Light Reading

Here's some fun stuff:

• THE SETTING: When an Illinois casino license became available in the late 1990s, it triggered fierce competition between several cities, all eager to be chosen for the very-profitable, highly-coveted enterprise that is legitimate, big gambling in the Land of Lincoln.
  
  THE WINNER: In March 2004, the Illinois Gaming Board awarded the license to the City of Rosemont, Illinois, adjacent to O’Hare Airport.
  
  THE FIX: In response to allegations that criminal interests aligned with the “Chicago Outfit” (AKA “The Mob”) were active in Rosemont, then Illinois Governor Blagojevich, now prisoner #40892-424 in the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, hired Eric Holder, former Deputy U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder during the Clinton Administration, to investigate, draft and release a report that would clear the Rosemont casino project with a clean bill of health.

It's entertaining seeing as how anyone with even the tiniest bit of knowledge regarding Chicago history knows the Outfit still runs a sizeable portion of things around here. They never completely went away - just kind of went "legitimate" in some things, not so legit in others. You don't think there's a reason the Organized Crime Unit ceased to even look for Outfit connections years ago?

This article ties a lot of loose ends into a good read and gives you a hint of how deep things might go.

About Those Promotions

So Robin Robinson and Bonnie Amado each got a "merit" pick.

Each chose someone from Unit 189.

Robinson is in some made up CAPS spot at 6-figures for some reason. Amado is "in charge" of facilities management.

Since both are civilians, there is exactly zero chance that they worked in Unit 189, meaning neither nominee is within their supposed "chain of command."

Not to mention the usual complement of house mice getting hte nod over people who do actual police work.

Would someone care to explain exactly how this supposed "merit" process works?

Saturday Promotions

For the first time our memory, the Department released promotional lists on a Saturday. At least Sergeant and Detectives.

Expect these classes to be held over as some sort of response force for the JVD trial in addition to whatever other schedule changes take place (12 on/off; 3rd watch standby).

Post the list if you have it.

UPDATE: FTO's and Lieutenants announced, too. Congratulations to the deserving.

McCarpetbagger Campaign

Is anyone else getting the feeling that McCarthy's entire campaign has been short-circuited by Rahm's announcement? Even if he revealed the date and time that Rahm secretly saw the McDonald video, it does nothing but undermine his own unwillingness to resign on principle and merely shines a spotlight on what a gutless command staff he had surrounding him, meaning one of two things:

• he is an extremely poor judge of character (likely) or
• Rahm picked everyone for him (more likely)

Neither of which makes him look competent to run an actual city.

Another "Tourist" Killed

What's with all the out-of-state people coming to Chicago to get killed?

• A 25-year-old man died Thursday after he was shot on Labor Day in the East Garfield Park neighborhood on the West Side.
  
  Trenton Land, a resident of Lafayette, Indiana, was riding in a vehicle about 3:15 p.m. in the 3700 block of West Jackson when another vehicle pulled up and someone inside fired shots, according to Chicago police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
  
  Land was struck in his head and was taken in critical condition to Mount Sinai Hospital, where he died Thursday at 7:15 p.m., authorities said.

Along with that Northwestern graduate student who got to spend four whole hours in Rahm's Chicago before getting shot multiple times, it seems a lot of people are seeing the seedy side of the Windy City.

Nice Tunnel Builder Rahm

Seems like a completely reasonable guy to do business with:

• Elon Musk may have violated his company’s code of business conduct and ethics after he was captured smoking marijuana with podcast extraordinary Joe Rogan on Thursday, a report stated.
  
  CNBC reported the Tesla CEO's public puffing could hurt his professional career.
  
  "Tesla also asks that you do your part by following safety and health rules and practices and reporting (either openly or confidentially) accidents or any unsafe equipment, behavior (such as use of illegal drugs) or conditions to your manager, supervisor, Human Resources or the Legal Department," the company's code of business conduct and ethics states. "Violence and threatening behavior are not permitted, and under no circumstances should you bring a weapon to work. Employees should report to work without being under the influence of illegal drugs or alcohol. The use of illegal drugs in the workplace will not be tolerated."

This along with the pending overseas lawsuit where he accuses a professional rescue diver of being a child molester numerous times, he seems almost perfectly sane.

Jarrett, Valencia Out - Prickwrinkle In?

The "Never-Saw-a-Tax-She-Didn't-Like" Queen of Soda is forming an exploratory committee:

• Consider it a “maybe.”
  
  Four years after she dashed her supporters’ hopes, Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle is officially exploring a run for City Hall.
  
  Preckwinkle will announce plans to form an exploratory committee for a run for mayor in the coming days, one of her representatives said Friday.

As the power behind the Chief Judge reducing and eliminating monetary bail, behind the sheriff emptying the jail of violent repetitive felons, and behind the state's attorney refusing to charge recidivist criminals with records as long as your arm, Prickwrinkle is the most to blame for skyrocketing property crime, crumbling health care, out-of-control tax increases, countywide corruption and a bankruptcy of immense proportion.

Sounds like the perfect candidate to drive Chicago into the ground those last few feet.

Was it Worth It?

Once again, stupidity ought to be painful:

• Two veteran Chicago police officers have been indicted on federal charges alleging they took thousands of dollars in kickbacks from the owner of an attorney referral service in exchange for inside information on victims from traffic crash reports.

Wow. You guys made what, $7,000 each over three years. At a job that already paid you $75,000 with seniority enough to get just about all the overtime you could want.

How many times to we have to repeat this? Every time you think you have some sort of foolproof plan to parley inside information gleaned on the job into easy money:

• it's been done,
• it's been illegal forever,
• it's all but guaranteed you'll be caught

And now there's a Federal conviction hanging over your head. Last time it was tow trucks. The time before that it was tow trucks again. Before that, it was funeral homes. And the guy at the other end will always give you up. A cop is a trophy, and you two are about to be mounted on a federal attorney's wall.

More Pictures of Delmonte

Once again, our crack research staff located the "peace activist's" social media page and downloaded everything they could find...something the media refused to do and before the family could lock it down for a purge:

No word on why the Tribune cropped out the other picture - the arthritis seems to be prevalent in just about all of his photos so it wouldn't be anything to be ashamed about.

Memorial Ride

Riding season is wrapping up:

(Comments closed here)

Radio Report Only?

Someone with a brain was actually thinking down at HQ and quickly sent out an e-mail in Special Ed's name to head off a complete stand-down of activity and the almost certain FOP lawsuit:

• The agreement that was reached requires that beginning July 1, 2019, CPD officers will identify themselves by beat number to notify OEMC of investigatory stop or arrest occurrences in which pointing a firearm at a person occurs. No additional reports for the officer will be required.
  
  To be clear, this notification requirement in no way prohibits you from pointing a firearm at a person when your safety or the safety of another is in jeopardy. Please also know that we fought incredibly hard to obtain exceptions to the notification requirement. One exception is that CPD officers will not be required to notify OEMC of any unholstering or display of a firearm, including having a firearm in a "low ready" position.

As numerous people have already pointed out, this probably won't remain as it is - there's no accountability, no tracking, no way to make officers pay for having the audacity to actually draw and point a weapon at a criminal. COPA, the ACLU, and assorted other lib-tards will need something to justify their existence and further demonize the police. It's coming.

Anti-Violence Altar Boy..... (UPDATE)

.....felled by - violence? Is this correct? It can't be:

• Anti-gun violence activist Delmonte Johnson was shot to death Wednesday evening in the Stony Island Park neighborhood on the South Side.
  
  Johnson, 19, was shot multiple times about 7:29 p.m. in the 8600 block of South Euclid Avenue, according to Chicago police and the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office. He was shot in the chest and abdomen and was taken in critical condition to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where he died at 8:16 p.m.
  
  An autopsy Thursday found he died of a gunshot wound to the chest and his death was ruled a homicide, the medical examiner’s office said.

And the Slum Times made a rather unfortunate choice of photographs to accompany the article:

There's that damn arthritis affliction once again.

Until there's a cure!

UPDATE: The Tribune has cropped the photo so you can't see the hands any more.

Without attribution that they altered the story of course.

400 in the Books

Another Rahm Milestone:

• Year to Date
  Shot & Killed: 341
  Shot & Wounded: 1767
  Total Shot: 2108
  Total Homicides: 400

The media will ignore this as murders that don't happen with a gun don't count. There are war zones that don't have the totals that Chicago has put up.

More Disengagement on Tap

Seems like "fetality" is the order of the day from Rahm:

• Chicago police officers would be required to document every instance in which they point a gun at someone under an agreement reached Wednesday between Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan and Mayor Rahm Emanuel, two sources familiar with the deal confirmed.
  
  The new requirement, which will be agreed upon formally in a federal court hearing Thursday morning, marks a win for Madigan who had pushed for the new level of documentation as part of her ongoing negotiations with Emanuel on a federal consent decree that will govern sweeping reforms to the Chicago Police Department in the coming years.

Make no mistake, Rahm is going to fold on a lot more points before this "consent" decree takes effect. He has nothing to gain by siding with a Department that disliked him pretty much from day one and grew to hate him the more we got to know him. Rahm is a petty vindictive tyrant (which drove him out of the Sparklefart White House) and it's going to show up a lot more before he finally fades away. Cops know bullshitters and Rahm was a bullshitter even as a congressweasel.

In the meantime, the only thing this agreement does is keep more cops and their supervisors off the street for extended periods of time, during which patrol officers aren't visible, streets are undermanned, backup isn't available and supervision non-existent.

You know how to avoid useless paperwork? Slow roll, make a lot of noise arriving, cut a report, advise warrants, leave.

Bold Prediction

Rahm knows the fix is in?

• A day after pulling the plug on his bid for a third term, Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Wednesday said Chicago’s next mayor hasn’t yet entered the race to succeed him.
  
  Emanuel told WGN radio [...] he doesn’t think any of the 12 announced candidates for the fifth floor office at City Hall has the skill set to do the job, while getting in plugs for some of his own work.
  
  “No,” Emanuel said when [WGN] asked him whether the next mayor is in the race. “I don’t think so. And here’s the thing: The public knows that this is a very big job, and the mayor cannot be a one-trick pony. You can’t just speak on one issue. You got to do economic development, you got to do education policy, you got to be able to get money out of Springfield and Washington. You’ve got to have an ability to actually invest in our neighborhoods, transportation, libraries, schools and park system.”

Rahm of course, spoke badly on all of those topics, bringing in big name companies while bankrupting pensions, stripping widows and retirees of promised benefits, closing dozens of schools and more than a few police stations. He got whatever Madigan deigned to give him and Obama didn't give him a damn thing, ignoring the Machine that spawned him. As for the neighborhoods, well, the recent tax outrages, police shortages, pothole eruptions, decaying CTA infrastructure and more led to a complete eradication of middle class blacks, whites and browns.

So who does Rahm think the Machine has chosen to replace him?

Rahm's Campaign Cash

So where does it all go? Rahm says he returning most of it:

• Now that he’s decided against running for re-election, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has indicated he plans to return the money donated to his campaign fund. Exactly how much money is involved has yet to be determined, but somewhere upwards of $7 million looks like a good bet. Emanuel had nearly $7.6 million in his campaign fund at the end of the June 30 reporting period.
  
  Since then, he’s raised at least another $775,000, records show. It will be a few more weeks before his campaign committee needs to report how much he’s spent during that same time period.
  
  One of the oddities of the mayor’s surprise decision is that his campaign was operating at full tilt right up until the moment he pulled the plug. That means there will be staff and other expenses that remain to be paid, including, one would assume, some senior employees who made a long-term commitment through the election and will need to be compensated appropriately.

So still plenty of room for "politics" to play a part in this. One has to wonder at the "favors" that might have been granted in the way of long term contracts while Rahm knew for months that he wouldn't run.

Another Innocent

Police stripped from the north side and shipped them everywhere else leads to what?

• Chicago police have released surveillance photos of three suspects in the death of a Northwestern University graduate student who was caught in crossfire as he walked toward an "L" stop in Rogers Park over the weekend.
  
  The photos are from a Bank of America surveillance camera at Gateway Plaza, about half a block from where Shane Colombo, 25, was killed around 8:25 p.m. Sunday near Clark Street and Howard Avenue. Police say Colombo was walking toward the Howard "L" station when two men began shooting at each other.
  
  Colombo was hit four times.

"More with less" leads to "more dead where there weren't dead people before."

Taking Advantage of Chaos

So Rahm's announcement has thrown the entire mayoral race into disarray. A whole list of people who were sitting out - either as a show of loyalty to Rahm or as a bow to the reality of Rahm's fundraising prowess - have suddenly announced they're "considering" a run at the top job including:

• Ald-moron and Rahm-lickspittle Roderick Sawyer, (6th)
• known communist Ameya Pawar (47th)
• latin king Ricardo Muñoz (22nd)
• Gery Chico
• U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley, D-Ill
• former Obama education secretary Arne Duncan
• Toni Preckwinkle, 
• Lisa Madigan 
• Ald. Scott Waguespack (32nd)
• even Ald-asshole Proco Joe, Chewy Garcia and psycho Little Luis (D-FALN) are making noise

This in addition to the  already declared:

1. Lightfoot
2. Vallas
3. carpetbagger McCarthy
4. soon-to-be-indicted Brown
5. LaRaviere
6. Willie "$$$$" Wilson
7. activist Ja'Mal Green
8. tech entrepreneur Neal Sales-Griffin (who?)
9. attorney John Kozlar, pharmaceutical technician (who?)
10. DePaul student Matthew Roney (who?)
11. policy consultant Amara Enyia (who?)
12. Southwest Side attorney Jerry Joyce (why?)

As a side note, the FOP and PBPA should be considering filing for Arbitration tomorrow. The disarray on the City side can only work to our advantage and everything currently not on the table (like discipline) can't be touched since it has never been addressed. Everything remains the same except for the raises, and anyone who has followed the past Contract arbitrations knows that the door is wide open for decent sized raises when the economy is doing better - which it is.

Never let a crisis go to waste.

And It Begins....

Here we go:

• Dozens of potential jurors are scheduled to show up at the Leighton Criminal Court Building on Wednesday as the long-awaited trial of Chicago police Officer Jason Van Dyke gets underway, at least in a preliminary way.
  
  Protesters may be out in force outside the courthouse at 26th Street and California Avenue for what could be an anticlimactic first day as the only scheduled business involves the potential jurors filling out a questionnaire in private in advance of jury selection starting up Monday in earnest.
  
  No one knows for sure, but jury selection could take at least a week, perhaps far longer. Judge Vincent Gaughan plans to interview each potential juror individually.

MLB Playoffs start 02 October, and guess who's in the thick of it again? Even two weeks of jury selection pushes the trial right into the middle of it. If it lasts three-to-five weeks, it bumps up against the end of the Championship Series and the beginning of the World Series. Has any of this been taken into consideration? Because we haven't seen word one on a plan.

Candlelight Vigil Moved

Late word:

• Due to the threat of heavy thunderstorms, the Candlelight Vigil has been moved inside of Soldier Field.  The time remains 7:30 pm.  Complimentary parking is available in the Waldron Deck off of 18th Street.  Enter Soldier Field through Gate 6 where you will be directed to the First Floor United Club Room where the Vigil will be held.  Readers should look for the table at the top of the stairs where CPD personnel will direct you.  No chairs, blankets or large bags are permitted in the building.

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