And Once Again....

Even though 100% of the fault lies with the lawbreaker, gotta grab at that brass ring:

• Two mothers are suing the city of Chicago, contending a “reckless” police chase led to a crash that killed a man, his friend and the friend’s 3-year-old son last month.
  
  The wrongful death lawsuit was filed by Cynthia Turner and Sharnice McGee, whose sons died when a car fleeing police ran a red light and hit their car. It accuses the unnamed officer in the chase of negligence as well as reckless driving and pursuit “in violation of Chicago Police Department general orders and policies.”
  
  The accident happened around 7 p.m. Oct. 1 in the 6900 block of South Loomis Boulevard. Chrishawn Turner, 25, and his friend, Antonio Cowan, 24, had decided to go out that evening to catch up. Turner’s two young children, Cabari Turner, 3, and Shamari Turner, 2, were in the back seat.
  
  Not far away, Chicago police officers in a marked car spotted Christopher Carter speeding erratically east on 69th Street, police said. The officers turned on their lights and sirens and followed, but the department says they turned off the emergency lights and stopped following the car before the crash.

You know what? Even if the officers were parked at their lunch location and were sitting in a restaurant, they'd be accused of negligence for leaving the car where a ne'er-do-well could see it and be subconsciously compelled to accelerate to unsafe speeds, run a red light and launch an unsecured child 100 feet down the street.

It would be damn near impossible to do less in this situation - see a car speeding, turn on the lights, turn off the lights, back off....and you still end up named in a lawsuit. What's the lesson to cops who want to actually stop criminals?

Crime is Down!

Except, of course, where it's skyrocketing....like the formerly "quiet" parts of town:

• While Chicago Police Department leaders continue to insist that “crime is down” citywide, crime may not be down in the places where you live, work, or play, according to an analysis of city data by CWBChicago.
  
  In fact, crime reports are at five-year highs in Lincoln Park, the Loop, and Near North neighborhoods which includes River North, Streeterville, the Magnificent Mile, and Gold Coast.
  
  Overall reported crime in the Loop is up 47% over the past five years and 3% compared to last year. The Loop includes Chicago's central business district, Theater District, and Millenium Park, among other popular attractions.

The CWB Site has a bunch of graphs and explanations of how crime, especially violent crimes, are hitting five year highs. They also reveal exactly how Special Ed and his predecessors pretend overall crime is down:

• On paper, crime is down by about 350 incidents in the Uptown neighborhood. But the reduction is not due to a massive decline in serious crimes. Instead, police have essentially stopped enforcing drug laws on the streets. As a result, there have been about 400 fewer narcotics crimes reported in Uptown this year as five years ago.
  
  So, yes, crime is down by 350 cases in Uptown. But only because police have made 396 fewer drug arrests—just 44 this year compared to 440 during the same period five years ago.

Welcome to CompStat style statistical counting.....and outright lies to protect the politicians.

Officer Upgraded

Now in Good Condition.

The house is a loss and there are expenses before insurance payouts.

014 is running a GoFundMe site - link here.

Help if you can.

He Shot Him Over What?

This we can understand:

• A 49-year-old woman is facing charges after shooting her boyfriend Friday night in the South Side Englewood neighborhood, police said. Rose Breckenridge was charged with four felony counts of unlawful use or possession of a weapon by a felon and a misdemeanor count of domestic battery causing bodily harm, according to Chicago police.
  
  At 9:36 p.m., Breckenridge and her 47-year-old boyfriend were arguing inside a home in the 6700 block of South Winchester when she opened fire, police said. The man was struck in his shoulder and taken to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn, where his condition was stabilized, police said.

Completely understandable.....well, not completely, but common enough that we can overlook the pathology behind it.

This, not so much:

• An Oak Park man was denied bail Monday on charges that he shot a 27-year-old man Sunday afternoon in Lawndale following an argument over a parking space, authorities said. Officers responded to the shooting shortly before 1 p.m. in the 2700 block of West Lexington and found the wounded man suffering from a gunshot to his leg, according to Chicago police.
  
  During a hearing Monday at the Leighton Criminal Court Building, Cook County prosecutors said 46-year-old Reginald McClendon argued with the 27-year-old after telling him to move his car. The younger man did move his vehicle, but McClendon was unhappy with where he moved it, telling the man the parking spaces were assigned, prosecutors said. During the argument, McClendon pulled out a gun and fired it multiple times at the man, striking him.

We have no idea why a guy from Oak Park cares about where someone parks in 011. The only place with more vacant lots and available parking than 011 is 007 last time we looked.

What's This? And Why?

So what is the purpose of this law?

• A rejected House bill that would have extended new pension perks to select Chicago aldermen could see another day.
  
  State lawmakers will reconvene Nov. 13 for veto session, during which they will have the opportunity to override Gov. Bruce Rauner’s veto on any bill from the regular session.
  
  One of those bills will be House Bill 5342, a proposal sponsored by state Rep. Robert Martwick, D-Chicago, that would provide an exclusive pension boost to Chicago aldermen who formerly worked for the Chicago Fire Department. The bill would amend the Illinois Pension Code by redefining “active fireman” under the Chicago Firefighter Article to include former firemen currently serving on the Chicago City Council.

How many former firefighters are actually on the City Council right now? Two? Four? So Martwick is going to rewrite the law to benefit a tiny sliver of an already limited club. Why?

Who was running against Martwick last week? A CPD sergeant? And the State FOP Lodge endorsed Martwick so he could introduce a bill to benefit less than half-a-dozen former firefighters?

Rahm Looking for Work

So where does a loud-mouth blowhard go?

• Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel may finally get paid for a job he’s been doing for free for years: offering opinions on national politics.
  
  Emanuel announced in September that he wouldn’t seek reelection as mayor and has since been largely mum about his post-mayoral plans. But he has attended meetings in New York with top executives at MSNBC and CNN in recent weeks, and discussed a potential future as a cable news pundit, according to several sources familiar with the conversations.
  
  In recent months, the outgoing Democratic mayor has been represented by agents with William Morris Endeavor, the talent agency and entertainment behemoth where his brother Ari Emanuel is the co-CEO.

Since he's been pushing lies about manpower, murder and crime statistics in general, he'd fit right in with CNN and MCNBC.

Off Duty Injured in Fire

Northwest side:

• An off-duty Chicago police officer is in the hospital after a fire in Portage Park.
  
  The blaze broke out at a home near Mason Avenue and Irving Park Road around 4:10 p.m. Monday afternoon.
  
  The police officer, 54, was taken to Lutheran General Hospital from the 4000 block of North Mason Avenue with smoke inhalation in critical condition, according to police.
  
  The cause of the fire has not been determined.

Prayers for the Officer.

Bond Was How Much?

Outraged yet Cook County voters?

• Why did a judge let an alleged rapist out on bond for $400 cash? [...] How did Burnell Johnson get a $400 cash bond?
  
  “Again, that’s just an accusation,” Johnson said.
  
  Not just accusations, Johnson faces criminal charges, including seven counts of aggravated criminal sexual assault of a handicapped person. His alleged victim, only known by her initials in police reports, is in her 30’s, but functions as a 6-year-old, with an IQ of 47.

We're imagining, no, not very much.

Another Low Bond

We thought $300 for a heroin dealer was proportionally cheap, but this is also pretty damn low (click for a larger version):

That's a $50 D-Bond, meaning the offender has to post 10% ($5) to walk out.

Five bucks.

Oh, did we mention that he has forty-seven other arrests, twenty-five of which resulted in a conviction?

Who's the problem again?

How Low Can You Go?

Good thing the election is over because this dumbass judge would have attracted a lot of attention:

• A 70-year-old man is facing charges of selling a kilogram of heroin to undercover officers — and of possessing over $1 million of the drug — in the Portage Park neighborhood on the Northwest Side.
  
  Manuel Mejia Rojas, who lives in the Little Village neighborhood, was charged with class X felonies of delivering and possessing a controlled substance, according to Cook County states attorneys. He was held on $300 bail.

$300 bail?

For over $1 million in heroin. A drug that's been called a "humanitarian" crisis andis tearing apart not only the inner cities, but the suburbs and rural parts of America as well.

Surely that's a misprint and the reporter meant $300,000, right?

• “That’s a lot of drugs, son,” Judge John Fitzgerald Lyke Jr. said at a bail hearing Saturday in the Leighton Criminal Courthouse on the Southwest Side.
  
  Judge Lyke asked what bail he could afford to pay, and Rojas replied $300. Lyke set his bail to $300 and order him to be placed on electronic monitoring.

Oh. Well. Electronic Monitoring. That's a relief. No chance he'll manage to do bad things while he's on Dart's World Famous Electronic Monitoring Program. A program renowned far and wide for it's ability to tell EXACTLY where every prisoner is at all times.

Nice Train Rahm

There's no justice like street justice:

• Two men were hospitalized after an argument turned bloody early Saturday on the Red Line heading south from the Loop, Chicago police said.
  
  The confrontation between the men turned physical as the 24-year-old pulled out a gun and shot the 38-year-old in the stomach around 12:15 a.m. as the train sped toward the CTA’s Cermak-Chinatown station, police said.
  
  In return, police said, the 38-year-old grabbed the gun from the younger man who just shot him and began beating him with it.
  
  As other passengers fled from the train car as it pulled into the platform in the 100 block of West Cermak Road, police officers found the two men — one shot, the other battered — still in the Red Line car.

Still no word on how someone snuck a gun onto the CTA in violation of all those signs Rahm ordered to be put up. You'd think it was damn near impossible to be armed on a Chicago train nowadays.

Good Samaritan Learns Lesson

Not that we wish ill upon anyone (except Shanks, Rahm, Durbin...okay, we wish a lot of ill sometimes), but some people are just dumb:

• A 32-year-old homeless man allegedly stabbed a man and tried to steal his van during an incident that ended in a crash and chase in the River North neighborhood Saturday morning.
  
  It happened about 8 a.m. in the 200 block of East Hubbard Street as a 39-year-old good Samaritan offered to take the 32-year-old man to his home for a shower and to clean up, Chicago police said.
  
  After they got into a van, the 32-year-old pulled a knife and began trying to stab the older man while he was driving, police said.
  
  The 39-year-old jumped out of his van but grabbed onto its side door as the homeless man tried to drive away with it, crashing instead.

How long are they going to stick with this "good Samaritan" routine? Anyone know if there's a "stroll" over on East Hubbard?

A Better Question

So here are some of Englewood guy's tickets from the last decade:

And here's one of his other five cars:

And as our data mining guy points out, he's been issued numerous Notices of Seizure and Final Determinations since 2009.

So maybe the the question should be, "Why did it take ten years to boot all this guy's cars?" Or, "Why are certain communities exempt from prompt and near-immediate booting when they get two unpaid tickets?"

Or would that make CBS uncomfortable?

Sessions Parting Shot

The Attorney General tosses one final wrench on the all-too-frequently abused Consent Decree law:

• Former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, in one of his final acts as the nation’s top cop, curtailed the ability of law enforcement officials to use court-enforced agreements to create change within local police departments accused of civil rights violations.
  
  Consent decrees are often used to enforce an agreement between the Justice Department and a local police department to address a violation of law. They were used more frequently under the Obama administration to resolve civil rights violations by police departments and more broadly modify police practices across the country.
  
  The memorandum, which Sessions signed shortly before President Trump effectively fired him, “provides guidance on the limited circumstances in which such a consent decree may be appropriate” and “limits the terms for consent decrees and settlement agreements with state and local governmental entities, including terms requiring the use of monitors; and amends the process for the approval of these mechanisms in cases in which they are permissible.”

The on-tap Consent Decree is slated to cost the city hundreds of millions of dollars - hundreds of millions that the City doesn't have and has no intention of spending, not least of all on improving the police department. We're beginning to think much of this "Decree" won't ever be implemented (by either side) and is merely being used as theater.

FOP Cuts Ties with Herbert

Lots of political intrigue over on Washington:

• Just over a month after Chicago Police officer Jason Van Dyke was convicted of second-degree murder, leaders of the union that represents most of the department’s rank-and-file officers apparently are unhappy with his lawyer.
  
  The board of the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 7 has voted to no longer refer cases to Daniel Herbert, a former CPD officer and prosecutor who once worked as an FOP staff attorney. Herbert, who headed a team of attorneys representing Van Dyke, has built his private practice largely on representing police officers in labor disputes, as well as handling civil and criminal cases involving officers.
  
  [...]
  
  In a statement, Herbert said Van Dyke wants to keep him on as his lawyer, and that the FOP board members who voted in favor of not sending further union business his way were “entitled to their opinion.” He noted that they had not attended the “majority” of the proceedings in Van Dyke’s case and had not watched all of the trial, which was broadcast live. FOP President Kevin Graham and Vice President Martin Preib both attended numerous pre-trial hearings and much of the three-week trial.

So there wasn't a meeting of the full Board?

Deadline? What Deadline?

What is it with the police labor organizations and deadlines? Here's another one missed:

• SCC, the Sergeants Union messes up big time. So the Sergeants filed a grievance under the “Me-Too” clause regarding wages. This is what was sent to all the Sergeants earlier this week:
  
  This afternoon I received the Arbitrator award from our attorney regarding our grievance and arbitration award for the the Me-Too Wage Increase. The Arbitrator award reads as such, "Grievance is barred by the Perkovich award. None of the grievances was timely filed. All are procedurally inarbitrable and dismissed on that basis." The arbitrator dismissed the grievances of the Captains, Lieutenants, and Sergeants as they were all argued in the same arbitration. The arbitrator further stated "Given the obvious desire of all parties to maintain wage parity, I expect the matter will be addressed in the apparently ongoing contract negotiations."
  
  To say that this award is disappointing would be a major understatement. This arbitrator failed to follow past practice of applying one award granted to all unions. I cannot express to you my displeasure at this time. Like all of you I had expected that we would prevail in this arbitration. This award allows the city breathing room for issuing wage increases which will now have to be done retroactively at the conclusion of contract negotiations. I do apologize for the outcome of this matter. Please, rest assured we will continue to fight for our contractual rights. The battle is not yet over. Thank you for all that you do, be safe, and remember, take care of each other.
  
  So they lost because they didn’t file in time. What great leadership... Rumor is that next weeks meeting will be well attended and a resignation demand will be motioned. If they refuse to resign members have enough signatures to go forward with impeachment procedures. Stay tuned!!!

Anyone know what this grievance was about? And how filing deadlines are missed? Is Shields running the PBPA now?

Petition Drive

Regarding the death of an off-duty officer who was killed by a reckless driver on the expressway:

• Hello SCC,
  
  Thank you so much for sharing the news link and story about fallen Officer Tito Rodriguez’s failed case and plea deal Kim Foxx’s office was offering the shit head. The FOP has created this petition for the judge to overturn the plea deal and bring this case to trial. Can you please share the letter from the FOP and the signature sheet with your readers? Any and all signature sheets will help out as his family and FOP are looking to get 6,000 signatures to present to the judge on December 4th as this is the final court date. I will be presenting it to my District Commander today in hopes that it can be presented in roll call for the next few days. I ask that any signature sheets be turned into the FOP. Signatures are not limited to officers as the general public can sign this petition as well. Although, I believe their may be an Illinois residency requirement. Thanks again for all that you do and keeping our members and your readers up to date with what’s going on.
  
  Regards,
  

We don't know if Unit Reps are circulating this or what, but here's a version you should be able to print out and have at the desk. Completed sheets can be mailed to the FOP via Department Mail (click for larger versions):

Get them in before the end of the month.

Darn You Evil Police!

Expecting the citizens to follow the law:

• An Englewood driver booted five times this week alone has racked up nearly $8,000 in parking ticket debt with the City of Chicago, and he says he can’t pay the tab.
  
  Some might believe that if you follow the law and adhere to the penalties if you break it, you won’t get into hot water with the city, but that’s not the case for everyone.
  
  Joe Nathaniel says he can’t pay his parking ticket debt, which totals $7,921. Records show he’s racked up 38 violations since 2006, forcing him to file for bankruptcy. His five booted vehicles include two Mercedes, all booted on the same street on the same day.

Check out that underlined paragraph again:

• Some might believe that if you follow the law and adhere to the penalties if you break it, you won’t get into hot water with the city, but that’s not the case for everyone.

If you get 38 violations since 2006, you obviously aren't following the law. In fact, you might be accused of actively flouting the law. And he owns five vehicles, two of which are Benz'z? All properly licensed and registered? He couldn't sell one to cover all the debts?

We smell bullshit here.

Glenn Sues Everyone

Former Commander Glenn Evans has expanded his lawsuit to include certain media types:

• A Cook County Circuit Court lawsuit claiming top officials at the city’s former police oversight agency conspired to frame a Chicago police commander on criminal charges has been amended to include a public radio station and a reporter who wrote about the story.
  
  The amended complaint brought by attorneys for former Chicago Police Commander Glenn Evans now names as defendants the public radio station WBEZ and reporter Chip Mitchell, claiming that Mitchell and WBEZ conspired with officials at the city’s former civil oversight agency, IPRA, and “knowingly and recklessly published false information about Commander Evans. . . .”
  
  The lawsuit—which also names IPRA officials and investigators Martrice Campbell, Sharon Fairley, Scott Ando, Andrea Stoutenborough, Anthony Finnell, Vincent Jones, James Lukas, and the City of Chicago—claims the defendants ginned up false allegations against Evans based upon a 2013 arrest Evans made in an abandoned building after Evans observed an offender with a gun and gave chase.

Many descriptions we've heard of Evans is a generally good cop....with the personality of sandpaper. He was particularly abrasive with political hacks and aldercreatures, which puts him a couple of notches above most of the exempt staff currently in charge.

The people he names and the internal politics he's already exposed as corrupt to the core put him light years ahead of Special Ed in terms of backing the rank-and-file. This is especially pertinent as outlined in this article where IPRA and then COPA have been leaking confidential information to the media, plaintiff lawyers and various anti-police bad actors for years.

No Weekend Garages

Don't get a flat tire on the weekends anymore:

• In the latest of a series of dumb moves that compromise the safety of cops and citizens, the Department is closing all maintenance garages on weekends. So if you get a flat tire or crack a windshield, the vehicle will remain un-serviceable and unrepaired for the entire weekend. In fact, if you wreck a car, you won't even be able to get a pool car, leaving the District down a vehicle.

Not even a skeleton crew to give you a tire. Amazing.