Services

Funeral Services:

Nativity of Our Lord Church

653 W 37th St, Chicago, IL 60609

Visitation:

Friday, 16 Feb, 2018

3:00pm - 9:00pm

6:00pm St. Jude

Funeral Service:

Saturday, 17 Feb, 2018

10:00am

Interment:

Holy Sepulchre Cemetery

6001 W 111th St, Alsip, IL 60803

Carjacking Fatality

Not the original victim either:

• A man who carjacked a taxi cab in River North on Tuesday evening crashed into two cars just blocks away, killing a woman, police said.
  
  The 31-year-old cabbie was in his taxi in the 200 block of West Walton when a 29-year-old man opened the driver’s side door, struck him in the face, and forced him from the car around 10:45 p.m., according to police.
  
  Minutes later, the stolen cab crashed into two other vehicles about a half-mile away, in the 800 block of North Larrabee. A woman who was driving one of the struck vehicles was later pronounced dead at Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
  
  Police transported the taxi driver to the crash scene where he was able to positively identify the man who attacked him, police said in a statement overnight.
  
  The carjacking suspect is in serious condition at Illinois Masonic Medical Center. The cabbie is in good condition at Northwestern.

No word on his rap sheet yet. We're imagining a whole bunch of previous arrests, a few convictions, on parole or some sort of early release. Anyone know?

Four Time Felon

Isn't it far past time for a "three strikes" law, not to mention a "truth in sentencing" law?

• A repeat felon with a decades-long rap sheet was charged Wednesday with first-degree murder of a police officer in the fatal shooting of Cmdr. Paul Bauer.
  
  Shomari Legghette, 44, is also charged with aggravated use of a weapon by a felon and drug possession, officials say.
  
  [...]
  
  Legghette’s adult criminal record includes convictions for armed robbery, resisting a correctional officer and felony drug possession.
  
  In 1998, he robbed a Forest Park couple in their driveway. Legghette claimed he was urinating when an acquaintance nicknamed “Trouble” pointed a pistol at a man in his car and ordered his wife to turn over her valuables.
  
  Legghette was arrested after getting away in a car and running from police. He was sentenced to 16 years in prison for the holdup, according to documents in his unsuccessful appeal.
  
  More recently, Legghette was charged in 2014 with selling heroin to a man. Five baggies of the drug and $138 were found on him. He was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison.

That's quite a criminal history there. And it didn't stop him from getting another gun. Why is that do you suppose?

And finally, this bit of nauseating theater:

• Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx stressed the weight of the charges against Legghette.
  
  “There is no more serious offense than the killing of a police officer in the line of duty,” she said.

The single biggest hurdle to getting repeat felons charged and keeping them in prison for the sentences imposed by State Law is the Cook County States Attorney's office. And to have her up there spouting off about "serious offense[s]" is an insult to crime victims across the County.

Cops Hurt in Crash

Three transported to the hospital:

• Three Chicago police officers were injured when their unmarked car was struck by a van on the South Side while they were responding to a robbery Wednesday morning, officials said.
  
  All three officers were taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn. The driver of the car was listed in serious condition, and the other two officers’ conditions were stabilized, police said.
  
  They were answering a call for a robbery at a T-Mobile store around 10:15 a.m. when they tried passing a van on the left in the 8300 block of South Halsted Street, police said. The van tried to turn left and hit the unmarked squad car, sending the car into a light [pole].

Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

Funerals are Violent?

Gee, where have we hard this before?

• Police, funeral directors and cemetery owners are dealing with what they say are raucous and increasingly dangerous funeral processions that start in the city and end in the suburbs, a threat to mourners and anyone in the way.
  
  Most funerals and burials are reverent and safe, but sometimes the emotionally charged events result in violence.
  
  Police say the dangerous activity is usually sparked by gang retaliation.
  
  New bodycam video obtained by the I-Team, shows police responding to reports of shots fired at cemetery in south suburban Evergreen Park just days before Thanksgiving.

Body cam video? Well hell, we've posted links in the past to YouTube videos posted BY THE FUNERAL ATTENDEES THEMSELVES of bizarre traffic processions, crossing over into oncoming traffic, waving guns, firing guns. In fact, wasn't it a funeral rolling through the southside where an asshole with a bad habit of waving guns at people got himself killed by an off duty a while back?

We're going to say The I-Team owes the Chaplains at least $50 since we've covered this numerous times.

Killer Sentenced

Good riddance:

• A man convicted of killing an off-duty Chicago police officer in a botched scheme to steal his guns was sentenced to 76 years in prison Wednesday.
  
  Cook County Judge Lawrence Flood sentenced Bernard Williams, 26, to 55 years for first-degree murder and 21 years for armed robbery, said Tandra Simonton, a spokeswoman for the Cook County state’s attorney’s office. The sentences will run consecutively.
  
  A jury deliberated for less than 3½ hours before convicting Williams in April 2017.

RIP Officer Blake.

"Swerve and Neglect"

An interesting study from north of the border...Canada:

• Ottawa police officers are “de-policing” — or avoiding proactive policing — out of fear of being scrutinized by the public, according to the groundbreaking study of an Ottawa police officer turned doctoral researcher.
  
  It is the first study of its kind in Canada that measures what has largely been anecdotal among officers who describe the F.I.D.O mentality of “F**k it, drive on,” when confronted with what many police see as un-winnable situations that will only get them in trouble or publicly embarrassed.
  
  But now, there’s evidence.
  
  “It’s definitely happening, there’s no doubt about it,” said Greg Brown, a Carleton University doctoral researcher and former Ottawa police homicide and drug investigator. Brown surveyed 3,660 front-line officers from 18 police services in Canada — from Halifax to Vancouver — and five departments in New York state. In this city, 382 Ottawa police officers participated from all 18 patrol platoons — nearly the entire front-line.

Officers are still responding to 911 calls, but so-called "discretionary policing" has fallen by the wayside. It isn't just a national phenomenon here - it's international.

A Voice of Reason

We would like to tell those reading today that Commander Bauer held a rare position in regard to this website:

• He rarely, if ever, appeared here in print, whether it was a post or in the comment sections.

Think about that for a second. We've been around in one form or another under assorted management for almost twelve years now. And coppers like to complain - it's a national pastime. The number of high ranking bosses who haven't felt the lash of the blog are few and far between. And we can't think of a single significant instance where he was the target of someone's ire. That, ladies and gents, is a rarity and it speaks to the type of decent, hard working, appreciative boss he must have been to those he worked with.

Part of the reason - he thought like a lot of us do. Here's an article from the CWB blog from a few months ago. We aren't going to borrow the whole article, but some highlights to show what we mean:

• Arrests are up from last year but what happens after an arrest is what frustrates the commander of downtown Chicago’s 18th police district.
  
  Commander Paul Bauer says there is a “high bar to prosecution” in Cook County, requiring Chicago police to get approval from the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office before a suspect can be charged.
  
  “Sometimes they want to come out and...talk to the victim,” said Bauer at the annual meeting of River North Residents Association. “If you think about it, we’re sometimes victimizing this person twice. You just got your phone snatched from you. You got knocked down. Now you’re going to be in the station. You got to stay here for another couple hours until the State’s Attorney gets out here.”
  
  [...] According to Bauer, 75 percent of the crime in the 18th district is theft-related, whether it’s theft from a building or theft from a person, including a suspect who, while riding a bicycle, recently swiped mobile phones from people in River North.
  
  “We caught that guy,” recalled Bauer. “and we figured he did about 30 [robberies] over the course of a couple months. We were only able to charge him with one felony theft [because] victim identification was a little hazy.”
  
  [...] “Even when we catch somebody,” says Bauer, “there’s still a long way to go to get them off the street.”
  
  In August, Chief Judge Timothy Evans replaced all the judges who presided over bond hearings in Cook County and directed new judges to set bail in amounts more affordable to defendants. This is at odds with Chicago police, who would prefer to see higher bail amounts for career criminals.
  
  “That guy, Willie, he’s a case in point. He needs a high bond. We got him for a number of burglaries. He’s on parole for burglary. He needs to sit. We got to get him off the street. It’s just like if you have kids, if there’s no consequences to your action, those actions are going to repeat.”
  
  And when they do go to jail, they need to stay there longer.
  
  “The Sheriff of Cook County, for whatever reason, is very proud of the fact he has reduced the population of the county jail. Maybe I’m jaded, I don’t think that’s anything to be proud of.”
  
  Bauer would like to see more career criminals in jail. “You can say, we don’t know if that’s going to reduce recidivism. This is how I look at it, I want them off the street. We’re not talking about the guy that stole a loaf of bread from the store to feed his family. We’re talking about career robbers, burglars, drug dealers. These are all crimes against the community. They need to be off the street.”
  
  It is frustration police deal with every day as they try to make communities safe, says Bauer.
  
  “This has been going on for quite some time but it’s getting worse.”

We've been saying exactly this for years, and Bauer obviously saw the same things and wasn't afraid to call it like he saw it. It's certainly a refreshing honesty not often seen on this Department nowadays. And now it's silenced.

He will be missed.

Coverage

Assorted media coverage of the fallen Commander:

• Fox 32
• Channel 9
• Channel 7
• Channel 5
• Channel 2
• Tribune
• Sun Times

Comments are going to be closed here. We're sure more of the story and background of the shooter is going to come out in the coming hours and days. We will say we are bracing to hear that once again, the justice system has failed in its duty. There have already been a few posts (unconfirmed) that the shooter had a previous history of gun offenses while wearing body armor. Time will tell.

Officer Shot (UPDATES)

Downtown, Thompson Center.

Nothing further at this point.

News is sketchy, but our sources have info we aren't posting.

Prayers for the member and family.

UPDATE: Numerous news outlets reporting the member has passed.

UPDATE: Other outlets have identified him as "high ranking."

We're holding comments until official word comes down.

UPDATE: Press Conference - RIP Commander Paul Bauer, 018 District.

UPDATE: Stop with the speculating please.

Eureka!

We discovered why the clearance rate is so low!

• Since the Tribune and assorted other morons in the lib-tarded community have decided that all enforcement MUST be conducted on a racially equal basis (i.e. 33% of tickets must be written to each of the black, brown and white communities, regardless of where the crime occurs or who is committing the crime) the Detective Division is following the same model for solving homicides.

Therefore, if they solve a single homicide in the black community, no other homicide may be solved until one brown and one white homicide are solved.

The D-Unit is just being politically correct.

McCompStat Steps in It?

Rahm trots his tame aldercreatures out to attack a challenger:

• African-American aldermen on Monday lashed out at fired Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy for suggesting that middle-class blacks have fled Chicago, leaving “trigger-pullers” behind on the South and West Sides.
  
  Ald. Roderick Sawyer (6th), chairman of the City Council’s Black Caucus, condemned McCarthy’s sweeping characterization as “off-putting, disrespectful to black people” and bordering on racist.
  
  “I guess that includes me, too. I was born and raised on the South Side and still live there — happily. That also includes my neighbors and friends, who are teachers and CTA bus drivers and engineers and doctors. We all live on the South Side and West Side. We’re not ‘trigger-pullers,’ as he so callously described it,” Sawyer said.

So McCarthy pointing out that middle-class blacks have fled the city in record numbers over the past ten-to-twenty years is what? Truthful? Ouch.

And in case Rod didn't notice, 80% of shooting and murder victims are....black. And so are the "trigger-pullers." McJerseyShore didn't make the blanket characterization - that's all in Rod's interpretation. Garry just pointed out in a not-so-subtle manner what aldercreatures have completely failed to recognize in their own community. And for this, he must be attacked (at Rahm's behest.)

Who's to Blame

So maybe someone can answer this question:

• What changed in the car-jacking laws that Rahm and Special Ed have to call out Springfield to close some "loophole" that allows the criminals to escape the full weight of the law?

We have one part of the answer:

• Nothing

Sure they changed the part of the juvenile charging. But the biggest change was Toni Prickwrinkle deciding too many of one community were in Dart's jail, Dart deciding he wanted to stay in politics and agreeing with her, Evans making sure everyone could get bail for any offense (except airplane stowaways) and Kim Foxxx unilaterally re-writing State Law to undercharge repeat felons by setting the bar so high, almost no one could reach it.

Catch and Release Continues

Yet another "No Shit" moment in Cook County:

• Dozens of juveniles were charged last year in Chicago for allegedly pointing guns at motorists and stealing their cars, but most were not detained longer than 24 hours, according to court records obtained by the Sun-Times.
  
  Armed carjackings have become a major political problem for Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Almost every part of the city has been plagued by the brazen holdups. There were almost 1,000 of them last year, compared with 663 in 2016.
  
  Last week, former Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy, who’s considering a run for mayor, criticized Emanuel for failing to take control of the problem. McCarthy said “criminals are getting released immediately after arrest. Many times, they’re not being prosecuted. If there’s no sanction, what the hell?”

We've been asking that since before Kim Foxxx got elected. We even pointed out that when Quinn released about 1,000 felons who barely served half of their sentences, crime skyrocketed.

The media has even taken notice of juveniles getting arrested for carjacking, then being re-arrested less than 24 hours later for the EXACT SAME CRIME. Or worse:

• About 700 juveniles were arrested in Chicago in connection with all types of gun-related crimes during the first seven months of 2017. Those crimes ranged from murder to armed robbery to carjacking to unlawful possession of a firearm.
  
  Of those 700 juveniles, 42 percent were arrested again. Of those arrests, half were for offenses involving guns.

The system is broken. Badly.

Correlation is Not Causation

Lib-tard "reasoning" is a sight to behold:

• The vast majority of Chicago bike tickets still go to cyclists in black neighborhoods, despite past criticism by community and cycling advocates that enforcement is uneven across the city.
  
  In 2017, about 56 percent of all bike tickets were issued in majority black neighborhoods, compared with 24 percent in Latino neighborhoods and 18 percent in white neighborhoods, according to Chicago police statistics. Blacks, Latinos and whites each make up about a third of the city’s residents, according to the U.S. Census.
  
  A Tribune story last year found similar results between 2008 and 2016. Nine out of ten tickets are for biking on the sidewalk.

So the Tribune and assorted aldercreatures aren't going to be happy until the ratio of tickets exactly matches the racial makeup of the city? Seriously? If we sat and thought about it for a week, we couldn't come up with a dumber conclusion than these morons obviously have.

How about this - most of the lawbreaking occurs in a certain portion of the city and therefore, enforcement efforts will be heavier where the lawbreaking is more obvious? Has anyone seen the homicide count for the past 50 or 60 years? Should the Department ignore the homicides until such time as they level out racially across the city? We don't think that idea would fly in the "community."

How about this?

• Some communities that saw high numbers of bike tickets, such as Austin and North Lawndale, are also disproportionately affected by severe traffic crashes, according to the city’s transportation department. Six of the city’s seven 2017 bike fatalities occurred on the South and West sides

Gee, would that be because bike riders aren't obeying the rules of the road?

Now, should tickets be the only option? Probably not. Aren't there any education initiatives underway to educate the public about how a bicycle is required to be ridden in and around traffic? Because it's a vehicle in traffic according to Illinois State Law, required to obey the Rules of the Road. It isn't "I'm a bike and I can do whatever I want." That's a good way to get a ticket....or get killed.Rahm has spent how many millions on bike lanes and bike stations in the "under-served" areas of the city, so is it too much to expect those areas to obey the actual law?

"I am SO Running!"

Here's that Signature Page we were talking about:

In the meantime, Garry insists he's running for mayor - just hold his beer:

• In a room on the Northwest Side filled with “Garry McCarthy for Mayor” signs, Chicago’s fired former top cop warned anyone who thinks he’s not serious to “wait a couple of weeks, and let’s just see how fake my candidacy is.”
  
  He also brushed off a protest by about 15 members of SEIU Local 1 outside his fundraiser Sunday at the Irish American Heritage Center as a game of “look at the squirrel” — a strategy he expects his political opponents to repeat.
  
  The SEIU members, including one in a Donald Trump outfit, marched outside the fundraiser and handed out copies of a Chicago Sun-Times article tying McCarthy’s possible run for mayor to a lucrative O’Hare janitorial contract up for re-bidding.
  
  “The theory is that I’m running a fake campaign so that somebody else can get a contract,” McCarthy said in his speech. “Now that makes great sense to me.”

We're pretty sure he was being sarcastic, but to anyone living in Chicago for more than ten seconds, it's completely within the realm of possibility.

Bad Week

At least five officers across the nation killed in the past six days, including two in Ohio:

• Two Ohio police officers responding to a 911 hang-up call were fatally shot on Saturday after entering an apartment in a Columbus suburb and a suspect was taken into custody, authorities said.
  
  Westerville Police Chief Joe Morbitzer said officer Eric Joering, 39, died at the scene and his colleague, Anthony Morelli, 54, died at a local hospital.
  
  Morbitzer said the officers were responding to a "potential domestic situation." A neighbor who heard the gunfire said it happened at a home where the occupants were "always arguing and fighting."

Be careful out there boys and girls. Watch your back and your partner's back.

Clearance Rate - Low

Murder isn't getting solved:

• Even as the Chicago Police Department touts technology-fueled successes in reducing the number of shootings in the city, detectives are struggling to solve killings, with their murder “clearance” rate falling to a level not seen since at least 1990.
  
  In 2017, the police solved 114 of the 650 murders that occurred in that same year — just 17.5 percent, according to a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of police data.
  
  That appears to be the worst clearance rate in recent Chicago history for solving same-year killings.
  
  The clearance rate was above 60 percent in the early 1990s.
  
  In 2000, detectives were solving 41 percent of same-year murders.
  
  By 2009, the same-year solve rate for murder had fallen to 30 percent amid an outcry from the police that a “no-snitch” code of silence among witnesses, and even victims, was making it difficult to make a murder arrest.
  
  Since 2010, that figure has remained below 30 percent, falling to 19 percent in 2016 before falling even further last year.

And of those that are "solved," many aren't getting prosecuted. But that's not CPD's fault.

Texas ExamScam

This sounds so .... familiar:

• Dallas police officers who took a rigorous exam last year for a shot at being promoted to sergeant will have to try again later, officials said Tuesday.
  
  The integrity of the test had been questioned after a police major who helped shape the exam also coached clients through a test-prep business, reports the Dallas Morning News.
  
  Results from the test, which was offered in November, had been in limbo for several months while police investigated the assessment center portion of the promotional process.
  
  Police Maj. LaToya Porter, who runs a test-prep business to help officers prepare for the sergeant exam, has been under investigation.

A Subject Matter Expert abusing their position to advance those lucky enough, connected enough or willing-to-pay enough for their "expertise" in developing a promotional exam? Who'd have think it?

New Paint Job

Premiering at the Auto Show:

Looks like it's driving downhill.