What Changed?

Does no one remember history? 

This was April of 2019:

• A state lawmaker who represents the city’s West Side introduced legislation Monday that would require all police officers in Illinois to be schooled on the intersection of law, race and racism in the hopes of teaching officers “the culture and the lifestyles of different communities and people.”

  “If we want to change the behavior of police, we have to educate them,” state Rep. La Shawn Ford said.

  The West Side Democrat said requiring officers to be taught critical race theory is about “tackling racism” and “becoming aware of our very own shortcomings and ignorance about our peers.”

And who was FOP president back then?

• But the head of the Chicago union for rank-and-file police officers said the bill is “redundant and ridiculous.”

  “They’re going to get officers killed with this constant nonsense of ‘race, race, race,’’’ said John Catanzara Jr., the president of the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police. “You’re gonna have people so paranoid to do their job they’re going to be worried about race more than they’re worried about reacting to a threat.”

And six years later, FOP endorses him?

Why?

Rumors Abound

Aside from the Larritorious/Heiniken rumor, these popped up:

• Rumors swirling BOP RBT teams being moved into the Bureau of Detectives to handle RBT cases and All Detectives to only handle Violent Crimes. 
• Tac is rumored for changes. Sounds like the usual dept change the name of something keep the basics. Some tac members will be cut the ones who want to stay and are deemed good enough by the Area DC and BOP will be moved to the Area PRT team. No more district tac , tac will be part of PRT in uniform and marked cars. They will be doing it like this so they can tell the activist and community concerns tac is poof with the scandals etc , no PRt scandals have occurred . And it’s good for the dept because prt will have more as they continue to grow for more additional teams and protests details etc. 

Expect a lot of "reorganization" rumors to grow over the coming months as the retirements continue and hiring slows or grinds to a halt.

 

  

 

 

That Thing That Never Happens....

....happened again, this time in Virginia:

• Earlier this week, we told you how Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger is going to the mattresses to defend a violent illegal immigrant who murdered a woman at a Fairfax County bus stop. Stephanie Minter, a mother, got off a bus in Fairfax last week and was followed by Abdul Jalloh, 32, a criminal illegal alien with dozens of prior arrests. Jalloh allegedly stabbed Minter, who died from her wounds. Spanberger's administration is demanding that ICE obtain a judicial warrant before it releases this violent criminal into ICE custody.

  That, of course, is a trap. Democrats have been pushing for judicial warrants because they know the process to obtain those warrants means it will literally take hundreds of years to deport the criminal illegals. But more than that, Jalloh was known to Fairfax County prosecutor Steve Descano. Descano's office released Jalloh on numerous occasions, despite a history of violent crimes.

  [...] But now things are getting worse for Spanberger and Descano, as reporter Nick Minock reveals that the Fairfax County Police Department warned Descano's office about Jalloh in November of last year.

And thanks to the FOIA efforts, the emails are now in public record of the warnings....and the governor ignoring the very specific worries of the police department.

Blue state $hitholes cost another woman her life at the hands of an ILLEGAL ALIEN with an extensive criminal record. Someone who should have been deported without hesitation.

New Supe on Tap

The rumor mill is kicking into high gear.

Supposedly, Larritorious has made it known he's leaving in May. 

Heiniken is following him out the door because he has no future without running cover for Larry.

Next up?

• Dana O'Malley 

Yep, a DEI civilian with zero law enforcement experience aside from running the "Consent Decree" and an innate dislike of anything police related is the front runner for the top spot. 

Conehead's biggest "fuck you" to the Department as he heads into (or bails out of) what promises to be a contentious re-election campaign. 

About Those Punitive Damages

As most readers know, punitive damages CANNOT be paid by the City - it's the Law. 

Hits like that come out of coppers' pockets. It has been common practice in the past that - after a verdict assessing such damages - Corp Counsel enters into negotiations pending an appeal whereby they'll try something like this:

• We're going to appeal this multi-million dollar verdict and tie it up in court for the next five years....but if you agree to drop the punitive damages against the Officers, we'll recommend to the City council that they approve this slightly smaller "settlement" and you'll get paid later this year. What you think?

And many times, the lawyers will tell their clients that a fast payout is the way to go.

This comment though....this would be bad news:

• From inside the 5th Floor, the Mayor is saying no deals. He feels it is time for the Police to feel the pain of paying their share of misconduct judgements. This will not be good for us. 

We've known a few Officers who ended up on the wrong end of these judgements and it's not a good feeling knowing that a portion - no matter how big or small - of all your earnings are going to someone who had a better lawyer than Corp Counsel.

Read CWB

Their operation is literally the first place we go every day to see what's brewing. And it was a lot yesterday.

First up, another SAFE-T Act success story:

• The man who shot and killed the father and son operators of a family jewelry store in Little Village late last year was AWOL from two felony cases at the time of the murders, prosecutors said Tuesday. And, they said, Muhammad Thomas was also wanted in one of those cases when he allegedly shot another victim during a carjacking attempt in 2023.

  Thomas, 35, is now detained pending trial by order of Judge Rivanda Doss Beal on a host of felony charges, including two counts of first-degree murder.

Then an update on the Shots Fried at the Police earlier this week - and look! It's another parolee who should have been behind bars!

• A man who got a sweetheart plea deal for a serious gun case in December is accused of trying to kill four Chicago police officers Monday morning in the Gresham neighborhood.

  Sedrick Griffin, 31, is scheduled to appear at a detention hearing Monday afternoon at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse, where prosecutors will detail the allegations against him. Court records show he is on parole after serving less than a year in prison for being a felon in possession of a firearm.

And finally, another effort by politicians to hide how badly Illinois is being run by "reclassifying" criminal acts:

• Some Illinois lawmakers want to rebrand fentanyl deaths as “poisoning” instead of “overdose,” but coroners say the change would force them to lie on death certificates.

  Senate Bill 3014 would direct coroners and medical examiners to classify deaths involving fentanyl as “poisoning” instead of “overdose.” Under the bill, each fentanyl-related death would have to be reported separately to the Illinois Department of Public Health, and the department would be required to publish these fatalities distinctly in its monthly overdose reports, rather than grouping them with other drug overdoses.

  The bill’s sponsor Sen. Sue Rezin (R-Morris), says the change is intended to reduce stigma and give families a more accurate way to describe the deaths of loved ones who unknowingly ingested fentanyl-laced substances.

  “Too many angel families feel forced into silence because of the stigma surrounding… ‘overdose death,’” Rezin said. “This bill helps to elevate the conversation…and give families some peace in properly describing what happened to their loved ones, by renaming or reclassifying their death as a poisoning,” 

By a poison that they willingly and voluntarily put into their own bodies, dumbass. Trust us, the family knew the deceased was a drug addict and they're probably relieved he's not around to burglarize the house and steal grandma's social security check. 

This reminds us of that thing a few years ago:

• someone could be flying in an airplane....and the plane could hit an endangered condor....and the condor could break a window and someone was sucked out of the window....and as they fell 20,000 feet toward the ground, they bounced off a mountain causing a small avalanche....then they hit a tree and got impaled by some branches....then they hit the ground and a bunch of rocks from the avalanche crushed the remnants of their body into powder....and the police found the body parts, transported them to the coroner and notified the family, who said "He was coughing a little bit the week before he left"

Cause of Death - COVID. 

Odd Endorsements

The FOP came out with endorsements for the upcoming primary (click for larger view):

Wasn't LaShawn Ford indicted for 17 felony counts of bank fraud a few years ago? And didn't he plead to one of the counts to avoid an embarrassing trial?

And this Kwame fool - wasn't he instrumental in pushing the SAFE-T on Illinois, endangering citizens and cops alike?

Next thing you know, they'll be endorsing Conehead because he took great care of ILLEGAL ALIENS with money that could have funded the pension and services to actual citizens. 

Can't Catch a Break

What's the quote from the movie "Play it to the Bone"?

• If a man builds a thousand bridges and sucks one d#$%, they don't call him a bridge-builder... they call him a [Keesing Bandit]

Or something like that. This criminal has been fired for longer than he was the police....but he's still a "former officer:"

• A former Chicago police officer was sentenced Tuesday to four years in prison for defrauding a low-income food program.

  Prosecutors say Hassan “Eric” Abdellatif, 37, illegally billed $14 million to the federal Women, Infants and Children program, or WIC, as owner of the El Milagro Mini Market and Harding Grocery in Chicago.

  Abdellatif, who lost his Chicago Police Department job after his 2021 arrest, asked for mercy before U.S. District Judge Jorge L. Alonso handed down his sentence at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse. Alonso also ordered Abdellatif pay $8 million in restitution.

Committed fraud from 2010 to 2018.

Hired two months after the last documented fraud in late 2018.

Fired in 2021, so off the job for almost five years now.

Still bringing discredit to the Department.

Governor Chomo?

That's how this works now, right? 

• completely unsubstantiated allegations are assumed to be fact, even in the face of blanket denials or (even more likely) exonerating evidence in existence.

We know this because Fata$$ has been doing this for any number of years now as he tries to lay the groundwork for a run at the White House and make everyone forget that there is a previous family history of a Pritzker being involved with a child sex trafficker.

Here's the testimony - seems pretty cut and dried:

• Q: With Jeffrey Epstein, you apparently took 26 flights connected to Jeffrey. Was he on every flight you were on? Was he on every flight?

  Clinton: That’s a good question… There’ll be a record of it. But I think he was, or certainly almost…

  Q: You think he was. That’s okay. Was Ghislaine Maxwell on every flight you’re on, as far as you remember?

  Clinton: The same answer. I think she was but there’ll be a record of it.

  Q: Okay, when you took these flights, you’re saying a lot of them were on behalf of your foundation, your charity organization, correct? Who did you normally bring on these flights? Employees of the foundation?…

  Clinton: I brought people who work with me, especially people who would have to follow up on the fundraising, or people who were involved in my AIDS work…

  Q: It’s like , I never go anywhere alone…

  Clinton: …And I had the Secret Service with me. And then on occasion, I had people who had volunteered to help us and wanted to see what we’re doing. For example, I think it was on one of these trips, I think that I had my first trip for the man who’s now the governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker and his wife, they gave me, they helped me get started.

This is the testimony of a former United States President - and we all know a president would never lie under oath, right? Neither would his wife. They were lawyers for goodness sake - lawyers don't lie. That would be illegal.

The Chicago media sat on this for over a full day, which is about twenty-four hours more than when Porkulous is spouting off about protecting ILLEGAL ALIENS, disobeying Federal Law, threatening to spend millions of taxpayer money to sue the Federal government, calling people fascists or nazis.

These new rules are kind of weird. 

Body Cam Proves Useful

In reality, they've turned out far more useful than we had expected.

But even we never anticipated this one:

• A sheriff’s deputy in Volusia County, Florida, is recovering after being shot in the leg and shoulder while responding to a battery call Monday night.  

  Volusia County Sheriff Mike Chitwood said Deputy José Rivera’s body camera likely saved his life, as one of the bullets hit the camera “dead center” and ricocheted through Rivera’s shoulder.

  “If you’re in a gun battle in that distance, there is no room except for divine intervention,” the sheriff said during a press conference Monday night.

  The sheriff’s office changed to a new model of body camera six months ago. Their previous bodycams were worn on their shoulders, while the newer model is worn in the center of their chests.

Maybe a camera made out of ceramic-plate-body-armor could have absorbed more of the impact?

Still, count your blessings and be sure to play the lottery this weekend Officer. 

Another "Out of Bond" Offender

Whoever ends up running against Porkulous ought to make this a mainstay of the campaign:

• A gunfight between two men outside a Chicago public high school during afternoon dismissal in January involved an 18-year-old who was on felony pretrial, officials said during a detention hearing for the accused man.

  No injuries were reported during the January 22 incident, which forced administrators to put Austin College and Career Academy High School on an hour-long lockdown, prosecutors said.

  Nehemiyah Santiago, 18, is charged with aggravated discharge of a firearm toward a school and aggravated unlawful possession of a weapon. The second gunman is not identified in court filings and it is unclear if he has been charged.

Do you remember what used to keep offenders from re-offending?

• being in custody

And if they offended while in custody, no one really cared because they were committing crimes against other inmates, who were most likely offenders in different crimes.

Self cleaning oven. 

Even Dart didn't care. He just had the jail people hose away the mess and lock everyone down for a weekend.

Crimesha to be Deposed

Is her DEI law license in danger?

• A federal judge has ordered former Cook County State’s Attorney Kimberly Foxx to answer questions under oath about why she ordered deputies not to oppose efforts by two women to get their murder convictions tossed out, opening the door for them to pursue wrongful conviction prosecution lawsuits against the city.

  Attorneys for the city and a former CPD detective at the center of the case are expected to probe a series of high-level meetings allegedly held between Foxx, her aides, and lawyers who simultaneously ran the Exoneration Project while representing clients suing the city over wrongful prosecution claims.

  [...] At the heart of the dispute is what lawyers for the city and Guevara describe as a troubling overlap between Foxx’s official prosecutorial decisions and her alleged private dealings with the Exoneration Project, a non-profit organization whose staff lawyers are drawn almost entirely from the firm of Loevy & Loevy, one of the most active and prominent firms suing the city of Chicago over wrongful conviction claims.

"troubling overlap[s]" is likely a polite way of saying - without actually saying - there might be financial motivations behind the scenes.

We do know for a fact that when O'Neil-Burke arrived, there was a curious backlog of cases that Crimesha refused to push forward for any number of reasons, but the ones discussed most by lawyers in the office were (A) statute of limitations running out, or (B) delays so that witnesses / victims would give up or (in a few cases) die. If an investigator retired, that was just a bonus because paperwork would get "lost" and no notifications would be sent out.

Crimesha being stripped of her license would be a small step in the right direction along with fines. We don't see her being stripped of immunity or facing jail time. After all, she's probably still running for something in the next year or two. 

Shots Fired at the Police

No return fire though:

• A suspect is in custody after shots were fired at Chicago police officers on the South Side Monday morning, CPD said.

  Police said at about 6:03 a.m. in the 7500-block of South Peoria Street, a male suspect fired shots at two marked squad cars, just blocks from a police station in Gresham. No officers were struck and they did not return fire, police said.

  The suspect then fled the scene in a black Nissan SUV and officers were pursuing him when he crashed into two marked vehicles in the 7600-block of South Union Avenue, police said.

  The suspect then tried to flee on foot and was taken into custody, police said. A weapon was recovered from the scene.

Is the shooter out on bail yet?

CTA Crime Up?

We thought crime was down?

• Aggravated assaults and batteries on the Chicago Transit Authority reached at least a 24-year high in 2025 as the Trump administration threatened to cut millions of dollars in funding after a series of jarring attacks.

  The upward trend has continued into 2026, with those crimes climbing 33% over the same period last year, according to city data going back to 2001.

  It’s bad news for the CTA and its interim leader Nora Leerhsen, who points to positive trends on the transit system as she works to secure $50 million in grant funding from the federal government.

  Unsatisfied with the CTA’s decision in December to boost the number of officers patrolling Chicago’s trains and buses, the Federal Transit Administration has threatened to withhold the money if the CTA doesn’t enact an acceptable safety plan by mid-March.

Here's an idea - won't cost a single dime:

• take down the "No Guns" signs on the CTA

The problem will sort itself out inside of a month, two tops. 

Oh, and clear out the homeless residents - in the stations, trains and tunnels.

Here Comes Another Payout

Does anyone know the Law any more? Or is it all DEI guesswork?

• A Chicago man is suing the city and three CPD officers, alleging he was arrested when he tried file a report about bullets he says went missing from his legally owned firearm during a traffic stop.

  Qwentin Howard, a registered gun owner who holds both a Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) card and a concealed carry license, alleges in a federal lawsuit that Officers [...] and [...] pulled him over and placed his weapon in his trunk during the stop. Howard claims two bullets were missing when he retrieved the gun from his trunk after the stop.

  He then drove to the Wentworth (2nd) District station, 5101 South Wentworth Avenue, to file a report about the missing ammunition. According to the lawsuit, that’s when things escalated.

  Howard alleges that when he arrived at the station, he met with [the officers], along with their supervisor, [...], and informed them he would be recording the interaction to protect himself. [the supervisor] then allegedly ordered Howard to produce a physical FOID card, despite Howard having already shown [...] an electronic version during the traffic stop earlier that day.

  When Howard insisted that an electronic card was legally sufficient, as it is under Illinois law, [the supervisor] allegedly told him, “Well, you have a problem now because you’re accusing my officers of stealing your bullets.” Howard alleges he apologized if he was mistaken, explaining he simply did not want any bullets linked to him turning up later. [the stupidvisor] allegedly ordered [...] to detain Howard. Howard was handcuffed and arrested. [...] told Howard he was being arrested because he “wanted to escalate the issue and make it bigger than it had to be,” the lawsuit claims.

Well, it just got "bigger" than it needed to be (allegedly). 

Honest to god, who is this dumb? 

Suburban What Now?

NBC "reports":

• A 20-year-old man was arrested Thursday on a search warrant that prompted a shelter-in-place order for nearly an hour in parts of northwest suburban Lake in the Hills, authorities said.

  A joint investigation into "illegal activity" led to the arrest of 20-year-old Joel Fernandez of Lake in the Hills on Tuesday, authorities said.

  [...] He is charged with four counts of possession of ammunition without a valid FOID card on person.  

SWAT call out. Shelter in place order. Illegal activity.

LakeMcHenryScanner.com report:

• A criminal complaint filed in McHenry County Circuit Court alleges that Fernandez knowingly possessed – without a valid FOID card – 20 cartridges of .45 Auto Sellier & Bellot branded full metal jacket (FMJ), 13 cartridges of .223 Remington branded steel core FMJ, one cartridge of 9mm Blazer Brass branded FMJ, one cartridge of 9mm Remington-Peters branded FMJ, one cartridge of 9mm Speer branded jacketed hollow point (JHP), and two cartridges of 9mm Sig Sauer branded JHP.

Um....thirty-eight rounds of ammo? That's it? A SWAT call out and a neighborhood lock down...for thirty-eight rounds?

• The complaint did not mention whether Fernandez possessed firearms.

You've got to be f#$%ing kidding. Thirty-eight rounds and no firearm. 

So what was the actual danger?

Timely Article

Someone at Crain's is looking ahead:

• It won’t be news to readers that Chicago is struggling financially. Chicago is not yet on the brink of default, but the city has started accelerating down an increasingly slippery slope of financial undoing. The city’s general obligation bond rating was downgraded by S&P and Kroll last year, and just downgraded by both Fitch and Kroll this week. As a consequence, investors have started demanding higher returns for Chicago’s general obligation bonds and even some of its safest revenue bonds. Thanks to the property tax disbursement fiasco at Cook County, the city is now struggling with its cash flow. These are all bad signs. It’s still possible for the city to course-correct, but Chicago is nearing a financial point of no return. If we reach that point, leaders should look to Detroit’s bankruptcy experience as both an indication of things to come and a positive example of how bankruptcy can help an insolvent city move toward financial and political stability.

  Right now, Chicago spends about 40% of its operating budget on debt service and pension payments. That effectively means that only 60 cents out of every tax dollar goes towards providing services for current residents. As the city’s credit rating slips, borrowing costs will continue to climb, creating a vicious cycle that will end in service reduction, ballooning debt service payments or both. Before it filed for bankruptcy in 2013, Detroit faced an even more severe version of the same basic issue; the city spent 65% of its operating budget on legacy debt payments. Then the city filed for municipal bankruptcy.

Illinois currently doesn't allow for municipalities to file for Chapter 9, so the minute that a bill shows up in Springfield to allow it, you know that Chicago has one foot in the grave.

In the meantime, it's an interesting read with lessons learned from Detroit. Chicago is still quite a ways from insolvency, but it's definitely closer in the rear view mirror than in years past. 

Justice is so....Confusing

Get a look at this headline from CWB:

• Red Line robber was wearing an ankle monitor for a Red Line robbery he committed while wearing an ankle monitor

And it wasn't his first time getting caught while wearing an ankle monitor:

• The February 19 robbery was not Stephens’ first alleged offense while under electronic monitoring nor his first alleged robbery on the Red Line.

  Prosecutors last year charged Stephens with armed robbery and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon after he and an accomplice allegedly robbed a 41-year-old man on a southbound Red Line train near 47th Street on September 12.

His accomplice was....also wearing an ankle monitor!

• Both Stephens and Gray were wearing ankle monitors at the time of that alleged robbery. Judge James Murphy III ordered both men detained on those charges, citing the ankle monitors as a specific point of concern.

Holy Crap! A Cook County judge ordered him held??? Hats off to Judge James Murphy III!

• Despite his history, Judge Carol Howard decided on November 11 to release Stephens on an ankle monitor again, according to court records.

  The arrangement quickly unraveled. One month later, a court officer notified Howard that Stephens had failed to report to their office weekly as ordered. Howard kept him on the ankle monitor anyway. In January, she modified his electronic monitoring conditions to allow him to be outside his home from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. daily.

Oh....there they go again - this time Judge Carol Howard. 

We'd say it's amazing, but it isn't - it's expected.

Stay Alert

In regard to recent world events, remember to keep alert when responding to "sensitive" areas and keep that camera rolling if you're stuck at a downtown "protest."

It's a wonder that people who claim to hate totalitarianism, aggressively defend women's rights and embrace diversity can't wait to protest in favor a regime that hasn't held an actual election in nearly fifty years, slaughtered tens of thousands of protestors, routinely beats women for singing, executes rape victims and hangs gay people from construction cranes.

Not to mention thousands of military casualties and the routine slaughter of thousands more civilians across the globe for five decades.

UPDATE: Rumors starting up about 12-hour days because of Chinese funded "protests."

Jesse Flees Illinois

After taking so much from the taxpayers of Illinois, he couldn't wait to leave town:

• A memorial caravan carrying the body of the late Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. to his native state of South Carolina is now underway.

  His widow, Jacqueline, is accompanying him on his final journey.

  Video shows the procession leaving Leak and Sons Funeral Home at 78th and South Cottage Grove earlier Saturday morning.

  His family says they want the journey to be an opportunity for friends, supporters and community members to pay their respects while honoring Jackson's life and legacy.

We've never been to South Carolina....road trip?

Um....

Who wants to tell them?

• Choose Chicago, the city’s convention and tourism agency, says it needs more marketing money to rehabilitate a Chicago image tarnished by Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids and high-profile crimes.

  The agency is could get it at the expense of hotel patrons.

  The City Council’s Finance Committee agreed Friday to support the creation of a so-called Tourism Improvement District and raise the hotel tax on rooms within that district to 19%, the highest in the nation. The current combined city, county and state tax on hotel rooms is 17.5%.

  The voice vote on the measure, which now goes to the full City Council for final approval, was enthusiastic and nearly unanimous.

Sure, because making it MORE expensive to visit Chicago by imposing MORE taxes is a sure-fire way to increase tourism! 

No need to stay in nearby Rosemont and just Uber, Lyft or CTA your way into town (not that the CTA is anything to write home about.)

Lieutenant Test Results Mailed

Around twenty-four hours after we asked why results were taking so long, the scores were mailed out.

Maybe we should have asked why it's taking so long to pay out the judgements against the City that are racking up interest on a daily basis. 

Must....Contain....Laughter

Look who got laid off (paywalled article):

• A second round of layoffs hit WGN-Ch. 9 this week, with three creative services employees getting the axe Wednesday, including Debbie Brockman, the producer whose aggressive detainment by immigration agents in October became a symbol of urban enforcement clashes. 

  Brockman, a 15-year employee at WGN, rose to national fame after a video captured her being forced to the ground, handcuffed and placed in a van by federal immigration agents while on her way to work at the station from her Lincoln Square home.

"on her way to work" while interfering with Federal agents and attempting to pass it off as an "assignment."

What a Pleasant Individual

Exhibit #5,319 why we need the Death Penalty back:

• Shortly after an Uber Eats driver was killed while trying to get his minivan back from carjackers outside Loretto Hospital early Monday morning, the woman now accused of killing him fired up her Facebook.

  “The [expletive] we had to do to get home is crazy,” Montoya Perry wrote. “but we made it ** if u missing a car, u can come get it! We don’t want it!!”

  Tragically, Daniel Figueroa, 28, was unable to take Perry up on her offer. Prosecutors on Wednesday said she ran over the young, hard-working father, killing him and leaving his family struggling to make sense of it all.

And guess what?

• ...she was arrested just two weeks ago by Melrose Park police for driving on a suspended license, fleeing police, and, because she allegedly identified herself as her sister, obstructing police...

This time a judge held her. 

Indiana Moving Forward

The Indiana legislature passed and the Indiana governor signed a bill to establish a Northwest Indiana Stadium Authority and lure the Bears over the border:

• The state of Indiana took another step in their effort to lure the Bears to Hammond when, on Thursday, the Indiana State Senate passed the bill to establish the Northwest Indiana Stadium Authority. Gov. Mike Braun signed the bill about an hour later.

  All that’s left is for the Bears to decide between Hammond and Arlington Heights.

  “We sure give the Bears a lot to think about to come here,” state senator Rick Niemeyer said. “I think it’s very serious.”

We still think it's mostly a negotiating ploy - the Bears have a multi-million dollar facility in Lake Forest and are incorporated downtown. 

But the Illinois legislature has been dragging their feet and the Arlington Heights people have been next to useless. Chicago, thanks to Conehead, is a non-player in the entire process and will end up the biggest loser in terms of tax revenue. 

Expect the White Sox to seriously explore leaving before 2030.

Should be a fun few weeks ahead. 

Five Shot

It this the first "mass shooting" of the year?

• Five people were shot Wednesday night on the city’s South Side.

  Information is limited at this time, but the Chicago Fire Department said one person was shot near the intersection of 67th Street and Stony Island Avenue near Woodlawn, while another person was shot near the intersection of 69th Street and Harper Avenue in Grand Crossing.

  CFD also said three people who had been shot showed up at the fire station located in the 1400 block of East 67th Street in Woodlawn, just blocks from the two previously mentioned shootings. It is unclear where these three victims were shot before heading to the fire station.

No one died, so the threshold to be an actual mass shooting was not reached. But it certainly makes you wonder what's on tap.

Warm Friday

Going to get up to sixty-one degrees today.

The only thing keeping the shooting totals down might be the thirty degree drop off into Saturday.

But the warm weather gets the blood stirring....and flowing. 

Grading a Test....How Long?

Someone commented that the recent Lieutenant test was taken nearly six weeks ago and no results have been mailed out yet?

Anyone know why they're fiddling with the rankings? 

Was this the scantron portion? 

Another "Wrong Address" Payout

Are these warrants being written by DEI hires?

• A jury on Wednesday awarded $5.74 million in damages to a Chicago family who accused police of violating their civil rights in a botched raid of their home in 2018.

  Ebony Tate and her family filed a federal lawsuit against the city and the officers involved in the raid, accusing police of breaking down their door in the Back of the Yards neighborhood in August 2018, and pointing guns at them. Investigations found officers were in the wrong house and did not properly vet information from a paid informant.

As to the allegations that SWAT pointed weapons at occupants of the address, that might have happened - no Officer on a Search Warrant enters an occupied dwelling with weapons holstered and rifles slung. That would be tactically unsound to say the least. 

But once control of the residence has been established, weapons ARE holstered and rifle ARE slung. In most cases, SWAT leaves following entry/securing and leaves the actual searching, arresting and paperwork to the teams that wrote the warrant.

In this case, it didn't stop them from becoming Exhibit A, but procedurally, we really don't see an issue.  

Spending Problem

How does the saying go? 

• Illinois doesn't have a revenue problem - it has a spending problem

Example #435,966:

• Developers of Pullman’s historic Hotel Florence and the surrounding area announced plans to create a “mind-blowing entertainment experience” that is mixed with history and a new hub for local artists to showcase their talents — all headlined by a “world class” music venue.

  The roughly $100 million revitalization project will transform the nearly 145-year-old hotel within the Pullman National Historic Park into a boutique hotel with new restaurants. The hotel’s annex will be rehabilitated and a concert hall will be added in the old Pullman Factory across the street.

  Construction is set to begin in March 2027, with its completion expected in late 2028.

  [...] The Illinois Department of Natural Resources provided $21 million in funding, making the project the largest public-private partnership for the department 

That $100 million could likely be used for something else instead of enriching construction companies for a "boutique" hotel in a neighborhood that no one goes to.

Sounds Like CPS

How long until some lawyers here jumps on this bandwagon?

• A Connecticut college student is suing the Hartford Board of Education and the city of Hartford for negligence.

  Nineteen-year-old Aleysha Ortiz says she graduated from high school with honors and earned a college scholarship, but she can’t read or write.

  [...] Ortiz graduated from the Hartford Public Schools system last year, but she says she is now illiterate and still doesn’t know how to read or write.

With less than half of students in CPS reading at grade level, this might be fruitful grounds for massive class action payouts....especially if Police disengage and opportunities dry up.

Whoops - More Money Disappears

Conehead's budget keeps running into problems:

• A Cook County judge has ordered the cash-strapped city to refund $163 million in penalties it tacked onto more than one million vehicle citations, fines that sometimes doubled the cost of a simple parking ticket. Those penalties inflated the city’s already steep ticket prices beyond the levels allowed by state law, Judge William Sullivan found in violation of state law.

  Sullivan’s ruling came Thursday after the case wound its way through the county’s notoriously slow court system for eight years. Sullivan found that Chicago had illegally piled late fees onto citations for routine infractions like parking violations, in some cases pushing the total bill past $500 for tickets that state law caps at $250.

This goes back to the Groot administration and maybe part of the 9.5 Digit Midget's. 

The ruling also affects a bunch of uncollected citation debt dating back years that was never collected, but was almost certainly "spent" over the years as part of the fantasy budget numbers. 

That $163 million was also spent. It doesn't exist any more. So something else will have to (A) be cut from the existing budget or (B) covered with some as yet undetermined tax levy.

So much good news. 

Media Layoffs

It would take someone with a heart of stone not to laugh....and we don't have that heart:

• The axe is falling at WGN-Ch. 9, cutting a wide swath out of “Chicago’s Very Own” TV newsroom.

  Eight veteran reporters and anchors were laid off Monday: Sean Lewis, Ray Cortopassi, Bronagh Tumulty, Judy Wang, Julian Crews, Paul Lisnek, Chris Boden and Dean Richards, according to multiple sources familiar with the situation.

  [...] The massive downsizing is casting a pall over the newsroom, according to insiders, who say Dallas-based owner Nexstar Media is reducing the station to a shell of its former self.  

That's nothing compared with the "pall" assorted media companies have been casting over Chicago, spouting overly-libtarded bull$hit, anti-law-and-order crap, deliberately slanted "reporting" and opinions that don't resonate with half of their supposed audience.

WGN (and pretty much all Chicago media) embraced that philosophy years ago and this reckoning has been long overdue. 

Fortunately, there are a bunch of coding jobs that have opened up. 

And we heard CPD is hiring - maybe they can demonstrate how much better they can do our job than we did for nearly three decades.

Must be Election Season

And the Machine has begun a low-intensity campaign to thin out the field:

• The chief executive of a major Cook County contractor alleged longtime county Treasurer Maria Pappas repeatedly subjected company executives to bullying, threats and “obscenity-filled tirades,” according to a copy of a letter obtained by WBEZ.

  For months, Pappas has blamed Texas-based Tyler Technologies for technological problems that delayed property tax revenue payments to school districts, local governments and other taxing bodies across the county.

  But in a letter Monday to Pappas, Tyler CEO H. Lynn Moore Jr. bemoaned what he called the “scapegoating” of the company, which has been working for years to upgrade the county’s property tax system. Moore alleged that the treasurer has shown a “lack of accountability” for mistakes by her own office in her efforts to “deflect blame and divert attention to us.”

This is in regard to the property tax bills being months and month late, along with almost $200 million in refunds being delayed because of computer issues with the switchover to a new program. 

Pappas has already replied, saying she's fighting for taxpayers. 

Prickwrinkle says she's referring the complaint to the county Ethics Board.

Allegations like these go nowhere, but do provide juicy gossip for the campaign flyers that will be going out over the summer. 

Pappas is obviously not the choice of the Prickwrinkle Machine. 

This is a New One

We'll echo what the lawyer said in this article - we had never heard of this happening, ever:

• A Chicago police officer was about an hour and a half into a deposition Friday morning over one of dozens of misconduct allegations against him as a member of an embattled North Side tactical team when the officer’s attorney requested a break.

  The officer, [...], left the room and did not come back. A few moments later, per a motion filed aturday, [...]’s attorney told the other lawyers that the deposition would need to continue another time, because a CPD sergeant had taken the officer to police headquarters so that [...] could be relieved of his police powers.

  “This was — to put it mildly — an unusual development,” the motion states.

  The information sent the long-delayed deposition grinding to a halt and makes [...] the latest member of the 1863 tactical team to be stripped of his police powers or reassigned as complaints and lawsuits about the officers have stacked up.

  Attorney Jordan Marsh, who is representing the plaintiffs in the case that brought [...] into court that day, described the interruption in a motion as “unprecedented in the collective experience of Plaintiffs’ counsel, and likely the experience of all counsel in this matter.” He later said he hadn’t seen anything like it occur in 30 years of practicing law.

We're aware that the plaintiff attorney is likely following the pattern of all plaintiff attorneys in suits against the city - amplify the (unsubstantiated) allegations in the hopes of driving a settlement their way.

But being stripped in the middle of a deposition?

Highly unusual.