Police Shooting - 007

And the offender jumped out of the car armed with...

• A RIFLE

Gee, who'd have thought a rifle would have appeared on the streets of Chicago?

Oh yeah, that would be SCC, most of our readers, and anyone with half a fucking brain.

Cops OK, bad guy critical, altar boy photos being fed to the media as we speak.

UPDATE: Bad guy dead, weapon recovered. Someone is claiming it wasn't a rifle. Some other anti-police asshat is claiming since 007 handled it with pistols, no one ever needs rifles again.

UPDATE II: Shots fired at/by the police in 011?

The Horror

We deleted a bunch of comments in yesterday's thread. We warned everyone that it wasn't the time or place to second guess, pontificate, share stories of personal redemption, or even curse the horror perpetrated yesterday. We're still debating opening up this thread to various types of comments that are invariably going to appear at times like these. We'll probably delete them, too.

Cops are witness to violent death far too often. It take a toll on the psyche. Think for a second about how many broken, wounded, dead bodies you've seen this year - not pictures, not after CFD has left for the ER, but on scene, where the blood is fresh, people are screaming, the paramedics are working. If you're somewhere busy as a street copper, it's probably around five, ten, maybe twenty? As a detective somewhere busy, maybe thirty or fifty? If you're lucky, maybe only once? Or not this year?

The slaying of a child by a parent is an unspeakable horror, one of the few things that will rock a cop to his or her core. We are human, many of us have families, and one of the prices paid by having a front row seat to this circus is that occasionally, you get to see the absolute worst humanity has to offer.

We saw a lot of people going through the motions yesterday. It was even worse than what we saw following the slayings of Officers Francis and Soto. And the juxtaposition of "father" and "protector" with "killer" is hard to reconcile.

We've said this before, we'll say it again, and sadly, someone will have to do the whole dance again sometime in the future, either here on the blog or somewhere else:

• Help is available. Everything is not hopeless. There are ways to deal with the pain, the agony, the unbearable weight of existing day after day after day. Call someone.
  
  Reach out ladies and gentlemen. If it isn't you, but someone you know dealing a situation of unimaginable anguish, reach out to them. One day, they'll thank you.

That's all. We've said our piece.

Camera Saves a Beef?

Anyone who can expound upon this incident?

• scc,
  i know this will get buried in this post, but let the troops know: the in car camera has saved a southside p.o. from an excessive force beef. the kid was never touched, ran from the po-po and busted his OWN face when he fell. next day, he's in the station with the family, saying the po-lice did it. so, yes, the cameras are saving p.o.'s.

One incident does not create a trend. And we'd like to see if anyone was prosecuted for False Reports or signing the Sworn Affidavit. Just because one person may have been saved the inconvenience of dropping a To-From, without a vigorous prosecution of the false allegation, nothing is prevented in the long run.

With the video, even a Cook County ASA could win the case.

First of Many

Any takers on this bet?

• Calumet Area detectives are on the scene Monday afternoon after a city Department of Revenue employee was shot while booting a car on the South Side.

  The shooting occurred on the 8400 block of South Dante Avenue on Monday morning, according to a Calumet Area lieutenant, who said they are on the scene as of 12:15 p.m.

  A "booter" was shot while booting a vehicle, Department of Revenue Director Bea Reyna-Hickey said, directing further inquires to police.

As the City squeezes harder and harder for revenue, we figure this call is going to pop up a lot more.

Addressing an Asshole - Again

We ask the readers to bear with us but we have to point out a complete asshole and slap them around publicly. This is also one of the times we warned where we would be speaking of a comment that would never see the light of day, but still needed to be addressed. In this case, the commentator makes inappropriate references to a vice presidential candidate after making this statement in the "Outgunned Still" post:

• SCC, Stop being so damned dramatic. I don't believe a CPD copper has ever been gunned down at long range by an assault rifle.

Well asshat, we don't know about killed outright, but...

• this year we posted a picture of a CPD squad car that had been turned into Swiss cheese by a man with a rifle;
  
• this summer alone, we can recall at least two murders with rifles and countless crime scenes with rifle brass;
  
• two years ago, Gang Intel along with a SWAT element confronted three gunmen on the way to a hit who were armed with AK type weapons. A gun battle on Augusta left two of the offenders dead;
• in the 1990's, two officers from the 010 District were wounded by rifle fire. One caught a rifle round through the hand - he was off for a while. The other was a sergeant ambushed at 21st & Rockwell and he lost most of the meat on his left arm and never worked another day on this job;
• a rifle bullet shattered on the chain link fence in a Rockwell Garden breezeway one night - that's the only reason a PO kept his arm instead of losing it.

And that's just off the top of our head. You either aren't the police or are some two-year wonder with no police background.

You don't have to be killed by a rifle to have your life or your career irrevocably changed by it. And to have officers jump through hoops in order to carry the tools for the job at hand is just plain dumb. Adrenaline rushes and heavy breathing are going to be a part of any weapon discharge incident. The "barrel movement factor" spouted by Monique is going to be present whether you have a pistol, rifle or shotgun. At least a long gun can be steadied easier against a wall, car hood or prone shooting position.

To expect officers to confront a rifle-wielding-individual or protect citizens from someone armed with a rifle while only armed with pistols is ridiculous to the point of stupidity - which, come to think of it, seems to be a job requirement for the exempt staff.

What GPS Tracks

According to a few letter writers, it tracks everything:

• Engine on or off
• Idling in place
• Parked
• Speed
  
• Emergency Equipment activation

It's an every 15 second ping system and it's accurate to within a dozen feet or so. Be careful out there.

Prayers for the Children

No further info can be given now, but we ask for your prayers for the children. They're needed.

Anything else will be deleted.

Updates later in the day.

UPDATE #1: This isn't the time or place to second guess, attempt to explain or offer personal testimonials. This is for prayers for the children. We apologize for deleting those obviously heart felt comments.

As for the others comments we deleted, we certainly hope there's a special circle of Hell reserved just for you. You know who you are.

Largish Posting Day

We usually have 3 or 4 posts ready to go at midnight every day. Sometimes, we manage to sneak in another at some point during the morning. It all depends.

Today we have 6 going up and it covers the gamut. From humorous to serious to sports; from FTO's to pensions; from an off-duty shooting to what could be a Line of Duty death 14 years in the making.

Read them all. Comment where you wish. Please excuse any delay in getting comments up today as with multiple posts, we end up with a bunch more comments.

Open post for stuff not covered here.

Officer Succumbs to Wounds

Fourteen years after the shooting:

• A Chicago police officer who was shot 11 times in what was called "an ambush" on a Saturday night almost exactly 14 years ago, died early Saturday.
  
  Michael Robbins, then 43, was shot at least 11 times when he and his partner were hit with a volley of bullets in a South Side alley about 7:45 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 10, 1994.
  
  Robbins died early Saturday, according to a spokesman for the Cook County Medical Examiner's office. He had been on medical disability from the police department since the shooting.
  
  Both Robbins and his partner, 35-year-old Talmitch Jackson, who was shot four times, were wearing bulletproof vests, which saved their lives. Robbins was originally taken to Cook County Hospital in critical condition.

The shooter is currently serving a 120-year sentence, so don't expect much of an effort to retry it as a death penalty case, which is too bad. Officer Robbins should receive consideration for a full Honors Funeral and a serious look at Line of Duty benefits following a full review by a qualified Coroner.

Pilot Work Schedules

Someone was kind enough to put this in one of the Comment Sections. It appears to be gleaned from notes taken at the Unit Rep meeting of 10 September. FOP doesn't have anything in the Current Update page and we can't seem to find anything confirming the facts below. It deserves discussion, so have at it. We'll update when more info becomes available.

• Work Schedule Pilot Programs...piloted from 1st through 13th period 2009 (the pilot begins 01 Jan).
  
  
• 1st Pilot
  3rd Watch Rapid Response Cars in 003, 007, 010 & 015 Districts will work a 10 hour day.
  
  
• 2nd Pilot
  Area Detective Division will work a 10 hour day. Duty start times are as follows:
  0800, 1800 & 2200 hours; Summary, Review and Administrative Desk personnel will not pilot the 10 hr day.
  
  
• 3rd Pilot
  Districts 005 & 020 will work a 10 hour day. Duty start times are as follows:
  0700, 1600 & 2300; Third Watch Desk and Lockup Personnel will have a start time of 1930 hours with the possibility of a couple of hours on the beginning or end of watch worked on street. District Commanders Staff, Community Policing Officers, Review and Administrative Personnel will be excluded from the pilot.
  
  10 hour Schedule
  4 days on/4 days off
  4 days on/4 days off
  5 days on/3 days off
  5 days on/3 days off
  5 days on/3 days off
  5 days on/4 days off
  Same as former CHA work schedule. Officers will work a total of 2074 total hrs a year.
  
  
• 4th Pilot
  Targeted Response Unit (TRU) will have fixed days off or either S/M/T or T/F/S.
  
  
• 5th Pilot
  Districts 008 & 013 will work a 9hour day with 30 minutes for lunch. Excluded are: Cmdr Staff; Community Police; School, Foot, Review, Lock-up and Desk Officers.
  
  9 Hour Schedule
  6 days on/3 days off
  Duty start times are as follows:
  0700, 1500 & 2200 hours. This will be the schedule for the duration of the pilot period.
  
  
• 6th Pilot
  Districts 014 & 018 will work a 9hour day with 30 minutes for lunch. Excluded are: Cmdr Staff; Community Police; Fixed Post, Desk, Review and Lock-up Officers.
  
  9 Hour Schedule
  4 days on/2 days off
  Duty start times are as follows:
  0700, 1500 & 2200 hours. This will be the schedule for the duration of the pilot period.
  
  Sergeants, Lieutenants, Captains, and Exempt personnel will not participate in the pilot program.

Screaming to commence in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...go!

Off Duty Shooting - In Utah

An excellent showing by one of very own:

• An off-duty Chicago police officer shot a suspect who stabbed a man, apparently at random, outside an Orem restaurant, police say.
  
  Both the stabbing victim and the suspect were in stable condition at separate hospitals as of late Saturday morning. They're [sic] names have not been disclosed.
  
  About 8 a.m. Saturday, a Boise man and his girlfriend were leaving the International House of Pancakes at 850 W. 1250 South. In the parking lot, Orem police said, a 33-year-old man approached the couple and somehow startled them. The man apologized, then began attacking the Boise man with a pair of scissors, police said.
  
  An off-duty police officer saw the attack and went to help. The officer drew his gun and ordered the suspect to drop the weapon, police said. But when the suspect made another move to stab the victim, police said, the officer fired.

Well done Officer.

Pension Crisis Looming

The comment sections are alive with speculation of what a Constitutional Convention might wreak upon our pensions. Illinois Law provides for voters to call for a Convention every 20 years. Besides giving delegates the opportunity to wine, dine and gorge at taxpayers expense, they can also change existing provisions in the Constitution. FOP covers part of these worries in the latest news letters - you can read it here.

This is a real worry, and coincidence of coincidences, columnist George Will covers the recent bankruptcy of Vellejo, California as indicative of America's looming crisis:

• Mayor Osby Davis, who has lived in this waterfront city across San Pablo Bay from San Francisco for 60 of his 62 years, says: "If you have a can that's leaking 2 ounces a minute and you put an ounce a minute in it, it's going to get empty." He is describing his city's coffers.
• Vallejo is an ominous portent for other cities, and some states, few of which are accumulating financial resources sufficient to fulfill pension promises they have made to employees.

We'd say that Chicago and Illinois are both prime candidates for pension shenanigans and any Constitutional Convention supported by the Chicago Machine and the Illinois Combine ought to be watched with a very wary eye.

Cubs Year?

Magic number down to seven and a no-hitter Sunday night:

• Zambrano threw the Cubs' first no-hitter in 36 years in a 5-0 victory, stunning the Astros and making a triumphant return to the mound after an 11-day layoff since his last start.

Trib and Times coverage.

But it don't mean a thing without that ring.

FTO Bids

Still the Subject of a grievance, but here they are:

• 004 - 18 openings
  
• 006 - 17 openings
• 008 - 15 openings
• 010 - 17 openings
• 015 - 15 openings
• 024 - 18 openings

Another round of bids will be posted on 19 September. And by 31 December, the entire program will be declared dead and it's organs transplanted to another being.

Keesing Bandit's Lil Brother?

Last week, we figured it was Keesing who attempted to season a gentleman with spices and beat another with a sausage. Following strenuous denials and a DNA test, Keesing was cleared of any wrong doing (as a side note, the other alleged offender was set free also - no evidence. Rumor is an overzealous prosecutor thought the evidence was lunch). Now we get this from Nebraska:

• Beginning more than a year ago, some man has been skipping from one business to another at night, pressing his naked behind - sometimes his groin, sometimes both - on windows. Store owners, church workers and school janitors have had to wash lotion and petroleum jelly off the windows he selects.

  "This is the weirdest case I've ever seen," said police Chief Ben McBride.

  Some residents of Valentine, a town of about 2,650 people, find some humor in the strange vandalism and have taken to calling the perpetrator the "Butt Bandit." But they also can't help but cringe when finding his marks.

Local authorities are not amused, but we're laughing.

Da Bears - Even Line

Not that we encourage gambling in any of it's myriad of forms. Here's ESPN's preview of the game:

• This should be an outstanding battle between two NFC teams that shocked the NFL with unlikely road wins in their openers. Both teams were considered heavy underdogs to AFC powerhouses and should be energized heading into Week 2. Both clubs still have questions to be answered, though. Carolina still is without the services of WR Steve Smith, arguably the team's best player. Chicago QB Kyle Orton still must prove he can be a consistent performer. Expect a physical battle in the trenches between two well-coached squads that will use hard-nosed ground attacks to set up their respective passing games.

Correct us if we're wrong, but didn't Orton lead the Bears to something like 9 straight wins a few years back when Grossman got injured? And he did it by being remarkably (if unspectacularly) consistent. Since when is that a minus? Half the time, you get an opportunity to win by not screwing up. The other half of the time, you do it by capitalizing on the other guy's screw up. Look how close Hester came to blowing the game last week.

It's always the fundamentals and Orton seems to have a decent grasp of them. Now if he could only grasp a razor.

Anyone Build an Ark?

Wasn't Deep Tunnel supposed to alleviate this crap?

• In Chicago’s Albany Park neighborhood, the North Branch of the Chicago River surged over its banks, flooding streets and basements in a four square-block area between Ridgeway and St. Louis Avenues, and from the river south to Argyle Street.
• On the South Side, Chatham and Greater Grand Crossing were among the hardest hit areas. The Water Department said it had 20 crews fanned out across the city to aid people with flooded basements.
• Anyone trying to get to O’Hare Saturday morning ran into an infrastructure nightmare. A flooded tunnel forced suspension of Blue Line rapid transit service between Rosemont and O’Hare for the entire day, and Interstate 190 — the only major artery leading into O’Hare — was closed for an hour.

The Edens was shut down, various police districts became quasi-islands as railroad viaducts flooded, and the mayor reinforced his "green" credentials by dumping a few billion gallons of sewage and rainwater directly into the lake.

• The steady downpour overwhelmed the vast underground water storage network known as Deep Tunnel, filling it to capacity by 7:30 a.m. Saturday. The heavy rain prompted the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District to open the North Shore Channel locks in Wilmette at 6:30 a.m. and Chicago River locks near Navy Pier at 10:15 a.m. A third gate at 130th and Torrence was opened at 5:15 p.m.

If the tunnels were full at 0730, why weren't the locks open at 0735? Why wait almost 3 hours? Daley in Michigan again and couldn't be reached to make a decision because no one could find him with GPS? Oh wait...

Tribune and Sun Times coverage.

And rain from Ike is on the way.

UPDATE: A reader asked if anyone knows what recourse they might have against the City for flooded basements. We recall something being mentioned years back about limited liability based on Acts of God, but they still have an obligation to make sure the streets drain properly.

Park in the Rain

Or maybe just start bringing our own buckets, rags, brushes and towels:

• Has anyone see the daily bulletin for 12 Sept 08? There are only THREE car wash facilities CITYWIDE. [...] The city can't pay the bills.
  
  Here they are:
  
  1231 W Grand
  
  3540 W Halsted
  
  349 W 31st.

Don't waste those open hydrants either.

Or the ever popular standby - Sharking!

UPDATE: We know Halsted runs N/S. We copy and pasted this from the comments. We seldom alter the quoted comments for spelling and grammar unless we really need to clarify the language.

Iowa Media Covers Mette II

Another positive article from Iowa, The Dubuque Telegraph Herald:

• DES MOINES -- An appellate court judge Thursday said it sounded "impractical and impossible" that Michael Mette could have walked away from a drunken college student in Dubuque nearly three years ago.

  The former Chicago cop is accused of punching Jacob Gothard, 23, in October 2005, leading to a five-year sentence on a charge of assault causing serious injury. The Iowa Court of Appeals heard the case and will consider several options, including whether to uphold the Dubuque County District Court's decision, reduce the severity of the assault charge or throw out the case.

Does Kass have a follow up today?

UPDATE: Post corrected.

Outgunned Still

A few comments are telling the tale of a call of "man with a machine gun" in the 015 District. Responding units arrived, confronted and arrested an individual with an M-4 type rifle under his clothing.

First up, good job by the officers. Carrying a rifle under clothing means it probably wasn't readily accessible, but still - it's a rifle and will penetrate just about any body armor on the job right now. Second, does anyone think that this offender had to jump through any hoops to get his rifle? Run a mile-and-a-half? Sit ups? Anything?

No. We didn't think so. But he still had a rifle on the streets with a maximum effective range of over 500 meters - 5-and-a-half football fields. What if it wasn't under his clothing? What if he felt he had nothing to lose, nothing to live for, no hope for ever making a success of his life? And he had a shitload of ammunition? All the responding officers had were 9mm's and a few .45's with maybe 20 to 45 rounds each with an effective range of 50 meters. CPD's maximum qualifying distance is 25 yards and that's only a few shots, many of which end up missing.

These cops were out-ranged by an order of magnitude. It's a testament to officers' bravery and dedication that they continued to their call knowing that they could be in some serious shit. And we still have no shotguns on the street for Patrol. And next to no rifles. Not without jumping through artificial hoops that have nothing to do with the ability to handle, carry and shoot a long gun.