Nice Map Rahm

This should be helpful for citizens and tourists alike:

• The number of carjackings in Chicago has increased in the past few days by dramatic amounts.
  
  With 12 carjackings reported in the area in less than 48 hours, Chicago police have been on alert for suspects, making at least four arrests in the last two days.
  
  In total, there have been more than 700 carjackings in Chicago so far this year, authorities said. Though, they add, arrests are up 50 percent.

There's an interactive map at the link. This is a still shot:

So according to this map, you're safe in.....Texas maybe.

Promotions (UPDATE)

Looks like the promotions went through and the commentators excusing the delay were mistaken. Anyone have a copy without employee numbers and such?

The list has the merits and nominators listed separately so McCarthy's policy is still around. That's refreshing.

UPDATE: List is in the comment section, two-thirds of the way down or so.

No Ghetto Lottery Payout

Is the tide turning?

• A federal jury sided with Chicago police Friday and awarded no damages to a woman who alleged that detectives coerced her into confessing to the killing of her 4-year-old son more than a decade ago.
  
  Nicole Harris spent nearly eight years in prison before a federal appeals court in 2013 overturned her murder conviction. After her release, Harris sued eight Chicago police detectives and officers involved in the investigation, alleging they coerced her confession during a 27-hour interrogation that involved questionable use of a lie detector test.
  
  After hearing three weeks of evidence, the jury deliberated for about seven hours before finding in favor of the officers on all seven counts, including conspiracy, fabrication of evidence, malicious prosecution and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
  
  Harris was not present for the verdict when it was read in U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve’s courtroom. Her lawyers said in a statement that they were “very disappointed” with the outcome.

Good to see there are still some intelligent jurors out there - federal courts draws from outside Cook County, so that's a plus.

Perspective

Just a little reminder before Special Ed and Rahm take too many bows:

As our statistician tells us, since Rahm got elected in 2011:

• - That's 8.2 people shot PER DAY for 8 years straight.
  - 24,000 is about the circumference earth in miles. (So drive around the globe at at every mile marker someone gets shot in Chicago).
  - There are 24,000 minutes in 16.6 days. (Imagine someone getting shot EVERY MINUTE for 16.6 days straight)
  - That's about 2.75 years in hours (imagine someone getting shot EVERY HOUR for 2.75 years straight)
  - That's about the ENTIRE seating capacity of the United Center (Next time you're at United Center, imagine a packed house plus about 600 more)

Kind of sobering.

Looking in the Wrong Direction

A lot of horn-tooting going on yesterday:

• Chicago police Superintendent Eddie Johnson on Thursday touted the department’s efforts in the Englewood patrol district, saying homicides and shootings have plunged this year in what has historically been among the city’s deadliest neighborhoods.
  
  Speaking at a City Club of Chicago luncheon, Johnson said both homicides and shootings have dropped by more than 40 percent over the year-earlier period in which violence hit levels unseen in two decades.
  
  "Today, and I never thought I'd say this after being a cop for nearly 30 years, Englewood is leading the city in violence reductions this year," Johnson told a couple of hundred business and civic leaders.

And who gets the credit?

• Johnson credited the department’s use of “nerve centers” in Englewood and five other police districts for helping reduce violence.
  
  The nerve centers combine crime analysts with predictive crime software and use gun detection technology known as "ShotSpotter," as well as high-definition surveillance cameras.
  
  “These state-of-the-art tools allow officers and civilian analysts to work smarter and faster, monitor gang conflicts in real time and make changes to our strategy as the situation dictates,” he said.

And nothing to do with the 400-plus coppers tripping over each other in the few square miles that make up Englewood? Good to know we're all so appreciated. Meanwhile, 016, 017, 022 and a few other districts make do with about 170 cops each covering far greater mileage.

Answer This One Rahm

This should be at the top of every FOP press release for the next few months or years:

• From our leader at a luncheon at the City Club of Chicago.  Emanuel was long gone by the time Johnson fielded the most controversial question of the day.
  
  It came from a police widow who asked how the city “justifies stripping” police widows and retirees of health insurance benefits, which the unidentified woman said has lead to “widow homelessness in some cases.” She was referring to Emanuel’s now-completed, three-year phase-out of the city’s retiree health care coverage.
  
  Johnson said he “wasn’t aware of” the cut that saved Chicago taxpayers more than $100 million-a-year. “It’s an embarrassment to me that that question even has to be raised because that’s not right. I pledge to you I will look into that to see what we can do to stop that from happening,” he said.
  
  He wasn’t aware of this. Is he hiding under a rock. Has not retiree friends isn’t aware that po’s are retiring after 55 because of the health insurance. What else is he not “aware” of. Just how stupid does he think we are

Pretty stupid we'd say.

Body Cams Violate What Now?

Once again, the leftists have no fucking clue what they want:

• The number of U.S. police departments outfitting their officers with body cameras increases each year, but the cameras can pose a threat to civil rights if the departments fail to set rules that govern when officers review footage from their cameras, according to a new report.
  
  The vast majority of the nation’s biggest police departments allow officers to watch footage from body cameras whenever they want, including before they write their incident reports or make statements, said the report, which was released Tuesday by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights.
  
  “Unrestricted footage review places civil rights at risk and undermines the goals of transparency and accountability,” said Vanita Gupta, former head of the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division and current head of the Leadership Conference, in the report’s introduction.

Gupta was part of the Holder/Lynch Department of Just-us that drove the body camera movement, authored cut-and-paste "consent decrees," and spent hundreds, if not thousands, of hours determining how cops should do their jobs without ever having once actually done the job, because they knew better. And now they are having a problem with Officers being....accurate?

• Because an officer’s memory of an event may be altered by watching body camera footage, doing so will likely alter what officers write in their reports. That, in turn, can make it more difficult for investigators or courts to assess whether the officer’s actions were reasonable based on what he or she perceived at the time of the incident, states the report, “The Illusion of Accuracy: How Body-Worn Camera Footage Can Distort Evidence.”

Um, the entire point of cameras was to have an unbiased factual recording of what occurred. We, along with hundreds of other actual officers, pointed out it was a flawed presumption as a camera only records what it is pointed at, not what happens in the periphery, off-camera, from behind solid objects (shielding), and a million other possibilities that supposedly "intelligent" people thought about before imposing technologically limited solutions to an over-exaggerated problem.

The trouble is that the cameras aren't showing what the left wanted, to wit - police misbehavior.

What it is showing is completely the opposite - criminal misbehavior. And this is obviously cutting into (or about to cut into) lucrative "civil rights" settlements, so Gupta does what any lawyer/whore-for-money does - attack the system they put in place to get paid coming and going.

Oops

Sometimes, the wages of being an asshole are death:

• The 88-year-old man had been to the gym and had just parked in front of his Englewood home when the two masked men walked up Wednesday morning.
  
  One of them pulled a gun and asked for the keys to his silver Lincoln.
  
  “They got him in front of the door,’’ said the man's 89-year-old wife. “He was kinda scared but he agreed when they said to give him the keys and they didn’t hurt him."
  
  They sped off from the 1000 block of West 61st Street around 9:45 a.m., but it wasn't long before they were spotted by police headed north on Aberdeen Street, then north on Wentworth Avenue. At 49th Street, the carjackers struck a semi and slammed into a retaining wall, according to police.
  
  "Squad, he just crashed," an officer radioed around 10:20 a.m. "Send an ambulance ... 49th and Wentworth."
  
  A dispatcher responded, "49th and Wentworth, an ambulance, 10-4."
  
  "Get that ambulance over here right now," another officer is heard saying on the radio

Of course, the police will be to blame, after a weekend that saw nearly twenty car jackings and unprecedented media coverage of what a broken judicial system can inflict absent any punishment for wrongdoers.

Fantastic

New rumor out of HQ:

• SCC, the promotion classes previously set to begin on 20 November and now delayed until 27 November? You'll never guess what they delayed them.
  
  They don't want the blog to be right.

Wow. And here was J-Fled telling everyone the blog was "insignificant."

Retiree Hearing

Hearing later today on Health Care:

• As you’ll recall, Judge Cohen’s ruling has been that the Funds have a primary responsibility to provide plans for their annuitants.
  
  Since none of them are doing anything about that, and the City “sponsored but not subsidized” Blue Cross Plan is so expensive (even Judge Cohen has expressed the thought that the Blue Cross rates are crazy), and so, following up on his repeated statements in the past that he wasn’t going to tolerate everyone leaving all of you without coverage in 2018, we had moved for a preliminary injunction to force the Funds to actually provide plans to cover you annuitants.
  
  It was initially tabled while the judge was on vacation and he encouraged all of us to meet, which we did without much progress,
  
  The City was supposed to respond by November 15 to our motion for preliminary injunction, with a hearing on November 29 (still late in the game, but before the December 7 and 15 cutoff on applying for Medicare or ACA coverage).
  
  Last Friday, at 5pm, the city filed a motion saying that their appellate division thinks that the Supreme Court will rule on whether it will take our case on either November 22 or 29, and that the judge should defer the city having to respond until a week or so after that.
  
  From our view this makes no sense at all, because the purpose is to order the Funds and the City to provide a cost-feasible plan for 2018 while the case is pending, and until we get a final resolution. And despite Judge Cohen’s view that people should sign up with the ACA, none of those plans provide the coverage that the City and Blue Cross plans provide.

The hearing:

• Regardless, whether it was the validity of my argument, or the City and Funds’ disavowing any obligation to do anything, he eventually went back into his case file, and finding that he had ruled that the funds have such an obligation, came around to at least directing the city to respond by next Tuesday on the issue of his jurisdiction to enter a preliminary injunction, us to respond on Wednesday and a hearing next Thursday, November 16 at 11:00 a.m., 50 W. Washington, Room 2308, on the jurisdiction issue, and we’ll see what he does from there.

Short notice, but every appearance is important.

Suck It Rahm

Imagine that - Rahm has to follow the law:

• An administrative law judge has recommended that the Illinois Labor Relations Board throw out the Chicago Police Department’s new disciplinary guidelines, dealing an early defeat to the city as it attempts to standardize the punishments of an erratic and often toothless police disciplinary system.
  
  The finding in favor of the city’s largest police union, the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police, determined that the department violated labor law by failing to bargain with the union over the new guidelines.
  
  The recommendation from Administrative Law Judge Anna Hamburg-Gal calls on the state board to force the Police Department to rescind any discipline imposed under the advisory guidelines since they were adopted in February and reassess the punishment to be imposed under the more informal system in place before the guidelines existed. While it is unclear how many cases could be affected, the city closes hundreds of disciplinary cases in a typical month. Through the first five months of this year, for example, the department had closed more than 2,000 disciplinary cases, though historically the department has found misconduct and levied punishment only in a slim percentage of cases.

That didn't stop the media from attempting to cast the FOP in the worst light possible (probably to provide cover for Rahm's colossal fuck-up):

• In the case of the disciplinary guidelines, the administrative law judge sided with the union in finding that the department had made a unilateral change to a mandatory subject of bargaining. The city argued that the guidelines resulted in limited change by simply putting in writing the department’s informal process for formulating discipline.
  
  The union challenged the new guidelines before elections in April swept in new FOP leaders who have been vocal in their opposition to the city’s efforts to revamp discipline and make other changes in the Police Department.

The union wasn't fighting discipline and the FOP ought to be calling out the bought-and-paid-for media types who keep writing this. The FOP has merely asked for a seat at the table - something denied to them in the formation of the new COPA and every other "reform" Rahm is pushing. And Tuesday, ILRB agreed - the FOP gets a seat at the table. That's how Labor Law reads.

Now if only Rahm would learn to read...and comprehend.

Car Jacking Arrests

A chase, a crash, and a manhunt:

• Two West Side carjacking suspects who led officers on a chase on the Eisenhower Expressway that ended with a police car crashing have been charged, police said.
  
  Police said the two, Davontae Jones and Jason Dortch, may be linked to at least a dozen carjackings in the last couple of days but have been formally charged with only one - in the 800 block of North Racine Avenue on Monday night.

A dozen carjackings? Seriously, if these two put half that effort into something legal, they might be running a Fortune 500 company in short order. Of course, they'd probably be doing a stint at Club Fed for insider trading or something, but then they go the Martha Stewart route and all is well.

Investigation Ends

And the bosses skate free:

• A Cook County special grand jury has been disbanded without charging any additional Chicago police officers, including department higher-ups, for their handling of Laquan McDonald’s fatal shooting by an officer.
  
  At a hearing Tuesday at the Leighton Criminal Court Building, special prosecutor Patricia Brown Holmes said the grand jury that convened to look into the controversial shooting has completed its investigation.
  
  
  That means no other officers — including higher-ups who signed off on allegedly false reports of the shooting — will be indicted.
  
  The only indictment brought by the special grand jury charged just lower-level cops — a detective and two patrol officers — stopping short of criminally charging department higher-ups in the alleged cover-up, even though several had been recommended for firing by the city inspector general’s office for their actions.

All the bosses were permitted to retire with full benefits and pensions including the exempt who ordered the District supervisors and detectives to push through an incomplete (and uninvestigated) TRR so he could finish his portion of the report and go home. The Round Table the next day included Special Ed, who hasn't answered a straight question since then about the entire incident - probably because to break ranks might jeopardize a certain cheating investigation.

Close the Courts?

This is an interesting rumor from a long time reader:

• Meanwhile, reliable sources are saying Preckwinkle will close all misdemeanor courts in the City and combine them into suburban courthouses. No more Belmont and Western, Harrison and Kedzie, etc. If this occurs, CPD officers will not make misdemeanor arrests, and if possible they will just issue citations. One hour and a half round trip travel time, is not worth it to appear in court.

No Branch Courts? This sounds like a Prickwrinkle game of chicken to force some budget issues. Closing Branch Courts would eliminate numerous judge spots, countless sheriffs in court, transport personnel, etc. Probably upwards of fifty people per location plus support personnel in other places.

Frankly, we like it. Painless to taxpayers, ball breaking to Dart, and pretty much less work for CPD, too, because arrests are going to crater overnight. Go for it Toni! People will be buying a lot of personal defense ammo - out of county though.

Nice College Rahm

But, hey, crime is down.....or something:

• Two violent robberies happened just blocks and days apart in the Loop sparking campus safety alerts to go into effect at Columbia College and Roosevelt University.
  
  One of the robberies happened on November 9 near Michigan and Balbo. A mob of seven teenagers attacked two female victims.
  
  The other robbery took place on Sunday night near Michigan and Congress. A large group of teenagers wearing sweatshirts and dark colored hoodies targeted two 18-year-old women and a 20-year-old man.
  
  They attacked the victims around 8 p.m. on the 500 block of South Michigan Avenue. They knocked them down and took their belongings. At least one of the victims attended Columbia College.

No descriptions once again, but one arrest - a juvenile, so no picture of the offender because that might accidentally lead to her accomplices.

Truth

Here's a guy about to get his butt chewed for telling the truth (right around 00:30 seconds):

• "What happens with juveniles is that they don't get...any real time. They kind of get released back onto the street and they commit the crime again.
  
  [dumb question from a member of the tame media]
  
  What it tells me is that they aren't being held accountable."

Wow. So the failure isn't at the police level? It's at the courts? Specifically the juvenile courts?

Of course, Chicago is all about avoiding accountability - hiring, contracting, voting, promoting, parking meters, bribed red light camera companies, Lieutenant testing, etc.

Rahm isn't going to like this.

Everywhere!

The media has discovered car jacking - suburban:

• A mom and her two young children were carjacked and taken more than 20 miles away against their will after someone jumped inside their vehicle as they sat outside a suburban Walgreens Sunday afternoon, according to authorities.
  
  The vehicle and family were later found on Chicago's Northwest Side in the 4700 block of West Belmont -- roughly 22 miles from where they had been taken, police said. The mom and children were not harmed, but the woman's cell phone was stolen in the process.

Broad daylight:

• About 3:33 p.m., a man left his white Jeep Cherokee running in the 600 block of North St. Clair while he loaded the trunk, according to Chicago Police.
  
  While the vehicle owner was placing items in his trunk, a man walked up, got into the Jeep and drove off, police said. The man was described as a black man in his mid 20s with dreadlocks.

That one will be downgraded to a theft.

Twilight:

• A SUV was hijacked from a gas station Monday afternoon on the Near North Side.
  
  A male was pumping gas just before 4 p.m. in the 1200 block of Halsted when a teenage boy got into the Ford Edge SUV and sped off, according to Chicago Police.

Another theft.

A whole weekend of stolen rides:

• Three overnight armed carjackings, which occurred in a four-hour period, have all been linked to the same men, who appeared to go back and forth between Cicero and the city's West and Northwest sides overnight, alternately relieving people of their vehicles and then using those stolen cars to commit other crimes.

What could possibly have emboldened the criminals to commit so dastardly a deed?

Channel 2 - See B.S. News is even running a spot on how to avoid being carjacked. We can think of one way to avoid being carjacked twice.

This Guy Again?

Is the Machine is setting up the "opposition" candidates for Prickwrinkle?

• Bob Fioretti announced Monday he’s challenging Toni Preckwinkle in the Democratic primary for Cook County Board President.
  
  Fioretti kicked off his candidacy at the Sun Aero Building at the Lansing Municipal Airport. Owned by the Village of Lansing, the airport has to pay a leasehold tax — something similar to a property tax for companies that are located on public property. According to Fioretti, this has resulted in money lost for the airport in recent years.
  
  “We don’t invite people in here, we tax them out,” Fioretti said. “When Cook County is the only county to impose tax after tax — whether it’s an extra sales tax, a soda tax, or a special leasehold tax — the disastrous results are predictable.”

That's the right tone to set for this election - the anti-tax guy. Now, is it a serious candidacy or just something to split away certain voting blocs? Like republi...oh wait....Cook County. So it's split the white people with Bob, Chewy leeches away the hispanic vote, Prickwrinkle runs as the black candidate.

The next declared candidate will reveal more.

Well Said Mom

Sometimes, you just know you raised an asshole:

• It’s all too common for people in bad situations to blame others. This is especially true in situations where the police are forced to defend themselves, and the media seems to love a good “blame the cops” story. While groups like “Black Lives Matter” point fingers at law enforcement and act as if the thin blue line is nothing but racist and evil, not everyone has bought into that narrative.
  
  A mother in Cleveland is now dealing with a sad and unfortunate situation, but is refusing to blame the police. Instead, she’s calling for personal responsibility and asking others to think about their actions.
  
  According to WOIO News in Ohio, a 33-year-old man named Antonio Levison pulled a gun on officers on Oct. 25. They responded with lethal force — and now Levison’s mother has strong words for other people living his criminal lifestyle.
  
  “It’s not worth it. It’s not worth losing your life running from the police, shooting at the police, you’ve got family — stay with your family,” Cyrida Levison said. “You run up on a police officer, you might as well expect to die,” she continued.

Kind of ruins the narrative....for this shooting at least.

Crime is Down

Just kidding - it's up (click for a larger version):

You want to see a really shocking set of numbers:

Look at 2017 compared to any of the previous years. In fact, add up 2015 and 2016. You end up with almost 2017 numbers. Crime (aside from homicides) is trending upward at an alarming rate.

And even if you look at 2014, 2015 and 2017 homicide numbers, the trend is headed upwards. 2016 was a hiccup, but a disturbing direction to any jurisdiction.

(All numbers are 01 January through 31 October for each year.)

UPDATE: A couple of people are telling us there were five armed carjackings just last night.

Nice Public Transit Rahm

Anyone want to guess if the ne'er-do-wells are feeling any sort of pressure on CTA property?

• Reports of so-called “non-index” crime on the CTA in Chicago are on pace this year to surpass each of the past two years, including the number of cases of “criminal sexual abuse” such as “inappropriate touching” and “sexual harassment without physical contact.”
  
  There have been 145 instances of criminal sexual abuse reported on the CTA in Chicago since the beginning of 2015, with the number of such incidents rising from 44 in 2015 to 60 in 2017 as of Oct. 27. That’s according to a Chicago Sun-Times analysis of Chicago Police Department data on “non-index” crimes — those regarded as less severe than “index” crimes such as murder, robbery and rape.
  
  The L system, in particular, has seen an uptick in those sex crimes, which can be classified as either a misdemeanor or felony. There have been 2,003 reports of non-index crimes on the CTA in Chicago in 2017 through late October, ranging from fights to gambling, drug use to vandalism.
  
  By comparison, there were 2,006 such reports for all of 2016 and 2,036 the year before.

How badly undermanned is the Mass Transit Unit again? And how does the percentage of manpower assigned compare to somewhere else, like New York City?

More Rifle Murders

Has Ed "foie gras" Burke scheduled any more rifle classes for the under-gunned CPD?

• Two men were killed in a rifle shooting in the Brighton Park neighborhood on the Southwest Side while five other people were wounded in city gunfire between Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, Chicago police said.
  
  In the fatal attack, the men, both 29, were pronounced dead on the scene in the 2400 block of West 47th Street about 1:55 a.m. Sunday, according to police and law enforcement sources.
  
  More than 20 .223-caliber shell casings, which are typically used in AR-15 rifles, littered the street and sidewalk, sources said. The gunman, who was wearing a mask, jumped out of a gray Toyota Corolla and opened fire before getting back in the car and fleeing east on 47th.

But hey, be proactive boys and girls. The chances of actually finding and actual rifle are.....small. Just don't pull over any easily boost-able cars with single or multiple occupants of a certain age, certain description, at a certain time of day and you'll be perfectly safe from injury....or an ACLU lawsuit.

Dashcam Video

We suppose this type of video is going to be the norm nowadays. One upside (of very few) is showing an unaware public just how quickly (and messily) situations unfold:

• Police oversight officials released case files Thursday from their investigation of an officer who fatally shot a 19-year-old man after being pinned against his police SUV earlier this year in Hanson Park on the Northwest Side.
  
  The cache of documents provided by the Civilian Office of Police Accountability includes dashcam footage of Juan Flores backing an SUV into the officer, who then opens fire.

The video is disturbing to say the least. The Officer ended up with a broken leg, the assailant ended up dead and COPA couldn't think of anything to charge the Officer with yet, though they have years to go over the tape as opposed to the Officer who had barely half-a-second.

Where the Guns Come From

From the FBI it would seem:

• One of the FBI’s top Midwest counterterrorism investigators had his gun, Rolex and a wad of cash stolen from his North Carolina hotel room after a night of drinking this past summer.
  
  It happened early on July 10, when Special Agent Robert Manson met a woman at the Westin hotel bar in downtown Charlotte and took her back to his room, according to Jessica Wallin, a spokeswoman for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.
  
  By 6:30 a.m., Manson noticed the woman was gone — along with his $6,000 watch, .40-caliber Glock and $60 in cash, according to the police report — which was filed by fellow agent Kevin Thuman because Manson was incapacitated by alcohol, the report says.
  
  Manson, an FBI unit chief in the counterterrorism division, oversees terror investigations in the Midwest and Carolinas. FBI spokesman Andrew C. Ames said an internal investigation was underway but to declined to comment further.

Frankly, we're surprised this ever saw print. Hopefully, the feds aren't doing this on purpose like the ATF used to do.

Not Just Short Police

This isn't good:

• When you need an ambulance, every second counts. But two paramedics tell 2 Investigator [Troll] help might not be there when you need it.
  
  It was a typical afternoon in the city. The dispatcher on the radio pleading for ambulances: “Anybody? … Anybody else available out there? … Anybody available out there that can take a run?”
  
  [Troll] asked a paramedic how often this type of thing occurs. “Daily,” came the response. “Sometimes several times a day.” The instances are so alarming the two paramedics agreed to talk with CBS 2 if they could remain anonymous.
  
  The standard for response time for an ambulance is six minutes. That day in question, there was a 19-minute response for an overdose; a 20-minute response for a child hit by a car and a 23-minute response for a high-risk pregnancy.

This makes the LEMART training that much more important, and maybe even that "Stop the Bleed" program isn't too far fetched as Rahm's Chicago slowly breaks down.

Veterans Day

To all Veterans, past, present and future.

Jail Out of Control

It's like Hollywood....but with barbed wire:

• Three female corrections officers at the Cook County Jail have filed a lawsuit claiming that Sheriff Tom Dart has not done enough to protect them from inmates who threaten and grope female guards and “brazenly masturbate” in front of them.
  
  [...] The lawsuit also alleges supervisors have discouraged the women from filing complaints about the behavior, telling them witnessing the behavior is “part of the job.”
  
  “They really do fear for their safety,” said attorney Marni Willenson, who represents the three officers. “Women have a right to go to work without looking over their shoulder fearing they’re going to be raped or aggressively exposed to genitalia.”

This is in addition to the other lawsuit by Public Defenders filed earlier this week.

So basically, no difference between the inmates and slimeballs like Harvey Weinstein, Louis CK, Kevin Spacey and any of the other sixty or seventy named sex offenders on the left coast. And just like the left coast, connected supervisors are discouraging women from bringing the complaints to light.

Does Dart know about this?

Great Use of Manpower

Anyone know where Eric Holder is?

• Chicago police said they responded to a large fight outside a high school that involved as many as 100 students and parents Wednesday afternoon.
  
  Police responded to Dunbar Vocational Career Academy in the 3000-block of South King Drive at about 3:30 p.m. Officers responded to reports of a large fight as classes let out, involving possibly dozens of people.
  
  The Chicago Fire Department said one officer suffered a minor leg injury and was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital for treatment. A girl was also injured when she was kicked in the face.
  
  Witnesses tried to break up the fight, which was predominantly among 20 to 30 girls, but things spiraled out of control.

The trouble here is this wasn't the first fight of the week at Dunbar.

It wasn't even the second.

On Wednesday, it was the third fight in as many days, necessitating a call out of officers from THREE separate districts and resulting in exactly ZERO arrests.

So why bother sending the police at all?

No Consequences

Why are the words of the day, "Stay Fetal"?

• A parolee who battered an off-duty police officer into unconsciousness near Wrigley Field in June 2016 has been sentenced to time served plus 8 days by Cook County Judge Earl Hoffenberg.
  
  The 28-year-old officer announced his office as he tried to break up a dispute on the corner of Clark and Addison at 12:40 a.m. last June 26. According to witnesses and audio recorded on a nearby webcam, the off-duty officer intervened when a disturbance between two men and one of the men's girlfriend escalated on the southeast corner of Clark and Addison.
  
  Tremaine Wilson, 30, blindsided the officer, knocking him out, according to witnesses and a police report. Wilson fled the scene and was arrested nearby. He was charged with six counts of aggravated battery to a police officer and two counts of aggravated battery in a public place.

Six counts of Aggravated Battery - six felonies. And he was allowed to plea out to one count - amounting to the year already served.

And to add insult to injury, he was on parole. But the parole violation was rolled into his guilty plea and he walked out the day after the plea was entered on the single count.

Now run out and get the bosses some numbers!

Gee, Why is Crime Going Up?

Maybe this is a reason?

• A 23-year-old man has been charged with a felony after Cook County Sheriff’s Police officers found him with a stolen pistol in unincorporated Melrose Park, Sheriff Thomas J. Dart announced today.
  
  At approximately 2:45 p.m. on Nov. 3, Sheriff’s officers responding to another complaint in the 2300 block of North Mannheim Road, learned that Jovantae Withers was in the area and carrying a gun. Withers was subsequently located nearby and found with a loaded 9mm pistol in his waistband. The gun had a full 14-round clip.
  
  Further investigation found that Withers, a Hillside resident, has a previous felony conviction and does not have a Firearm Owner’s Identification (FOID) card or Concealed Carry permit.

Throw the book at him!!!

• Withers was taken into custody and charged with aggravated unlawful use of a weapon, a class 2 felony.

Hooray!

• During a bond court appearance on Saturday, Withers received an I-bond and was released on his own recognizance.

Uh....what now? He's got a record. And it's a stolen gun.

And Dart publishes this shit on his own web page....like he's actually proud of it.

Promotions Coming

Via e-mail, Special Ed tells readers that the Department is making "at least" 72 Sergeants and 18 Lieutenants. 

The rumor mill says classes start 20 November.

It'll be a Merry Christmas most certainly.

Thanks Again Helen

The aldercreature who did more to destroy Uptown than most aldercreatures do in a lifetime. Her legacy lives on on the crime numbers:

• Residents of Chicago's Uptown neighborhood should be on guard after reports of three separate muggings that occurred in just 15 minutes Wednesday night. Police have confirmed two of the three incidents.

We suppose these citizens voted for their own demise though...as most of Chicago seems determined to do.

More Big Brain Thinking

Another brilliant idea from the brain trust of Ed "foie gras" Burke:

• Pedestrians texting or using a cellphone while walking through a Chicago intersection would face fines under a proposal introduced by two key aldermen.
  
  The proposal, which would still have to pass the full City Council, calls for fines of $90 to $500 for each incident of using a mobile device while crossing a street or highway.
  
  “The goal of the introduction of this measure is to reduce pedestrian deaths and injuries, especially at crosswalks,” longtime Ald. Edward Burke, 14th, said in a news release.
  
  Burke is co-sponsoring the proposed ordinance with South Side Ald. Anthony Beale, 9th, who predicted it would “increase safety by eliminating distractions for pedestrians.”

And what, pray tell, led to this unaddressed need crying out for immediate attention?

• Burke and Beale cited statistics showing 27 pedestrians were killed in the first half of 2017 — an increase of one death from the same period last year. The aldermen did not present any data or information on how many of those deaths involved a pedestrian using a mobile device.

And increase of.....one? With no accompanying data to show that cell phones, which have been around for over a decade now, contributed in even the smallest manner?

No doubt this will enhance CPD popularity across the board.

Poor Granny

Granny Clampett is in hot water in her new gig:

• Oakland’s police chief is facing an internal affairs investigation, a formal complaint by a city commissioner and questioning by furious City Council members --- all because she—perhaps unwittingly—helped federal authorities arrest an illegal immigrant in a sanctuary city.
  
  Anne Kirkpatrick, who was widely heralded as a seasoned progressive reformer when she became Oakland’s top cop early this year, has acknowledged that she sent police officers to assist federal agents for a human trafficking investigation at an Oakland home Aug. 16.
  
  Two adults were detained during that investigation, and federal authorities have commenced civil deportation proceedings against one of them....

So in the process of assisting those enforcing FEDERAL law, Granny ran afoul of the lib-tarded Oakland "sanctuary city" rules. And that isn't the worst of it:

• Kirkpatrick insisted at a town hall in September that she told federal agents the day before the August operation that her officers would not participate in any arrests, the East Bay Times reported. Oakland police merely blocked the streets during the federal agents’ operation, Kirkpatrick said in a written response to City Council members, SFGate reported.
  
  [...]
  
  Oakland police described the operation as a sex trafficking investigation on Aug. 16, before later calling it a human trafficking probe, according to SFGate.

So sex traffickers (or human traffickers) have carte blanche to operate in Oakland, California, lest the police offend the delicate sensibilities of the lib-tards. Has anyone let Harvey Weinstein know this might be his get-out-of-jail-free card? Kevin Spacey, too.

Hey Moron

Can't even get the terminology correct:

If you're going to be a dumbass, you might as well be a politically connected inside, house-mouse, high capacity dumbass spouting the words of your anti-gun master.

Taxi! Taxi!

Evidently, the Department has chosen the new sticker layout:

We guess that's the least hideous of the bunch. Anyone have the full layout?

UPDATE: Here's a wide shot:

Continuing Corruption

This has to be the worst deal ever concocted by a Chicago pol, bar none (this is an archived DNAInfo.com link - DNAInfo is now out of business):

• The city will pay $20 million in 2018 to the private firm that leases the city's parking meters — in addition to all of the revenue from the meters — under the terms of the much-loathed 2008 deal, officials said.
  
  The city must make "true-up" payments to Chicago Parking Meters to compensate the firm for lost revenue when meters are removed, temporarily taken out of commission with the city's permission or used by motorists with disabled parking permits, according to the terms of the deal.
  
  Despite changes made by Mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2013 designed to make the deal better for city taxpayers, the 2018 "true-up" payment wil rise 16.3 percent from last year, said Molly Poppe, a spokeswoman for Emanuel's budget office.

And Shortshanks spent just about every dime from a 75-year lease within three(?) years - all of $1.2 billion. And which law firm was it representing the parking meter people? Who got hired by them?

Dart Accusations

Someone wants a scalp

Lots of accusations going back and forth at the link. Supposedly, one hundred protestors showed up at Daley Plaza Monday handing these out. Comments say under seventy. Other comments say they were all homeless people paid to show up and pass out the handbills. The race for Sheriff is getting ugly.

Dear Chicago Magazine

Looks like it might be time for an update on that series you did a while back about hiding crime stats:

• A Los Angeles Police Department captain has accused high-ranking members of the force of misclassifying violent crime and misleading the public about the true state of lawbreaking in the city.
  
  Capt. Lillian Carranza, who oversees the LAPD’s Van Nuys station, alleged in a claim filed against the city last week that she began notifying superiors in 2014 about the underreporting of crime in the Foothill area, which includes Pacoima, Sunland and Tujunga — but no action was taken.
  
  After assuming command of the Van Nuys station in 2015, she conducted her own analysis of violent crime reports stored in an LAPD database, according to the claim. The eight-page claim, which typically precedes a civil court lawsuit, did not include the raw data Carranza used in her analysis.
  
  Aggravated assaults in 2016 were underreported by about 10% in the Pacific and Central divisions, according to the claim, which alleges that those cases were misclassified as less serious offenses.

New York's CompStat was exposed by a retired Captain (who was a professor in the side) as nothing but a way to conceal true crime numbers. Guess who was an integral part of that miscounting?

McCarthy brought his number "skills" to Chicago and sold himself as some sort of crime reduction expert and forced the spineless exempt structure here to kow-tow to his methods via threats and intimidation, backed by Rahm's political machinations. Chicago Magazine eventually wrote a three-part series on it.

Now Los Angeles has caught the bug. The Captain is suing after assorted threats and retaliation against her career were undertaken.

Untold in all these counting scandals is the role of national figures. The FBI hasn't accepted Chicago numbers for years because of this and previous miscounting. New York and LA are the other two big cities, but no word if the feebs are accepting their numbers on their face - in both cases, improper double-digit reductions were noted, just like Chicago. One has to wonder why these three democrat-controlled citadels of reliable left-wing votes were lied to for so many years.

Rahm Lied? Again?

Or should we just say "perpetually"?

• Since taking office in 2011, Mayor Rahm Emanuel has repeatedly vowed to deploy more police officers to combat violence in city neighborhoods, both by pulling them from desk jobs and hiring more recruits.
  
  “I promised to put 1,000 more police officers on the streets where they’re needed, not behind desks in office buildings or in specialized units that don't get to know the communities they serve,” Emanuel said when he was running for re-election in 2015. “And that’s what we’ve done.”
  
  As recently as last month, when he introduced his 2018 budget, the mayor repeated the pledge.

Guess what happened?

• But even as the city spends tens of millions of taxpayer dollars on police overtime and hiring, hundreds of officers have taken desk jobs in the department over the last four years, according to records obtained by ProPublica Illinois. In one unit, the number of officers has more than quadrupled.

Which translates into less officers on the street - not only because the Department is smaller, but because Rahm's lackeys are hiding people:

• A 2013 report by the office of city Inspector General Joe Ferguson concluded that the Chicago Police Department could save between $6.4 million and $16.6 million a year if civilians replaced officers in “non-operational” positions in its many administrative and support units.
  
  In those units, 370 police officers were working desk jobs in 2013. By this year, that number had grown to 798. If officers were moved out of such jobs, they would be free for “high priority missions” involving more direct police work, according to the inspector general’s report.

Specifics:

• For example, in its Alternate Response Section — which handles phone calls related to non-emergency incidents such as burglaries and property damage — the number of positions held by officers grew from 36 in 2013 to 149 this year, the records show.

And that number is sure to grow as COPA(cabana) look for more officers to strip over years-old-allegations, many already closed investigations.

• Dozens of officers also filled jobs in the department’s Field Services Section, whose duties include identifying fingerprints, processing warrants and updating criminal history records. Four years ago, Ferguson’s office recommended hiring civilians for 31 of the unit’s 37 positions then held by police officers.
  
  Instead, the number of sworn officers in the section has shot up to 132, according to city records.

Including wives, girlfriends, boy-toys and significant others of assorted higher-ups. Meanwhile, we're waiting two hours some evenings for an ET to show up and collect evidence.

If you want to know why you can't get a day off next summer, look to the bodies tucked away in some of these units.

600? Again?

The Trib claims Chicago is close:

• Chicago is close to recording its 600th homicide for the year, only the second time the city will have reached the grim milestone since 2003, according to data kept by the Tribune.
  
  After a weekend when 30 were people shot, five of them fatally, the number of homicides stands at 593 this year, according to the Tribune's database.
  
  That's below the 681 homicides this time last year but substantially above other recent years.

HeyJackass.com says Chicago is there....and still going strong:

• Shot & Killed: 557
  Shot & Wounded: 2640
  Total Shot: 3197
  Total Homicides: 601

The trend is upwards, no mistake about it, and it's all under Rahm's watch.

The "Cause" of Crime?

Not that we'd expect anything resembling actual investigative reporting from journalists in Chicago (who are busy pushing Rahm's narrative rather than doing an actual research), but instead of blaming police for rising instances of crime, how about cracking open a history book:

• In a famous apocryphal story, [noted bank robber Willie] Sutton was asked by reporter Mitch Ohnstad why he robbed banks. According to Ohnstad, he replied, "Because that's where the money is."

Perhaps the reason certain neighborhoods are experiencing an massive uptick in carjackings is because, "that's where the nice cars are." Perhaps North Michigan Avenue is having more smash-and-grabs because "that's where the nice watches are." Maybe, just maybe, Wrigleyville and Boystown are having more robberies due to "that's where the new iPhones are."

And you don't have to be a rocket scientist to notice that if there are a bunch of police in the hood, there might not be as many somewhere else. Criminals aren't completely stupid - they can observe and evaluate a simple "risk-reward scenario."

Officer Down - Rockford

Tragic news from Rockford:

• A Rockford police officer was killed and a man was found dead in a vehicle early Sunday when a traffic stop led to a crash and an apparent shooting.
  
  Just after 1 a.m., officer Jaimie Cox, 30, made a traffic stop near State Street and Dawn Avenue, Rockford Police Chief Dan O’Shea said during a Sunday news conference. A short time later, Cox made a brief radio transmission asking for assistance.
  
  Responding officers found a one-vehicle crash about two blocks north of where the initial traffic stop happened, O’Shea said. Eddie Patterson, 49, was found dead inside that vehicle.
  
  Cox was found critically injured at the scene and was taken to Saint Anthony Medical Center in Rockford, where he was later pronounced dead, O’Shea said. It was not clear whether he succumbed to injuries related to the crash or if he was shot.

Prayers for the fallen Officer, his family, friends and co-workers.

South Shore Shootout

No hits, one in custody:

• Chicago police officers were involved in a shootout with a suspect in the South Shore neighborhood Sunday morning. Officers responded to a report of shots fired in the 6700-block of South East End Avenue at about 1:45 a.m., police said.
  
  When the officers arrived on the scene, a male suspect fired shots at them. Witnesses said they heard officers yelling, "Drop your weapon." The officers returned fire and chased the suspect on foot and took the man into custody, police said. No one was injured in the shooting.
  
  A weapon was recovered from the scene.

Good job by all involved. Stay safe.

Nice River Rahm

No, seriously. That teal color looks way better than the regular brownish-green everyone is used to:

Authorities are "investigating:"

• If you took a rainy stroll along the Chicago Riverwalk this weekend, your eyes weren’t playing tricks on you: the Chicago River took on two vastly distinct colors — one of them seemingly unnatural.
  
  At Wolf Point, the normally dark, muddy color of the north and south branches of the river was starkly met by a vibrant teal more reminiscent of the green hue pumped in for the city’s annual St. Patrick’s Day river dyeing, or the waters of Canada’s Lake Louise.
  
  The strange sight started to become apparent on Friday and was lingering into Sunday; people in downtown high-rises saw it more clearly than at street level.
  
  Officials with the city’s Department of Water Management and the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago have been investigating.

If they find the cause, we suggest that they replicate it and try to make it a year round occurrence.

Everyone Can Pitch In

We're pretty sure that most citizens in Chicago don't want to be First Responders, but that isn't stopping some from trying:

• Medical experts say anyone can employ a few basic techniques to achieve the same results when confronted with a life-and-death scenario. And a public service campaign called “Stop the Bleed” aims to do just that: teach bystanders to save someone’s life by learning basic blood-stemming techniques.
  
  Stop the Bleed is a national effort established by the White House in 2015 as one response to the Sandy Hook mass school shooting three years before. It aims to arm civilians with skills and bleeding control kits to provide crucial aid in an emergency until medical professionals can take over.
  
  [...] In Chicago, more than 3,000 people have been shot this year, and the victim of a gunshot wound can bleed to death in only five minutes.
  
  Bystanders are on the scene before first responders, and experts say bleeding remains one of the leading preventable causes of death for such victims.

We have our doubts about this effort. LEMART is good training for coppers to have - and the life you save might be one of our own - or even your own. But having civilians place themselves in jeopardy, crossfire, or on the wrong side of a gang conflict is problematic (we know of many stories of shooters coming back to ensure the job is done, or finishing it if not done). We guess if you go in knowing the risks, it's on you. Lord knows there are plenty of places on the South and West sides to get in some practical experience.

Self Cleaning Oven Continues

The self-cleaning oven continues to operate:

• A loud argument broke out at a memorial party for Kenneth Williams, a 28-year-old man who was shot dead after leaving the Cook County criminal courthouse in August.
  
  Sevetta Kidd was one of about 100 people who crowded into a Far South Side home and porch Saturday for the celebration — what would have been Williams' birthday.
  
  Kidd, 34, hoped the dispute would resolve quickly. A couple of people who weren't invited had barged inside. But then people started pulling out guns.

Multiple guns at a "memorial" for someone gunned down due to the lifestyle he chose. What could go wrong?

• "The people who stayed behind were people close to the victims, and of course, the police are trying to do their jobs, which is to clear out the crime scene," Kidd said. "But the people who were closest to the victims are trying to make sure that their loved ones are OK, so those two entities collide and it's definitely not a pretty picture. Especially when it involves people who have been drinking and have other outside influences."

And the beat goes on.

No Coverage

For some reason, the media doesn't want to touch this story:

• Drive by at 326am in 018 at 1922 N. Lincoln Ave at/from Drop Club (late night license that caters to the undesirable element that comes into the City). Bullet went through window, into the home and lodged in the living room ceiling...of a $2M home in Lincoln Park.  Even more disturbing is had it penetrates the 1st floor ceiling it would have hit a child’s bedroom. What’s manpower like in 018? How many people detailed out? Hmmm, where’s the news coverage? Rham’s losing control of this City! Ald. Michelle Smith has lost control of the Ward/District

$2 million can't even buy a little peace and quiet in Lincoln Park. We imagine there are about to be another few homes on the market ....or Vanecko Bullet-Proof Glass is going to get a few new clients.

Good Point

A regular reader of ours wrote to us about the recent post concerning increased carjackings. He points out the biased reporting of the Tribune "reporter" blaming police "reducing their aggressiveness" as a contributing factor. He then pointed out the following:

• First victim) "By the time she finished dinner" police had made an arrest.
  
  (Second victim) Police arrived "immediately...Townsel was arrested 3 days later”.
  
  (Third victim) “Porter was arrested about half an hour after the carjacking”.
  
  EACH victim [biased reporter] interviews shares how police kicked ass and made swift arrests. So are police at fault AND doing their job? Which is it?!

A very good point. Which is it?

Nice Mag Mile Rahm

Broad daylight, Friday morning:

• Three people smashed display cases with mallets before fleeing with several wristwatches Friday morning on Michigan Avenue, Chicago police said.
  
  About 11:45 a.m., three young men or boys, smashed a window at a watch store in the 800 block of North Michigan Avenue, said police.
  
  The trio made off with "numerous" wristwatches and fled the scene.
  
  Police released images and descriptions of the suspects late Friday afternoon.
  
  They are black and between the ages of 17 and 25. The three range from 5 feet 10 inches to 6 feet tall, and weigh between 160 to 165 pounds.

Wow, the Tribune printed an actual description of the offenders? How did that happen? Who was asleep at the switch? Or did the North Michigan Avenue Merchants' Association finally decide that they pay way too much in taxes to have their businesses ransacked by roving bands of jagoffs that Rahm and Kimmy refuse to take any sort of stand against?

Amusingly, while the Tribune broke with precedent by actually describing the offenders, they now declined to identify the victim store for some reason. Would shoppers feel less safe knowing that this store didn't have armed security on site and they are essentially trusting their well being to thugs armed with hammers? Just FYI, it was the Omega Store from what we heard.

Protests?

Late word coming in that there have been almost 1,000 "campers" at that south side church hosting the anti-government protestors the past few nights.

Also a large mobilization of federal types for some "DoD" drill downtown.

Couldn't possibly be related, right? The Department would have said something or had a plan or something? Right?

Carjackings Waaaaaay Up

And not just in the bad parts of town:

• With gun violence garnering unflattering national attention for Chicago, carjackings have quietly gone off the charts as well. While shootings and homicides are largely concentrated in impoverished pockets of the South and West sides, carjackings are occurring throughout the city, including the downtown area, Chicago police statistics show.
  
  Last year Chicago recorded 663 carjackings, nearly double the 339 in 2015 and the most since 2009, according to the department. And the numbers have shot up even further so far this year. Through Oct. 18, the latest date available, carjackings have totaled 661, nearly equal to all of 2016 and a 44 percent spike from the same period a year ago.
  
  Carjackings started to spike last year, when homicides and shootings skyrocketed while crimes in virtually every other category rose. The causes are unclear, but some officers felt the furor over the video showing police shoot teen Laquan McDonald 16 times led to many officers reducing their aggressiveness on the street, emboldening criminals.

You mean the non-existent "Ferguson effect"? Or the Rahm accusing the Department of being "fetal"? Or just the natural preservation instinct kicking in?

And guess who else is getting carjacked?

• But carjackings have risen as well downtown and in trendy neighborhoods. In the Shakespeare police district, which includes the Wicker Park, Bucktown and Logan Square neighborhoods, carjackings nearly tripled to 36 so far this year from 13 a year earlier. And two patrol districts whose boundaries include the downtown area, Near North and Central, had a combined 42 carjackings through Oct. 18, almost a fourfold increase from 11 a year earlier, the statistics show.

Well, if you have nicer cars, you should be prepared to give them up to the "have-nots" so that they can feel better about about some imagined wrong when they go out to shoot a rival, do a stick-up, roll through the front window of a store.

Maybe it has something to do with the "no chase" and "no punishment" policies currently in place?

Nice Coffee Shop Rahm

Though in their defense, it looks like the deceased ran in there to hide:

• One man died and two other people, including a 12-year-old boy, were injured in a shooting at a Starbucks in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood Thursday night, according to officials and witnesses.
  
  A man, 28, was dead at the scene following the shooting about 8:10 p.m. at the Starbucks, 4753 N. Broadway, at Lawrence Avenue, according to police. Family members identified the victim as 28-year-old Sauvignon Watkins of Chatham.

Um....who?

• Sauvignon Watkins

In any event, that part of town has been heading downwards for over 20 years and amazingly, still hasn't hit bottom. And you still have corporate disconnect thinking that because a few hipsters live nearby, they're going to drag an entire neighborhood out of its self imposed death-spiral....like putting a Whole Foods in Englewood.

And the aldercreature blames - who else? - Starbucks:

• Ald. James Cappleman (46th) blasted an Uptown neighborhood Starbucks as complicit in drug dealing, less than 24 hours after three people were shot — one fatally — inside the coffee shop.
  
  “I will not tolerate businesses that do not work with the police and my office to maintain safety,” Cappleman said in a statement Friday. “We have had issues for years with illegal activity at this business, with very little response or help from Starbucks’ management to correct the problems.”

Starbucks shot back:

• A spokesman for Starbucks said Friday that the coffee shop chain was “disappointed by the alderman’s comments,” which do not align with the CPD’s version of events.
  
  “As it has been reported by local law enforcement, our store was not central to the crime that took place,” Starbucks spokesman Reggie Borges said. “For him to suggest that that was the case, it was not accurate based on what we’ve seen from local law enforcement.”

We'd certainly like to see what the aldercreature deems adequate for Starbucks participation. We'd hate to think he was bad mouthing them because they didn't kick in to his re-election war chest. Perhaps Starbucks should ask what the manpower is in 019 before and after it was combined with 023, and what effect those shortages have upon community safety. Then ask what step the aldercreature has taken to address those shortages.

Prickwrinkle Car Damage?

Anyone hear about this?

• [Did] CPD write out a criminal damage report for TP? Her security unit supervisor made the decision to leave her new County Suburban in front of her home overnight?? Guess the neighborhood figured it out
  
  7000.00 in repairs later it’s like new.

Hope that didn't come out of the anticipated Soda Tax money.

Budget Hearings

That time of year when we find out what cuts the city want from the Department:

• More news from the CPD Budget Hearing:
  
  According to Chief Barb West, 522 officers retired this year and 417 last year. 100+ have dropped papers to retire in 2018. CPD has 414 blue shirt vacancies. A class of 100 cadets will start every month next year. Beginning in 2018, every officer will complete 16 hours of continuing education. Chief Melissa Staples said 200 detectives will be made in 2018 and the clearance rate is now at 35%
  
  Some startling news for all those new POs and Detectives, no additional ET's added to the budget for 2018. They will remain at 110 for the entire city. Subtract about 25 that work inside, that leaves 85 working the street spilt amongst three watches. At times you have 5 ET,s working days and 8 working afternoons. Now you factor in that there is now only ONE FI working the streets and he is on midnights POs and detectives better pack a lunch waiting for service from forensics.
  
  The commander can give two fucks about how to properly run the unit. You went from 130 ETs and 40 FIs 8 some years ago to just 110 ETs and 1 FI today. So crime has risen yet those tasked with collecting evidence to solve those crimes have reduced drastically.

No wonder nothing ever gets solved long-term - lack of evidence collection.

Another FTO Test

A comment from a few days ago:

• On a related matter, the dept is giving another FTO test on DEC 16. I believe this is the 3rd in 2 years?
  
  Did you see the new large posters hanging around the districts, with all those "bosses" claiming they were once FTO's? I wouldn't brag too much, boss. Back then, most FTO's were appointed, which is to say it was given to the guy who couldn't get a partner, or the guy who knew the boss and wanted more money (but was rarely given a PPO to train).
  
  Still, there is a big push to increase FTO's. Any former FTO's care to chime in to let the newer blue shirts know what to expect (because there are several I've heard from considering it, simply because their FTO sucked, and they want to do better. I appreciate that, but they have no idea how the dept fucks over the FTO's).

Very few people want the spot because it has been, and remains, a dead end. We remember promises made to grant extra points on promotional exams, actual promotional spots to be given to an FTO (wow, one spot to someone connected), empty promises about keeping watches and Districts of assignment. We remember that one class where almost all of the FTO's resigned and refused to graduate when they were told all the promises of remaining in their Districts were basically lies.

Combined with the lack of any actual power to re-tread (and recommend firing) those they deem unprepared for streets, and you have a system that merely pushes through bodies to fulfill a number put forth by City Hall and not adequately trained police officers. Pretty much what the DOJ said and nothing that we haven't said for a dozen years now.

It's too bad the Department doesn't bother to listen to people who actually have good ideas, know how to put together a real training program and have the wherewithal to see it through.

Swiping Order

Here's a link to it:

• CATA Pilot Program

We have't heard any horror stories, so either it ran smoothly or everyone at HQ was ordered and intimidated into keeping their mouths shut.

No Bail

Evidently, the media has nothing else to write about, so they're going to follow this one to conclusion:

• A man who robbed a Far South Side hot dog stand accidentally shot himself in the leg and penis as he tried to escape early Tuesday, according to court documents.
  
  Terrion Pouncy, 19, remained hospitalized at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn on Thursday after the robbery about 6 a.m. Tuesday at the Original Maxwell Street Polish, 11656 S. Halsted St. in the West Pullman neighborhood and so did not appear for his bond hearing Thursday, according to records. Judge Stephanie K. Miller ordered him held without bail, pending a hearing Nov. 7, according to court records.
  
  Police were called to 700 block of West 116th about 6 a.m. Tuesday because of a call regarding a person shot and found Pouncy with two gunshot wounds, one to the right thigh and one to the penis, according to his arrest report.

We're pretty sure that the editors at the Tribune and Sun Times just like seeing the word "penis" in print and they're hoping to make connections with the Keesing Bandit.

You'll Put Your Eye Out Kid

Rahm had a front row seat to the mayhem we see day in and day out:

• Hundreds of teens gathered in Hyde Park to party as Mayor Rahm Emanuel looked on and Barack Obama’s motorcade pressed through the crowds.
  
  Nearly 400 teens came out Tuesday night in a much toned-down repeat of last year’s “Halloween Purge,” where more than 1,000 kids from across the city came to hang out, some of whom got into fights and tore up parts of the neighborhood.
  
  Wentworth District Cmdr. Crystal King-Smith said the worst issue this year was kids shooting at each other with BB guns.

Really? Shooting each other with BB guns, in full view of Rahm, Sparklefarts and the police? They're lucky that Rahm;s detail or the Secret Service didn't blast them. And the little angels acted exactly as you'd expect them to:

• Emanuel took in some of the mayhem when he unexpectedly showed up around 7 p.m. to eat dinner at A10, 1462 E. 53rd St. Volunteers on the street said the teens quickly noticed him sitting in the window of the restaurant.
  
  “They were making faces at him and crowding around the window,” Julie Less said. She said he left quickly and quietly after his dinner at 7:45 p.m.

Of course he did. There were no union leaders to motherfuck and no retirees to screw over. Why would he stick around? And the evening progressed in high style:

• Shortly after the mayor left, Obama’s motorcade drove down Lake Park Avenue at 8:15 p.m. on its way to an event for his foundation at the Museum of Science and Industry. His appearance added energy to the restless crowd, which set a fire in a dumpster behind the BP gas station at 5130 S. Lake Park Ave.

An appropriate representation of his presidency if we do say so ourselves:

• The neighboring McDonald’s, which had been a focus of trouble with teens last year, closed early this year, which King-Smith said helped keep the teens from gathering in too large numbers in a single spot. She said it was still a challenge to control the crowds, and teens were making 911 calls elsewhere in Hyde Park to draw police away from where the teens wanted to go.
  
  A party on the Midway Plaisance organized by 4th Ward Ald. Sophia King and 5th Ward Ald. Leslie Hairston meant to draw teens away from 53rd Street apparently flopped, failing to attract more than a handful of teens the entire night. Volunteers said teens refused to get on the buses and shuttles meant to ferry kids to the party on the Midway.
  
  Police reported recovering as many as eight BB guns, and many officers said they were on edge the whole night because many of the BB guns looked like real guns, and several teens were brazen enough to shoot at each other in front of police.

Stay classy South Side! Keep reminding everyone about the high taxes they pay to keep you clothed, fed, and housed so that you can produce.....what exactly?

Gun Theft

You want to know how guns get into circulation? Large numbers of guns? This isn't getting any play in the lame stream media:

• Federal authorities are looking for suspects who stole a shipment of guns from a Springfield postal facility.
  
  The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives said in news release Tuesday that sometime between Saturday evening and Sunday morning, the suspects broke into trailers at the facility and took several items, including a shipment of firearms.
  
  The firearms were part of an interstate shipment being sent to a federally licensed firearms dealer.
  
  ATF is offering a reward of up to $25,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the case.

This report is even more vague:

• The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is investigating a break-in and theft of firearms from a Springfield package facility that were destined for Bass Pro Shops.
  
  In a news release posted to Twitter, the ATF said a person or persons unknown broke into the UPS freight service center in the 2500 block of North Le Compte Road.
  
  "They forced their way into several trailers, removing numerous items, including multiple firearms that were part of an interstate shipment destined for a federal firearms licensee," the ATF said.
  
  [...] The ATF was notified after UPS security realized the shipment included firearms.
  
  Ham said "several" handguns and shotguns were among the items stolen.

"Several" handguns and shotguns. How many guns? Don't be shy:

• It's nearly 1,000 guns - 600 pistols and a few hundred shotguns

But hey, why let anyone know that? After all, the anti-gunners can rail about the "ease" with which guns make their way onto the streets and wreak havoc across the Midwest. So they'll try to pass another useless law that will make democrats feel good about doing something while decent law abiding citizens have to jump through another round of hoops, and no one, not a single person, looks at the security issue of under-secured rail yards and truck depots.

Swiper, No Swiping!

Does anyone want to thrill us with tales of how the swiping went on Day One at Headquarters? We noticed traffic looked a lot heavier between 1500 and 1700 hours, due to the many hundreds of house mouses leaving 35th and Michigan on time. We heard that they also had to schedule a couple of cars from 002 to regulate traffic leaving the building. Much honking and cursing and extended middle fingers were seen.

But not to worry, the clouted got to sneak out the west gate which hasn't been opened in almost a decade and the number of burned dinners was kept to a minimum.

Bugs? Again?

Last time it was HQ. This time, 018:

• OT, I have not seen anyone on the blog comment about the bedbug infestation in the 018 District. A few weeks ago, the CAPS/Detective Office was infected. As of 30 Oct, exterminators were out and found the desk area, and non-public bathrooms also infected. Officers have filed exposure reports. On 01 Nov the infected areas will be closed for 12-18 hrs due to extreme extermination. Formal Winter Uniform inspection has been cancelled on the 2ND of Nov, so no one brings clean Uniforms into the infested area (good call by the Commander by the way). Once again only the best for CPD and our working environment.

Didn't Rahm just make some proposal to increase spending on pest control? Looks like a big portion is going to 018.

Manpower in 016

Maybe this explains the uptick in shootings last week in 016?

• Anonymous said...
  
  016 district which is next to ohare has 5 one man cars on Halloween ,no rapids and the wagon doubling as beat car yea right were ready for something like the tragedy in new york stop your bulllshit about manpower being increased rahm

Five cars up in an entire district? WTF?

Hey media, how about a few FOIA requests to verify?

That's Going to Leave a Mark

Ladies and Gentlemen, the newest member of the Vienna Boys Choir, singing castrato:

• A man shot himself in the penis after robbing two people at a business Tuesday morning in the West Pullman neighborhood on the Far South Side.
  
  Just after 6 a.m., the 19-year-old robbed two people at gunpoint of their cellphones, wallets and cash at a business in the 700-block of West 116th Place, according to Chicago police.
  
  As the man was running away, he shot himself in the penis, police said. He was taken in serious condition to Christ Medical Center, where he was taken into custody.
  
  Charges are pending Tuesday morning, police said. Area South detectives are investigating.

Can't wait to see what downgraded charges Foxxx files. Five bucks says she never goes for the Aggravated Discharge.

UPDATE: He's going to miss out on all sorts of fun at Cook County Jail - the daily "circle jerk" is out for sure. (via many many comments)

Body Cams Almost Complete

So we were slightly off - not all Districts have body cams yet...but they will before the end of the year:

• The Chicago Police Department announced earlier this year that its body camera program will roll out in all all police districts before the end of the year – one year ahead of schedule.
  
  Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Police Supt. Eddie Johnson have decided to step up the deployment of body cameras, and have every patrol officer in all 22 districts wearing one by the end of 2017. Originally, the city planned to complete the rollout by the end of 2018.

Special Ed actually gets in a zinger:

• “We’ve seen where citizens love recording what we do, so now we are recording what they do. Honestly it helps us be better at what we do, but we have also seen where it changes people’s behavior when they know they are being recorded also,” Johnson said.

So when do the Units get them, since that's where Special Ed is hiding a majority of officers nowadays.

Those Pesky Homicides

Seems that the Johnson brothers are leading the city in homicides again this year....and 011 keeps increasing its lead, adding homicides from three months ago:

• The death of a 72-year-old West Side man, who died after a domestic fight nearly three months ago, has been ruled a homicide.
  
  About 9:50 p.m. July 17, James L. Jefferies was involved in a fight in the 3900 block of West Arthington. A 61-year-old man struck Jefferies in the left eye and face, according to Chicago Police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.
  
  [...]
  
  An autopsy at the time didn’t rule on cause and manner of death, with results pending further studies, but has since found he died of heart disease, according to the medical examiner’s office. Asthma and physical stress from the struggle were listed as contributing factors, and his death was ruled a homicide.

Even the senior citizens are whacking each other on the west side. Must be the youngsters rubbing off on them.

The morgue must have been clearing out a backlog:

• The August death of a 5-year-old South Side boy has been ruled a homicide, authorities said.
  
  Raamse Lan’Pharay Morris, of the 6100 block of South Eberhart Avenue in the West Woodlawn neighborhood, died of multiple injuries from child abuse, according to police and the Cook County medical examiner’s office.

Was the ME on vacation?