What Stupidity is This?

This is going to look damn ugly:

• With the character of the Chicago Riverwalk and millions of dollars in tourist revenue at stake, a behind-the-scenes battle has broken out over an ambitious plan to construct an aerial tram that would link two of downtown’s most popular attractions, Navy Pier and the Riverwalk.
  
  In recent weeks, the proposal has been quietly shopped to civic organizations by its chief backers, Chicago hotelier Laurence Geller and Lou Raizin, president of Broadway in Chicago. They say it will give Chicago an iconic tourist attraction on a par with the London Eye wheel along the River Thames.
  
  But opponents contend that the tram ride would be an eyesore and that it would crowd the narrow Riverwalk. It could also compete with tour boats run by the Chicago Architecture Foundation and companies like Chicago’s First Lady Cruises and Wendella.

Just our opinion and all, but a bunch of metal towers lining the river? Maybe if they passed it off as a "crime fighting measure"? It would be difficult for the ne'er-do-wells to attack tourists if they were fifty or sixty feet in the air. Maybe make it interesting by giving the tourists cinder blocks to drop periodically.

Alderman Sees the Future

Someone is paying attention:

• Crime will spike and police morale will plummet—to the point where veteran officers will lay back and “nobody will want to take this job”—if a civilian oversight board is empowered to fire the police superintendent and establish police policy, a former cop-turned alderman is warning.
  
  Northwest Side Ald. Anthony Napolitano (41st), the City Council’s champion for Chicago Police officers, condemned the fundamental change in police oversight proposed by the Grassroots Alliance for Police Accountability (GAPA) after 18 months of public hearings.
  
  Fraternal Order of Police President Kevin Graham has argued that “policing is becoming almost impossible in Chicago” because of redundant layers of oversight by the FBI, the Illinois State Police, the state’s attorney’s office, a Civilian Office of Police Accountability that has officers “under virtual siege” and an “exceedingly biased media.”
  
  Even more oversight would bring about “chaos mislabeled as reform,” Graham has said.
  
  Napolitano made a similar argument — even more forcefully.

On the bright side, Rahm would get his wish of a lot more higher paid veterans retiring as soon as humanly possible.

Thanks to Napolitano for speaking up.

There He Goes

Announcement next week:

• Former Chicago police Superintendent Garry McCarthy plans to announce next week that he will run for mayor in 2019, a source close to his campaign said.
  
  The announcement making it official will come via a video, the source said. The former top cop has been inching toward entering politics for months. Mayor Rahm Emanuel fired McCarthy in the wake of the Laquan McDonald shooting video going public in late 2015.
  
  McCarthy declined to comment Friday, and his campaign exploratory committee released a statement on his behalf Friday that stopped short of confirming he would run.
  
  “It’s no secret that for the last several months literally thousands of Chicagoans have asked me to run for mayor,” statement says.
  
  “I have taken those calls to heart because I know the city is badly in need of genuine leadership and real change,” it reads. “At some point next week I will be making my final decision and sharing that with my supporters and the citizens of Chicago.”

Let's see if the media starts asking difficult questions of "McCarthy - the Candidate" that they refused to ask when it was "McCarthy - Rahm's Instrument of Deflection." Fun times ahead.

Almost Unanimous

A very revealing survey in New York City:

• The vast majority of NYPD cops hate Mayor de Blasio, according to a police-union survey.
  
  An overwhelming 96 percent of the 6,000 cops who responded to the poll have unfavorable opinions of Hizzoner, with 88 percent holding “very unfavorable” opinions of him, the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association survey found.
  
  As for specific complaints against the mayor, 97 percent said de Blasio has created an environment where criminals feel emboldened, while 95 percent said he has established an environment that is combative to police.
  
  When asked what they liked “most” about de Blasio, 66 percent responded, “nothing.”
  
  Eight-five percent of cops gave City Council Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito an unfavorable rating, and 96 percent are dissatisfied with the City Council in general.

Any guesses as to what an FOP survey of the rank-and-file might find?

More Clouted Lawsuits

The media is already trying to turn this into a #metoo moment:

• A Chicago police lieutenant who rose to become the first woman to ever command the department’s Marine and Helicopter Unit filed a federal sex discrimination lawsuit Thursday alleging she was harassed by a sexist boss and ultimately demoted because he didn’t want to see a woman in her post.
  
  Lt. Allison Schloss alleged in the 19-page complaint that at the time of her appointment in May 2014, she was among only a handful of women assigned to the Police Department’s so-called Special Functions Division, which includes the bomb squad, SWAT team and mounted patrol in addition to the Marine and Helicopter Unit.
  
  In fact, as of May 2016, only eight of 175 positions available in Special Functions were held by female officers — and only one of those was assigned to the marine unit, according to the lawsuit.
  
  The “abominable” record also included no women on a SWAT team of nearly seven dozen members, the suit alleged.

If only the media knew.....

Old timers be warned - we will be monitoring the comment sections very closely.

Protesters Gone Wild!

For some reason, the media isn't covering this behavior:

• Chicago, IL – A crowd of students swarmed a south side strip mall during Wednesday’s National Walkout Day demonstration, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake.
  
  “They pretty much trashed this whole area,” GameStop manager Robert Owens told Blue Lives Matter on Thursday.
  Advertisement
  
  The nationwide demonstration, touted as a demand for gun control legislation, was slated to last for exactly 17 minutes, in remembrance of each of the 17 people murdered during the Valentine’s Day massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the Chicago Sun Times reported.
  
  Not all of the protests were peaceful.

No mention either that quite a sizable percentage of the homicides in Chicago are actually perpetrated by.....CPS students. Why is that do you think?

Speedwinkle

We still prefer Prickwrinkle, but the CWB blog has a story on Toni's shenanigans:

• Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle says she does not condone speeding. She says any speeding tickets issued to her county car “are paid.” We found the truth to be a little different.
  
  There must have been quite a political emergency in the Austin neighborhood at 11:15 a.m. on Sunday, February 25. That’s when Preckwinkle’s county car—captured on video above—went barreling along Central Avenue at 45 MPH in a 30 MPH park zone. (She’s lucky. On school days, the speed limit is 20 MPH.)
  
  The emergency lights on Preckwinkle’s car are flashing. In the video, you can even see an on-coming driver pull over to make room. The driver was probably wondering what terrible emergency the oncoming SUV with flashing lights was heading to.
  
  It was nothin'. The lights were on to get the peasants out of the way.

What possible reason could there be for Prickwrinkle (or Rahm for that matter) to need to speed, run lights, etc., ever? A political emergency? A pending federal indictment? Maybe being late for a deposition regarding some massive expenditure of taxpayer money?

Again with a Bat?

Hasn't anyone told the thugs that bats are not weapons?

• A man was beaten with a baseball bat Tuesday night in the South Shore neighborhood on the South Side.
  
  The 33-year-old man was arguing with someone he knew inside an apartment when the person grabbed a baseball bat and began beating him about 9:28 p.m. in the 2400 block of East 78th Street, Chicago Police said.
  
  The two had been drinking alcohol, police said.
  
  The man was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital with trauma to the head and eye and was in critical condition, police said.

"Critical" meaning he "might die."

Please forward to COPA.

Combat Training

This pops up every so often - military doctors come to Cook County to train for treating traumatic injuries:

• Konrad Poplawski, a 22-year old Navy hospital corpsman, is about to be deployed as a battlefield medic with the 2nd Marine Division, which has served in deadly battlegrounds in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  
  But first, he is making a pit stop at Cook County’s Stroger Hospital, which the Navy says is among few places here in the U.S. that provide experience treating the types of wounds he will inevitably see on the battlefield.
  
  For so long “the first time a corpsman got any trauma experience was when they were deployed, and some would just freeze up,” said Captain Paul Roach, a U.S. Navy surgeon at the Lovell Federal Health Care Center north of Chicago. “We don’t want that to happen anymore,” said Capt. Roach, who heads the program in the Great Lakes region.
  
  The Navy is working to formalize a pilot program that has been tested here for three years, rotating newly enlisted hospital corpsmen—the combat medics for the Navy and Marines—and those needing a refresher while they are back home, for six to eight weeks through Stroger Hospital’s trauma center. The 14-bed unit treats over 6,000 trauma patients yearly, many of them with penetrating, life-threatening wounds akin to those on the battlefield.

We don't know why Toni, Kim, Tim, Tom and Rahm don't advertise this more.

Bring Chris Home

A Chicago copper receiving treatment in Texas for leukemia:

• Some of you may know already but here's what's going on. May 2017 Chris was diagnosed with bi-phenotypic leukemia which only account for 5% of leukemia patients.
  
  October 11th he had a stem cell transplant but relapsed right before Christmas. The doctors said his last option was to look for a clinical trial at MD Anderson cancer center in Houston. After aggressive chemo in Houston, he wound up in the ICU due to septic shock. He was in a medically induced coma for 2 weeks and is now awake with a tracheostomy helping him breath and is fighting very hard to gain strength and recover.
  
  Chris has stated he wants to come back home. So let's bring him home!!! He requires a Air ambulance, which is 15000.00$. I ask you to o give any amount you can and please share this with friends and family. Chris has faught extremely hard and deserves to be back home.

The GoFundMe page is already one third of the way to its goal. Let's see what we can do.

(comments closed here)

Ed's Testicles Drop

Congratulations to Special Ed on the momentous occasion of his testicles finally descending into his scrotum:

• Allowing a civilian oversight board to fire the police superintendent and set policy for the Chicago Police Department is “like telling a surgeon how to do his business,” Police Supt. Eddie Johnson said Monday.
  
  Mayor Rahm Emanuel tiptoed more softly, having promised — but not delivered — civilian oversight nearly two years ago. But the mayor’s carefully-worded response still threw up a cautionary flag.
  
  [...]
  
  Johnson didn’t need political interpretation. He was flat-out against the idea of creating a seven-member civilian review board that would be empowered to set policy and strategy for the police department, fire the superintendent and choose three finalists for superintendent from which the mayor could select.
  
  “They don’t have the professional acumen to be able to develop policy and strategy for a police department,” Johnson said.
  
  “The public should have some input on things. But I don’t think they should be developing policy and strategy for a police department. To me, that’s kind of like telling a surgeon how to do his business. We’ve been educated in what we do and there’s a reason for that. If you want it to be done correctly, you should have it done by people who are accustomed to doing that. Just to take a person from off the street and let them develop policy for a police department is just crazy to me.”

All of this after

• his predecessor signed off on the ACLU agreement where a bunch of civilians came up with the most unwieldy form in CPD history,
• the DOJ civilian lawyers came up with a copy-and-pasted boilerplate "consent decree" to regulate the Department,
• the birth of COPA, an entity made up solely of civilians, cop haters, and communists (not a cop among them),
• Kim Foxxx's re-opening numerous closed shooting cases with the sole intent of charging officers in events already deemed "justified,"
• and the civilian Police Board, which already covers many of the duties proposed for the new bureaucracy.

Special Ed was part and parcel of most of these, or stood silently by while implemented. But the minute his position was threatened, by golly, he was right up there spouting Rahm's thoughts and objections to taking away any part of the political influence currently ruining the Department.

On a side note, we heard Rauner found his balls today also, vetoing a redundant and pointless gun shop "licensing" scheme passed in Springfield. There must be something going around.

Bridgeport Shooting

Thirty days off the street:

• A Chicago police officer shot a man armed with a large meat cleaver Tuesday morning, while responding to a domestic disturbance in the Bridgeport neighborhood.
  
  Shortly before noon, Deering District officers responded to a 911 call about a domestic disturbance involving a man armed with a knife at a home near 28th and Throop, Deputy Chief Kevin Ryan said.
  
  When police arrived, the woman who had called 911 helped the officers get inside the home, and told them where she thought the man was. When the officers went to the second floor, they found a man armed with a cleaver in one of the bedrooms, and he appeared to be cutting himself, Ryan said.
  
  The officers told the man several times to drop the knife, and when he didn’t, the officers used Tasers in an effort to prevent him from harming himself any further, according to Ryan. The Tasers appeared to have minimal effect, and when the man came out of the room, one of the officers shot him in the leg.

We can't remember - is a meat cleaver a "deadly weapon" under the COPA Use of Force?

In any event, the officers went home safe, which is all that matters in the end. Good job.

Another Challenger?

This has the potential to completely gut Rahm's black support:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel will face a furious political backlash if he refuses to empower a civilian oversight board to fire the police superintendent and establish police policy or attempts to stall a City Council vote until after the 2019 mayoral election, Police Board President Lori Lightfoot warned Tuesday.
  
  Sounding more and more like a mayoral challenger, Lightfoot embraced the sweeping proposal drafted by the Grassroots Alliance for Police Accountability (GAPA) and warned Emanuel to get on board a “ship that is sailing.”
  
  “The mayor endorsed this process two years ago….Any effort to stall it and not let it see the light of day, not engage in the City Council process….will be met with extreme, extreme hostility. And it will be taken out on them in February of 2019,” Lightfoot said.

Wouldn't it be amazing to see Rahm come in third in the next election? Lightfoot has the potential to split a sizable portion of the black vote, this despite her having run the old OPS into irrelevancy. If McCarthy isn't bought off, he could take a chunk of the city workersand maybe some "revrunds" who remember so-called "lower crime" via crooked CompStat counting. One decent Hispanic candidate and Rahm is suddenly a lame duck with no identifiable voting bloc.

Hey, we can dream, can't we?

Don't Panic

A lot of people sending us this and commenting about it (click for a larger version):

When pictures are taken of vehicles speeding or going through red lights, the plate photos go to the company. All "M" and "MP" are automatically flagged and (as we understand it) sent to the Department for adjudication - meaning they are tossed in the garbage. This AdMin Fax message is supposed to be applied to coverts and exempt vehicles that don't carry the "M" or "MP" plates. This is per a highly placed contact who graces us with Department insight now and again.

If you happen to get tagged while driving a marked vehicle, we'd like to hear about it, but it hasn't happened locally that we've ever been informed of. Some people got tagged in suburban locations with marked vehicles, but were cleared when they proved they were on department business.

Sergeant "Merit" Letter

The Department is soliciting for resumes for "merit" nominations this week. This ties into recent rumors of an April class. We've heard anywhere from 50 to 100.

This also begs the question of how Rahm is going to fulfill his promise of 1,000 new officers on the street by the end of the year. We pointed out already how the total net gain is around 100 officers halfway to the "two years" promise. The only way he gets there at this point is blatantly lying, which isn't out of the realm of possibility.

State Rep "Doxxes" Critics

So State Representative Martwick, who is allied with Alderasshole Arena and whose District will include the Section 8/Night Ministry housing project, has undertaken an effort to "DOXX" his critics:

Pardon our French, but what in the Hell is this crap? This is some 1984 Stalin-esque bullshit to be sure. Martwick or his people are scouring voting records of his social media critics and seeing what type of ballot they pulled in recent elections. Then he is attempting to shame them for holding a different opinion, ridiculing them for daring to vote republican.

And we hate to keep bringing it up because her opponent is such a scumbag, but what is judicial candidate Daly going to do now? Is she proud of Martwick's endorsement, now that we've demonstrated he is yet another "progressive" engaging in the politics of personal destruction of those who are engaging in thought crimes?

And where the fuck is the media? Too scared to criticize their fellow travelers?

Well Lookie Here

There's a whole stack of these things at the Academy Range:

So why aren't these being used by the training staff?

Aren't bats dangerous weapons? Deadly weapons?

Rahm, you want to have Corp Counsel explain this?

Why Promotion Processes Suck

This is a great take on promotions:

• I have never been one to sugar coat or mince words. Sometimes these words have gotten me in trouble. The trouble always comes from those of rank. More specifically, above my own.
  
  Now all of us have heard or uttered the obvious “wow, he’s (or she) has changed since they got promoted”. I’m sure the same has been said about me. But we all know that one, or several cops, who become complete unbearable assholes once they get a couple of stripes or bars. Why does this happen?
  
  I recently saw a meme on a financial page with a quote that had me thinking for several days. The quote posed the following question,“does money or wealth change a person or does it bring out who they really are?”
  
  I believe the parallels are similar. With money comes a certain amount of power. The same can be said about those cops who chase rank. Now there is nothing inherently wrong with going up for promotion to better your organization (and make a few dollars) if your knowledge and leadership are ready for the next level. Sadly, many cops who chase after promotion have motives that are self-centered and completely self-serving.
  
  It is not leadership, responsibility, challenge or even money they seek. It is power. And they will step on the back of your neck to attain it.

Go read it all. Cops are cops the world over, and this gentleman has some pretty good insight that is applicable across jurisdictions.

The Salty Sarge is linked on the right hand side of the blog.

Oops

This is amusing:

• Mount Vernon, VA – A man who was fleeing from police ran over himself with his own car in Fairfax County (video below).
  
  Fairfax County police said they initiated a traffic stop on Isaac Bonsu at about 1 a.m. on Sunday morning for “apparent equipment violations,” KRCG reported.
  Advertisement
  
  Bonsu, 30, failed to stop, and fled police. He led police on a chase that that included a trip through a Starbucks parking lot and an apartment complex.
  
  Eventually, Bonsu jumped out of his vehicle and took off on foot. However, he failed to put his car in park before he got out of it.

Priceless:

There ought to be highlight reels of this type of occurrence uploaded annually by Departments across the nation.

Look What Arena Wants (UPDATE - Fixed)

So not only does Arena's Section 8 project have over 6,000 feet of commercial space and not only is going to be rented out for DOUBLE the going rate up north, guess who's renting it? The Night Ministry:

Arena Plan on Scribd

And check out the political "sponsors" at the bottom. Looks like a north side housecleaning is in order.

UPDATE: After 4,000+ views on Scribd.com, someone over there took it down. We can only assume Arena's people have been surfing around making sure it didn't pop up anywhere. We've reloaded it. If it disappears again, we'll post screen shots.

UPDATE: Screw it, we'll head him off at the pass. Here's the screen shots - click for larger versions:

Anyone know where the media is as we have a situation here where a politician is suppressing and causing-to-be-suppressed Free Speech and stifling viewpoints that don't agree with their own?

UPDATE: The Scribd.com version is down again. Arena's drones are working overtime to supress free speech it seems.

Arena Un-endorses

Evidently, we hit a few nerves. Not only did Alderasshole Arena remove Colleen Reardon Daly's name from his endorsed candidate list, Daly (or Daly's people) altered her "Daly for Judge" Facebook page (without attribution) from this:

• I am honored to be endorsed by Alderman John Arena, and Representative Martwick.

to this:

• I am honored to be endorsed by Representative Martwick.

Bravo for taking his name off of your Facebook page. That's a start, although Martwick represents an area that overlaps much of Arena's ward and should, therefore, have some influence over the alderasshole's attempt to destroy the neighborhood.

Now to address some of the butthurt readers and e-mailers:

• "Daly isn't endorsed by Arena." Well, that quote was from HER OWN Facebook page until a few hours ago. We don't know who we're supposed to attribute it to;
• "Daly isn't a police hater." No shit? No one here said she was and neither did any comments. We just pointed out her bad choice of political associations;
• "Leave her out of the alderman mess." We didn't inject her into it - she (or her people) did. Don't blame us for pointing it out.
• "Daly is a good and decent person." Could you "straw-man" argue any more?

And for the twenty or thirty comments telling us about how Daly is married to a copper, has cop relatives, worked for FOP, defended more coppers than anyone knows, good for her. It gives her insight into the trials and bullshit we all face on a daily (pun intended) basis. We need our own in the system.

So why throw it away claiming (and later deleting) the endorsement of an asshole who caused complaints to be filed against almost two dozen firefighters and thirty-one cops - some of whom might have worked with her husband, family, or might even be her neighbors - that may potentially cost them suspension time, merely for expressing their opinions? Is the bench that important that you have to associate, however slightly, with someone who despises everything your husband and family stand for?

All of you idiots claiming she was never endorsed, the copied quote from yesterday's post was taken DIRECTLY from the Daly For Judge Facebook page - she CLAIMED the endorsement - and today it was magically rewritten. Amazing how a little bit of truth from an insignificant blog has everyone in a tizzy.

Fioretti Endorsement

This is coming kind of late in the game:

• Just 10 days shy of the March primary, former Ald. Robert Fioretti bagged endorsements Saturday from the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police and other law enforcement unions in his bid to unseat Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle.
  
  During a low-key announcement at the Billy Goat Tavern on Madison Street, Fioretti said the endorsement signifies that “people who believe in law and order” want change.
  
  “For me to win the FOP’s endorsement is an acknowledgement that something is wrong with our system,” Fioretti said. “To have the sergeants and to have the other organizations that have endorsed me sends a message to those that have been complicit with a system that has let down our communities.”

That certainly is a "low-key" endorsement. It appeared on a Saturday? Does anyone even buy the Saturday paper? We didn't even see a news report. There isn't time to get the endorsements on campaign literature.

Don't get us wrong, we're in the "anyone but Prickwrinkle" camp, but this should have been a lot sooner and lot bigger. Unless Fioretti thinks the endorsement isn't worth much and might actually cost him votes among the low-information population.

Dodging Responsibility

Fran hilariously describes this latest aldermanic brainstorm:

• The long-awaited third-leg of Chicago’s police accountability overhaul will finally be delivered Monday, but in a way that will trigger even more controversy.

Fran might want to go to UrbanDictionary.com and look up the definition of a "third leg." Then again, maybe she did and we aren't giving her enough credit for turning a phrase so to speak, but we doubt it.

In any event, the aldercreatures have come up with a truly asinine idea:

• Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6th), chairman of the Chicago City Council’s Black Caucus, and Ald. Harry Osterman (48th) will join forces in proposing an elected district council that would play a role in an entirely new system for investigating police wrongdoing, selecting a permanent chief of the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, and hiring and firing Chicago’s police superintendent.
  
  The ordinance Sawyer and Osterman plan to outline for their colleagues during a series of briefings Monday is the product of two years worth of work by the Grassroots Alliance for Police Accountability (GAPA).
  
  After consulting national experts and holding well over 100 meetings, the coalition of community organizations drafted an ordinance that, Sawyer said, calls for carving the city into 22 districts and electing one representative from each district.

Rahm has already signaled his displeasure and it probably won't see a vote. But don't we already have an elected board that is supposed to assist in selecting a chief of COPA and has all sorts of input into the hiring of a Superintendent?

• Oh yeah, the City fucking Council

Instead of adding an additional lawyer of government and bureaucracy, how about doing your fucking jobs and perhaps standing up for your constituency rather than bending over and presenting your asses to the mayor every time he walks into the room?

The only thing we could possibly acknowledge as a reasonably good idea would be the 22 districts and have the number of aldercreatures reduced from 50 to those 22. It would finally realize our position that (A) Chicago has way too many politicians for the population and (B) redrawing the police districts so we can maybe see a beat car once in a while.

Arena Endorsements

Someone said there is a poster floating around out there with judge endorsements from Alder-asshole Arena's office. We'd like a copy for the readers so they can concentrate their efforts on voting against those judges.

People should probably vote against this wanna-be judge, too - Colleen Reardon Daly:

• I am proud to be slated and endorsed by the Democratic Committeemen of the 10th Subcircuit and I stand with all of the Party organizations in my district. I stand with my Committeemen, I stand with my Party, I stand with our local elected officials, and I stand with the Democratic voters of the 10th Judicial Subcircuit.
  
  [...] I am honored to be endorsed by Alderman John Arena, and Representative Martwick.

"...honored to be endorsed" by an asshole like Arena who stalks and files complaints against cops and firefighters for merely opposing the destruction of their neighborhood? Get the fuck out of here with your "honored" crap.

You've Come a Long Way Baby

We're doing "better":

• The Chicago Police Department has “come a long way” to alleviate the concerns of civil rights activists about officers stopping minorities for questioning, a retired federal magistrate judge said in a report released Wednesday.
  
  Arlander Keys is studying cops’ stops under an agreement that took effect on Jan. 1, 2016 between the department and the American Civil Liberties Union. The ACLU had criticized the police for disproportionately stopping minorities and failing to list lawful reasons for stops on the “contact cards” they were supposed to fill out.
  
  In his latest report, Keys said he was unable to determine — or rule out — that the department’s stop-and-frisk policies and practices have an unlawful, disproportionate impact on racial and ethnic minorities.
  
  But he said he was encouraged that in a sample of the 51,000 stops he examined from July to December 2016, cops “conducted an overwhelmingly large number of legitimate, lawful and justified stops.”

We again contend that the overwhelming number "of legitimate, lawful and justified stops" were just documented poorly, as everything this Department does. One thing that brightened the judge's day:

• Officers did fewer “protective pat downs” of people they believed might be carrying weapons, Keys said. And a bigger percentage of those pat downs yielded weapons than during the first six months of 2016, which he previously studied. White people were the smallest group subjected to those pat downs, but were the most likely to have weapons on them.
  
  Keys said the racial breakdown of the 51,000 stops in late 2016 painted a “less rosy picture.” About 70 percent of those stopped were black, 19 percent were Hispanic and 1.5 percent were white, he said.

The judge, like all liberals, fails to take into account where the vast majority of crime takes place and the make-up of those neighborhoods. If 90% of your homicides take place in black and brown neighborhoods, then 90% of the stops will probably be black and brown. Attempting to "balance" your stops at one-third, one-third and one-third would be stupid, which is probably why liberals demand it.

Family First! Except in 017

More on the disaster that is 017:

• Last year we had zero isr’s for the month in 17. We were over worked from being in a back log everyday. Never having all two man beat cars for the day without any rapids or traffic cars it’s hard to fit a mover, Parker, anov, a blue card, bus check, a marijuana ticket, an arrest, and a isr for the day into our schedules. These are all things were told we are short on.
  
  After the month last year we had zero isr’s this same lieutenant thought outside the box like so many great supervisors... he told the entire watch that if we don’t do four isr’s a month we will be denied any time off work regardless of rank and then made to stay till the very last second they could keep us till everyday since. He even said to go ahead and post it on the blog and spelled out his last name and star number. This was his genius plan and him showing off his great leadership to the watch and motivational skills. Who wouldn’t be motivated by such a great speech.
  
  All is po’s felt a sense of unity and loved this idea so much that 95% of us didn’t get a single day off for the next 6 months. Just a few planned ahead for their children’s birthdays and family events by stopping citizens only to get their 4 isr’s so the following month we could see our children blow out their birthday candles.

The motivation skills of the bosses are something to behold. And if this Lieutenant is so proud of his demands to violate citizens Rights just to get numbers for downtown, we certainly won't be shy about publishing it. That number "four" is a quota, and the denial of time off is a Contract violation bordering on "hostile workplace."

Spring Ahead

If you're reading this and you didn't move your clock ahead an hour, you're late.

Just letting you know.

Open post for a Sunday.

Shooting

Juvenile shot in the ass:

• A boy was shot Friday afternoon during an “armed confrontation” with an officer in the South Shore neighborhood, Chicago police said in a news release.
  
  Shortly before 1 p.m., officers were investigating a robbery in the 7200 block of South Merrill Avenue when they saw a vehicle circling the block, police said.
  
  The suspicious vehicle parked and two males exited. Officers approached the males to conduct a field interview, but an armed confrontation ensued, police said.
  
  An officer discharged his weapon, striking one of the males in the buttocks. A male juvenile, whose exact age was not available, was taken to an area hospital where his condition was stabilized, police said.
  
  A weapon was recovered from the scene and the boy and the other male were placed in police custody.

Careful out there.

Acting FTO's

This would be awesome:

• Today at an exempt training FatHead Ed came in and and berated the district commanders for putting 2 and 3 Ppo's with a single FTO. He told the commanders that "they" should have never allowed that practice to start and it's a stupid idea.
  
  He then said that an AMFN message will be coming out mandating that each commander use their leadership to "convince" officers to sign up to be acting-up FTO's. He chided them and said if they send a negative report then THEY will be the acting FTO. He also said "don't send me the name of the copper nobody wants to work with, because he will know"
  
  They asked for volunteers from the Sgt list, the Det list and then those who weren't on any list. When they couldn't get anyone to do it now they are threatening the commanders to get names or else!!

Quite frankly, seeing two, three and four-time "merit" exempts attempt to teach anyone anything that doesn't involve a willing ass and a moist pair of lips is an amusing scenario to say the least. When was the last time Special Ed did an AIRA report? Or Riccio filled out an ISR, paper or electronic? Staples may have filled out some GPR's in the not too distant past, but what has Waller, Sanchez or West filled out in the past decade?

And that's just the upper echelon.

Cop Dragged

By a parolee? How does this keep happening?

• A member of the Black P-Stones street gang appeared in court Thursday to face a litany of charges, including attempted murder of a police officer, just 16 days after being released on parole.
  
  Paris McKinely, 26, stood before Judge Sophia Atcherson and looked at the floor while Cook County prosecutors outlined their case against him.
  
  About 12:30 a.m. Tuesday, the 42-year-old Chicago Police officer was on patrol with his partner in a marked police SUV when they spotted McKinley driving a 2005 Chrysler minivan south on Western Avenue, prosecutors said.
  
  McKinley was unable to provide a driver’s license or proof of insurance when he was stopped for having flicking headlights and a 9mm Glock pistol was spotted on the floor of the van behind the center console, prosecutors said.
  
  McKinley suddenly accelerated during the stop, causing the 42-year-old officer to grab on to the van’s open, driver’s side window and be dragged for two blocks as the van sped down Western toward 59th Street, prosecutors said. The officer yelled at McKinley to stop, but instead he sped through a red light at 59th Street and collided with another vehicle in the intersection.
  
  Both vehicles sustained significant damage in the crash and the officer was thrown to the road, prosecutors said. McKinley drove off again, striking several metal poles before crashing into a building at 5917 S. Western. He left the van and ran off, but was taken into custody after hiding on the third-floor deck of a building in the 6300 block of South Claremont.

Out barely two weeks and manages to (A) acquire a firearm and (B) almost kill a cop. It's almost like there isn't even a criminal justice system - just a revolving door.

A Crooked Contract?

Rahm might lose the undocumented vote!

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel and City Clerk Anna Valencia have already been accused of “suborning voter fraud” by allowing Chicago’s CityKey municipal identification card to be used to register to vote.
  
  Now, the 2019 running mates have another problem on their hands: a rival bidder’s politically explosive claim that printing technology used to create the new ID compromises personal information the city has promised to keep confidential to shield illegal immigrants from the threat of deportation.
  
  Last year, the city clerk’s office chose Omicron Technologies to handle the software and printing on machines capable of putting names and addresses on the ID cards, without keeping records that threaten to expose the identities of undocumented immigrants.
  
  The five-year contract called for Omicron to be paid $365,000 for the first year of work and $134,400 in each of the remaining four years.
  
  Losing bidder Valid USA, Inc. is claiming — with pictures to support its argument — that a photographic image of the face is “considered personal identifiable information” under federal law and that image is precisely what is retained in the printing process used by Omicron Technologies.

Rahm is having all sorts of voter bloc problems lately.

Damned If You Do

Damned if you don't:

• The mother of a 24-year-old man shot and killed by a Chicago police officer during a foot chase last year is suing the officer and the city, according to court documents.
  
  Lashundia Key’s lawsuit says Officer Julio Garcia was careless when he shot and killed her son Aquoness Cathery in November. Key also accuses Garcia of improperly using his body camera.
  
  The shooting occurred around 2:15 p.m. Nov. 29 in the 6100 block of South King Drive. Cathery, of 7200 block of South Eberhart Avenue, ran from the officers while holding a handgun, according to police reports and statements at the time. After a brief chase, an officer fired his service weapon and hit Cathery on the back porch of a building.
  
  Cathery was rushed to Stroger Hospital, where he died the next day. A loaded 9 mm Glock handgun was recovered from the scene.

There is video at the link. Lots of video. You see the gun, see him raise it up at least once, hear the officers order up an ambulance, etc. Textbook case that cameras were explicitly designed for. So why the lawsuit (besides the fact that lawyers are scumbags at should be drowned at birth)?

• The shooting was captured on the officer’s body camera. The footage, available on the Civilian Office of Police Accountability website, shows an officer entering an apartment and moving through a living room and kitchen after Cathery, who exited through the apartment’s back door. As the officer pursued him on the back porch, Cathery appears to have an object in his right hand.
  
  The officer raises his gun and fires as Cathery turns to run down a flight of stairs on the back porch.
  
  There’s no audio in the moments leading up to the shooting or immediately after. The audio kicks in once the officer reaches the bottom of the stairs, where Cathery is lying on the ground bleeding. At times, the view from the camera is obstructed by the officer’s arms.
  
  The officer tells Cathery to “relax” and calls for an ambulance.
  
  The lawsuit claims that the missing audio and obstructed views were intentional.

And there you have it. Anything CAUGHT on video is explained away or claimed not to be the gun (that was located at the bottom of the stairs where the subject collapsed). Anything NOT CAUGHT on the video is "intentional" a cover-up and (no doubt) will be called part of the "Code of Silence."

They get you coming and going and further make it either impossible to do the job or make you second guess yourself, thereby endangering your life.

Stay Aware

And always carry off-duty:

• An off-duty Chicago police officer was injured Thursday morning during an attempted carjacking on the South Side where he opened fire at the suspect and was able to disarmed him before he fled, police said.
  
  Shortly after 10:15 a.m., a suspect attempted to carjack an off-duty officer in the 7500 block of Champlain Avenue in the Chatham neighborhood, police said.
  
  The officer fired one shot at the suspect, and a struggle ensued and the officer was able to disarm him. The suspect was not struck and fled through an alley, officials said.
  
  The suspect’s firearm was recovered.

Good job Officer. Best wishes on a speedy recovery.

Third Floor, Homan Square

IAD and an ET and an ET Supervisor took pictures at Homan Square this week:

They also retrieved hair and biological samples from the walls and mats.

Anyone know if this is part of the "black site" investigation?

More Quotas??

They just don't learn, do they?

• So, apparently Crystal King-Smith is demanding ISRs from 3rd watch in 002. The brass came to roll call and stated that she is demanding more ISRs, but they they have to be on our beat. So if I'm on 225 and it happens across the street or near the border with 231 then they don't count. If we don't get ISRs then we are threatened with [...] staying late to review the ISR general order. One of the sergeants is pushing for them and stated it behooves us to get them. This is a quota as far as I'm concerned. Things are getting worse in 002. She is comparing this year's numbers to last year's and not taking into account the weather, furloughs, days off, etc.

As far as we know, this order is still in effect (click for a larger version):

Someone want to print that and deliver it to the Commander?

Print out a few extra and hand them out to the Sergeants at Roll Call.

Training goes both ways.

What Are They Teaching???

Safety warning this week via the Department:

Clean your gun snowflakes. If you don't care about you, fine.

But someone else might be relying on you.

UPDATE: To the unpublished ignoramuses:

If you read the top line, this is a SAFETY WARNING issued by the Department Range. It ought to be in the CO Book, but if it isn't, it's easily available on the AdminFax Messages. The entire story of the weapon failure DURING QUALIFICATIONS is related. The notice also points out that Ball Ammo is forbidden. So instead of "calling BS," why not show up on time, listen to what the Watch Lieutenant is saying, and take 5 minutes off the street and read through the message traffic?

Ask Rahm a Question

Under oath? Before an election? This could be VERY interesting:

• In a rare move, a Cook County judge has ordered Mayor Rahm Emanuel to sit for a sworn deposition in lawsuits stemming from the controversial police shooting of a baseball bat-clutching teen and an innocent bystander.
  
  Lawyers for the city had waged a sustained battle to prevent Emanuel or police Superintendent Eddie Johnson from having to give statements under oath, but Cook County Circuit Judge James O’Hara ordered Wednesday that both must give depositions in the coming weeks.
  
  The ruling comes more than two months after the city’s police oversight agency determined that Officer Robert Rialmo unjustifiably shot and killed Quintonio LeGrier, 19, and his 55-year-old neighbor, Bettie Jones, while responding to a domestic disturbance on the West Side in 2015. Johnson has yet to determine whether he will adopt the disciplinary agency’s recommendation and seek Rialmo’s firing by the police board, and volumes of litigation over the shooting are still pending.

As veterans of numerous lawsuits will recall, anything and everything is fair game in a sworn deposition. It doesn't matter what the questions are - your lawyer can object - but you WILL answer the question and a judge will determine its relevancy at a later date. Rahm's own Corp Counsel showed this last week when they asked if LeGrier's mom conceived him as part of a financial transaction. Insulting? Sure. Out of line? That's for a judge to decide.

So now we'd like to see a list of questions that Rahm (and Special Ed) should be asked. We'll start with a few:

• Special Ed, in your roll as part of the "exempt review" process, why did you along with Garry McCarthy rule the shooting as justified? You were the Chief of Patrol, correct?
• Special Ed, who else reviewed and justified the shooting? To whom did you report your findings? Via phone call or e-mail? Was the mayor of his office part of this notification process?
• Mr. Mayor, when did you become aware of the existence of a video? When did you see it? Who notified you of its existence? Via what means?
• Mr. Mayor, who told you about this alleged "Code of Silence" and what proof did they offer to its existence? You are the only member of the chain-of-command to admit it exists and it seems to start and stop on the 5th floor of two different buildings - Police HQ and City Hall. Why is that?
• Mr. Mayor, why did you apologize then and why do you continue to apologize for an incident your handpicked exempt staff ruled justified? Does this not undermine not only the staff you put in place, but the taxpayers of the City of Chicago?
• Mr. Mayor, in regard to the officer's lawsuit allegations that training is and continues to be an issue with the CPD, along with a DOJ finding of the same, why is it that your Department has undertaken a massive new "training regimen" that will culminate in 40 or more hours of mandatory annual training in the next few years? Isn't this a tacit admission that the officer's lawsuit is completely true? How will you be paying the officer - cash or check?

Feel free to add more question in the comment section. This could seriously damage Rahm's reelection chances.

SWAT Investigation

Google-me breaks precedent and comments on an actual on-going investigation:

• A Chicago Police internal investigation has been opened into the serious injuries that an officer suffered last week during a SWAT training session, a department spokesman confirmed Wednesday.
  
  On Monday, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said he couldn’t say whether a formal complaint was opened about the incident. He said the officer was interviewed and “did not allege any impropriety or wish to file any complaints against instructors or students.”
  
  On Wednesday, after a source told the Chicago Sun-Times that an investigation was opened, Guglielmi confirmed, “Yes, there was a complaint, but not by the injured officer. The whole thing will be investigated.”
  
  The source didn’t say who filed the complaint to open the investigation into the training incident.

The cynics out there might think that the injured officer has been told to keep his mouth shut. You'd probably be correct...Code of Silence and all that. Although, once again, it's the politically connected that are protected (and protecting) their own. We have no doubt that if we had:

• injured another PO on SWAT (rotator cuff, torn bicep - still IOD)
• broke a citizen’s leg when as a PPO in 014
• numerous domestic related CRs from female POs
• confronted a PPO ex-girlfriend injured on duty, tore up the Emergency Room at Northwestern Hospital and was kicked out of SOS
• started a physical confrontation with another Sgt over a female PO
• was coming to the Academy and acting psychotic towards ex wife - banned from building
• claimed combat injuries from punching out a window
• hit an elderly woman on a traffic incident and the City settled for 80k

...then we'd be completely protected. And promoted.

This Doesn't Seem Safe

But then again, it hasn't been safe for years - it's just that now, with rich people hearing gunshots at a high-end downtown mall, it might actually be bad publicity if one of them got wounded....or worse:

• Chicago police were on the scene at Water Tower Place after a gun was fired inside the shopping mall Friday night. But CBS 2’s Mai Martinez discovered, as the incident unfolded, radio issues prevented dispatchers from communicating with officers on the scene.
  
  “Shots fired by 7th floor Water Tower, let’s get some cars over here so we can go up to 7,” an officer said over the radio.
  
  “All units available, I need you over to Water Tower now. Any units available head over to Water Tower,” the dispatcher could be heard saying over radio transmission.
  
  But, the dispatcher received a disturbing response when she asked for more information from the scene.
  
  “Radios don’t work in the Water Tower,” the officer said.

There are lots of dead spots, especially downtown. A lot of it could be eliminated via digital antennas, but that might involve actually spending money and such, which Rahm cannot abide. He's already getting static about a $95 million Police Academy that might actually address training issues pointed out in the DOJ report. He isn't about to spend more money on something that might modernize the Department further.

(As this issue has been addressed many times before and for this incident, Channel 2 can make a $50 donation to the Chaplains.)

Judges

Someone has been asking about SCC recommended judges to vote for in the upcoming primary election. Here you go:

• None. There is not a single judge in Cook County worthy of a "YES" vote.

There may be individual judges who have done right by the police, but they are so few and far between, it is far better to burn down the entire system than to attempt to single out a few judges.

If the Feds wanted to, they could roll up at least as many judges as in Gambat and Greylord combined with minimal effort tomorrow. As far as we know, they aren't about to, so the voting booth is the only resort so far.

However, you have to consciously vote "NO" for the judges to make a difference. A judge has to get something like 50-or-60% of the votes cast in an individual race to retain their spot, so every "NO" vote means they have to get two or more votes to negate the "NO's." Not voting actually assists the judge by lowering the percentage that needs to be overcome.

In the history of Cook County, only one or two judges have ever been dumped this way, so it's about time to dump a few more.

COPA Hires Occupy?

Remember when COPA said no police officers could apply to work for them unless they had been retired for at least five years? And then they hired none anyway. Did they apply the same standards and scrutiny to Occupy "activists?"

• Jonathon Cronin, age 37, (COPA) is an Occupy activist:
  
  "In a press release issued by the Occupy Austin General Assembly, spokesperson Jonathan Cronin [Chicago] asserted that "on Thursday, Chief of Police Acevedo had addressed the GA and had every opportunity to raise the proposed changes and answer questions about them. His silence about them, followed by these actions, has been taken [by many] as a provocation," and that the incident was "entirely out of character from the good faith dealings we have had with city and police officials until now. Imposing these [new restrictions] apparently without due process is unnecessary and inflammatory.
  
  It seems the Wikipedia page is being amended, but his statement (being a Chicago spokesperson for Occupy) still shows up on search engines.
  
  So silence and inaction is "provocation"???? The pendulum is swinging back to the right, snowflakes.
  
  Using Alinsky's playbook, attack the person.

If one and the same, remember who is sitting in judgement of police actions.

Big Punitive Damage

So much for a Federal Court having more brains than a local one:

• PO went in the apartment with landlord on a CDTP call where the landlord opened the door for the PO. The Offender resisted arrest. The offender was tasered and sprayed with OC. Found NOT GUILTY. The same judge found a case before this one for resisting NOT GUILTY also. The judges and the public HATE us. The ex gf of offender gave a deposition that offender was told by POs he was under arrest. The jury chose to believe offender. The plaintiffs atty is an ex corp counsel ex states atty. The Sgt that responded to the 10-1 got $100,000 in punitive. The PO that showed up got $50,000 in punitive. The doctor where offender was treated testified offender has taser prong injuries that required ointment and a bandaids. No lasting injuries. The jury found punitive for unlawful entry, false arrest, excessive force, and malicious prosecution. The POS found on excessive force used OC and Taser. The Sgt just restrained his arm. The expert witness said the POs use of force was justified. In FEDERAL COURT the JURY chooses to believe the police or offender. It doesn’t have to make sense. You’re at the JURY’s mercy. $126,000 in compensatory against the city. $425,000 against 5 POs.

Now go out and get some ISR's!

Crime is Down, But...

Did anyone notice February?

• Illinois climate experts say the state saw its wettest February on record this year.
  
  Illinois state climatologist Jim Angel says statewide average precipitation was 5 inches last month. That's 2.9 inches above normal. The measurement beats the old record of 4.4 inches in February 2008.

Despite the fiction that McCompStat was pushing, weather has a direct effect on crime - even people (and folks) don't like to be waiting outside in the cold to shoot someone who needs shooting. How about Special Ed doesn't pat himself on the back too much and wait to see what the year brings?

More Arena Nonsense

You know how Dart keeps the media off his back? He hires their relatives. You know how Arena does it? He has his people feed them information he thinks is scandalous (click for larger versions):

And he has his people write to various left wing organizations to attempt to label city workers as insufficiently progressive:

And he has his people write to COPA to complain about officers expressing their Constitutionally protected opinions:

Where's the ACLU in defending American citizens from government interference in their private lives?

Off Duty Mugged Downtown (UPDATE!)

Crime in Boystown doing the heavy lifting in Chicago media:

• An off-duty Chicago police officer was hit with a bottle and robbed in the Near North neighborhood this weekend. Not far away, a Loop resident was mugged as she entered her high-rise residential building. The incidents are the latest in a violent crime surge that shows no signs of slowing down in the two neighborhoods.
  
  Around 2:30 a.m. on Saturday, a group of at least three men approached a 24-year-old off-duty officer in the 600 block of North Wells. A bottle was thrown at the man's face and he was robbed of his phone and personal items, according to the police department. The department did not identify the man as an off-duty officer, but his position was confirmed by a police source. Descriptions of the offenders were not offered by the department.

No descriptions? How can that be? But here's the disturbing trend that blogs are covering, but not the Department:

• Robberies in the Near North neighborhood are up 50% so far this year compared to the same time period in 2017. There were 45 hold-ups reported in the area through February 23 this year compared to 30 during the same timeframe last year and just 15 in 2014.
  
  CWBChicago has been closely watching the Loop’s robbery rate since last winter.
  
  So far this year, Loop muggings are up 106% compared to last year. Sixty-four robberies were reported through February 23, up from 31 during the same time period last year. Compared to 2014’s 13 muggings, incidents are up 80% in the Loop.

Even the police aren't immune to crime, so guess who might be even more vulnerable?

UPDATE from the BWC Blog authors:

• We inaccurately wrote that "Compared to 2014’s 13 muggings, incidents are up 80% in the Loop." That's wrong. We have now corrected our story with the corrected version" Compared to 2014’s 13 muggings, incidents are up 392% in the Loop."

An almost 400% increase in Loop muggings - time for Special Ed to resign, and take the mayor with you.

Special Ed Loses His Mind

Again:

• Don’t count on running into Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson at your local multiplex to catch a screening of the Chicago-set remake of “Death Wish.”
  
  The Bruce Willis movie is “not the type of narrative we want for our city,” Johnson said Friday, criticizing MGM for releasing the violent revenge fantasy so soon after the killing of Chicago police Cmdr. Paul Bauer in the Loop.
  
  “It’s unfortunate,” Johnson told WLS-AM 890’s Bill Cameron on Friday when he was asked about the timing of the release of the movie, which opens with the downtown killing of a police officer. “But of course I don’t think Hollywood really pays attention to that type of thing.”

Hollywood is a business Ed. Movies are planned and filmed a year, sometimes more in advance. Publicity screenings, posters, press releases, tours...Rahm's brother could explain it all to you, but they don't really care about local conditions seeing as how they're running a world-wide empire.

And what does a four-time felon murdering Commander Bauer have to do with a remake of a doctor who suffers a family loss at the hands of a recidivist criminal and embarks on a path of revenge when the justice system fails him? Is this somehow going to inspire Mrs. Bauer to take up arms and start executing criminals? She could run for mayor on a platform like that. Unless you're admitting that the release of violent criminals without adequate punishment onto Chicago streets might actually be a bad thing, despite what Dart, Prickwrinkle, Evans and Rahm are telling everyone?

Side note: Critics are panning this remake, with something like a 15% positive rating on assorted sites. However, test audiences are giving it an 80% positive rating, and many are calling it a "must see" revenge flick. We're all for seeing the guilty punished along more biblical lines.

Swat Sergeant Sadist

Hey Special Ed, what are you and Carter going to do about this?

• I’ve been on SWAT for almost three years now. How fucked up is our SWAT team? Judge for yourselves. One of the new guys ended up in intensive care after “defensive tactics” training. This brand new SWAT officer suffered facial fractures, three broken ribs and a collapsed lung. This sadistic SWAT Sgt enjoys beating up on new guys during training and he makes the new SWAT candidates beat on each other so he can video tape it.
  
  Even the Lt and other Sgts are scared of getting their asses whipped. I did not sign up to get a beating by any white shirt. WTF!!
  
  
• SCC this is 100% true!!!! It did happen on the 28th of February at Homan Square. The Sgt that did this, has had serious psycho issues that manifest into aggression towards POs including females. There are CR#s going back approximately 20 years ago. Please start a separate thread on this incident. The LT and Sgts are in serious cover up mode as this kid is lying in intensive care at Northwestern Hospital. Several of us at SWAT are contacting the union and even going as far as to contact the media

A facial fracture could be a training accident. A broken rib might be a training accident. A collapsed lung is a stretch to be a training accident.

All three in a single incident? You've got to be fucking kidding. It sounds like Aggravated Battery.

That's a piss-poor story to tell coppers. And to film it and put it on social media? Sounds like a multi-million dollar payout in the making. There ought to be some major league dumpings from trainers to observers, sergeant up through lieutenant, commanding officers and exempts who are supposed to be monitoring, grading and certifying training. It's not like it hasn't been known for a long time.

Hey Special Ed? Eric? If you like, we can track down a few people who know about what happened at Northwestern Hospital twelve or thirteen years ago. They've been lighting up our e-mail for days now.

You think they're going to make him Lieutenant? Read the comments here and here.

Funeral "Task Force"?

Dart looking for headlines again:

• Violence at cemeteries, and during funeral processions, in Cook County is increasing. A Hillside police chase is just one example of some of the violence. Chief Joe Lukaszek says three guns were recovered from the stolen SUV, which had just left a cemetery.
  
  “There’s no respect for the dead anymore,” he said.
  
  Cemeteries in Hillside are the final resting place for many gang members killed in Chicago. Funeral processions from the city often end up on the expressways, which lead to dangerous situations. “People, literally, are jumping on other sides of the road, driving next each other, weaving in and out of traffic, guns being waived out of cars. There’s been shots fired from vehicles, as well,” Sheriff Tom Dart said.
  
  As a result, Dart is creating a new task force to tackle the problem. It will be comprised of community leaders, citizens and law enforcement, as well as cemetery and funeral home owners.

How about Funeral Homes with a history of ill-behaved patrons have to post a $100,000 security bond if there is a procession to a cemetery?

• Shots fired during the procession and the entire amount is forfeited to the municipality that has to patrol these rolling disasters.
• A peaceful procession gets the funeral home a refund on whatever isn't used for security costs and a discount on future procession bonds.
• No security bond = no procession. You can cremate the deceased right at the funeral home in the parking lot - maybe use a 55-gallon drum - a scatter the ashes in the bushes outside.

It would be by far the most good gangbanging folks (or people) ever contributed to society.

Federal Charges

Let's see if this goes anywhere:

• Two teens accused of a violent carjacking in November are the first to face stiff federal charges as part of a collaborative effort between Chicago police and federal authorities to curb a surge of carjackings in recent months.
  
  “Anyone who commits a crime like this should know, we are coming for you,” Jeffrey Sallet, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Chicago office, warned in a statement.
  
  The indictment, made public Friday, charged Jason Dortch, 19, and Davontae Jones, 18, both of Chicago, with vehicular hijacking and brandishing a firearm during a crime of violence. Dortch is also charged with unlawful possession of a weapon by a felon.
  
  The two were already being held without bond while awaiting trial on state charges stemming from the same incident.
  
  The federal charges, however, significantly increase their potential sentences if convicted. The most serious charge in Friday’s indictment carries up to life in prison if convicted, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

There should be a few readers willing to keep track of these two. Any bets on how many years they actually get?

Firefighters Injured

One of them still in serious condition at last report:

• Two Chicago firefighters, including a 9-year-veteran who was badly injured, were taken to hospitals after a mayday alert was called during an extra-alarm fire in the Lawndale neighborhood on Saturday morning.
  
  The blaze, which broke out at 8:46 a.m. at 1921 S. St. Louis Ave., escalated quickly, bringing several more personnel and equipment to the scene, said Chicago Fire Dept. spokesman Larry Merritt.
  
  At 9 a.m., the 34-year-old veteran was on the second floor involved in the firefight when suddenly, he suffered a medical emergency, collapsed and began inhaling a lot of smoke, Merritt said. He lapsed into unconsciousness and at 9:02 a.m., a mayday and 2-11 alarm were called because he was briefly unaccounted for, Merritt said.
  
  “He went down’’ Merritt said. “He took in a lot of smoke, but we’re still trying to figure out what happened,’’ said Merritt.

Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

017

This is some story if accurate:

• And the subject of the ISR came up at the Compstat meeting on Thursday. In an "In yo face" moment, reminiscent of the McCarthy Compstat meetings, the Lt. from the 017th District Third Watch was Called Out for the amusement and entertainment of everyone present.
  
  IT SEEMS THAT THE 17TH DISTRICT 3RD WATCH FAILED TO GENERATE A SINGLE ISR FOR THE ENTIRE MONTH!Talk About Unity!The Lt. stammered, stuttered and committed the Mortal Sin of any Bureaucracy, by stating he was unaware of the zero ISR situation. So he was threatened, that he will be asked next meeting to explain the ISRs for his Watch.
  
  But what threat value other than embarrassment can be done to the Lieutenant? If the coppers in 017 start to issue ISR's and state that they are doing so because they were told that they must generate stops; does that sound like a Quota? What the Bosses, Political Hacks and Politicians fail to realize is they have forced coppers to the wall, because there is neither a Carrot or Stick. If next month the 017th District 3rd Watch again, has no ISRs, what can the Department do?

We'll certainly see what the Department thinks it can do at the next meeting. Stay tuned.

Other People's Money

Some "activists" are awfully free-handed with stuff that doesn't belong to them - kind of like their followers:

• “Or does the state have to buy back the guns, which it can’t afford?”
  
  Here’s one answer.
  
  Anti-gun peace priest the Rev. Michael Pfleger suggests: “Why not get the rich corporate muckety-mucks like Ken Griffin [the state’s richest man] and Gov. Bruce Rauner to use their billions to buy back the sold gun magazines?”

Why doesn't Phleger spend some of his own money if he's so Hell bent on getting magazines off the street? He has (or had) that giant gas-guzzling SUV for years with the "DA BLOOD" vanity plates. He's been seen shopping at high end stores for snazzy looking sweaters. His organization has paid out tens of millions covering for child molesters.

Why isn't he hitting up JB Pritzker for some of his billions? Or that wizard of the quick hit-and-run made up millions job Rahm? Doesn't Shrillary have some cattle future money lying around or some hundreds of millions in "foundation" money?

All we know is our magazines have suddenly become very hot commodities, worth five and six times what we paid for them.

Nice Mag Mile Rahm

Amusing descriptions of the offenders:

• Chicago police have secured and reopened Water Tower Place after a gun was fired there earlier Friday evening.
  
  Police say a dispute between two groups of people ended with someone discharging a gun.
  
  No one was was reportedly struck and no injuries have been reported.

Weren't those two "street ambassadors" supposed to be starting yesterday? Oh wait, that was only on State Street. North Michigan Avenue doesn't rate protection.

Arena Stalks Firefighters, Too

AlderDumbass filed EIGHTEEN IR Complaints (their version of a CR) with the CFD over social media posts objecting to his attempt to bring Section 8 housing into the Jefferson Park area.

What is it called when people in government attempt to weaponize the investigative processes to stifle Free Speech? And why isn't the media covering this at all?

We'll have even more info shortly.

Another Soda Tax Bombs

Gee, you'd think that people would want to pay extra taxes:

• Philadelphia set the bar last year when officials added a 1.5 cents-an-ounce to sweetened beverages. It only brought in $78.8 million…$13 million less than they city hoped.
  
  You mean to tell me that when you charge a lot more for pop that people won’t buy it? I’m SHOCKED! Not really. I mean, as a loyal Diet Coke consumer, the tax wouldn’t have pushed me away. But come on. You shouldn’t really rely on a tax on something that people can avoid.

Prickwrinkle was not only below expectations, Cook County was losing all sorts of sales tax revenue as people did all of their shopping elsewhere. And we'll just say, should a statewide soda tax ever appear, we're close enough to Wisconsin and/or Indiana to make that shopping trip more than worth it.

Surprised?

No, not really.

This is the company providing two security ambassadors to downtown. And she continues to give her progeny a leg up with multiple "merit" promotions and if the rumor is true, a driver's spot for the First Deputy at sergeant salary.

Acupuncturist?

Dart has some weird priorities:

• Cook County Sheriff Thomas Dart dumped high-ranking jail officers to cut payroll following the repeal of a countywide tax on sugary drinks, but kept political appointees who supervised acupuncture, cable television and “talent for inmates,” a lawsuit by laid-off officers contends.
  
  The lawsuit filed Thursday in Circuit Court by 17 former jail commanders argues the senior officers were not allowed to accept a drop in rank, and were targeted because they had been active in a drive to form a union nearly a decade ago.
  
  A spokeswoman for Dart fired back that the sheriff was coping with a “bad hand” dealt after County Board President Toni Preckwinkle mandated sweeping cuts— and said the department has never employed an acupuncturist, nor the other positions named in the lawsuit.

And how overloaded is the jail?

• Both suits allege Dart has hired some 200 civilians as directors, high-paying appointed jobs whose ranks were not thinned in the same proportion as employees whose jobs have a more direct role in public safety.

How the Hell do you need 200 directors for anything? CPD has 17 Deputy Chiefs and that's about 10 too many by any measure. But 200 Directors?

Class Act

That JJJr can't live on a generous taxpayer funded retirement:

• Jesse Jackson Jr. says the wolves are at his door.
  
  And his taxpayer-funded $125,000 in annual workers’ compensation and disability payments isn’t enough to maintain the lifestyle his estranged wife and fellow ex-con Sandi Jackson has become accustomed to, he says.
  
  So he’s asking a Washington, D.C., judge to order the sale of the $2 million home where Sandi lives with her mother and the couple’s 14-year-old son and 17-year-old daughter.
  
  The kids can temporarily move into a D.C. home owned by his father, Jesse Jackson Sr., lawyers for Jackson Jr. say in a court filing.

It certainly is amazing how well the Jacksons have done without ever holding a real job in their lives. It doesn't seem to have bought Junior any class though.

Private Security

Kind of embarrassing for Rahm and Special Ed:

• The Chicago Loop Alliance has hired two armed security guards who will begin patrolling State Street on Thursday with the goal of supplementing police presence, curbing shoplifting and dealing with panhandlers.
  
  The Chicago Loop Alliance, the main advocate for the downtown business district, contracted with HLSA Security for the guards. They will patrol between Wacker Drive and Congress Parkway on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, for eight hours each day at various times around midday and in the evening.
  
  The uniformed security guards, which the alliance is referring to as “street ambassadors,” will each have a gun and a badge and be able to make arrests. Their hours will increase starting in May, the alliance said. They will cost about $114,000 annually.
  
  Ald. Brendan Reilly, 42nd, has long pushed for an increased police presence downtown.

Perhaps the Chicago Loop Alliance should be applying for a property tax rebate seeing as how the police presence is sorely lacking enough for them to hire armed security to secure their stores and city sidewalks.

Is the FOP aware that police jobs are being farmed out?

$10 Grand?

This is still going on?

• The “going rate” for a job in Cook County Circuit Court Clerk Dorothy Brown’s office was about $10,000, an employee once told investigators.
  
  A “bagman” allegedly collected money for the clerk. And her employees generally had the impression that “financial benefits to the clerk could result in securing promotions,” according to documents filed by federal prosecutors.
  
  The allegations revealed in the newly filed documents may date back at least to 2015. But they also indicate the feds are still conducting “an ongoing and active criminal investigation” which has involved allegations of lies told to a grand jury, bribery, wire fraud and extortion.

We've heard (repeatedly) that promotions are still for sale across a wide range of city positions, as long as you promise to "contribute" a set percentage back to the Machine. But actually selling jobs? We thought that went out in the 1970's.

Update to Anti-Police Hater

The jewelry store owner who was bashing the funeral of Commander Bauer is still at it, though under a new name:

• The jewelry store lady Sherri Bourdage that bashed the funeral of Cmdr. Bauer has changed her name on fb to Sherri Crisan.
  
  She is now on fb attacking the son of a line of duty death officer.

She also changed the name of her store:

• Update: The name of the business has been changed to "I Do Pearls".
  
  Also, Yelp has removed comments related to her Facebook posting.

Adjust your shopping plans accordingly. Mention it around town, too.

Thank You Blue

Weekend event coming up:

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