Something That Makes Sense

Something many have advocated for a long time:

• Every year, 25,000 motorists get tickets -- and fines in the $75-to-$150 range -- for driving on suspended or revoked licenses in Chicago.

  Their keep-on-truckin' days are about to end.

  Today, the City Council's Police and Traffic committees agreed to seize their vehicles -- even if packed city auto pounds don't have enough room to handle the influx.

  Transportation Committee Chairman Tom Allen (38th) championed the crackdown to stem abuses exposed by the Chicago Sun-Times' "Why Are They Driving?" series.

  His ordinance would not allow offenders to reclaim their vehicles until they pay a $1,000 "administrative penalty." That's on top of the $160 towing fee, and $10 a day for storage for the first five days and $35 a day every day thereafter.

One would hope that the cars are not released until all fines are paid and proper documentation is acquired (licenses, insurance, valid plates and stickers).

Unfortunately, we can already see Jesse and Meeks lining up against this as "unduly harsh" and "oppressive" on minorities. Anyone want to take us up on that wager?

A "Taste" of Police Work?

From Channel 5:

• Police on Thursday gave a behind-the-scenes look to reporters at what goes into training Chicago police officers.
• The police said by letting the public in on some of their guidelines and policies, citizens would understand police work better, and not immediately assume the worst during encounters.After a crash course in the basics and being outfitted with a police belt and gun, reporters got a chance to try to apply some of the lessons, Ponce reported. One exercise included a gunman holding a weapon to a woman's head. The person with the gun was training Officer Stanley Williams, whose job it is to train recruits to make split-second decisions in stressful situations like this one.

These media days are a good idea in theory. But we have yet to see a reporter change their viewpoints of the police because of what they experience here. Anyone else have an opinion on it?

It's Still the Economy

In spite of the number of negative comments directed at us and the current Administration, more good news:

• The Dow surged more than 280 points to finish at its record high on Thursday in New York, despite a lack of particularly strong factors.

  The Dow Jones Industrial Average of 30 blue-chip issues soared 283.86 points, or 2.09 percent, from the previous day to 13,861.73.

Stop listening to democrats and the liberal media.

For the Reading Disabled

We apologize while we engage in a bit of gratuitous troll baiting. It's a noble pastime here at SCC, usually isolated to the comments sections of back and forth banter, but sometimes, it makes the front page.

Incident #1:

• After all our people did for her, she's willing to disregard the established precedent of the contract and strip away 662 officers' presumption of innocence and drag them through the shit.
  --------------------------------
  This comment really surprises me, SCC. The woman had her husband & mother murdered in their own home! "all our people did for her" was what they should have done for anyone in that situation...in other words, they did their jobs! That doesn't merit blanket pro-police rulings from her bench.

That's right - the CPD did their jobs. And if that job happened to be supporting the Feebs, they did it well. At no point did we advocate "blanket pro-police rulings" from any judge, least of all her. But maybe, just maybe, the fact that a psycho located her home by whatever means he did, might make her slightly aware of the dangers posed by being a part of the criminal justice system - be it a judge, attorney or police officer. And to have officers names distributed in public wily-nily for merely having unsubstantiated complaints lodged against them is bad precedent no matter what. (By the way, if the trolls haven't noticed, threats and wishes of harm against Federal judges are being routinely deleted - knock it off)

Incident #2:

• SCC, You are so far off the mark it isn't even funny. It's more than apparent you know one if not all of the officers involved personally. You cherry pick what is seen in the video. What is shown;1) one of the officers sweeping the balls off the pool table. That's provocation.
  
  Provocation? Where? There is no sound. You (and we) have NO idea what was said that might have provoked anyone in that bar. Removing the balls might be a response - or it might be a smart move to remove possible weapons. We don't know! That's the point.
  
  2) The Sgt is seen escorting Powers back into the bar.Sgt exits and grabs one off the plaintiffs by the throat slamming him against the wall. AT NO TIME WAS THE SGT BEING PROVOKED.
  
  Again, no sound = no knowledge of a provocation. For all we know, the guy outside was calling for reinforcements. This is a simple "he-said, he-said" in any other jurisdiction.
  
  3)If Powers was so distraught and had to be disarmed why would his supervisor allow him to return to the bar?
  
  WE DON'T KNOW!! How many times do we have to repeat it? And unless the Sergeant was going to throw Powers in handcuffs, how would you propose he stop him? OC? Taser? Slap him around?
  
  4)Are you as a Chicago Police Officer per GO allowed to consume Alcohol while armed& off -duty? Then plead mutal combatants when engaged in an altercation?
  
  As far as we know, there is no General Order. There are the Rules and Regulations that state an officer shall not be intoxicated in public, nor consume any alcoholic beverages in uniform. Someone who actually passed a promotional exam can let us know if we're mistaken.
  
  The tragedy is 3 POs from the 012th district were fired for doing their job meanwhile the officers who instigated this situation remain on the payroll.
  
  We're still trying to track down this rumor. How can these guys under criminal charges, and the SOS guys, and Abbate still be on the job or suspended without pay with no charges filed before the Police Board yet, and somehow, in under 4 months since this story broke, three people from 012 lost their jobs over this? We can't find anyone who knows who these 3 people are, what these 3 people did and how these 3 people got fired and nothing has made the papers. What's up with that?

Munoz? Shut Up

Former latin king, UUW offender, current aldercreature and somehow attached to a massive fraudulent document ring run by his father and mother (that is protected by known gang elements) Ricardo Munoz opened his trap again:

• Chicago needs a police superintendent who will "shake up the status quo," realign police beats and adopt a "more aggressive, grass-roots approach" toward curbing school violence, one of Mayor Daley's staunchest City Council critics said Tuesday.

  "This administration continues to want to move police officers around after the murders happen. We need to prevent crime -- not react to it," said Ald. Ricardo Munoz (22nd), pointing to the 25 Chicago Public School students gunned down this year.

  "This administration has been unwilling to even talk about beat deployment. ... We need somebody who will at least talk about. It has to be someone who's willing to take on the administration."

Munoz doesn't say how he plans or wants the mayor and superintendent to accomplish all this, but we suspect it involves stationing an officer on every street corner in a reinforced concrete bunker with numerous heavy weapons. We'd also wonder where this magical amount of manpower is going to appear from as many districts are currently running zero rapids on days and actually downing up to three beat cars on midnights some weekdays.

At least we'd see our beat officer once in a while in his bunker.

Food Poisoning at Taste

We thought something was missing from the press coverage at this years Taste of Chicago - and we don't mean just the lack of reporting on the gang fights and roving bands of youth molesting women. No, what we finally realized was missing was the non stop coverage of how the Health Inspectors were always out in force, checking the temperatures of freezers and refrigerators and that food was handled, stored, cooked and served properly. Usually every news station had at least some report touting the food safety issue.

Channel 2, Channel 5, Channel 7, the Sun Times and the Tribune all have coverage about a confirmed salmonella outbreak tied to a booth at the Taste.

• Chicago health officials are investigating 17 cases right now and all 17 people have one thing in common. They all had food from the Pars Cove booth at the Taste of Chicago. Health officials have not been able to pinpoint the source of the outbreak, whether it was food handlers who did not wash their hands properly, or perhaps the food was not cooked thoroughly. The owner of the restaurant is speaking out, saying it is an unfortunate situation and that officials are focusing on the hummus that was being served at that food booth.

One wonders if there was less press coverage, maybe it's because there was actually less to cover in terms of

What? No Helicopter?

We got a letter from a 020th District reader last night. He related that there had been a prisoner escape from 020 and due to a coordinated effort on the part of numerous Districts, the offender was re-apprehended within hours, possibly in the 010th District.

However, he lamented the fact that the helicopter and it's million candlepower light and infrared technology was unavailable for actually, you know, looking for an escaped prisoner in the dark. True? We have little doubt on that count.

Chicago/Mayberry. We can hardly wait for the Olympics.

Just a Reminder

It's the economy stupid:

• The nation's budget deficit will drop to $205 billion in the fiscal year that ends in September, less than half of what it was at its peak in 2004, according to new White House estimates.

  The new figure is considerably smaller than original estimates. In February, the White House predicted that this year's deficit would be $244 billion because of stronger-than-expected revenue collections. The deficit hit a peak of $413 billion in 2004 and was $248 billion last year.

Bush promised to cut the deficit by half by 2009 - and as $205 billion is less than half of $413 billion, Bush is two years ahead of schedule. Granted, spending $205 billion more than you take in is still inexcusable and contributes mightily to the National Debt, but this once again proves that cutting taxes increases Government revenue (the Laffer Curve - look it up).

Remember this when Hillary is spouting off about "rich" people being responsible by paying more - she's talking about you and us, not Bill Gates.

Jefferson Tap

A number of readers have commented about the Jefferson Tap story and video and a few others have e-mailed us, including a FoxNews producer. Here's the video link.

In our humble opinions here, the report and the released portions of the video would appear to back most of the officers' story. The Fox report states and the video shows that it is unclear if the officer leaving and one of the plaintiffs had contact or words. The video has no sound, so the allegations of verbal sparring back and forth becomes a "he-said he-said" contention with zero legal standing. Same with the "brawl." The most allegedly damning part of the whole encounter takes place in the vestibule where there are no cameras and the Sergeant "waving off" cars has been described as a "slow down - no one get hurt" response by the Sergeant's lawyer.

At any other time in any other place, this is a mutual combatant incident with no charges filed.

In any other state with an actually legitimate legal process and competent states attorneys, this is misdemeanor battery at the most with plenty of reasonable doubt.

The video obviously shows a distraught officer drinking at a bar. And as someone told us, if you make fun of someone crying at a bar in Chicago, it's practically an invitation to have your ass beaten. By all the evidence seen so far, even that didn't happened.

This Sounds Bad

How did this slip under the radar? It's like a week old:

• The city cannot keep secret a list of 662 Chicago Police officers with more than 10 official complaints lodged against each of them between 2001 and 2006, a federal judge has ruled.

  The list could figure into the ongoing debate over whether the city should change the way complaints of police misconduct are investigated and how officers are disciplined.

  The list would allow the public to see which police units have the largest number of officers with multiple complaints against them and if the officers were referred into "early-warning" programs.

  Last week, Judge Joan Lefkow ordered the city to release the list.

Ten official complaints means you are going to get put through the wringer. Amazing. It doesn't even address the status of the complaints - Exonerated, Not Sustained, it doesn't matter. Just ten accusations and you are going to be the target of bottom feeding lawyers who will probably start soliciting more cases in order to file civil suits with little or no merit aside from the argument of "where there's smoke, there's fire." Something must have happened. Look at all these complaints! And yes, this has been ordered by Judge Joan Lefkow. After all our people did for her, she's willing to disregard the established precedent of the contract and strip away 662 officers' presumption of innocence and drag them through the shit.

Even felons have the right NOT to have their criminal records not used against them (except for bail and sentencing purposes.) But your Not Sustained allegations? Fair game according to Lefkow.

Everyone Ready?

Chertoff Speaks:

• Fearing complacency among the American people over possible terror threats, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said in Chicago Tuesday that the nation faces a heightened chance of an attack this summer.
  
  "I believe we are entering a period this summer of increased risk," Chertoff told the Chicago Tribune's editorial board in an unusually blunt and frank assessment of America's terror threat level.

If we aren't mistaken, this is the same guy who was pushing for the illegal immigrant amnesty bill and runs the agency that can't secure the border and couldn't track the 13 million illegals who would leave the country and be allowed to return under a general amnesty.

At the same time, we agree that we've become complacent as a nation and lax in procedures. however, if we were an al-Queda big wig, we'd hold off on the attacks and let the media and the democrats keep up their relentless propaganda campaign to surrender. They can win without firing a shot.

Anything for a Story?

What's all this about?

• A Chicago television reporter is in hot water over her technique in pursuing a source in the disappearance of Lisa Stebic. There are reports that the reporter has been fired, but NBC 5 would not confirm that Tuesday afternoon.
  
  The Plainfield mother was last seen by her husband, Craig Stebic, on April 30, and there has been no sign of her since despite an intense investigation and repeated searches.
  
  Craig Stebic is not talking to police, but [...] he appears to be talking to a local reporter. A video captured Friday shows WMAQ-TV reporter Amy Jacobson wearing a bathing suit top and wrapped in a towel at Craig Stebic's home. Also seen in the video are Stebic himself, his sister from Iowa and Jacobson's two children.

So a reporter (Jacobson) is bringing her kids to the house of someone who can charitably be called "a person of interest" in a mysterious disappearance. Nice. Could it be something more than a story?

• Jacobson was reportedly invited to the home Friday at the last minute. It was her day off and she was with her children.
  
  Neighbors tell CBS 2 that Jacobson has been visiting Stebic's house frequently since his estranged wife's disappearance. Why she has been there is unclear;

She's been there enough for neighbors to notice and comment on it. Perhaps she ought to be subpoenaed and any notes, recordings or video of "interviews" be examined at length. There is no reporter/source privilege if a crime is being covered up.

It's Grau

From the Sun Times:

• For the second time in four years, an outsider will vie against two police insiders to become Chicago’s next police superintendent.

  The Chicago Police Board identified the insiders as Deputy Supt. Hiram Grau and Chief of Patrol Charles Williams. Grau is Hispanic. Williams is black.

  The third finalist is Thomas Belfiore, a 20-year veteran of the New York City Police Department.

Our favorite columnist (Hi Fran!) gives a little too much credence to the third finalist - Daley has never considered an outsider - at least not an outsider he can't control. We don't think the current crop of scandals are enough to drive him to this extreme. And a big thanks to Fran for pointing out that Grau is Hispanic and Williams is black - can't let qualifications get in the way of keeping that "balance."

Williams still has to answer for his speech to the supervisors undergoing Ethics Training when he allegedly told everyone that if he could have sent the Sergeant of "Jefferson Tap" fame any farther away from home after the dump (from 016 to 005), he would have. This allowed the entire incident to fester for months before the Abbate incident, which then directly led to Cline's resignation.

It would be hilarious if Williams actually won the top spot after causing the downfall of his predecessor through inaction concerning alleged misconduct - especially after Channel 7 is touting his IAD credentials in their report. The smart money is on Grau at this point.

This Could Be Interesting

They can't strike, but they can all call in a day off:

• There could be a lot of empty desks of Cook County prosecutors Tuesday. Hundreds of the attorneys planned a sick-out protesting a proposed pay freeze. Hundreds of the nearly 900 Cook County prosecutors could call in sick Tuesday. Instead of going to work, they will go to the Cook County Board meeting. They say it is a show of solidarity against a planned pay freeze.

  The states attorneys' office has already absorbed large budget cuts and massive layoffs. Meantime, they say they were promised cost of living pay raises, which they are still waiting on. Their counterparts in the public defender's office already got them, so they plan to protest directly to the county board Tuesday.

Maybe if they disbanded Felony Review and all the useless baggage that goes with it, there'd be money for all sorts of extravagant raises.

SCC Dating Service

This is the ONLY time we are doing this, mostly because we need something to fill the space tonight. From Craigslist, this little gem:

• Ok, this is my zillionth and last message to the hot looking male officer, who had the most captivating eyes I've ever seen. Do CPD officers not look on craigslist? Cause I've been really trying to get hold of you and dude, I do not spend time on craigslist but I do not know where else to look - I'm sure stopping by one of the police station is not a good idea or dialing an emegency number for that matter.
  
  You were dining at Morseland (In Rogers Park)- I was in the table next to you sipping martini. This happened little over a month ago(I might search for the receipt if you need the exact date), it was friday - a gorgous friday. You had a company of another officer - wish i could describe him but, my eyes were all fixated on you. I do not know if its appropriate to write down officer's name on craigslist - but I do have the other officer's name if you'd like.
  
  If there's any possibility it was you, and you'd like to know me, please drop me a line. Like I said, your eyes, I can't forget them. Hope I can look into those eyes and say what I want to say. I've never regreted not talking to someone so badly - please make me feel better by getting back asap.
  
  And dear other CPD officers or friends of officers, if you come across this message, will you be kind enough to pass the word around. I'm sure all of us know what a missed connection is like - this one is really bad.

We figure she's describing Seiser, because we know that no one ever poaches in Seiser's territory.

SCC Plays Carnac

We will now predict an upcoming memo, directive, AdMin FAX, all call message or General Order to be read at all roll calls for the next week or so:

• Fire Hydrant enforcement

After all - it's money in the bank:

• A 4-year-old boy died Sunday afternoon after being struck by an SUV while playing in an open fire hydrant in the Englewood neighborhood.

  The driver of the SUV did not flee the scene, and received two driving citations.

  The child was playing in the 6000 block of South May Street when an SUV struck him about 2:50 p.m., according to Fire Media Affairs Spokesman

The quaint and dangerous neighborhood tradition of tossing a few tires over a fire plug, propping a 2-by-6 against one of the uncapped outlets, finding a monkey wrench and a magnet (or a sledge hammer) have once again resulted in a death. The hell with the property damage to surrounding residences, the lack of water pressure to the rest of the neighborhood in case of a fire, the fine tradition of parental supervision and complete disregard for the law. Anyone think Jesse and Meeks are going to march?

Englewood must be so proud.

UPDATE: Read the Channel 7 article we linked to:

• Mathis admits she is the one who opened the hydrant and gathered all the kids to play in it. Englewood residents say on hot days it's the only option for kids.

  "We've been doing it for years and no child has ever gotten hit," said neighbor Kita Weathers. "Kids have nothing to do. They play in fire hydrant."

So this woman is complicit in an involuntary homicide along with the Criminal Damage to the hydrant. As to the kids having nothing to do, what the hell is Daley spending all our tax money on if he isn't buying votes with parks and pools and day camps and all sorts of crap. Sounds more like the parents are too damn lazy to actually find something for the kids to do.

Homicide Rate

Steady, but...

• Six months into the year, homicides in the city are holding even with last year, but the number of shootings decreased sharply.

  Homicides are at 211 this year, compared with 212 last year, but officials say the number of shootings has dropped from 834 at this time last year to 694 this year.

  Chicago Police Supt. Phil Cline credits this to the department's strategic approach over the last several years of analyzing crime daily and immediately deploying resources to trouble spots.

Homicide rate steady, but shootings down almost 150 incidents. We aren't math wizards, but we figure this means one of two things:

• either the hospitals aren't saving as many as they used to, or
• shooters are getting more accurate.

Whatever the correlation, it would appear that we have reached the point of diminishing returns - that is to say that the Department (and the political administration) has reached the point where they've cut manpower as far as they can on the front lines and are able to maintain a steady homicide rate over the course of three years (2005 and 2006 were within 2 homicides of each other and this year we are within 1 of last year's rate.) At some point, the City is going to have to accept that 3 million people cannot live in close proximity with one another without 450 or so homicides occurring during any given year.

How about this for a tin foil hat conspiracy theory - someday, the Chicago Machine will be able to manipulate the homicide rate up or down depending if they want to instill unease in the populace or show the voters how tough they can actually be on crime.

UPDATE: Someone in the comments section is calling our statements ignorant:

• What a ignorant statement. Check out all the cities around the world with more than 3 million people and you find that all of them, including shitholes in South America and Mexico, CAN support more thatn 3 million people WITHOUT having anywhere near 450 murders a year. Tokyo has over 12 million people. The number of murders that occured there last year: 64.
  
  It the stupid gun laws in this country that enables thugs to quickly, easily and cheaply kill people.

Ok, maybe our statement was overly broad. Perhaps we should have refined it slightly - "3 million people cannot live in close proximity with one another under current conditions without 450 or so homicides occurring during any given year." But if you want to see a prime example of cherry-picking facts to fit an anti-gun argument, look no further than our critic. For example:

• Johannesburg - Population 3 million - 1000 homicides per year
• Moscow - Population 12 million - 1015 homicides in 2006
  
• Rio de Janeiro - Population 6 million - between 29,000 and 35,000 every year this century

We can cherry pick statistics too. Do we really need to go on? Some of these cities have the army or the equivalent of our national guard patrolling the streets.

BINGO!

From an anonymous poster:

• Nothing new about the cameras, they are worthless. Put up a camera in the ghetto and the only thing you accomplish is driving the dealers deeper into the neighborhood, away from the prying eye. Put cameras up in the urban areas and you get sensational video of things getting blown up. Remember the videos of the bombings in Spain and London? Great footage, not an ounce of prevention. You think a suicide bomber cares that he is caught on tape blowing himself up? No, the footage actually promotes his cause. You think we need cameras for a successful prosecution? The odds that anyone can be positively ID'ed by one of these camera images is slim at best. Cameras do not prevent shit. The public has been bamboozled into thinking these things actually do anything but make for great news clips. The same clown who fleeced the CPD is now the same clown that brought his act to CTA. Smoke and mirrors on the taxpayers dime.

This writer nails just about everything we've been trying to say about video surveillance for a while now. These cameras only provide the illusion of security and supply the nightly news with spectacular footage of the failures of actually having trained police on the ground.

Poor Huberman

Ron is having a bad couple of days with his trains:

• A man threatening to jump from a CTA viaduct onto Archer Avenue on Saturday night caused a shutdown on the Red Line, and the delay aboard two sweltering trains eventually sent 16 people to four area hospitals, fire officials said.
  
  Four of the ill passengers, including a pregnant woman, were taken to hospitals in serious condition, but neither fire nor CTA officials knew their conditions on Sunday, or whether they had been released.

A long time ago, CTA evacuation procedures were explained to us. Obviously, the third rail is dangerous place to be. When the people running the system are ordered to shut down a section, they usually take down a few miles of track just to be sure. But one would think that perhaps a CTA supervisor with some basic knowledge of the rail system might be able to contact the main switching stations and power up unaffected portions of the electrified rail and get the trains full of stranded passengers back to the nearest station at the very least so as to avoid sending dozens of people to the hospital suffering from the heat or, even worse, having someone fall off the elevated sections. And if that isn't feasible, some form of non electrical power to get the trains to a platform? Gasoline engines? Natural gas so as not to offend the mayor? Batteries?

A truck bomb goes off under the El in the Loop and the CTA, CFD and CPD can't get people off the trains promptly and safely? Talk about compounding a tragedy.

Something Fishy Going On?

OK, we know this place is like Rumor Central on steroids. BS flies fast and thick. A prime example in the comments about the new gun order:

• Anonymous said... The range training fee is to be about $100. The training will take place at Area 2. Your watch commander must sign off on it.

We can understand the training for an optional new weapon should be done off duty. This isn't a required change of equipment so no expectation of Department funded training is forthcoming. But what's this about a $100 range fee? We already have to give up two days off for training - now they want $100 too? Something smells about this one.

Everyone is jumping to conclusions on this event already and there isn't even an official published order yet. Let's everyone step back, take a deep breath, and wait for the signed order and training schedules to be published and see if this $100 fee is even part of the equation.