BOHICA Taxpayers!

In light of a few recent court cases we posted about, could the era of giant payouts for alleged misconduct be coming to a close? This case makes us think that plaintiff law firms are thinking exactly that....and they're looking to close out with one massive payday:

• The City Council agreed Wednesday to pay a $260.8 million global settlement to 17 plaintiffs framed for murders by corrupt former Chicago Police Det. Reynaldo Guevara, in an effort to avoid “runaway” jury verdicts a city attorney warned could have topped $1 billion.

  As bitter a pill as it is for Chicago taxpayers, the risk of jury trials would have been greater.

  Deputy Corporation Counsel Jessica Felker has warned the Finance Committee that juries are unpredictable and that three plaintiffs in recent years were awarded $170 million for 42 years in custody, which amounts to more than $4 million a year.

  The settlement approved Wednesday will resolve 16 police misconduct lawsuits and amounts to nearly $680,000 for every one of the nearly 384 years the 17 recipients spent in prison.

  All 17 murder convictions — involving events as far back as 1987 — were later vacated. At the time they were arrested for murder, the plaintiffs were 14 to 28 years old. They spent an average of 22.6 years in prison.

Detective Guevara has never been charged with a misdemeanor over any of these cases, so there is almost no record of any misconduct that would justify this type of payout. 

No supervisors who approved Case Reports and Detective Investigations have been accused that we can find. 

In fact, no States Attorney lawyer has ever been stripped of their law license, and they did far more to put someone behind bars as they're the ones approving charges, presenting cases, and making arguments in front of juries and judges to imprison people (and folks).

But here are a bunch of lawyers getting one-third of $260 million PLUS COSTS. How many of these cases did Crimesha refuse to re-prosecute or challenge the findings on despite believing the offenders were still guilty?

As Expected

Anyone surprised?

• A Chicago cop was stripped of his police powers after oversight officials said he fired two guns during an off-duty shooting in Little Village that left a man wounded earlier this month.

No one should have been surprised. 

So Who Pays?

This went from insane to insanely ridiculous:

• The price tag for the beleaguered Obama Presidential Center is now projected to top $1 billion, nearly triple its original estimate, the foundation overseeing construction of the Chicago facility told Fox News Digital.

  Confirmation of the 10-figure cost marks another chapter in the troubled history of the much-delayed project, which opened five years behind schedule amid controversy over its use of public parkland and claims that subcontractors were stiffed out of millions of dollars. It comes as newly released financial records reviewed by Fox News Digital offer a fresh look at the finances of the Obama Foundation, the former president’s private nonprofit that oversaw construction of the billion-dollar project.

  The sprawling campus on the Windy City’s south side was originally expected to open in 2021, with construction costs estimated at $300 million to $350 million. But years of federal reviews, legal challenges and construction delays preceded its eventual opening in June 2026, by which time projected costs had skyrocketed to approximately $850 million.

  Hailed by Democrats and supporters as a historic investment in the community and a tribute to the former president’s legacy, the center was promoted as a catalyst for jobs, economic growth and new opportunities for underserved communities.

Remember, this wasn't supposed to cost taxpayers a dime aside from the usual infrastructure improvements (road and sidewalks maintenance, snowplowing and street sweeping, etc).

Now, aside from the mandatory school tourism and DNC sponsored fundraisers, will this thing ever fund its own existence? Or will taxpayers be hit up for shortfalls?

Still?

The scandal that never seems to end:

• Eight more Chicago cops have been caught pocketing pandemic relief money they weren’t entitled to — pushing the city watchdog’s tally to 44 officers, with more investigations nearing the finish line.

  Inspector General David Glockner said Thursday his office found evidence the eight officers illegally collected more than $191,000 through two federal programs meant to keep businesses afloat during the COVID-19 crisis.

  The latest findings involve money obtained through the Paycheck Protection Program and a federal economic injury disaster assistance program. Both offered a financial lifeline to businesses battered by the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. Hundreds of billions of dollars in fraud have been identified in those same programs.

  Glockner’s office recommended firing six of the officers. The other two quit while investigators were still digging.

Anyone have the tally on OEMC employees caught dirty? Or CTU employees?

Curious that the only corruption highlighted seems to be from one department.

Police Council Follies

The 014 District disaster:

• A Chicago elected official has repeatedly been accused of verbal abuse and harassment toward his colleagues, and some of his colleagues are coming forward to NBC Chicago.

  Those colleagues reached out because they say they’re not sure where to turn amid what they say is a pattern of abusive behavior.

  David Orlikoff is a member of the 14th District Police Council, the elected police oversight body that picks permanent members for the Community Commission on Public Safety and Accountability. The council meets multiple times per year to serve as a go-between with police commanders and Chicago residents, but multiple individuals speaking to NBC Chicago have said the 14th district has devolved into chaos more often than not, with Orlikoff's incendiary behavior to blame in their eyes.

There are the usual "fascist" and "nazi" insults thrown around by someone too stupid to do any real thinking.

And this:

• Anthony Driver is the former President of the Community Commission on Police Safety and Accountability. He has also been on the receiving end of Orlikoff's rhetoric. Driver says he confronted Orlikoff for repeatedly verbally abusing a staff member to the point of tears. Orlikoff responded in a tirade of text messages, calling Driver a “Dumb F-ing Stooge," adding that he was a "cop loving **hole."

Remember, this moron was ELECTED to the Police Council position and is proving time and time again he is virulently ANTI-Police. He doesn't want reform - he wants destruction.

And there doesn't seem to be an effective means of ejecting him from the position. 

Evaluation - True

The "merit" process summed up in a single meme:

 Don't worry - he scored in the top 1,500.

"Consent" Decree News

CPD might have almost hit rock bottom:

• After seven years of effort, the Chicago Police Department has made progress on nearly every requirement of a federal consent decree, reaching at least preliminary compliance with 99% of its original requirements, independent monitors said Tuesday. But with Superintendent Larry Snelling recently retired and staffing shortages still a concern, the department faces a test of whether those reforms will stick.

  The consent decree, which is overseen by a federal judge and monitored independently, requires Chicago to make sweeping changes to police policies, training, supervision and accountability. Reaching preliminary compliance means the city has begun meeting a requirement, but it does not mean the requirement has been fully satisfied.

Seven years and uncounted tens of millions of Chicago tax dollars, paid to connected lawyers (who kick back to political campaigns,) "overseen" by a former federal judge who answers to no one....this is undoubtedly one of the largest un-audited money shifts in Chicago history.

We figure there are around thirteen years to go before anyone sees "significant" documented accomplishments. 

Cameras are for Safety!

Unless they can pull double duty - then all bets are off:

• Chicago alders are set to take up traffic enforcement and city borrowing rules during a City Council meeting Wednesday.

  Alders are expected to vote on the "Smart Streets Camera Enforcement Program," which would expand the use of automated cameras mounted on poles and CTA buses.

  The cameras would photograph vehicles blocking traffic lanes, meters and dedicated bike lanes. Those violations could lead to tickets being mailed to drivers.

  A double-parking violation could result in a $90 fine, even if a vehicle blocks a lane for only a minute. Blocking a dedicated bike lane could lead to a $250 fine.

We know they've had cameras on the street-sweepers for years now, ticketing cars that the sweepers are forced to drive around when cleaning the traffic lanes. We understand expanding that program to CTA buses to catch cars parked in bus stops.

But

• the almost completely useless bike lanes, 
• the near-impossibility of parking properly around those concrete barricades, 
• or business owners taking bottom-line hits when customers can't park within walking distance to the store...

that's got to be effecting tax collections at some level, far more than the parking ticket revenue. 

Another Good Court Decision?

Is this becoming a trend?

• Eight years after a viral video showed a woman shaking on the ground after being shoved by a Chicago cop during a post-Pride Parade confrontation in Lakeview, a federal appeals court has rejected the woman’s efforts to win damages from the officer and the city.

  Breah Bedford argued that mistakes made during her civil trial unfairly influenced the jury, including testimony suggesting she might have faked her seizure-like episodes after the fall. But a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit ruled that the trial judge’s decisions did not justify ordering a new trial. COPA, the Civilian Office of Police Accountability, cleared the cop in 2020.

Obviously, two good outcomes don't outweigh a couple decades of crooked court decisions abetted by incompetency at Corp Counsel and political collusion with plaintiff attorney firms....but one can always hope.

Nice Candidate Conehead

Amazing - the CPS Inspector General (probably appointed by Conehead) closed the investigation of one of the candidates for school board president (who worked with Conehead) by saying "....that there is no actionable finding of sexual misconduct."

• The inspector general’s office at Chicago Public Schools has closed its recently reopened investigation into allegations that school board presidential candidate Hilario Dominguez had inappropriate conduct with a minor in 2017.

  According to a letter sent to Dominguez Wednesday from the CPS Office of Student Protections and Title IX, which Dominguez posted on his campaign website, the inspector general’s office “determined that there is no actionable finding of sexual misconduct.”

  The office made no additional findings regarding possible CPS “policy or guidelines violations relating to this incident.” That letter says the “investigation is concluded and the matter is closed” and that no further action will be taken.

Not that it didn't happen. Not that there might be something to the allegations. Just that there is "no actionable finding."  And he's running to be in charge of tens of thousands of minor children.

"...believe all women...." Unless they make accusations against demo-communist candidates for the school board, supported by the CTU, endorsed by the CTU president and on friendly terms with the former-teacher-former-coworker current mayor.

The Contrarian has an extensive article on this goof's background and political leanings if you need some further light reading. 

Sanity Prevails

 Well lookie here (no link for anti police haters at WTTW):

• A Cook County jury determined Chicago police officers were not liable for the death of a 55-year-old woman who was struck and killed by a driver being chased by officers, records show.

  The Chicago City Council refused in February to pay $8.25 million to resolve the lawsuit filed by the family of Dominga Flores Gomez, who died in the crash that ended the chase launched by two Chicago Police Department officers just before 9 p.m. on Sept. 28, 2022.

  After a three-week trial, the jury determined that the fatal injuries suffered by Flores Gomez, who was survived by five children and eight grandchildren, were the fault of the driver who refused to stop for police, records show.

  The verdict represents a major victory for members of the Chicago City Council who contend the city’s lawyers are too eager to settle cases before trial, which they say encourages those guilty of criminal wrongdoing to sue the city in the hopes of an easy payday.

Back when J-Fledgar was supernintendo, he somehow got Corp Counsel to start fighting a bunch of these cases....and wonder of wonders, Corp Counsel won a bunch of them, saving taxpayers millions and dozens of Officers' reputations.

Of course, the plaintiff attorneys couldn't have that. How were they going to max out their political contributions to Rahm and the Machine if they couldn't use taxpayer dollars? They weren't about to dip into their own pockets. So they threatened to withhold the money.

Rahm told Corp Counsel to stop fighting these cases, settle them quietly and generously, and political contributions resumed, abetted by media tools who pushed the "innocence project" bullshit and claimed taxpayers were being saved money by not risking bigger jury verdicts.

The trouble was (and always has been) two-fold:

1. that if a jury got the correct information presented professionally and competently, they often found that Police followed the Law as written and it was the criminal that was to blame, and
2. Corp Counsel was mostly connected, poorly accredited, pre-DEI hires who were there to fulfill quotas and work a five-hour day while waiting to see if their phone call could land them a judgeship or private law practice gig.

Or, like Shortshanks, a mayoral spot.

For the most part, juries are easily led sheep. But that works both ways if you have a decent Corp Counsel leading the way - a rarity in the best of times, and almost unheard of nowadays. 

Still Not Working

CWB has a whole slew of stories concerning Illinois' failed bail and prison system:

• Story #1 - A 17-year-old Chicago Public Schools student shot a classmate, leaving her unable to walk again and causing her to lose her pregnancy, while awaiting trial on a carjacking case — just two days after he was arrested for allegedly threatening someone with a knife during a “gang check,” prosecutors said.

  [...] Angel Funez-Reyes had been placed on electronic monitoring for a carjacking case in juvenile court, but a judge removed him from the ankle monitor on August 18, about three weeks before the shooting, prosecutors said. Two days before the shooting, Funez-Reyes was arrested on charges of aggravated assault and unlawful use of a weapon after a citizen flagged down police officers and reported that Funez-Reyes had shouted gang-related slurs and asked him, “What you is?” before pulling out a knife and swinging it at him. Officers detained Funez-Reyes and recovered a utility knife and two rounds of 9mm ammunition, prosecutors said. He was released.

• Story #2 (a prison failure) - Just three months after getting out of prison for armed robbery, Benjamin Villanueva is facing new charges after Chicago police say he carjacked a couple at gunpoint near the Lincoln Park Zoo and crashed the stolen vehicle moments later, injuring four people as officers closed in.

  Villanueva, 32, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for a 2020 armed robbery, but his time was reduced to six years under state law. He was released on July 2.

• Story #3 - A 40-year-old man who was released under Illinois’ SAFE-T Act after allegedly punching a Chicago cop at a South Side Red Line station is now charged with attempted murder in a shooting that left two men badly injured last month.

  Terry King is accused of shooting two men, ages 28 and 44, in the 800 block of East 79th Street around 7:45 p.m. on September 17, Chicago police said. During a detention hearing, prosecutors identified King as the gunman and said he stomped on one victim’s head after the man collapsed onto the sidewalk. 

  King was on felony pretrial release at the time of the shooting in connection with a June 24 incident at the 69th Street Red Line station. Officers had responded to a disturbance and tried to remove him from the station when, police said, he punched an officer in the side of the face and swung at the officer twice more, missing both times.

  King was released in that case because, under the SAFE-T Act, aggravated battery of a police officer does not qualify for pretrial detention unless the officer suffers great bodily harm.

What a great exception to the Aggravated Battery statute.

In the meantime, how about we go with "Truth in Sentencing" laws, gut the un-SAFE-T Act, and lose a few judges on the way to restoring Law and Order. 

Smoke More Weed!

Sales up but revenue down:

• Illinois’ cannabis industry saw a big drop in sales numbers over the last year, but it’s not because demand or product sales dropped, a new state report shows.

  According to the report released by the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation’s Cannabis Regulation and Oversight Office, total dispensary sales dropped to about $1.5 billion in fiscal year 2026.

  That’s down from nearly $2 billion in sales in 2025.

  But that downward financial shift came despite an uptick in demand. Monthly sales figures show more than 5 million adult-use cannabis items sold in July, marking a record high. August sales totaled nearly 4.9 million adult-use items, a 9% increase in items sold compared to last year.

So what's the issue?

• According to the oversight office, there are more dispensaries, and the product is more accessible, so the number of items sold is still going up.

Ah yes, that pesky capitalism - more weed available from more stores means lower prices. And you know the budget people have been basing their spending predictions on imaginary numbers that won't have any basis in actual economic trends.

And with driving all sort of legit businesses out of Illinois, taxes will be going up again. 

Crazy Suburban Crime

Yeah it's the burbs and it has a Chicago connection, but damn, this story is crazy:

• Officials released new details on the Chicago woman charged after a deadly shooting at Oakbrook Center mall last month.

  A judge denied the pre-trial released of Chance Jamerson, 29, on Tuesday. Prosecutors accuse her of orchestrating an armed robbery with Justin Hill, the man who died in the shooting. Jamerson faces three counts of attempted armed robbery in connection to the shooting at Oakbrook Center mall on September 30.

  Prosecutors say she was in a black Mercedes with three other people in the parking lot of the mall, after acquiring a number of Swatch watches. That's when police say a man, now identified as Hill, pulled up behind them in a Nissan Rogue, blocking in their vehicle. Hill then allegedly walked up with a firearm and said he was robbing them.

  Prosecutors believe this was a set up orchestrated by Jamerson and Hill. "The driver of the Mercedes began wrestling with Hill over the gun," DuPage County State's Attorney Robert Berlin said. "While he was wrestling the defendant in this case chance Jamerson began to fight the driver this is what made the driver of the Mercedes believe that chance had set him up."

  That's when prosecutors say the driver shot and killed Hill and shot Jamerson in her abdomen.

So she set up a fake armed robbery with her primary accomplice, and the guy who was supposed to be the unknowing accomplice managed to disarm the fake robber, shoot and kill him, then gut shot her.

Everyone else got RWOC, and somehow, she got detained.

Like we said, crazy. 

Scam Charity - Take Two

The backlash over the FOP prez's attempt to start a "charity" with $50K in "seed money" seems to have put a damper on those plans for the time being.

You would think that would be the end of it.....but you'd be mistaken:

• Since Lodge 7 members weren't exactly lining up to hand over our assets, John apparently decided to go shopping at the State Lodge instead. You know, the one where he just happens to be vice president.

  .... hearing that John has now informed the State Board that he's selling the State Lodge's disaster relief truck and trailer to help fund his charity.

  [...]  this is a disaster relief truck and trailer. Equipment intended to help people when something goes wrong. Apparently, getting John's charity off the ground is now considered an emergency 

Remember, you aren't just a member of FOP 7. We are also members of the State Loge by association, so this is also our asset. Things like this have to go through the State Board, be discussed and voted on. no one asked us our opinion that we recall.

But that's not all:

• John [has a] plan to sell the State Lodge building, which is already paid for, so they can purchase what I'm told is an absolute shithole of a building owned by someone with connections to a State Board member. Apparently, owning a perfectly good, paid-off building just isn't exciting enough when there's an opportunity to spend a whole lot more of the members' money.

Or a plan to fund a charity that will undoubtedly answer to no one and pay the administrative staff some outrageous six-figure salary, kind of like how other police related charities operate.

This crap needs to be dragged out into the daylight and interrogated until answers are given - especially regarding the legality of it all. 

Another Stolen Government Gun

How did we miss this one? It wasn't in our emails or news feed:

• Chicago police are investigating after a gun, ammunition, and a bulletproof vest were stolen from a U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent's vehicle on the Near West Side.

  Police said items were stolen on Sunday from a government vehicle located inside a residential garage near Madison and Leavitt

  Sources said a semi-automatic rifle, 1,000 rounds of ammunition, two magazines, and a DEA-labeled bulletproof vest were taken.

  The DEA has also launched an internal investigation and is working with Chicago police to recover the stolen items.

But don't forget to register your rifles and your magazines with the ISP. And serialize all of your ammunition, too.

By the way, has that registration scheme that Fata$$ signed off on ever gotten more than 5% compliance? Has ISP begun searching, arresting and prosecuting all those felons?

Another A.I. Video

Building on the endorsement post from yesterday:

• video link here

Did anyone ever find out why those particular candidates got endorsed? And since hte FOP endorsement seems to be toxic these days, are they losing in the polls? 

Why These Endorsements?

The FOP released its endorsements for the upcoming election: (click for larger view)

 

But then someone said that there were a couple of these names that had been seen before - as in "seen voting for the SAFE-T Act" ....that disastrous piece of crap legislation that releases repeat violent felons back onto the street every single day where they can commit more crimes, including lighting people on fire on the CTA and killing police officers.

So we went hunting around the internet and found the voting records for the SAFE-T Act:

 

Yellow voted FOR the SAFE-T Act, Red voted AGAINST it. Someone of the names have moved on to other jobs since that vote.

Anyone know why the FOP is endorsing these incompetent criminal supporting assholes?

Another CTA Killer

All that effort last summer and people are still getting killed on the CTA:

• Prosecutors have charged a 37-year-old man with murdering CTA employee Julian Mobley at the Damen Green Line station Thursday afternoon. Court records show the accused man had failed to appear in multiple pending felony cases and previously served a short prison sentence for slashing a teenager’s throat in the South Loop almost exactly eight years ago.

  Chevazz Campbell is scheduled to appear for a detention hearing Sunday afternoon at 26th and California. Prosecutors are expected to detail their allegations during the hearing, and CWB Chicago will publish a full report afterward.

Oh, and guess what he was wearing?

• A man charged with killing a CTA janitor at the Damen Green Line station Thursday afternoon was AWOL from two felony cases and wearing an electronic monitoring bracelet as a condition of felony probation when he allegedly fatally stabbed the worker — despite at least four previous attempts by prosecutors to revoke his probation over alleged curfew violations, officials said Sunday.

So once again, a repeat felon ON ELECTRONIC MONITORING which is run by the office of chief judge Bitch Beach successfully killed a taxpayer with a good job.

Our friends over at The Contrarian had an article up just the other day:

• Two Stories. Two Warnings. How Many More Before Springfield Acts on the SAFE-T Act?

• How many more people must be injured? How many more must be killed? How many more families must bury a loved one before Springfield decides that the SAFE-T Act and Illinois' broken warrant system are serious enough to fix? We keep hearing the same political language about studying the problem, looking at the issue, and being open to changes. Meanwhile, real people are paying the price.

  A seven-year-old girl is dead. A repeat offender with 32 felony convictions was arrested and released without even an ankle monitor. An alleged murderer had an outstanding warrant that had reportedly been sitting in the system for more than 18 months. At what point is enough finally enough? 

First up, stop voting for democrats. They love criminals.

Second, ACTIVELY VOTE AGAINST judges. Skipping that section of the ballot is almost as bad as voting for more of this corruption and depravity. 

Lastly, tell your friends and family that if they're actually sick of criminals being released, tired of reading about children and working people being attacked, exhausted of always looking over their shoulder lest they be stalked, beaten, robbed or shot, then they better vote the same way you're going to.

Cold Case Solved?

And will be used for the next few years to beat up the CPD:

• Eight-year-old Gloria Kowalewicz’s school and church were less than a half-mile from her back door in West Englewood.

  On Nov. 12, 1960, a Saturday, her mother Esther was up early to get her dressed. Gloria had received her First Holy Communion recently, and a nun at St. Mary of Mount Carmel Church had urged the third grader and her classmates to receive the sacrament every day for two weeks to impress the ritual into their memories.

  That Saturday was the last day. But her father needed the family car, so Gloria would have to make the 3½-block trip on foot. For her daughter, the older of two kids, Esther picked out a pink-and-brown checkered dress and a blue leotard. Esther kissed her goodbye and watched from the family’s porch as Gloria walked north on Damen Avenue before turning east onto Marquette Road, past a gas station and out of sight.

  Gloria never made it to the church. Her body would be found just a few hours later in a secluded spot in the suburbs. She had been shot twice in the head.

And horror of horrors:

• It was a crime that shocked the city and stayed a mystery for decades, but now police say they have solved the case using DNA technology. And the perpetrator, they say, was a young man who wore a Chicago Police Department star.

The article is paywalled, but there are ways around it. 

This guy has been off the job for almost four decades, out of Illinois for almost as long, and dead for twenty years. There is not a single Officer on the job who worked with or supervised him for years now. But it will be used by the media and assorted bad actors to paint everyone currently on the job as culpable in some way for the history of a psychopath.

Welcome to Federal Charges

The Cook County misdemeanors morphed into Federal felony charges:

• There’s good news and bad news for a Northwest Side man accused of pointing a laser at a Chicago Police Department helicopter this summer. The good news: Cook County prosecutors dropped three misdemeanor disorderly conduct charges against him stemming from the incident. The bad news: Federal prosecutors have now charged him with a felony that carries a potential prison sentence of up to five years.

  On August 11, a CPD helicopter crew reported that someone was pointing a laser at the aircraft as it flew over Hermosa around 9:30 p.m., according to a CPD report reviewed by CWB Chicago. The helicopter’s onboard equipment enabled the crew to locate the person shining the laser, track him, and guide ground units to his location. Sophisticated mapping and night-vision camera systems helped the officers pinpoint the laser to a man standing on the second-floor rear deck of a home in the 4200 block of West Dickens Avenue.

We're glad the pilots are okay and even happier the helicopter is flying again. 

Still Scamming

The story of his life - besides the burglary and armed robbery convictions and suspected involvement in other gang activity:

• He’s no lawyer, but Wallace “Gator” Bradley was doing his best impression of one.

  Bradley, a former Gangster Disciples enforcer who now calls himself an “urban translator,” was grilling murder exoneree Mark Maxson in a deposition in August over this $345,000 question:

  Is Bradley owed a cut of Maxson’s $8.75 million wrongful conviction settlement? Bradley says he is.

And what does an "urban translator" earn these days?

• Bradley says he logged 4,607 hours at $75 an hour — more than $345,000 — and has submitted about 70 pages describing the work he says he did between 2013 and 2025.

Hm. Seventy-five bucks an hour. Not bad.

Who is he translating for?

• He listed dozens of City Council and Rainbow/PUSH Coalition meetings he says he attended, along with his preparation for those meetings.

  He says there was outreach to the media and “community/political leadership”; a handful of meetings, emails and conversations with Maxson’s lawyers; and appearances at several events, including a 2023 Christmas party where Bradley says Maxson and Mayor Brandon Johnson also showed up.

Oh. And is he translating because these people (or folks) were "educated" or work for the Chicago Public Schools and are therefore incapable of understanding words?

We're just curious. 

Teaching?

 

From a couple of comments and emails:

• We were told the FBI guy was in town to present a training session at A3.

What exactly was this guy supposed to be teaching?

"Justice" is a Joke

We keep hoping that vigilantes will arise to spare the rest of us from this failed system:

• Henry Graham, a 52-year-old man with a lengthy arrest record who killed a man with a single punch on the Magnificent Mile, was sentenced to nine years in prison on Friday, months after a judge found him guilty of involuntary manslaughter, saying state law barred him from being convicted of murder.

  The state’s “one punch” legal standard that spared Graham a murder conviction may surprise many, but it is well established in Illinois, where nearly a century of case law holds that a person cannot reasonably expect a single punch to kill someone. Therefore, in almost all cases, a person cannot be convicted of murder when a single punch proves fatal.

That is a ridiculous standard because there are probably dozens of incidents where a single punch resulted in a death. We can name a couple off the tops of our heads. Certianly there are more and certainly a number were "mutual combatants." But there are a couple "ambush" type attacks that should have resulted in murder charges. This is one of them:

• Graham’s victim, Russ Long, was a 49-year-old River North resident and longtime Northern Trust employee. On June 29, 2023, he was carrying a shopping bag past the Cartier store at 630 North Michigan Avenue when Graham quickly approached him from behind without saying a word. Graham twisted his torso backward, then thrust it forward, driving his fist into the back of Long’s head, prosecutors alleged.

  Long fell forward immediately, striking his head on the pavement. As Long lay bleeding on the ground, Graham sat down on a nearby fire hydrant and stared at him for about five minutes, witnesses said. He walked away upon hearing sirens in the distance.

CPD didn't do anyone any favors with the "investigation" either:

• Two witnesses followed him until they crossed paths with a Chicago police unit. The officers detained Graham and, with their body cameras rolling, heard him admit to hitting Long and knocking him unconscious, prosecutors said. The police then let him go.

  For four days, Long’s friends tried in vain to get the Chicago Police Department to file a report about the attack. Finally, on July 2, a friend of Long’s called 911 from his hospital bedside and insisted that an officer be sent to Northwestern Memorial Hospital to document the attack. Once again, the 911 call taker refused to dispatch anyone because Long could not speak, though they eventually relented and sent a car.

  Only then did CPD begin documenting and investigating what had happened to Long, who died of his injuries ten days later. An autopsy showed “severe injuries” to the left side of Long’s head, prosecutors said. His frontal bone and the base of his skull were fractured.

Four days and no one collected any info from an obvious Aggravated Battery. It sounds like the initial Officers didn't even do a Contact Card, but had body cam video with an admission...and he still walked away?

In the intervening three months, the attacker was arrested SIX more times, including four felonies for attacking Evanston Police Officers. Now he gets nine years - and with three years credit, he'll be out in about eighteen months. 

If we're still in town then, maybe we'll start walking the Mag Mile. 

Speaking of Ugly....

How about those White Sox?

One more chance to put a cap on their Cinderella run.

And since we're talking sports for a moment:

• Mike Ditka, the Hall of Fame tight end who played on the Bears’ 1963 NFL championship team and coached the team to its only Super Bowl championship after the 1985 season, has died. He was 86.

  He died about 9 a.m. Friday surrounded by family and friends, a family spokesperson said. The family had not announced funeral arrangements as of Friday afternoon.

He was a throwback to when the NFL actually meant something. Ditka wasn't a fan of the woke league, expressing disdain for the barely talented hack QB Kapernick, saying if he didn't like the USA, he was free to leave it.

Quite the character. 

fbi = Fondling Boners Indecently?

We suspect a lot more of this with the feebs....a LOT more:

• A retired FBI supervisory special agent from Colorado is being held in Cook County after prosecutors accused him of sexually soliciting a 16-year-old boy in the steam room of a Logan Square health club.

  At about 10 p.m. on September 30, the boy’s father dropped him off at the gym in the 2400 block of North Elston Avenue to work out after he finished his homework, prosecutors said in a detention filing for Jeffrey Green, 59. After exercising, the boy went to the steam room and sat on an upper level with Green and another person. The witness noticed Green masturbating and went to get security, according to the filing.

  Left alone with the boy, Green began walking toward him while continuing the sexual act, prosecutors alleged. Green told the boy, “Don’t worry,” in what prosecutors described as a “sexual tone.” Standing in front of the teenager, Green then asked if he wanted to perform a sex act on him, prosecutors said. The boy, who had never seen Green before, replied, “F*** no. Go away,” or words to that effect, according to the filing. He then sat in shock, prosecutors said.

You look at a lot of these supervisory agents and you just think, "What a beat off this guy is." Turns out, you might be right.

Plus, we have inside info from The Keesing Bandit that his little black book has entire chapters of "contacts" contained within. 

Getting Ugly

And due to get uglier:

• As community leaders called for criminal charges against a Chicago police officer accused of using two guns to fire down a Little Village street, new details emerged about the young cop and the circumstances of the off-duty shooting that wounded another man over the weekend.

We'll leave the details to the Slum Times article linked up top. 

But we'll note that falling hiring standards have consequences far beyond what would normally be imagined.

Who NOT to Vote For

Someone posted this link in the comments. It lists all the candidates currently running for the elected Chicago Board of Education.

But most importantly, it lists all of the candidates currently endorsed by the CTU, meaning that they are bought and paid for stooges of the teachers who will vote to raise your taxes, give CTU people massive undeserved pay raises and continuously fail to actually educate the children of Chicago.

If you want to see a better list of candidates, use this one:

 

It was provided by a group that actually did the research and believes that these candidates provide the best opportunities to wrest control of CPS away from Davis-Gates and the CTU and place it back into the hands of responsible adults. 

Is every candidates perfect? Of course not. But these provide an opportunity that hasn't ever existed before. 

Save the Date!!!

Finally, after seventeen years:

• Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Thursday the public would be able to watch the firing squad execution of a former Army officer convicted of a mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas.

  Speaking from the USS Abraham Lincoln to the conservative news outlet Real America’s Voice, Hegseth said Nidal Hasan is “going to get a firing squad of soldiers, and we’ll make sure that people are able to watch it.”

  “People need to understand that there’s serious consequences for these types of things,” said Hegseth, who called the method of execution a “no-brainer.”

And they're going to broadcast it! 

The only thing that would make it even better was if they used bullets dipped in bacon fat before burying him in a bacon-lined pine box.

Maybe some red states will institute pay-per-view for their death chambers? 

CWB Judge Article Part 2

CWB has their second article up about judicial retention. This one covers six judges including a few of our most disliked, untrusted and incompetent DEI types:

• Every four years, Cook County voters cast ballots, deciding whether circuit court judges should be retained or not. It is rare for a sitting judge not to achieve the 60% retention threshold.

  Below are brief biographies, background information, and links to relevant cases involving Cook County judges up for retention during the current cycle who handle criminal matters in CWB Chicago’s coverage area. The first half of our list is available here.

They cover:

• Robert Kuzas, a former CPD member who seems to have a number of fans in our comment section, but who is also politically connected as he was the one who cleared Prickwrinkle's son and has a disturbing habit of drastically reducing bail amounts so violent criminals get out to commit more crimes;
• Teresa Molina-Gonzalez, a former prosecutor who said, "I can’t keep everybody in jail because the State’s Attorney wants me to" before releasing the repeat felon who lit a woman on fire on the Blue line; 
• and everyone's favorite incompetent DEI hire, Tyria Walton who released the woman who attempted to murder a CPD Officer with his own squad car, then accused CPD Officers of calling in threats to her without (A) filing a police report, (B) making a CR complaint with COPA, (C) notifying the Chief Judge or (D) notifying the Sheriff Protective Detail. In fact, the only notification she made regarding all of these "threats" was her campaign website.

Obviously, we're going to recommend against voting for a single judge, but go read the two linked articles up top and make your own decisions. 

Take the five minutes to read everything and then spend the sixty seconds it takes to vote NO on at least a few of these incompetent assholes.

Conehead Lied Again

Or his budget people did, basing vast expanses of the Chicago budget on pure fantasy:

• Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson is laying the groundwork for a budget proposal that could rely heavily on new taxes on corporations and wealthy residents as the city confronts an $880 million budget shortfall.

  Speaking about his priorities ahead of the release of his proposed budget, Johnson framed the upcoming debate as a fight over protecting city services while criticizing corporate interests and those calling for spending cuts before tax increases.

Sure, because making your first move "increase taxes" on corporations that are showing a distinct willingness to moving out rather than pay for Chicago unwillingness to spend money responsibly is a fantastic idea.

• His comments come as tensions build between the mayor and a group of 29 City Council members who recently sent him a letter urging the administration to pursue spending cuts and efficiencies before seeking additional tax revenue. That group has taken a hard line against a possible corporate head tax.

  Ald. Samantha Nugent of the 39th Ward said the city should focus first on reducing costs and addressing debt. "You know what we've heard time and time again is before we look to taxes, which is always where this administration goes, we have to look at the efficiencies that have been identified, and and we do have to look at debt," Nugent said.

Gee, an aldercreature wanting to look at efficiencies and spending practices? She must be high on something.

This is typical:

• City Comptroller Michael Belsky said the city is using a data-driven strategy that targets people considered most able to pay.

  "With employees we're looking at people with the highest salaries, highest amount of debt, that improves our collections. If it's people with vehicles in zip codes where they can afford to pay, we're gonna take them all the way through to judgement," Belsky said.

Not the people who aren't following the rules - the ones who can "afford to pay." Which are also the people who can afford to shop elsewhere - or leave town.

Democrats are idiots - vote for more!

Hilarious

This idiot might as well have used something like Facebook Marketplace:

• A Chicago man who federal prosecutors say fatally shot another man and then sold the murder weapon to an undercover agent has been sentenced to 15 years in federal prison, officials said.

  Levion Thomas, 31, pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm but, according to Cook County court records, has not been charged with the murder that officials pinned on him.

  But federal prosecutors presented extensive evidence that Thomas used the Smith & Wesson 9mm pistol to kill 31-year-old Troy Pouncey on the afternoon of March 5, 2023, in the 7100 block of South Calumet Avenue, steps from William Meyering Park’s children’s playground.

  Two weeks later, on March 20, Thomas sold the same gun to an undercover law enforcement officer in the parking lot of a strip mall in Burnham, Illinois. Ballistics analysis confirmed that the pistol Thomas sold was the firearm used to kill Pouncey.

He'll likely never be charged with the murder unless he confesses to it. But circumstantially, will the Detectives Exceptionally Clear/Close it for statistical reasons?

Don't Be Dumb Part II

Everything is tracked and traceable to you:

• A now former Joliet police officer has been accused of abusing the Flock license plate reader database, according to Illinois State Police.

  Jeremy Harrison, 50, faces a charge of computer tampering and official misconduct in Will County, according to Illinois State Police, which conducted the investigation after accusations were made against Harrison.

  Court documents say the alleged offense occurred July 23, 2025, when Harrison was serving as a lieutenant with the Joliet Police Department.

  Investigators offered no other details on the case. Harrison is due back in court Nov. 17, per court records.

  Harrison makes for at least the third known case of a law enforcement being accused of misusing the database that tracks millions of drivers’ real-time locations in Will County this year.

Of course, police shouldn't be mis-using tools like these. But perhaps the more pertinent question is why are companies (and government) tracking millions of drivers in real time without some known purpose? Just because they can doesn't mean they should.