Back to the Old Way?

Everything old is new again:

• SCC I know your retired but shockingly snelling opened up a second round for merit picks for the current Sgt list from 2024

Back when "merit" started, the request for names went out prior to every promotional class, and once the class was named, they started over. This continuous "meri-clout-orious" list lasting for the duration of the list is a relatively recent invention, mostly because as the exempt ranks got stupider and stupider, they couldn't be relied on to make deadlines. 

Besides, as the political winds shift on a near-monthly basis and the "consent decree" rules screw up everything with insane requirements, whomever might be "in" today could be "out" tomorrow.

What the Actual F@#$?

Is this what passes for a police chief nowadays? Or a man for that matter?

• Portland Police Chief Bob Day wiped away tears Friday as he addressed new information showing that two illegal immigrants shot during a federal immigration enforcement encounter had ties to the violent Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua (TdA).

  Day confirmed a Department of Homeland Security statement identifying the two individuals — Luis David Nico Moncada and Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras — as Venezuelan criminal illegal aliens with suspected ties to TdA.

  Both were shot by a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent after Moncada, the driver of the vehicle, allegedly "weaponized his vehicle" and attempted to run over agents, prompting an agent to fire in self-defense, according to DHS.

  "They do have some nexus to involvement with TDA. We can confirm that," Day said, pausing and choking up.

Just so we have this straight - he's crying because the government intelligence was correct about two ILLEGAL ALIEN GANGBANGERS who attempted to MURDER a Federal agent performing a legal and lawful action?

Has he been weeping like this for the other murder, rape, battery and robbery victims of these imported criminals?

Another "Isolated" CTA Murder

So very very isolated:

• A 37-year-old man was found stabbed to death aboard a Blue Line train in the Loop early Saturday morning.

  CPD and the fire department responded to the Clark-Lake station after the man was found unresponsive and bleeding on a train around 2:27 a.m. Investigators determined the man had suffered two stab wounds, one to the chest and one to the abdomen. He was taken to Northwestern Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

This keeps Chicago on track for under three-hundred homicides (seven every ten days).

Yes, we're being sarcastic. 

Sounds Familiar

Didn't Larritorious say this same thing a few months ago?

• Chicago Police Superintendent Larry Snelling has issued a blistering warning to radical activists and anti-border enforcement agitators.

  His message was clear: If you play stupid games with law enforcement, you will win stupid prizes.

  At a press conference on Monday, Snelling forcefully rejected social media posts alleging that Chicago police refused to help federal agents responding to violent situations last weekend.

  Instead, he defended the role of federal law enforcement and clarified that attacks against them, whether local, state, or federal, constitute deadly force and can legitimately trigger an armed defensive response.

It gets better:

• Snelling, who has not spoken about federal deployments in the city or across Illinois, said he has sought to “stay out of the politics of this,” but after hearing claims his officers did not respond to the calls for service, he felt it was necessary to “put all of that to rest.”

  “My leadership team are not political pawns. Their lives are too important to play politics with these men and women who face danger every single day,” he said. “This is not a game, this is not a joke. This is still our city and we still have a responsibility to maintain safety and calm in our city.”

  Snelling said none of his officers were seriously injured by the tear gas. He added that he’s spoken with federal leadership about the incidents, and that the feds were “extremely concerned” about the officers.

  Despite those discussions, the superintendent maintained that his department abides by the Illinois TRUST Act — which restricts local law enforcement, including sheriffs, from cooperating with federal immigration agents — and does not collect or share residents’ immigration status.

  But he also said his officers “cannot and will not” arrest federal agents conducting immigration enforcement operations in Chicago and implored residents not to interfere with those efforts

He almost sounds like someone running for office....as a Republican. Or at least a Libertarian.

Still a Cesspool

And still the same people (or folks):

• A seven-time convicted felon on pretrial release for allegedly bringing a stolen gun onto the Red Line this summer is now accused of sexually attacking a female CTA employee at the 95th Street station Sunday afternoon.

  The attack occurred at about 4:30 p.m. while the woman was working at the 95th Street Red Line, according to a Chicago Police Department report. Officers assigned to the station as part of the department’s recent public transit security surge were already on site when the victim ran to one of them and reported the attack.

Seven times convicted - imagine if there were a "three strikes" law on the books.

Then imagine there was cash bail for multiple felonies.

Then imagine winning a million dollars. 

Now They're Concerned?

Is there an election coming up or something?

• Gov. JB Pritzker set off a chain reaction last November when he told reporters he’d be open to changes in the SAFE-T Act, which eliminated cash bail and replaced it with a new pre-trial release/retention system, among other things.

  Pritzker was asked about the case of a woman, Bethany MaGee, who was horrifically set ablaze while riding on a Chicago commuter train.

  No direct link between the crime and the SAFE-T Act actually existed, but the news media pounced on Pritzker’s statement that he’d be open to changes, and several downstate county sheriffs and others jumped up with their own suggestions (although it seemed like at least some were mostly upset about the loss of revenues from cash bail).

Granted, this is part of a subcontracted opinion column, but obviously, crime is among the concerns of voters so democrats have to pretend to address it prior to the election season.

Pension Board Special Election

The retiree representative on the Pension Board passed away last month. We heard there's going to be a special election to fill the vacancy, but we've heard next to nothing about any candidates running.

Last election, the FOP played an outsized role in who was running for the retiree spot.

Who's up his time? 

CPS = C.S.A.

Once again, install cameras EVERYWHERE government business is conducted - cops are wearing them, lockups have multiple cameras, street sweepers have them for ticketing purposes, etc.

It's time for cameras in the classrooms and on the teachers:

• Chicago Public Schools' Office of Inspector General released its annual report Wednesday, with a large portion devoted to what the inspector general called "pervasive" and widespread allegations of sexual misconduct at Little Village Lawndale High School — which NBC 5 Investigates first reported on last May during our "Lessons in Betrayal" series.

  NBC 5 Investigates found that since 2017, at least seven educators - including two administrators and five teachers - have resigned or been fired while under investigation for sexual misconduct at Little Village Lawndale High School.

  As part of our investigation, we interviewed 12 former students who shared with us their various experiences from their time at the high school. The former students raised concerns that the behavior of several teachers there went unabated for years. 

Don't look now, but CTU members and CPS employees are rapidly closing in the the Archdiocese in terms of child victims of sexual assaults. We wouldn't be surprised if in the next year or two, lawsuit payouts eclipse CPD lawsuits settlements.

The First Shot

What the media won't show you:

Yeah, she was driving at him.

You know how leftists think a police involved shooting is supposed to go down?

1. officer perceives a threat;
2. officer evaluates said threat;
3. officer must interpret the threat through a lens that includes age, race, sex, sexual orientation, social dynamics, economics, oppression, history and twenty other factors;
4. officer must double check his/her evaluation of the threat through his/her own lens of age, race, sex, sexual orientation, social dynamics, oppressive history of ancestors he/she never met and twenty other factors;
5. officer may - but is not required - to fire a single shot. (UPDATE - that single shot MUST be at the weapon held OR an extremity (leg, arm) but not to close to a vital artery or organ;
6. return to Step 2 and repeat the process.

It's ridiculous in the extreme. 

And as more video comes out and more interviews are forthcoming, it's being revealed that she was a trained agitator, was the lead car in a convoy interfering with law enforcement, and that she struck the officer with her vehicle - a vehicle weighing in excess of 3,000 pounds making it a far more dangerous weapon than most.

And to all the trolls lurking in our comment sections:

 

Hateful Rhetoric

Democrats have been calling Republicans "nazis" going back as far as Barry Goldwater during the 1964 presidential race. Every single Republican candidate was labeled as such as soon as their poll numbers deemed them a threat to the democrat candidate.

It hasn't gotten any better in the intervening six decades. Now it's "nazi," or "fascist," and anyone working for a Republican administration is labeled "gestapo."

The entire left wing encourages violence, supports criminals, and believes that any law they don't like is "oppressive." The democrats in charge know most of their voters are either mentally ill or morons - it is a direct (and planned) result of the failure of public schools to properly instruct children in their duties as citizens. Instead they indoctrinate them to think everyone who doesn't agree with you is racist, sexist, oppressive, etc., that they are always the victim of said system and therefore, violence is "free speech" and always justified....when it comes from their side. 

And they'll keep up with the divisive rhetoric because they get more mileage out of a dead body than they do advocating for programs and positions that any sane person would find ridiculous. 

Has anyone heard a single democrat tell their supporters to back down lately? To not show up where legal and lawful enforcement action is being taken? Nope. Instead, they've added "murderer" to their litany of complaints.

When did it become permissible to interfere with law enforcement? To obstruct legal proceedings? To break and burn courthouses? To assault officers, whether local or federal, from carrying out duly passed laws?

You don't get to pour gasoline all over the place, start playing with matches, then act surprised when it blows up in your face. 

Good News, but....

This is good to see:

• Police deaths on the job fell 25% in 2025 to 111, an 80-year low not seen since World War II.

  The number of law enforcement professionals nationwide who died in 2025 declined by a quarter compared to the same time period last year, according to preliminary data provided by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

  The NLEOMF data shows that 111 federal, state, county, municipal, and U.S. Territories officers died in the line of duty in 2025. That's a 25% decrease compared to the 148 officers who died in 2024, according to the organization.

Part of this is undoubtedly better emergency medical treatment. It's a driving force behind less homicide fatalities over time.

Another part is less anti-police rhetoric being driven by democrats and the media. Americans generally like and appreciate safer communities and that means working with police.

But another part might be police disengagement, especially in blue-state blue-city $hitholes where homicides are down (reflecting a national trend) but property crimes and similar crimes are up. You have an entire generation of cops who have been ordered not to chase, not to confront, not to enforce wide swaths of the actual Law. 

If that's what society wants....

Discuss. 

Justified

Here is a slowed down and zoomed in video of the ICE shooting in Minnesota yesterday.

• video link here

She's driving directly at the agent, who draws and fires as the car approaches.

Federal Rules of Engagement are NOT Minneapolis rules, and certainly not Chicago rules. 

This would appear to be a justified Use of Force and all the noise from the left - including Walz claiming he's going to use the Minnesota National Guard against ICE - certainly seems to be insurrection-y.

How Bad is the SAFE-T Act?

Results are mixed, but some of the predicted results continue to this very day:

• More than two years after Illinois eliminated cash bail under the SAFE-T Act, statewide crime data shows no increase in violent crime, but law enforcement leaders in rural parts of the state say the reform has created new public safety and addiction-treatment challenges that statistics alone do not capture.

  The Illinois SAFE-T (Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today) Act was passed in January 2021 and signed by Gov. JB Pritzker the following month. Its most controversial provision, the end of cash bail under the Pretrial Fairness Act, took effect Sept. 18, 2023, after the Illinois Supreme Court upheld the law’s constitutionality.

  Supporters argued the reform would prevent low-risk defendants from being jailed simply because they could not afford bail. Opponents warned it would lead to repeat offenses, failures to appear in court and harm to victims of crime.

And if you skate over to the CWB blog, you can see weekly, sometimes daily reminders, of how repeat offenders are infesting the CTA with attacks ranging from batteries to robberies to lighting people on fire, not to mention over half of arrested shooters are either out on no-cash bail, parole or electronic monitoring.

That lone makes it a failure in terms of keeping Chicagons and Illinoians safe. 

Find the Snitches?

We're sorry (not), but don't these pricks work for us?

• The Chicago Board of Education has launched two investigations into how internal information got into the hands of the media.

  It is looking at whether a member is responsible for revealing the names of superintendent finalists to the media and how a reporter recently got an internal update that included information about plans to hold a special meeting to raise property taxes.

  The board president is so incensed by the recent leak that he is threatening to ask the guilty party to resign.

  This appears to be the first time in recent memory that the Board of Education has investigated a breach. Across the country, such investigations at the school board level are unusual, said Jeffrey Henig, professor emeritus at Columbia University’s Teachers College, who has studied the politics of school boards. More often, school boards are accused of acting in unison and doing too much business behind closed doors, he said.

There should be cameras in the schools so parents can monitor what their children are being taught, body cams on teachers to catch the constant child molesting going on, and cameras at every meeting held by the Board of Ed, especially when they're meeting in secret to raise taxes (again and always) while completely failing to do their jobs - namely EDUCATE children.

New York is Doomed

So this happened last week:

• New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani announced on Tuesday that he is appointing Ramzi Kassem as the city’s chief counsel, the top legal position in the city. Mamdani is set to take office on January 1, 2026.

  Alongside Kassem, Mamdani also appointed Steven Banks, a self-described “social justice attorney,” as corporation counsel, and Helen Arteaga as deputy mayor for health and human services. While Mamdani has praised both appointments as critical for defending working people and ensuring justice in the city, the backgrounds of the attorneys have raised a few eyebrows.

"raised eyebrows" because Kassem defended an al-Qaeda murderer, and al-Qaeda as you might remember, knocked over a couple buildings in New York City a quarter century ago.

But it got worse this week:

• Communist Muslim New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani appointed a “Tenant Advocate” who wants to “seize private property,” which she sees as a symptom of “white supremacy.”

  Cea Weaver is her name, and over the years, she has made no secret of her anti-freedom and overtly racist views.

  “We’ll transition from treating property as an individual good to a collective good,” she promises. “Whites especially will be impacted.”

So being white and owning a house or apartment building is now evil in New York City. This AWFL has said she'll direct inspectors to cite and seize buildings that don't meet "standards" to further the communist agenda and fight gentrification.

Of course, it was revealed that she grew up in an affluent part of town, went to one of the "Seven Sisters" colleges, and her mother lives in Tennessee in a house that was bought for $800K but is now valued at over $1.4 MILLION. Gee, real estate is a good investment and gentrification increases net worth - who would have thunk it?  She tried to delete all her social media hypocrisy, but the links above and this one here reveal quite a few of them. (UPDATE: Daddy has his own $800K house AND is the owner of a couple of rental properties - but she's anti-landlord?)

This is the "progressive" agenda and you can bet Conehead and his communist handlers at the CTU would love to implement it here. In the meantime, farewell to NYC.

Porky by the Numbers

This is what's been happening in Illinois since Fata$$ took over:

• Pritzker’s Illinois: the numbers
  
  
  • Taxes are up $1,434 per person since Pritzker took office.
  
  
  • State spending has grown $18 billion (51%) since 2019 — nearly double inflation.
  
  
  • Illinois now has the highest property taxes in the nation.
  
  
  • State & local pension debt totals $218 billion — even $1M/day wouldn’t cover it for centuries.
  
  
  • Illinois lost 2,616 businesses to other states (1994–2023), with losses accelerating since 2017.
  
  
  • Gas tax doubled in 2019 and now stands at 48.3¢/gallon, costing drivers about $143 more per year.
  
  
  Is Illinois better off?

That answer would be, "No, not at all."

But people keep voting for this crap. 

Ninety-One Years

A good start:

• Jeffon Williams, who shot two Chicago police officers during a 2020 traffic stop, later telling an investigator, “F*** that officer, I hope he dies,” has been sentenced to 91 years in prison.

  A jury convicted Williams on August 14 of nine felony counts, including multiple charges of attempted murder, and Judge Steven Watkins on Monday handed down his punishment: two consecutive 45-year prison terms for the attempted murders and a consecutive one-year sentence for unlawful use of a weapon. Williams must serve 85% of the attempted murder sentences.

  Williams was 19 years old when he shot two CPD officers in Homan Square early on August 30, 2020. At the time of the shooting, he was on bail for pending burglary and stolen motor vehicle cases. 

Eighty-five percent works out to roughly 77 years. If they count back from the date of the shooting, he'll be ninety-six....pending a democrat governor pardoning him after everyone who remembers is retired or deceased.

Conehead the Moron....Again

So, since the threat of "curfew enforcement" on New Years Eve worked (and that no one showed up to the party) there's now no need for any curfew enforcement ever again!

• Mayor Brandon Johnson said Tuesday that Chicago’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve celebration hosted by Chance the Rapper, which came off without a hitch, proves there is no need for a revised curfew crackdown.

  On the eve of a showdown vote by a City Council committee, Johnson declared his opposition to Public Safety Chair Brian Hopkins’ latest attempt to give police officers additional tools to combat teen takeovers.

  “New Year’s Eve was a testament that we did not need an additional tool in order to ensure that our young people were where they need to be, and that our parents and adults who are part of these young peoples’ lives — that they are also held accountable for their whereabouts,” said Johnson, who vetoed the snap curfew ordinance that Hopkins muscled through the City Council after a violent teen takeover last year.

So instead of just leaving it unmentioned as a tool that could be rolled out at a later date (because crime has never been cyclical in nature or driven by current events) Conehead just decides it isn't needed.

Aldercreature Hopkins calls out the hypocrisy and shortsightedness of Conehead, but you just know morons gotta moron.

Nice Job Sarge

Above (literally) and beyond:

 

Mentally ill subject on the roof, CFD shows up, but it isn't for them to confront someone armed with a knife on a roof - they're just there to pick up the pieces after he hits the ground.

So Sarge goes up, talks him into ditching the knife, and then sits up with him for a bit, talking and enjoying the sunny weather before the subject finally decides it's probably quieter on the ground....

Or something like that. We don't have all the details. But we're pretty sure this isn't in any job description - it's just something cops do, day in and day out with little to no recognition, because that's what we do.

Nice job....and anyone with the details, post them in the comments. 

Range Safety Issues

Nice to see this hasn't changed since we left:

• SCC,
  
  Yesterday I was at A/5 for combined weapons qual. During the taser portion, we had one of the new Taser T10 go down. Range people said this happens quite a bit, and 10 have already went down. We all laughed. Then, on the range the target controls were not working, requiring the range officers to walk down range between firing sessions to manually move targets between the various distance markers. On top of that, the exhaust system was inoperable, so there was noticeable guns smoke during our qual. All we could do was shake our heads.

Did anyone notify the FOP Safety Grievance committee?

Split that Vote Even More!

Another one of the regular Machine hacks lining up to split the voter base again:

• U.S. Rep. Mike Quigley said during a radio interview on Tuesday that he will run for mayor of Chicago in 2027. The Democratic congressman who represents parts of Chicago's North Side made his intentions known on WGN Radio.

  Quigley is already running for re-election to his seat representing Illinois’ 5th Congressional District in this year’s midterm election. He’s also amassed more than $150,000 in his campaign war chest.

  "Are you going to run for mayor of Chicago?" the host, John Williams, asked.

  "I am, but we'll have a formal announcement and talk about that after the March primary," Quigley said. "Look, I've filed again for reelection. I've got another year to serve. The primary for mayor is in February of 2027. Look, what I'm trying to do is show proper respect for the March 17 primary next year. That's really important. So I don't want the voters to get too far ahead of ourselves. I want to focus on the issues of the day."

In other words, he wants to make sure he has a fall-back position in case the mayor thing doesn't work out, so he'll run for the safe DC spot before committing to a local run.

So far, this is what the mayoral race looks like:

• Joe Holberg, a venture capitalist
• Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas
• Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza
• Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias

Conehead has yet to announce if his 6% will be running and we'll bet Willie Wilson will be buying tanks of gas for voters in the run-up to 2027.

More Detentions?

First, a "police surge"? There's manpower for that?

• A recently announced surge of Chicago police patrols on Chicago Transit Authority train lines is already paying dividends, with cops taking two men into custody within days for allegedly carrying loaded firearms on CTA Red Line platforms in the Loop, according to CPD and court records.

Good job on the arrests....but what's this?

• (Offender 1) - Judge James Murphy II detained him on charges of aggravated unlawful possession of a loaded weapon and carrying a firearm after a prior gun conviction.
• (Offender 2) - Moody was charged with unlawful possession of a firearm by a repeat felon. Prosecutors said his criminal history includes four prior gun convictions, including a 2021 armed habitual criminal case. He was ordered detained by Judge Antara Rivera.

We remember things like this happening....late last century, when we were rookies. Not any time recently though.

And Another Rate Hike

Everyone remembers the massive property taxes hikes last month?

And the CPS topping off the tax hikes up to the limit of the law?

And Fata$$ refusing the "no tax on tips" directives from Washington?

What's Porky doing with the OT tax cuts? 

Now guess who else wants a bigger cut of your paycheck?

• Chicago heating bills could get even higher next year under a proposed rate hike from Peoples Gas that would increase the average household natural gas tab by up to $11 per month.

  The city’s gas utility submitted a request to state regulators for the hefty rate hike on Monday, about two years after the Illinois Commerce Commission granted Peoples Gas a record-high $306 million rate increase. Under that decision, regulators ordered the utility to overhaul its controversial pipeline replacement program that ran far over budget and behind schedule for years.

  The hike “reflects the mandate made last year” to wrap up the work by 2035, as well as “the impact of inflation on all aspects of infrastructure work, similar to other sectors of the economy,” according to Peoples Gas.

So after 2035, everyone will see a $11 per month rate cut since the work will be all done?

Hahahahaha....no, of course not. Because those numbers never go down - they'll think up something else so they can keep it all. 

Cook County Court Miracle

We should bring back the Death Penalty for scum like this:

• A 22-year-old man from Ecuador has been detained on charges that he kidnapped and sexually assaulted a 12-year-old Chicago girl he met through Instagram, according to prosecutors.

  In a detention petition, prosecutors said Henry Lema, 22, first contacted the girl online, picked her up without her parents’ knowledge, and took her to his residence, where he sexually assaulted her.

  Chicago police began investigating around 7 a.m. on December 23 after the girl’s parents called 911 from outside a home in the 4800 block of West Crystal Street. The parents told officers their daughter was missing and that they had tracked her cellphone to that address, which was later confirmed to be Lema’s residence. The parents said they had attempted to contact their daughter by phone and knocked on doors in the area without success.

Vigilantes would work. Was this pedo an illegal, too?

You'll never guess what happened afterward:

• Judge James Murphy III ordered Lema detained after finding prosecutors met their burden under the law. Lema is charged with criminal sexual assault of a victim younger than 13 and kidnapping.

It's a freaking miracle.

CTU Commies

Remember these idiots back in 2019?

• The recent trip to Venezuela by a group calling itself a Chicago Teachers Union delegation has upset some union members and expats who question the point of the tour and take issue with the group’s praise of the country’s disputed government.

  The four travelers, who crowdfunded the July trip under the banner of the CTU, met with Venezuelan government officials and educators, visited a commune and were featured in local media.

  They wrote online about wanting to connect with Venezuelan teachers, students and unionists, criticized U.S. economic sanctions against the South American nation and wrote admiringly of its socialism, its communes and high literacy rates.

  But critics say the group glossed over Venezuela’s ongoing political and economic crises and were excessively complimentary of President Nicolás Maduro, whose administration has been accused in recent United Nations reports of “grave” human rights violations and violence against dissenters.

They're still at it in 2026:

• The Chicago Teachers Union on Saturday promoted a protest of the Trump administration's action in Venezuela hosted by a who's who of far-left organizations, including a group that openly supports socialism.

  Activists from the ANSWER (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) Coalition, along with activists from the Party for Socialism and Liberation, organized just hours after news that Venezuela's socialist dictator Nicolás Maduro had been captured by U.S. special forces in a daring mission during the dead of night. By Saturday afternoon, protesters in cities across the nation came together with signs and promotional material made specially for the occasion.

Test scores are going what direction again? Attendance numbers are headed where? But gotta support their commie brethren.

Anyone remember this?

 

One of many police Districts where over one hundred ILLEGAL ALIENS camped out for months on end with the infestations of bedbugs, lice, unsanitary conditions and all manner of transmissible sicknesses - and overwhelmingly Venezuelan in certain Districts.

And this is what the CTU supported....and continues to support. 

Murderer Gets $3 Million???

The system is a mess:

• The CTA must pay $3 million to a woman who killed and dismembered her North Side landlord after an Illinois appeals court ruled that a trial judge properly shielded jurors from learning about the then-pending murder case during her personal injury lawsuit against the transit agency.

  Unfortunately for Sandra Kolalou, also known as Sandra White, she will be in prison until at least July 2076, when she will be 90 years old.

  In a December 31 order, the Illinois First District Appellate Court confirmed a $2.8 million jury verdict against the Chicago Transit Authority stemming from a 2018 bus crash in which Kolalou was struck while walking in a crosswalk. The court rejected the CTA’s arguments that the case should have been delayed or the verdict reduced because Kolalou was later charged, and ultimately convicted, of murder and related crimes.

It certainly looks like the CTA lawyers screwed the pooch on this one:

• Those social media posts showed Kolalou “cliff-jumping, swimming with the dolphins, roller-skating, playing tennis, wearing high heels, and traveling to far-away destinations such as Egypt, South Africa, and Mexico” while she was experiencing debilitating leg and back pain, the CTA claimed in a filing.

Instead, they missed deadlines and hung their hats on a murder trial that hadn't even taken place.

On the other hand, the family or estate of the murder victim would seems to have an excellent opportunity to sue to offender for damages....may we suggest something in the neighborhood of $3 million?

We Guess it's 003

If one of the only reliable crime reporting sites says it's 003, it must be 003:

• The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office has determined that a man found shot inside a South Shore apartment on Saturday morning was a homicide victim, marking the first murder of the new year in Chicago.

  CPD said someone discovered 51-year-old Marcos Aleida face down in a bed inside an apartment in the 6700 block of South Jeffery Avenue around 9:22 a.m. Saturday. He had suffered gunshot wounds to the head, chest, and back and was pronounced dead at the scene. No other details were released.

And as many had speculated, 03 January was longer than usual for the Grim Reaper to make his initial appearance:

• Since 2001, Chicago has started a new year with a longer murder-free period only twice: in 2014, when the first victim died at 4:08 p.m. on January 3, and in 2019, when the first killing occurred at 2:37 p.m.

  Since 2001, Chicago has recorded its first murder of the year on January 1 a total of 17 times. The first murder occurred on January 2 five times. And 2026 is the fourth year in which the city’s first homicide was recorded on January 3.

We remember one year, probably the late late 90s, it took almost five days to tally a homicide.

We also recall a year when someplace like 016 or 017 won the pool, also around that same time.

See?

Exactly the theory that we had proposed:

• President Donald Trump mentioned Chicago during his Saturday news conference on Venezuela, saying crime dropped in the city because he sent the National Guard, even though its troops never actually patrolled the streets of Chicago.

  “We also helped, as you know, in Chicago, and crime went down a little bit there,” Trump said. “We did a very small help, because we had no working ability with the governor. The governor was a disaster, and the mayor was a disaster.

  “But it knocked down crime.”

Hey, could the Administration be reading the blog?

Maybe even...... 

Holy crap! 

Homicide #1 (UPDATE)

003 wins?

• Detectives are conducting a homicide investigation after a man was found fatally shot Saturday in a South Shore home.

  Marcos Almeida, 51, was found with gunshot wounds to the head, chest and back about 9:30 a.m. inside a residence in the 6700 block of South Jeffery Boulevard, Chicago police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office said.

  He was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. 

As McCompStat or J-Fledgar would say, this one is an "innie."

It also sounds domestic related, but we'll see. 

UPDATE: And once again, our warnings come into play. A number of people are saying in the comments that someone got beaten to death in 015 a full day before this one in 003....and the one in 003 may have occurred prior to 01 January due to the condition the body was found in. 

As we don't have access to the Major Incident Log or whatever they're calling the 24-hour report, we can't make any determinations.

Sounds of the New Year

Man, we remember these nights:

When we started (and it was expectd) we ran around scooping up offenders and guns.

In later years, we spent it under viaducts where it was safer.

Fun memories. 

Further Info

More on Betancourt - Larritorious' letter:

 Slum Times coverage:

• Chicago police are grieving following the sudden off-duty death of Deputy Chief William Betancourt, who Supt. Larry Snelling said “embodied what it meant to be a public servant and great leader.”

  Early Saturday after a medical emergency while he was off-duty, Betancourt, 60, passed away, Chicago police said.

He was never in our direct chain of command, and he didn't appear much in the blog comments, which is usually an indicator of someone who could be classified as "decent." He was in charge of 010 during the ILLEGAL ALIEN sex scandal that was complete made-up media bullshit and accounted himself well enough. 

We certainly wish he could have enjoyed some of the retirement he earned. 

RIP Deputy Chief Betancourt

Following a medical emergency overnight. 

No other info at this time. 

Final 2025 Numbers

Via HeyJackass.com, the only source for actual accurate crime numbers:

• Final 2025 Totals (vs 2024)
  Shot and Killed: 362 (-32%)
  Shot and Wounded: 1592 (-35%)
  Total Shot: 1954 (-34%)
  Total Homicides: 433 (-29%)

Sizeable drops, so Congratulations to the Chicago Police Department for operating at a significant manpower deficit and during massive overtime expenditures.

We Congratulate you here because you aren't going to see much in the way from City Hall, and (if rumors are to be believed) there won't be much in the way of hiring or overtime in 2026, so it was good while it lasted. 

They Grow Up So Fast!

Eight-year-old shooter:

• A 7-year-old boy was shot inside a Humboldt Park residence Thursday evening after another child found a firearm inside the home, Chicago police said.

  The shooting occurred in the 3200 block of West Division Street at approximately 7:04 p.m. According to police and radio traffic, an 8-year-old boy located a gun inside a second-floor apartment. The child then discharged the weapon, striking the 7-year-old boy in the arm, according to CPD.

  Cops applied a tourniquet to the child’s arm before the Chicago Fire Department transported him to Stroger Hospital, where he was listed in serious condition with a gunshot wound to the left bicep.

  Police recovered a firearm from a bedroom shelf in the apartment. No one was taken into custody.

Okay, technically not a "shooter" but a curious kid.

Turns out, this might be a test case for a new Illinois Law:

• The shooting happened on the same day a new gun storage law went into effect in Illinois. The legislation aims to make it harder for something like this to happen.

This is one of those laws designed to punish after the fact, rather than prevent anything, because it can't actually protect anyone - there is no enforcement mechanism for warrantless searches of homes. But upon conviction, you can bet that this offender will never be allowed to own a gun ever again.

The fine is $10,000, but once politicians see who the offenders are, we'll see if it's ever actually enforced. 

An Indictment, Finally

The "puncher" caught a couple cases:

• A man accused of punching several women in Chicago's Loop appeared in court Friday, where he was indicted.

  Marlon Miller is facing three counts of aggravated battery.

  Some have argued the 40-year-old suspect should have never been on the streets.

"some"?

Anyone with a brain you mean?

In fact, there was a missed opportunity quite a while ago:

• Miller was also accused of throwing a milkshake at a woman near the Chicago Theatre last month and punching two women in the face on Lake Street in October. After that incident, a judge placed him on electronic monitoring.

We thought the "Crimesha Precedent" allowed for Felony charges whenever a beverage was utilized in an assault? Or was this yet another case of the political clout of the victim being the deciding factor in appropriate charging?

Don't worry, we know the answer to that one. 

No Homicide Yet?

A couple woundings, but everyone survived as of Thursday afternoon:

• Chicago police are investigating after the first person was reported shot in the city about 90 minutes into the new year, an unusually long gap for a “first victim” by local standards. At least four other people have been shot since midnight, but time — and investigation — will ultimately determine which case will become the first “official” criminal shooting of 2026.

  The leading candidate for that dubious distinction is a 43-year-old man who was wounded after ringing in the new year at a South Loop nightclub. According to police, the man took himself to Jackson Park Hospital and told officers he had been standing in the 2100 block of South Michigan Avenue around 1:30 a.m. when he heard gunfire and realized he had been shot in the lower right leg. He was listed in fair condition. 

Don't worry, we're headed into the 40s by next week.

Interesting Interpretation

The Slum Times headline:

• Chicago records fewest killings since 1965, despite Trump's attacks against the city

But has the Slum Times thought about this interpretation of facts on the ground?

• After Hundreds of Extra Officials in Uniform on the Street along with Many Hundreds of Traffic Stops, Arrests, Detentions and Deportations of Criminals, Crime Drops

Completely plausible....probable even. Criminals go to where Law Enforcement isn't - even if the law enforcement isn't local.

But did anyone expect the Slum times to be even handed?

More Please

How many future crimes did this deter - suburban or Chicago?

• A teen boy was shot and killed after allegedly trying to rob another teen Wednesday afternoon in Cicero, town officials said.

  Two teens met for a marketplace sale that began on social media about 3:20 p.m. in the 1300-block of South 58th Avenue, officials said.

  The sale did not take place, and as the teen selling the item walked away, the other teen approached him and began to struggle with him over the item, officials said.

  A relative of the teen who owned the item got out of a nearby vehicle and was shot twice by the alleged robber, officials said. The relative, who also had a gun, said he returned fire, hitting the robber once.

Based on trends and history, we'd say this prevented at least half-a-dozen, maybe as many as ten future robberies/shootings in Cook County by this individual alone in 2026. 

If any of his friends were paying attention, maybe they learned a valuable lesson and might not attempt something similar, meaning the number of prevented crimes will increase exponentially. 

Imagine this happening on the CTA or downtown. It warms our cold dark heart.