DNA Catches Attacker

One of our own was as a victim:

• A rape suspect was linked by DNA to a daylight attack on an off-duty Chicago police officer who was jogging in a Northwest Side park but was able to fight him off, Cook County prosecutors said Friday.
  
  Rolando "Cortez" Cortes, 21, was arrested Thursday on the new charge at Cook County Jail, where he has been held without bail for the last 14 months on charges he kidnapped and sexually assaulted another woman as she left a health club in the same area, prosecutors said.
  
  "I find you a danger to the community," Judge Donald Panarese Jr. told Cortes on Friday as he ordered him held without bail as well on the new charge of sexual abuse.
  
  The female officer, then 39, was jogging on the Sauganash Park bike path in the 5800 block of North Rogers Avenue about 2:45 p.m. on Aug. 29, 2013, when Cortes grabbed her neck from behind, said Assistant State's Attorney Sarah Karr.
  
  The two struggled and fell down an embankment into bushes. Cortes fondled the woman over her clothes, Karr said. The officer screamed and tried to push him off her, but he repeatedly punched her about the head to try to silence her, she said.
  
  The officer dug her nails into Cortes' eyes and grabbed his genitals, causing him to run away, Karr said. The officer tried to chase after him, but her hair had become tangled in a bush.

A harrowing experience to be sure. But over 18 months to find a DNA match? And he was waiting in County for 14 of those months. Is the ISP Lab still that backed up? Something has to change over there.

School Scandal Deepens

Once again, scandal:

• Chicago Public Schools chief Barbara Byrd-Bennett is taking a paid leave of absence in the face of a federal investigation that subpoenas show is taking a broad approach in its search for information about the district's decision to award a $20.5 million no-bid contract.
  
  Chicago Board of Education Vice President Jesse Ruiz, an attorney and former chairman of the Illinois State Board of Education, was appointed interim CEO. Ruiz and school board President David Vitale were among officials that voted 6-0 in 2013 to approve a contract to the SUPES Academy training organization that is at the heart the federal inquiry.
  

We don't know what you think, but it is our experience that people don't take "leaves" unless the feds have them dead-bang. In fact, the feds don't usually announce investigations unless they're hoping to get someone to talk in the face of an upcoming dead-bang indictment.

You have to love the fact that the next two guys in charge also voted for this crooked ass deal.

Police Shooting

South Shore:

• A male was shot by Chicago Police officers Friday night in the South Shore neighborhood.
  
  The shooting happened about 11 p.m. near East 74th Street and South Merrill Avenue, according to preliminary information from police.
  
  Grand Crossing District tactical officers on patrol in the area of East 71st Street and South Paxton Avenue heard shots fired and saw a vehicle speeding away from the area, police Deputy Chief Dana Alexander told reporters at the scene.
  
  The officers gave chase and, near 74th and Merrill, a male bailed from the vehicle with a weapon in his hand, Alexander said.
  
  The officers ordered him to drop the weapon, but instead he turned around and pointed the gun at them, Alexander said. The officers fired two shots, striking the male.

Weapon recovered and cops okay - well done Officers.

Lots of Changes

Pretty much the biggest list anyone has seen in years:

• Lieutenants to XO's
• A. Escamilla from 007 to 014
• P. Kwasinski from 010 to 012
• P. Kane from 018 to 006
• P. Bauer from 059 to 018
• R. Blisset from 241 to 007
• R. Darlin from OCD to 022
• Lieutenants to Acting Commanders
• B. Deenihan to IAD
• Captain to Acting Commanders
• R. Cesario from Central Investigations to 019
• C. Lott from 018 to 020
• M. Buslic from 014 to 014
• R. Nieves from 012 to 024
• E. Kulbida from 007 to 012
• G. Devereaux from 006 to 018
• Lateral Commanders
• E. Voulgaris from 019 to Bureau of Patrol
• K. Duffin from 020 to Area North
• T. Waldera from 024 to OCD
• G. Yamashiroya from Area North to Youth
• Is this a demotion?
• M. Staples from Cmdr 012 to XO Patrol North
• Commander to Deputy Chief
• W. Dunn from 018 to Area Central

A lot of heavy there.  And a lot of nonsense spots. There so much fat and redundancy at the top, if this Department were a ship, it'd tip over in a strong breeze. 

10 Hour Day Survey (UPDATE)

Patrol released this reminders for feedback on the pilot program:

Using your PC# keeps the trolls from answering the survey. So you have 005 and Area South Saturation evaluating this thing. First up, you really shouldn't have a phone call unit answering this survey:

• they run two shifts, so there isn't the overlap that will short an actual watch equipment
• we just love how they promise the results will be released to ensure transparency - like the J-Fled survey
• it's a phone call unit answering a survey logged under their PC# - they're expected to answer honestly? In Chicago? When they can be dumped at a moment's notice?
• who is actually watching? Does the FOP have a rep monitoring the inbox? Who's to say the answers released are actually the answers submitted?

Everyone knows McCarthy wants this. He has threatened people to get on board or get out. He has stated at CompStat words to the effect of "You see who won the election? I'm not going anywhere." So he most likely has Rahm's blessing to continue destroying the Department.

Where's the part about FOP members getting to vote on the 10-hour day proposal...like last time they changed the schedule. We had a voice. Now? No one knows. And they're going to use the input of a single district of 300 officers along with a phone call unit to stick the 10-hour day down the throats (or up the asses) of 9,000?

We sense big problems ahead.

UPDATE: Does anyone actually think a Unit does a 10-hour day? Please.

Not Just One List of Cr's Released

Two lists.

On 09 April, a list was released pursuant to the lawsuit "Jamie Kalven v City of Chicago Police Department 15 CH 03492"  According to the e-mail this list covered March 2015 back to March 2011

On 24 April, the Department will release another list covering 13 April 2011 to 13 April 2015. This case is limited to a four year stretch due to a decision in the case titled "FOP Chicago Lodge No. 7 et al v City of Chicago and Chicago Police Department."

No idea what they're fishing for, but the labor organizations for each rank are supposed to have a copy of the lists upon release.

Burge Speaks

Releasing a statement to Martin Preib which can be located at his site:

• In an exclusive statement to the Conviction Project, former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge responds to the decision by the Chicago City Council to establish a reparations fund for exonerated offenders.

Nine paragraphs - a quick read. We won't even try to excerpt it. Head over to Preib's site and read it. Then you can come back here and comment - Burge summarizes the lies the media keeps reporting and the fabrications told by the convicted.

Hey Mark Brown?

Go f#$% yourself, too - a completely craptacular article by a clown - we sample it below:

• The convergence of three separate police department scandals at one City Council meeting Wednesday could be explained by more than Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s desire to tidy up old business before he starts a new term.
  
  A line can be drawn from the Jon Burge police torture cases to police mishandling of the David Koschman death investigation to the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, who was shot 16 times by a police officer whose actions were caught on videotape.
  
  I’m not saying it’s a straight line, but you don’t need a particularly broad brush to connect the dots.

But there you are with your broad brush, painting by the numbers.

• A Police Department that would look the other way with detectives torturing suspects to get confessions is the same type of department that would pin the death of a nobody suburban kid at the hand of a clouted mayor’s nephew on the dead suburban kid.

Except no one was looking the other way about torture - it didn't happen. There hasn't ever been a shred of proof that it did. You can't prove a negative, but the media seems to miss that.

• I see a common thread of a longstanding police culture that allows some of its personnel to operate above or outside the law, fitting the evidence to the desired outcome, and that circles the wagons when someone goes too far or simply slips up.
  
  For all of the emphasis Wednesday on the city finally closing a sad chapter in its history with the creation of the torture reparations fund, I would suggest nothing is behind us until we see that larger picture and address it.

Which no one in the media has ever been willing to do. Who was in charge of hte State's Attorneys office at the time? Oh yeah, Shortshanks. Who approved or disapproved these cases going forward based on evidence presented to them by the detectives? Oh yeah, Shortshanks. Who appointed via a crooked "merit" process and promoted people into positions of power, those who could steer an investigation that touched the royal family of Chicago? Shortshanks again. Do you see where this is leading? Or are you willfully blind once again?

• Part of that larger picture may be a public that for too long didn’t take the torture allegations seriously, chalking it up as the cost of doing business for police officers battling criminal elements whose welfare was no concern of our own.
  
  That dates back to when this was still a predominantly white city and those suspects were nearly all African-Americans.

You know who else was Black Mark? The fucking victims. The ones who couldn't speak. The ones that cried out from the graves for some sort of justice. Not to mention their family members, those left behind, who had to bury their family members.

• The mayor deserves credit for the city “owning up to its responsibility” for the Burge torture era that he called a “stain on the history of this city and its reputation.”
  
  But we won’t get the “closure” he seeks until we recognize the stain runs deeper.

You think that maybe some introspection is in order? Maybe a mirror so the media can look at themselves as they report lie after mis-characterization after false construct? The stain on Chicago media runs as deep or deeper than any stain on the city - the media is supposed to be the fourth-estate, the even-handed watchdog, not the lapdog that sniffs its masters ass and licks his hand.

Hey Spike?

Go f#$% yourself:

• If filmmaker Spike Lee plans to call his next movie “Chiraq” — an inner-city tale of black-on-black violence filmed in Englewood — he might want to think twice about asking taxpayers to kick in a multimillion dollar tax break, Ald. Will Burns said.
  
  On Wednesday, the South Side alderman asked Lee’s representatives at a meeting with the Illinois Film Office and city department of special events about how much of a tax break the Amazon Studios production hopes to collect.
  
  “They said $3 million,” Burns (4th) said. “I said, 'You recognize that by seeking public support that gives us a seat at the table.' They had no response to that.”

Seat at the table? Screw that - tell him to take his movie and pound sand.

Another Investigation?

Rahm just loves to appoint people who are (or are soon to be) under investigation by the feds:

• Federal authorities are investigating Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett and a $20.5 million contract the district awarded on a no-bid basis to a training academy that formerly employed her, sources said.
  
  The CPS inspector general's office began an investigation into the contract with north suburban-based SUPES Academy and Byrd-Bennett's relationship to the company in 2013, a source said. The U.S. attorney's office then started its own probe, and a grand jury has been reviewing evidence for at least a year, the source said.
  
  CPS officials have discussed the possibility of appointing an interim CEO depending on the outcome of the investigation, a source said. Byrd-Bennett, who was appointed by Mayor Rahm Emanuel in October 2012, attended a regularly scheduled meeting at CPS headquarters Wednesday and remains in her post.

For such a "squeaky clean" guy who promised reform and a break with the past corruption, he sure seems to have a lot of people committing felonies under his nose...just like the bad old days.

Changes Coming

For real.

Friday.

Unless Garry jumps the gun and releases them today.

If You Could Do it All Again...

This isn't a new thought:

• The fourth annual Police officer job satisfaction survey results are in. This year the results are stunning. The majority of cops report they wish they had become firefighters.
  
  [...] This year for the first time in nearly twenty years, the majority of officers when asked “if you had it to do over would you still seek a career in police work” said no. Nearly 66% of respondents indicated they wish they had not become cops.
  
  A follow up question for persons saying they wish they sought a different career path was “if you had it to do over what other career path would you pick”. 80% of the respondents who answered this question indicated “Firefighter”.

Everyone is happy when the fire department shows up - they're usually there to save your stuff. When we show up, someone is likely going to jail. If not, we don't usually bring good news. Nationally, police procedures and policies are under attack and being second guessed like never before. People with zero understanding of how and why laws, rules and methods are in place expect miracles where miracles are seldom to be found.

In light of recent events, this can't be viewed as surprising by anyone with a brain.

Just an FYI to readers - Rule #7 still applies. We're allowed to bitch about the job.

Interesting

No wonder Illinois is going broke:

Rahm can't even lease Illinois trucks.

From the Files of "Duh...."

Guess who has the most unfair tax system?

• For Illinois residents, there’s isn’t much good financial news.
  
  In fact, it’s so bad, even Abraham Lincoln is feeling the effects of it, 150 years after his assassination.
  
  And now, a new report from Wallet Hub rubs salt in your Tax Day wounds. The report shows Illinois residents have the highest state and local tax obligations, paying more than 2.5 times more than the cheapest states.
  
  This comes on the heels of a report showing Illinois has the second-highest real estate taxes in the nation. The state also has one of the most unfair tax systems.

And like an abused spouse, Illinois voters keep coming back for more.

Brainwashing

This is some shit:

• Chicago schoolchildren would be taught about the notorious Jon Burge torture scandal in eighth- and 10th-grade history classes, under a sweeping reparations package presented by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Chicago aldermen.

Well, this is typical leftist crap - the story is more important than the actual facts and findings. Always about the "message" instead of the facts - you know, like Ferguson, the Rolling Stone fake rape story, the Duke "noose" brouhaha, the Porter and Hobley "exonerations," etc, etc - the list is quite extensive and getting longer by the day.

And here's some more crap:

• [some lying sack of crap] said many torture victims suffer from what amounts to post-traumatic stress disorder, with their family members suffering "secondary trauma." Family members too will be eligible for counseling and free tuition, with grandchildren of torture victims eligible to attend City Colleges for free.

You know what? We'll sign off on this crap and never write another word about it under one single condition. Just one. It isn't even a difficult demand...unless you're a crippled parasite of the victimhood mentality:

• Not one more fucking word about "poor lil ol' me - I got tortured!" No more excuses. No more handouts. No more, "the man is keeping me down." No more "I'm owed" bullshit that is destroying this city, this state, this country. No more cradle-to-grave handouts.

You get these assholes to agree to that and we'll never type another word about Burge - defending, or supporting. Not one word.

But it'll never happen. Children and grandchildren of murderers, rapists, arsonists, robbers, burglars and thieves of every stripe? We'll bet $1,000 right here and now, that upwards of 75% of those supposed "secondary" victims never see a degree of any sort, even from the diploma mills of the City Colleges. The victim-card is just too good a deal to pass up.

Funnily, the DNAInfo.com article links to Reader articles by John Conroy, whose credibility Officer Martin Preib absolutely destroyed in this article we linked to just yesterday.

Here's Some Fantasy

As we read with increasing disgust the tall tales coming out of the media today over the Burge "reparations" we were amazed that people actually believe this crap, that a wholesale top-to-bottom conspiracy could have existed at any point during this entire scenario. An example:

• Holmes said he had a plastic bag placed over his head to threaten strangulation and was shocked with an electric generator. He said once the bag was over his head and the generator was attached to his body, "it was all about the electrocution and the strangulation."

Strangulation? Suffocation maybe? And wasn't it always a typewriter cover - despite the fact that no typewriter covers were ever located.

"Electric generator?" Have you ever actually seen an electric generator? It's not something you lug around from cell to cell to torture people with - unless you want to torture the poor bastard carrying it around. They're large, heavy, greasy, unwieldy objects.

On to the grand conspiracy - after all this torturing and beating and electrocuting and suffocating, is someone going to clean up the spit, piss, vomit and feces all over the place? Torture is messy - look at the torture cells in third world shitholes. Floor drains, channels for drainage, easily washable walls, usually by hoses, etc. You think Burge and his minions actually did the cleaning themselves? If not, where are all the poor schlubs who did the cleaning? No one came forward to complain?

And lock-up keepers. Any of them step forward to relate to any lawyer or investigator that a prisoner they checked out to the Detectives came back in less than stellar shape? Maybe a doctors note from some hospital relating unusual burns or trauma or ligature marks? Of course, this being a grand conspiracy and all, we suppose Byrne, Bilandic and Washington had all those hospitals closed in the 70's and 80's so they could seal away those medical records of so-called torture.

What about County? The sheriff and his guards accepted prisoners beaten so badly that their own mother wouldn't recognize them - any of them step forward to relate that during a preliminary hearing that Prisoner #24601 was pissing blood, had swollen neck bruises and had to be wheeled in on a stretcher with an IV just to enter a plea?

How about this fanciful tale?

• So might Darrell Cannon, who testified about being tortured by three Burge "henchmen" in the Police Department in 1983. Cannon said he was taken to a remote area of the South Side and told to "look around" at how there was no one to witness what might happen to him. Cannon said he was threatened three times with shotgun blasts to the head in what amounted to a game of "Russian roulette."

Anyone here ever try to play Russian Roulette with a shotgun? Yeah, we didn't think so. It's a simple single-chambered weapon that goes "bang" if loaded and the trigger is pulled. Besides, you can't use an over/under or double-barreled shotgun - it won't fit easily in a suspect's mouth, and as far as we've read, no one ever reported so much as a chipped tooth from these party games. Russian Roulette with a shotgun is universally recognized as one of the three shortest games in existence.

What a load of crap this all is:

• no supposed "instruments of torture" were ever produced (aside from the one created by the Peoples Law Office to show what one might have looked like),
• no witnesses outside of convicts (who had every reason in the world to lie and were undoubtedly coached by plaintiff attorneys for years),
• no outside documentation from jail intake, hospitals or independent eyewitnesses ever came forward to verify a single hair was out of place on one of these altar boys
• nor a single Patrol Officer, Lockup Keeper, Wagon Man, all of whom had numerous and document-able contact with each and every alleged "victim" of torture ever broke their silence, even with the potential of universal acclaim from the Left and undoubted riches from the media so eager to prove Burge and his Detectives ran a torture chamber in Area 2

That's one hell of a stretch of the imagination.

UPDATE: Whoever is claiming some "doctor" at County documented something, link it. Point everyone in the right direction. Something from an actual reputable document, not some made up shit like the PLO did. Don't you think that would have been trumpeted by the media if it actually existed?

Statistics

In light of today's actions and statements by Rahm and the City Council:

We'll tell you this - we're getting goddamn sick and tired of pulling up on the scene of a domestic that you called us to and then parading around for all the neighbors with your hands in the air and bellowing over and over that you can't breathe.

"Merit" Carry Over?

From the comments:

• You're 100% right., 31 does seem like an odd number for a class. But it's not that weird when you do math CPD-style. The 5th floor was told that they could make 60 new Sgts this year. However, there wasn't time to get new merit interviews done and still have these new white-shirts on the street before summer. So, they compromised. Class of 31 now (all off the list) with a second class of 29 to be announced later this year. But wait, you didn't think that merit was dead did you? The second class will take up those merit picks that class #1 left on the table. Class 2 will be 11 list and 18 merit making the total merit selection rate for both classes exactly 30%.
  
  --------------
  
  Can the city do that? Isn't it 30% merit for each round of promotions? Each class, they can't use merit spots from this class on future classes.

Now there's a question for the FOP. As we recall previous Promotional Examination notices, the 30% for supervisors and 20% for Detective spots was a "use it or lose it" deal. If the City/Department didn't use their "merit," it was forfeit. In fact, we're pretty sure that the fractions were rounded DOWN, not up in the event of an uneven distribution of promotions.

We wouldn't put it past the city to have some sort of language added/amended to the Contract or Examination Notices that said something along the lines of "30% of the total promotions from the eligiblity list" instead of "from a class."

Of course, the FOP has historically said since you are leaving their union, they didn't care to press the issue and the PBPA said that since all the new promotees joined them anyway, they didn't care to fight it either way. It's all part of the fracturing of the labor organizations to keep them at each others' throats.

Preib Destroys the Media Again

And you'll read about in one place - his website:

• It was the worst crime scene many detectives had ever seen. A building had caught fire on the south side of Chicago in January of 1987. Seven people trapped inside died, including a mother and her child on the third floor. More than a dozen other people were seriously injured, some with burns and some with broken bones from jumping out of windows to escape the flames.
  
  There were several ambulances, fire engines everywhere. Neighbors came out with blankets and shoes. Police arrived. Eventually, many of them relocated to the hospitals and the morgue to begin collecting evidence and statements.
  
  In short time, investigators determined the fire was an arson. An unknown offender had poured accelerant outside apartment 301, the dwelling where the woman and her child died. The seven people who died really didn’t have a chance. They died cornered by the flames fast approaching them.

A subhuman scumbag named Hobley was eventually tried, convicted and sent to Death Row.

Unfortunately for society, he happened to be the subject of numerous slanted articles by The Reader creating a conspiracy that couldn't possibly have existed. This attracted the interest of the lying perjurers at Northwestern University and soon-to-be-convicted governor Ryan.

Unfortunately for Chicago taxpayers, the city rolled over and gave Hobley $6 million in the face of overwhelming evidence that he burned seven people to death.

Go read it all. Taxpayers fleeced to the tune of millions over and over, the politicians rallying to demean the police, the media advancing lies and the FOP silent.

Connections Connections?

Rumor or fact? We linked this article yesterday and someone chimed in in the comment section:

• Leon Dingle Jr. and his wife, Karin Dingle, leased out a portion of a small, one-story building they owned on the West Side to UIC for storage. They collected nearly $700,000 in rent over seven years from the state university — more than twice the $310,000 they paid for the entire building, university and property records show. When the university signed the lease, Leon Dingle was treasurer of the Illinois Medical District Commission, a government agency that oversees development within a 560-acre swath of the West Side that includes the UIC hospital campus. Four years earlier, Dingle and his fellow commissioners agreed to put up a $30 million office building at 1747 W. Roosevelt that UIC is now buying on an installment contract
  
  ...lawyer for this contract is PATRICK DALEY THOMPSON and Richie Daley's friends are the developlers!
  
  4/12/2015 06:27:00 AM
  
  Newly-minted Alderman Patrick DALEY Thompson? Oh, please let this be true, so we can be rid of yet another Daley scourge.

His website touts his experience in real estate law and municipal financing. This could be Pulitzer material in the right hands.