SAFE-T Act Losing Popularity

A legislator actually spoke out against it?

• A suburban teacher and volleyball coach accused of secretly recording a student could not be detained under the SAFE-T Act, and that’s a problem that needs to be fixed, an Illinois state senator and former Cook County prosecutor says.

  Dagoberto Diaz, 48, a teacher at Carl Sandburg Middle School and volleyball coach at Mundelein High School, appeared in Lake County court Wednesday on a charge of unauthorized video recording of a minor. He was released under pretrial supervision after a judge determined the charge was not detainable under the SAFE-T Act.

  State Sen. Darby Hills, R-Barrington Hills, said the case is alarming to her both as a mother and a former Cook County prosecutor.

  “I believe any crime involving the abuse or exploitation of a child should be a detainable offense under the SAFE-T Act,” Hills told The Center Square. “Allowing someone that has exploited or abused a child to be let out back on the streets is just unacceptable.”

Oh, she's a Republican? And a mother? That makes sense.

But it does highlight the always present divide between the leftists who love and embrace criminals  versus the sensible sane people who think punishment should be an option instead of hugs, kisses and actually sacrificing safety to the criminal element.

We're not as outnumber as you think, but we're certainly more apathetic. Stop voting for the crime lovers.

No Red Flags?

Again, could better background checks have prevented this?

• A Chicago police officer has been recommended for termination after COPA sustained allegations that he sexually assaulted his then-18-year-old girlfriend, provided her with alcohol, and later accessed the police report identifying him as the suspect. Officer Alberto Rodriguez, 36, a Chicago police officer since 2014, is stripped of his police powers and assigned to a unit that takes police reports by phone at the city’s 311 call center, according to a police spokesperson.

The entire story reads like a bad Hollywood script that no one would have bought because for it to be believable, there has to be some element of truth in it. This one defies all of those norms....as in "how could someone hit all of these red flags without triggering some sort of overview?"

And these cases always seem to fall in that time when standards fell completely by the wayside, enabling a shit-ton of people who never should have been the police, get on the job and make everyone else look bad. 

Solved?

Technical issue might (MIGHT) be solved - we'll see shortly if everything goes up as scheduled.

Easy posting regardless. 

Who Made the Playoffs?

Both baseball teams???

• Think about all the pieces that had to fall into place for the Cubs and White Sox to clinch playoff berths within two minutes of each other Thursday. That includes the Cubs overcoming all sorts of pitching challenges and the Sox overcoming years of ineptitude.

  Yet there they were, celebrating simultaneously, the Cubs at home and the Sox in Kansas City. It was a surreal visual, marking only the fourth time in history that the teams made the playoffs in the same season.

  Think about that, too. In more than 125 years of coexistence, the Cubs and Sox have played in the same postseason only three times.

So there's an outside chance of a 1906 repeat of a Cubs v Sox World Series. Certainly unlikely, but the odds makers on all those online betting sites must be having a great time setting the bar on this one - probably a million-to-one or something. Conehead's budget people are probably losing sleep trying to figure out the OT odds, too.

We'd risk a sawbuck on that bet for the payoff. 

(still trekking through the technical side of things - this post was a test to see what's working and what isn't. apologies as we fix what we can while attempting to enjoy a busy personal weekend. when SCC says "family first" you know we aren't cancelling your days off and screwing you.) 

Technical Issues Continue

Comments appear to be fine.

Posting however, does not.

We might be taking the weekend off - we'll see.

Apologies. 

Another Instagram

Since we're pushing through some technical issues, something to entertain you....yes, another one of those A.I. trailers:

• video link here

Hopefully, we can solve this shortly - if not, it''ll be an early weekend for us. 

Changes

Moving the deck chairs on the Titanic again:

• DC Parham (Area 2) to Chief BOP
  
  DC Stevens to 1st Deputy’s office.
  
  Cmdr Mannion to DC BOP
  
  Cmdr Neckerman (Acting DC CCG) to DC of CCG
  
  Cmdr Tate to DC Area 2 (replaces Parham)

More on tap, mostly commander slots, but they're still being "vetted."

Technical Issues

Going to be a delay tonight as we're working through a technical glitch.

We might have a solution shortly, but open post for Friday.

Stay Safe. 

Conehead Corpse Count Climbs

Alliteration is fun!

Anyone know when Conehed is going to reactivate some form of ShotSpotter so people (or folks) stop dying after being made into holey-men?

• A gunshot victim lay undiscovered for nearly 30 minutes on a West Pullman bike path Monday morning before a passerby found him. The man, who remained unidentified Wednesday, was dead by the time help arrived.

  The shooting happened in the 800 block of West 117th Street, where 911 callers reported hearing gunfire near Halsted Street around 8:06 a.m., according to CPD dispatch records. None could pinpoint where the shots came from, and officers who searched the area and spoke with witnesses failed to find the shooting scene. ShotSpotter could have provided police with a precise location for the gunfire even if no 911 caller knew where the shots came from, potentially directing officers to the trail where the victim was lying.

  At 8:33 a.m., a passerby found the victim on the Major Taylor Trail. Officers said the man appeared to be in his mid- to late 20s, and he was pronounced dead at the scene. Several shell casings were found nearby, confirming that the shooting occurred where his body was discovered.

Well, maybe not - he could have had a pocket full of expended shell casings that spilled out after he fell over. "Momma said he liked to collect shiny things."

Anyway, the Conehead body count (dead and wounded) climbs to ninety-four. Will it hit one-hundred before Election Day in February? 

A New Rumor

Someone is claiming on assorted social media platforms that a new set of subpoenas arrived at the Hall just this week.

We've had a comment or two about it, some emails, screen shots, etc. Someone else claims they talked to a fed who said, "Yup, ongoing and expanding investigation, yadda yadda yadda."

Is it getting warm in here? 

This is News Now?

Must be a slow news day? 

• Chicago police shot and killed a dog that attacked them while the officers were working on an investigation in the Humboldt Park neighborhood Monday, police said.

  Shortly before 5 p.m., the officers were in the 700 block of North Christiana Avenue when a dog approached and attacked an officer, they said. One of the officers then shot the dog.

  The dog died, and the city’s Department of Animal Care and Control was notified.

  Three officers were taken to nearby hospitals in good condition. No other injuries were reported.

  Detectives are continuing to investigate the incident. 

Which incident - the 700 N Christiana incident or the dog shooting? 

Remember when this was just a Misc-X card? If we told all the stories we heard, witnessed or were a part of, we could probably keep the Slum Times in business for a few years along with COPA.

Prepare the Lube!

Who are we kidding? There won't be any lube:

• After three years of negotiations, lawsuits and appeals, the Illinois Supreme Court this week will hear arguments from attorneys for the city of Chicago and the Fraternal Order of Police in a case that will determine the future of serious misconduct cases involving Chicago Police Department officers and the public’s right of access.

  The crux of the dispute is whether officers accused of severe wrongdoing may have their disciplinary cases heard and decided by a third-party arbitrator — as is the case for other municipal employees represented by labor unions — instead of the Chicago Police Board, which has been the city’s practice since 1961.

  Arguments are scheduled for Thursday in Springfield. A decision from the state’s high court could come before the end of the year, though it’s not yet clear how or when a new officer discipline system could be implemented.

Go read it all at the link. All we can say is we're damn glad we're gone from this crapshow.

Okay, This is Just Crazy Now

We've been pointing out for weeks and months now that after decades of under-sentencing and the complete destruction of any sort of trust in the judicial system, someone must have sent a memo out to Cook County judges to start sentencing criminals to actual prison time. All if this in an effort to instill confidence in democrats "really really hate crime - pinky promise!"

Now we have this crooked judge who is most famous for....:

• acquitting Whitney Temple for attempting to murder a Chicago Police Officer with his squad car, AND
• accusing unnamed Chicago Police Officers of threatening her after said verdict WITHOUT making a police report, WITHOUT notifying CPD Internal Affairs and WITHOUT notifying Sheriff Dart's judicial protection people AND
• slandering the blog about "doxing her" for saying she lived in Englewood - something that appeared on her campaign website.

....and guess what she did?

• Frank Burrell spent about 20 years in prison for a 1999 murder conviction that was later overturned. On Thursday, a Cook County judge rejected his bid to be declared innocent of the crime, ruling that the evidence presented during a Certificate of Innocence proceeding did not undermine her confidence in the original conviction or the 32-year sentence he received.

  “I am not at all of the position that anything presented in this C of I has undermined my confidence in the earlier rulings,” Judge Tyria Walton said. “I don’t think that, for me, the earlier findings were improper.”

There is no way this mentally deficient DEI judge came up with that on her own. Obviously, she was told by her handlers to deny this make up "certificate" so that taxpayers weren't on the hook for another outrageous settlement that only enriches the liars lawyers because that might endanger the reelection prospects of other Machine pols.

At it Again

The latest A.I. Instagram reel:

• video link here

Maybe these are the new "Friday Updates"?

More SAFE-T Failure

In spite of the effort by Cook County judges to hammer convicts with sentences that haven't been seen in decades, they're still failing to keep violent criminals in check via cash bonds or custodial restrictions:

• The system had three chances to stop Alex Cusick. Each time, he was released. On the fourth arrest, prosecutors say, he escalated from stealing restaurant tip jars and hopping a CTA turnstile to violently trying to rob a woman in the Loop. Cusick, 28, was arrested three times in five weeks before the September 5 attack. The first two arrests involved misdemeanor theft and trespassing, and the third was for fare jumping at the Lake Red Line station. He was released after each one. It wasn’t until prosecutors charged him with attempted robbery and battery that a judge ordered him detained.

  The arrests began July 19 at a restaurant in the 100 block of North Wabash Avenue. Staff told police Cusick was a “habitual trespasser” who repeatedly entered the restaurant, bought nothing, caused disturbances and refused to leave, a Chicago police report said. That afternoon, he allegedly stole the tip jar. Police arrested him outside, charged him with misdemeanor theft and trespassing, and released him from the station about six hours later.

  On August 15, it happened again. Cusick was arrested in the 300 block of North Wabash Avenue after a restaurant reported that he had repeatedly refused to leave and had stolen its tip jar, according to a separate police report. He was again charged with misdemeanor theft and trespassing.

  Neither charge is detainable, but Judge James Murphy III held him in custody for violating pretrial release in the first case. Judge Peter Gonzalez released him again two days later, according to court records.

  On August 28, Cusick was arrested a third time, this time for fare jumping at the Lake Red Line station in the Loop, CPD records show. He was released at the scene.

  Then came September 5.

You can read the entire story at the link up top.

But as we've stated numerous times, without an incentive to walk the straight and narrow - or at least to stop running up and over the curbs of a civilized society -  then your low life feels there are zero consequences for their actions and continues to act as such. At the very least, a cash bond that might be forfeited or a few nights in jail discouraged asshole-ish behavior for a short while. Anyone claiming differently is a moron....or a democrat.

How Far Society has Fallen

Is there nothing these demons won't do?

• A veteran Chicago police dispatcher was pinned inside her wrecked car, with nine broken ribs and two fractured vertebrae, when a man climbed into the back seat and stole her driver’s license and credit cards, prosecutors say. The man’s girlfriend then got into the front seat and began patting the injured victim’s waistline, apparently looking for more valuables.

  Victoria Mesarina, a dispatcher with the city’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications for 26 years, was driving home in uniform when another vehicle slammed into the driver’s side of her car in the 3300 block of West Douglas Boulevard around 2:30 p.m. July 3. The other driver ran away, leaving Mesarina trapped in the damaged vehicle. A bystander let her use his phone to call 911, but the wreckage and her injuries kept her from getting out, according to court records.

  While Mesarina remained trapped, waiting for first responders, prosecutors said, 25-year-old James Nelson climbed into the back seat, opened her purse and took a black coin purse containing her driver’s license and various debit, credit and gift cards. When Mesarina asked what he was doing, Nelson’s girlfriend, Mahogany Vann, 24, allegedly got into the front passenger seat and began feeling around Mesarina’s waistline as if searching for something.

Then guess what happened?

• Judge Luciano Panici Jr. denied prosecutors’ request to detain Nelson while the case proceeds and instead released him on electronic monitoring. Prosecutors did not file a detention petition in Vann’s case. 

Of course, because robbing a completely helpless woman isn't indicative of complete inability to live within the bounds of civilization. We'll bet they loot corpses at funeral homes, too.

We need street executions for scum like this. 

Interesting Read

CWB does a decent job outlining the ongoing problem of railroad thefts, something that doesn't get much coverage with crime being down:

• Freight trains passing through Chicago have increasingly become moving targets for thieves who board railcars, sometimes while they are moving, force open shipping containers and haul away cargo ranging from large-screen televisions and laptops to air conditioners and laundry detergent.

  Railroad investigators say organized groups target rail freight, while drones have become an increasingly important tool for law enforcement trying to catch suspects in the act.

  Over the past two years, the thefts have led to a steady stream of arrests on Chicago’s South and West sides, where some of the city’s major railyards are located. Meanwhile, a recent national analysis found that freight train theft has grown into a multimillion-dollar problem.

Nationwide, 75,000 thefts accounting for a couple hundred million dollars, concentrated in LA, Dallas, Memphis and of course, Chicago, specifically the west and south sides. 

Since Conehead and Dart have fixed downtown and the CTA, maybe he could move some assets over to the railroads?

A.I. is Crazy

Someone has been posting these in the comment section and we gotta say, we smiled a bit. As usual, you don't need a social media account to watch them:

• Instagram AI video #1
• Instagram AI video #2  

The Board member in the second video eating the chicken leg really cracked us up.

Hotel / Motel Rule

Saving Conehead an uncomfortable spike in crime numbers:

• A group of suspects broke into at least 41 vehicles in a South Side parking lot early Saturday morning, Chicago police said. At least 28 more vehicles were also broken into at another parking lot nearby shortly after.

  Police said the first crime happened in the Bronzeville neighborhood near East 33rd and South State streets just before 2:15 a.m. Four people in a black SUV approached the lot, where they broke 41 vehicles' windows. Police said it was not immediately clear whether any property was taken. The suspects fled the scene in their SUV.

  [...]  Then, around 3:10 a.m., a group of three suspects in a dark-colored Jeep SUV caused damage to at least 28 vehicles at a nearby parking lot in the 3200 block of South King Drive, CPD said. It was also not known if any property was taken from these vehicles, but some break-in victims also reported to ABC7 that no items were taken from their vehicles.

So almost seventy incidents of Criminal Damage, no reports of any Thefts at the moment, all summarized as two incidents. That's it. 

Two is way better than seventy for Conehead. 

This Again?

We suppose if it works - and by all accounts, it works too well - why change the methodology?

• Chicago police are investigating after burglars crashed into a Northwest Side business on Sunday morning.

  It happened at about 3:53 a.m. in the 800-block of N. Western Avenue, Chicago police said.

  CPD said dark-colored SUV crashed into the front entrance and multiple people then took an ATM.

Um, Chicago and Western isn't the "...Northwest Side..." by a long shot. Just because it's north and west of State and Madison doesn't make it "northwest."

In the meantime, if businesses aren't reinforcing their storefronts, putting up bollards, roll-down shutters, along with pointy-steel spears at windshield level, we suppose this will keep happening. The manpower situation isn't helping things either. 

Fundraiser Coverage

The photos included in the coverage are heartbreaking:

• Nearly five months after Chicago police officer Nelson Crespo was critically wounded in a shooting that took the life of his partner John Bartholomew, he made his first public appearance at a fundraiser.

  On April 25, Crespo and Bartholomew were with 26-year-old Alphanso Talley while he prepared for a CT scan at Swedish Hospital when Talley reached for a gun underneath a blanket after his handcuffs were taken off and shot the officers.

  Bartholomew was killed in the shooting. Crespo has been paralyzed from the shoulders down and has spent months recovering.

  Crespo was greeted by family, friends, and Chicago first responders during a fundraiser Friday in his honor at Old Crow Smokehouse in Wrigleyville.

Continue to keep Officer Crespo in your thoughts and prayers and if you are able, help out via any means possible. 

Off Duty Sheriff Wounded

Again, nothing good ever happens after midnight, and certainly not outside of nightclubs:

• Three men were shot during an altercation outside of a downtown nightclub early Saturday morning, Chicago police said.

  Police said the shooting happened near North Clark and West Erie streets in the city's River North neighborhood around 3:40 a.m.

  An off-duty Cook County Sheriff's correctional officer was among the people injured, officials said.

Quite a few of these shootings seem to involve multiple shooters, something everyone should keep in mind if they're caught in the middle of these shitshows.

Best wishes to the Sheriff's Officer for a speedy recovery. 

No Surprise Here

They're not in the business of educating students:

• Blue states with strong teachers’ unions overwhelmingly have worse student literacy scores than Republican states where educators don’t have as much say over policy, a shocking new analysis found.

  At least eight of the ten states where students had the worst literacy scores were liberal strongholds with politically powerful teachers’ unions, while just five were Republican and one was a swing state, a recent assessment from the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) found.

  New York — where more than half of third- to fifth grade students failed their reading proficiency exams this year — was among the worst-performing states, and also had some of the strongest teachers’ unions.

They're in the business of raising money for left-wing causes, electing radical socialists and fracturing the family structure. Kids aren't there to be educated - the kids are there to be exploited and used as a cudgel to beat parents and taxpayers into submission.

They're succeeding, too, or have succeeded in blue state shitholes.

Don't Stop Ugly People

You'll get a ten-day suspension:

• A Chicago police officer unlawfully stopped and searched a student walking home from the bus, telling him and the person he was with that they were targeted because they were “ugly as f---,” according to findings released by a watchdog group.

  The Civilian Office of Police Accountability (COPA) reviewed and analyzed body-camera video of the incident that unfolded after three officers stopped a male and a female around 1:50 p.m. on Dec. 10, 2024.

Now, granted, it looks like they didn't properly stop the pedestrians, failed to document any sort of Reasonable Articulable Suspicion and didn't provide a "stop receipt" after concluding the encounter. But is was the "ugly as fuck" comment that landed the officer ten days off....and certainly a bunch of re-training modules.

But the important questions is....did they get the Blue Cards? 

Red Line BBQ

No, someone wasn't lit on fire....at least not this time:

• video link here

Don't worry, you don't need  social media account to see it. 

No Guns Allowed, but damn, BBQ chicken is all good. 

Dems Hate Crime?

Since when? If there were any actual investigative reporters still left in Chicago, you think they'd be looking at the sudden sentencing discrepancies in Cook County just prior to an election. It happened again:

• A registered sex offender who was out of compliance with registration requirements has been sentenced to 20 years in prison after he was caught viewing child sexual abuse material on a tablet at a Chicago Public Library branch in Bucktown last year, according to court records.

  David Rideout, 51, was taken into custody around 6 p.m. on September 15, 2025, after a woman called 911 to report that a man was viewing child pornography inside the Bucktown-Wicker Park Branch, 1701 North Milwaukee Avenue.

  Responding officers found Rideout seated with a black tablet displaying an image of a naked underage girl in a graphic sexual position, according to a CPD police report. A library employee told investigators that surveillance footage showed Rideout holding the tablet and viewing images of naked underage girls, the report said.

When we become Rulers of the Universe, Officers will be allowed to take this turd into the alley behind the library and shoot him in the f#$%ing head because that's how you solve this type of problem.

After decades of democrat rule though - where they're inventing terms like "minor attracted persons" - a twenty year sentence for looking at pictures isn't in line with decades of excusing perverted behaviors. 

What a Scumbag

This actually happened at the FOP meeting?

• Things got considerably uglier when a member questioned why Lodge dues should be paying for John's personal legal defense. Instead of simply answering the financial question, John turned it into a personal attack and brought up the member's deceased husband and her children. Catanzara told Beth Svec “ you should be thanking me for getting your ex- husbands full duty death benefits for Covid !” You could feel the air get sucked out of the room.

FOP has expelled people for far less than this.

Speaking of expulsions, a question for any lawyers reading: 

• should the current ruling junta lose their positions in the Lodge and the new administration opens an investigation into the questionable spending habits of the previous crowd (i.e. trips to New York, paintings, expensive steak dinners on the membership dime, etc);
• AND the investigation determines that these expenditures were not proper as they didn't benefit the membership in any way, shape or form;
• can (or will) the guilty parties be compelled to reimburse the Lodge for the improper spending on meals, plane tickets, hotel stays, etc?

We're just wondering. 

Giving Away Money Again

And this time, to people (or folks) that CRIMESHA HERSELF said were probably guilty of the crimes they went to prison for:

• Two Mexican men who were convicted of the brutal stabbing deaths of a Chicago couple, allegedly to help a woman steal their baby, are poised to get nearly $14 million from the city of Chicago over their claims they were coerced by cops into confessing to the murders, even though Cook County's former top prosecutor has testified she and other prosecutors never stopped believing the men were guilty of the crime.

  On Sept. 14, the Chicago City Council's Finance Committee voted overwhelmingly to recommend the full council approve the settlements with Gabriel Solache and Arturo DeLeon-Reyes.

  [...] Reyes and Solache were eventually exonerated and freed when then-Cook County State's Attorney Foxx declined in 2017 to pursue new trials against either man.

  The men swiftly filed lawsuits against the city and the police officers involved.

  They were later presented with so-called “certificates of innocence” by Cook County judges in 2022 and 2023, respectively, after Foxx's office again conspicuously declined to contest their innocence claims.

  [...] And in her testimony, Foxx revealed her office decided to not oppose the innocence petitions, even though she and other prosecutors believed both Solache and DeLeon-Reyes were guilty of the crimes for which they had been convicted. 

Crimesha has never adequately explained why she declined to actually do her fucking job and prosecute people that she believed, her staff believed and the evidence showed beyond a Reasonable Doubt that these two participated in the murders. Someone with half-a-brain would come to the completely logical conclusion that she was somehow compromised into acquiescing to the political winds of the time, likely financed by plaintiff lawyers. 

How about Crimesha sell her house and pitch in to the taxpayers she's screwing over?

One Hundred Years???

This is getting ridiculous:

• A man who got into a shootout with Chicago police officers during a hostage standoff in South Shore has been sentenced to 100 years in prison after a jury convicted him of 10 felony counts. But Steven Wade, 46, may face even more prison time. Prosecutors say he killed a woman in the hours before the standoff began, and that case remains pending.

  On February 27, 2023, Wade showed up unannounced at his ex-girlfriend’s home in the 12900 block of South Peoria Street after not seeing her for several years, wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying multiple bags. The pair spoke at the kitchen table, but the woman became uncomfortable when Wade began discussing his newfound religious beliefs, according to prosecutors. As a precaution, she called a friend and asked the friend to listen in on the conversation.

  While the friend was listening, Wade placed a gun on the table, claiming he had killed a security guard to obtain the firearm and the bulletproof vest, prosecutors said. The friend heard those remarks and immediately called 911, sending Chicago police to the home.

Is one-hundred years in line with ten felony convictions? Sure. Stack em up.

But....

There are multiple decades of precedent written into Cook County history. No one gets one-hundred years, even for multiple homicides. And if they happen to get multiple felony convictions, they end up serving sentences concurrently instead of consecutively.

These wildly inconsistent sentences are going to be an issue when the appeals go up the process. Hopefully, no one gets freed immediately, but reductions are a real possibility and you can bet the media won't cover those if / when they occur.

Just Saying

Guess who has COVID?

• Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez apparently has COVID — and the way the news got out feels like a dispatch from a very different era.

  Reporter Pablo Manríquez posted Tuesday that Ocasio-Cortez had told a colleague on the House steps that she had COVID. Video of the exchange circulated Wednesday, showing the New York Democrat having the conversation outside the Capitol.

  That quickly produced a second question online: If she knew she had COVID, why was she hanging around the Capitol?

Why? Because without the associated comorbidities, it isn't dangerous to 99.9% of people.

For those keeping track at home, AOC was vaccinated in 2020, 2021, boosted in late 2021 and may have gotten a further three shots, none of which actually vaccinated her. 

Don't fall for it again - it's an election year.