial emergency?" That there's plenty of time to effect changes while you piss away millions?

Clout is a horrible thing to waste:

• After any big snowfall, Chicago’s Department of Streets and Sanitation announces when the city’s major roads have been deemed “safe and clear.”
  
  Only then is City Hall supposed to free its fleet of snowplows to begin clearing side streets.
  
  That’s usually how it works — but not always, according to a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of city “Plow Tracker” data for the last two big snowstorms that shows the streets on which three aldermen live appeared to get special attention.
  
  The biggest exceptions to the rule were the visits from Streets and San crews to Ald. Edward Burke’s Southwest Side block during the 19-inch blizzard in early February and again during the lake-effect snowfall a couple of weeks ago.

Now is a good time to re-propose cutting the City Council in half, but we need someone bigger to propose it, like Kass. How about it John?

Closing In

The third place finisher endorses Chewbacca:

• After a high-stakes courtship by both candidates aimed at luring the pivotal black vote, millionaire businessman Willie Wilson has decided to endorse Jesus “Chuy” Garcia over Mayor Rahm Emanuel in the April 7 runoff.
  
  Wilson said he made the decision, as first reported on chicago.suntimes.com, based on the feedback he got from literally hundreds, if not thousands, of his supporters through emails, phone calls and his extensive network of black churches.
  
  He’s also held “three-to-five” private meetings with both Emanuel and Garcia to press his demands for both candidates to reopen at least some of the record 50 schools that Emanuel closed, eliminate red-light cameras and establish “fairness” in the awarding of city jobs and contracts.

We're pretty sure "fairness" is a foreign concept to most politicians, but Chuy's numbers must have looked better at first blush.

Let Em Go!

Tom Dart doesn't seem to understand the concept of "jail:"

• One woman stole two plums and some candy from a Save-A-Lot store.
  
  A man swiped eight bags of Snickers bars and a pair of scissors from a CVS Pharmacy.
 And another man with mental problems and a history of loitering at O’Hare Airport was caught trespassing there again.
  
  Those low-level offenders spent a total of 227 days in the Cook County Jail awaiting trial at a cost of $47,905 to taxpayers — a situation Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart calls “heart-breaking.” At a news conference Tuesday, he said he’s looking for ways to keep such non-violent offenders from having extended stays behind bars before trial.
  
  Usually, they can’t get out of jail because they can’t afford to put up money for bail. Judges, following state law, boost their bonds when such defendants have a history of failing to show up for court hearings, Dart said.

Dart doesn't seem to understand that people in jail aren't out there committing crimes. That's a win right there. How about a minimal bread-and-water diet to cut costs? Jail food shouldn't be something to look forward to.

Perhaps the lengthy stay in Dart's custody has something to do with judges (and their staffs) not working full days? We're sure the media could run two weeks worth of "SPECIAL REPORTS" if they put a minimal amount of effort into it. Perhaps excessive delays by defense attorneys? Too many continuances asked for by prosecutors? Not enough deals? Diversion to some nonsense boot camps? Or other nonsense programs that never work? How about allowing the theft victims or trespassed property owners to exact a pound of flesh via caning? There are dozens of reforms/remedies that could be applied to the system to minimize the custodial time.

As for it being "heartbreaking," go rescue a puppy or something...you'll feel better.

No Descriptions....Again

This seems to have infected suburbia, too:

• A van was driven through exterior and interior doors Tuesday morning at Abt Electronics in Glenview in an apparent crash-and-grab attempt, but no merchandise was taken and four offenders fled the scene, police said.
  
  According to a news release from the Glenview Police Department, at 5:38 a.m. two vans, one full-size and one minivan, pulled into the Abt parking lot at 1200 Milwaukee Ave. There were four men in the two vans.
  
  One man drove the full-size van into the building through an exterior and interior set of glass doors at the merchandise pickup area, according to the release.
  
  Once the doors were breached, all the men ran into the store, where they were confronted by an employee. They then ran out and fled the scene in the minivan, according to the release.

A certain lack of planning, no reconnaissance, no apparent knowledge of on-site 24-hour security - we're betting a Chicago connection.

Rebuilding Year

This is great news:

• The Chicago Bears are going to be making some serious changes to their roster as free agency begins Tuesday, but one position they appear set at is quarterback as reports are circulating that the team plans to retain Jay Cutler for the 2015 season.

We meant great news for oddsmakers.

Poor Baby

Saw this a week ago. Can't believe they waste ink on this crap:

• Thaddeus “TJ” Jimenez was sitting in his parked Lamborghini Gallardo on the Northwest Side last year when a cop came up and busted him for marijuana possession.
  
  It was Jimenez’s seventh arrest since he hit the figurative lottery, winning a $25 million jury verdict in 2012 in a wrongful-conviction lawsuit against the city of Chicago stemming from a murder conviction that was later vacated.
  
  The cash has provided Jimenez, who’s now 35, with homes in Chicago and the suburbs. He also has 14 vehicles registered in his name — including the $130,000 Lamborghini sports car, a second Lamborghini, a Bentley convertible and other expensive vehicles.
  
  But his newfound fortune hardly solved Jimenez’s lifetime’s worth of problems.

He's another beneficiary of the Northwestern crew that sprang a whole boatload of guilty felons under questionable circumstances. They even used a so-called private-eye, under what circumstances no one knows for sure, but judging by their track record....

Loevy and Loevy got him $25 million. The got their cut and this asshole is most of the way through his portion by now. Back to his same old habits with the same old crew. Only a matter of time.

Did You Register?

Your last chance to register for the mayoral runoff expires in about one hour:

• Chicagoans who want to register to vote, or to file name or address updates so they can cast ballots April 7 in the mayoral and aldermanic runoff elections, have until the end of the day Tuesday to do so.
  
  Voters have until 11:59 p.m. to take steps to become eligible to vote in their home precincts or vote by mail for the run-offs, according to the Chicago Board of Election Commissioners.
  
  Registration is available online at ova.elections.il.gov. The Chicago Election Board will also be open for in-person voter registration until 11:59 p.m. Tuesday at 69 W. Washington St.

Get it done.

Weather Warms Up, Shootings Up

But there's no correlation according to McCompStat:

• Two people were killed and at least eight others were injured, including several children, in Monday shootings on the North, South and Far South sides, officials said.
  
  About 6:30 p.m., police responded to the 200 block of West 105th Street on the Far South Side and found four people with gunshot wounds, police said.

In that shooting, a 77-year-old man was dead in his home, 5-year-old in the home wounded, 34-year-old mom wounded loading her 2-year-old in the car, who also caught a bullet and is in critical condition.

What lives matter, again?

Add in a few more in Englewood, Back of the Yards, and other hoods. The one up north got drilled right in the chest and was dead on the scene, so it's probably safe to say he was targeted and no bystanders were injured. Small comfort to the bean counters and McCarthy, who will probably still say something about Contact Cards and CompStat solving crime.

No Openings Again

For the second time this year, no openings posted for movement. McCarthy is afraid everyone will bid out of 005 we suppose, exposing the failures of the two-shift solution.

"...not a violent person..."

Whatever this judge is smoking, we want some:

• The wife of Mayor Rahm Emanuel stood in a juvenile courtroom Monday and listened to an 18-year-old man apologize for punching her teenage son in the face and stealing his iPhone in a brazen mugging across the street from the Emanuel family’s home on Chicago’s North Side.
  
  Phillip Payne, who was 17 at the time of the Dec. 19 attack, pleaded guilty to theft and the aggravated battery of Zach Emanuel during a hearing attended by Amy Rule, the mayor’s wife. But Zach Emanuel has said he was jumped from behind by two people — and Chicago Police say an investigation into the second suspect is ongoing.
  
  Cook County Judge Lori Wolfson sentenced Payne to three years of probation and ordered him to perform 50 hours of community service. He was told to stay away from Zach Emanuel, was given a 6 p.m. curfew on school nights and could be held in custody up to 30 days if he violates his probation. He is supposed to stay away from drugs, gangs and guns, and he must work or pursue an education.
  
  [...] Wolfson said she thinks Payne understands “this is the last opportunity he’s going to have as a juvenile.” During the hearing, the judge expressed frustration when Payne’s public defender told her that Payne gets good grades in school.
  
  “You are capable of doing well in your life,” Wolfson told Payne.
  
  The judge later added, “Phillip is not a violent person.”

We're going to have to remember that one. Jumping someone from behind, putting them in a choke-hold, forcing them to unlock the iPhone, and leaving injuries serious enough that a personal physician was summoned to make a house-call in the middle of the night, doesn't qualify as "violent."

We shouldn't be surprised, seeing as how money-grabbing speed and red-light cameras qualify as "for the children" except when politically expedient to turn them off and a wedding dress in the crawl space qualifies as "residency."

Anyone else thinking Rahm didn't push for an actual prison sentence in case it cost him votes?

Something Wrong Here?

We've been following this on and off as it involves one of the more polarizing figures in the Department, someone who seems to be the symbol of all that's wrong with the "merit" process and putting incompetent people in positions of power:

• So Capt Lemmer gets a pretty fat EEOC complaint and they move his accuser out of 011 to 025 then switch her to midnights which she clearly stated she can't work and she was afternoons in 011. Is this retaliatory in nature against the whistle blower? Why didn't they just move him out of 011 it's pretty obvious that he is the problem. 

They can't move the problem child? They move the complainant? Wouldn't this be retaliatory in nature? Is the Department exposing taxpayers to a massive payout at some point? Rahm, is this move affordable? Or should we be asking Chewie?

Truth Comes Out - Accidentally

Oops....looks like someone isn't going to be invited to the post-election parties this year:

• A post-election property tax increase is inevitable to solve Chicago’s $20 billion pension crisis, one of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s most powerful City Council allies warned Monday, arguing that anybody who claims otherwise is living in a dream world.
  
  Nine aldermen allied with Emanuel joined his campaign co-chair, City Clerk Susana Mendoza, at a City Hall news conference to put the heat on mayoral challenger Jesus “Chuy Garcia” for making $1.9 billion in promises that, they claim, would force the owner of a $250,000 home to pay $1,900 more in annual property taxes.
  
  But Ald. Carrie Austin (34th), chairman of the City Council’s Budget Committee, inadvertently put the spotlight on Emanuel when she acknowledged under questioning that Chicagoans need to brace for a property tax increase in any event — even if Emanuel wins the April 7 runoff.

You should have seen the faces of everyone behind Austin when she let the cat out of the bag. The "oh shit" looks were priceless, as if they couldn't believe she strayed so far off script. Rahm allies were left scrambling:

• But Ald. Brendan Reilly (42nd), Austin’s Budget Committee co-chairman, tried to turn the tables back on Garcia.
  
  “We’re four weeks away from electing a new mayor, yet we have received no information whatsoever from Mr. Garcia on how we’re gonna pay for these things,” Reilly said.
  
  “We’re at a time now — the taxpayers certainly are — where they want to see the beef. And so far, all we’ve gotten from Mr. Garcia is a lot of baloney. . . . By my math, $1.9 billion in program spending. He needs to find a way to pay for that. What that means for local taxpayers is $1,900-per-year-per-person in the city of Chicago that local families can’t afford.”

Newsflash Brendan - families are going to have a hard time affording it regardless of who sits in the chair at City Hall. Rahm hasn't said shit either, so he's obviously sitting on the news until such time as he can pull the rug out from under everyone.

REEKING of Desperation

We can only imagine the political calculations that went into this decision:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel has ordered the removal of 50 red-light cameras at 25 more Chicago intersections where the number of accidents has fallen, apparently determined to put out a political fire that could burn him in the April 7 runoff.
  
  The red-light cameras at the 25 intersections haven’t been taken down yet, but they stopped spewing out $100 tickets at 12:01 a.m. Friday.
  
  That will leave Chicago with 302 red-light cameras at 149 intersections — a 20 percent reduction in what’s been the nation’s largest red-light camera program.

So where are these cameras coming out of? Places that Rahm needs votes:

• Intersections where red-light cameras already have stopped issuing tickets and will be removed are located at: Ashland and 47^th, 63^rd, Archer, Diversey and Garfield; California and 31^st; Central and Madison; Cicero and the Stevenson Expressway.; Cornell and 57^th; Cottage Grove and 95^th; Damen and Blue Island; Elston and Foster; Halsted and 63^rd and 83^rd; Harlem and Northwest Hwy.; Jeffery and 79^th; Osceola and Touhy; Pulaski and Montrose; Stony Island and 83^rd; Vincennes and 111^th; Western and 51st and Pratt.
  
  Cameras will also be removed at a trio of three-way intersections:
  
  Kimball, McCormick and Lincoln; Narragansett, 55^th and Archer; and Western, Armitage and Milwaukee.

We guess Rahm doesn't care as much about the children as we thought.

Let's Hispanic parts of town - check!
Black? - check!
White ethnics and city workers? - check!
And you know that Rahm shut down under-performing/non-performing cameras where the money coming in didn't justify the votes being lost.

Recent polls show Chuy within striking distance. This move tells us Rahm's internal numbers show something different, like a major undercurrent of voters moving toward Chewie.

Here We Go Again

Does anyone on the left have any idea what an investigation entails?

• The fatal shooting of an unarmed black 19-year-old by a white police officer, who authorities say fired after he was assaulted, prompted protesters Saturday to take to the college town's streets with chants of "Black Lives Matter." The city's police chief said he understood the anger, assuring demonstrators his department would defend their rights as he implored the community to act with restraint.
  
  Tony Robinson died Friday night after being shot in his apartment following a confrontation with Officer Matt Kenny, who had forced his way inside after hearing a disturbance while responding to a call, authorities and neighbors said.
  
  Madison Police Chief Mike Koval said Kenny was injured, but didn't provide details. It wasn't clear whether Robinson, who died at a hospital, was alone.

The usual rush to judgement by the willfully ignorant masses who have decided police lives don't matter. It came out almost immediately that the deceased had been convicted and served time for a home invasion - not exactly the gentlest of crimes. Let the investigation run its course.

Detectives as Fillers

An amusing story coming out of the Detectives-in-Training class.

It seems that Rahm, in a more desperate effort to get good photo ops for his re-election campaign and free face time on TV, is going to make an appearance at the upcoming Recruit Graduation Ceremony. That's fine - all mayors do it. It's a simple gig and easy publicity. You show up, make a speech, tout your "crime fighting credentials," get on the local airwaves. You barely have to run any red lights to get there. Whoopee!

It seems this soon-to-graduate class of Recruits though, is kind of small. So what is the solution?

Well, the Detectives-in-Training have been told they will be attending said graduation in their dress blues. Not as ushers or anything fancy like that. No, they'll be sitting with the Recruits. And when they Recruits get filmed, it's look like a sea of blue graduating and, "Golly Jethro, isn't Rahm great making us all safer like that with all those police he's hiring?"

CompStat for graduations now, except instead of reducing the numbers, they're inflating them.

UPDATE: The Detectives aren't graduating - they don't finish until after the elections. There is a SEPARATE graduation in April for the Detectives and this is nothing but a wasted day that could be better spent on training Detectives how to ....um... solve crimes maybe? Some people seem to be confused about that.

Spring Ahead!

If it's after 2:00 AM, it's an hour later than you thought it was.

Open post for now while we try to catch up on that missing hour of sleep.

Rahm Finished?

Missed this one right after the election - from Chicago Magazine:

• It’s the day after Election Day, and most of the analysis undoubtedly will center on what exactly happened that forced Rahm Emanuel into a runoff election against Jesus “Chuy” Garcia on April 7. And while that may be the biggest headline, one other shade to this year’s municipal elections is just how much the Chicago Teachers Union flexed its muscle.
  
  This morning I called Jesse Sharkey, the 45-year-old former high school teacher who took over as head of the CTU when Karen Lewis was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor last fall. (She has since returned to work.) For more on who Sharkey is and what drives him, read my interview with him from last November (part 1 here, part 2 here).
  
  Sharkey was on his way to work and tired—out late at Garcia’s victory party—but exulting in Garcia’s victory, not to mention the slew of victories (or at least forced runoffs) of CTU-backed aldermanic candidates. Garcia will be the next mayor, Sharkey says, adding that politics in Chicago has changed forever.

It's a pretty good article and hopefully, prophetic.

Who Owns It?

Will we ever know completely?

• Want a stake in the medical marijuana business but missed out on getting a coveted state license? You might not be too late.
  
  Weed businesses that scored licenses to grow in Illinois are looking for investors.
  
  But if the chance to get in on the ground floor of what’s already a $2.7 billion industry in the United States sounds too good to be true, insiders say the tiny number of patients so far permitted to use marijuana in Illinois is causing them sleepless nights.
  
  They’re looking for tens of millions of dollars in financing to build marijuana farms — and to keep running while hoping the state will loosen its restrictions on who can use the drug.
  
  The continuing search for investors means that, despite the background checks that were required in the lengthy and costly license-review process designed to weed out organized crime and other undesirables, it’s still not clear who will end up owning many of Illinois’ medical marijuana businesses.

We're pretty sure the owners will be connected. And among the connected will be one or more Organized Crime types who appear in the Chicago Crime Commission book in some form. The Outfit has to get their slice.

Under Two Weeks

Warm weather coming:

• We're in the final stages and down to the last two weeks before St. Baldrick's 2015. Scheduling of shave times will start next week so there's still time to sign up if you haven't already. We'll be at the academy and in 025 from 0700 - 1700 hours on Friday March 20th. If you're not able to join us please consider supporting one of our brave shavees. Challenge the other watch or districts to see who can get the most people to sign up and invite a friend to come along and watch you as you help fight childhood cancer by getting your head shaved to show solidarity with the kids who lose their hair to chemo treatments.
  
  To sign up just go to St. Baldrick's site and click on the Academy or Area North and follow the links. If you have any questions you can e-mail Bill O'Reilly, chromedome1269@sbcglobal.net.
  
  Until we find a cure!

With all the new Inspectors out there, you know you could use a trim.

Instead of Detention.....

Remember when a visit to the Dean's Office was a prelude to detention?

• Boston police say Rev. Shaun O. Harrison, dean of a Boston high school, shot one of his students in the back of the head in a drug-related attempted murder on Tuesday.
  
  Harrison, 55, was arraigned on charges Thursday that include assault with intent to murder. He allegedly shot the 17-year-old student “execution-style” on a dark section of street in Boston’s Roxbury neighborhood, just blocks away from his home, MassLive reports.
  
  The student, who has not been identified, survived the shooting and was treated for non-life threatening injuries at a hospital. He told authorities Harrison promised him “girls and weed,” before attempting to kill him, authorities said.

And he's a "reverend?"

Dismantling Holder's Stats

As we alluded to, the DOJ report about Ferguson has holes big enough to drive "gentle giants" through:

• Unable to pin racism charges on Ferguson policeman Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown, Attorney General Eric Holder is using half-baked data to manufacture a case of racism against his entire police force.
  
  Holder's race-baiting civil rights crew combed through several years of Ferguson Police Department data on traffic stops, searches and arrests and "found a pattern of racial disparities in Ferguson's police activities."
  
  "African Americans are overrepresented in FPD's vehicular stops" and victims of "racial bias," Holder concludes in his report.
  
  He notes that blacks accounted for 85% of vehicle stops, "despite comprising only 67% of Ferguson's population," while whites made up 15% of stops, despite representing 29% of the population.
  
  So there you have it, a slam-dunk case of racism, right? Hardly.
  
  Outrageously, the nation's top prosecutor failed to control for factors that explain the racial "disparity" in traffic stops, such as speeding, DUI, expired license plates, headlight, seat-belt and child-restraint violations and other reasons for being pulled over.
  
  Holder's own department statistics show that African Americans, on average, violate speeding and other traffic laws at much greater rates than whites.
  
  The Justice Department's research arm, the National Institute of Justice, explains that differences in traffic stops can simply be attributed to "differences in offending."

Torturing numbers to come up with a predetermined outcome isn't new - McCarthy does it daily here and he learned it in NEw York. Holder is just twisting different data in different directions to come up with his already known conclusion. It might be painful to accept, but the observable data, collected by the Department of Justice of the United States, shows that certain people disregard the rules, laws and ordinances at a higher rate. And by attracting that sort of attention to themselves, they interact more with those people designated to enforce the rules, laws and ordinances.

Go read it all.

Um...What Now O?

Amazing that someone so mind-numbingly ignorant could get out of Chicago, let alone the Senate, let alone the highest office in the land:

• President Barack Obama launched a rhetorical assault on guns in one of the most gun friendly states in the nation while speaking at a town hall event in Columbia, South Carolina, Friday.
  
  “As long as you can go in some neighborhoods and it is easier for you to buy a firearm than it is for you to buy a book, there are neighborhoods where it is easier for you to buy a handgun and clips than it is for you to buy a fresh vegetable, as long as that’s the case, we’re going to continue to see unnecessary violence,” Obama said in a response to a question at the town hall meeting at Benedict College.

He can't possibly believe this, yet he says it. We don't have to wait 24-to-72 hours for a head of lettuce. Last time we checked, we weren't filling out forms and submitting to background checks to get a book at Barnes and Noble. We have to search around for hours to get a supplier to ship standard 30-round magazines (not clips) to Chicago.

Chuy Makes a Big Move

Big promise, big advantage, potentially big downfall, too:

• Mayoral challenger Jesus “Chuy” Garcia promised to remove the city's controversial red light cameras on his first day in office, casting the automated ticketing program as a “rip-off” effort from Mayor Rahm Emanuel.
  
  “It’s time to end the red light rip-off,” Garcia told reporters Thursday at his campaign headquarters on the Near West Side. “No more tickets.”
  
  However, Garcia didn't specify how the city might recoup nearly $70 million a year in lost revenue from the camera-generated tickets. Detailed plans for Chicago's finances will come next week, said Garcia, who argued that his stance on the camera program has nothing to do with the city budget.

We would imagine Chewie jumps up three-to-five percentage points on this promise alone.

Rahm tries a counter move:

• Click! Flash! Pop! Sneed has learned that countdown timers and extra transparency will be part of a batch of reforms to the city’s red-light camera program Mayor Rahm Emanuel is green-lighting. • Translation: Expect the installation of countdown timers at every city intersection with a red-light camera to alert drivers — as well as pedestrians – when the light will turn red.
  
  • The stats: There are already countdown timers at 132 red-light camera intersections, and they will be added to the remaining 42 intersections that don’t have them.

If you aren't already timing yourself by the pedestrian countdown clocks that exist on 75% of the camera intersections, what kind of driver are you? Rahm's move is designed to protect the $70 million in fines the cameras supposedly generate, but give him an out as "reforming" something. It's weak, but it's the only sensible thing in this case. Chewbacca beat him to the punch.

Ceasefire Funding Ceases

About fucking time:

• CeaseFire, the highly regarded but sometimes controversial anti-violence program featured in the documentary "The Interrupters," is losing state funding, the result of Gov. Bruce Rauner's executive order freezing spending.
  
  The program was budgeted to receive $4.7 million from the state in fiscal 2015, which ends June 30, according to Rauner's proposed budget for fiscal 2016. The Rauner administration has proposed slashing CeaseFire's funding almost 60 percent, to $1.9 million, in fiscal 2016.
  
  The freeze in funding is just one of many cuts under Rauner's order that are likely to anger supporters of popular state initiatives, even as it pleases advocates of his austerity measures. The state is facing a $1.6 billion budget shortfall for 2015 and a $6.2 billion gap for the following fiscal year.

Highly regarded by whom? It was a money maker for ex-cons and gang bangers looking to extend their reach into certain territories with little-to-zero provable impact on shootings, retaliations and on-going conflicts. No one on this Department with any intelligence held this in "high regard."

You know what stops shootings and retaliations? Cops arresting people and putting them in prison for a looooong fucking time. Like 25 to 50 years. They don't shoot anybody then and maybe...possibly...the youngsters see Mickey the Mope disappearing for two decades and thinks, "Maybe this shit ain't all it's cranked up to be." And they don't go shoot someone instead of seeing shooter after shooter after shooter getting out inside of 18 months for ventilating two and three people at a time.

Walgreens Heroes Awards

Took long enough:

• Two Chicago police officers and two good Samaritans were honored for their actions during a recent shooting.
  
  On Valentine's Day, police said a shoplifting suspect grabbed an officer's gun outside a Walgreens store in the Andersonville neighborhood and fired one shot.
  
  A manager of the store, Ray Robinson, forced the shooter's fingers off the weapon as officers wrestled with him. A customer, Christopher Smith, then helped officers hold the suspect down. Both men received certificates of appreciation.

Actually, we're teasing about the "took long enough." That award turnaround time is incredible. So incredible, that it shines a bit of light on the three years worth of Commendations, Life Saving and who knows how many other awards that landed in officers' mailboxes this week as the Department clears out the usual backlog of things the Department hasn't gotten to.

Congrats to the assisting citizens and thank you for stepping up.

A Tale of Two Lawsuits

One ending:

• A federal jury Wednesday sided with two Chicago police officers in the 2011 fatal shooting of a motorist in spite of a dispatch recording that suddenly surfaced in the middle of the trial that appeared to cast doubt on the officers' version of events.
  
  Attorneys had sought up to $10 million in damages on behalf of the estate of Darius Pinex, 27, who was killed by Officers Raoul Mosqueda and Gildardo Sierra after they pulled his car over on Chicago's South Side more than four years ago.
  
  The eight-member panel, which deliberated about seven hours over two days, also declined to award any damages to a passenger in the car, Matthew Colyer, who was wounded in the shooting.
  
  While the jury's verdict was a clear vindication for the officers, the case may be far from over. U.S. District Judge Edmond Chang, who has ripped city attorneys for not producing the dispatch recording before the trial, has given the go-ahead for a full investigation into how the rules breach occurred and whether any sanctions should be imposed.

And one beginning:

• The family of a 19-year-old man who was shot dead by Chicago Police in August filed a federal lawsuit against the city Wednesday, saying it’s the only way they’ll be able to find out the truth about how Roshad McIntosh died.
  
  McIntosh was killed by police in the North Lawndale neighborhood on Aug. 24, after police say he pointed a gun at officers who were responding to a call of armed men.
  
  But McIntosh’s mother, Cynthia Lane, says neither police nor the Independent Police Review Authority have told her anything about her son’s death in the nearly seven months since he was killed. She has consistently disputed authorities’ version of events, previously led a march on City Hall and has become a face of protests against police brutality.

So if cops respond to a call of an armed man, find an armed man, shoot and kill an armed man with an extensive background of gun crimes and recover a weapon, well, that's just not good enough for Mom.

Shouldn't We Be Doing This?

Oh wait, the Department brass said something about how it didn't make sense to train every officer in terrorism response. Good to see some people learn from the past:

• The NYPD has quietly spent the last six months making preparations for a potential ISIS assault in Manhattan, which police fear could be similar to the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai, India, sources told The Post.
  
  Cops have been trained to deal with coordinated bombings and shootings, as in the four-day terror assault that killed more than 160 people in Mumbai, the sources said.
  
  Police trainers have even placed a map of Manhattan over a map of Mumbai to show the geographical similarities, one source said.
  
  Several hundred cops have been reassigned to counterterrorism duties, and some have been trained to use high-powered rifles to take out potential terrorist snipers.

Has anyone reading ever sat down an had an actual discussion about something like this? Over beers, over lunch, at roll call? It's an interesting exercise if you treat it seriously. We've done it a couple times with co-workers, some with military experience, some with specialized training, some with a lot of years, some not so many.

Mumbai was 10 shooters with basic-to-advanced military-type training, dropped off via inflatable speedboats, supplied with enough ammo and explosives to kill 164 people and wound over 300 over the course of 4 days. New York's (and Chicago's) waterfronts, subways, downtown, shopping destinations, etc are inviting targets. We're sure SWAT has a plan, but SWAT isn't the first responder in most cases. In a multi-shooter scenario with a motivated, well-supplied force, SWAT is only in one or two places at once. Six-to-ten two-man teams here might end with a body count to rival India's.

Is CPD working on this? Maybe a clue for the boys and girls who are going to be mobilized as Incident Teams with no training, no weapons, no information? We don't even have a minimum number of riflemen assigned to each District with functional rifles for each.

LAPD Shooting Twists

shooLAPD shot an "unarmed man" a few days ago. The usual protests started up, despite the presence of a cell phone video that shows the offender fighting the police and the audio of one of the coppers stating quite clearly, "He's got my gun!" at least twice before five shots are fired.

The usual suspects started up with the one-hour t-shirts and the "black lives matter" - the message being that police lives don't matter. Then the fingerprints came back:

• When a black homeless man was shot dead by police on Skid Row on Sunday, the shooting was seen as yet another example of white policemen in the United States being too quick to reach for their guns. But the full story behind the man's death – and his remarkable life – has emerged as something far more complex.
  
  The 39-year-old identified by police after his death as Charley Saturmin Robinet was actually using a fake identity, stolen from a Frenchman, to try and make a career in Hollywood.
  
  The man known to his Skid Row friends as "Africa" or "Cameroon" had stolen Mr Robinet's identity, and in the late 1990s used it to acquire a French passport to come to the United States. He moved to Los Angeles, and, according to the Los Angeles Times, began taking acting classes at the Beverly Hills Playhouse – a drama school whose alumni include George Clooney, Michelle Pfeiffer and Alec Baldwin.
  
  But he struggled to pay the fees, and in 2000 was arrested after holding up a bank in the LA suburb of Thousand Oaks.

15 years in prison, violent interactions with others, mental illness, etc. The laundry list is long and once again, the cops did nothing wrong. But that rush to judgement sure is strong in the minds of those who have no idea what policing entails.

No Charges in Ferguson, But...

Entirely expected due to the evidence:

• The Justice Department announced Wednesday that it will not prosecute former Ferguson, Mo., police officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of an unarmed black 18-year-old, while also releasing a report faulting the city and its law enforcement for racial bias.
  
  In the criminal investigation, federal officials concluded Wilson's actions "do not constitute prosecutable violations under the applicable federal criminal rights statute."
  
  Specifically, the DOJ said there was "no evidence" to disprove Wilson's testimony that he feared for his safety, nor was there reliable evidence that Michael Brown had his hands up when he was shot.

However, the entire department is evidently racist:

• Ferguson Mayor James Knowles says one police department employee was fired and two others are on administrative leave over racist emails uncovered in a Justice Department investigation into the city's law enforcement practices.
  
  Knowles' comments at a press conference Wednesday were the first response from city leaders to the federal investigation that found systemic racial bias in law enforcement in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson. Knowles read a brief statement but did not take questions. Police Chief Tom Jackson did not attend.
  
  The Justice Department report said police work was focused on generating revenue from black residents from fines and fees, rather than protecting the community.

Well, based on that, shouldn't there be a full investigation of Rahm and Daley? Get a load of these lines from the article:

• Officials announced 26 recommendations, including training officers in how to de-escalate confrontations [verbal judo? "Roadhouse" training? Legitimacy training?]
• banning the use of ticketing and arrest quotas, for the police force and municipal court. [quotas? Not in my town, not in my department, but if you want that time off, you better print up a copy of your activity officer....why are your Contact Cards down?]
• While the federal government declined to prosecute Wilson, it found the shooting occurred in an environment of systematic mistreatment of blacks, in which officials swapped racist emails and jokes without punishment... [one of whom was fired and two who are suspended - none of whom seem to be police officers though?]
• ...and black residents were disproportionately stopped and searched without good reason, fined for petty offenses and subjected to excessive police force. [Um...proportionally which part of the population? Proportionally committing what percentage of crimes? Proportionally charged with fighting or resisting lawful arrests? Let's see all the numbers please]
• The report on the department found its lack of racial diversity — only four of 54 commissioned officers are black — undermined community trust. [We want the most qualified police officers available! Oh, well now we want it "reflective" of the community.]
• It also said the city relied heavily on fines for raise revenue and issued arrest warrants for minor infractions including jaywalking and late fees. [um....ANOV warrants anyone?]

More of the report reads like many IPRA complaints - one individual making allegations not substantiated by evidence, witnesses or pretty much anything, and a section of tortured statistics. The section regarding seven (that's right...7) racist e-mails is pretty solid, and as the mayor said, one employee has been fired and two others suspended, but none seem to be sworn police officers. But it's Eric Holder's last hurrah. After running guns to Mexican drug lords, railroading an entire police department with one-sided statistics is a walk in the park.

"Not Weed"

Too damn smart for his own good:

• A 21-year-old Lincoln man was arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of alcohol and cited for possession of less than an ounce of marijuana after deputies found a 16-ounce container labeled "Not Weed" under the front passenger's seat.
  
  Lancaster County Sheriff's deputies stopped the driver near Eighth and K streets about 9 p.m. Saturday.
  
  During a search, the sheriff's office found the plastic sour cream container with 11.4 grams of marijuana. The driver said it belonged to him and was cited.

Here's a pic:

Lucky guess by the copper? Or years of police knowledge and intuition?

Nice Work

Some arrests involving the "crash-and-grab" offenders:

• The burglaries started with gang members using crowbars to smash the windows of stores on tony North Michigan Avenue and elsewhere in the city.
  
  But when businesses boosted their security on the advice of the police, the burglars crashed stolen cars through their doors. The thieves would seize all the loot they could carry and flee in minutes, police say.
  
  On Tuesday, the Chicago Police Department announced charges against four men in connection with the two-year spree. They and other suspects allegedly stole more than $2 million in merchandise and caused more than $500,000 in damage to businesses in Chicago, the suburbs and other cities in the Midwest, police said.

Around 40 heists across the Midwest over two years might be cleared by these arrests. Nice long term investigation there boys and girls.

Almost a Darwin (UPDATE)

Gotta ban them guns, gotta ban them guns:

• A 14-year-old walked into a Northwest Side hospital with a gunshot wound to her knee Tuesday evening.
  
  The girl — who police said was “highly uncooperative” — walked into Our Lady of the Resurrection Medical Center about 6:30 p.m., police said.
  
  She told investigators that she was shot in the late afternoon last Sunday in the 5200 block of West Fullerton, police said.
  
  Investigators learned that the girl was in a park with some of her friends playing with a handgun in a park when it accidentally went off, striking her in the knee, police said.
  
  Her condition was not immediately available.

Condition? How about "almost terminally stupid"?

"playing with a handgun..." Another rite of passage no doubt. But law abiding gun owners will be taken to task for this dumbass.

UPDATE: She was wounded for two or three days and no one noticed?

Big Surprise Here

No, not really. We were just joking:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel has deep ties to a lobbyist for a government relations firm that represents Xerox State and Local Solutions Traffic Solutions, the city’s new red-light camera operator, according to a report published Tuesday by International Business Times.
  
  IBT reviewed city records and connected the dots between Emanuel’s former congressional aide, John Borovicka, the mayor and the red-light camera program.
  

  According to city records, Borovicka was hired in October 2013 by John C. Corrigan & Associates as a subcontractor to lobby on the firm’s behalf. Those records show Corrigan had been hired by Xerox in February of the same year. Just 18 days after Borovicka was hired by Corrigan, the Emanuel administration gave the $44 million red-light contract to Xerox.

  IBT reports that the city documents filed by Xerox showed Borovicka was paid to lobby for the contract in October 2013. However, the connection between Borovicka and Emanuel was not part of city lobbying disclosures Borovicka filed.

Certainly seems like business as usual - everyone gets paid off one way or the other while actual city obligations like services, public safety, potholes, pensions, all wither and die.

Captain Counseled

Can they send a captain to callback? Because they should seriously consider it:

• SCC, good news!
  
  The Captain that everyone loves to hate got officially Counseled this weekend. If you recall, he flipped his shit on the midnight crew, screaming at the radio people. belittling sergeants, ripping the lieutenants. Real professional type behavior. Well, someone called FOP and even though there were numerous witnesses, Barb West refused to do anything about it and Management and Labor Affairs was called directly, a proceedings were underway shortly afterward. FOP showed up at the midnight roll call and told everyone that the Department was taking action, although minor at this point. So this ass who counsels everybody else now has a counseling form in his personnel folder. Rumor is he was pissed about being named in yet another EEOC beef, so he took it out on the watch.

A Counseling Form. It's a good start, but...

This guy has at least one, maybe more EEOC beefs against him. We've pointed out numerous times that the outflow of personnel from 011 (and other Districts where the bosses suck) should have triggered some sort of interest by downtown that something was up. Now they've taken action, albeit a minor action, against him due to his behavior.

"Where there's smoke, there's fire." Sound familiar? It has been the predominant driving force behind numerous disciplinary cases, job actions and personnel concern programs. People have been sent to callback for conduct like this with citizens, yet this guy is left supervising a District?

How about certain people take some concrete action instead of exposing taxpayers to yet another damaging monetary judgement based on knowing what this guy was up to, AND LEAVING HIM IN PLACE!

Garry McCarthy, Al Wysinger, Wayne Gulliford, Barb West - you have numerous witnesses to this incident, you have an EEOC beef working its way through the system, you have begun a paper trail that may or may not culminate in discipline, yet there he is, supervising people he belittles, disrespects and bullies. As a taxpayer, we have to ask, "What the fuck?"

Shut Up Kirk

Mr. "One-Term" Kirk flies his RINO flag proudly:

• Republican U.S. Senator Mark Kirk has given his tacit endorsement of Mayor Rahm Emanuel for re-election, reports WBBM [...].
  
  He refused to call it an endorsement, but Senator Mark Kirk made clear he feels Chicago would risk dire financial straits like Detroit has seen if Mayor Emanuel is not re-elected.
  
  “I think the people running against Rahm don’t have the gravitas with the bond market,” Kirk said. “I would worry about the value of a Chicago debt if Rahm was not re-elected.”

Hey Kirk? Rahm majored in Dance. At Sarah Lawrence. He doesn't have any "gravitas" with the bond market any more than we do. He doesn't have an MBA or banking experience aside from the spots that Clinton and Rauner handed to him. And he couldn't even win an election against 4 nobodies - at least two of which were Machine plants to split the vote.

Willie and Bobby Wafflehouse

Amazing - another waffle chef:

• Willie Wilson continues to be a potential kingmaker in the Chicago mayoral race.
  
  The African-American businessman, who was knocked out of the contest in the Feb. 24 primary, says he had private meetings over the weekend with the two candidates who will be on the April 7 ballot: incumbent Rahm Emanuel and Cook County Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia.
  
  Wilson tells CBS 2’s [...] he’s already decided he’ll vote for Garcia. That’s based in part, he says, on his dissatisfaction with public school closings under Emanuel’s administration and also the city’s continued use of red-light cameras.
  
  “My personal vote is for anybody except for this mayor,” Wilson said Sunday.
  
  Still, he said, he could end up publicly endorsing Emanuel, depending on what members of his own community tell him. Wilson insisted his personal vote is separate from who might be best for the city as a whole.

So Willie is going to mislead his entire constituency by voting his dissatisfaction (Chuy) but encourage the unwashed masses to vote for Willie's economic interests (Rahm). So much for that "untied front" thing against Rahm, eh?

Neutrality

Prickwrinkled is taking the easy way out again:

• Add Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle to those who say they're publicly withholding endorsement in Chicago's mayoral race.
  
  In advance of a Casimir Pulaski Day event, Preckwinkle told reporters she was "staying out of it."
  
  Her silence is notable, given that she has what can be described as a tepid relationship with Mayor Rahm Emanuel. The incumbent's challenger in the April 7 runoff is Cook County Commissioner Jesus "Chuy" Garcia.
  
  Gov. Bruce Rauner last week declined to publicly support either candidate. He and Emanuel are friends and worked together during Emanuel's time as an investment banker.

Again, Rahm is an asshole. And people are loath to be associated with an asshole...even if they belong to the same Machine or wine tasting club. And if Rahm can't win an election on his own ("own" being endorsed by unions, supported by $30 million from Hollywood, and a presidential endorsement), then he doesn't get to hang with Bruce and Toni.

Dead Heat

Chewie coming on strong:

• A Chicago polling firm is calling the city’s runoff campaign between Mayor Rahm Emanuel and challenger Jesus “Chuy” Garcia a “dead heat.”
  
  New numbers from Ogden and Fry show Garcia, a member of the Cook County board of commissioners, within reach of the one-term Emanuel. And the firm warned that the Hispanic population under-polls, meaning that population is underrepresented in the data.
  
  “They’re likely dead even,” pollster Tom Swiss said Sunday night.

We're just going to come right out and cheer for Chewie. We'd rather see him founder for four years with a hostile City Council than have Rahm surgically destroy what we've paid into without fail for decades. Plus, if Rahm isn't here, Rauner is hamstrung on a lot of his big plans without his buddy. And on a national level, Chicago can make defeating Rahm a small gesture of contrition for helping screw the country with Obama.

An Idea Whose Time Has Come

cBS Channel 2 has already found "racism^©" in the marijuana dispensary system due to the so-called "deserts" in certain lower income neighborhoods. Someone suggested this in the comment section and it came up at the semi-regular blog "beer, darts and hot wings meeting" the other night.

• Marijuana Vending Machines

Those Red Box machines popped up everywhere seemingly overnight. You can't stop at a grocery story or Home Depot without running into one or more. Weed machines could be the next wave.

• make them heavy enough so you'd need like 5 guys to move it;
• embed it into the concrete a foot down or so to negate dragging it away or turning it over.

This should eliminate 80% of the thefts where the entire machine goes missing. When was the last time you saw a pothead move anything heavy?

• camera and siren security features
• as a last ditch measure, if the machine is breached, spoil the product via acid or bleach or something - no fire, because then the offenders will just stand around and inhale
• limited product in the machine - 100 or so doses, tops
• no cash sales

 No cash? Then how to vend the product to the underserved glaucoma suffering masses?

• LINK, EBT, Debit or pre-paid credit cards only
• with valid State ID or DL

 Illinois is about to revamp the entire Driver License to comply with Federal rules regarding air-travel and stuff in a post-9/11 world. No reason they can't program in something about those who need their medical weed. The weed companies are even producing jobs for the armored truck that'll have to restock the machines.

One final suggestion:

• Put it in the lobbies of police stations next to the ATM.

It's almost fool proof.

The Ferguson Effect

This has been noted in other places at other times, but this is the most recent and better documented as far as we can tell:

• Numbers provided by the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department show a downward trend, last year, in the numbers of self-initiated activity (S.I.A.)
  
  The numbers show a high last year of more than 21,000 S.I.A. in March, now down by more than half to about 7,000 in December.
  
  Chief Sam Dotson told Fox 2 News, "Police officers have an intuition. That intuition helps them to determine when to do self-initiated activity. It does reduce crime."
  
  Though Dotson warns that the drop in S.I.A. doesn`t tell the whole story. During a period in 2013, he said crime also dropped along with S.I.A. He added, "That means police officers` activities were paying dividends. They were stopping the right people. They were in the neighborhoods experiencing crime. They were doing their jobs and doing it well."
  
  One of the steepest drops in S.I.A. occurred after the August 2014 police shooting of Michael Brown in a St. Louis suburb. Another steep drop in S.I.A. occurred after the Grand Jury decision on Nov. 24. Dotson said criminals felt empowered, while officers felt hampered by what he calls the "Ferguson Effect."
  
  S.I.A. numbers are climbing again, Dotson said.

The fourth paragraph is an interesting conundrum.

• During a period in 2013, he said crime also dropped along with S.I.A. He added, "That means police officers` activities were paying dividends. They were stopping the right people. They were in the neighborhoods experiencing crime. They were doing their jobs and doing it well."

It doesn't really mean that at all. We've heard and participated in the argument, "If you have less police, you have less crime." We take that to mean that unless the police are there to make an arrest or generate a report, society is willing to tolerate certain levels of misbehavior. You can see that in the CPD today. Rahm/McCarthy (and Daley/assorted superintendent) have made it inconvenient to report crime.

• 3-1-1? Hour long wait times and more. 
• Garage burglary? We'll just downgrade that to a Theft. 
• Evidence Technician? They'll be there when they get there, and even when they arrive, there's nothing retrievable many times. Detectives move the "X" and suspend the case. 
• Dead body tied to a chair?  Burned beyond recognition? Hole in the head and no gun around? Death Investigation.

Of course, this is a double-edged sword. People want government to solve their problems - individual problems, family problems, community problems. Then they bitch about how you work at it. So coppers learn to temper their responses and in the event of a Ferguson-type event, they learn to back off the throttle completely. Survival mode. Of course, then the old saw gets played, "Why didn't you do something back when blah blah blah? You racist police!"

The Chief is alleging that self-initiated stops dropped and so did crime because they were stopping the right people - that's pure CompStat bullshit right there. Crime dropped because people put up with it and most likely didn't report it. Then criminals get bolder and crime goes from little things like dope dealing and thefts to home invasions, rapes, murders, and it gets that much harder to shove the genie back in the bottle.

We feel we're in that sort of downward spiral right now. Discuss.

Dick Does it Again

What an asshole:

• During remarks on the Senate floor Thursday, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) compared President Obama’s executive orders on immigration to Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and said that the president’s “courage” to take executive action was an important moment in righting the wrongs of the “fatally flawed” Constitution.
  
  Durbin began by saying how “seriously” he and his colleagues in the Senate took their commitment to defending the Constitution—a document he said, however, was “fatally flawed from the start.”
  

  Before any of us can serve in the United States Senate, we stand in the well of the Senate chamber and publicly take an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States. I know we all take that seriously, as we should. This is not just another government document. It is really the inspiration of this government and it still governs our actions to this day.
  
  Yet, if we view this document with honesty, we know that it was fatally flawed from the start. It got the issue of slavery wrong, in addition to some other issues. It got the issue of race wrong. And since the days when the document was drafted and signed, we have struggled as a nation to right that wrong. It has taken a long, long time.

Wow. So you sworn an Oath to a document that you have no faith in, fail to follow on a regular basis and believe that is "fatally flawed" and in need of correction?

Newsflash Dick, there's a process in place to amend the document. Maybe you've heard of it? The document delineates specific powers to each of three co-equal branches of government. Checks-and-Balances....any of this ringing a bell in your tiny little pea brain?

Massive Protests!

Massive we tell you - the people, united, will never blah blah blah:

• Protesters gathered Saturday outside a Chicago Police Department facility on the West Side, calling for it to be shut down following reports in the British newspaper The Guardian that described it as a “black site” where officers violate suspects’ rights.
  
  About 200 people stood outside the Homan Square building in frigid temperatures Saturday, as police officers guarded the road to the facility.

From a few coppers on the scene, the number "200" is actually twice what they counted. And a few points were brought up readers:

• The guy who died? Heroin. It's in the toxicology report;
• Guess what Homan Square doesn't have? A basement;
• The Sun Times of all media, states there have been exactly ZERO lawsuits filed over practices at Homan Square;
• WBEZ for pete's sake, dismantles much of the protestors allegations in this piece; pointing out the numerous press conferences, tours, media briefings held at the building;
• Danny Davis, no friend of the police, has an office right behind the Homan Square building (on Arthington) and states this is the first time he's head anything alleged about the facility - how believable is that? Danny regularly makes up imaginary scenarios and holds press conferences about them, and he's never heared a peep from the west side about "disappearances?"

Here's a good piece about the entire thing by a cop. Read it all and see how the media is loathe to give the Guardian any credence in light of how their credibility is shot as of late.

Pay Cut

An astute reader pointed out the following in regard to Friday's promotions:

• The last boss in charge of CAPS...wasn't that Helm? Wasn't she a Chief before she left and went to work for Luberman or someone at City Hall?  And didn't she retire under a cloud where a whole bunch of people almost got indicted?

Looks like the latest CAPS Deputy Chief missed out on a pay grade step.

Rahm Lies

Elected on a platform of lies, along with a "wedding dress residency," is anyone actually surprised?

• In the wake of revelations about abuses in the city of Chicago’s fire and police disability programs, Mayor Rahm Emanuel promised reforms.
  
  But two and a half years later, little has come of those promises, a Chicago Sun-Times examination has found.
  
  Some injured cops, firefighters and paramedics have returned to duty or retired since Emanuel vowed to crack down on abuses in the wake of a Sun-Times investigation that found some of them were collecting tax-free disability checks even as they had gotten other jobs.

Everyone has a story about this, and it's abuses that may cost us down the road. One has to wonder if Rahm continues to permit the abuses in order to have a club to beat the membership with somewhere in the future. If we aren't policing our own house, you can bet Rahm will attempt to.