No Sympathy Here

Recognize this parking lot?

That's "Public Safety Headquarters," or 35th and Michigan. Officers were ticketing numerous vehicles in between rain storms yesterday. No idea what the tickets were for (our emailer didn't let us know), but there were a bunch.

No front plates? City stickers? Tints? No idea at all. But if you're working at HQ among all of the brass and the media wandering in and out for pressers all day, then you better be 100% legit each and every day.

Now let's see if they do uniforms and personal grooming standards.

 

Dart Dumps E.M.

 Tommy is finally ditching the hot-potato and political anchor that was dragging down his ambitions:

• The Cook County sheriff’s office is ending its decades-old electronic monitoring program, handing it over to the chief judge amid questions about who will arrest violators and how extra staff will be funded.

  Beginning Tuesday, anyone placed on electronic monitoring after being found to be a flight risk or a danger to the public will be overseen by the Adult Probation Department, administered by Cook County Chief Judge Timothy Evans.

  The sheriff’s office, which has complained it can no longer safely administer the program, will continue handling its current caseload of people on monitors.

  Questions remain about how the Adult Probation Department will scale up its operation, with about 900 new cases expected over the next six months.

Now Evans gets a bunch of patronage hires for Prickwrinkle's army and taxes will no doubt be raised to fund the extra one-hundred-fifty new monitoring personnel.

Let's see if the political blowback lands in the Courts instead of the sheriff.

Income Based Fines

California giving everyone another reason to leave:

• San Francisco is launching a new program backed by Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom that will issue speeding tickets based on income.

  The Speed Safety System Pilot Program was signed by Newsom in October 2023 and allows cities across California to use speeding cameras to fine drivers. Those considered lower-income are eligible for a steep discount if they receive a speeding ticket.

  Violations for speeding range from $50 to $500, but individuals with a household income at or below 200% of the federal poverty level are eligible for a 50% discount, according to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency. Indigent persons, or individuals who are homeless, are eligible for an 80% discount on the speeding ticket.

If you can't afford the fines, perhaps you shouldn't be owing a car? Maybe take public transit everywhere.

At this point we have to wonder if the California government is just trying to make the state unlivable so anyone who can afford to leave will depart....and f#$% up the rest of the country. 

Watch for Fata$$ to propose something similar.

PPP Fraud Discussion

The IG goes on the radio and discusses the PPP loan fraud:

• Deborah Witzburg, Chicago Inspector General, joins Lisa Dent to discuss PPP fraud among 41 Illinois employees. Of the 41 Illinois employees who committed fraud, many worked for the Illinois Department of Human Services. But Witzburg explains that some were police officers, and even state politicians.

There is an audio file at the link.

Is the statute of limitations approaching? Because we figure Debby Downer is in place meremy to run out the clock. We've linked to a few cases where well known exempt members of the CPD are listed as getting PPP loans.....but as we recall, the Police Department never actually shut down where they could plausibly justify their one-person security companies or hair salons that only seemed to have home addresses.

Great Idea

From HeyJackass.com:

• At a ribbon cutting today on Chicago’s West Side, Mayor Brandon Johnson announced that his People’s Plan will now include the nation’s first crime-related loyalty program called Rap Sheet Rewards.

  “Today, I’m announcing that all residents of Chicago 11 years or older, who have at least one arrest will be receiving a loyalty card in the mail that will be good for up to 10 free crimes a year. I like to call them, Rap Sheet Rewards, y’all.” The mayor continued, “This isn’t going to be some fancy card with a chip and an app… we can’t afford that with my teachers’ contract and all… we’re going old school with a simple, raggedy punch card.”

  While the mayor did not provide much detail on how Rap Sheet Rewards is likely to work, City Hall has hinted that every crime will have a set number of punches, much like a sub sandwich or cup of coffee would garner at a local cafe or restaurant. For example, a simple battery or garage burglary would only be good for one or two punches while a shooting could be worth five and a homicide would be worth the entire card or 10 punches.

  It is also not clear what a full card would grant the holder. However, it’s possible to be a form of amnesty from arrest and conviction for “punched” crimes or possibly lesser “rewards” such as the ability to “get busy in a Burger King bathroom” as Mayor Johnson suggested.

  “For far too long, we have seen disinvestment in our community. Our top priority is to mobilize full spectrum stakeholders to tackle community issues with the addition of Rap Sheet Rewards”, the mayor said while appearing to roll a marijuana cigarette. He wrapped up his comments on the new loyalty program stating, “This top-down, yet bottom-up limp to the side like your leg was broken, shakin’ and twitchin’ kinda like you was smokin’ approach will allow those who’ve made a silly decision or two to now have the ability to commit crime without the burden of the 27-tiered justice system.”

Hopefully we'll be seeing this graphic on a t-shirt soon? Lord knows our other t-shirts are seeing a bit of wear and tear. We could use a new one or three for summertime. 

Support the only trustworthy source for crime numbers in the Raggedy Windy City.

Another Great Idea from Springfield

You know those homeless encampments in the parks, under the bridges, up and down the lakefront? Be prepared for even more of them:

• A growing group of Illinois legislators is sponsoring legislation that would prohibit local governments from enforcing fines or criminal penalties when “people experiencing unsheltered homelessness” occupy or engage in “life-sustaining activities” on public property.

  Among the “life-sustaining activities” that would be protected are “moving, resting, sitting, standing, lying down, sleeping, protecting oneself from the elements, eating, drinking, and storing such personal property as needed to shelter oneself.”

  So far, 23 state representatives, including Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, have signed on as sponsors or co-sponsors of House Bill 1429, also known as the Homeless Bill of Rights.

  Tent cities and group camps have caused problems in neighborhoods across Chicago, from West Loop encampments that sparked shootings and drug dealing to the two-year occupancy of Gompers Park.

What we really need is for these "tent cities" and encampments to be built on property owned by politicians or trusts controlled by politicians so they can enjoy the crap they're saddling everyone else with. Kids can't play in public parks any more because of these homeless assholes blocking access to play lots, ball fields, leaving all sorts of needles, trash and bodily waste all over the place. Where do the politicians think they are - San Francisco?

VRI Returns?

So what's this "DSI" program we're hearing about?

Are they addressing the shortages via massive OT again?

Will they finally admit the manpower shortages are going to be acute this summer?

Is this last ditch effort to stave off the twelve-hour shifts being proposed, piloted and negotiated in secret?

It's a Draw!

All sides are claiming victory in the CTU negotiations:

• Mayor Brandon Johnson has a long way to go to realize his dream of becoming Chicago’s longest-serving mayor. But he proudly proclaimed Tuesday that there are “a couple of things that Richard M. Daley and I do have some alignment around: running successful Democratic National Conventions and avoiding teachers strikes.”

  A former middle school teacher turned paid organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union, Johnson is claiming victory for having delivered a new tentative contract agreement for his former union brethren — and for Chicagoans like him who send their children to Chicago public schools.

  As the CTU’s House of Delegates and rank-and-file members prepare to vote on the contract, questions remain about who really came out ahead in this hard-fought battle and whether the contract was worth the months of acrimony and the political price that Johnson had to pay.

But we're told by people who know and people who have been pretty close to negotiations that this Contract is - in essence - a repeat of the 2019 agreement. In fact, where the Police Department got 5% raises, the CTU will get 4%.

Stacy Davis Gates comes out the biggest loser here, which is actually where she started - a loser, and she can go back to her Indiana home and await what is looking to be a contentious election for her spot in the near future. The opposition is going to hammer her for demanding the world and settling for 2019 numbers.

Conehead is still basing a lot of his budget numbers on hope, dreams and pure fantasy regarding revenue streams, so he's probably a loser on this one, too.

This is a Strategy?

We knew he was dumb, but can Conehead be this dumb?

• Mayor’s Crime strategy “if they downtown, they ain’t on the block”.
  
  
  
  His strategy is to let “them” run wild downtown so he keeps shootings down in the hood.

And as more and more downtown businesses shutter their doors and pack up their tents, who's going to pick up the slack in tax revenues? We've already pointed out a few articles that document the hoods are losing citizens who are being buried by property tax hikes.

Again?

Out on "bail" and committing more crimes? Say it ain't so!

• A man accused of being the second gunman involved in a mass shooting earlier this month was on probation for burglary and AWOL from a pending felony gun case when he opened fire on the victims at a liquor store in Back of the Yards, prosecutors said.

  [...] Vargas is charged with three counts of attempted murder for allegedly shooting three victims: a 22-year-old man who was struck in the chest, a 47-year-old man hit in the abdomen, and a 46-year-old man struck in the wrist. Chicago police officers who arrested Vargas said he had a pistol with an extended magazine in his waistband when they took him into custody.

  Court records show that a judge detained Vargas on a separate gun charge one year ago, but a different judge later allowed Vargas to go home to await trial. He never showed up in court again, according to court records.

  [...] Judge Ankur Srivastava agreed with prosecutors that Vargas was a public safety risk who should be kept in jail on the gun charge. But four months later, on September 5, Judge Angela Munari-Petrone agreed to let Vargas go home. He failed to show up for court 11 days later and a warrant had been out for his arrest ever ince.

And in case anyone thinks it doesn't matter:

• He is the fourth person accused of shooting or trying to shoot someone in Chicago this year while on felony pretrial release. Those four individuals are accused of killing or trying to kill 16 people, including 9 Chicago police officers.

Fata$$ and Evans are deliberately trying to kill police officers.

F#$% Off with This $hit

A bunch of ignorant people (or folks) confronted the ignorant mayor the other day:

• A loved one of a man who was shot to death by two Chicago police officers interrupted a speech Sunday afternoon by Mayor Brandon Johnson at a community listening session.

  The mayor had just begun speaking at the listening session, hosted by the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression at Trinity United Church of Christ in Roseland, when people began to shout from the audience, according to video of the event.

  Among them was Charlotta Pritchett, partner of 58-year-old Timothy Glaze, who was at the listening session with members of the organization Dare to Struggle to try to get answers from the mayor on her boyfriend’s killing, according to a press release from the group.

She wants to know why:

• after calling the police 
• and telling the call taker that her boyfriend had a knife and was going to stab her,
  
• that the police showed up and shot him when he opened the door with the knife in his hand and approached the officers in a threatening manner.

The boyfriend that she had gotten an Order of Protection against, and still allowed him back into the residence.

• His family has said he was in “mental distress” and officers should have tried to de-escalate the situation. The family is also incensed that the two officers are back on patrol after spending 30 days assigned to administrative duties, per department policy following a fatal shooting.

  “They were there trying to get the mayor’s attention and to get his answer as to why the officers who were the cause of Timothy Glaze being killed are still on the force,” said Jasmine Smith, an activist with the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, who was one of about 100 people at the meeting.

F@#$ off Jasmine. And F#@$ off Chicago Alliance of Mopes Who Don't Know Shit.

We hereby make the offer to Jasmine that we've made a few times before to other morons, including members of the media (maybe some small variations to the details):

• We will outfit you with a gun, live ammo, taser, baton, vest, handcuffs and OC spray;
• We will hide in a residence of our choosing, armed with one of the following - knife, bat, board or other blunt instrument;
• You will "deescalate" or use a non-lethal option to disarm and secure us;
• We will also provide you with a signed and notarized letter absolving you from being sued by ourselves, our families, or any surviving relatives.
  

Scoring:

• If you use the gun, we win;
• If you use any of the non-lethal weapons, we win;
• If we make physical contact with you (fist, kick, headbutt or chosen weapon) we win;
• If you get us into handcuffs, you win....unless we suffer any identifiable cut, bruise, contusion or wound, then we win;

If you win, we'll give you $100,000 cash money.

If we win, you admit publicly that you don't know shit about police work, disband your pathetic organization and donate any assets to the CPD Chaplains.

We await your email....we're pretty sure we'll be waiting a long time.

Unknown Motive

Dear ol' dad has no idea:

• Aquino called for an arrest to be made in the shooting and questioned who would want to take his son’s life.

  “I want to see who did it and why,” Aquino said. "[Justice] is important.”

But as we posted yesterday, the family wasn't quick enough to purge "shadow's" social media.

Oh, you didn't know he was nicknamed "shadow"? Didn't notice the black and beige clothing?

You didn't see the "down with the crown" hand signs, typically used by two-six bangers to dis the kings? 

Don't worry - someone will get shot over near Central Park or Homan or Kedzie shortly.

Another Credit Downgrade

We're pretty sure the Pension Fund is never going to see a dime from the casino:

• Bally’s has received another credit downgrade from a key Wall Street ratings agency, dealing the latest tough card to the corporation behind Chicago’s casino.

  Fitch Ratings cited “execution risk in the development of the Chicago projects” along with high debt and other issues for the Rhode Island-based gaming company while lowering their rating from B to B- in a decision announced Friday. Fitch analysts say Bally’s “should have sufficient funding to complete” their $1.7 billion permanent casino at 777 W. Chicago Ave., which is supposed to open in September 2026.

  But potentially lowering Bally’s odds of maxing out their River West jackpot are “a saturated Chicago gaming market, the higher-than-average gaming tax rate, and the typical ramp-up of a new casino development,” according to Fitch, which downgraded the company last year, too. All three major Wall Street ratings agencies have dinged Bally’s since it landed the Chicago casino license in 2022. Lower credit ratings make it more expensive for companies to borrow money.

And just to make it even more painful:

• But it hasn’t come close to revenue projections set by the city. With new competition from a freshly opened south suburban casino, Bally’s made less than $8.8 million at Medinah in February, its worst monthly showing in more than a year, according to Illinois Gaming Board records.

The city "spent" those "projections" last year, meaning the shortfalls will have to be made up somewhere else....like tax hikes, fee and fine increases, hiring freezes, cuts to services. 

Not from the CPS/CTU though. Gotta keep those empty schools open!

Bad Decision Time

Certainly seems like being fifteen-years-old is a dangerous time this month:

• a week or so ago, a fifteen year old beat his girlfriend to death on the west side;
• that teen takeover downtown resulted in a fifteen-year-old being shot;

And then this one:

• The 15-year-old boy killed in a drive-by shooting Friday evening on the city's Southwest Side has been identified. The Cook County Medical Examiner's Office identified him as Jerry S. Aquino, and said he lived in the same block where he was fatally shot.

According to his social media, the poor angel was suffering from some unknown arthritic condition that rendered him unable to function in school or around the house:

 

How could he help with the dishes, carry a grocery bag, hold a pencil, or operate a fully-automatic switch-equipped-Glock (with extended magazine (corrected)) with such crippling arthritis of the hands? 

Anyone know how many shell casings the ETs picked up?

Embarrassing Chart

Conehead only accounts for the past two years though:

Thirteen years running:

• Ted [Dabrowski] joined Fox News to explain why Chicago has been the nation’s murder capital for 13 years straight. The reasons are many. Start with demoralized, restricted police. Add a 1 in 20 arrest rate. Add unreported crime. Add a dismal 911 response rate. Then add city leadership that’s soft on crime. All that equals a near-zero chance of criminals ever getting punished. And so the bloodshed continues.

City, County and State "leadership" actually along with "progressive" ideals getting worse and worse. Still quite a way to go to hit bottom though.

Manufactured Protests

The useless libtards are angry that the current administration is cutting government waste because that's where they "make" their money. There were protests this weekend at Tesla dealerships and someone sent us this handy-dandy cheat sheet for chanting (UPDATE: this pic is making the rounds on social media):

 

As noted at the top of the sheet, this is the "large print" version, for those protestors who are a bit nearsighted in their golden years with their best protesting times behind them.

We're also told that when the protest hit the top of the top of the hour, everyone packed up and left - almost as if they were being paid by the hour....which they most likely were. These aren't organic protests by any means with hourly rates and large/small print crib sheets with common chants at all locations across the country.

It's kind of sad that they want to be taxed more to support even more government waste. 

UPDATE: since these protests are funded by assorted leftie organizations and billionaires, is there a way for Chicago to recover the costs associated with the police presence needed? Chicago is broke enough already.

She's Running for Something

Last time around, we hoped Mendoza would win the mayoral race. She ended up as Illinois Comptroller, but she might be gearing up for another run:

• Gov. JB Pritzker, in a text exchange with Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza, expressed concerns about Mayor Brandon Johnson’s ability to keep United Airlines’ headquarters in Chicago, another stark shot from the governor amid his ongoing friction with the mayor.

  [...]  “I know you’re on top of it,” Mendoza replied, as she implored Pritzker to continue his dialogue with the airline. “Right now you have the loudest adult voice in the room to reassure these important businesses that we value them as strategic partners.”  “In absence of any semblance of competency coming out of the 5th floor,” Mendoza wrote, referring to the location of Johnson’s office in City Hall, “I don’t blame [United] for positioning themselves as potentially looking at other opportunities, even if that’s not the case. I do believe they’re committed to Chicago and that you’ve had these conversations with them. I’m just reaching out to you to ask you to keep that up.”

Too bad she has to suck up to Fata$$ though.

Political Future?

Conehead shoudn't have a political future:

• A key political player is missing from a weekend birthday fundraiser that could serve as an unofficial launch for Mayor Brandon Johnson’s re-election campaign.

  The host committee for the Fulton Market fundraiser does not include the Service Employees International Union or any of its affiliated unions. That’s a potent signal that the union helping bankroll and staff Johnson’s 2023 mayoral campaign is disenchanted with the embattled mayor, and may not support him for a second term.

CTU vs SEIU would be an interesting battle. 

Speaking of interesting battles, The Contrarian floats the idea of a Republican actually winning the Senate race for the seat Dickhead Durbin currently occupies:

• Though the 2024 election is now behind us, the 2026 midterm elections are drawing near and it is crucial to build on Trump’s national gains. Trump performed well in the State of Illinois, gaining three percentage points from 2020. Locally, support for Trump increased in Chicago, where he earned 22 percent of the city’s vote.

  There is every reason to believe expanded support for Trump signals there is a momentum building for change to occur in Illinois.
  

While we'd like to see it, and would certainly contribute toward it, we think it hasn't gotten quite bad enough for a full fledged revolt that would precede such a change. It's nearer than it's been in many years, but we'd probably need to see another term by Fata$$ to truly drive Illinois over that cliff.

"Teen Takeover" Night Two

The temperature dropped almost 20 degrees at sunset, probably sparing Streeterville and surrounding locales from a larger night of mayhem. Amusing how the "media" is covering it:

• Channel 7 - Chicago police said a 15-year-old boy was shot in the Streeterville neighborhood Friday night, as large groups of teenagers were seen in the area.

"....seen in the area." Really? Nothing about the street fights, the tasers being used against each other (not police tasers), fireworks set off, speeding cars?

• Channel 5 - Renewed calls for earlier teen curfews in downtown Chicago are again being floated after large gatherings led to chaos and multiple arrests Friday night.

"....large gathering...." It wasn't really a gathering, it was designed to engage in anti-social behavior, bordering and morphing into rioting and looting.

Channel 2 gets it more right than these other two:

• Hundreds of teens crowded in the streets, fistfights, tasers, and a gunshot; that was the scene Friday night in the Streeterville neighborhood in downtown Chicago.

  One alderman is renewing his call for an earlier downtown curfew for teens to help prevent the violence.

A curfew? Seriously, there is no testicular fortitude to actually back a curfew with arrests, fines, convictions and juvie/jail time because the lawbreakers are all of one particular makeup. That's simply an observation of fact, nothing else.

As usual the only real reporting comes from CWB:

• A boy was shot, a man was stabbed, at least 15 people were arrested, several people were taken to hospitals, and at least two firearms were recovered as hundreds of teenagers overtook Streeterville and parts of the Loop on Friday evening, according to information from Chicago Police Department statements and law enforcement sources.

  The mayhem marks the second time that a so-called “teen trend” overtook Streeterville this month. A tourist was shot during the earlier incident on March 9.

They've also got a number of the video we spoke of yesterday, all linked up in one easy to view post. Give them a visit.

In any case, most of the mayhem seems to have happened (again) when tempos were a bit warmer and the drizzle hadn't started yet. We'll see how it all turns out.

SCC Time Machine

Someone with far more time than we have, remembered this post from a number of years back. It was about a Cook County consent decree and what the CPD could expect moving forward from 2018. Any of this sound familiar?

• One: you will attract less and less talented applicants. Less and less people want to work for CPD or be the police in general. The Darren Wilson/JasonVan Dyke cases, de-policing in general since 08/09, increased micromanagement and metrics-based supervision for suburban departments and weaker organized labor all contribute. Not only that, but you have an economy that is insanely good: unemployment nationally at 3.7%? Hasn't been this good in decades and more better-paying jobs are to be found elsewhere- with stock options and bonuses.
  
  Two: with low-talent applicants, you will hire low-talent people. Which means over the long-term, low-talent officers will be promoted to low-talent so-called-Sergeants.
  
  Three: increase in cameras. There will be more cameras that you know what to do with. In locker rooms, in break rooms, put up in blind spots in the station, in lockups, everywhere. You'll have body cameras for every officer in the department. You'll have dash-mounted cameras inside the squad car aimed at the officers inside. You'll have cameras mounted in the cage in the vehicle. The camera systems will be Ultra-High Def 4K shit, with great zoom lenses, and audio capability. They will be able to be real-time streamed. These cameras will be able to be accessed by command staff ay any time, any where. Directors in CCSO can access this shit from their houses, from their iPads. And they do. They will watch the cameras from home, call into the jail and ask Chiefs, Superintendents, Lieutenants and whoever they want, why officers are doing certain things. This happens daily to us and it will happen daily to you.
  
  Four: increase in civilian directors and oversight. You'll have civilians who are not the police, being put in charge of units, groups and teams. These people are not your friends.
  
  Five: New units for Use of Force Review, Video Monitoring, Internal Affairs, etc... You'll have re-organized units, re-structured units, new units and the like. Lots of juice babies will be placed in this units. The administration will fight you tooth and nail and a lot of the people in these units will not investigate Use of Force incidents correctly.
  
  Six: A hell of a lot of discipline. They'll rewrite the entire General Orders of CPD. They'll fight the FOP on everything, hire a lot more lawyers and they will push for the maximum amount of discipline possible for a lot more officers. They will make examples. They will suspend without pay. They will push to fire more officers, by a factor of 5 at least from that the current level is. There is no mistaking it, people will absolutely lose their jobs.
  
  Seven: The Department will drown the union with more and more lawyers and opposition and struggle during normal operations. Everything from lunches to reliefs to overtime, to uniform/appearance standards, to medical call-ins, FMLA use and the pettiest stuff imaginable. This will increase the workload on the stewards in the districts and units and also the union office, making the office do more and more work. It will make you choose your battles more and it will make officers have less and less faith in the union.
  
  Eight: A ton of good officers will retire. They will be fired. They will stop caring. They'll become even more cynical and jaded that they are now. They'll impact the younger generation and then, they too, will become lazy and not care. More officers will transfer to suburban departments, federal agencies or choose different paths altogether. The department attrition will increase substantially, which will make officers invest less and less in their careers and themselves.
  
  Nine: After years of mismanagement and sinking morale, after hundreds of officers are fired and hundreds more leave, the department will change direction slightly and try to "improve" it. Special teams, special units, special work hours/shifts/days off, perks, etc., will be offered. Those Use of Force units, Internal Affairs and the administration will realize what has happened and try and fix it. This will happen slowly at first and then pick up speed. This is the phase the county is in now- especially at the jail. But the damage will be done.
  
  If you think this is bogus, ask officers who left the jail to come to CPD. County loses between 4-8 per month going to CPD. Talk to them in the districts. Everything I mentioned will happen, or has already started.

CPD is/was/has been hitting those bullet points pretty consistently. We're probably between Eight and Nine....and those "improvements" in Nine will never happen.

Guilty Plea, Lawsuit is Pending

Conehead is readying the taxpayer checkbook as we speak:

• A man who sued the city of Chicago within 40 hours of being arrested by CPD officers who allegedly seized a handgun from his waistband has now pleaded guilty to possessing that firearm. The arrest was caught on video, gaining local exposure on social media.

  Lorenzo Williams, 33, pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm with a previous conviction and received a three-year sentence from Judge Shelley Sutker-Dermer, according to court records. He is expected to be paroled in January, after serving half of his sentence.

  On July 30 last year, Williams was “seen on [police surveillance] video with a handgun in his front waistband. When officers attempted to detain him, he ran, resisted, and attempted to grab his handgun, which put the officers’ and Defendant’s lives in danger,” prosecutors said in a detention petition.

  The police camera operators saw “the butt end of a handgun in [Williams’] front middle waistband as he lifted his shirt up” in the 800 block of North Cambridge, a CPD report said.

The gun turned out to be stolen.

His liar lawyer claims there was no basis for the stop, as if camera operators seeing and identifying a handgun in the waistband isn't a direct violation of the Concealed Carry statues - not concealed and not in a holster - and if he hadn't been trying to pull the gun on the cops, he wouldn't have been subject to force necessary to effect the arrest.

 So even decent police work will (still) get you sued.

Summer Already?

It's 70 degrees tonight and downtown is going up.

This social media post says Streeterville:

• link here

If the link doesn't work, we're pretty sure it will turn up other places in short order.

More Cameras

Did this really happen?:

• You heard it here first, there’s an email coming out today for inside people and lockup guys. All inside people must wear their vest and BWC. And people issuing equipment must activate their BWC when issuing equipment. I guess there was a fight between radio room guy and a copper in 012 where guns were pulled. Also WOLs will take note of what time BWCs are docked for inside people. Also lockup officer must leave BWCs on whenever there is a prisoner in a cell and leave it running all day. No more splitting the shifts for inside people.

There are already dozens of cameras in lockups and more in the newest stations public areas. But hey, better surveil everything and everyone all the time.

This is what happens when hiring standards fall.

Mike Needs Money

The feds looking for a sizable amount from Madigan:

• Federal prosecutors say former Illinois House Speaker Michael J. Madigan should forfeit $3.1 million for the nearly decadelong bribery conspiracy involving ComEd that a jury convicted him of last month.

  The feds filed their request Friday with U.S. District Judge John Blakey, who is expected to hold a hearing on the matter June 9. That hearing is set to take place four days ahead of Madigan’s June 13 sentencing, also before Blakey.

  The judge gave lawyers in the case until the end of the day Friday to file other post-trial motions, which could serve as a preview of the issues Madigan will raise on appeal. Madigan’s defense attorneys filed a request later in the day for acquittal or a new trial, insisting that “Michael Madigan is not corrupt.”

A jury of his peers says he is corrupt though. Extensively so, along with a bunch of other people currently serving time.

The amusing part is that the money he took was actually spread amongst almost half-dozen other people and a law firm. That was the trick - ComEd paid the law firm and Madigan pocketed a share as the "rainmaker" partner, because who wouldn't hire a law firm with the Speaker of the House's name on the door?

So Mike might need some commissary money while serving time if this fine sticks.

Lieutenants Made

In the dark of night, a promotion list sent out late Thursday:

 

And only two "merit"? 

That's 13%, right? No one else qualified?

Attention No Seniority POs

You want off of midnights? 

Do you want to contribute to the District level manpower shortages?

Are you ready to sell your soul to downtown?

 

Just be aware that the Department has a bad habit of exploiting Units like these. A really really bad habit. They sell them as something new and different and an "opportunity." But ask anyone who was in SOS, TRU, MSF, what happens when you start out DETAILED to these units, and then suddenly, you are ASSIGNED there. 

When the Unit gets disbanded - and they all seem to get disbanded eventually - the Department gives you a "superbid" for your new adventure (or ignominious return) to Patrol. The "superbid" covers three Districts, and they always seem to be 003, 006 and 007. And then just to make in really interesting, PAtrol clcosed District bids every month or every quarter for the next year or two or three.

Ask the last few northside  cops from SOS still on the job - the Department posted "no bids available" for nearly a year after they got disbanded. Or the cops from TRU - the only District that had openings was 003 for nearly eighteen months and most of them were already in 003 when they got disbanded. Everywhere else was a one-for-one trade between commanders.

Be very very careful if the Department is looking to start up a new unit when they can't even fill the beat/rapid cars in 100% of the Districts on 100% of the watches. The only way to get cops into the killing fields is to circumvent Contractual protections, by luring in the short sighted, then changing the assignment parameters after filling the Unit. It's been done many times before.

New Speed Cameras Up

Sorry about the size of the picture - we can only post what we are provided with since we shun social media. You can click for the regular sized version, and see what your computer will let you expand it to:

1341 W. Jackson? There's no Park there. Skinner Park doesn't come anywhere near touching Jackson - it's on the Adams side.

Better get the recruits in the habit of paying their tickets to Conehead early we suppose.

Civilian Director at IAD?

Rumor mill heating up:

• Looks like the new Chief of IAD will be a civilian Executive Director, former Cmdr Tim Moore.
  

Former commander or not, he wouldn't be sworn any more. And aren't there are certain sensitive investigations that are supposed to be run by sworn personnel? There were all sorts of issues with this in the not too distant past.

UPDATE: And, as our more astute readers remind us, why bring back a former commander? Unless he's serve with the current crop of shady exempts and they need him to continue sitting on certain information until the statute of limitations has run its course.

UPDATE: ....former commander of IAD? That makes the suggestion from the readers even more likely.

PPP Justice?

And it only took us how many years to find out about it?

• An Illinois mental health worker claimed she was an author who had made $115,000 selling books in 2020 before her side business cratered during the COVID-19 pandemic.

  A state correctional sergeant at Stateville prison claimed he ran a private security company on the side that brought in $100,000 in 2019 and also was hit hard by the pandemic the next year.

  Now, both have been forced to resign, among 41 state employees listed in reports by the Illinois Office of Executive Inspector General as having defrauded the federal Paycheck Protection Program designed to bail out ailing businesses during the pandemic.

  The reports say those 41 employees are suspected of ripping off the fraud-plagued PPP program for more than $900,000 in loans. Most of the loans in the program were forgivable, meaning they didn’t need to be repaid as long as they went toward approved purposes.

  All of the employees have resigned, many of them several years ago, but the reports weren’t made public until this year.

There are plenty more over at OEMC. There are rumored to be more than a few among the exempt ranks. 

Haven't they reached retirement age yet?

Another Parole Success Story

Illinois really needs a "truth in sentencing" law or something like the feds have where you do 85% of your time before parole is even considered:

• A 16-time convicted burglar is back in jail this morning, accused of burglarizing two more businesses less than 48 hours after getting out of prison. In addition to his 16 burglary convictions, 58-year-old Vance Patton has been sent to prison for four other felonies, too.

  Patton was released from the Graham Correctional Center in Hillsboro last Thursday, March 20, according to state records. By sunrise on Saturday, he had made the 227-mile trip to Chicago, secured gloves and a face covering, and committed two more break-ins in the Beverly neighborhood, according to prosecutors.

  Police said video showed Patton throwing a brick through a storage facility window in the 1900 block of West 95th Street and taking $1 from the cash register. He then walked across the street and threw a brick through the front window of Flippin Flavors, 1848 West 95th Street, and stole five sodas from the cooler, according to his arrest report. Officers searched the area and found Patton after a nearby resident called 911 to report a suspicious man in their backyard. According to CPD, he had five cans of cold soda in his backpack: two ginger ales, one Pepsi, and an orange Crush. The cops also recovered a black face covering and gloves.

  Prosecutors asked Judge Susana Ortiz to detain Patton, but she declined their petition.

The judge said he could be out on an ankle monitor.

He just got out two days prior, traveled two-hundred-twenty-seven miles, and already has two additional burglaries to his name....and the judge thinks he should stay free on no bail with a monitor he can just cut off to go burgle more businesses.

With sixteen separate convictions for burglary, he should have been serving between sixty-four and two-hundred-forty years. Concurrent sentencing probably cut that down, but why are Illinois taxpayers constantly putting up with (and paying for) this bullshit?

IDOC is "considering" revoking his parole, but seeing as how they let him out in the first place and parole revocation is an almost miraculous happening, we're not going to hold our breath on that one.

Once is Happenstance....

So we wrote about Arena being an asshole on Monday. The post went up early in the morning as most posts do. Within sixteen hours, it was all over the Slum Times main page under Fran Spielman's byline. We didn't think much of it because the entire story had been reported by Crain's three days prior. We cover stuff we think cops might be interested in and they might not always have an opportunity to read about. Anything original is usually "inside baseball" type stuff.

However.....twice is coincidence.

We posted the email from Billy B regarding uniforms not being uniform on Wednesday, early in the AM. This time it only took fourteen hours for it to be all over the Slum Times front page again. They got a couple extra quotes from Catanzara, but it certainly looks like the media, particularly the rapidly sinking Slum times, is surfing our site and comment sections for stories, seeing as how they don't have any actual reporters left.

Three times is enemy action.

Be aware that we cannot prove and have no intention of proving everyone who reads or posts here is CPD. But if the Slum Times is going to be ::ahem:: stealing content again as they did years ago, the only decent thing to do is give proper credit (as we do via links) and send the Chaplain's $25 as a thank you (WGN's Ben Bradley being the only one who ever donated a dime), though in the Slum Times case, we'll drop the donation to $10 because we know you're all hard up for money. 

They REALLY Mean It

Here they go again (click for larger versions):

 

Closing with a quote from Sparklefarts word salad that made almost no sense? Great job there Billy.

In the meantime, shit or get off the pot - either enforce Uniform Standards across the board or quit blowing smoke up everyone's asses. 

And we mean ACROSS THE F#$%ING BOARD. Not just pants and sweaters and shirts and properly tailored uniforms. We mean shaving and haircuts and fingernails, both sexes, all races, and all manner of radio strap pins, velcro patches, ethnic designators, etc. Otherwise, you lose all credibility and open up the Department to all sorts of grievances AND lawsuits.

We were on the job when we all stood roll call three and four times a week, hats and batons on, weapons every Wednesday. We even got gigged by Inspectors for wearing our clip-on tie in the button hole. And the old timers told us (correctly) that we had it easy because they stood roll call six days in a row, all watches. 

Media Notices Arena Sucks

The Slum Times picks up on the fact that Arena is unpopular every where he goes:

• Former Northwest Side Ald. John Arena (45th) has his work cut out for him if he hopes to make a dent as Mayor Brandon Johnson’s new Springfield lobbyist.

  Arena has no prior relationships or track record in Springfield, and is getting a late start on the city’s formidable to-do list with just over two months to go in a spring session dominated by the state’s massive budget shortfall.

  Johnson has struggled to build a strong list of accomplishments in Springfield, beyond convincing Illinois Senate President Don Harmon not to call for a vote a bill that would have extended a moratorium on public school closings and shielded Chicago’s selective-enrollment, magnet and charter schools from major changes.

  The mayor also has a tense relationship with Gov. JB Pritzker. After a recent clash between Pritzker and Johnson over the governor’s stalled hemp regulations initiative, Pritzker complained that the mayor and his team “don’t have good relationships in Springfield, in part, because they don’t do the outreach that’s necessary.”

  Some of Arena’s former City Council colleagues are upset with Johnson’s decision to hire the former Northwest Side alderperson because of political bridges Arena burned with them during his two terms as a Chicago alderperson.

Arena is simply a Grade A scumbag, good only at making enemies and acting like a petulant child whenever things don't go his way. Conehead appointing him to go to Springfield where Arena is probably the only person less popular than Conehead, is a stupid move from a stupid mayor.

Conehead to Steal $175 Million

He's up against some hard deadlines:

• A critical mass of Chicago school board members has come out against reimbursing City Hall for a disputed pension payment, dooming its chances of passing. That leaves Mayor Brandon Johnson with less than a week to either change their minds or figure out another way to come up with the money to close the city’s 2024 budget in the black.

  Board of Education President Sean Harden postponed a pivotal vote last week on the approval of a $175 million pension payment from Chicago Public Schools to the city, a clear sign it lacked enough support to pass. He said the delay was due to an imminent contract agreement with the Chicago Teachers Union — though that deal has not been reached.

By the way, these are the people who want a 9% pay raise while there are entire high schools that can't read:

The City Council is also getting in on the act, warning Conehead about stealing the money without their approval:

• Fifteen independent City Council members put Mayor Brandon Johnson on notice Tuesday: Any move he makes to use city funds to cover a $175 million pension for nonteaching school employees must be made with legislative consent.

  Johnson does have not have the votes on the partially elected Chicago Board of Education to approve a borrowing or refinancing measure after seven board members declared their opposition to the mayor’s favored option.

  As a result, the mayor is now on the clock to come up with a plan B before city auditors close the books Monday on 2024.

But without an impeachment or recall provision, who's going to stop him? 

Maybe force the CTU to pay 9% of their salary to the pension funds like every other city union does, instead of the paltry 2% they currently do, saddling taxpayers with more unsustainable costs.

Congrats Chicago!

Homicide Capital of the Country....again:

• For the 13th consecutive year, the city of Chicago once again reigned as the nation’s homicide capital in 2024 with 573 murders.

  Ted Dabrowski, the president of Wirepoints, believes that the illness has festered for too long.

  Even as overall murder rates across the country dipped, Chicago also claimed the top spot for the highest murder rate per capita among big cities at 21.5 per 100,000 population. That’s three times the level of Los Angeles and nearly five times that of New York City.

Other places are seeing thirty, forty, even fifty percent drops in crime. Conehead is bragging about two and three percent drops in homicides while other categories climb yet again. 

Granted, Conehead is only on the hook for two of the thirteen years, but no one should be bragging when Chicago is still in the top spot after four mayors and at least that many supernintendos. It simply points to the systemic failure to address crime at all.

Don't Demonize!

Because this isn't satanic at all:

• A boy charged with the murder of his 16-year-old girlfriend used a Facebook AI tool to look up the number of years a teenager can be sentenced for murder, prosecutors said.

  The 15-year-old boy was ordered held in custody after he was charged with murder in the slaying of Kaylah Aleah Love whose body was found last week in Horan Park on the city’s West Side.

  The boy, who is not being named because he is a minor, was expressionless as his mother sat behind him at a Juvenile Court hearing in front of Judge Stuart F. Lubin on Monday morning.

  A motive was not disclosed during the hearing, and the two were described as being in a dating relationship and the boy was her classmate at Manley High School.

Because this is completely normal behavior, right Conehead? Nothing demonic at all. And the internet phone searches about "How much time can a teen get for murder?" Not a single demonic lesson to be drawn. (answer - not much at all)

As a side note, Manley High School is one of those schools built to hold around 1,000 students, but that has under 100. It's darkly amusing that even with all that staff and administration, no one picked up on any warning signs.

 

The Future is Here

Well, not here per se. It's in New York as usual....and Chicago will end up stealing it at some point:

• The New York City Police Department (NYPD) is now sending drones out on 9-1-1 calls to do the business that their Candy Crush-addicted human officers are too busy to tackle — and surveilling everyone in sight while they do it.

  As the cybersecurity news site The Record reports, these "drones as first responders" — or DFRs, as the NYPD calls them — can fly up to 45 miles per hour, filming everything on the block with telephoto cameras that can, per manufacturer Skydio, identify faces and license plates from nearly a mile away.

  Launched last year as part of embattled mayor Eric Adams' quest to shove technology into everything regardless of public opinion, these drones were initially only going to respond to "select priority public safety calls," according to a press release issued last November that formally announced the program.

  As The Record notes, however, the NYPD's definition of "select priority" seems awfully vague — and it doesn't actually report how many drones are deployed on police calls, either.

Quite a lot of secrecy surrounding the use of drones, mostly because they don't want everyone knowing how much data they're collecting and how accurate and detailed a lot of the hardware is - the pictures and video footage is astounding to say the least.

It's lucky Illinois and Chicago are too bankrupt to do any of the expensive pioneering work that will eventually end with a gigantic spy network in all major cites. Fata$$ and Conehead are certainly waiting for a democrat administration to gift them the billions it will cost to set up such a network.

Anyone wanting to be part of DRONE FORCE had better have their qualifications (i.e. pilot licenses) in place, because the connected are probably already enrolled in classes.

Countdown Accelerates

No longer a newspaper, but a full scale propaganda rag:

• For more than 75 years, the Sun-Times Editorial Board has been an important voice in Chicago, advocating for the well-being of our city, holding the powerful to account and helping readers understand and navigate the complexities of the news.

  [...] As a nonprofit media company, this is an important opportunity for the people of Chicago to become the voice of Chicago. Beginning today, the Sun-Times will no longer offer editorials — pieces expressing a stance on news topics, written by our editorial board.

  When the Chicago Sun-Times was acquired by Chicago Public Media, our new status as a nonprofit meant the editorial board could no longer make candidate endorsements, a major change to what is traditionally considered a core function of editorial boards. Editorials are traditionally unsigned, and when trust in journalism is so precarious, we believe it is essential for our readers to understand exactly who is speaking to them.

  To that end, we will continue to publish Letters to the Editor, which we receive in abundance every week and run in print and online. We will also continue to publish op-eds and guest columns from community members, leaders and scholars.

It's pretty much been either a dead fish wrapper or a bird cage liner for decades now.

But paying $2 for a sudoku puzzle you can find for free on the internet and twenty pages of crap written by either the AP, the Washington Post, A.I. or some lib-tarded journalism major who minored in basket weaving? 

It's only a matter of time now.

Showing ATF the Door

Looks like we won't be getting a wholesale disbanding of the fbi

But we may be getting something nearly as good:

• A report from CNN indicates FBI director Kash Patel — who is also ATF acting director — plans to cut “as many as 1,000 ATF agents” and move them to the FBI.

  This will represent a cut of roughly one third of the ATF’s current agents.

The thousand "agents" will be tasked with assisting in securing the border. As this isn't something most of them signed up for, we expect a sizeable number of resignations to follow, whereupon they can start picking all the vegetables and produce that the illegal aliens used to harvest.

The atf exists solely to infringe on Second Amendment Rights, sio this is a good thing.

Additionally, something else is good on the horizon:

• The House Judiciary Committee, led by Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH), is planning to hold a legislative markup on March 25, 2025 at 10 am EST. The committee will be considering several bills during this markup, two of which are of crucial importance to law-abiding gun owners. A committee markup is often a critical step in advancing legislation to the floor of the U.S. House for passage.

  The first piece of legislation up for consideration, and the NRA’s top priority, is H.R. 38, the “Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act” introduced by Representative Richard Hudson (R-NC). This bipartisan legislation would provide nationwide reciprocity for concealed carry license holders and for residents of Constitutional Carry states. This legislation currently has 177 cosponsors in the U.S. House.

When you drive a car, your license is considered good in all of the United States. The privilege of operating a car doesn't stop when you leave home. So carrying a firearm - an enumerated Right in the Constitution - shouldn't stop at a state border either.

If and when this is properly enshrined in Law, it'll get rid of quite a bit of the crap Fata$$ has been doing to undermine our ability to buy a firearm.