Second City Cop

• City Inspector General Joseph Ferguson has notified Chicago Deputy Police Supt. Eugene Williams and two lieutenants that they are the subjects of a probe into allegations of cheating on the police lieutenants promotion exam, sources told DNAinfo.
  
  The city watchdog's investigation advanced this week when a Police Department employee signed his name to an official misconduct complaint alleging Williams shared privileged information in a study group about the most recent test used to promote sergeants to lieutenants, sources said.
  
  Police union contract rules state officers are not required to answer questions about administrative misconduct allegations made by anonymous Police Department employees.
  
  The whistleblower, who had been anonymous, agreed to be identified in the complaint at the urging of investigators who told him the probe would otherwise die.
  
  DNAinfo is not naming the officer who signed the complaint; he has asked for anonymity because he fears reprisal from the department's top brass.

Labels: corruption, scandals

• A DePaul University student was brutally attacked for her iPhone on a CTA Blue Line train on Thursday, and she said witnesses stood by and did nothing to help her.
  
  Jessica Hughes, 19, was left with a black eye, bruises to her head, and a bite mark on her hand.
  
  Hughes said she was riding the Blue Line just after 10 a.m., heading home to Berwyn. Most of the passengers on her car got off at the UIC-Halsted station, but one man moved to the seat in front of her, and looked her in the face, and she knew something was wrong.
  
  "He jumps up from his chair, and goes on top of me, and asks me for my phone, but my phone was in my pocket, and I had my headphones on, so he was yanking at my headphones, and then he pushed me to the floor, and then started beating on my head," she said. "He bit me on my left hand."

• "I just pray that they find these animals," [her father, Richard] Amador said.

Labels: crime

• It's all true. P.O.'s to be replaced by civilians on the desk and other administrative duties in the station. Commanders will be allowed to retain a P.O. secretary and one other P.O. in the office. Audits will be forthcoming and Inspectors will be monitoring administrative personnel in districts to ensure no one is hiding. They've tried this a number of times in the past but this time they're playing for real. I believe one (1) P.O. will be retained for desk duties / watch secretary on each watch. Most of the time it didn't work before is because they couldn't find enough civilians to fill spots like timekeeper, etc. Now they do. It will take almost a year to replace P.O.'s but they're full steam ahead with this one.

Labels: rumors

• A suspect fleeing police tried to throw his gun onto a roof, but it hit a wall instead and went off, hitting an officer in the shoulder, prosecutors said Thursday.
  
  The officer's partner kept chasing Rafael Martir-Ubiles, 25, Monday afternoon and cornered him in a gangway in the 2300 block of South Trumbull Avenue, where the officer used a Taser twice to subdue him, prosecutors said.
  
  Martir-Ubiles appeared in court Thursday, charged with aggravated battery to a police officer, aggravated assault of a police officer, resisting an officer and unlawful possession of firearm by a gang member, police said.
  
  Judge Peggy Chiampas ordered him held without bail.

Labels: officer injured

Labels: rumors, suburban

• Speaking of ninnies . . .. while we are getting our collective asses handed to us by the media and Rahmbo has his bus parked on our heads. Nothing to see here. . . FOP State Lodge has agreed to pay Shields 100,000ドル to get out from under his lawsuit. The battle with Lodge 7 continues. So that's 100K of our money paid by the State (wasn't it the State Lodge President that removed him?) and now how much more from L7??? I think the members should at least be informed about what is going on with this and who admitted to what!

Labels: FOP, rumors

• So, I'm not sure if anyone else's district has had this yet, but we were surprised yesterday by the sudden arrival of a civilian employee working behind the district desk without fore warning, handing out radios, being trained on AIRA, having I-clear access, not to mention the equipment, old shotguns, rifles. This person has access to all of our computer systems, employee information, leads, ect. All the access we have. No badge, no oath taken. A 3 week stint in the academy. Doing more with less I guess. Did they not learn their lesson three years ago when police officers homes were being burglarized and weapons taken, turns out the source was a civilian with login credentials?! In this current era of no accountability and police hatred, we now have people that have unabated access to not only the computer systems, but the actual police station. Un-fucking believeable.

Labels: rumors

• Government is looking at a proposal for creating a statewide "use of force" policy for law enforcement. The creator of this project is talking to politicians and the media, special interest groups—but REFUSES to talk to law enforcement officers, to hear their concerns. This is an attempt to politicalize law enforcement—to make them an arm of the State instead of protection for the public.
  
  "Ironically, one key PERF’s proposal on use of force calls for peace officers to "consider how the public will view the action" before deciding to employ force. Let’s apply that PERF concept to our invitation for Mr. Wexler. "How will rank-and-file peace officers view Mr. Wexler’s refusal to discuss the PERF guidelines before audiences of rank-and-file deputies and police officers?"

Labels: info for the police

• In an effort to help young people involved in the justice system find jobs and housing, the U.S. Departments of Justice and Housing and Urban Development (HUD) today announced 1ドル.75 million for Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) and nonprofit legal service organizations to address the challenges justice-involved individuals face when trying to find work and a place to call home.

Labels: sarcasm AND silliness

• Three months ago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel defended the 350ドル-an-hour fee he had agreed to pay Charles Ramsey to help guide the Chicago Police Department through a federal civil rights investigation triggered by the police shooting of Laquan McDonald.
  
  The Justice Department investigation is expected to drag on deep into 2017. But the show will go on without Ramsey.
  
  After billing the city for 37,490ドル in consulting work, Ramsey is bowing out as a paid adviser.
  
  "Chief Ramsey originally agreed to act as a consultant on a limited basis, but because of his own commitments can no longer play that formal role. However, he has agreed to continue serving the new superintendent as an informal adviser free of charge," newly-appointed Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson was quoted as saying in an emailed statement.

• Ramsey could not be reached for comment.
  
  But sources described Ramsey as troubled by the degree to which the mayor’s office attempts to micromanage the Chicago Police Department — so much so that he urged top brass to "man up."

Labels: department issues

Labels: promotions

Labels: sarcasm AND silliness

• A newly translated 19th-century book, written by samurai, describes martial arts techniques designed to help police officers of the time. The highly guarded practices included how to tie suspects up using paper string and fighting techniques that allowed officers to defeat suspects without killing them.

• The book, which contains illustrated instructions, was published in 1888, a time when the samurai class had lost many of its privileges and the formally secretive martial art schools that taught the samurai were willing to divulge their secrets.

Labels: sarcasm AND silliness

• Six people were killed and at least 39 were wounded in shootings across Chicago in one of the more violent weekends the city has seen since last fall, according to police.
  
  Among the victims were five people who were on a porch in West Englewood when someone fired shots from a vacant lot across Damen Avenue on Sunday night. Two men were pronounced dead on the scene. Three others went to area hospitals.
  
  It was the third attack in less than a week that wounded four or more people in Chicago.

Labels: crime, stats

• Davon Barrett gathered at a home in West Englewood on Sunday to celebrate and remember. A friend had just gotten out of jail, and it was the birthday of his younger brother — who was slain seven years ago, according to family and police.
  
  As he sat on the porch in the 2000 block of West 68th Place, someone fired shots from a vacant lot east of Damen Avenue shortly after 11 p.m., police said.
  
  Barrett, 38, was hit in the head and died at the scene. Another man, 26, was hit in the chest and killed. Three others were wounded and taken to hospitals, where they were stabilized, according to police.
  
  Police sources said some in the group on the porch may have returned fire. It was the third attack in a week in Chicago where four or more people were shot. Police reported no one in custody.

Labels: crime

• SCC?..please ask your readers to get themselves an account so they can file witness slips to oppose these screwed up anti police bills put forward in Springfield. Its easy as hell. Any time a bad gun rights bill comes up, Illinois Carry sends out an urgent request to file witness slips either opposing or supporting bills. Here is a link for people to create an account. Once you log in and find the bill or amendment you can file a witness slip. Time to start organizing the troops to stop some of this shit.

Labels: state politics

• A Chicago police officer suffered a gunshot wound and another suffered a cut to the hand in the Little Village neighborhood Monday afternoon, authorities said.
  
  The Ogden District officer who was shot about 4:15 p.m. apparently was hit by a bullet that went through the shoulder, and he was expected to survive, an official said. He was shot near Trumbull and 25th Street while chasing an armed suspect, said Anthony Guglielmi, a police spokesman, said in a Tweet.
  
  It was not clear how the other officer cut his hand. A gun was found at the scene and was being taken into evidence, a source said.
  
  The two were being taken to area hospitals for treatment, according to the Chicago Fire Department. Police Superintendent Eddie Johnson was expected to make a statement about the shooting later Monday evening at Stroger Hospital.

Labels: officer injured

• Perhaps surprisingly, the deadliest jurisdiction is patrolled by the least experienced officers. Seasoned and better-connected officers tend to work the safer neighborhoods on the North, Northwest and Southwest sides. This is the result of an unusual "bidding" system negotiated by the police union in 1980, which allows officers to use their seniority to claim shifts with better hours or in low-crime neighborhoods.
  
  Approached at a police-community meeting, the commander of the 11th, Deputy Chief James Jones, acknowledged that the deployment of the least experienced cops in the most dangerous neighborhood is a problem. "They know how to play video games, they know how to tweet, they know how to Facebook," he says. "They don’t have any personal skills. They never learned."

Labels: un-fucking-believable

• Three habitual car thieves with extensive records, continued their crime spree in Florida recently. They were pursued in a stolen car and missed a turn, plunging into a pond where all three juvenile females drowned. Poetic justice. Video was released and the media there began making hay out of it, claiming the deputies argued about whether or not to rescue the miscreants or let them drown.
  
  This blatant misreporting has inflamed the low-information segment of society and the usual bottom-feeders are popping up making noise.

Labels: good news

• A day after dashcam video of a violent confrontation between a woman and Chicago police in 2011 was released, a woman who witnessed the robbery who led to the confrontation spoke publicly with ABC7.
  
  Martha Osborn was in a McDonald's in the Portage Park neighborhood on May 25, 2011 when Floyd May allegedly robbed the restaurant. He then jumped into a vehicle driven by Tiffani Jacobs.
  
  Osborn then called police and gave them a description of the vehicle.
  
  Police pulled over the vehicle driven by Jacobs and dashcam video shows the officers throwing her to the ground as they arrest her.
  
  CPD Supt. Eddie Johnson called the arrest "concerning" and has ordered a new review of the two officers, who were previously cleared of wrong-doing five years ago. The officers have been relieved of duties pending an investigation.
  
  Osborn said police did the right thing. In recalling the robbery, she said that May grabbed her to use her as a pawn while he robbed the McDonalds, telling the cashier "If you don't give me the money I'm going to shoot her." She said he had a gun in the left side of her back and said, "Gimme the money, gimme the money, the cash, the cash in the drawer."

• Meanwhile, Osborn is reliving the robbery and is haunted by the image of the man who robbed her.
  
  "The girl had a gun, my wallet and the money from this restaurant when she was stopped," Osborn said. "Her mother is spoon feeding a banquet full of bologna to the general public."

Labels: media, scandals, un-fucking-believable

• When Chicago police officers stopped a Lincoln Town Car suspected of being used in a McDonald’s robbery in 2011, the female driver allegedly tried to run over one of them at a gas station on the West Side, police said at the time.
  
  The officer fired twice, hitting the woman in the chest and side, but she kept driving and came to a stop on an adjacent street. When she got out of the car, she was thrown to the ground, Tasered and handcuffed.
  
  On Friday, police Supt. Eddie Johnson released a video of the incident recorded by a dashboard-mounted camera. Although the shooting was deemed justified, Johnson is launching a reinvestigation to determine whether officers used excessive force during their arrest, said a department spokesman.
  
  In a statement, Johnson called the video "concerning."

Labels: un-fucking-fucking-believable

• A statistic recently cited from coast to coast: 74 percent of those shot by Chicago police from 2008 through 2015 were black, although black people make up only a third of the city's population.
  
  It's from the report by the Police Accountability Task Force, published last week. The statistic "gives validity to the widely held belief that the police have no regard for the sanctity of life when it comes to people of color," the report asserts.
  
  The New York Times agreed with that assessment in an editorial the day after the report was published. "The sense of injustice and grievance that pervades the black community . . . is borne out by the police data," the editorial said, citing the shooting statistic. The Associated Press News Service cited the stat in its story, which was headlined, "Report: Chicago police have 'no regard' for minority lives." Atlantic Cities ran virtually the same headline over a story that cited the "devastating" shooting disparity.
  
  The task force had to realize that its "no regard for the sanctity of life" assertion about Chicago police would dominate the initial media coverage and drown out most everything else that the 190-page report offers. And it offers a lot. But the report doesn't quite connect the dots on what else may be behind that shooting statistic.
  
  Poor black neighborhoods in Chicago are "ravaged by violent crime," the task force report acknowledges. In the west-side Austin neighborhood, there were 3,341 violent crimes in 2013 and 2014, including 67 homicides, 219 nonfatal shootings, and 725 armed robberies with guns. In such neighborhoods, there are bound to be far more stops, arrests, and confrontations with police than in more affluent neighborhoods where violent crime is much rarer.

Labels: info for the police, media

• Amends the Uniform Peace Officers' Disciplinary Act.. Provides that a sworn affidavit or other legal documentation is not required to file a complaint against a peace officer (currently, a sworn affidavit is required). Removes a provision referring unsupported complaints containing false material information to the State's Attorney. Effective January 1, 2017.

Labels: info for the police

• All p.o's after you qualify with your weapon check every bullet you are given in the box. Officers are finding defective and rusted bullets in what we are issued. from what we hear that is why qualifications have stopped. These bullets can misfire, jam or not go off at all.at this writing there is no special memo or explanation for this from our department

Labels: info for the police

• The Chicago Police Department struggled Friday to explain why the third-highest ranking member of the Chicago Fire Department was neither tested for alcohol in his system nor charged with drunken driving after crashing his city-owned SUV this week near Lake Shore Drive in Lincoln Park.
  
  The Chicago Fire Department has concluded that John McNicholas, who ran the Fire Department’s Bureau of Operations, was under the influence of alcohol at the time of the accident.
  
  But the Breathalyzer test was administered hours after the crash happened, at Fire Department headquarters at 35th and State, by the Fire Department’s Internal Affairs Bureau.
  
  Chicago Police officers were on the scene of the accident on LaSalle Drive just off Lake Shore Drive for up to two hours but never administered a field sobriety test or Breathalyzer test, sources said. Four squad cars were dispatched to the scene and were there from 30 minutes to two hours.

Labels: scandals

• McNicholas was driving his Chicago Fire Department SUV west on La Salle Drive just off Lake Shore when another vehicle cut him off, police said. The SUV swerved to avoid a collision, went over a curb and struck a utility pole. No one was hurt, but the vehicle was heavily damaged.

• Instead of calling 911 and having the conversation recorded, sources said McNicholas called a "black phone" at the 911 center that is not recorded.

Labels: scandals

• Chicago Ald. Walter Burnett Jr. was attacked as he was entering his office on the Near West Side Thursday night.
  
  One of his staff members said a man approached Burnett and punched him square in the face as he was arriving for "Constituent Night". The alderman suffered a cut but declined to be taken to a hospital.
  
  According to that staff member, the alleged offender had threatened the alderman earlier in the day. He came into the office and said he was going to kill Burnett as well as Mayor Rahm Emanuel. It's unclear what he was angry about.
  
  Burnett is currently serving his sixth term as alderman of the 27th Ward, which covers parts of the North and West sides.

Labels: we got nothing

• The number of people shot in Chicago so far this year has already passed 1,000, a grim milestone as gun violence in the city continues at a pace not seen since the 1990s.
  
  The city reached that dubious mark Wednesday, six to nine weeks earlier than in the previous four years, according to data compiled by the Tribune.
  
  The day saw one 14-hour stretch in which 13 people were shot, including a 4-year-old boy hit in the foot as he walked with his mother in the Lawndale neighborhood on the West Side. In the nearby Austin police district alone, four people were injured in three shootings during the day.
  
  The 1,000th gunshot victim appeared to be a 16-year-old boy who was wounded in the knee shortly before 4 p.m. near 131st Street and Champlain Avenue in the Altgeld Gardens public housing complex on the Far South Side.

Labels: crime, sarcasm AND silliness, stats

• The third-highest ranking member of the Chicago Fire Department resigned Wednesday after crashing a city-owned vehicle near Lake Shore Drive in Lincoln Park.
  
  John McNicholas, who ran the Bureau of Operations, was involved in a crash off Lake Shore Drive near North Avenue early Wednesday, according to an emailed statement from Chicago Fire Department spokesman Larry Langford.
  
  He was driving a CFD vehicle westbound on La Salle Drive just off Lake Shore at 12:50 a.m. when another vehicle cut him off, according to Chicago Police.
  
  The CFD vehicle swerved to avoid a collision, went over a curb and struck a utility pole, police said. No one was hurt.

Labels: fire fighters, scandals

• A state agency at the center of a scathing audit vowed it would follow through on findings that showed "significant breakdowns" in how it doled out anti-violence grants and oversaw spending.
  
  The auditor general on Tuesday released the 200-page audit that focused on the third and fourth years of the program overseen by the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority. In 2014, state auditors released a highly critical report that covered the program's first two years.
  
  Auditor General Frank Mautino, a former Democratic lawmaker, noted that the latest audit shows many of the problems continued with little accountability.
  
  "These are all very important programs," Mautino told the Tribune, adding that "you can't really show whether (the initiative) achieved the goals that it was supposed to do."

Labels: corruption

• Will the anti-cop Left please figure out what it wants? For more than a decade, activists have demanded the end of proactive policing, claiming that it was racist. Pedestrian stops—otherwise known as stop, question, and frisk—were attacked as a bigoted oppression of minority communities. In March 2015, for example, the ACLU of Illinois accused the Chicago Police Department of "targeting" minorities because stops are "disproportionately concentrated in the black community."
  
  Equally vilified was Broken Windows policing, which responds to low-level offenses such as graffiti, disorderly conduct, and turnstile jumping. Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King launched a petition after the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, demanding that Attorney General Eric Holder "meet with local black and brown youth across the country who are dealing with ‘Zero Tolerance’ and ‘Broken Windows’ policing."
  
  Well, the police got the message. In response to the incessant accusations of racism and the heightened hostility in the streets that has followed the Michael Brown shooting, officers have pulled back from making investigatory stops and enforcing low-level offenses in many urban areas. As a result, violent crime in cities with large black populations has shot up —homicides in the largest 50 cities rose nearly 17 percent in 2015. And the Left is once again denouncing the police—this time for not doing enough policing. King now accuses police in Chicago of not "doing their job," as a result of which "people are dying." Stops in Chicago are down nearly 90 percent this year through the end of March, compared with the same period in 2015; shootings were up 78 percent and homicides up 62 percent through April 10. Over 100 people were shot in the first ten days of 2016. King scoffs at the suggestion that a new 70-question street-stop form imposed on the CPD by the ACLU is partly responsible for the drop-off in engagement. If American police "refuse to do their jobs [i.e., make stops] when more paperwork is required," he retorts, "it’s symptomatic of an entirely broken system in need of an overhaul." This is the same King who as recently as October fumed that "nothing happening in this country appears to be slowing [the police] down."

Labels: info for the police

• Chicago taxpayers are shelling out 5ドル million-a-year to provide a uniform allowance to firefighters and paramedics that’s more like an "automatic cash bonus" because it’s "completely unmoored from any determination of actual need or use," Inspector General Joe Ferguson concluded Wednesday.
  
  Four years ago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel took aim at treasured union perks that included the clothing allowance; holiday and duty-availability pay; pay grades; premium pay; non-duty lay-up coverage; a physical fitness incentive and a 7-percent premium paid to cross-trained firefighter-paramedics.
  
  The mayor subsequently backed away from all of those concession demands in a pre-election contract that won him the surprise endorsement of a Chicago Firefighters Union Local 2 that had endorsed mayoral challenger Gery Chico over Emanuel in 2011.
  
  [...]
  
  In the audit, Ferguson examined 58,257 transactions valued at 1ドル.7 million over a one-year period ending on June 30, 2015 and found that 99.9 percent of those transactions adhered to department policy and management practices.

Labels: fire fighters, info for the police

• The family of a 16-year-old boy fatally shot by Chicago police during a chase on the West Side last week has filed a federal wrongful death lawsuit alleging the department's long-standing racist practices "result in the unjustified deaths of people of color."
  
  The lawsuit filed Wednesday alleges police had no justification to shoot Pierre Loury on April 11 and conspired with one another to give "false, misleading and incomplete versions" of the incident to make it look like officers were in imminent danger.
  
  The suit, brought by Loury's mother, Tambrasha Hudson, also cites a report by Mayor Rahm Emanuel's Police Accountability Task Force that found inherent racism in the department and an accountability system that is broken.

Labels: un-fucking-believable

• COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH)–"We’re brothers and sisters that take the same oath."
  
  Those were words spoken by Chicago Police Officer Steven Vidljinovic outside of St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church in Westerville.
  
  "Our job is dangerous," Vidljinovic said. "When the worst of the worst happens, we want to be there for anything that they need from us."
  
  Vidljinovic is one of three Chicago officers not only representing his department, but also the Brotherhood for the Fallen at Columbus Officer Steve Smith’s visitation and funeral.
  
  The Brotherhood for the Fallen has chapters in Chicago, in New York, and in Aurora, Colorado. Each chapter sends at least two members (police officers) to the funerals of every officer killed while serving his or her community.

Labels: officer down, out-of-state

• The gun industry has boomed over the past eight years resulting in a massive increase in gun-related jobs throughout the country.
  
  The number of full-time jobs in the firearms industry increased from about 166,000 in 2008 to nearly 288,000, according to a new report from the National Shooting Sports Foundation, or NSSF. That represents a 73 percent increase.
  
  In 2015 alone, the gun industry went from 263,223 jobs to 287,986, an increase of nearly 25,000 jobs.
  
  The NSSF estimates that the gun industry currently has a total economic impact of nearly 50ドル billion. That’s up 158 percent from 19ドル.1 billion in 2008. Wages in the industry rose 126 percent over the same time period. The average industry worker now receives 50,180ドル between wages and benefits.
  
  The gun industry has also generated record amounts of tax revenue for both the federal government and state governments in the past eight years. In 2015, the federal government collected 3ドル.7 billion in tax revenue, an increase of 144 percent since 2008. State governments saw nearly double the tax revenue over the same period. Excise taxes are also up 92 percent.

Labels: general

• Damond Dawson was "goofing around" with his brother and other relatives and friends, rapping and shooting video in Foster Park when two gunmen opened fire early Tuesday, killing Dawson and wounding four others, according to police and relatives.
  
  "Basically like an ambush," said Dawson's aunt, Angela Mathis-Tate, 44. "One coming west of the park and one coming south."
  
  The shooting happened around 2:20 a.m. as Dawson, 23, and a small group were "rapping around (taking) selfies with their phones" at Foster Park at 1440 W. 84th St., according to relatives.

• "They were very close," Mathis-Tate said. "It was like they were all brothers. They just hung out together, go to parties together, go to clubs."

• Some witnesses said the group was staging a party scene for a video titled "Two Tecs and a 50 Shot," but Mathis-Tate said they were just having some fun in the park.
  
  "He was really, you know, just goofing around, playing like he could rap a little bit," she said. "He wasn’t no rapper. He was a newcomer just trying to say some lyrics." He sometimes went by the name "Thugga," according to family and friends.

• "People out here (are) just shooting people, other kids, for no reason," she said. "It doesn’t mean anything to them but ‘oh yeah, let’s get this person.’ ... They don’t have no concern for life anymore."

Labels: sarcasm AND silliness

Labels: info for the police

• When Marty Flaska moved his forklift-manufacturing business to Illinois 18 years ago, he didn’t think to look at the cost of operating in other states. In 2014, out of curiosity, his son ran the numbers.
  
  "I didn’t believe him," said the elder Flaska. His son told him that a short drive east would save the business 2ドル million a year.
  
  Thus began the journey of Hoist Liftruck to greener pastures in Indiana; a move that resulted from policy mistakes that have made the Land of Lincoln a laggard state when it comes to forging well-paying manufacturing jobs.
  
  On March 31, Flaska cut the ribbon on a massive facility in East Chicago, Ind., the new home of Hoist. The Indiana factory will house nearly 300 manufacturing jobs transplanted from Bedford Park, as well as 200 new jobs Flaska plans to create. The average salary for one of those positions is 55,000ドル.

Labels: general

• Off topic: SCC can you address the fact that there have been a sudden large number of people stripped and that maybe it coincides to the report that requested IPRA be replaced. I would hate to think that IPRA is merely trying to justify their existence through an overuse of their power and using working police as their pawns.
  
  ===============
  
  37 people stripped in the past week and a half. All told they are being taken off the street until the pending investigation is closed. Smoke and mirrors at thr cost of guys thinking they are gonna get jammed up but in reality they are being used as "numbers". 99 percent of these people will be back on the street in 6 months but they still have to sit at call back which is not cool just to prove a point to the media and reverinds

Labels: from the comments, rumors

• Illinois' public school districts are roughly 20ドル billion in debt, a staggering figure fueled in part by decades of special deals in Springfield that have given districts exemptions so they can keep borrowing beyond limits set by law.
  
  Today, that debt exceeds long-term school borrowing in most other states. It equates to about 10,000ドル for every Pre-K to 12th-grade public school student in Illinois, a Tribune investigation has found.

• Chicago Public Schools CEO Forrest Claypool on Monday said the district would have to borrow more money to stay afloat, even as he pressed the teachers union to accept a four-year contract recommended by an independent fact-finder.
  
  The district's need for more borrowing goes beyond having to cover a new deal with teachers, Claypool said. "What I'm saying is, to keep the doors open," he said. "Not just to fund the contract."

Labels: money questions, un-fucking-believable

• Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration on Monday unveiled the details of its last-ditch plan to put "Star Wars" filmmaker George Lucas' museum along the lake, a lift so heavy the mayor might have to learn to summon The Force to make it happen.
  
  Not only would Emanuel have to persuade state lawmakers and the governor to let the agency that runs McCormick Place to borrow an additional 1ドル.2 billion, they'd also have to go along with five future tax hikes. In an election year. At a time when they can't even agree on a budget amid a partisan impasse the likes of which Springfield has never seen.
  
  Against that political backdrop, the mayor gamely continued the sales pitch on his complicated backup plan for the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, one that would see McCormick Place's Lakeside Center torn down, the futuristic-looking museum built in its place and a new convention building added west of Lake Shore Drive.

Labels: money questions

• The nicest weather weekend of the year thus far brought violence into focus once again in Chicago, leaving 3 dead and 28 injured in shootings across the city by Sunday evening. The victims included a 1-year-old girl wounded while riding in a car, a father of two killed outside his childhood home, and a police officer injured by a pellet gun.

Labels: crime, stats

• Part 1 = yes no yes yes
• Part 2 = yes no yes yes no
• Part 3 = no yes no no
• Part 4 = no yes no yes

Labels: sarcasm AND silliness

Labels: department issues

• A 16-year-old boy has been charged after a Chicago police officer was shot with a pellet gun late Friday on the West Side.
  
  The boy, who is not being identified because of his age, was charged as a juvenile with felony aggravated battery in a public place and aggravated assault, a misdemeanor, according to police.
  
  Three other people in custody were released without being charged, police said.
  
  About 10:30 p.m., the officer was working a vice operation near Madison Street and Cicero Avenue when the officer was wounded with a pellet gun, police said.
  
  During the incident, two officers, including the wounded officer, returned fire but missed, police said. A pellet gun was recovered at the scene, police said.

• A cop sees a gun, hears a pop or a hiss or some sort of report and feels an instant of pain.
• The copper might yell out "I've been hit/shot!"
• Not being regularly familiar with what a gunshot would might feel like, the officer and their partner return fire until the threat is removed/isolated/eliminated.

Labels: officer injured, shooting

Labels: sarcasm AND silliness

• The city of Chicago's inspector general is investigating allegations that three recently promoted police lieutenants, including the fiancee of Mayor Rahm Emanuel's hand-picked superintendent, were coached by a high-ranking police official who helped develop the qualifying test, sources said.
  
  The official is Eugene Williams, who oversees the department's administrative activities and was one of the three finalists for police superintendent passed over by Emanuel, according to the sources.
  
  Williams helped develop the lieutenants' exam and, before it was administered in August 2015, led a study group with several clouted sergeants who ended up being promoted after posting high exam scores, according to complaints filed with Inspector General Joseph Ferguson and the department's Internal Affairs Division. The Tribune obtained copies of both complaints.

Labels: promotions, scandals

• The Chicago Police and Fire Departments will make the switch from a paper-based time-keeping system to an electronic system that uses biometrics, as part of a citywide crackdown on absenteeism with a 10ドル million price tag.
  
  The Chicago Sun-Times reported last week that the Police Department spent a record 116ドル.1 million on overtime in 2015 — up 17.2 percent from the previous year — to mask a manpower shortage that has mushroomed under Mayor Rahm Emanuel, with police retirements outpacing hiring by 975 officers.
  
  On Thursday, Budget Director Alex Holt acknowledged that both the Police and Fire Departments, where overtime has also been a problem, are still using a paper system for tracking hours worked.
  
  That’s about to change, thanks to changes recommended by an "absenteeism task force" tied to Emanuel’s tax-laden 2016 budget.

Labels: we got nothing

• A 1-year-old girl was shot in the head while riding in the back seat of a car in the 5400-block of West Le Moyne with her aunt and niece Friday afternoon in Chicago's Austin neighborhood.
  
  Neighbors say they heard several shots Friday afternoon.
  
  Police say the girl was in the back seat of the car around 4:45 p.m. when someone in a silver vehicle drove past and began firing shots at the car. The bullets went through the trunk and back seat and hit the girl in the head.

Labels: crime, sarcasm AND silliness

• I attended Compstat yesterday and two things stood out. Eddie got up to speak, and one of the first things he addressed was the Blue Ribbon Report. He said he'd really like to respond to it, but it seems as though the newspapers got a copy of the full report before he did. As of yesterday, he still had not been given a copy. He had an interesting message about the report though. He said, "no matter what is in that report, it does not define us. We need to see what's happening now, and move forward not look back". I thought that was pretty stand up.
  
  The next thing out of his mouth had to have a few sphincters tightening. He talked about how the contact card numbers were basically bullshit and how you can't compare them to ISR numbers. He said the ISR thing would "work itself out" over time. In the meantime, and I quote, "With that said, I better not hear of anyone in this room threatening to split up partners or dump people off of their cars for not writing ISR's". I looked over at Kulbida and his head snapped down. Escamilla looked like he wanted the floor of the multipurpose room to open up and swallow him. I know Johnson and Kulbida have a history. No doubt in my mind that Johnson has heard about Kublida and Escamilla's antics. The man made a statement. You'd have to be stone deaf not to have heard it.

Labels: department issues

• Angelo said changes to the rigid process that must be followed to discipline wayward officers are possible, only after the five-year union contract expires on June 30, 2017. And changes will happen then, only if the city gives the union something in return.
  
  "Anybody who wants to discuss the contract or impact the language that’s in there right now will have to come to the process of negotiations...When we start negotiations in June 2017, I’m sure the city will come to us with a list of items, and we’ll also have a list of items," Angelo said.

Labels: FOP

• Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, who oversees one of the nation's most crowded jails, voluntarily released video Friday that shows half a dozen incidents of excessive force by deputies at the county jail, saying the public has a right to see it.
  
  The videos show violent encounters between jailers and inmates, including one in which an inmate is dragged through hallways by several officers, thrown into a cell and left with blood spattered on his shirt. Another shows two officers pushing a detainee to the ground with one of the jailers kicking him in the shoulders or face. Thirteen officers were fired or otherwise disciplined over the incidents.

• Union Poll conducted Shows 96% of Sheriff officers have 'No faith' in Sheriff Dart to provide a safe and secure working environment.
  
  [A] Cook County Division 10 Correction officer was pulled into a cell last week by three inmates and severely beating needing facial reconfiguration surgery. Teamsters local 700 is demanding the release of that video.
  
  Teamsters Local 700 received calls today from both ABC Channel 7 and NBC Channel 5 regarding the Cook County Department of Corrections videos that were released to the media. We wanted to share this with the membership so you can see what we submitted versus what they actually use in the news segments, which will air today at 5 p.m.
  
  Teamsters Local 700 sees this as nothing but a political move by Tom Dart, who is clearly seeking a public office position other than being Sheriff. After several years as in his current position, Dart has now decided to be transparent concerning these alleged excessive force incidents which makes us ask more questions:
  
  Why are the inmates faces blacked out and not the officers?
  Why doesn’t he show all the videos of incidents where inmates are attacking officers?
  Where are all the videos of inmates sexually assaulting our officers?
  Where’s the video of the Division 2 altercation last week where nearly 100 detainees rioted and our officers had to do everything in their power to stop it?

Labels: county

• The president of the largest Chicago police union on Thursday blasted a new report that recommends broad reforms within the department, calling the report one-sided and unfair to officers.
  
  Dean Angelo Sr., president of the Fraternal Order of Police, said he thinks members of Mayor Rahm Emanuel's hand-picked Police Accountability Task Force made up their minds about police before studying the issues. The report, written in occasionally scalding language, cites statistics and historic events as it calls out the department for alleged racial bias and indifference to the problems of residents.
  
  [...] "I believe they had an agenda or a built-in bias going in," Angelo said. "And I don't see the need to do that when the Department of Justice are the subject matter experts, not the task force."

• The report, which encourages the dismantling and replacement of the city's police oversight agency, focuses heavily on changes that could be made to union contracts. Those suggested changes include allowing anonymous complaints against officers and removing the right of police to amend their statements after reviewing video or audio recordings during the investigative process, according to the report.

• A "biased" report that portrays the Chicago Police Department as racist will cause already low police morale to take another nosedive, the police union president said Thursday.
  
  Dean Angelo, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, also ruled out immediate changes to a collective bargaining agreement that a mayoral task force says turns a "code of silence into official policy."

• On Thursday, Angelo made it clear that changes to the disciplinary process won’t come without a fight. He dismissed anonymous complaints as "generally baseless."
  
  "Our contract protects all of our members and secures just cause in the process of discipline and separation and any other type of internal or external allegations. Those protections are there because of abuse that has occurred in the past discipline-wise," he said.
  
  "Affidavits are there to protect officers from unfounded or just arbitrary allegations. If you and I are working in a gang-infested area and we’re constantly locking people up for narcotics and guns and confiscating money, their way to get back at you is to complain. If you don’t have a process in place where you have to identify yourself and actively participate in allegations you’re making against an officer, you could just speed-dial complaint after complaint to IPRA. You could complain nonstop."
  
  As for the rule giving officers 24 hours before they have to give a statement about a shooting, Angelo said it’s not unusual. He noted the federal government has a 72-hour time-out for officers involved in shootings. Other big-city police departments have a 48-hour waiting period.

• "If you look at crimes and murders, gun, narcotics and homicide arrests ward by ward, the top 10 wards in the city are over 80 percent African-American. That’s where the officers are assigned and that’s where more contact occurs. Officers aren’t responding to neighborhoods of color. They’re responding to neighborhoods of crime."

Labels: FOP, info for the police

Labels: sarcasm AND silliness

• There's a new push to tax you based on the number of miles you drive.
  
  Gas tax revenue has fallen in Illinois, so this would be a way to make money off everyone, including hybrid and electric car drivers. But some critics worry about how the government will monitor the miles you drive.
  
  [...] State Senate leader John Cullerton is pushing for a 1.5 cent per mile tax to fund road repairs, saying with more people driving fuel-efficient vehicles and electric vehicles, gas tax revenue is on the decline.

Labels: money questions

• Two weeks ago, the Chicago Teachers Union hosted a rally designed to gin up support for a potential teacher strike.
  
  The rally included closing remarks from a teacher — not a union member because she teaches at a private school — who yelled into the microphone, "F--- the police, f--- CPD, f--- the FOP. F--- the police and everybody f------ with them."
  
  Yes, a rally hosted by educators and attended by many children who were out of school that day ended with an important lesson. One fool can cast a long shadow.
  
  The remarks drew immediate rebuke from the Fraternal Order of Police, the union representing police officers, along with many Chicago Public Schools teachers who support CTU's broad agenda but not its radicalization.

Labels: general

Labels: sarcasm AND silliness

• The Chicago Police Department must acknowledge its racist history and overhaul its handling of excessive force allegations before true reforms can take place, according to a scathing draft report from the task force established by Mayor Rahm Emanuel following public unrest over the Laquan McDonald video.
  
  The Police Accountability Task Force's report — which is scheduled to be released as early as this week — blisters both the Police Department and its primary oversight agency, blaming them for a "broken" system rooted in racial bias and indifference. It also targets the collective bargaining agreements between the city and police union for turning the "code of silence into official policy," according to a draft of the executive summary obtained by the Tribune.
  
  The 18-page executive summary recommends abolishing the Independent Police Review Authority, which investigates allegations of officer misconduct, and implementing a citywide reconciliation process beginning with the "superintendent publicly acknowledging CPD's history of racial disparity and discrimination."

• The task force amassed data that shows the extent to which African-Americans appear to have been disproportionately focused on by the police. In a city where whites, blacks and Hispanics each make up about one-third of the population, 74 percent of the 404 people shot by the Chicago police between 2008 and 2015 were black, the report said. Black people were the subjects in 72 percent of the thousands of investigative street stops that did not lead to arrests during the summer of 2014.

• While those 404 people of all colors were being shot by the Chicago Police over a seven year time frame, how many people (or folks) were shot by other folks (or people) of color? The homicide numbers alone are over three-thousand. The shooting numbers are ten-or-fifteen-thousand.

Labels: dumb ideas, info for the police

• In what would be a reversal from four years ago, Chicago police are considering posting violent-crime detectives out of a West Side police facility as homicides and shootings rise sharply in nearby neighborhoods.
  
  Since the old Harrison Area detective bureau was shut down for budget reasons in 2012, detectives have had to travel from the Area North bureau to investigate violent incidents on the West Side.

• The Chicago Police Department is set to announce that virtually every detective who is currently assigned to work murder, rape, robbery, burglary, and most other high-priority investigations will be moving out of the Area North Headquarters at Belmont and Western on Monday morning. Their new base of operations will be more than five miles south—at Harrison and Kedzie in a building that served as headquarters for the now-defunct Area 4.
  
  [...] Under the new assignments, every homicide, robbery, rape, and burglary detective in the city will be based south of the Eisenhower Expressway. [emphasis added]

Labels: department issues

• A Chicago City Council panel took action Tuesday to temporarily change the process for selecting the city's top cop and fast-track Mayor Rahm Emanuel's choice for new police superintendent.
  
  After a mini-debate over whether to bypass the Chicago Police Board, the Chicago City Council Public Safety Committee held what amounted to a confirmation hearing for superintendent-to-be Eddie Johnson.
  
  [...] Johnson did not apply for the superintendent's job, but was tapped by Mayor Emanuel after rejecting the three candidates nominated by the Chicago Police Board after a nearly three-months-long, half-million-dollar nationwide search.
  
  The council's public safety committee debated whether to temporarily suspend the law requiring the mayor to select from police board recommended candidates so Johnson can get the job.

Labels: city politics

• Karen Winters knows how easily boys are drawn to a life of violence in the Homan Square neighborhood.
  
  But she still can't understand how her 16-year-old nephew ended up shot to death after allegedly threatening a Chicago police officer with a gun during a brief foot chase Monday night.

• A woman who said she witnessed the shooting told the Tribune the teen was shot as he was scaling a fence.
  
  "They shot him in the air," she said. "His pants leg got caught on the fence and he hit the ground. If he hadn't gotten shot, he would have cleared the fence."

• The woman spoke on condition of anonymity, saying she feared backlash from police. She said she had denied to police that night that she had seen anything.

• An autopsy showed the teen suffered a gunshot wound to the chest.

• Winters said she found reports of her nephew carrying a gun hard to believe and described his past brushes with the law as "small, minor incidents."

Labels: shooting