Police Shoot, Kill Gunman

None of ours hurt at last report:

• A person was fatally wounded this afternoon when authorities said he exchanged gunfire with police in the Austin neighborhood on the West Side.
  
  About 4:20 p.m. police were flagged down near Madison Street and Parkside Avenue by witnesses who said shots had been fired in the area, and officers located a vehicle matching the description reported, according to a preliminary statement from the Office of News Affairs.
  
  A male suspect fled the vehicle on foot and as officers pursued he pointed a weapon at them and fired shots. Police returned fire, striking the suspect, according to the statement. No police were wounded.

Best wishes to the involved Officers.

Hot, HOT, HOT!!!

Media warnings about the dangers:

• The longest stretch of uninterrupted heat so far this summer is set to smother the city, beginning Sunday.

  Expect about a week of sizzling temperatures, mostly in the lower to mid-90s, according to the National Weather Service. And don’t expect much of a respite at night, when the lows are predicted to fall only into the upper 70s.

  And with the heat index (the mix of heat and humidity) expected to top 100 degrees next week, it’s a good idea to take the usual precautions: Drink lots of fluids; stay out of the sun; avoid excessive exertion.

Also, avoid the beaches - they might have to be closed for "heat" reasons.

We're surprised we haven't heard any comparisons to the 1995 heat wave that killed hundreds. Multiple days of ninety-plus degrees, little air movement, no cooling at night while the heat builds and builds. We'd certainly expect a spike in violence at the very least.

Really? Again?

Seriously?

• Chicago police arrested one of their own Thursday night after she allegedly got violent with an officer executing a search warrant.
  
  Sources said the warrant was related to a drug investigation.
  
  Drug paraphernalia and two 9 mm handguns -- one of them loaded and discovered in a nightstand -- were found inside the residence, in the 5000 block of South Lacrosse Avenue, sources told NBC Chicago.
  
  Once inside the home, police said the woman struck an officer. They learned she was an off-duty officer while they were in the process of arresting her.
  
  Police also arrested a man during the search. Albert Quiroz, 41, is a convicted felon and was in possession of a firearm, police said.
  
  
• He has prior felony convictions from 1997, 1994 and 1995.

And a future of additional felony charges it would appear.

Along with the Rules violations for her, maybe they could get "His/Hers" convictions, too.

Self Defense? In Chicago?

This was a long time coming:

• A Cook County judge ruled today that a South Side man acted in self-defense when he fatally shot a man who accosted him and his daughters at a bus stop on Super Bowl Sunday last year.
  
  Elliot Mayfield, 53, looked back at his family in triumph and then dabbed at his eyes with a tissue after Judge Maura Slattery Boyle acquitted him of first- and second-degree murder in the Feb. 7, 2010, slaying of Samuel Fullilove, 33.
  
  Mayfield, who has been held in lieu of $500,000 bond since his arrest the day after the shooting, will be released from Cook County Jail later today.
  
  
• According to testimony in the bench trial, Fullilove had been celebrating the Super Bowl victory by the New Orleans Saints and was extremely intoxicated when he approached Mayfield and his two daughters -- 15 and 11 -- and their young friend as they waited for a bus at 6114 S. King Dr.
  
  When Fullilove offered to sell drugs to those at the bus stop, Mayfield told him, “We’re just trying to get home -– we’re not with that,” according to testimony. After Fullilove became aggressive, Mayfield showed him the gun and said, “I’ll use it.”
  
  Fullilove walked away but came back moments later and was captured on a city surveillance camera swinging his fists at Mayfield and chasing him. At one point, the eldest daughter got in between the men and said, “Leave my daddy alone.” Mayfield then pulled out the gun and fired once from about three feet away, according to testimony.
  
  “Mr. Mayfield was not the aggressor,” the judge said in her ruling. “Here is this man just trying to get home, and their paths cross and tragedy ensued.”
  
  Relatives told the Tribune last year that Mayfield kept a gun for protection because crime was so bad in his Woodlawn neighborhood.

We would object to the judge's characterization of this as a "tragedy" in any sense of the word. This was an assailant getting exactly what he deserved.

You can't always pick the standard bearer who leads the way, but it would appear that the right to self defense exists in Chicago, even in the face of all of Daley's anti-gun ordinances and in defiance of Illinois' prohibitions on carrying concealed.

Shark!

Someone pointed this out on the editorial page:

• Last Sunday afternoon, I was headed to my cousin Hipsha’s place for a party.

  At 87th Street just east of Loomis, a Chicago Police cruiser quickly swerved from the right lane to the gutter, sending a wave of mucky, oily water from a clogged sewer onto a group of men sitting on milk crates outside a shuttered car wash.

  The guys jumped from their crates, enraged. The cops sped off and turned down a side street. I made a U-turn.

  “Did that really just happen?” I asked the men, noticing one of them had settled back on his milk crate, sipping on a 40 oz. of malt liquor.

You really need to read the entire article. It seems these fine citizens were just sitting on milk crates minding their own business when they got "sharked." Given the excessive number of potholes and standing water on the south side, you'd be hard pressed to call this anything but an accident. If it's nearly as prevalent as the writer alleges, we're pretty certain people would stop hanging out near puddles.

Frankly, the entire article seems like a justification for the writer to give the recent soakee a dollar, which he did, giving lie to the entire portion where he attempts to describe the soakee as anything but a bust-out. People with jobs and such don't hang on street corners, sitting on milk crates, sharing a bottle or watching people share a bottle.

Full Strength Again

We had no idea we were at full strength again. Congratulations!

• Battle lines between protesters and the police are already being drawn for the NATO and G-8 summits that Chicago will host next spring.

  On Thursday, an anti-war organizer said he was scouting potential staging areas for crowds of protesters expected outside the summits in May.

  Meanwhile, police Supt. Garry McCarthy said he’s been planning for three weeks. And he put a deputy superintendent, Debra Kirby, in charge of preparing the Chicago Police Department’s response.

  “We have to train for mass arrests,” McCarthy said. “We have to train 13,000 police officers in arrest procedures and containment procedures. At the same time, we will not stop patrolling the city.”

Kirby in charge? Oh. Ok. That should be interesting.

We are glad to see that we're going to go against the Huberman edict that it isn't feasible to train up an entire Department to respond to emergency situations. We just wonder where the heck he's being fed this "13,000" number seeing as how we have somewhere between 10,000 and 11,000 men and women actually collecting a check.

City Stickers

Just your friendly annual reminder that the "grace period" runs out today for getting the city sticker bought and applied to your vehicle.

Although the chances of getting nabbed by an Inspector are lower due to there only being something like one Field Inspector in the entire city, you don't want to be the one they make the example of.

Open post for a hot Friday, and a preview of a very hot spell coming into town this weekend.

Friday Fun

Not only are there supposedly a bunch of exempt changes in store, Rahm's union deadline looms today also:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel hinted strongly Thursday that he is not about to wait much longer for organized labor to sign off on cost-saving work-rule changes to avert 625 layoffs.

  Two weeks ago, the Chicago Federation of Labor said it had hired a consultant to scour the city budget and pinpoint alternative savings. The federation said it needed more time to finalize that report.

  Emanuel, who is better known for his impatience, granted the extension. The new deadline is Friday.

The city has to give out 30 day notices to lay off people, so the paper process would begin today before the close of business, putting more pressure on the unions to cave in to Rahm. Like we said, interesting times locally, statewide and nationally.

Gambling to Save us All?

Or maybe not, but Rahm has his fingers crossed:

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel predicted Thursday that Gov. Quinn will sign a bill that would create a Chicago casino and others around the state.

  “I believe that when the governor weighs it, and weighs all the equities and analyzes it, he’ll come to the conclusion I think I came to on behalf of the city of Chicago,” Emanuel said.

  Wednesday, Illinois Gaming Board Chairman Aaron Jaffe had said he would be “flabbergasted” if Quinn signed the bill after speaking out against it.

Quinn is dithering far too long on this thing and Rahm needs it in an effort to close up Daley's monstrous budget shortfalls. Plus, with Des Plaines about to open their casino in a few short days, a Chicago casino will end up struggling for a lot of north suburban dollars that are already too scared to come into the city.

UPDATE: A few of our degenerate gamblers informed us that the casino in Des Plaines opens this Monday. Post corrected.

The Family That Plays Together...

...goes to jail together. This is just too humorous:

• A northwest suburban family of four -- mother, father, son and daughter -- is being held in the DuPage County lockup following a drug bust.
  
  Bartlett police tell the ABC 7 I-Team they had received an anonymous complaint about the Schoenwolf's home. They put the home under surveillance and moved in at 8:30 p.m. Wednesday with a search warrant for the house and a nearby car. Police call it an "undercover illegal drug investigation."
  
  Rick Schoenwolf, 50; his wife, Kimberly, 46; and their children Staci, 20, and Eric, 18, were taken into custody. Rick is charged with possession of illegal painkillers, marijuana, pipes, bongs and a pair of guns. Police say a shotgun and rifle they seized didn't have a state firearm's card.
  
  Kimberly is charged with possession of cocaine after a bag of coke found in the house, according to detectives.
  
  Staci, who wrote on her facebook page that she wants to be a teacher, is charged with possessing 11 bags of marijuana and an inventory of drug equipment, as well as a ledger police say she used for drug sales.
  
  Eric is charged with possession of hallucinogenic mushrooms and drug paraphernalia. Police say they recovered bags of narcotic mushrooms in the home.
  
  Staci's boyfriend, Shade Dern, 22, was also arrested. He faces marijuana and drug paraphernalia charges and is free on $1,500 bond.

Sounds like half a dozen south and west side families we could pull off the pages of the Search Warrants files at OCD.

McCarthy Lambasted

This one slipped by our radar, but someone brought it to our attention recently. Wow:

• I've heard stupid and then I've heard really stupid. But the grand prize for being "bischero, idiota, stupido," and intentionally dishonest goes to Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy.

  Standing in Chicago's Saint Sabina Church, he told the congregation that federal gun laws are akin to "government-sponsored racism." Forget for a moment that he said this in the church Michael Pfleger showboats in, but we'll come back to that.

  McCarthy said: "So here's what I want to tell you. See, let's see if we can make a connection here – slavery, segregation, black codes, Jim Crow. What did they all have in common? Anybody getting sacred? Government-sponsored racism. Now I want you to connect one more dot on that chain of the African-American history in this country, and tell me if I'm crazy. Federal gun laws that facilitate the flow of illegal firearms into our urban centers across this country, that are killing our black and brown children. We've got to get the gun debate back to center, and its got to come with the recognition of who's paying the price for the gun manufacturers being rich and living in gated communities."

  He is right in saying that slavery, segregation, black codes and Jim Crow were government-sponsored – they were created, sponsored, protected and enforced by Democrats, and Democrats in Chicago were rivaled in character only by Bull Connor himself. It was also dishonest for him to overlook that Chicago Democrats stoned Dr. King in broad daylight, a full two years after the signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

This is what happens when you have an educated response to political pandering - a bitch slapping of tremendous proportions utterly destroying the target and any future attempt to rebuild it.

Crime Down, but....

...it still seems kind of violent out there. Anyone catch the Breaking News headlines lately?

• One person was dead and two others were injured in a drive-by shooting this morning in the Fuller Park neighborhood on the South Side, authorities said.
• An 18-year-old man was shot and critically wounded this morning in the city's Englewood neighborhood, police said.
• An 18-year-old was killed and a 15-year-old wounded Tuesday night in the city's West Pullman neighborhood on the Far South Side, police said.
• Two boys ages 13 and 14 have been wounded in separate shootings in Chicago, bringing to at least six the number of children who have been shot in the city in the last week.
• A 16-year-old boy was shot and seriously wounded while standing on his front porch late this morning in the Roseland neighborhood on the South Side, authorities said.
• POLICE SHOOTING: No one was injured when Chicago police officers fired at a man who pointed a gun at police late this morning on the Far South Side, police said.
• A 21-year-old man died and a 16-year-old boy was injured after they were shot this afternoon in the Burnside neighborhood, police said.
• Two teens were wounded tonight in a possible drive-by shooting on the Far North Side in the city's Rogers Park neighborhood, officials said.
• Four people were wounded in separate shootings this afternoon and evening on the city's South and West sides, officials said.

That's 9 stories out of 23 since Tuesday night.

The stories account for at least 3 dead and 14 wounded.

Another 2 stories cover the Monday killing of a cook on a cigarette break and another about a man on bail arrested on a separate murder charge.

But remember, crime is down, the Department is fully manned, and don't worry about shopping downtown while taking the CTA. All of the above are merely figments of your overactive imaginations.

Accomplice to Murder

Anita wasn't in charge when this all went down, but as the current head of the office, she's goign to shoulder some of the blame:

• Accused serial killer Michael Gargiulo — charged last week in a north suburban girl’s cold-case murder — could be responsible for up to 10 murders, a California homicide detective told the Chicago Sun-Times.

• While in Los Angeles County Jail, Gargiulo allegedly told authorities that just because 10 women in those homes were killed — and his DNA was present — doesn’t mean he murdered anyone .

Anita's office goes into denial mode:

• “In our assessment, there were no admissions made that could be used to connect and prove his involvement in other murders,” said Alvarez spokeswoman Sally Daly,

Not "We are continuing the investigation." Not "We are reviewing our records." Nope. Just "there were no admissions," and close that door before something ugly gets out.

The trouble is, the ugly part is already out there:

• Gargiulo was a longtime suspect in Pacaccio’s murder. In 2002, Cook County sheriff’s detectives obtained a DNA sample from Gargiulo, who was living in southern California. The next year, tests confirmed his DNA was on her fingernails, officials said.

  The Cook County state’s attorney’s office didn’t think the evidence was strong enough to charge Gargiulo in Pacaccio’s slaying. At the time, prosecutors thought the DNA could have been the result of “casual contact,” according to a statement released last week by the state’s attorney’s office. He was a friend of her younger brother and frequented the Pacaccio home — and was in a car with her the day before she was stabbed 12 times, prosecutors said.

  But Pacaccio’s parents have criticized Cook County prosecutors for not charging Gargiulo in their daughter’s murder after they learned of the 2003 DNA match.

A match eight years ago. At least one murder in California, along with a previous murder and a stabbing after the match was made. And maybe a bunch of additional murders in the intervening years. Serial killers don't just stop killing after one and their "cycles" between events usually get shorter over time.

The excuses coming out of Anita's office are complete fabrication and horse crap - you mean to tell us DNA isn't enough to charge anyone, but her office has released how many inmates over the past few years based on DNA evidence. Anita's predecessor Dick Devine needs to be asked some harsh questions, too. There is at least one and maybe as many as ten dead girls' families out there who deserve explanations.

J-Fled Scam Policy Reversed

So who actually benefited besides J-Fled and Masters Masters Masters?

• Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy has reversed a policy change that resulted in lucrative vacation payouts to former Supt. Jody Weis and members of Weis’ command staff.

  Weis and his chief of staff, Mike Masters, were among 1,026 city employees who were paid $7.4 million in all for unused vacation days since September in the transition from former Mayor Richard M. Daley to Emanuel, the Chicago Sun-Times reported last month.

  Weis, who’s now deputy director of the private Chicago Crime Commission, walked away with a $76,308 lump-sum payment for 64 unused vacation days. Masters, now Cook County’s homeland security chief, left police headquarters with a check for $30,448 — the equivalent of 54 unused vacation days.

  Both benefited from the former superintendent’s June 2010 change in the policy governing vacation carryover, allowing “command staff members” to carry up to 39 unused vacation days from year to year “when circumstances prohibited the use of current and prior year’s allotments.” Weis made that change after starting the final year of his three-year, $310,000-a-year contract.

And guess who's speaking high praise for the change?

• “When circumstances change, such as discontinuing the unpaid furlough days for command personnel, then decisions and policies associated with such changes need to be reviewed, and changed, if deemed appropriate,” Weis said Tuesday. “Garry is doing exactly what he should be doing.”

Why won't this guy go away?

McGoatee?

Not any more:

• Now he looks like a Chicago cop.

  Garry McCarthy sported a goatee when he was named Chicago Police superintendent in May.

  But on Sunday, he shaved off the beard after taking classes at the Chicago Police Academy and becoming a certified Illinois law enforcement officer. He didn’t part with his moustache, though.

  To wear a Chicago Police uniform, which McCarthy intends to do when he takes the oath of office on Friday, a sworn officer must comply with the department’s 1998 general order on uniforms and personal equipment

It was always a fake controversy. We've still got serious problems to be addressed in this Department and a goatee wasn't really one of them. The uniform wearing will continue to bug people, too. But it's what's inside the uniform that will end up making or breaking this superintendency, and we've already seen a lot of what's inside over the beach goonings and the Sabina speech. The upcoming exempt moves fill in even more of the picture.

Those Darn Police

Why is this guy walking around?

• A 52-year-old man with 106 arrests on his record was arrested again Tuesday afternoon, accused of robbing a disabled person in Uptown, Chicago police said.

  Michael Woods, of the 900 block of West Wilson Avenue, has been charged with strong-arm robbery of a handicapped victim over 60, battery and resisting arrest, said Chicago Police [...].

  The incident happened about 3:15 p.m. Tuesday in the 1000 block of West Lawrence Avenue, [...]. Woods and an accomplice allegedly approached and tried to steal $60 the victim, a 71-year-old man, had in his hand.

Oh wait. It's the police who have been doing their job. It's the judges and State's Attorney's Office who haven't been keeping up their part. Under any sort of of "Three Strikes" law, this guy would have struck out about seven-and-a-half innings ago. Why is he still haunting the streets?

Late Night

Late start to the blogging day for reasons beyond our control. Bear with us as we settle in.

So, how about all those rumors about those command changes coming this Friday? Are Areas One and Two about to get a makeover? And what units are getting streamlined?

Door Damaged

This was a beautiful door:

• A man is dead after running into a glass door at his South Side Woodlawn neighborhood home while being chased by police officers Monday night.

  Jonrynn Avery, 24, of 6243 S. Vernon Ave., was pronounced dead at John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital of Cook County at 9:09 p.m., according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s officer.

  At 8:25 p.m., Chicago Police officers saw a 25-year-old man firing a handgun and then run into a home in the 6200 block of South Vernon Avenue, according to police News Affairs.

  The man then ran into a glass door and suffered multiple cuts to his body, police said.

Oh wait, it was his own door? Reclassified to suicide.

Good Job = Good Raises

In light of the 30 months of "declining crime," the FOP ought to be making an album of newspaper clippings from the past 30 months and presenting it to the arbitrator once contract negotiations begin.

They could be the heroes of an entire police generation by getting double-digit annual increases, pension security guarantees and health care concessions from an appreciative Rahm Emanuel.

In fact, we'd be willing to say that 30 straight months of crime reduction is a GREAT job and more than deserving of a equally GREAT raise, especially in these trying economic times where every penny counts and Rahm is demanding accountability and more bang for the ever tighter public dollar.

We eagerly await negotiations.

No Auto Theft Unit

What index crime keeps climbing in Chicago, and has been ever since they disbanded the Auto Theft Unit?

• Auto Theft!

And what happens when the San Jose PD disbands their vice unit?

• San Jose budget cuts aren’t hurting all businesses, and in fact, one group in particular seems to be cashing in on the city’s economic woes: prostitutes.

  Prostitution has made a rapid comeback to San Jose street corners in the past few weeks, according to NBC Bay Area sources.

• Two police sources told NBC Bay Area that prostitutes have even been traveling from as far as Oakland and Fresno to take advantage of San Jose’s less scrutinized street corners.

It's almost as if criminals know where there are no consequences or enforcement. Kind of like the Patrol Division under the reign of J-Fled that is only now being addressed.