Don't Demonize!

Unless someone is an actual....you know....demon:

• A 16-year-old boy on probation for a gun case, with two more firearm arrests in his background, chased down and killed a Brighton Park man on a neighborhood street last autumn, prosecutors said Tuesday.

  Ayden Reynolds is charged as an adult with first-degree murder in the October 6, 2025, killing of 33-year-old Alan Maldonado. Judge James Costello ordered him detained.

Three gun arrests by the age sixteen, and those are only the times he was actually caught with a gun. How many hundreds of times was he packing and got away with it? CWB has most of his juvie record and it's impressive for all the wrong reasons.

Demonic reasons. 

Fighting Crime Works Wonders

"We can't arrest our way out of this situation" has been proven to be a falsity many times over now.

Now another lib-tareded trope bites the dust: 

• San Francisco drastically reduced issues they were having on public transit by making it almost impossible to enter without paying, according to a report from The Atlantic.

  The outlet noted that last August, BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) installed six-foot-tall saloon-style doors made of plexiglass with metal frames that were much harder to get through compared to regular turnstiles that could easily be jumped. This change is expected to increase revenue by $10 million per year as riders are forced to actually pay to ride. 

  But beyond generating more income, it’s also led to a decrease in issues that used to plague the subway. Overall crime on BART plunged 41% in 2025 compared to the previous year, with violent crime down 31% and property crime down 43%.

Instead of CTA workers just ignoring - or worse - waving through the homeless, the mentals or the teen-takeover-participants, denying them entry and making them ::gasp!!:: pay their own way cut crime by 40% in a single year.

Combine that with increased police presence and suddenly, the CTA is a functioning government agency almost overnight. 

Gee, next we'll hear that deporting ILLEGAL ALIENS improves crime numbers, too. Or is that already happening? 

PBA Leads the Way

This should be a national effort:

• New York City’s largest police union is suing the watchdog agency that investigates allegations of officer misconduct, saying the Civilian Complaint Review Board has stigmatized officers by sharing “inflammatory” records related to unsubstantiated allegations of sexual misconduct, bias-based policing and lying.

  The Police Benevolent Association is urging the CCRB to redact officers’ identifying information when it turns over records related to these three categories of misconduct, if the officers were not found guilty of wrongdoing. It’s also asking the agency to implement a process for officers to clear their names before these types of unsubstantiated complaints are disclosed.

Compare that to the policies here where allegations that haven't been proven, haven't been testified to, haven't even gotten a sworn affidavit attached to them are all over the Invisible Institute website, surviving any effort to be removed even decades after the Officer has died.

Remember, this unsustained unproven crap follows you into retirement job applications forever.

No idea if the PBA will win this battle, but it's good to remind everyone that while Police aren't above the Law, they shouldn't be under it either and the onerous burden of unproven allegations shouldn't punish you for a lifetime when you finally get out of this shitshow.

Manufactured Outrage

As reported a few weeks ago, the City Council is attempting to outlaw membership in "extremist groups" by police officers (but not other city departments). They've tried to pass this ordinance a bunch of times but it keeps running into legal objections, not the least of which is no one seems to be able to define what makes a group "extremist." 

So the brainiac aldermorons pretty much relied on organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center to define "extremist," which ended up being anyone leaning just a little bit to the right side of the political spectrum.

Look who just got indicted for funding these "extremist" groups....and then fundraising off of that very "extremism" that they funded:

• The Department of Justice announced Tuesday that a grand jury indicted the Southern Poverty Law Center for making fraudulent payments of millions of dollars to members of the Ku Klux Klan and other neo-Nazi organizations.

  Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche said at a news conference that the 11-count indictment filed in an Alabama federal court alleged the left-wing nonprofit had in the past decade paid at least $3 million to eight members of the far-right groups.

  One leader of the 2017 Unite the Right protest in Charlottesville, Va., received roughly $270,000 over an eight-year period.

The racism that polluted the country for so many years was literally on the verge of being consigned to the dustbin of history as minorities were making great strides in education, business and economic opportunities. Wonder of wonders, some black guy even ran for president and won.

But it's hard to raise funds from people who are doing well. In fact, people who do well gradually start to want to keep their wealth and pass it on to their children....and to do that, they start voting that way. Leftists couldn't have that, so suddenly everything was racist again. When racism couldn't be found often enough, it was manufactured. And when it couldn't be manufactured, it was purchased by organizations like the SPLC.

And now finally, the truth is coming out. 

CTA Crime is....

So this happened the other day:

• The Chicago Transit Authority has ended a multi-million dollar contract that paid for hundreds of unarmed security guards, saying it is redirecting those funds to officers and other trained professionals “better equipped” to keep riders safe.

  The cuts to private security were made suddenly on Friday evening, according to Monterrey Security, which got word from CTA that roughly 250 full-time guards working on bus and rail systems should stop working that night.

  It was a surprise to the company, which says the CTA had signed a one-year renewal to its contract three weeks earlier.

There's the usual political fallout that happens when someone's graft dried up.

But then we headed over the CWB site and found this:

• A man’s decision to smoke while riding the Red Line was all it took for Cook County Sheriff’s Police to strike up a conversation and discover he was carrying a loaded firearm, officials said Monday. He is at least the third person arrested by the agency for possessing a gun on CTA trains since its officers began patrolling Chicago’s rail lines late last month.
• Less than two weeks after Cook County Sheriff’s Police arrested Vincent Jones for allegedly having a gun on the Red Line, his pretrial release went up in smoke Monday when they arrested him again at the same station — this time for allegedly carrying what amounted to a portable cannabis dispensary in his backpack. And yes, it happened on 4/20.
• Chicago police officers seized two firearms and arrested two men during a single incident at the same CTA station in the Loop on Sunday morning, the latest sign of progress in a reinvigorated push to reclaim the city’s train lines from criminals and ne’er-do-wells. 

Three of the top four stories on CWB are about weapons being seized on the CTA indirect violation of the "No Guns" signs that appear everywhere....no, wait, the stories are about actual police and sheriff officers taking over for unarmed security guards and effectively patrolling the CTA trains and platforms for criminals - something that should have been happening all along.

Granted this is being done to prevent the feds from taking a shitload of misappropriated money from the CTA - we actually saw a brand new Ford F-150 pick-up with a CTA paint job the other day....and it had the leather interior trim, which isn't something you normally see on a CTA pick-up truck unless someone else is paying for it.

Let's see if it continues. 

Shortshanks Ailing

Although nominally better than what followed after, the primary driver of Chicago's decline is getting up there in years:

• Former Mayor Richard M. Daley, the longest-serving mayor in Chicago history, was hospitalized earlier this month after suffering what his brother described Tuesday as a third stroke.

  Bill Daley said his older brother, who turns 84 on Friday, is “fine now.” He returned home after a few days in the hospital and is now undergoing rehab.

  The younger Daley described the former mayor’s episode as a full-blown stroke, but a comparatively minor one compared to the serious stroke that Daley suffered in 2014.

That was the stroke that put an end to a lot of talk of subpoenaing the former mayor as to all sorts of shady City Hall dealings, escaping the discovery (and consequences) of numerous bad decisions forced through the political process....consequences that have been visited on his compatriots as of late.

Structural Problems

Although we think the author gave Larritorious too much credit, this is a decent takedown of the entire "consent decree" process by the Contrarian:

• In the bizarro world that is Chicago, the public debate over “use of force” has been turned completely upside down.

  In any rational society, the focus of government — and the concern of the public — would be on the people actually committing violence. The goal would be simple: Stop the criminals.

  But in Chicago, the obsession is different. Here, the scrutiny falls not on those who pull the trigger, swing the fist, or terrorize neighborhoods — but on the police officers trying to stop them.

  That’s not a coincidence. It’s the result of years of political pressure, ideological activism, and, most importantly, the federal consent decree that now governs how the Chicago Police Department operates.

The article correctly points out:

• The deeper problem is structural.

  The Chicago Police Department operates under a federal consent decree — a sweeping set of mandates that governs everything from training to reporting to officer conduct.

  On paper, it’s about reform.

  In practice, it has become an exercise in bureaucratic second-guessing.

  The monitoring team reports that CPD has achieved preliminary compliance with 97 percent of the decree’s requirements — but full compliance in only 26 percent.

  Translation: The rules keep expanding, the goalposts keep moving, and the scrutiny never ends.

  Meanwhile, officers are forced to make split-second decisions in dangerous situations, knowing that those decisions will later be dissected in slow motion by lawyers, monitors, and bureaucrats who weren’t there.

  That’s not how you encourage proactive policing.

  That’s how you discourage it.

Scarecrow policing. Disengagement. "Stay fetal." We've covered it here for years. We aren't hopeful that the message spreads in a timely manner, but every voice added helps the cause.

Go read it all. 

The CTU Bears?

As the Bears continue playing the Indiana card against Illinois lawmakers:

• Illinois hopes to take the lead over Indiana in the Chicago Bears stadium battle with a new proposal that would give the NFL team property tax certainty while also providing a statewide property tax relief sweetener.

  State Rep. Kam Buckner, D-Chicago, plans to brief Illinois House Democrats on the new amendment Tuesday. The PILOT measure, shorthand for payment in lieu of taxes, would allow the Bears to renegotiate their property taxes with Arlington Heights. The property tax relief element, a new addition to stadium-related legislation in Springfield, is essential in getting support from lawmakers outside of Chicago, including Republicans.

Guess who is injecting themselves into the debate?

• Illinois lawmakers face a pivotal week as the Chicago Bears weigh whether to flee to Hammond, Indiana, and now prospects for state legislation might have another hurdle. 

  Multiple legislative sources confirmed to Fox Chicago that the Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT), led by President Stacy Davis Gates, has lobbied to put language in the bill that would be more favorable to school districts. Gates is also the president of the Chicago Teachers Union.

  Another legislative source said the IFT is "actively lobbying against the bill."

As someone speculated, a largish portion of the Arlington Heights Bears revenue generating would go to the already generously funded Arlington Heights school district, depriving the CTU - which isn't in the business of actually educating children - of their portion of the graft.

But don't worry - the CTU will just maximize the property tax increases again like they've done for the past few decades. 

Body Parts?

What's this rumor that keeps popping up about some body parts being located in the crawlspace of a house up north (Oriole Park?) that has some association with a former high ranking individual?

Someone claimed it was ongoing. 

Someone else said it was an old case unrelated to the retired boss.

It's certainly something that would provide the readership with quite a bit of entertainment and comedy opportunities, which is the main purpose here. 

How Bad is Business in Chicago?

Pretty bad:

• John Deere, one of the Fortune 500 companies that still calls Illinois home, has been making capital expenditure decisions that Wirepoints founder Mark Glennon and Dan Proft described Monday morning as a slow-motion divestiture the state’s political class and business press have either missed or chosen to ignore. A new excavator factory is being built in Kernersville, North Carolina, and a one-point-two-million-square-foot distribution center with one hundred and fifty permanent jobs and four hundred to five hundred union construction positions is going up outside Hebron, Indiana. Proft said he was told by a reliable source in the industrial property sector that John Deere had been ready to green-light a Chicago location for that distribution center before taking a hard look at the lawlessness in and around the city and choosing Indiana instead. Glennon confirmed the pattern, noting that companies that pass up Illinois rarely say so publicly to avoid burning bridges, but the capital investment decisions tell the story clearly enough without any comment.

And not to put too fine a point on it:

• A text from a Chicago crane operator during the segment put a fine point on it: there are currently six standing permitted tower cranes in the city with only three more on the books for all of 2026.

Tower cranes are usually a pretty good indicator of economic growth - if you see a bunch of them operating then the building trades are active along with all the supporting businesses that go along with it. The fact that there are only six cranes active and only three permits pending means that there isn't any major construction going on which indicates a stagnant or shrinking tax base.

John Deere quietly moving operations elsewhere is another red flag.

NYPD Sgt Out on Appeal

The sergeant with the "cooler conviction" was granted what the courts have given to every actual criminal - the ability to be free while appealing:

• NEW YORK CITY - The former New York City police sergeant sentenced to three to nine years in prison for tossing a picnic cooler full of drinks at a fleeing suspect, who then crashed his motorized scooter and died, has been granted bail pending appeal. That's according to attorney Arthur Aidala.

  Judge Saliann Scarpulla, of the mid-level Appellate Division, ordered Erik Duran freed on $300,000 cash or bond and said he must surrender his passport to his lawyers, who will keep it until his appeal is over.

  "This is a major win for Erik and his family and for law enforcement officers around the country," said Vincent Vallelong, the president of Duran’s union, the Sergeants Benevolent Association.

There was absolutely ZERO intent to cause death or bodily harm - the criminal was driving a motorbike down a crowded sidewalk while attempting to escape, endangering many people. If he was running and got tackled or tripped into a tree, we doubt this would have even been an issue.

Why a bench trial was chosen in lib-tarded New York, where the judge's anti-police bias would play an oversized role is still a head-scratcher.

Dear FOP Board

Can anyone tell us what all of these numbers have in common?

• Case #19961167130
• Case #20001121906
• Case #20023000899
• Case #2006ch20263
• Case #20071125946
• Case #2007ch27863
• Case #2008ch31317
• Case #2009ch32354
• Case #2010ch45843
• Case #20111181449
• Case #20111704988
• Case #20131708608
• Case #20111728862 
• Case #20151702154
• Case #20151724589
• Case #20161714730
• Case #2016ch03734
• Case #20181131186
• Case #2018ch00084
• Case #20181129855
• Case #20211116941
• Case #20101214195 

Correct - they're all court cases in Cook County. Chancery and Civil divisions.

What else do they have in common? 

• they all involve a single individual owing money to assorted entities - banks, credit unions, credit card companies, a university, etc

So, someone with:

• twenty-two separate cases 
• in a single county court system regarding financial issues

....wouldn't really be someone that should be allowed to have unfettered and unsupervised use of a credit card belonging to a labor organization with tens of millions of dollars in membership dues, right? 

Oversight should be a requirement and an obligation to ensure nothing shady is going on, right? This would be the job of the Board of Directors, correct?

Or is there going to be a twenty-third case being filed in Cook County one day soon? 

Meanwhile, in 010

A mountain goat of some sort:

 

 

An emailer says this is a regular problem child:

• This guy is a well known neighborhood trouble maker, Antonio Hammond. Practically every 010th District Officer has either locked him up, had a TRR with him, or dealt with him in some way dating back decades. Hes got a faded CPDK tattoo on his forehead. In the past, he's parked one of his random shitbox cars on the sidewalk blocking the station entrance, has covered himself with feces while in the lockup, and has copa on speed dial.

And CWB knows him, too - all the way back in February of 2024:

• On the list of unexpected crimes, this one certainly ranks highly: Federal prosecutors have charged a man with burglarizing the FBI’s Chicago field office headquarters on the Near West Side.

  Incredibly, officials say Antonio Hammond managed to breach the compound’s security perimeter twice in a matter of hours.

  In a newly filed complaint, a Federal Protective Service inspector said Hammond, 37, first scaled the bureau’s outer fence around 6:50 p.m. on October 22 and then climbed onto the roof of a building within the complex at 2111 West Roosevelt.

  Dispatchers sent the inspector to the scene. He allegedly found Hammond still on the roof, yelling that the FBI owed him money and he was going to get it. The agent said he recognized Hammond and Hammond’s voice because he cited him several months earlier for disturbing the peace at the Kluczynski Federal Building in the Loop.

A few regular taser applications might alleviate this behavior since medical care doesn't seem to be working.

Indoctrination Proceeds

Those who can, do.

Those who can't, teach.

Those who can't teach, indoctrinate children:

• Chicago Public Schools will be in session for a full day on May 1, but it will also be an official civic day of action during which hundreds of students will be able to take a “field trip” to a massive pro-labor, anti-President Donald Trump rally.

  The Chicago Teachers Union wanted the school district to cancel classes so that staff and students could participate in May Day, also known as International Workers’ Day.

  But CPS CEO Macquline King pushed back, saying she wanted to keep schools in session. The disagreement kicked off a firestorm of debate.

  On Thursday, the sides agreed to a compromise.

This is exactly why the teacher unions need to be disbanded and forbidden from using children as hostages to their political machinations. Instead of teaching students how to be good citizens, they teach then that they're "victims" of the system - which they're not. They're kept in ignorance because they're easier to control via lies.

The CTU has forfeited all consideration.

Easy Sunday

We posted a couple throw away articles below.

We've had a few things come up, so we're taking it easy today.

Comments to be moderated at our leisure today.

Open post for now. 

Stay safe. 

Super Trooper Fans?

"Bear F@#$er....do you require assistance?"

If you know, you know:

• Three Southern California residents have been sentenced in a bizarre insurance fraud scheme which prosecutors say involved them staging fake bear attacks on high-end cars.

  It all stems from a claim the suspects filed with their insurance company, saying a bear got into their car, a 2010 Rolls-Royce Ghost, at Lake Arrowhead on Jan. 28, 2024, and damaged the inside with scratches. The California Department of Insurance said the suspects provided a video to the company, which showed the "bear" in the car.

  [...]  Investigators uncovered two other fraudulent claims submitted to different insurance companies regarding the same incident.

  On Thursday, Alfiya Zuckerman, 39, of Valley Village, Ruben Tamrazian, 26, of Glendale, and Vahe Muradkhanyan, 32, of Glendale, were sentenced to 180 days in jail and ordered to pay restitution.

Insurance fraud is nothing new, but we gotta say, this is a new twist.

Budget Woes

That unpaid balance owed to the City in fines and fees keeps getting larger:

• Chicago residents, businesses, and city employees altogether owe the city more than $8.1 billion in overdue debt, some of it dating back to the 1990s, according to a report from the city's inspector general.

  Inspector General Deborah Witzburg's report notes the bigger problem is that amount is most likely even larger, but the city can't properly account for all of the money it is owed.

  The report revealed antiquated systems and policies dating back decades that prevent the city's Department of Finance from tracking and collecting all of the money owed.

As we said a short time ago, Officers are regularly the subject of internal investigations when their name appears on any debt record, starting with a SPAR, upgraded to a CR, culminating with wage garnishment and suspension should it not be paid.

Why this isn't a regular thing with other city departments, we don't know. 

Why it isn't rigorously enforced on assorted companies, contractors or other government entities is a mystery as they're ripping off not just Chicago, but all Chicagoans who end up paying higher taxes to cover the constant shortfalls - $8 billion and counting.

Start cutting off services. Then go to Springfield and change the State Law about how much you can garnish. Make it painful to not pay bills. Illinois is a one-party state constantly abusing its power....why not now?

This was a Rough Watch

They released the body cam video of Officer Krystal Rivera's death at the hands of her partner and there's nothing easy about it.

• article and video link here

We will refrain from comment at the moment aside from saying there is pretty much nothing redeeming about it at all - poor tactics, poor reactions, poor everything.

We're leaving comments open for the moment, but we might just shut it down depending on content and context. 

Nice Weekend Conehead

Is crime still down?

• Four people were shot, three fatally, Friday afternoon on the city's West Side, Chicago police said.

  Four people were near the sidewalk in the 4000-block of West Maypole Avenue in West Garfield Park just before 4:45 p.m., when an unknown vehicle approached them, CPD said.

  At least two suspects got out with guns and fired shots at the victims, police said.

Usually on a summer Friday, we'd toss up a "prediction post" speculating on potential weekend shooting/homicide totals. An April post would be a bit earlier than expected PLUS this shooting happened outside of the hours we'd usually set for counting - 1700 hours on Friday until 0001 hours Monday. This triple occurred at 1645 hours and then the weekend temps are scheduled to dip back down into the 50s.

April is shaping up to spike Conehead's stress levels.

Good News

The Lil Homicide civil trial isn't happening for now:

• The family of Adam Toledo, the 13-year-old shot and killed by Chicago police in Little Village in 2021, has moved to voluntarily dismiss their wrongful death lawsuit.

  Attorneys for the family filed the motion in court Friday morning.

  Toledo was killed during a foot chase in 2021.

Obviously, the family is judge-shopping because (we're told) that most of the motions being made before trial are being denied or modified against the family, first and foremost being the claim by the lawyers that the witness list would be eighty or ninety names long.

The trouble was, there weren't eighty or ninety witnesses to the shooting - there were ZERO aside from the cops and the body cam video which showed Lil Homicide running with the gun and then popping out of hiding before being justifiably sent to his eternal damnation. 

You can't have people who weren't there testifying to things they never actually....you know....witnesses. The fact that he and his fresh gang tattoos were out after curfew with another felon shooting at passing vehicles was kind of inconvenient to the case, so the family didn't want any of that mentioned either.

They have a year to refile, but those rulings will follow the case no matter where it ends up. 

More Dem Stupidity

First, democrats want you to tax you to pay for all sorts of nice things so that people can enjoy everything Chicago has (had?) to offer.

Then, they want to make it impossible to actually enjoy what you paid for:

• IL Democrats are intent on destroying any nice place in Illinois. Allowing the homeless to takeover public spaces is not an answer to homelessness and will destroy communities. Who is electing these fools? 
• Here's the list of IL Democrat Representatives who think this is a good idea: Rep. Kevin John Olickal - Emanuel "Chris" Welch - Dagmara Avelar - Lindsey LaPointe - Mary Beth Canty, Lilian Jiménez, Rita Mayfield, Suzanne M. Ness, Bob Morgan, Will Guzzardi, Kelly M. Cassidy, Barbara Hernandez, Michelle Mussman, Abdelnasser Rashid, Hoan Huynh, Anne Stava, Laura Faver Dias, Carol Ammons, Lisa Davis, Nicolle Grasse, Norma Hernandez, Theresa Mah, Edgar González, Jr., Michael Crawford, Nabeela Syed, Diane Blair-Sherlock, La Shawn K. Ford, Camille Y. Lilly, Justin Cochran, Yolonda Morris and Marcus C. Evans, Jr.

Why bother having nice things if you're just going to deny it to the people who actually paid for it? How about locking these criminals up? That's why you passed the laws in the first place, right?

Wait....This is a Thing?

A judge actually held someone without bail?

• A Cook County judge has detained a man after determining that he is “not a good candidate” for electronic monitoring because he “tried to set an entire train car on fire.” Quentin Williams, 38, is accused of setting multiple fires aboard a CTA Blue Line train in the Loop and threatening passengers with a box cutter, according to court records.

  CPD officers responded to the Jackson Blue Line platform at 5:48 a.m. on March 24 after receiving a report that someone was threatening people with a knife. A CTA employee identified Williams as the offender, but no victims or additional witnesses remained on scene when officers arrived. Police detained him on a nearby stairwell. Prosecutors said Williams has a prior felony conviction for stabbing a random person in the leg with a box cutter on a CTA train.

  While officers were still investigating, multiple CTA riders told them that Williams had just set items on fire inside a train car. Prosecutors said Williams had been riding the Blue Line when he entered an occupied railcar and used a lighter to ignite four packages of adult diapers and a cardboard Pampers box. Most of the materials burned out on their own, but prosecutors said he relit the box and diapers before exiting the train.

So if a judge has "a feeling," they can disregard the SAFE-T Act that releases multiple-convicted felons out to terrorize citizens again and again? The State actually asked for this, but time and time again, judges claim to be bound by the law. Now they're ruled by "feelings."

Mayoral Race Money

Well, we know who's going to be running commercials 24/7 shortly and who isn't garnering any support:

• Mayor Brandon Johnson has just $813,125 in campaign cash on hand — compared to $18.3 million for Illinois Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias — just a few months before deciding whether or not to seek a second term.

  The latest fundraising reports filed with the Illinois State Board of Elections show the rookie mayor raised $176,036 and spent $192,675 in the first quarter of 2026, with a so-called “burn rate” that will be difficult to sustain.

  During the same three-month period ending March 31, Giannoulias, who is a potential candidate for mayor, has been a fundraising juggernaut.

Alexi is used to dealing in millions of dollars, seeing as when he was working at Broadway Bank as the senior loan officer, he loaned two organized crime figures upwards of $20 million. And then when the bank went under, it cost taxpayers almost $400 million.

Coincidentally, Conehead's $813K is around 4% of Alexi's $18.3 million - almost matching Conehead's approval rating as decision day approaches for candidates to declare.

Conehead continues to burn bridges with the Machine, dissing a predecessor:

• As former Mayor Rahm Emanuel revs up for a 2028 presidential bid, Mayor Brandon Johnson on Thursday described Emanuel’s eight years as mayor as “disqualifying.” Johnson did not identify Emanuel by name when he talked about the one Democrat in the crowded field of possible presidential contenders whom he would like to, as he put it, “x-out.”

  But there was no doubt about whose potential presidential campaign Johnson was attacking, even before Emanuel has formally announced. “I have very deep concerns about the former mayor of the city of Chicago. What he did in Chicago — from school closures to privatization to austere budgets,” Johnson said during his monthly appearance on WBEZ-FM’s “Ask the Mayor” program before a live audience.

And throwing in with the CTU's efforts to completely burn all credibility (paywalled article):

• Mayor Brandon Johnson said Wednesday that “May 1 is happening,” signaling his support for the nationwide day of protest as the Chicago Teachers Union continues to urge the school district to cancel classes so that students and staff can participate.

  “We have an opportunity in this moment to push the narrative, not just at the federal level, but for Chicago and the state of Illinois to show up on behalf of working people,” said Johnson, a former CTU organizer and close ally of the union.

Commies gotta commie - because they certainly can't teach worth a shit.

Facial Recognition Works Again

Remember, democrats want to forbid police from using this tool:

• The gunman who shot and nearly killed a downtown convenience store clerk last month was identified through facial recognition technology linked to the Illinois Secretary of State database, prosecutors said Thursday. It’s the latest case solved using the technology, even as state lawmakers move to bar Illinois law enforcement from using it.

  The 31-year-old victim had worked at 7-Eleven, 191 West Adams Street, for about six years when Jaquell Hayes, 30, entered the store on March 12 and began stealing over-the-counter medication, prosecutors said. The cashier intervened, and Hayes allegedly threatened him before leaving. Hayes returned the next day and threatened the clerk while reaching toward his waistband, prompting the victim to tell him to leave, prosecutors said. When Hayes refused, the clerk used bear spray in an attempt to defend himself, something he had never done before. Hayes exited the store.

  The clerk moved from behind the register to lock the revolving glass doors to keep Hayes from reentering. As he approached the entrance, he saw Hayes standing directly outside the door, pulling out a handgun and firing multiple shots through the glass door, according to prosecutors.

And without it, another shooting might have gone unsolved.

Gun Safety Day Next Month

Haven't seen any notices about this yet, but here's an e-mail reminder:

• I’m a retired range guy, possibly coming back as the same in a civilian capacity. Mike Mette has my scheduled to work Gun Safety days at the FOP on May 27-28 at the FOP hall. As always, it’s free. Same offerings, most but not all manufacturers are there to inspect. It’s a great free event, though poorly attended the last 2 years. 
   
  Hours usually were 0800-1400’ish. Any mention would be appreciated. I usually message the busy districts in advance.

If we get a reminder, we'll post again closer to the date.

(comments closed here - informational post only)

New FOP Scandal Erupts

Fun times at the General Meeting:

• President John Catanzara informed members that he is finally doing something about the hostile takeover of Forensics by the private company Ron Smith & Associates. The room seemed cautiously optimistic — or at least as optimistic as you can be when you’ve heard a version of that sentence before.

  To his credit, acknowledging the issue out loud is a step in the right direction. Whether that step leads anywhere beyond the microphone is, of course, the part everyone is waiting to see.

  Then things got… interesting.

  After wrapping up what can only be described as a highlight reel of his own accomplishments, EJ stepped up to the mic. She started by thanking him for his “hard work” — which, given what followed, may go down as one of the more polite setups in recent meeting history.

  She then asked a simple question: whether he had charged his trips to Jamaica on the FOP credit card. The reaction said more than the answer.

  John looked like he got caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He immediately denied it — flat out. EJ followed up by suggesting that if that were true, there should be no issue opening the financials back up to the membership.

  That’s when the story started changing.

  John claimed the financials were never open to members — which raised a few eyebrows, considering he himself reviewed them when Kevin was President. When that was pointed out, he pivoted again, saying members can’t see the credit card statements because, before they were locked down, someone saw a $5,000 steak dinner charge and “blew it out of proportion.”

  EJ’s response was simple: “But you still spent $5,000 on a steak dinner.” John tried to reframe it as a dinner for retirees. EJ didn’t budge: “It’s still a $5,000 steak dinner.”

  At that point, the wheels came off.

  Unable to win that argument, John pivoted hard — this time to attacking EJ personally, bringing up CR numbers related to her social media activity. There are growing concerns that complaints have been encouraged in response to her speaking out. He then suggested the Lodge has spent too much money providing her legal defense for IAD statements. EJ fired back with the obvious question: how much has the Lodge spent defending him over his own posts? Posts that forced him tor retire before he was fired. When she asked if it was in the neighborhood of a million dollars, John said he “didn’t know.”

  Which, at this point, seems to be the most consistent answer of the day.

So once again:

• the FOP credit card seems to be being used improperly;
• legal fees in regard to the president might be approaching a million dollars;
• access to union financials are still being denied to members despite the current president using them to beat the past-president 

The usual sycophants are defending these actions, because if they don't, they'll lose their Field Rep spots like the First VP lost his. 

The Friday update should be interesting. 

PPP Fraud Scandal Continues

CWB has the first story we saw:

• Chicago’s inspector general concluded nine investigations in the first quarter, finding that Chicago police officers fraudulently obtained forgivable loans under the COVID-era Paycheck Protection Program, investigators announced.

  A tenth city worker, identified as an aldermanic employee, also obtained a fraudulent PPP loan and then filed a false police report claiming someone had stolen their identity and used it to submit the loan application, according to the OIG’s first-quarter report. The report does not identify the targets of OIG’s investigations by name.

Nine cops, one aldercreature employee. Not a single name released though, and no word on the numerous exempt members who have been allowed to run out the clock and retire with their credentials. Or the numerous OEMC people who were racking up a few hundred thousands in fraud.

The Sun Times reports seems to go even further:

• Chicago’s top watchdog is heading for the exit — but not before dropping one last fraud bombshell on the Chicago Police Department. Inspector General Deborah Witzburg said Wednesday her office sustained allegations against 17 Chicago cops in the first four months of the year for allegedly scamming COVID-era relief funds and the police department agreed to move to fire them.

  Investigators dug into their Paycheck Protection Program loan applications — cash meant to keep small businesses afloat during the pandemic in 2020 and 2021. Another cop quit while under investigation. All told, the alleged ripoffs involving those nine cops totaled $284,000, according to Witzburg’s first quarter 2026 report.

  Fraud allegations also were sustained against eight other officers, but the Chicago Police Department hasn’t decide whether to move to fire them.

Why are so many police officers being targeted?

• “This was a triage effort, and we are not done yet,” Witzburg said. “The reason we prioritized CPD cases is because they occupy positions of tremendous public trust and they land on the witness stand, so their credibility is of paramount importance.”

The political structure has spent the last ten years or more undermining trust in the Department, burying it so deep it will take twenty years or more to resurface.

And with over 1,000 identified fraud cases in the works, seventeen is less than two percent of the total. There is far more fraud in other city departments....but those departments are far more politically protected than the CPD. Easier to pick on the cops and let the connected fade into retirement.

Remember Election Day

Remember the crooked DEI judge that released the naked squad car stealing cop assailant? She made completely undocumented and unsubstantiated allegations that she had been threatened by Chicago Police Officers....but made no reports to the Cook County Sheriffs who are in charge of judicial security.

One of our long time readers did an FOIA request seeking information about these alleged threats and found exactly....nothing (click for larger view):

• ....a foia request was filed with the cook county sheriffs department on whether any case reports were generated over judge Tyria Walton’s claims that Chicago cops threatened her after temple verdict . The sheriff stated they “can’t confirm or deny any records exist “..? So it’s big secret now if any investigation was initiated? They also use the “disclosing the identity of persons who provided information to law enforcement “.. well we all know she made the allegation in open court so it should not be an issue . We all know that any reports can be given with personal information redacted . With judge Walton running for retention on November it’s clear as day she lied . It should be simple , give the proof that cops are guilty of threatening her or resign your seat

What's even more disturbing is the complete silence from the FOP after this obviously corrupt "judge" lied to the media about imaginary threats and slandered the entire CPD without any documentation at all. That Dart's people are covering for a crooked judge isn't surprising, but the FOP ought to be reminding people that judicial retention is a thing and ought to be exercised whenever an Election Day comes up.

Late Notice Fundraiser

It's this Friday, but we just got an email about it:

Tickets available at this link.

Always a good time.

Careful Out There

It seems we triggered the folks over at Forensics (click for larger view):

The Department used to threaten us with this one semi-regularly. It made us cautious, but didn't really stifle us much. We actually had a lawyer on standby for a while with all sorts of expertise in social media usage off duty, and he thought we might get a nice size payout....if we weren't in Illinois.

In any event, remember - they'll tie you up in the investigative process, but they'll have a difficult time proving they can control your off-duty behavior. 

They'll try though. That's what totalitarian leftists do (see the post a few places down from this).

Oh, and fuck off Meagan. 

UPDATE: And while you're fucking off, you might want to read up on Employee Resource Order 02-03-01. It has to do with Timekeeping. 

And then take a look at CPD 11.602S. That's your supervisor time card. How many acts of Official Misconduct are documented on that we wonder? 

We suddenly have four or five people e-mailing us all sort of stuff about FSD shenanigans involving people splitting shifts, working half-days, running personal errands while on-the-clock, the usual crap that goes on when politically connected people think they can get away with anything. We certainly hope they aren't picking up those children in a city vehicle while everyone else has to pay for babysitters.

Not the Smartest Criminal

A virtual confession on-line:

• Prosecutors say a Chicago man Googled how to kill someone with a hammer before using one to beat to death a transgender woman he had been in a relationship with.

  Deandre Bell, 24, is charged with first-degree murder in the death of Davonta Curtis, 31, whose body was found by family members inside her apartment in the 2400 block of West Lake Street on April 8. Prosecutors said she had been in an on-again-off-again relationship with Bell.

  In a detention filing, prosecutors said the two spent part of Easter Sunday together and video showed them returning to Curtis’ apartment building that evening. Sometime between 11:40 p.m. that night and early the next morning, Bell struck Curtis repeatedly in the head with a hammer, prosecutors alleged. Surveillance video then shows Bell leaving the apartment building alone at 1 a.m. on the morning after Easter.

This is why our closest friends have instructions in the event of our untimely passing:

• clear our browser history ASAP - phone, computer, everything

Lord knows we don't want the Keesing Bandit going through our internet searches.

Where is THIS List?

Ttreacherous ground being tread upon by the thought-police-wannabes in the City Council:

• A measure aimed at rooting out Chicago police officers with ties to extremist, anti-government groups like the far-right Proud Boys or Oath Keepers is set for a City Council vote as early as Wednesday.

  That’s after the 17th version of the measure passed the council’s Workforce Development Committee by a 6-3 vote on Monday, with some debate.

  The proposal from Ald. Matt Martin (47th) would ban Chicago cops from engaging in “extremist activities,” defined in the measure as any attempt to overthrow any level of U.S. government through violence or “unconstitutional means.” The prohibition also applies to the planning, execution or “material support” of hate crimes.

Seventeen versions of this "thought crime" bullshit and it still only passed out of committee six-to-three.

And they only cite supposed "right wing" groups, none of which (as far as we can find) have ever committed even a quasi-criminal offense in Chicago. Nor is there a single instance of Officers (who may or may not have signed up for these groups) allowing the group philosophy to influence or dictate and police action taken. 

But the record is bursting with references to teachers supporting the pantifa clowns, the #blm racists, officers in uniform kneeling in police stations or supporting left-wing middle east hate groups.

So who is deciding what is and isn't extremist? Conehead? Fata$$? Are they taking cues from the SPLC people who labeled assorted Christian, family-centric or pro-life groups as extremist? 

This law is only designed to persecute certain politics and make lawyers rich. 

Hide the Info!

Some people - COVIDiots mostly - don't like to hear about these ongoing revelations, mostly because they're ashamed that they caved to the pressure brought upon them. 

Even eBlogger is still taking down our posts that go against the narrative, so better save the link so you can read it when they try to shut it down.

This is from sworn testimony introduced in front of the US Senate: 

• On August 31, 2022, the Food and Drug Administration (“FDA”) authorized the PfizerBioNTech COVID-19 bivalent booster. By late October 2022, HHS reported that approximately 14.4 million people 12 years and older had received the booster. In November 2022, federal health officials became aware of a statistically significant safety signal for ischemic stroke among individuals age 65 and older following administration of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 bivalent booster. An ischemic stroke occurs when a blood vessel supplying the brain becomes blocked, preventing blood and oxygen from reaching parts of the brain. Despite the monthslong persistence of this safety signal in multiple vaccine safety surveillance systems, Biden’s FDA and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (“CDC”) did not issue any formal health alerts, nor did they advise the public to avoid the vaccine. Instead, federal health officials continued to tell the public the vaccine was safe, but behind closed doors, they initiated multiple studies and statistical analyses—including a so-called “Stroke Project”—to investigate the validity of their assertion. These investigations continued through at least September 2025.

Hundreds of strokes were documented....and no one said a word. Just for historical reference, they pulled a polio vaccine in the mid-20th century when something like five adverse effects were reported and kept it off the market for years.

Like we said, save the link. They'll disappear it if they can. 

Fundraiser - Save the Date

This coming Sunday:

 

Even if you can't attend, it wouldn't hurt to buy a ticket.

Nice Weekend Conehead

Is crime still down?

• At least 28 people were shot, one of them fatally, during the weekend across Mayor Brandon Johnson’s (D) Chicago.

  CBS News reported that the fatal shooting occurred at 11:45 p.m. Saturday “in the 8000 block of South Morgan Street,” after two groups of people quarreled. 

  A 25-year-old woman was shot numerous times and died after being transported for medical attention. 

Hoping over to HeyJackass.com, the full weekend totals ended as follows:

• 1 dead, 29 wounded

Certainly a lower number of killings that most years and sightly above average woundings.

Warm all week, but rainy. 

UPDATE: CWB points out that this is a 50% INCREASE over last year:

• Warm weekend weather helped drive a sharp year-over-year increase in shootings across Chicago, according to information released by the Chicago Police Department. While only one homicide was reported, 29 other people were wounded by gunfire, with victims ranging in age from 13 to 46.

  Data compiled by HeyJackass, a website that independently tracks Chicago crime using public records and open-source reporting, shows 30 total shooting victims this weekend, a notable jump from the 20 recorded during the same weekend in 2025. The site’s historical data indicates that last year and 2022 were the best-performing years for the weekend since 2015, while the weekend’s long-term average stands at 34 victims.

Any "reporters" staking out Casa de Conehead for a unannounced trip to Northwestern?

Poor Reasoning

This criminal is sadly misinformed:

• We’ve learned more about the alleged motives of the man accused of causing widespread damage in a string of axe attacks on property at Chicago firehouses over the past two months, and we now know just how much damage officials think he caused: $130,000.

  Chicago cops arrested Jacob Bogdan, 26, around 2:45 p.m. Saturday when they saw him standing in the 200 block of West Cermak Road, directly across the street from the Chinatown firehouse where the crime spree began with an early morning axe attack on February 5.

  Now charged with 21 counts of felony criminal damage, Bogdan was ordered detained Sunday afternoon by Judge James Murphy III after prosecutors said Bogdan “carries an axe for protection from firefighters” and had threatened to kill his father, according to court records.

(sarcasm and silliness warning ahead) 

You don't need "protection" from fire fighters - you just have to avoid them. And in our long experience responding to jobs alongside fire fighters, we discovered the easiest way to accomplish this avoidance:

• avoid fires
• avoid fire stations
• avoid accidents
• avoid certain bars

However, if you like fire fighters, the best way to find them is:

• respond to fires
• hang around fire stations
• respond to accidents
• go to certain bars

Most citizens should be pissed this idiot cost taxpayers $130,000 in car repairs for the affected fire fighters.

This Crap Again?

Naming Park District property for an armed criminal justifiably shot by polioce:

• The Chicago Park District plans to rename a playground within Washington Park for a man who was killed in a police shooting nearby in 2014.

  [...] The Park District Board approved the district's request to start a 45-day public notice period.

  A playground on the northwestern side of Washington Park, at 53rd Street and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, would be named Ronald "RonnieMan" Johnson Playground. Currently, the playground does not have a name.

And here's the shooting coverage from 2014:

• Cook County prosecutors have declined to file criminal charges against a Chicago police officer who shot and killed 25-year-old Ronald Johnson, saying dashboard camera video of the shooting shows Johnson was carrying a gun when he was shot.

  Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez said her office conducted a "very careful" review of the Independent Police Review Authority's investigation of the shooting, and determined Johnson resisted arrest, and ignored several orders to drop a gun he was holding as he fled police on Oct. 12, 2014.

What does it say about a community that constantly memorializes the dregs of society, especially somewhere that children play?