Who You Know, Who You....

This was an....interesting....Slum Times HEADline:

Yeah, we're aware it's probably just the left-hand page of a two page report, but seriously, no one noticed this?

Thanks for the laugh. 

Video EVERYTHING!!!

But since it turns out that the vast majority of the video shows citizens acting like assholes and police acting professionally, there's an effort to restrict who can see what. CWB reports: 

• CWBChicago editor’s note: Using Illinois’ open records laws, our team was recently able to secure body camera footage that showed a Markham police officer recovering a loaded firearm from the center console of a convicted murderer’s car. That video also showed a Harvey alderwoman identifying herself to officers at the scene, inquiring about the arrest of Tyrone Muhammad, who was released a short time later after an intervention by Markham Police Chief Jack Genius.
  
  In the following report, the Better Government Association details this year’s efforts by Illinois legislators to restrict public access to police body camera footage, restrictions that, if enacted, could limit transparency that is so critical in policing.

CWB reports there are six different bills (all of which seem to have died in committee) that would have further restricted body camera use, viewing and retention.

It pays to keep an eye on this stuff if you're still working because you will get trick-bagged if you run afoul of the constantly changing rules....and we all know how good the CPD is at keeping you up-to-date on changes to the law. 

Zero Homicide Weekend?

This is a rarity (via HeyJackass.com):

• ‘Twas the weekend before Christmas, and all through wards, aldercreatures were stirring—like budget-hungry hordes. At the CTU stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that Santa Brandon soon would be there. So up to the rooftop the deficits flew, with a sleigh full of spending, Brandon exclaimed, “Happy Christmas to all—and to all a good hike!”

  8:00a Demonized Tally: 0 killed, 10 wounded

It could all change at a moments notice....

....and it might have:

• Two men were found dead early Sunday morning in Morgan Park, Chicago police said.

  Police officers found the men lying in the street around 1:15 a.m. in the 11700 block of South Marshfield Avenue. They were both pronounced dead at the scene, and police said there “was no apparent trauma” to their bodies.

Overdoses?

Or walking carbon monoxide poisoning? 

Still, approaching the end of the year and Chicago is still in the low 400s....420 or so. 

Firefighter Injured

Condition unknown as of this writing:

• A Chicago firefighter was injured Sunday night after a fire broke out at a West Side church and spread to other buildings, CFD officials told ABC7.

  The fire happened at North Lotus Avenue and West Huron Street in the Austin neighborhood, officials said.

  A Chicago Fire Department first responder was injured as a result of battling the flames and was taken to Stroger Hospital, CFD said. Their condition was not yet known.

Hopefully, nothing too serious.

Questionable Chase

A Cook County judge is again, releasing violent dangerous criminals back onto the streets:

• Two men in a stolen car who led police on a 20-mile long chase that ended in a crash after fleeing the burglary of a father and son’s work van in Lake View have now been accused in three more burglaries.  

Wait, what?

A twenty-mile chase? Are you f#$%ing kidding us?

Evidently not, because here's some video coverage:

The reporter in the helicopter says the vehicle was observed:

• flying through red lights,
• blowing by stop signs, 
• being involved in at least one traffic accident,
• going the wrong way on Lake Shore Drive,
• driving on a sidewalk,
• exceeding 100 MPH 

Each and every one of these actions is grounds for termination of the pursuit - BY GENERAL ORDER!

Failure to follow said General Order, is (and has been) grounds for extensive suspensions, up to and including Thirty Pending Separation. Not to mention recent monetary judgements against the City and PUNITIVE DAMAGES assessed against Officers.

Society demanded these new rules and has been enforcing them with jury verdicts. We don't like them, we've never liked them, we don't support them in any way at all....but it's the reality we served under and currently live under. No idea who in the chain of command dropped the ball here, but they need some extensive retraining.

(UPDATE) A comment from a day ago asked who's liable if the criminals think the NBC chopper is actually the Police helicopter and, while fleeing the "pursuit," wrecks and kills someone? We wonder.

Budget Showdown

So the City Council called Conehead's hand and passed a budget without his head tax:

• A renegade coalition of conservative and moderate City Council members opposed to Mayor Brandon Johnson’s corporate head tax has decisively passed a budget balanced without the policy detested by Chicago’s business community.

  The Council voted 30-18 Saturday to pass the spending portion of an opposition plan that Johnson’s office has said could require midyear cuts because of faulty revenue projections.

  The defiant passage left the question of whether Johnson will become the first Chicago mayor in three decades — since the city’s first Black mayor, Harold Washington — to veto an annual budget ordinance.

  Johnson didn’t signal his next move on a budget he’s called “morally bankrupt.”

  “I do think that this proposal is ill-conceived. It sends the wrong message to struggling Chicagoans, and it will not produce the lofty revenue goals that are assumed in this budget,” Johnson told the deeply divided chamber during a rare weekend meeting.

There hasn't been a Chicago budget, let alone a County or State budget in Illinois (or any of a dozen other states we could name) that didn't base spending on "lofty revenue goals" that never came to fruition. That's why certain blue state / blue city shitholes are carrying tens (and hundreds) of billions of dollars in unsustainable bond debt.

We notice that pretty much all of the budget proposals don't say a word about cutting expenditures, merely raising taxes and fees or instituting new ones instead of closing underutilized schools and slashing those $75 million aldermanic "menus" that are conduits for all sorts of graft and corruption.

This Connected A-Hole Again?

Look who the business partner is:

• As a result of deals set in motion nearly two decades ago, five pension plans for Chicago city employers ended up losing more than $54 million on a risky real estate venture run by President Barack Obama’s former boss, Allison S. Davis, and his business partner Robert G. Vanecko, a nephew of Mayor Richard M. Daley.

  Today, Davis owes taxpayers $6 million for a mortgage Daley handed him to build senior apartments — which Davis could lose for failing to pay $270,000 in property taxes, though Mayor Brandon Johnson’s Law Department is trying to block a tax buyer from getting a deed to the property.

  Davis also owes City Hall more than $40,000 in unpaid water bills for the apartment complex and more than $360,000 in fees and fines related to those apartments and other projects, according to Johnson’s Finance Department.

  But that isn’t stopping the Johnson administration from continuing to do business with Davis, 85, a retired lawyer who headed Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland, the law firm that hired Barack Obama when the future president was fresh out of Harvard Law School.

$40,000 in unpaid water bills? Conehead thinks that's a ringing endorsement and wants to learn how Davis got away with it for so long without being forced to pay (hint: the first trick is not running for office! The second is be connected to Sparklefarts.)

 And Conehead is making noise about not collecting past due bills for all sorts of stuff, preferring to raise taxes, fees and fines rather than dare to bother the grifter-class.

Milwaukee Judge Guilty

Are we finally going to see some accountability of (federal) judges?

• Milwaukee County Judge Hannah Dugan was found guilty of felony obstruction. She was acquitted on the misdemeanor concealment charge.  “The ​jury ​followed Judge ​Adelman’s ​instructions ​faithfully,” says the jury foreperson as the jury exited the courtroom after handing down their split verdict.

  The jury deliberated for more than six hours after hearing nearly a week of testimony from witnesses on the day that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents came to the Milwaukee County Courthouse with an arrest warrant for Eduardo Flores-Ruiz.

  “The defendant is not evil, nor is she a martyr for some greater cause,” says Brad Schimel, Interim U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Wisconsin during a press conference after the verdict. “It was a criminal case like many that make their way through this courthouse every day, and we all must accept the verdict peacefully.”

And this was in near-blue Wisconsin, so could it be indicative of a trend? Or at least a fed up electorate that's sick and tired of being told one thing while out-of-control judges push something else entirely.

Start indicting and convicting some governors and we'll be impressed. 

Oh No, Accountability?

From the comments:

• Hey SCC.
  
  Let the troops know that the CTA special ain’t what it used to be. Had the 0500 start today and boy was it an absolute disaster. You have a take home car? Not using it. You brought a car? Not using it. They are dropping you off in vans to your posts. You’re on a fixed post and high visibility the entire tour until your uber van picks you up and drops you off. They are being heavy on the spars for not being on post. My sergeant was actually watching us on pods today to make sure we were on the platform.
  You might get lucky and get the subway but if not you’re out in the cold, on a platform fully exposed to the elements. Full stop. Anyone that’s got special next coming weeks, bundle up heavy. I am not exaggerating. Oh you also can’t pick your assignments or your partners.
  As for lunch, you are eating in the area of your post. And if you want, you can take the CTA to your lunch destination but don’t go “too far”.

Um, have you seen how "safe" the CTA is lately? How many physical attacks are occurring? Robberies? People getting pushed onto the tracks? Maybe someone being set on fire?

High visibility is kind of the driving force behind it all. And sergeants are supposed to make sure you're where you're supposed to be.

Here's an idea - if you don't want it, don't sign up for it. 

But it might be too late to save the CTA:

• Less than 15 hours after CTA officials announced a plan to put dozens of additional Chicago cops and private canine security teams on the city’s bus and rail lines, the U.S. Department of Transportation on Friday threatened to withhold federal funding if the agency does not come up with a “more aggressive crime reduction” plan.

  Friday’s letter from the Federal Transit Administration directs the CTA to craft a new “Security Enhancement Plan” with what it called more aggressive crime reduction targets and stronger countermeasures. If CTA does not comply within 90 days, the FTA said it will withhold up to $50 million in Urbanized Area Formula funds — roughly 25% of the money allotted to the agency.

  [....] CTA unveiled its new security surge on Thursday evening. The plan relies heavily on CPD’s Voluntary Special Employment Program, which pays off-duty officers to patrol trains and platforms. CTA said it will expand the program from an average of 77 officers per day to 120, a 67% increase that CTA framed as a significant investment in rider safety. The plan also adds dozens of private canine security guards to rail stations and trains, along with additional personnel from a handful of suburban police departments that have similar arrangements.

This could actually be an opportunity to slap Conehead around if everyone DIDN'T volunteer for CTA Special Employment. It's technically NOT a job action, since it's 100% voluntary and you aren't paid by the CPD - you're paid by the CTA and you gain Social Security credits, so it protected from the penalties that might be assessed in the face of an actual job action.

Short Memories

A number of readers took issue with our take yesterday, that the NYC efforts to sent "mental health" people to certain calls instead of the police was a bad idea.

They seem to have forgotten this incident from earlier this year:

• A 28-year-old man was charged in connection with a shooting at an Evanston hospital on Thursday that left a security guard wounded. Christian J. Haywood, of Evanston, was charged with first-degree attempted murder, aggravated battery, and two misdemeanor counts of unlawful gun possession, according to the Evanston Police Department.

  After appearing to be experiencing a medical emergency at a Taco Bell on Sherman Avenue, Haywood was taken by paramedics to Endeavor Health Evanston Hospital on Thursday evening.

  Once inside the emergency room, police said the suspect became agitated, causing hospital security to get involved. He then allegedly lunged toward his belongings, retrieved a gun, and fired at least three rounds inside the ER shortly before 8 p.m.

  A 33-year-old female security officer was hit and had non-life-threatening injuries, police said. A 47-year-old security officer also had bite-related injuries while taking the suspect into custody, police said.

Unarmed mental health workers responded to the initial call and determined the subject needed treatment and summoned an ambulance for transport - police were not notified and (supposedly) weren't on scene. 

No one searched the subject or his bag - because why would mental health "experts" do that? 

After he got frisky at the hospital, medical personnel summoned....unarmed security guards! One of whom got shot, another of whom got bit.

Then the actual police were called, and a second gun was located in the offender's bag. 

But hey, untrained and situationally unaware mental health "experts" are the wave of the future! Maybe they can call them "observers" like those CTA rape observers.

Another CTA Arson

This seems to be a trend of some sort:

• A man is in custody after setting his belongings and himself on fire while on a CTA Blue Line train at the Damen stop Friday morning, Chicago police said.

  The Chicago Fire Department said it responded just after 6 a.m. for a man who set himself on fire outside the Damen stop. 

  Chicago police said the 52-year-old man was on a moving train when he intentionally set a small fire using his personal belongings. The fire also caused the man to catch fire, causing burns to his leg, CPD said. 

  The fire was put out. CFD said the man was taken to Stroger Hospital in critical condition, but CPD said he was in good condition.

Some lib-tard somewhere will claim all these fires being set on the CTA are just the homeless trying to keep warm.

More CTA "Patrol"?

Um, really?

• City officials on Thursday announced a new security surge for Chicago’s transit system, outlining a plan that they said will put dozens of additional police officers and private security guards on CTA buses, trains, and platforms beginning Friday. The move expands a long-running program that pays Chicago cops to work overtime shifts on public transit.

  CTA and CPD leaders said the surge will increase the number of sworn officers assigned through the Voluntary Special Employment Program to an average of 120 per day, up from the typical daily staffing level of 77.

But we were told OT was going to be slashed? 

And in the post directly below this one, there are about one-thousand retirements on tap with only three-hundred-fifty new hires scheduled.

And if they hire hundreds of "private security guards," what are they going to do? Take pictures of rapists, turnstile jumpers, chain snatchers and arsonists?

Manpower is about to become an even bigger issue than it was when we started talking about it ten years ago. 

NYC Bad Idea Begins

All bad ideas seem to start in New York - how long until Conehead and the CPD brass attempt to steal this one?

• The safety dance begins.

  A progressive City Council member pushed a bill on Thursday to create a controversial “Department of Community Safety” pushed by Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani that would reshape the way the city responds to 911 calls.

  Brooklyn Democrat Lincoln Restler introduced the legislation as he claimed a majority of his council comrades support the new department intended to send civilian mental health professionals instead of cops to respond to many emergency calls.

  “We have a long way to go to negotiate the exact responsibilities of the agency, the staffing that will be required, the budget that will be necessitated, and we’ll work through those issues with the administration in the weeks and months to come,” he said. 

It might be coming sooner than you think.

CPD has plans to hire between three-hundred and three-hundred-fifty Officers in 2026.

Retirements are conservatively estimated at one-thousand for the year, meaning manpower is going to plummet another six-hundred-fifty.

This is NOT a Good Thing

But it explains a lot of the corruption and out of control debt:

• Commonwealth Foundation Labor and Policy Senior Director David Osborne says Chicago’s growing reputation as the place where public sector unions flex plenty of political muscle is more than well deserved.

  Osborne points to a new Commonwealth Foundation report highlighting how public sector unions across Illinois spent nearly $30 million on state races over the 2023-24 election cycle, or far more than what union officials in any other state dedicated to such causes.  

  At $5.5 million, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson tops the State Government Union Pac Money List of those most benefiting from government employment unions support. In addition to Johnson, at least six other state lawmakers land on the list’s Top 20, lead by House Speaker Emanuel “Chris” Welch, D-Hillside, at No. 2 and Illinois Senate President Don Harmon, D-Oak Park, at No. 4.

  [...] With researchers adding that almost 96% of all donations for Illinois-level candidates went to Democrats, Osborne said it’s past time someone address the imbalance.

Front and center would be the CTU along with the Illinois SEIU chapters, where the numbers are closer to 99% of all donations going to "progressives," democrats and communists. 

They own politicians by the boatload, explaining the leftist pro-criminal laws, extensive restrictions on actual legal consequences for crime and overly expensive teacher pension "sweeteners" that boost payouts from generous to outrageous.

More Baseless Allegations

This is what passes for "reporting:"

• An inside source says some Chicago Police officers are arresting Black, legal gun owners for personal gain, despite them having valid FOID cards and concealed carry licenses. 

  This comes nearly two months after CBS News Chicago uncovered multiple cases in which CPD officers stopped Black gun owners for minor traffic violations and then charged them with felonies, including unlawful gun possession, even though they had legal firearm licenses.

  The source, whose identity CBS News Chicago is protecting, is a decorated police veteran who rose through the ranks. The person came forward to offer a rare glimpse into what motivates some officers.

  "You know, if I'm going to be honest, I think race is a big factor," the source said. "Police might think folks on the North Side are more affluent, and they have more means to come back at you if you arrest them for situations like this."

As proven time and time again, race  being a factor in traffic stops was revealed to be a non-starter. How many years has the Sparklefart TSSSSSSSSSSS card been in existence? Twenty now? It was supposed to be two years. And all it showed was nothing about race being a motivating factor. Compliance with the Vehicle Code, knowing the Rules of the Road, maintaining insurance and licensing requirements were cited far more often in the minority communities, but that was directly attributable to economic and educational factors that no one wanted to talk about.

Oh, and the upgrades to charges? That isn't decided by the CPD - that's a function of the States Attorneys office, and they rely on a database "maintained"  (ha-ha) by the Illinois State Police. 

Does anyone know if the David Harris quoted in the SeeBS article is the former commander?

• "You shouldn't be arresting people who are obeying the law, period, full stop," said David Harris, an expert in police law.

Because someone by that name was giving out a WWF Championship-type belt regularly for big number generators, many of which ended up being dismissed at Court for assorted reasons. It would be highly amusing if he was the one criticizing arrest numbers. 

Time for a Rumor

This one popped up in the comments:

• To the teams: changes coming
  
  Gangs and narcotics to downsize
  2-3 tac teams per district
  Robbery task force disbanding
  Drag racing team combined into cirt
  Prt disbanding  

Numerous people are already debunking parts of it, namely the PRT teams. But other comments are saying the "drag racing team" will be rolled into another unit. As for the tact teams, as we were walking out the door, some Districts have been fielding five teams while beat cars go unmanned, which is ridiculous. 

There really needs to be a top-to-bottom revamping of the manpower distribution and some people are going to have to work midnights, the way we all did. 

Indiana Bears?

We assume this is merely posturing:

• The Bears’ sole focus for a new stadium is no longer Arlington Heights — and no longer Illinois.

  In the team’s latest change of heart in a yearslong quest for a new home, Bears president and CEO Kevin Warren sent a letter to fans Wednesday evening saying the team will explore other locations for their planned new domed stadium — including northwest Indiana.

  Warren wrote that Arlington Heights remains “the best and only path forward in Cook County, given there are no other viable alternatives,” and vowed to explore taking the team elsewhere.

  “We need to expand our search and critically evaluate opportunities throughout the wider Chicagoland region, including Northwest Indiana,” Warren wrote. “This is not about leverage. We spent years trying to build a new home in Cook County. We invested significant time and resources evaluating multiple sites and rationally decided on Arlington Heights.”

This is a massive opportunity for political graft and corruption that comes along once in a lifetime and it would be completely believable for Illinois pols to blow the entire operation.

Fun times ahead! 

Great News at Sentencing

Justice at last:

• In March 2023, Rocio Lasso said she received a phone call “no one awaits.”

  The call that her son, Chicago Police Officer Andres Vasquez Lasso, had been killed in the line of duty.

  “Receiving that phone call tears your heart into pieces,” Rocio Lasso said Tuesday through a court interpreter. “For us as a family nothing is ever going to be the same. Part of me died with him.”

  On Tuesday afternoon, nearly three years after the officer was gunned down on a Gage Park playground, Judge John Fitzgerald Lyke Jr. sentenced Steven Montano to natural life in prison.

  Because Montano was under 21 years old at the time of the shooting, he is still eligible to seek parole after serving 40 years under Illinois law.

If Chicago still exists in forty years and the FOP (or its successor) still represents the rank-and-file, someone organizes some sort of futuristic teleportation trip to any Parole Board hearings to make sure this asshole serves well beyond the first forty.

Or maybe he just gets shanked in prison one day - that would save taxpayers a lot of money. 

End the Christmas Parties?

CPD Christmas parties have long been a point of contention. Commanders push overpriced tickets for overpriced venues that serve substandard food and there isn't any real accounting of whose pocket the money ends up in.

And now this:

• A Chicago police officer has alleged that another officer sexually assaulted her Friday morning after they attended a Christmas party with other cops assigned to their Southwest Side police district.

  Officers responded Friday afternoon to Trinity Hospital, where a nurse told them that a 26-year-old female officer had reported being assaulted by her 37-year-old male co-worker, according to a police report. Both officers are assigned to the Chicago Lawn district and had attended the party together.

  A police spokesperson said a “known offender” was responsible, but no one had been arrested.

Almost certainly, it's going to go the route of "he said, she said" and everyone involved was drunk. Someone will get transferred, someone will get offered a "spot" to drop the accusations, it's happened dozens of times before.

Nothing will ever change, though it should. How long ago was that exempt member's secretary driving drunk from a Christmas party and killed that lady visiting town? We don't recall that outcome....but the parties continued the very next year.

Good News on the Lawsuit Front

This is unusual:

• A federal jury on Tuesday rejected claims and awarded no damages to a man who brought a lawsuit over his February 2020 shooting by a Chicago police officer inside a CTA Red Line station.

  The shooting followed a lengthy struggle during a rush-hour commute.

  The jury deliberated for a little less than two hours at the end of the seven-day civil trial. In the end, it answered the call from one officer’s attorney to “send a message” to Ariel Roman, the man shot by the officer, that his actions on the train platform were “inexcusable.”

  The panel repeatedly watched video of Roman’s struggle with officers on Feb. 28, 2020, during which the officers also used Tasers and pepper spray to try to subdue him. Officer Melvina Bogard, who shot Roman, told them she feared he’d push her onto the train tracks.

You can argue tactics, procedures, incompetence, whatever. But the proper message that was sent here needs to be broadcast far and wide:

• There is ZERO right to resist the police. 

Even if you're a Supreme Court Justice and you know one-hundred-percent, beyond a shadow of a doubt that the stop and subsequent arrest are unlawful, you do not get to decide that on the street. You decide that in Civil Court after the fact. 

Too many plaintiff attorneys, abetted by morons in the media and urged on by ignorant politicians, have been pushing that narrative for far too long and it needs to stop. 

This was a first step. 

Obviously Corrupt Suburb

The Markham Officer who found that gun in the felonious "violence interrupters" car and who was ordered by the chief to release said felon and return said gun to the owner?

She got fired:

• The Markham cop who found a gun in the center console of a convicted murderer’s car, only to be ordered by the department’s chief to let the man go, has been fired.

  Markham Police Chief Jack Genius terminated Probationary Police Officer Kayla M. Heller on December 8, the same day CWBChicago informed Genius that the outlet was preparing a news story about the October 8 incident involving Tyrone Muhammad, a convicted killer and U.S. Senate candidate who works as a violence interrupter.

  State records show Heller was initially certified as a law enforcement officer on December 20, 2024, and sources familiar with her employment say she was set to complete her one-year probationary period with Markham PD this coming Saturday.

  But those same state records show Markham separated Heller on December 8 as the Illinois Attorney General’s Office was pressuring the town’s police department to provide CWBChicago with video footage related to Muhammad’s traffic stop, detention, and release. CWB sought the attorney general’s intervention after Markham wrongfully refused to release any information about the October 8 incident despite two open records requests.

Granted, she was "probationary" and so has little recourse aside from a hugely expensive lawsuit, but we all know exactly what happened here.

And chief moron Genius appears to be politically untouchable as he has faced corruption charges of his own, selling badges among other things. But somehow, he landed a chief job in one of the more crooked suburbs here in Illinois. 

Another Isolated Incident

Funny thing about these "isolated incidents." They happen pretty often:

• A woman and a teenage boy were stabbed while walking in the Loop on Monday night, according to Chicago police.
  
  Officers responded to a call of people stabbed and found that the victims, a 19-year-old woman and a 15-year-old boy, had been attacked by two offenders in dark clothing who approached them on foot, according to a CPD statement. Police said one of the offenders pulled out a sharp object and stabbed both victims before fleeing on foot.

  The woman suffered a puncture wound to the abdomen and was taken to Northwestern Hospital in serious condition, while the boy was taken to Lurie Children’s Hospital with cuts for treatment of a cut to his hand and a puncture wound to his abdomen. CPD said he was in good condition.

But don't worry - crime is down.

Judge Keeps Predator in Jail

Of course, it was a US Magistrate, not a crooked Cook county DEI judge:

• A U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer accused of using his gun and badge to rape multiple women will be held in federal custody while awaiting trial, a judge ruled Monday.

  U.S. Magistrate Judge Keri Holleb Hotaling peppered a defense attorney for Officer Luis Uribe with questions about why she should expect him to follow orders while on release, given that he allegedly committed crimes while serving as a law enforcement officer himself.

  Defense attorney Mary Judge eventually retorted, “I don’t think you’re going to release him,” as Holleb Hotaling ticked off concerns such as Uribe’s knowledge of electronic monitoring — and how to thwart it. Holleb Hotaling eventually found Uribe a “danger to the community.”

Gee, you'd think that if there was evidence of a continued danger to the community....

• you know like thirty or forty arrests, 
• history of mental illness, 
• multiple missed courts dates, 
• failure to follow court directives

....there might be a reason to keep the offender in custody. 

Chicago "Lost its Mind" Financially

Some harsh words from the Washington Post:

• The editorial board of the Washington Post called out Mayor Brandon Johnson on Monday, arguing he has mismanaged Chicago to the point the city has financially "lost its mind." The board argued that Chicago has an extensive history of using short-term economic gimmicks, and Johnson and his allies are more of the same.

  The board said that Chicago’s net operating budget increased almost 40 percent between 2019 and 2025, which, according to Grant McClintock of the Civic Federation, was "subsidized in large part by temporary federal pandemic funding that kept the City financially afloat." 

  [...] "The pandemic is over, but many of the programs and personnel positions established during that time remain, and without the benefit of the federal funding that previously supported them," he said.

Good thing the Post didn't get hold of Conehead's Northwestern Memorial Hospital Mental In-Patient Frequent Flyer card. It wouldn't just be Chicago that would be accused of losing its mind.

Conehead is hanging his imaginary budget numbers on the Civic Federation, which has claimed there's no hard evidence a head-tax would drive businesses out. This is the same Civic Federation that "....told the city last year not to pay the full pension amount...." so you'll excuse us if we don't really trust their judgement.

Budget talks have stalled again, raising the possibility of some sort of a shutdown where the City will pay everyone in I.O.U.s or something.

D.C. CompStat Exposed

NYPD had upper level exempts write a couple books on how CompStat manipulated numbers for years.

We wrote tens of dozens of articles about CompStat being crooked with the able assistance of insiders, alternative media sources like HeyJackass.com and CWB blog and may have inspired a few media reports here and there.

Now, the US Attorney in DC has reported to Congress that :::gasp!!!:::  DC police have been lying for years about their numbers:

• U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro said Monday that a months-long federal investigation uncovered widespread misclassification of crime reports by the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD), making crime statistics across Washington, D.C. "artificially lower."

  Pirro said the findings were based on a review of nearly 6,000 reports and interviews with more than 50 witnesses, showing that D.C.’s crime numbers were significantly understated.

  "It is evident that a significant number of reports had been misclassified, making crime appear artificially lower than it was," Pirro said in a statement.

Hell, we even wrote two days ago about Conehead and others claim crime is down....if you don't count all the stolen vehicles.

What are the three types of lies?

• Lies
• Damn Lies
• Statistics

A fourth type should be "Compstat." 

Porky the Hypocrite - Again

Eager to denounce the President over an unkind observation:

• The Democratic governor joined numerous politicians Monday in condemning President Donald Trump’s dismissive response to the violent attack.

  [...]

  Speaking at an unrelated downstate press conference, Pritzker called Trump’s comments “another example of the terrible nature of our president.”

But he spent how many weeks and months calling Trump a nazi, a fascist, a dictator and all manner of vile crap?

Did he ever get around to condemning this?

 

He didn't? 

So the outrage only goes one way?  

Good to know.

(Lucy Martinez is still employed by the way, teaching children. And Rob Reiner - who's political stances we disagreed with 100% of the time - actually condemned the lefties celebrating Kirk's murder, which puts him a step above this bitch and Fata$$)

Firefighter Injured

Struck by falling debris:

• A Chicago firefighter was injured while crews battled an apartment fire in frigid conditions overnight in Humboldt Park on the city’s Northwest Side.

  According to Chicago Fire Department officials, the fire broke out around midnight as Saturday turned to Sunday in an apartment building in the 1100 block of North Lawndale Avenue. It’s not clear where the fire may have started, but it spread to two neighboring buildings.

  Officials say about 100 firefighters responded to the blaze. A mayday call went out, and the firefighter was one of two people hospitalized. A CFD spokesperson said the firefighter was injured when he was hit by debris. He appeared to be alert as crews loaded him onto a stretcher. He was then taken to Mt. Sinai Hospital, where he was listed in fair to serious condition.

This was during the negative temps the other night, the type of call where you can see the icicles forming on the hoses, ladders and firefighters as they work. We saw a few of these fires back in the day, hydrants frozen up and down the block, hoses bursting, salt trucks standing by with tow trucks to drag equipment out of the ice jams.

Nights like that, we were always grateful someone else was doing that job.

Get well soon. 

Let's Go Judge Beach

Does this one fall under your "review" currently underway?

• Marlon Miller returned to a Cook County courtroom on Friday, accused of randomly attacking three women in the Loop this week at a time he was supposed to be confined to his home on electronic monitoring for randomly attacking four other women in the Loop.

  The alleged attacks occurred just days after a judge refused to keep him in jail despite another judge’s warning that the 40-year-old had a “very violent history,” a prosecutorial request to keep Miller in jail, and intense public scrutiny of the county’s electronic monitoring failures following the CTA train fire attack that left a woman gravely injured.

And these judges are?

• [...] On October 10, Chicago police arrested him in the 100 block of East Lake Street on misdemeanor reckless conduct charges. [...] Judge Luciano Panici, Jr. released him the next day.

  Then, around noon on November 15, Miller was arrested inside a Dunkin’ in the 7500 block of North Paulina Street after a 22-year-old woman said he slapped her across the face. [...] Judge Susana Ortiz, noting Miller’s three recent battery convictions, ordered him onto electronic monitoring administered by the chief judge’s office. Court records show Miller failed to appear in court 5 days later... [...]

  [...] Prosecutors attempted to resolve the situation on December 1 by asking Judge Peter Gonzalez to detain Miller in custody due to the escalating number of random attacks and his repeated violations of electronic monitoring. [...]  Gonzalez refused to detain Miller and sent him home again on an ankle monitor.

It's an epidemic.

Crime Monitor

What's that commercial from a few years back? Lifelock?

• "I'm not a security guard - I'm a security monitor. I only notify people if there's a robbery....there's a robbery."

It's reality:

• A 23-year-old Calumet City resident who has been arrested six times in Chicago this year, including multiple times on the CTA, is accused of sexually assaulting a disabled woman after pushing her out of her wheelchair at a downtown Red Line station.

  During a detention hearing on Saturday, prosecutors said the 33-year-old woman was riding an inbound Red Line train when Rasheed Griffin boarded her car near Belmont around 2:45 a.m. Thursday. As the train continued toward downtown, Griffin allegedly wrapped his legs around her wheelchair and began kissing and groping her while saying he wanted to perform sexual acts. 

  [....] Video allegedly showed Griffin wheeling her off the elevator and knocking the wheelchair over, sending the woman to the ground. She landed on her stomach and struggled to breathe from the impact before Griffin climbed on top of her, pulled down her pants, and sexually assaulted her, according to prosecutors.

  The victim screamed that she was being raped, drawing the attention of a CTA customer service agent who summoned a security guard. The guard took a picture of Griffin as he fled and sent the image to other security officers and CPD.

That's just great:

• "I'm a security monitor. I only notify people if they're being raped....you're being raped."

Six arrests this year, four of them in the past two months, and free to roam the rails, raping a wheelchair bound woman.

Gee, it's good thing he didn't have a bottle of gasoline.

• "I only notify people if they're on fire....you're burning." 

No wonder the feds want to suspend funding this crime ridden hellhole. 

Multi-Level Suburban Scandal

It pays to be a so-called "violence interrupter" in Markham:

• A convicted murderer now working as a violence interrupter was allowed to walk away without charges after cops found a firearm in his car during a routine traffic stop, according to records obtained by CWBChicago. That’s because the town’s police chief personally intervened and ordered cops not to prosecute the matter.

  And, CWBChicago has learned, the directive from Markham Police Chief Jack Genius came down before officers submitted the case for routine review by prosecutors.

• During the stop, Muhammad repeatedly mentioned elected officials and called attention to a Harvey alderwoman standing nearby.

  He also questioned the officer’s decision to run his plates, asking, “That’s how you do it? Is that profiling?” “It’s not profiling at all,” answered the officer.

  “All the doggone shootings, violence I stop in Chicago, I just making sure,” Muhammad replied.

  After taking a seat on the curb, Muhammad told a backup officer, “I do, um, violence prevention,” then nodded toward a woman watching the stop and added, “and that’s our alderman right there.

The aldercreature appears to have been Colby Chapman (Markham 2nd Ward).

But wonder of wonders, CWB discovered a completely different woman showed up at the Markham PD to claim the weapon later, meaning that a convicted felon (who couldn't own a weapon) and a Markham aldercreature in the car (who didn't own the weapon) were both within arms reach of an unsecured unattended weapon - which all sorts of democrat politicians have passed laws about threatening fines, jail and revocation of FOID cards.

Which is happening when exactly?

And Chief Moron needs to face charges, too. 

Careful Out There

Traffic accidents are still one of the leading causes of injury or death of Officers:

• A 33-year-old woman was given several citations after she ran a red light and plowed into a police car Thursday night in Fuller Park on the South Side. Around 10:50 p.m., the officers were in a marked squad car going north in the 4200 block of South La Salle Street when a silver sedan going west ran a red light and struck them, Chicago police said.

  The officers were taken to an area hospital where they were in good condition, police said.

  The sedan driver, a 33-year-old woman, was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center and was in good condition, officials said. The woman was issued four citations: disobeying a red light, failure to reduce speed to avoid an accident, operating an uninsured motor vehicle and operating a vehicle without registration.

Too soon to ask if she was an illegal unfamiliar with driving on cold, icy streets?

In any event, get well soon Officers. 

Crime is Down....Sort of

A couple people sent us this graphic from the HeyJackass.com site:

So crime is down....if you only count certain categories:

• homicides are down - hooray! But as we've said before, these things are cyclical. Show us the numbers on a five year or ten year trend....then we'll talk;
• shootings are down - well, that kind of follows. Less dead probably means less people got shot;
• burglaries are down slightly, reasons may vary;
• robberies are up from the Groot years, but down from the Rahm years;
• car jackings are down from the Groot years, but up from the Rahm years; 

Stolen cars (which is actually a crime) is where the effects of "Don't Pursue/Chase" can really be seen. If you reward bad behavior (and not chasing is a "reward" - the reward of zero consequences) then you're going to get more of it, which you see in a doubling of thefts fro the Rahm years and nearly doubee-and-one-half from the Groot years.

The sheer disparity in stolen vehicle numbers means if you leave that entire category out of the equation, then by golly, crime IS down.

But not really. It's just a numbers game. 

And Again

It never ends:

• A 27-year-old man who escaped electronic monitoring earlier this year is now charged with trying to kill a Cook County Sheriff’s Police officer who tried to take him back into custody on the South Side, according to prosecutors.

  Members of a fugitive apprehension team tracked down Antwan Ford on December 2, six months after he cut off his ankle monitor device and disappeared from his Ford Heights home, officials said. When officers located him near 74th Street and Colfax Avenue, Ford drove his black GMC Terrain directly at a task force officer, according to prosecutors. Ford allegedly pinned the 51-year-old officer between the SUV and a building, then continued driving. The injured officer was taken to the University of Chicago Hospital with injuries to both legs.

  Ford is charged with attempted murder, aggravated battery of a peace officer, and leaving the scene of an accident involving injury. He is the 22nd person accused of shooting, killing, or trying to shoot or kill someone in Chicago this year while on felony pretrial release. Judge John Hock ordered him detained on the new charges.

Only 22 offenders? That appears to only count the people (or folks) who "escaped" E.M. If you add in all the SAFE-T Act offenders and the parole violators, it would be a bit higher.

For God's Sake.....WTF?

This bad penny keeps turning up?

• Embattled Chicago police Det. Marco Torres discussed plans to pay a gang member “a grand” to “get rid of” a fellow female detective he was convicted of assaulting during an abusive relationship, a newly filed lawsuit alleges.

  Torres texted another officer on May 20, 2024, and asked for his ex-girlfriend’s home address, saying he needed it to pay the would-be hit man, according to the lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court.

  Torres was later convicted of threatening the life of the plaintiff, who filed the lawsuit anonymously as “Jane Doe” and already has a pending whistleblower lawsuit against Torres and the police department.

  Torres now faces felony charges of harassing another officer and threatening to get her fired if she testified against him, court records show.

Didn't someone from SOS do ten years behind bars for "soliciting" the murder of a fellow officer?

And this guy, with his habit of beating females, phone harassment, witness intimidation, with one guilty plea already......jeez Snelling, cut your loses and lead the Department away from this useless fuck.

We harp on disbanding the fbi for all of their corruption, but this asshole makes us think disbanding CPD might be a viable option in the near future. Or at least, firing everyone in Personnel who hired this one (along with all the other disasters of late) and then disband the Police Board that can't follow its own disciplinary practices.

IOD Rumor

We have it from two different people that the officer currently stripped for killing his partner isn't serving at Alternate Response (callback), Unit 376.

He's being carried IOD. 

If true, we'd imagine taxpayers would be entitled to know, what type of injury? 

Otherwise, shouldn't he be at Callback, answering phones and typing reports, the same as numerous other Officers?

What's the Word Again?

Insurrection-y?

• Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker signed a slate of legislation Tuesday morning to protect immigrants from "unjust" federal immigration enforcement actions.

  The new law puts several preventative measures in place, including banning civil immigration arrests at courthouses.

  Thousands of people were arrested and detained by U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection agents during two and a half months of heightened enforcement action the Trump administration dubbed Operation Midway Blitz.

"unjust"? These are laws passed by the House and Senate and signed into Law by the President and upheld by numerous Court decisions, in some cases decades ago. That's pretty much the textbook definition of "just."

We certainly hope that Porkulous is the first governor that goes to fat camp Federal prison over these obviously unconstitutional "laws" passed solely to cater to people who can't vote, can't hold jobs and can't receive benefits that are supposed to be going to actual citizens.