Mayor 3%

That three-percent discount Conehead is looking for from city vendors is actually his upcoming approval rating.

Also, we didn't make this meme - it was forwarded to us by a couple people who found it on the X/Twitter accounts of a few different people, one of which is titled SecondCityCop - which is NOT associated with us in any way:

But we do wish we had thought of it because it's hilarious.

What isn't hilarious is how quickly Conehead is driving the final nails into the Chicago coffin. You notice he didn't ask for three-percent cuts in government spending? Or three percent manpower cuts? Or maybe shutting down the aldercreature annual million-plus-dollar spending accounts?

How about cutting three-percent of his bodyguard detail?

What about his handlers over at the CTU - maybe dropping their salary demands down to three percent from nine or closing down three-percent of the under-populated schools or raising their pension contributions from two-percent to three (even though every other city employee pays around nine percent....bring that up next time they whine about "fair shares).

Someone else sent us this as a fundraising opportunity:

While raising money, the city can ruin the health of workers so they don't drain the pensions or they die off quicker.

Really Bad Rumor

Someone left their gun in a bathroom at 26th Street. No one stole it or shot someone with it, so it's a routine suspension.

Someone else got arrested for Domestic Violence. It's a yawner, so it'll be a routine suspension after a year at Callback.

Someone's personal vehicle was being used to deliver heroin by a niece and her high ranking gang banger boyfriend....no charges, no impound, no demotion, and she was allowed to keep her job as the head Internal Affairs, running railroad jobs on all sorts of politically undesirable Officers while burying other investigations on politically connected Officers.

And according to a few commentators, they're going to make her First Deputy today??? We're hoping against hope that this isn't true.

Is this why all those exempts left the past few months? They saw this train wreck and they wanted to get away as quick as possible?

PPP Conviction

This is something we guess:

• Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office secured a guilty plea from former state employee Ravonn Hankins, 34, of Chicago, for PPP loan fraud. A Cook County judge sentenced him to second-chance probation and community service.

  As reported by the Illinois Attorney General's Office, Hankins, while working at the Illinois State Police, made a not-so-legal move by applying for a PPP loan close to $14,582 for a ghost of a catering business. Hankins even sought loan forgiveness before being caught but has since repaid the funds.

  "I will continue to ensure government employees who exploited pandemic assistance programs to line their own pockets are held accountable," Raoul stated.

  Dozens of cases have been processed by Raoul's Public Integrity Bureau, spearheaded by Assistant Attorney General Haley Bookhout. Cases brought to light so far have revealed a pandemic plague of PPP loan fraud. Hankins was sentenced yesterday to two years of second-chance probation and 30 hours of community service.

No word if he was put on a "do not hire" list and the article claims Kwame has prosecuted "dozens" of cases. Anyone have his win/loss record or how much tax payer money has been returned to the state or federal treasuries?

That Ship Has Sailed

At least, that's what all the signs and rumors are pointing to:

• In a Hail Mary attempt to keep the Bears in Chicago, developers of the old Michael Reese Hospital site are going public with their dazzling plan to build a Bronzeville stadium and an adjacent mixed-use development — with a great lawn extending over Du Sable Lake Shore Drive all the way to Lake Michigan.

  Scott Goodman, principal of the Farpoint Development team that purchased the 48.6-acre site from the city, openly acknowledged that he has not met with the team, nor has he finalized the financing for either for the $3.2 billion dome or the $600 million in state money needed just to ready the site for development.

  Developed by architect Lamar Johnson, the striking renderings for a stadium and ancillary development at the Michael Reese site have been floating around behind the scenes for months. But Goodman refused to share them publicly for fear of alienating Bears President Kevin Warren.

  Sources said Goodman was warned if he did go public, it would nix any chance of persuading the Bears to take their Chicago sights off the lakefront parking lot south of Soldier Field and push them to the shuttered Arlington International Racecourse that they bought in 2022.

  Goodman said Friday his fear that the Bears could be as good as gone persuaded him to finally show his cards.

Even this guy thinks the Arlington Heights Bears is a done deal so he's dumping the facade of playing nice. 

The NFL Draft is scheduled for 24-26 April. The Bears move is expected to be announced shortly after. Word is that Conehead's approval rating will hit 2% that day.

Why Mention This?

You know how an idiot learns? Or a moron? Or a dog?

• by being made uncomfortable

Guess how a lib-tarded politician learns?

• see above

We don't know why Catanzara spends the first 80 seconds or so of his TGIF address (the first in a few weeks he admits) making excuses for state rep Davis's poorly thought out bill that would allow persons claiming mental illness to freely beat police officers and escape accountability, but he does. He also claims that one conversation and within two hours, Davis had the bill sent to the Rules Committee for quashing. We don't know the ins and outs of Springfield timetables, but that bill was up for over a day when we posted about it, CWB and Fox News gave it bigger play, and it gained two other co-sponsors in the intervening time frame before the Illinois Sheriff Association called Davis and made her uncomfortable.

No Officers have been accused of doxxing the rep. In fact no First Responders at all have been accused of anything except bringing attention to one of the dumbest bills we've ever seen to come out of Springfield. No one has even attempted to put anything in our comment section about Davis - not that we'd allow it anyway. We have first hand experience with the Department and Big Tech attempting to dox us.

So why the song and dance from Catanzara? It looked bad. He looks like he's making excuses and stretching the truth for Davis when the fact of the matter is:

• she proposed something dumb, 
• she roped in a couple other anti-police libtards, 
• she got exposed,
• she was made uncomfortable, 
• she backed off her position. 

We didn't make the rules. We have never and will never advocate for doxxing anyone because we know what the blowback might be. But one side pushes and pushes, and sometimes someone with less patience and tolerance might feel the need to ...remind... a pusher that the lines exist for a reason and you continue at your own peril. 

A "gentleman's agreement" only exists when both sides are being gentlemen. 

Nice Court System Evans

Another great bail story from CWB:

• A lengthy investigation by Chicago police detectives resulted in the arrest this week of a man believed to be responsible for eleven armed robberies, all targeting victims who were lured into traps via Facebook Marketplace ads.

  Marketplace meetups, where two parties who don’t know each other consummate the sale of online merchandise, can be risky. CPD invites people to complete online exchanges at their district police station to decrease the risk. But, as CWB reported last month, at least one recent police station rendezvous ended with robbery, too.

  In the latest development, prosecutors charged 19-year-old Emerson Watson, Jr., with robbing nearly a dozen people at gunpoint in six separate Marketplace meetings between September and December 2024. One victim was robbed of $8,000 in cash that he brought to buy an item offered for sale on Facebook. Others lost $2,800. One lost $1,500. Prosecutors said digital data, vehicle information, and other evidence point to Watson’s involvement.

  Watson was on juvenile probation for armed robbery when the holdups occurred, Judge Deidre Dyer said as she ordered him detained this week. Dyer concluded that the “scope and randomness of this crime presents a threat to all citizens.”

Someone could actually scratch out a living pointing out all the Cook County court f#$% ups that happen on a daily basis.....oh wait, someone is scratching out an existence - the CWB blog. If you aren't reading them daily, you aren't keeping up on the constant screwups in the "justice system." Youo certainly aren't going to find out about it from the legacy "media."

More Bad Law Proposals

Why are Illinois legislators such scumbags?

• Illinois lawmakers have been hard at work, developing legislative proposals that would, among other things, legalize “magic mushrooms,” give killers and rapists sentenced to life in prison the right to apply for parole, and allow registered child sex offenders to move 249 feet closer to grade schools.

  The Illinois Sheriff’s Association, which opposes the bills, highlighted the proposals on its Facebook page.

The CWB site has descriptions of all of the bills and names the scumbag proposing to embrace criminals over actual citizens, and they're exactly who you suppose they would be.

Who wants to legalize more drugs that wreck families and neighborhoods? democrats.

Who wants to let murderers and rapists a second (or third) chance? democrats.

Who actually wants child molesters to move close to children? democrats.

Who votes for these scumbag democrats? Morons.

A Discount?

Driving the city into the ground:

• Mayor Brandon Johnson is trying to put a 3% squeeze on city contractors, asking them to agree to reduce their prices by that amount on all invoices sent to the city to help Chicago get past “difficult economic times.”

  Chief Procurement Officer Sharla Roberts’ surprise request was sent this week to all main contractors doing business with the city. The letter does not describe the nature of the economic crisis and doesn’t say what, if any, repercussions there might be for companies that refuse the cost-cutting request.

  It states that “in light of the economic times,” the city “faces new challenges to reduce its costs and allocate resources in a way that accomplishes more with less” to maintain city services.

  The mayor’s request comes during what amounts to crunch time for the city and the Chicago Board of Education.

Given that the CTU is driving Chicago rapidly toward insolvency, now would be an excellent time for legislators in Springfield to stop proposing freedom to murderers, rapists, police attackers and child molesters, and do something positive for taxpayers:

• pass a law to make teachers on par with police and fire - that is to say "essential" and therefore ineligible to strike, holding children hostage for financial gain.

Time to say "No" and mean it.

Promotions, Demotions

We don't have names for all the spots - some may actually be duplicated - but this is what we've gotten:

• DC Nardo (A/4) demoted
  
  DC Jerome (demotion) is next with his 60 day suspension.
  
  Cmdr Parham to DC A/4
  
  Lt Kinney to Cmdr IRT
  
  INTERN Cmdr appointed in 014
  
  Cmdr Tate (006) to Cmdr Narcotics
  
  Cmdr Ward (011) to DC Street Dep
  
  Cmdr Wallace (Narc) to Cmdr 011
  
  Cmdr (002) to Const Policing
  
  Cmdr Cruz (124) to Dep Chief CompStat
  
  Tact Lt (002) to Cmdr 002
  
  Tact Lt (011) to Cmdr 006
  DC Adnardo Gutierrez dumped to LT

Fill in the blanks in the comments.

O'Hare Shooting Update

We'd swear that this was all made up, but the truth is sometimes even stranger than fiction:

• A wild shoot-out exposed the lack of license plate readers at O’Hare Airport, where gunmen fled in cars after wounding a self-proclaimed rapper, police sources say.

  “How is it that we don’t have those readers at the airport when we have them all over the city?” a police supervisor said, adding that such readers could have helped in the investigation.

Hope you didn't say that on camera, boss. 

It's a good question though - what with all the federal money available and airports being a favorite target of terrorists, you'd think that cameras would cover all possible angles and approaches to the terminals, access points, and the airfield itself.

Nope, and it took this early morning stupidity to reveal it:

• Nearly 60 shell casings were retrieved outside Terminal 2 after two rappers from Austin and their West Side companions deboarded a Spirit Airlines flight and got into a violent argument in baggage claim, leading to the shooting at 12:10 a.m. Wednesday.

  Chicago police officials haven’t announced a motive for the attack in the arrivals area on the lower level. But they know two separate groups stepped off a flight from Houston and made their way to baggage claim, where the quarrel between the rappers erupted, according to a police report and sources. Screaming expletives and throwing punches, the brawl escalated and moved into a vestibule before spilling into the street outside.

  After someone in the melee called a “gun car,” its occupants jumped out and began firing an AK-47-type rifle and a 9mm gun at people on the sidewalk, a police source said.

A "gun car." Who knew that the rap industry had their own SORT cars patrolling the airports? And who'd have guessed that someone who flew in on Spirit Airlines would ever engage in anti-social type behavior?

Real nice airport there Conehead.

The Fleecing of Chicago

The Contrarian's Paul Vallas goes over some well trodden ground:

• Suing the City of Chicago for alleged police misconduct has become both a lucrative racket and drain on city finances. On Monday, a Chicago jury awarded $120 million in a wrongful conviction lawsuit to two plaintiffs, both of whom spent 16 years in prison. This amounts to paying each man approximately $4 million for each year behind bars. Just last August, another Chicago jury awarded $50 million to a man who had spent 10 years in prison before then State’s Attorney Kim Foxx agreed to the dismissal of charges against him. That settlement was equivalent to a whopping $5 million per year of custody.

  All three of those men were represented by a Chicago law firm that, in 2022, secured $42 million in settlements out of a total of $117 million Chicago paid out to litigants. Since 2000, Chicago has paid out $700 million in lawsuits to criminals, most of whom are guilty, for alleged police misconduct and lawyers representing the city got $138 million.

We say "well trodden ground" because Marty Preib was writing about this for years, in books and also on the Contrarian site, naming names, law firms and media whores who advocated for the release of guilty persons after witnesses died, moved out of state, or officers retired, etc. And with a willing accomplice in Crimesha, these scumbags were able to free assorted murderers via lies, omissions and perjured testimony. Someone in Crimesha's office even directed them to friendly law firms, who after securing their cut, undoubtedly made campaign contributions to assorted aldercreatures who had voted to approve "settlements."

"Fleecing" is the mildest description for the extortion and fraud that is still going on to this day.

And Another Dead One

Former ShotSpotter neighborhood, a sergeant hears the gunfire, other officers see vehicles fleeing the area, someone actually calls 911, and eight minutes later....:

• A man was found murdered in a West Side alley on Wednesday night, eight minutes after police officers in the area first heard the gunfire that killed him. Had Mayor Brandon Johnson not disconnected the neighborhood’s ShotSpotter network last September, the 31-year-old would likely have been found much sooner, thanks to the gunfire detection system’s pinpoint accuracy.

  A Chicago police sergeant on patrol reported hearing gunfire around 8:39 p.m. and guessed that it came from somewhere within Laramie, Cicero, Ferdinand, and Lake. Another officer saw a couple of vehicles speeding out of that box. A 911 caller reported gunfire near the 4900 block of West Kinzie. Another caller reported a chase between two cars and gunfire near Lavergne and Hubbard.

CWB blog says this is Number 36 Wounded and/or Dead in a ShotSpotter hood. That doesn't even count the ones that were just property damage or nothing got hit. 

Here a Tax, There a Tax

Once again, ZERO proposals to actually cut government spending and instead, create a new tax!

• As engines become more fuel efficient, and electric vehicles make greater inroads , Illinois faces an unexpected consequence — less funding for roads.

  The motor fuel tax helps pay for road, bridge and public transit improvements throughout Illinois. Now, though, vehicles require less gas — or no gas at all — so funding for infrastructure has taken a hit.

Golly, saving the environment sure gets expensive!

• On Illinois toll roads , drivers pay approximately seven cents per mile, according to Poulos. With a mileage-based system, drivers could expect to pay three to four cents per mile. That would come on top of any tolls already being paid, similar to the gas tax.

  [...]

  In Illinois, the charge likely wouldn’t raise enough revenue to allow eliminating the motor fuel tax.

Of course not. Illinois pols have never ever eliminated a tax. And with Fata$$ welcoming all sorts of illegals and tranny refugees, he's going to need every dime he can pry out of Illinois' shrinking tax base.

This is just "a study" at this point, but rest assured, with other blue state shitholes already doing it, you can expect it here shortly. 

You didn't expect them to tax bicyclists, did you?

Buy This Kid A Lottery Ticket

Unbelievable:

• A 4-year-old girl survived a fall from the 10th floor of a South Side building earlier this week, Chicago police said Thursday.

  The girl fell from a building in the 4500-block of South Drexel Boulevard in Bronzeville about 10:50 a.m. Tuesday, police said.

  She suffered a head injury, and was taken to Comer Children's Hospital in fair condition, CPD said.

Must have been the softest ground ever for this kid to have survived.

No word on charging the parent(s) yet. We've seen tons of others charged for less than this.

Interestingly Awful

On one hand, our readers have been predicting this for quite a while, based partly on our reporting that the Department is in the midst of the largest wave of retirements in three decades, but among all the bad choices, this is pretty bad:

• The Department is floating switching the entire department to 12 hour days by first period 2026 due to the outlook of decreased manpower in the future and the bad shape of current district manpower. MLAS has a draft which is going to be presented to the FOP. The 12hr schedule they are proposing is brutal. 3 weeks back to back it’s 4 12s in a row.. then the next three weeks it’s 3 12s in a row. Start times are 5a-5p and 6a-6p with the other watch being “5p-5a and 6a-6p”. Imagine getting 5p-5a??!?? You go to work about 430.. work all night. Get home about 530a.. fall asleep by 630a. Maybe wake up at 1 or 2 just to go back to work 3 hours later 4 days in a row just to be a zombie for your days off. This is not a good idea at all…

You think things are bad and getting worse? Imagine trying to figure out side job hours.  Imagine OT not beginning until twelve hours into a working day. Imagine cancelled days off. Imagine trying to maintain a relationship with these hours.

Imagine trying to raise a child, attending Parent/Teacher conferences, going to Little League games or dances or other school events.

Imagine you're a two-cop family.

Rahm Running?

This explains a lot of his media appearances: (link fixed)

• Since coming home in January from his stint in Tokyo — a job he repurposed to be American envoy to all of Asia — Emanuel has been as visible as any other Democrat. Never mind that he currently holds no office and hasn’t been on a ballot for a decade.

  Name the political podcast and Emanuel has likely been on it or will be shortly. He immediately snagged a CNN contract and regular Washington Post column, no small accomplishment for a former official at a moment of retrenchment for news organizations.

  He’s also hitting the lecture circuit, appearing for paid and gratis gigs before audiences such as the Realtors and the Chicago Economic Club. Emanuel is pointedly avoiding Ivy League campuses and later this month will make his first stop on a service academy tour when he speaks at West Point.

  Just as striking is to talk to anybody in high-level Democratic politics who knows Emanuel — which is to say most everyone — and hear how matter of fact they are about the inevitability of his candidacy.
  

He's doing the Newscum thing, "pivoting" to the center to claim to be a "moderate" before veering left when actually in office. Newscum mentioned tranny sports, Rahm is bitching about education. Neither did or will directly condemn it - Newscum won't propose or support any Laws to protect girls from getting beaten by boys and Rahm's record with the CTU resulted directly in the Rise of Conehead.

Remember, Rahm was one of Clinton's hatchet men,  (in)famous for allegedly coining the phrase "you never want to let a serious crisis go to waste" and (allegedly) wasn't above manufacturing a crisis to do so. He sent a dead fish to a pollster he didn't like (the humor of which we appreciated) and stabbed a table, naming opponents, while screaming "Dead! Dead! Dead!" over what he saw as political betrayals (which cemented him as deranged).

His record of scandal when running Freddie Mac was never fully investigated, nor his subsequent stock trades that netted him hundreds of thousands of dollars. He worked closely with Sparklefarts and saddled Illinois with Tammy Fuckworthless while supporting assorted anti-gun platforms.

He manufactured a residency based solely on a discarded wedding dress, was a big part of Chicago's descent into irrelevancy, hid the McDonald video then blamed CompStat McCarthy for it, punished the detail cops who let his hired gardener leave tomatoes on his front porch and we remember something about a weed deal on his front porch that made a certain blog.

Hopefully, all of these scandals and more are properly exposed should he actually run for something.

Fire Rescue

Some say that just showing up to work these days counts as heroic, and cops still go above and beyond:

• A Chicago police officer suffered smoke inhalation while helping a man to safety early Wednesday in a Humboldt Park house fire.

  Officers were on patrol about 2:50 a.m. when they noticed a residential fire in the 700 block of North Spaulding Avenue, Chicago police said.

  One officer helped a man to safety while two other occupants escaped the building unharmed, police said. The officer was taken to an area hospital in good condition as a precaution for possible smoke inhalation.

Well done and best wishes for a speedy recovery.

Don't Demonize

Conehead thinks there's no such thing as a bad boy, just lack of pocket money:

• Mayor Brandon Johnson on Tuesday left no doubt he remains opposed to a downtown curfew of 8 p.m. for unaccompanied minors — even after a tourist was shot while walking with her son outside a Streeterville movie theater.

  Instead of using the stick to prevent young people summoned by social media from congregating and sometimes creating havoc downtown, Johnson favors offering them the carrot of paid employment.

  That’s what the mayor was attempting to do during Tuesday’s news conference at Uplift Community High School, 900 W. Wilson Ave. That’s where he formally launched the online application process for 29,000 youth employment opportunities in this year’s version of “One Summer Chicago.”

  That’s 1,000 more jobs than the city offered last summer. Johnson had hoped to spend $50 million to create 2,000 more summer youth jobs, but was forced to cut that in half during the marathon budget stalemate during which a recalcitrant City Council refused to approve a property tax increase.

Has any enterprising investigative reporter (hahahahahaha) ever attempted to find out:

• how much money is allocated to there summer jobs, 
• how many of these yutes apply, 
• how many actually show up, on time, do a full shift, and get a paycheck

And how much is laundered back into assorted aldermanic or mayoral coffers disguised as lord-knows-what. Because after what we're seeing in Washington DC and the misappropriated billions currently being exposed makes us wonder about decades of waste here in town.

Learn to Code Bitches

The New York Times fired half of its editorial staff:

• The New York Times is reshuffling its operations at the opinion section — reducing the frequency of its editorials while shrinking its roster of editorial board writers, according to a report.

  The Gray Lady has reportedly offered several of its editorial board members new jobs within the opinion section or buyout packages if they choose to leave the company.

We don't know if anyone noticed, but among the media personalities who have resigned, been fired or downsized since the election include former Chicago news readers Lester Holt and Jim Acosta, both mostly useless when here, but elevated to top propagandists around the time Sparklefarts was gathering power here.

With trust in the media lower than Congress and profits tanking as America turns off the lying media, we are reminded of the contempt that these assholes had for normal everyday people and their struggles while they aided and abetted the left in destroying the country. The karma train is running them all over....and it makes us smile.

O'Hare Shooting

You don't even have to go to Streeterville to get shot now:

• As if having a tourist get shot while walking with her young son downtown wasn’t bad enough, police this morning are investigating a shooting that occurred outside a terminal at O’Hare International Airport overnight. Unlike Sunday’s shooting in Streterville, a suspect is in custody for the latest incident.

  In a media statement, CPD said a suspect was in custody after the shooting occurred when “an altercation occurred between multiple individuals outside of Terminal 2” around 12:54 a.m. A 25-year-old man suffered two gunshot wounds to his lower body. Police said his condition had been stabilized at Lutheran General Hospital.

  Here’s what else we’ve learned: Shortly before the shooting, police at O’Hare received a call about a fight in progress near the baggage claim carousels at door 2A. The fight continued outside the terminal doors. Moments later, one of the men involved in the fight produced a long gun, possibly a mini-AK47-style weapon, and began shooting outside door 2C.

  Police initially believed a second person had also been shot at the airport, but it turned out that his injuries were the result of being beaten, according to a first responder who was at the scene. He was also taken to Lutheran General. Both the man who was shot and the man who was beaten have local addresses.

Oh, just local rapscallions getting their shooting on? No problem. It's like "street theater" for the tourists!

Can't wait for all the video on this one.

Well, Well....Look Who Caught Up

He finally discovered reality:

• He expected to find a “dirty police department.” Instead, he discovered a “dirty city.”

  Anthony Driver Jr., president of the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability, came to that jarring conclusion while conducting a fact-finding mission into Andrea Kersten, chief administrator of the Civilian Office for Police Accountability.

  That preliminary inquiry — launched in response to an “avalanche” of complaints by COPA employees — could have triggered a no-confidence vote that set the stage for the City Council to fire Kersten. Instead, Kersten jumped to avoid being pushed.

  What surprised and angered Driver, he said, were roadblocks put up by Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Law Department. City attorneys literally spent “three or four months defending Andrea Kersten,” who faces lawsuits from two former COPA employees and the police union.

We were saying exactly this years ago. Decades even. 

We even pointed out Kersten's habit of writing letters to Larritorious about investigations, then tipping off the media to file FOIA requests with actual keywords in the title and body of the email to narrow down search parameters. She learned that from the Sparklefart people who were using it back during that Reign of Error.

Now let's see if Driver "discovers" that COPA investigators were ORDERED to sustain upwards a majority of "investigations" in order to drive up the Sustained Allegations totals to meet the national average of 15% against Police.

You see, after years of Sustaining maybe 3-to-5% of CR/CL and SPAR investigations, they needed to massively over-correct the numbers to drag the totals up to where they match the national average. That's why everything that went downtown got Sustained. Every tiny violation was cited. An entire Unit was created to go over body camera footage and write up people for everything from uniform violations to naughty language to "failure to report" charges against other Officers.

It was designed to demoralize and designed so the Department self-defunded via resignations and early retirements. And it worked.

Knock it Off

There better be a good reason for this:

• There is a large police presence outside a South Side building after a police pursuit of a vehicle ended there on Tuesday evening.

  Chopper 7 followed a white Jeep Grand Cherokee as it raced through several neighborhoods, driving on sidewalks at some points. A police helicopter was following the Jeep, as well.

  The Jeep was traveling on Interstate 57 to the Bishop Ford Freeway and exited at 103rd Street. One person jumped out of the vehicle near South Clyde Avenue and East 98th Street in the Jeffrey Manor neighborhood.

Driving on sidewalks? Who knows how many stop lights and stop signs were disobeyed? Remember, the first time you see a pursued vehicle violate a stop sign or stop light, you are REQUIRED to terminate the chase. Period. There isn't anything close to wiggle room in the Order if shit goes sideways.

The safest bet?

You CANNOT be disciplined for not pursuing.

Fraud, Waste, Corruption

And the new Administration is taking a wrecking ball to it:

• The Department of Education initiated mass layoffs on Tuesday night, reducing its workforce by nearly 50%, sources told ABC News.

  The "reduction in force" notices began to go out at about 6 p.m.

  Some 1,315 employees were affected by the RIFs, leaving 2,183 employed by the department, according to senior officials at the DOE.

There is nothing in the Constitution about education, and all things not mentioned in the constitution are reserved to the States. Trump aims to disband this monstrosity of a Cabinet position that was willed into its current existence by the peanut farmer in 1980 and return it to the states where parents can hold state and local officials to account.

Every year since then, by every measurable metric, test American students test scores have declined in all categories, resulting in a massive bureaucracy that doesn't do the only thing listed in its title - educate.

Thousands of useless bureaucrats (not teachers) will be laid off and up to a quarter-of-a-trillion dollars will be redirected to state education programs where actual accountability will finally be established. Those national "teacher" organizations won't have any Washington politicians to wheedle and will fade into oblivion along with their national lobbyists and countless lawyers.

Dismantle it all.

Appropriate Charges Filed

Amazing what having a reasonably competent States Attorney does to the system:

• An Arlington Heights man has been charged with attempted murder of a Chicago police officer after he allegedly hit the officer with his car while driving under the influence in Austin early Sunday morning, Chicago police said.

  Jose Ruiz-Crespin, 22, faces two felony charges: attempted second-degree murder and aggravated DUI, police said. He also faces five related DUI misdemeanor charges, as well as another for driving without insurance.

  Shortly after midnight in the 100 block of North Lamon Avenue, Chicago police were patrolling on foot when they encountered a small crowd, and Ruiz-Crespin attempted to leave, police said. As he did so, he hit an officer with his sedan, causing the officer to fall and sustain an ankle injury; the officer was taken to a hospital in good condition.

We all know exactly what Crimesha would have done. Let's see how it plays out in Court.

Come to Chicago to Get Shot

This lady is going to have a great story to tell everyone back home:

• She came to Chicago last week to attend a school choir conference and enjoy some pizza with her 11-year-old son, but as the Connecticut woman headed to the airport Monday she was bringing home some harrowing memories.

  The night before, the 46-year-old woman was shot while walking with her son across the street from AMC River East 21 in Streeterville, a movie theater with a history of violence and loitering that has prompted calls for better public safety.

  “It’s been shocking,” the woman told the Sun-Times in a brief interview as she headed to the airport Monday morning.  "I’m nervous. I’ve been telling myself the same story over and over,” said the woman, who asked not to be named.

  Second Ward Ald. Brian Hopkins said the shooting was “further proof” of the need for an 8 p.m. curfew for minors downtown.

A curfew ain't going to cut it Hopkins. We need serious charges and serious prison time. In the cases of minors with guns, we need parents charged, convicted and imprisoned. We need a "broken windows" type year or three of enforcement where every loitering asshole gets ticketed and fined once, then jailed from the second offense onward.

How many other tourists are going to avoid Chicago like the plague once this victim tells everyone about minding her own business and catching a bullet for her troubles? With businesses fleeing, conventions exiting and homeowners rapidly becoming unable to afford the property taxes and crime, tourism is now a fourth pillar of tax revenue that is crumbling before our eyes.

Gift Closet Restocked

It seems that most of the gifts that the mayor and his staff had stolen removed borrowed were returned over the past few weeks so that Conehead could throw open the doors and tell everyone that, "It was here the whole time!! Just because you didn't follow the unknown unwritten procedures for viewing the gifts doesn't mean they were ever missing!!"

• As Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration finally unlocked to the press the controversial City Hall “gift room” Monday, tours revealed what lies inside: Quirky, but generally low-value souvenirs filling metal shelves in a cramped closet space.

  The cache of gifts offered to Johnson and accepted on behalf of the city consisted mostly of T-shirts, hats, drawings and plaques. By opening the door to the room, Johnson is hoping to shut the door on reproving speculation swirling for a month and a half about his gift-accepting policies and the high-end swag reportedly to be found inside.

  It remains to be seen whether letting people see the contents of the room quiets criticism that the mayor has not properly accounted for the gifts his administration has received.

A rumor that a number of high-end purses weren't returned until similar high-end handbags of similar design and value were purchased for various wives, girlfriends, pincushions, etc is still under investigation, but not by the media who is all too eager to not investigate anything.

On a non-coincidental note, we heard ERPS personnel have noticed a bunch of fake merchandise was signed out for reasons unrelated to court appearances.

Exempt Changes on Tap?

About time for a shake-up and the rumors are popping up in assorted comment sections. 

Rather than weed through them all, might as well post anything you've heard in one location....like this one. Have at it.

Six and Eleven

In the last ten years, only one comparable weekend has had as many killed as 2025. 

Granted, it's only six this weekend, but it makes you wonder which orifice Conehead is pulling his crime stats out of. Homicides are only the most visible of stats, and yes, those are down a bit. But it's barely March and warm weather is on tap for the most of the week and upcoming weekend.

Beware the karma-train doesn't come to calling to someone relying on the first quarter stats.

"Merit"

The "Can't Make a Decision" post this weekend provoked a lot of back-and-forth discussion regarding the current Sergeant Promotional List and possible the "merit" nominations.

We know our readership ebbs and flows among the ranks and generational shifts within the Department, and newer readers might not know we covered these discussions in depth years ago. We don't have a functional / searchable database to link everything, and for that we apologize. We're limited by the program we're using. 

The most recent give-and-take covered a few points, especially the "merit" processes themselves. We asked, years ago, for a list of qualifications for achieving a "meri-clout-orious" promotion so that all members could strive and aspire to reach these goals and better serve the citizens of Chicago.

None ever came. 

In fact, the only qualifications we ever heard about involved cheating study groups we never could get into, sexual gymnastics we were incapable of performing / had too much respect for ourselves to perform, or membership in certain demographics / fraternities that we were excluded from based solely on our parentage. It was actually a relief that we were going to have to earn it rather than steal it from a deserving Officer.

Someone else asked if there was a single exempt these days who hadn't received a "merit" promotion, and while we used to know of three that existed back in the day, we can't think of a single one now. In fact, the entire "Merit Board" is made up of persons with two and three "merit" promotions themselves, meaning the connected assholes are making the next generation of connected assholes in every single promotional class. 

The guy in charge right now never passed a single promotional exam high enough to say he earned it. Think about that for a moment. This alone explains the rapid downfall of capable supervision across the entire Police Department. A department run by morons who owe a different moron all manner of favors.

Stay Classy Southwest Side

After a nice spring weekend, brutally cut short by Daylight Savings, word about a particularly heinous murder:

• Firefighters responding to a residential fire Friday evening in North Lawndale discovered the dismembered body of a 68-year-old man, according to Chicago police, who said the fire had been intentionally set. Fire crews answering a call around 5:15 p.m. Friday of a residential fire in the 2300 block of South Kirkland Avenue put out the fire and found the body of the man in the basement.

  His arms and right leg had been severed, according to a police report that said he also had a neck injury and deep cuts to his left leg. Inside the residence, investigators also found contractor bags, a reciprocating saw, shrink wrap and a cellphone.

No word yet if these were illegals doing crimes that Chicagoans won't do anymore because Conehead insists crime is down. That may be true across certain categories (we spent years pointing out the statistical manipulation), but overall, the true count isn't nearly as clear as the political class would have you believe.

Fire Fighter Catch-22

Our old friend, former NRA lobbyist and frequent e-mailer Todd Vandermyde, has a new video up about the recent Chicago Fire Department's illegal searches of CFD member's cars. He points out that many times, firefighters are assigned to and working in pretty shitty neighborhoods and perhaps they have a completely legal CCL license in order to carry a protective handgun in order to simply arrive safely at work. He also touches on the unverified rumor that someone told us that CFD had accessed the CCL database somehow and were comparing it against current CFD rosters.

As far as we know, CFD doesn't provide lock boxes in any firehouses, and we already know that Department lockers in the firehouse are subject to warrantless searches. We also know it's questionable at best to "secure" a gun in an unoccupied vehicle - even more so for a firefighter who will be responding to calls all day and night, leaving not only the firehouse unattended (or minimally so) but leaving the parking area with their personal cars even more unattended, multiple times during the shift.

We were also told via a comment or an email, that CFD applicants are asked if they have a CCL and if so, they must provide a list of all weapons owned. Not only that, but the last part of the application tells them if they lie/omit information, that is grounds for termination. We're going to need confirmation from a CFD member on this, and what happens if you get a CCL after being hired? Are you seriously being penalized for exercising a Constitutional Right that is legal even in Illinois? And what if you aren't hired - is this admission of owning guns kept on file somewhere, becoming a de facto tracking opportunity for any future city employment?

CFD opened an ugly can of worms with this one and we hope it costs them dearly. At the very least, they better start installing and maintaining lock boxes in the crew quarters of every single firehouse.

Beware the Lawyer

One of the liars lawyers screeching loudest about the Dexter Reed shooting (but not actually representing the estate of the illegal-gun-carrying attempted-cop-murdering asshole) is this piece of work, actually licensed to practice law in Illinois:

We're told she's just served a couple days for Contempt of Court in DuPage County which you'd think would be of interest to the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Committee. Her social media feeds (which we won't bother linking to) have all sorts of pictures of her posing with (alleged) thugs, (alleged) thug money, (alleged) thug rides, bragging about getting (alleged) thugs off on assorted charges along with a bunch of humble-brags about car accident wins.

Just thought readers ought to know what's floating around in the toilet bowl of Chicago in case you're assigned to a protest or attending court one day.

Another Dead Body

But this time, someone called it in:

• The ShotSpotter gunfire detection system that Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson decided to scrap last year would have come in handy Friday morning when 911 callers reported gunfire near the 4700 block of West West End.

  The people who heard the shots didn’t see anything; they just heard it. After about ten minutes of searching, around 9:23 a.m., the cops found shell casings at the mouth of an alley. They then found 17-year-old Drevon Watson lying in that alley. He had been shot in the chest. At Stroger Hospital, a doctor pronounced him dead.

It took ten minutes to locate the shell casings, and an unknown number of additional minutes to locate the victim. 

Ten minutes is more than enough time to make a significant difference in living or dying.

By the way, if you haven't been following the CWB blog this weekend, you're missing out on a significant number of crimes, shootings and murders. This weekend has already surpassed the past few years and may herald the spring killing season is underway. 

Sixty-plus degree days on tap for next week!

 

Fundraiser

A recently retired Cook County Bomb Tech:

• Bomb Tech/Law Enforcement community, please consider donating to our dear friend and mentor Johnny Merola as he fights for his life with a sudden debilitating brain tumor. John has faithfully served both the Cook County Sheriffs Police and FBI Chicago as a Task Force Officer for over 30 years. Following his retirement in August of 2024, John continued his commitment to the community by moving to Huntsville and working at HDS. John made the hard choice to leave HDS behind and come back home to the Chicagoland area to care sick family members. Shortly after, John began experiencing health issues of his own and was urgently rushed and transfered to Loyola Hospital. Presently John has undergone a spinal tap and is scheduled for a brain biopsy in coming days to determine the status of tumors and lesions on his brain. Due to recent retirement/new employment, it is believed a lapse in insurance coverage will lead to significant financial strain on an already very taxed family. John’s service to the bomb tech community is unparalleled, he’s played instrumental roles in the creations/evolutions of the TBT, Stabilization, and HME programs. Please help rally as a community and consider donating, any amount, to help John’s family navigate this difficult time.

Donate at this link here.

Comments closed for this informational post.

Spring Ahead

If you're reading this at work and wondering where everyone else is, they remembered to set their clocks ahead and finished roll call an hour ago.

There was a fable floating around years ago that when a gentleman attempted to explain Daylight Savings Time to a Native American, the Indian said something along the lines of, "Only the government could take a blanket, cut a foot off the top, sew it back on the bottom, and claim the blanket was a foot longer."

Is this the year they finally stop this crap? 

Can't Make a Decision

By the way, this is a decision to screw Officers out of a deserved or earned promotion, bettering their position in the Department, improving their family life, enhancing retirement options....and they're screwing everyone who has a modicum of ambition:

• Whispers from 35th:
  
  
  Exempts went to merit board “training,” but Snelling can’t make up his mind on percentages for the upcoming sergeant classes off this new list- no guidelines have been released and no packets have been requested or submitted.
  
  
  Varies constituencies want 30%, but others want it less with other “reforms.” Once again, the supposed leader of this department can’t make a decision.
  

Not the best, not the brightest, but who can suck the most political dick.

And the emailer reminds us:

• Also… 546 days with no 1st Deputy…

That's supposed to be the smartest guy or gal doing the actual running of the Department while the Superintendent bangs recruits handles the publicity stuff and appearances that the mayor demands. We used to have some pretty smart First Deputies, but those days are long gone.

Fun Survey

The CCPSA has a survey up:

• Traffic Stops Policy Feedback

   
  Under city ordinance, the Community Commission for Public Safety and Accountability (CCPSA) collaborates with the Chicago Police Department (CPD) to create and review departmental policies. CPD policies take effect after receiving approval from CCPSA's Commission.
  
  CPD and CCPSA are currently revising policy on how and when officers conduct traffic stops, including how officers engage with the public during these interactions. When developing traffic stop policy, CCPSA is considering communities’ experience and perceptions, public safety, enforcing the law, preventing crime, and fairness when developing policy with CPD. To do this, it is critical to gather input from community members like yourself and police officers.

And whoa baby....what a survey it is.

We aren't sure if there are any limits - you don't have to register anything, and if there's an IP address restriction, we haven't found it yet. There are a bunch of questions and a free-form section to enter in anything that strikes your fancy. So far we've answered posing as a liberal north shore voter, a west side dope dealer, a south side shooter, an illegal Venezuelan and an alien from Mars. We suppose you could use all sorts of objectionable language and characterizations as you wish.

And the best part is, someone from the government has to read and log all the responses - it's in the law after all. If they're going to waste our tax money with this crap, the least we can do is get a laugh out of it. Head to that link up top and have some fun - about ten questions and three minutes to finish it all.

Death Spiral Arrives

We were predicting this a decade (or more) ago....and here it is:

• Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit five years ago, property values have fallen downtown, and that’s shifted a greater portion of Chicago’s tax burden away from the heart of the Loop and onto homeowners and business owners elsewhere in the city, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis has found.

  The property taxes paid by the once-bustling but now-struggling Water Tower Place, for instance, have plunged from $16 million annually to $6.8 million last year. With Water Tower Place paying less, that means other homeowners and businesses have needed to make up the shortfall to cover the taxes that pay for police, firefighters, schools and other services.

  On LaSalle Street, kitty-corner from City Hall, the property taxes from a Loop skyscraper whose tenants include a law firm founded by former Illinois House Speaker Michael Madigan fell from $8.5 million to $5.1 million as city agencies and other renters moved out, leaving the building half-empty.

There are plenty more examples in the article. And if you pay attention to the headlines, corporations are fleeing Chicago on a monthly, if not weekly basis, reducing not only the property tax revenues, but the numbers of employees buying lunches downtown, maybe some afternoon shopping, corporate dinners and bars and entertaining clients after hours, parking garage fees, metered spaces, along with all associated shopping taxes, not to mention the now-unemployed workers paying less income tax.

And when all those workers disappear, then all the ancillary businesses close, and THOSE workers are now contributing less. And so on. And so on. And so on.

Conehead isn't shrinking government. Neither is Prickwrinkle. Nor Fata$$. So who makes up the difference? 

• Neighborhoods

And when the neighborhoods can't afford the house they're living in?

Death spiral.