No Kings

Except this one, sitting on his porcelain throne:

 Open post for the weekend.

In fact, in light of the warm weather, how about a HeyJackass.com killed/wounded guessing game?

• let's say five and twelve - usual restrictions (1700 Friday until 0500 Monday morning)

Maybe Porkulous will join in since he likes to gamble. 

Shots Fired "Near" the Police

Yet another "mass shooting" it the busy part of town:

• Four people were injured early Friday when multiple gunmen, including at least one wielding a rifle, opened fire along the iconic Division Street nightlife corridor, according to preliminary information collected by CWBChicago.

  Chicago police officers, including more than two dozen probationary officers, were already stationed in the area when the shooting occurred around 3:48 a.m. Officers said they saw gunmen in two vehicles unleash a torrent of gunfire down Division Street before speeding away.

  Police first spotted the suspected vehicles about 15 minutes earlier, around 3:31 a.m., when a gray Acura CL and a black SUV believed to be a Jeep Grand Cherokee were seen racing south on State Street from Division. An officer said the two vehicles continued circling the neighborhood for several minutes before the shooting

Gee, just a mile away from July's actual mass shooting where four were killed at a rap album release party.... which was also the scene of a previous shooting the year before.

Anyone know what those two dozen PPOs think about all this? They sticking around? Asking for the pension fund.

"...following up..."

At the FOP Board meeting the other night, some....interesting information:

• At the last board meeting, John proudly announced he was hiring an attorneywho “specializes in federal investigations.” His big selling point? This attorney could “call the Feds and find out what they’re investigating.” Because apparently, that’s how federal criminal probes work now, just pick up the phone and ask nicely.

  Fast-forward to today’s general meeting. With subpoenas from a federal grand jury freshly served on the Lodge last week, John told members he’d be bringing in a lawyer to “clear up the rumors and innuendos.” Enter Terry Campbell, our brand-new legal mouthpiece.

  Campbell informed us that the subpoena came from an 18-month federal grand jury; the kind convened to dig into possible federal crimes, not playground gossip. He claimed he’d spoken with Assistant U.S. Attorney Jared Hasten, who supposedly reassured him that no one’s been accused of anything and that the feds are just “following up on a complaint.”

Um....what now? We remember making a number of appearances in front of Grand Juries, a couple of them Federal, and we're pretty sure this isn't how Grand Juries work. There have been a number of recent incidents of people who faced legal repercussions over leaked Grand Jury testimony or transcripts. In fact, aren't there a number of Congressional hearings and lawsuits seeking to compel release of sealed Grand Jury testimony in regard to the Epstein files? This isn't something you can just call up the AUSA and get information about - it's secret for a reason.

This must be the greatest lawyer in the world to call the AUSA, get information like that and then talk about it to people who have no part in the procedure! 

(a completely unrelated aside - has anyone seen any coverage about Shrillary and Bill missing their Congressional dates to testify about the Epstein "investigation"? She missed last week, he missed this week, and not a peep from the media. Hmmm)

In any event, then a couple attendees asked a pertinent question - how much and who's paying?

• $425 per hour from FOP dues money, and according to an attendee, the lawyer looked a bit uncomfortable admitting that

For what is (allegedly) just a "complaint" with no attached accusation. We guess that settles that!

Now, on to something completely unrelated. As you know, we were once the police and as such, we are interested in all sorts of aspects of crime. Did you know that on occasion, art (like maybe....a painting) is used as a vehicle to disguise and conceal activities such as drug trafficking, sex work, terrorism, corruption, and embezzlement? It's astonishing what people will try to get away with and you can read about some of it here. We think there was even a Law and Order episode about it using a coin collection.

Like we said, just a thing we enjoy reading about.

The Irony is Delicious

Pardon our laughter:

• A man who out of prison less than four months after serving time for multiple armed robberies and a carjacking died late Tuesday when he crashed a freshly-carjacked SUV on the West Side, according to Chicago police and court records.

  Around 11:20 p.m. Tuesday, a man was changing the tire on his 2016 Jeep Grand Cherokee in the 4200 block of South Artesian Avenue when an armed, masked man approached and ordered him out of the vehicle, a CPD report stated. The victim complied. His girlfriend, who witnessed the carjacking live over FaceTime, immediately called 911.

  Roughly 20 minutes later, officers were called to the 2800 block of West Van Buren Street, where the same Jeep had jumped a curb and slammed into a tree. Police said the driver was found unresponsive inside the SUV and was pronounced dead at the scene. A law enforcement source told CWBChicago that officers recovered a firearm from inside the crashed vehicle.

If only there was a "truth in sentencing" type law on the books so the Parole Board wouldn't release the un-rehabilitated back into society before they were cured of their evil ways.

On the other hand, we'd be running out of material faster, so maybe keep it this way....and keep driving into trees asshole. 

Again Stacy?

She insists that everyone else pay their "fair share," but she can't be bothered to pay a regular bill that everyone gets:

• Chicago Teachers Union President Stacy Davis Gates gave herself a raise in 2025, bringing her total compensation to over $273,000.

  But she consistently fails to pay the city for her own water, sewer and trash services.

  While demanding the “wealthy” pay their fair share, perhaps Davis Gates should practice what she preaches.

She's making well over a quarter-million in taxpayer money, but she must be confused with her multiple residences in multiple states. Must be nice to rich, connected and unaccountable.

Lucky Fata$$

This popped up a day ago:

• Last year brought good fortune to Gov. JB Pritzker in his investment portfolio — and at the casino, too, according to 2024 income tax returns released by his campaign Wednesday.

  In his joint filing with first lady MK Pritzker, the billionaire Democratic governor reported an adjusted gross income of almost $10.7 million, more than tripling the roughly $2.8 million they reported in 2023.

The good news is it came from Vegas casinos.

The bad news is it isn't going to play well in a reelection campaign, where Illinois has been raising taxes willy-nilly, giving away hundreds of millions to ILLEGAL ALIENS and cost-of-living numbers have been steadily climbing. 

So now it's going to be a charitable donation: 

• “I was incredibly lucky,” a smiling Pritzker said while being quizzed by reporters on his jackpot during an otherwise somber Loop press conference about the potential deployment of troops in Chicago. “You have to be to end up ahead, frankly, going to a casino anywhere.”

  [...] “I like to play cards,” Pritzker added. “Anybody who’s played cards in a casino knows that you often play for too long and lose whatever it is that you’ve won. I was fortunate enough to have to leave before that happened.”

To rake in that kind of money, you (most likely) have to play in one of the high-roller rooms, where the moneyed class bets $100K....per hand. Which certainly won't play well in Peoria, or any other area where people notice that the governor (who insists he's just like us) can bet almost double the annual salary of the common people.

We're more likely to believe that every time Fata$$ said, "Hit me!" they brought him another plate of fried chicken and potatoes. 

Look! Free Money

Robbing Peter to pay off the CTU:

• Mayor Brandon Johnson’s budget proposal includes a gift for Chicago Public Schools: He is recommending that the city take an unprecedented amount out of special taxing districts so CPS can cover its costs and send some cash back to the city to help it end the year in the black.

  School board members say they believe CPS will receive more than $500 million — meaning Johnson will declare a record $1 billion TIF surplus. This would give CPS enough money to make it through the school year without massive cuts. And it would give the city some of what it needs to cover a $175 million municipal pension payment that the district balked at paying without help.

  Johnson is making this proposal after the partly elected, partly appointed school board dealt him a political blow in August when members refused to include the possibility of borrowing so they could cover the pension payment.

So the city isn't broke, they're just mismanaged. The CTU wanted to float a bunch of unnecessary bonds so as to allow connected bankers to make a shit-ton of money in fees and such.

A few points:

• if there is a $1 billion surplus, shouldn't some of the outrageous tax hikes be rescinded or ::gasp:: money be refunded to taxpayers? 
• if Conehead can raid this fund to pay for teacher pensions, why can't he raid it to pay Police/Fire/Laborer shortfalls that are endangering the viability of those funds?

Remember, teachers pay something like 2% of their salary to their pensions with taxpayers picking up the remainder of the cost. Cops (and firefighters?) pay something like 11% because of course they do. They can't strike and hold children hostage as a negotiating ploy.

Another "Brandon Body"

But hey, there's no crime in Chicago if you ignore it:

• A man fatally shot in an alley late Tuesday went undiscovered for about half an hour because no one called 911 to report the gunfire. The alley where the shooting occurred was previously monitored by the city’s ShotSpotter gunfire detection system until Mayor Brandon Johnson ended Chicago’s contract with the company in September 2023.

  The 28-year-old victim was found shortly after 11:30 p.m. behind the first block of West 44th Street, police said. A 911 caller told dispatchers they had heard gunfire around 11:02 p.m. But they didn’t call for help until about 30 minutes later, when they looked outside and saw a man bleeding and lying on the ground.

If the neighborhood doesn't care to call about gunfire, then they can't really bitch and moan when bodies are lying around for nearly thirty-minutes after said gunfire occurred.

We just like posting about it because (A) it's a simple way to throw some shade at Conehead and (B) it's a sideways nod at the failings of the democrat voting base, not caring about blatant crime. 

First PPP Fraud, Now Housing Fraud?

To be fair, there's a bunch of precedent for this:

• Two Chicago police officers, a city firefighter and a former Water Department employee have been indicted on federal fraud charges alleging they lied about their employment and income for years to qualify for subsidized housing assistance.

One of the accused worked on the west side where there have been a number of cops who deliberately misrepresented or concealed their real estate holdings to skirt the rules concerning "distressed neighborhood" home ownership. CWB wrote about one here along with a Tribune expose which went nowhere. 

Even a Deputy Chief was involved but nothing ever happened to any of them. If you assist the higher-ups in a successful "enterprise," they'll go to bat for you throughout the investigative process. It's a story as old as Chicago Machine politics.

Feebs Helped Serial Killer

(we're going through our bookmarks and locating a couple stories from earlier this month that got lost in the vacation time)

Remember, this is the premier law enforcement agency in the US, not a bunch of East German Stasi wannabes:

• A former FBI agent says a serial killer who doubled as an FBI informant for years manipulated agents into believing he was helping them, all the while preying on unsuspecting victims. 

  Scott Kimball will likely spend the rest of his life in a federal prison in Colorado after he was sentenced to 70 years in 2009. He pleaded guilty to killing four people between 2003 and 2004, and his number of victims could be much higher, according to former FBI Special Agent Jonny Grusing. 

  "He made a game out of tricking the FBI," Grusing told Fox News Digital, adding that Kimball's case was unprecedented. "As long as he won the game in front of him, that’s all that mattered."

While we appreciate what the current administration is trying to do, righting the ship and redirecting the mission from attacking Americans to fighting actual crime, we still think the organization as a whole is too far gone to have any sort of meaningful reform that would survive a regime change again. They've been weaponized and corrupted far too long, from the Prohibition days all the way through today.

There's no trust remaining. 

Another Corporate Departure

(we're going through our bookmarks and locating a couple stories from earlier this month that got lost in the vacation time)

The corporate occupancy rate downtown - you know, the massive tax base Chicago relies on - keeps shrinking:

• If you need more evidence of how badly downtown Chicago is struggling to recover from the pandemic, look no further than two recent pieces of news.

  The first wasn’t surprising. The office vacancy rate downtown hit a record 28% in the third quarter, according to data from real estate firm CBRE. Nearly three of every 10 square feet of office space in the central business district is going unleased right now. Brutal.

  But the second was a jolt. Walgreens, now owned by a New York private equity firm, said Monday that it’s departing its 200,000 square foot space at the Old Post Office, the massive building straddling the Eisenhower Expressway, which serves as a gateway to downtown from the west. The pharmacy chain will relocate an undisclosed number of workers — at one point, there were 1,800 in the Old Post Office space — to its Deerfield headquarters by the end of January.

As the article further states, it doesn't seem the Deerfield campus can accommodate all of those 1,800 workers - meaning either massive expansion or (more likely) drastic corporate downsizing, meaning not only does Chicago lose, but so does Illinois.

Just further evidence that the disease crippling Illinois would appear to be out-of-touch anti-business democrats. 

McCompStat Still at It

Some of the right leaning websites have to dig into the past to cite the hypocrisy of Fata$$:

• Former Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy mocked Illinois Democrat Governor JB Pritzker for a video in which he claimed to feel safe in a dangerous Chicago neighborhood — after Trump cleaned out the criminals.

  “JB Pritzker today put out another video in Little Village talking about how safe he feels,” McCarthy said when the governor put out his video. “Well, Little Village is primarily a Hispanic neighborhood here in Chicago. That district is down about 55% so far this year in murder. Well, where do you think ICE has been working in Chicago since January?”

This guy still has political ambitions we think.

And speaking of politics, we're noticing a couple other sites wondering why - if Chicago is so safe - why Conehead had a 150 man security detail. 

Long Ride for Shirley

Madigan is serving 500 miles from home:

• Michael J. Madigan, the country’s longest-serving state House leader and the longtime head of Illinois’ Democratic Party, is in prison.

  Madigan, 83, surrendered Monday to a minimum-security federal prison camp in Morgantown, West Virginia, according to a source close to the former speaker.

  That facility is 500 miles away from Chicago, just south of Pittsburgh.

No word if the Madigan's are going to buy a local condo there for visiting days, somewhere the kids and grandkids can stay while awaiting visiting days.

The good news is Mike has a prison commissary account:

• Prison camps like the one in Morgantown are known to have little to no fencing. And inmates have access to a prison commissary. At Morgantown, Madigan could purchase pitted dates for $4.35, a chess set for $7.10 and an alarm clock for $10, according to a menu online.

Here's a link to the Rules and such for sending money. 

We'd say don't bother sending any until his $50 million bankroll starts running low.

Historical Reference

Here's a link to the Contrarian article from four years ago outlining Paz's accusation against the Department and Barz:

• A lieutenant of the “Community Safety Team” alleges in a recent court filing that he was re-assigned after refusing to participate in a quota system driven by the Superintendent’s policing strategy. The supposed strategy? An expectation that officers pull over at least ten cars per day and complete blue cards. A “blue card” is documentation created when an officer conducts a traffic stop but neither issues a citation nor makes an arrest. Keeping in mind the Community Safety Team is made up of over 700 officers, common sense would suggest this team should have some other mission. If there is an epidemic of dangerously bad drivers, the offenders should be issued tickets. If there is a connection between bad drivers and crime, the focus should be on something other than what amounts to a verbal warning and ten minutes of paperwork for the officers.

  On principle, the lawsuit sounds plausible. The Deputy Chief alleged to have been carrying out the Superintendent’s quota dirty work, Michael Barz, is said to brag about his close relationship to the Superintendent. It is public record that the feeling is mutual. During testimony to the City Council on October 29, 2020, Brown replied to an alderman’s question about the Community Safety Team: “Thank you for the question and giving me the opportunity to brag on Mike Barz and his team.”  

The article also reports Barz's crooked IAD time and some of the investigations he hid from public view to assist in his upwardly mobile career track.

Not Nearly Long Enough

Should have been forty years minimum:

• A former Chicago police officer who sexually abused four victims, including two children he met through his work as a cop, has been sentenced to 20 years in prison.

  David Deleon, 32, pleaded guilty Friday to multiple felony charges before Cook County Judge Kenneth Wadas, who accepted the plea and imposed the sentence, according to court records.

  Deleon’s behavior came to light in 2023, when Norridge police charged him with sexually abusing a minor in their town. The investigation widened after detectives obtained a warrant for Deleon’s phone and discovered what prosecutors described as “multiple crimes against children.” The case was then turned over to the Cook County sheriff’s police.

If you follow the news semi-regularly, you'll note that there have been two incidents (one in North Carolina, one in Europe) where child molesters have been ::cough cough:: removed from the prison population.

It's a trend we hope to see continue for the foreseeable future. 

Great Job Barz

Merely confirming what we had been reporting for ten or so years.

This probably played a largish role in why he left under a cloud:

• Taxpayers should pay $950,000 to a former Chicago Police Department lieutenant who said his supervisors retaliated against him after he resisted orders to make “illegal” traffic stops, city lawyers recommended.

  Lt. Franklin Paz accused CPD officials of violating the state’s Whistleblower Act by reassigning him to the overnight shift in a South Side police district after he objected when former Commander Michael Barz demanded that Paz order the members of the citywide Community Safety Team he supervised to stop at least 10 Chicago drivers every day.

  The city paid nearly $681,000 to private attorneys to defend Paz’s lawsuit, according to records obtained by WTTW News through a Freedom of Information Act request.

  State law bans law enforcement agencies from requiring officers to make a certain number of traffic stops. A CPD spokesman told WTTW News in a statement the department does not “utilize quotas” for traffic stops.

  That did not stop Barz from pushing members of the team to demonstrate high levels of “activity,” according to the lawsuit.

Barz (allegedly) demanded 10 stops a day.

Was he also the boss (allegedly) collecting phone numbers (on video no less) from young women during parades? Was that part of another quota? Inquiring minds want to know.

UPDATE: that was Don Jerome. Barz was the crooked sergeant who covered up the IAD lieutenant cheating scandal where six of the top ten scores came from the IAD Confidential Section. He sat on the evidence until promised (extorted?) a series of promotions for not exposing Sup. Johnson's wife and her entire bridal party.

Media Hacktivist

If you had any doubt that the media was part and parcel of the ongoing insurrection, this ought to have opened a lot of eyes:

• A producer for WGN-TV, a Chicago television station, was detained by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents on Friday in a residential area of the city, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security said.

  The DHS said in a statement that Debbie Brockman "was placed under arrest for assault on a federal law enforcement officer."

  A video taken by a bystander and shared on social media shows masked border patrol agents holding a woman to the ground who identifies herself as Debbie Brockman, an employee of WGN. She is handcuffed and taken into a silver van with New Jersey plates. Onlookers honk their horns and jeer at the agents.

  It was not immediately clear whether Brockman had been taken into custody, or whether she had a lawyer.

This is what happens when you hire activists instead of journalists....or "journalists" if you prefer. 

She looks exactly how you think she'd look, and she's on video throwing object(s) at Federal agents, which is why the WGN "coverage" is underwhelming at best. 

Amusingly, the feds needed two pairs of cuffs to secure the criminal properly:

That face has "Karen" written all over it. 

Thankfully, an intrepid e-mailer improved it with photoshop:

That's even scarier....and they'd probably need four pairs of cuffs for Fata$$. 

More FOP Nonsense?

There are no checks and balances occurring at Lodge 7 (via an email):

• Members of the audit committee are supposed to meet quarterly.  (It has been more than a year since this has happened.)  The audit committee exists to review income and expenses.  They are supposed to compare items, such as receipts, to ledger entries.  While the committee has not been doing it's job, if it were to, how could Harold Brown, who takes in money at the store, audit his own actions?  This is absurd and goes against basic accounting principles.

And the guy running the FOP store is on the audit committee?

Are they just meeting in the hallway and saying, "Books are good!" and calling that a meeting or what? Especially in light of the ongoing allegations, it certainly seems like there isn't even a fox watching the hen house any more.

Shades of Dukakis

This is from a few days ago, but we were out of town....but how much do democrats hate you and love ILLEGAL ALIENS?

• Wow. Democrat Mayor of Chicago refuses to answer a simple question about an illegal who bashed a woman’s head into the sidewalk & raped her. “If that had been your wife, would you want ICE to deport that rapist illegal?”

Here's the video link.

Obviously, Conehead would cheer on the rapist, as long as the ILLEGAL ALIEN promised to vote for him and Fata$$ next election.

SCC Returns Tonight

We missed you, but we're readjusting our sight alignment, so perhaps we'll hit what we're aiming at next time.

Comments are re-opened.

Thanks for the break....posting returns overnight as usual.

Be safe.