Black Friday Protests

For the second year in a row, malcontents are going to interrupt citizens freedom of movement to buy stuff:

• For a second straight year, protesters will attempt to disrupt Black Friday shopping along Chicago’s Magnificent Mile.
  
  Last year, hundreds of demonstrators marched on North Michigan Avenue last year to protest what they called unjustified police shootings.
  
  That forced many businesses to close earlier on the busiest shopping day of the year.
  
  This year, protesters say they will be back on the Mag Mile, to draw attention to gun violence, racism and police brutality.

Again, how about marching where....you know....the violence is actually occurring?

Would that be too dangerous?

Or are the marchers admitting that the violence is moving downtown?

Hey Special Ed? How about we keep the streets and entrance/exits clear this time so people can engage in lawful commerce?

Another Exam?

We heard they aren't even halfway through the current list of eligible-to-be-hired, but the pool is evidently so small, the City expects to finish it before the year is out.

So if you know anyone willing to be second guessed by

• the media,
• the revrunds,
• the City Council,
• mayor, 
• clergy
• and assorted "community" groups

while putting their

• cars,
• homes,
• paycheck,
• freedom
• and life

on the line for

• an ungrateful,
• entitled,
• hateful culture
• who has never actually done the job,
• but knows everything about the job

direct them to this link and get their ass hired!

The Truth Comes Out

From the e-mail basket:

• Breaking news on the recent attack by squirrel. The Squirrel in question has been identified as Snappy D. Squirrel, age 13, of the local elm lofts. The family has provided as usual the traditional post incident picture of his 8th grade graduation. When interviewed, Mrs. Squirrel was only able to state 'my baby, my baby be dead". please find enclosed the picture as provided by the grieving family. Protests can be expected as SLM (Squirrel Lives Matter) held a vigil on the bike path halting bicycle traffic yesterday for several hours, calling for the end of bicycles and aldermen. A lawsuit was also filed yesterday in Cook County court against Specialized Bicycles for wrongful death.

SqLM!!!

Oh the humanity!!!

• Don't mess with the squirrels!
  
  That was the nasty but unambiguous message sent to Ald. Howard Brookins, 21st, by Chicago's rodent community just weeks after he gave a fiery City Council speech decrying the menace of "aggressive squirrels."
  
  Out cycling on the Cal-Sag Trail on Nov. 13, Brookins was jumped by a kamikaze squirrel that leapt into the front wheel of his bike and lodged himself in the spokes, sending the alderman flying over the handlebars.
  
  The attack cost the squirrel its life and left Brookins needing surgery and other treatment for a broken nose, a fractured skull and five or six teeth that were knocked out in the accident.

The Tribune, adding insult to injury, published a picture of the offending rodent tangled in the spokes:

If the squirrels are organizing, we could easily see a homicide total rising into the 1,000's. Remember what happened when the insect world almost took over?

The media couldn't wait to deliver society into their cruel clutches.

Crooked Reporter Still Crooked

Martin Prieb hits another one out of the park. 

Disgraced Tribune "reporter" Steven Mills is already under a cloud for his horseshit reporting regarding the Anthony Porter/Alstory Simon debacle where a convicted killer was released and an innocent man framed with the media's assistance based on nothing except the hyperventilating of assorted leftists.

Now he is pushing the "innocence" of four more convicted rapist/murderers, misrepresenting the trial, evidence and crap-tacular work of the State's Attorney office. And the basis for much of Steven Mills' "reporting?"

Quoting his own disgraced columns.

Preib nail it down, exposing yet another series of agenda driven media lies that put dangerous criminals on the street.

Go read it all.

And Another Study

Blowing holes in the liberal slant and misreporting so prevalent over few past two years:

• The day after a Minnesota cop was charged in the July shooting death of a black man, an in-depth study purported to show race generally does not play a role in police shootings.
  
  Among the findings of the investigation released Thursday by the Crime Prevention Research Center: White police officers are not significantly more likely to shoot black suspects; body cameras have had little effect on decreasing police killings; the more cops at the scene, the less likely it is a suspect will be shot.
  
  The study examined data from 2013 to 2015, a time period which almost perfectly bookends the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., in August 2014, an episode that helped lead to the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement and placed increased scrutiny on police shootings. Yet, the research team of John Lott and Carlisle Moody found the percentage of black suspects killed in the 19 months before Brown’s death (24.8 percent) was almost exactly the same as the percentage killed in the 16 months after Brown’s death (25 percent).

Imagine that. Police profile criminal behavior, and not skin tones, because police know criminals come in all shapes, sizes and colors.

The entire study is here. John Lott is a bright mind and a thorough researcher.

We're Number One!

New York and Los Angeles, even combined, can't top Chicago's murder total:

• Chicago was pushed into an unwanted spotlight earlier this year when it was noted the city has recorded more murders than New York City and Los Angeles combined.
  
  As the year winds down, that’s still holding true.
  
  The city surpassed 700 homicides over the weekend, according to a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of Cook County medical examiner’s records. That number includes 10 cases in which victims died this year but were injured in previous years.
  
  The Chicago Police Department tallied 654 murders as of Nov. 13. The department’s total omits “non-criminal” deaths that the medical examiner classifies as homicides, as well as expressway murders handled by the Illinois State Police.

NYC + LA = 558.

HeyJackass has the total at 711, and you can see some of the manipulation where the CPD doesn't count expressway murders, even though the roads are entirely within the corporate boundaries of Chicago - it's like a twilight zone where nothing matters. Death investigations that get re-classified after 01 January of next year are also carefully omitted.

And Chicago is still between 100 and 150 murders over the combined totals.

Can anyone explain why Special Ed still has a job?

Charges - But Why Was She Free?

Quick work on this one:

• A 16-year-old boy and a 17-year-old girl were ordered held without bail Sunday after being charged with murder in the shooting death of Jovan Wilson, the grandson of U.S. Rep. Danny Davis.
  
  Tariq M. Harris, 16, and Dijae T. Banks, 17, are charged as adults with first-degree murder in an attack that started as a fight over clothes and shoes, police and prosecutors said. The pair were taken into custody Saturday.

Nice job by the detectives. But this comment popped up in the comment section:

• The offenders are in custody.
  So many things I want to say about this case, but I can't, for legal reasons.
  And the rant would be endless.
  I'll leave it at this: there is NO REASON the offender should have ben on the street. Actually, scratch that...there are LAWS THAT PROHIBITED THIS OFFENDER BEING ALLOWED TO BE ON THE STREET, THAT WERE PURPOSELY BYPASSED.
  I hope every person involved, JUDGE, HEAD JUDGE, PRICKWINKEL, and every other bastard that intentionally did not follow mandated sentencing guidelines, serves time for this one.

Sounds like the Cook County courts once again, released someone who shouldn't have been released? There's a clue in the article:

• At the time of the shooting, Banks was on probation for a robbery conviction.

So who dropped the ball on this one? IDOC? Tommy Dart? Either "day-for-day" credit or "empty the jail/prison!" is to blame for this predator being on the street.

Step up and take your hit. Tell the taxpayers why these convicts aren't in a cage where they belong, serving their entire sentences. Don't worry about fallout - Danny Davis has been supporting this sort of thing all his life - he couldn't possibly hold it against anyone.

UPDATE: On probation for FIVE burglaries? WTF?

Good Deed Makes Mom Angry

Willie Wilson catching some heat over his bailing out criminals:

• A mother is angry and frustrated that businessman Willie Wilson bailed her daughter out of Cook County Jail.
  
  Marcie Rotheiser said her daughter is addicted to drugs and putting her back on the streets put her in danger.
  
  She said she was at her wits' end trying to get help for her 23-year-old daughter. She's spent years dealing with social workers and psychologists, but nothing worked.
  
  Wilson said he had no idea of her background when he bailed her out of jail.

And she promptly went out, met her old friends and started getting high immediately, even disappearing at one point. She might still be missing according to one report. No good deed goes unpunished, especially when you seem to have no screening process in place.

More Ambushes

St. Louis just hours ago:

• A St. Louis police sergeant was shot in the face near Hampton and Pernod avenues around 7:30 p.m. Sunday. Police said he was shot twice, was conscious, was in serious condition but was expected to live.

And San Antonio earlier Sunday, in broad daylight:

• A veteran San Antonio police in the in the Special Victims Unit shot and killed before noon Sunday while performing a routine traffic stop near police headquarters downtown, officials said, prompting a citywide search for the gunman.
  
  SAPD Chief William McManus said the shooting occurred on the south side of SAPD headquarters, at 11:45 a.m. where the officer, identified as Detective Benjamin Marconi, 50, was issuing a traffic citation. As he did so, a black vehicle pulled up behind the officer's unit.
  
  The suspect got out of the car, walked up to the passenger window and fired one round into the patrol car, hitting Marconi in the head, McManus said. He said the suspect reached in and fired again, hitting Marconi a second time.

Head on a swivel Officers.

Oh Yeah....

There was a shooting the other night, too:

• Chicago police fatally shot a male late Friday after seeing him shoot another man, according to officials.
  
  Chicago police officers were in a marked car about 11:50 p.m. Friday patrolling the area when they came across the male involved in a skirmish with another in the 2000 block of West 69th Street in the West Englewood neighborhood on the city's South Side, said [a] spokesman for the department.
  
  Officers witnessed the male shooting at a man [...]. The officers stopped and got out of their car. The officers announced their positions and ordered the male attacker to drop his weapon, according to a news release.
  
  At this point, the male attacker was still shooting at the man....
  
  One of the officers then shot the attacker, fatally wounding him, [...]. The male, whose age was not known, was later pronounced dead.

No word yet on protests because you know that:

• the police shouldn't have intervened in a private dispute,
• they was just funnin',
• he didn't have no gun,
• they planted that gun (and the bullet in the other guy's intestines),
• y'all racist

Etc, etc etc.

Mt Greenwood Protest

Supposedly, there's a big protest planned for today in Mt. Greenwood. All the usual suspects will be there, along with the Phony Phather, protesting the fact that a black man from Indiana decided it would be a good idea to wave a gun around over a traffic dispute. NEWSFLASH! It wasn't a good idea at all.

Hey Special Ed, we know you're in Rome. When are you going to release the other videos that show exactly what happened?

There is also a rumor that we can't pin down - whispers that residents are being told not to wear anything depicting affiliation with the CPD. We don't know if this is because the usual agitators will be singling them out for harassment or up-close filming to paint a slanted picture of the event. Or because certain actors (IAD, bosses, suck-asses) have been told to keep track of those people and what they're doing - you know, like that one gold star taking notes at the City Hall march? Or that other exempt sitting at the right hand of J-Fled and taking down names and unit numbers so people could get dumped later.

Like we said, this is a single source rumor. Might be nothing. But knowing this town? This atmosphere? And who's conveniently out-of-town? Just be careful.

Another Killing

So Danny Davis's grandson was killed the other day, adding to the grim total of Chicago this year. And what led to this tragic event?

• Police say a dispute over gym shoes led to the fatal shooting of Congressman Danny Davis’ 14-year-old grandson in Englewood Friday evening.
  
  About 6:45 p.m. Friday, Javon Wilson was inside his home in the 5600 block of South Princeton when two people came in, started arguing with him and then shot him in the head, according to Chicago Police and a statement from the congressman.
  
  The shooting was “not random” and was not a home invasion, according to police....

Gym shoes. Gym shoes. Just repeat that once more....

Gym shoes.

So, not to rain on anyone's parade, but what matters again? And not to put too fine a point on things, this is Danny Davis' west side office in 012:

Davis has embraced radical, violent persons for years, accepting the endorsement of notorious convicted felon "Gator" Bradley and traveling to Sri Lanka as guest of the Tamil Tigers, a known terrorist organization. We aren't blaming Davis for the death of his grandchild, whom he obviously cared deeply for. But if you embrace a violent culture, you can't be surprised when violence visits you at your doorstep.

Ernie Brown - Unemployed?

Rumors that Downtown Ernie Brown was removed from his County Homeland Security spot late last week.

One rumor is that he was "escorted from the building" which is usually code for "fired." As he was pretty much completely unqualified for the spot, this isn't out of the realm of possibility.

No word if he left as big a trail of sexual harassment lawsuits (and other allegations) in his wake as he did when he left CPD.

Remember, As Taxes Rise...

....so do salaries - for Rahm's people that is. This appeared over a month ago, but it's good to remind everyone as Rahm's and Prickwrinkle's tax hikes hit:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel is giving sizeable pay raises to his personal staff — even as he continues to freeze the salaries of city department heads.
  
  Tucked away in Emanuel’s proposed, 2017 budget is a new, $112,000-a-year assistant to the mayor and pay raises as high as 30 percent for existing members of the mayor’s staff.

Keep working hard - Rahm's minions need raises - while he'll offer you 0%.

Use of Force Feedback

This was the last weekend to provide the Department with feedback on how bad their new Use of Force order sucks. But as less than 100 comments were submitted, the Department has extended the deadline to 05 December.

Dean Angelo mentioned the upcoming deadline in the latest newsletter. A lot of the criticism is that the new policy treats cops as not knowing their job, talking down to them as it were, and providing a whole bunch more mental hurdles to jump over for a situation that typically unfolds in under three seconds. The "reasonable officer" standard is being replaced by mob rule and what some untrained mope, like Pfather Pfleger, thinks is reasonable....based entirely upon racial animus.

Click over on this link and give the order a read - it'll take a bit of time, but it's a cold weekend and it's not like anyone is going to get killed in Chicago. Provide a bit of thoughtful input - it might make someone think. Not Rahm or Special Ed of course, but maybe someone with an actual functional brain at some point.

UPDATE: Link fixed - it was in the blank space between paragraphs due to a coding error, so you'd never find it. Apologies.

No Bond? No Problem

You know this guy is hoping Dart's "no cash bond" proposal comes through:

• Businessman Willie Wilson bailed 46 inmates out of the Cook County Jail Wednesday afternoon.
  
  This isn't the first time he's stepped in to help non-violent detainees who can't make bail.
  
  According to a spokesperson, Wilson has spent $50,000 of his own money to bail out a total of 107 people.
  
  Wilson is also planning a Thanksgiving meal for all of the people he has helped get out of jail.

It's his money and he can do what he wants with it.

But we're curious - what's his success rate? Have all of his bets (and let's be honest, this is a gamble of sorts), made their next court dates? Have they pled out? Been convicted? Nolle Prosequi? That would be an interesting bit of data.

This Again?

Didn't a bunch of Chicago cops go to jail over this?

• The ABC7 I-Team investigated allegations of Chicago police bartering with arrestees, allegedly letting them off the hook to get guns off the streets.
  
  Chicago police take an illegal gun off the streets about once an hour.
  
  South Sider Charles Stokes, 35, said he and a friend were known to police and, he believes, targeted by officers for the gun squeeze. The men said they were arrested by Chicago police and told if they could come up with guns no charges would be filed, and gave the I-Team video allegedly showing it happen.

We certainly hope that the picture being painted here has a plausible explanation. Those days are dead and gone. You want to make deals for guns, you're shortsighted and you're begging to be set up. While it might seem like a noble effort, cops are not authorized to overlook one violation of the law because something "better" might be out there. You have, for all intents and purposes, kidnapped someone off the streets and substantially restricted their movement, while operating under the color of law. That isn't anything to be involved in these days.

In short order, COPA will be looking for cops to hang, and if it isn't for a shooting, it'll be for procedural violations similar to what is being written by the media and some persons of doubtful character. Regardless of the outcome, it isn't a process you want to be anywhere near. Not today.

We deleted about five comments that claim that this is "good police work" and that "nothing stops you from using a criminal to further a separate investigation." No shit. But that isn't what's described in the article. Again, we certainly hope the media is making a mountain out of a molehill, but we've been here too long not to have heard about situations as the one being described. Yes, you're taught to investigate; yes, you can question a subject (post Miranda) about other crimes. What you cannot do is "make a deal" on the street or RWOC someone whom you have caught dirty for the initial crime. You are headed for disaster.

Support is Out There

Florida:

• A driver who attacked a Florida sheriff's deputy Monday morning was shot and killed by a bystander who warned him to stop beating the officer, according to a report.
  
  The incident began at around 9:30 a.m. when the Lee County deputy tried to make a traffic stop on Interstate 75 in Estero. Instead of complying, witnesses said the driver took off, reaching speeds of more than 100 miles per hour. The deputy chased the suspect onto an exit ramp, where a witness said the suspect got out of his car and assaulted his pursuer. Shanta Holditch told WZVN that the suspect pulled the deputy out of his car and "just kept beating him and beating him ... throwing him to the ground and punching him in all different directions."
  
  At that point, WINK reported, another driver got out of his car and ran to the scene. He told the suspect that he'd shoot him if he didn't stop beating the deputy. "[He] refused to get off the officer and the officer kept yelling, 'shoot him, shoot him, shoot him,' Holditch said. When the suspect didn't stop his attack, the third man shot him three times. The deputy was not hit. The suspect later died.

And the County Sheriff was so thankful for the Good Samaritan, you'll never guess what he did:

• A bystander who shot and killed a man who was attacking a deputy near a southwest Florida highway has been given a new gun to replace the one he used in the shooting.
  
  The Lee County Sheriff's Office tells the News-Press the bystander had a concealed weapons permit and ordered 53-year-old Edward Strother to stop attacking the deputy before opening fire along Interstate 75 in Estero on Monday.
  
  Officials have called the shooter a good Samaritan. The sheriff's office is not naming the bystander because the incident is under investigation. No charges have been filed.
  
  With the shooter's gun impounded as evidence, local gun shop owner Mark Williams says he reached out to offer the man a replacement firearm. Sheriff's deputies accompanied the shooter to the store to pick up the handgun Tuesday.

Nice job.

Aldercreature "Burnout"

Rahm sprung one on the City Council:

• Newly elected Chicago aldermen and citywide elected officials will have to serve longer to achieve the maximum 80 percent city pension under a surprise change tied to Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to save the city’s largest pension fund.
  
  Aldermen draw their retirement checks from the Municipal Employees Pension Fund, which Emanuel rescued by slapping a 29.5 percent tax on water and sewer bills.
  
  But the mayor still needs the Illinois General Assembly to sign off on his plan for pension reforms tied to that agreement as well as the five-year ramp to actuarially required funding.
  
  That’s where the change affecting aldermen comes in.
  
  The legislation now wending its way through the Illinois General Assembly states that aldermen elected after passage will no longer be able to purchase additional years of service to achieve a maximum pension sooner.
  
  They will be treated like everybody else. No shortcuts. No more opportunity to contribute an additional 3 percent a year to their pensions — to 11.5 percent of their annual salary — to earn additional years of service and the right to retire at an 80 percent pension after just 20 years of service.

Aldercreatures (who aren't even affected by the change as they're grandfathered in) started to howl:

• Ald. Danny Solis (25th), powerful chairman of the City Council’s Zoning Committee, argued that aldermen should be given the opportunity to achieve a maximum pension quicker because it’s a burnout job.
  
  “The pressure you take on, rightfully so, from constituents as opposed to a 9-to-5 job where your main worry is to make sure you do your job and you don’t worry about constituents, pleasing them and making sure services are taken care of,” Solis said.
  
  “For that reason, I’ve always thought that being able to get a pension in an earlier period of time was fair. You burn out. You have many, many bosses. You have constituents, community organizations and the uniqueness of, every four years, having to run and have a number of people try to take your job,” he said.

Really? Try our job Danny. You want to see burnout? Having to answer to many many bosses? Community organizations? People trying to take our jobs? Tell you what Danny - shut up.

• License Committee Chairman Emma Mitts (37th) also opposed the change, particularly after the parade of tax increases that aldermen have approved to solve the city’s $30 billion pension crisis.
  
  “Aldermen do work a lot of long hours. And we take a lot of heat all the time. We’re on the front line far more than any other elected officials. We’re the ones who network the community and connect them with other elected officials. If you’re really doing the job, that’s a lot of work and a lot of heat,” Mitts said.

You mean the crisis you precipitated by stealing pension money, declaring "pension holidays," refusing to acknowledge the numbers were cooked to short pensions? Emma, shut the hell up. Your pension is safe. Ours is not. And your whining about a crisis you had a direct hand in is ill-mannered to say the least.