Second City Cop

Labels: events, un-fucking-believable

Labels: blogging

Labels: events

Labels: scc responds

• Groot threw together some sort of parking ban downtown, but then someone scattered cops all over the place in groups of ten or fifteen, leaving pockets of isolated officers when hundreds and thousands of assholes descended on them;
• dumpsters being wheeled into the streets as barricades....for the rioters. Streets and San should have been out all night with flatbeds sweeping these things up and parking them at Soldier Field;
• squads parked so close to the line of march that guerilla attackers slashed dozens tires rendering them inoperable for moving officers around anywhere and easily set ablaze...and tow trucks were unable to access the area;
• the 10-1's all over the radio were only a hint at what a disaster this is turning out to be;
• Cops losing equipment, hats, cuffs, vests;
• A sergeant with a broken wrist yesterday, and other with a broken arm Saturday;
• cops being dragged into the crowd and beaten;
• not to mention eggs, bottles, rocks, etc....and no helmets until Saturday;
• rioters attempting to flip multiple occupied wagons - something that hasn't been done since the Humboldt Park riots of the 70's we think;
• Car 44 refused....REFUSED....to send Area 4 Incident Teams downtown until after 2030 hours

Labels: events

• You'll have to go to this link here

Labels: sarcasm AND silliness

Labels: blogging

Labels: un-fucking-believable

Labels: blogging

• Governor Pritzker, during today’s Daily Briefing, announced new guidance for religious institutions in Illinois.
  
  These "guidelines" effectively remove any previous mandates he thought he had placed on them, and replaced the mandates with "guidance."
  
  This move was hours prior to his response deadline to the United States Supreme Court in the case of Elim Romanian Pentecostal Church and Logos Baptist Ministries v. Jay R. Pritzker, which was seeking an emergency injunction prior to May 31, 2020. Read the Emergency Application for Writ of Injunction to the SCOTUS

Labels: events, good news

• The Chicago Police Department is adding 100 officers to patrol the streets beginning next month, pulling them from desk jobs, officials said Friday.
  
  The new assignments come as the warmer weather brings the threat of more violence. During the long Memorial Day weekend, more than 50 people were shot in the city. The following day, at least 28 more people were shot.
  
  Fifteen percent of sworn officers currently working at police headquarters will be permanently reassigned to the city’s 22 patrol districts on June 7. This will not include officers working on functions related to a federally mandated consent decree to improve the city’s policing practices.

• Officers tapped to work the streets from headquarters will be deployed "on a rotating two-week schedule," according to a statement from the department.

Labels: department issues

• He’s still holding some cards. The best play for him is to be straight up, call out Lightfoot and say, "I took this job with the intent that I would be able to run the department, not the mayor run the department using me as a mouthpiece. If she has a better idea, with all of her vast experience being a police officer, maybe she should just appoint herself mayor AND superintendent of police, because that is what she is doing now. And she can enjoy the failures of trying to do the impossible for the ungrateful.
  
  We have so many great people in Chicago, but those individuals, the ones who are doing their duty as citizens, neighbors, parents, Mayor Lightfoot is not concerned about those people. She is only concerned about those who will never follow rules, laws, or basic elements of human decency, and misplaces the blame on the police Department instead of where it actually lies, in entire communities of individuals who have no regard for common decency or human life." There you go, superintendent Brown. I wrote your speech for you. If you came out and said that, her firing you would appear retaliatory in nature setting you up for amazing public image and maybe some coin coming your way.
  
  You are holding an Ace, play it.

Labels: from the comments

• Two 19-year-old women were shot to death Thursday while sitting in a parked vehicle in South Chicago.
  
  They were in the 8700 block of South Essex Avenue about 8:36 p.m when someone opened fire, Chicago police said.
  
  One woman was shot in the back and hand, police said. The other woman was shot in her head.

Labels: crime, stats

• ....sent this evening from commander of area central
  
  Good evening all,
  
  The Department will no longer use force to disperse large gatherings. Until further notice, large gatherings will only be monitored until the crowd disperse on it's own. Please ensure that all supervisors under your command are made aware of this instruction.
  
  Thank you,

Labels: department issues

Labels: promotions, rumors, scandals

• David Brown failed his first major test as Chicago’s police superintendent because he was more concerned with cutting overtime than fighting violence and failed to share his Memorial Day weekend plans with local leaders, an influential alderman said Thursday.
  
  Mayor Lori Lightfoot has condemned the "out of control" violence that turned Memorial Day weekend into a "bloodbath" and held Brown personally responsible. The chairman of the City Council’s Committee on Public Safety went even further.
  
  Ald. Chris Taliaferro (29th), a former Chicago Police officer, said the former Dallas police chief turned his first holiday weekend in Chicago into "a fail," as Lightfoot put it, by putting hundreds fewer moonlighting officers on the street than the 1,200 additional officers who worked last Memorial Day weekend.

• In her afternoon news conference, Lightfoot blamed disgruntled cops upset about cuts in police overtime for spreading a false rumor that there were 1,000 fewer police officers on the street. But she also contradicted Brown, saying "In fact, there were more officers on the street this weekend" than in prior years.

• According to Taliaferro, the edict was on full display over Memorial Day weekend. There were "hundreds" fewer officers on the street when there should have been at least as many as last year, maybe more, to "saturate" South and West Side police districts plagued by gang and gun violence, the alderman said. The Chicago Police Department should also have used "outside units" from the State Police and Cook County Sheriff’s office, Taliaferro said.
  
  "The mistake was cutting back on officers. There were a lot fewer. ... It did not rise to the level of what we had the last several years. And that’s why we saw an increase in violence," Taliaferro said. "You need to have those officers on the street during holiday periods — especially when we’ve been sheltered in place for two-and-a-half months. We can worry about cutting back on overtime Tuesday through Thursday."

Labels: city politics, department issues

• For the second straight day, a large crowd confronted Chicago police officers as they arrested someone on gun charges.
  
  The latest incident happened about 10:30 p.m. Wednesday as police were dispersing about 100 people attending a memorial in the 2700 Block of West Flournoy Street in the Lawndale neighborhood. Officers saw a man with a gun who ran from them and threw the weapon underneath a car, police said in a statement. They took him into custody and placed him into a police car, but a crowd surrounded it "and began pulling on the doors in an attempt to release the offender while interfering and obstructing the officers," police said.
  
  The car was able to leave the scene and no injuries were reported. Five people were arrested on charges ranging from aggravated battery to a police officer to resisting arrest and disorderly conduct. The suspect initially taken into custody was charged with unlawful use of a weapon by a felon, police said.

Labels: un-fucking-believable

• Chicago Police Supt. David Brown has ordered all Chicago Police officers to undergo mandatory training on "positional asphyxiation" in light of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
  
  "I want to make it clear that this behavior is not acceptable in Chicago, will not be tolerated under my command, and quite frankly has no place in law enforcement anywhere," Brown said in a statement Thursday.

Labels: department issues, new super

Labels: department issues, safety issues

Labels: department issues

Labels: we got nothing

• Dispatch is actually sending canine to disperse crowd in 003.
  
  "Surge" cars and 006 at 75th and DRexel for a crowd of 200 plus

Labels: department issues

• The violence that marked Chicago’s Memorial Day weekend spilled into the week, with 23 people shot between Tuesday afternoon and early Wednesday, including a 5-year-old girl and two teenage boys.
  
  [...]
  
  The shootings occurred from the Far South Side to the Northwest Side and a follow a long holiday weekend that saw at least 10 people killed and 40 others wounded. It was the deadliest Memorial Day weekend in five years, and prompted Mayor Lori Lightfoot to publicly rebuke her new police superintendent, a little more than a month on the job.
  
  Five men were killed over 10 hours Tuesday and early Wednesday across the city.

Labels: crime, stats

• The accusations against the police department prompted a response from Mayor Lori Lightfoot who said they are fundamentally untrue.
  
  "Those dispersal orders are happening all over the city – and yes, in white, areas, Latinx, in monied areas," Lightfoot said. "Why the media doesn’t cover that I think there’s some answers to that."

• Chief of Operations Fred Waller defended the Chicago Police Department’s handling of crowd dispersals. "CPD was also on hand for a large gathering Monday in Grant Park," Waller said. "As you can see, our officers were busy in all parts of the city. We need to do better and we will do better."

• However activist and Catholic priest, the Rev. Michael Pfleger, pastor at St. Sabina in Auburn-Gresham, said the difference in tactics is clear as black-and-white. "We’ve got to end that culture, whether its two different ways people are treated based on your race and the color of your skin," he said.

• behavior

• Seeking to knock down a Republican talking point on the 40ドル billion state spending plan passed over the weekend, Illinois Comptroller Susana Mendoza released a video Wednesday declaring that legislators won’t be getting raises in the budget year that begins July 1.
  
  "Some state legislators seem to think they’ll be getting a pay raise this year," Mendoza says in the minute-long video. "The answer is: No, they won’t."
  
  As debate over the budget stretched into the early-morning hours Sunday, some Republicans in the Illinois House and Senate objected to the lack of language specifically blocking the automatic cost-of-living raises legislators are granted under state law.
  
  [...] While it’s true that no such language was included, the budget lawmakers approved would not provide any money to cover the cost of legislator raises, which means they won’t be seeing a pay bump, according to Mendoza, a Chicago Democrat whose job includes writing lawmakers’ paychecks. "Here’s how much money the General Assembly appropriated for legislator raises ... in this year’s budget: Zero," Mendoza says in the video. "Which means, here’s how much more money I will be putting in their paychecks this year: Zero."

Labels: state politics

• These "contact tracers" are a ready made patronage army to run around and "harvest" absentee ballots in democrat-rich sections of Chicago

Labels: dumb ideas

• Longtime Chicago investigative reporter Pam Zekman’s 39-year run at CBS 2 Chicago ended Wednesday.
  
  Zekman was among 12 or more reporters, anchors and other employees laid off by the local CBS television affiliate WBBM, as first reported by the Daily Herald’s Robert Feder.
  
  Other layoffs included news anchor Erin Kennedy, sports anchor Megan Mawicke, meteorologist Megan Glaros and reporters Mike Puccinelli and Mai Martinez.

Labels: media

• Mayor Lori Lightfoot publicly scolded her new police superintendent Tuesday for not coming up with a good enough strategy to contain violence over the Memorial Day weekend, the deadliest in five years, though she acknowledged the department is facing its greatest challenge in decades.
  
  "While I know that there was a lot of energy and coordination among a variety of groups, what I said to the superintendent this morning is this was a fail," Lightfoot said. "And whatever the strategy is, it didn’t work ... This weekend’s violence was out of control."
  
  At least 10 people were shot to death and at least 40 others were wounded by gunfire over the long weekend, despite a statewide stay-at-home order and a plan by Superintendent David Brown to step up patrols and better coordinate their deployment across the city.

• Yo I seen HUNDREDS of ppl at millennium park and and pics of even more at the parks on the north side. Outside, no masks, no social distancing, enjoying themselves. Please stop sending large groups of militarized police into our neighborhoods exclusively

• In her afternoon news conference, Lightfoot blamed disgruntled cops upset about cuts in police overtime for spreading a false rumor that there were 1,000 fewer police officers on the street. But she also contradicted Brown, saying "In fact, there were more officers on the street this weekend" than in prior years.

• After a meeting at City Hall two weeks ago to date, Brown calls West and Riccio to his office. He demands a cost-benefit-analysis of manpower vs. shootings v. OT because LL has given him marching orders to curb ALL overtime. Hence this weekends bloodbath.

Labels: department issues, events

Labels: sarcasm AND silliness, we got nothing

• Mayor Lori Lightfoot announced 56ドル million in funding to go towards a request for proposal to expand contact tracing in Chicago.
  
  Mayor Lightfoot said the money is coming from the Illinois Department of Public Health and the CDC and that 85 percent of the funding will go towards at least 30 community organizations that serve communities experiencing high economic hardship.
  
  [...]
  
  The neighborhood organizations will hire a workforce of 600 contact tracers, supervisors and referral coordinators, who will have the capacity to trace 4,500 new contacts per day.
  
  The contact tracing process begins with interviewing a person who tested positive and then identifying people who they were in contact with. Public health officials will then get in touch with those individuals to urge them to get tested and, if necessary, self-quarantine. It also allows the state to track the progress of the virus and its spread.
  
  Contact tracers can earn 20ドル an hour with supervisors earning 24ドル an hour. All positions will also come with full benefits.

Labels: dumb ideas, money questions

• "We will shut you down. We will cite you and if we need to, we will arrest you and we will take you to jail. Period. Don’t make us treat you like a criminal, but if you act like a criminal and you violate the law and you refuse to do what is necessary to save lives in this city during a pandemic we will take you to jail, period."

Labels: sarcasm AND silliness

Labels: events, un-fucking-believable

Labels: events, un-fucking-fucking-believable

• Nine people are dead and 30 others wounded so far in weekend shootings in Chicago — the deadliest Memorial Day weekend since 2015, when 12 people were killed.
  
  Despite the state’s stay-at-home order, the weekend’s death toll has already surpassed last year’s holiday weekend, when seven people were killed and 34 were injured during the period from 5 p.m. Friday through 5 a.m. Tuesday.
  
  In 2018, seven people died and 30 others were wounded. In 2017, six people were killed and 44 others were wounded. In 2016, six people were killed and 56 wounded.
  
  At the beginning of Memorial Day weekend — the unofficial start of summer — Chicago Police Supt. David Brown announced opening a Summer Operations Center to centralize police resources in an effort to tamp down on summer gun violence.

Labels: crime, stats

• Two Chicago police officers were injured while trying to disperse a crowd Sunday in Englewood on the South Side.
  
  They were responding to the gathering about 9:42 p.m. in the 7000 block of South Lowe Avenue, Chicago police said. One officer noticed a male holding a gun, and a chase ensued. He was taken into custody a short time later.
  
  Shots were fired in the area, and a second male was taken into custody, police said. No one was hit by gunfire and a gun was recovered.
  
  During the incident, two officers suffered minor injuries and were taken to hospitals in good condition, police said.

• A Chicago police officer was hurt after being struck by a vehicle during a traffic stop Monday in Woodlawn on the South Side.
  
  The female officer tried to grab documentation from a female driver about 2:20 p.m. in the 6300 block of South Vernon Avenue when the driver sped off and struck the officer, Chicago police said.
  
  She was taken to a hospital in good condition with non-life threatening injuries, police said.

Labels: officer injured

Labels: dumb ideas, un-fucking-believable

Labels: events

• With likely hundreds of millions to be raked in from the taxpayers in a purported quest to restore constitutional policing in Chicago, several recent crises are quickly revealing that the consent decree imposed upon the Chicago Police is one of the greatest frauds ever perpetuated on the city.
  
  And it’s about time those who created it and oversee it, like court-appointed special monitor, Maggie Hickey, be held accountable.
  
  Even in its gestation, anyone with any political sensibility could see the move to impose a consent decree on Chicago had nothing to do with the Constitution and everything to do with the politicization of the Justice Department under President Obama and his lackey attorney generals. As the DOJ under Obama announced an investigation into the police on the claim that officers regularly violate constitutional rights, the report revealed no methodology or serious statistic gathering, just the usual collection of arbitrary numbers and anecdotes manipulated to claim the police are racist because they are more active in certain minority communities than others.
  
  The report conveniently left out the crucial fact that the increased police presence was a response to increased violent crime. Rather than conduct a fair, circumspect investigation, the DOJ report employed the race card that has become the sole bargaining chip of the political left, particularly Obama’s administration.

Labels: info for the police

• In 2017, well before COVID hit and just before the clusterfuck that was the "pop tax," CCDOC officers signed a contract with the county board. Not including some gains they made in language to the Contract, on the financial side (the side negotiated with Preckwinkle not Dart), they agreed to defer step increases for everyone, for 3 fiscal years. This caused over 65% of the correctional staff and supervisors to receive no step increase for that time. They got a 1200ドル bonus the first year, then a 2% raise and then a 2% raise again. That's it. Their initial proposal will be even more draconian, but this is what the county will eventually demand from the union this summer:
  
  - Health care premiums will double (as a percentage paid every check)
  - Step increases deferred for an additional 2 years, then only 2 step increases allowed in the last year (meaning if you got hired new and haven't received a step increase and are expecting say 3 of them, you only get 2... further deferring raises and driving down unfunded liabilities in the future).
  - Dramatic increase in 12-hour shifts (less officers needed by 30% for the same post, etc).
  - A one-time medical buy-back of 100%, up to 200 hours, per officer. (Intended to deplete the amount of medical each officer carries on the books, making it harder for them to call in medical in the future over time).
  
  And the kickers?
  - TWO unpaid furlough days, PER MONTH, for a year.
  - NO Raises over 3 years...... 1500ドル bonus each year instead.
  
  If not: 10% layoffs for every merit rank (ie: 300~ OFCs, 20-25 SGTs, 10 LTs), and mandatory 3-4 unpaid furlough days per month, for everyone. Hiring freeze and promotional freezes to follow (not counting bosses). And even scarier, civilian directors will run divisions and units. The county figured out that with the reduction in inmate population, you could close several divisions and need less bosses. Superintendents will be a thing of the past. Civilian directors will oversee everyone, working largely as a panel group, instead of direct control over a specific group of people.

Labels: county, money questions

• State Representative Charlie Meier (R-Okawville) was disappointed with the Illinois General Assembly’s action following the emergency session which ended after midnight on May 24th in Springfield. The legislative session ended with lawmakers receiving a pay raise, a budget which spent billions the state doesn’t have and they skipped town without a vote to safely reopen Illinois earlier than Governor Pritzker’s ‘Restore Illinois’ plan.
  
  "With less revenue for state government and record unemployment, it makes zero sense for the legislature to give themselves a pay raise and spend money the state doesn’t have," said Rep. Meier. "I voted against the state budget because it makes promises the state can’t afford to keep. With billions in debt and less revenue for the state, now more than ever must our state government tighten its belt and stop digging ourselves deeper into debt."
  
  The State of Illinois owes more than 7ドル.4 billion in unpaid bills, with 74,064 invoices waiting to be paid. Illinois’ estimated revenue for Fiscal Year 2021 which begins July 1, 2020, and ends July 1, 2021 is 36ドル.8 billion. Yet, the Democrat-controlled legislature approved a 42ドル.8 billion budget which included borrowing 5ドル billion. The legislature anticipates Governor Pritzker will sign the budget very soon.

Labels: state politics, un-fucking-fucking-believable

• SCC,
  
  In order to have more bodies answering calls and have a greater presence on the streets, to go with the disbanding of Narcotics, 05 cars are now a thing of the past along with "security" cars and stuff. Each beat car will be responsible for the parks on their beats.

Labels: department issues

• Courtney Lewis, the pastor of Cornerstone Baptist Church in Chicago, was in the middle of his sermon when he heard loud banging on front doors. It was the police and they were denied entry into the sanctuary. Mayor Lori Lightfoot had dispatched three squad cards and two unmarked cars filled with armed officers. A representative from the mayor’s office was also present.
  
  [...] Pastor Lewis said the intent was to shut down their Sunday services. It was "like the Soviet-style KGB," he said. "The only thing she hasn’t done yet is beat the doors down and arrest our members," the pastor said.
  
  Pastor Lewis tells the Todd Starnes Radio Show that the men of the church were instructed not to open the doors during the services — per protocol.

Labels: dumb ideas, events, rumors

• A Chicago Police Department commander this week was reminded of a very important rule: Never get on the mayor’s bad side. The consequences for Commander of Narcotics Ronald Kimble have been swift and unmistakable. CPD is famous — or perhaps infamous — for giving "soft landings" to connected leaders who go astray. Assigning the wayward executive to a do-nothing placeholder post is common.
  
  But Kimble has taken an exceptionally hard landing. He’s been demoted to lieutenant, moved to the midnight shift, and reassigned to the 24th District in Rogers Park — giving him a daily 23-mile cross-city commute from his home on the Far South Side, according to a CPD source.
  
  [...]
  
  Kimble’s boss in narcotics, Deputy Chief William Bradley, has also been returned to the rank of lieutenant. He’ll now be reporting to work at a district station on the Northwest Side.

Labels: department issues

• The Illinois House on Saturday passed legislation changing the tax structure for a Chicago casino that Mayor Lori Lightfoot has been pushing for the past year.
  
  The legislation also would extend from two to six years the amount of time casino’s owners would have to make a reconciliation payment, another change Lightfoot has pushed.
  
  That legislation now heads to the Senate, where its future is uncertain, as lawmakers work into the holiday weekend to attempt to pass a state budget during a special pandemic-driven session.
  
  There was some bipartisan support in the House for the casino bill Saturday, when the measure cleared with a 77-32 vote. It’s the furthest Lightfoot’s proposed Chicago casino changes have gotten in the General Assembly to date.

Labels: money questions

• Two men and two juveniles are charged with trying to rob an off-duty Chicago police sergeant just steps from the 19th District police station in Lakeview. One of the accused adults, a long time menace in the Boystown area, is on parole for robbery and for stealing the wallet of a dying man at the Loyola Red Line station.
  
  [...]
  
  In January 2018, [multiple convicted felon Derrick Robie] was charged with robbing a man at the Morse Red Line station. Even though Robie was charged with Class X felony armed robbery, Cook County Judge Stephanie Miller released him on his own recognizance with electronic monitoring.
  
  A few days later, detectives arrested Robie after they determined that he stole a wallet from a man’s pants pocket while the victim lay dying at the Loyola Red Line station earlier in the month. The victim was alone when he fell down the station’s staircase, lost consciousness, and later died, police said at the time. CTA video captured images of Robie and another man rifling through the dying man’s pockets, stealing his wallet, and leaving him without summoning help.

Labels: crime, scandals

Labels: crime, stats

• That means Chicago has to move slow to prevent the virus from spreading and more lives being lost, Lightfoot said. She emphasized Thursday she doesn’t care if nearby cities like Evanston or bordering states like Wisconsin are opening up, saying all of Chicago’s reopening decisions would be made using data and science to protect people.
  
  "When I find myself in the circumstance of calling the survivors of people who have died, I don’t want their deaths to be in vain because we are so fixated on a moment of pleasure that can impact our city for a lifetime," Lightfoot said. "And, yeah, I will say the same thing that I tell my 12-year-old: I don’t care what other people do. You’re my kid.

• You are a flunky hired by the voters on a temporary basis to oversee the day-to-day functions of government - picking up the trash, clearing out the garbage, making sure the streets are swept, trees are trimmed, sewers are draining, snow gets plowed, fires get put out, cops behave. You designate people to run these departments on our behalf - they report to you (the buck stopping at your desk and all that). If you don't do it, we vote for someone else who will. "Consent of the governed" is an important phrase you might want to learn.
  
  You are not our ruler.
  
  You are not our master.
  
  We are not twelve, you are not our mother and we are rapidly tiring of your bullshit.

Labels: un-fucking-believable

• A lieutenant and 4 POs were stripped in 007 last night. It turns out the rocket science LT decided to "release without charging" the piece of shit copper that fired off his weapon and battered several of the POs last week.
  
  He felt 4 white cops on a black OFFENDER was racist on the part of the white coppers. He convinced the 4 POs with no time on the job to not sign a complaint.
  
  The moron has only been a lieutenant for 2 weeks.

Labels: from the comments, rumors, scandals

Labels: events, new super, silly people

• Point by point, the judge in downstate Clay County on Friday ticked off the many ways he found Gov. J.B. Pritzker’s stay-at-home order had devolved into "insanity" and become "completely devoid of anything approaching common sense."
  
  Clay County Judge Michael McHaney complained that recently legalized pot shops had been deemed essential over generations-old family businesses. People had been led to believe they could avoid COVID-19 at Walmart but not at church.
  
  And to top it off, McHaney complained that Pritzker’s family members had traveled between Illinois and Florida and Wisconsin during the coronavirus pandemic, contrary to Pritzker’s own stay-at-home order. The judge said, "when laws do not apply to those who make them, people are not being governed, they are being ruled."
  
  "Americans don’t get ruled," McHaney said.

• Despite that fiery speech given in a courtroom 230 miles south of Chicago — pleasing many in the gallery — McHaney declined to undo Pritzker’s stay-at-home order statewide. He instead ruled narrowly, granting a temporary restraining order only to an individual Clay City business and its owner.

Labels: events

• Chicago won't be ready May 29. Why not? What has Groot been doing these last 2 months? Why no recovery plan?

Labels: events, money questions

• 12 dead, 35 wounded

Labels: crime, stats

• Doug Dunlay was "absolutely thrilled" when Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced Wednesday that restaurants could start serving customers on their patios as soon as May 29, the day his current stay-at-home order expires.
  
  Dunlay, the owner of Smoke Daddy in Wicker Park, said he and his team immediately sprang into action and started mapping out the restaurant’s patio to adhere to the state’s social distancing guidelines. After struggling for months after the COVID-19 pandemic took hold, he said the announcement marked "the first time we actually had any hope."
  
  So when Mayor Lori Lightfoot told reporters Thursday that she doesn’t think Chicago restaurants will be ready to reopen by next week, Dunlay said he felt as if she "pulled the carpet out from under us."
  
  "I think it’s short-sighted and I think it’s a slap in the face or a gut punch," said Dunlay.
  
  While Lightfoot said she hopes to have restaurant patios up-and-running by next month, she noted that the process has to be done safely and steps must first be taken to maximize the revenues of restaurants that have been hit hard by the pandemic and will now have to limit capacities.

• We were told that states lifting their lockdowns would bring about untold tragedy, death, overflowing hospitals, and general destruction of civilization, yet according to a new study by JP Morgan, it would appear that the states lifting lockdowns are getting better, not worse.
  
  CNBC’s Carl Quintanilla posted the bank’s research that shows a fascinating decline in infection rates by states ending their lockdowns.
  
  "JPMorgan has a devastating piece arguing that infection rates have declined — not increased — in states where lockdowns have ended, "even after allowing for an appropriate measurement lag."

Labels: city politics, events, state politics

• OT...sources at hq report that [Brownie] was forced to demote Ron Kimbal and Bill Bradley by Groot. [Brownie] WAS NOT happy about doing it. He’s complaining to our sources that Groot is running the show and making personnel decisions without any input from him. He’s saying that he’s regretting his decision to take this job.

Labels: changes, department issues

• Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;

• This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

• Following through with Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s promise to take action against churches that violate social distancing rules, the Chicago Police Department issued 500ドル fines to three separate houses of worship that held services over the weekend, city officials said.
  
  Police cited Elim Romanian Pentecostal Church, Philadelphia Romanian Church of God and Metro Praise International for their services.

• Defendants: City of Chicago; Mayor Lori Lightfoot; Superintendent David Brown; Captain Whoever; et al

Labels: dumb ideas, events

• Chicago taxpayers will pay 2ドル.25 million to an unarmed, developmentally disabled man shot by a Chicago Police sergeant in 2017.
  
  Five months after the Chicago Police Board authorized a six-month suspension for Sgt. Khalil Muhammad, the City Council’s Finance Committee will be asked next week to authorize the settlement for Ricardo Hayes.

• The 2ドル.25 million settlement is one of two on the Finance Committee agenda tied to allegations of police wrongdoing.
  
  The other one, for 300,000,ドル goes to Pierre Green, who spent four years in prison for possession of a stolen vehicle and felony possession of a firearm after a conviction, he claims, was based on evidence "fabricated" by Chicago Police. In 2013, the charges against Green were dismissed.

• Dowell, Mitchell, Beale, Lopez, Quinn, Moore, Curtis, Tabares, Reboyras, Cardona, Sposato, Nurgent, Napolitano, Reilly, Gardiner, Sivlverstein.

Labels: money questions, we got nothing

• Gov. J.B. Pritzker's administration has withdrawn the emergency rule it adopted Friday that made it a crime for owners of certain businesses to operate in violation of executive orders he has issued in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
  
  State public health officials confirmed the change Wednesday at a meeting of the Illinois General Assembly's Joint Committee on Administrative Rules, or JCAR, which consists of six Democrats and six Republican. A vote by eight members of the 12-member committee would have been required to overrule the emergency rule.
  
  The public health rule change filed Friday made it a class A misdemeanor — punishable by up to a year in jail and a 2,500ドル fine — for owners of bars and restaurants to allow indoor consumption, for fitness and health clubs to allow customers on site, or for barbers, cosmetologists and other "non-medical personal care services" to provide on-site services.
  
  Due to begin at 10:30 a.m., the meeting was delayed by nearly three hours as Democratic lawmakers met behind closed doors. According to Rep. Tom Demmer, the Pritzker administration agreed to repeal the rule in response to "significant opposition" from members of the joint committee.

Labels: good news, state politics

• Four men are in custody after they tried to rob an off-duty Chicago police sergeant within steps of the 19th District police station in Lakeview early Wednesday. A fifth offender got away.
  
  The 40-year-old sergeant was on the 900 block of West Addison when five men approached him and demanded his valuables around 2:18 a.m., according to a CPD spokesperson and a source.
  
  All five offenders fled the scene when the sergeant pulled out a handgun and announced that he is a police officer, according to the department. Cops searched the area and detained four suspects on the 900 block of West Fletcher about 30 minutes later.
  
  The attempted hold-up unfolded about 100 yards from the front door of the Town Hall District station at 850 West Addison.

Labels: crime

• Chicago police announced one more COVID-19 case Wednesday, bringing the number of cases in the department to 530.
  
  Of the confirmed cases, 503 are officers and 27 are civilian employees, police said. All of the cases have been confirmed by the department’s medical section.

Labels: department issues, events

• A man who was acquitted in the heinous murder of a toddler whose dismembered body was found in the Garfield Park Lagoon is suing the city of Chicago.
  
  Kamel Harris, 45, filed the lawsuit Monday in Cook County Circuit Court, accusing the city of a malicious prosecution that led to him being behind bars for more than two years while he awaited trial.
  
  A jury cleared Harris of all charges last year.
  
  Harris said his ties to the case caused him to lose custody of his daughter and son and that he continues to have a difficult time finding work because of the accusations against him, according to the suit.

Labels: un-fucking-believable

• Under pressure to loosen her iron-fisted grip, Mayor Lori Lightfoot says she’s working on a plan to reopen the lakefront in a way that protects Chicagoans oblivious to the need to maintain social distance.

• "I go back to what led me to close it. We had a lot of education around social gathering, the danger of clustering in too large a group. We talked over and over and over again and people just flat-out ignored the guidance," the mayor told interviewer David Axelrod during a taping of his CNN podcast, "The Axe Files."
  
  "What I want to do is, when we re-open the lakefront — and we will — we do it in a way that’s smart. ... Unfortunately ... we have to play to the lowest common denominator: the person who’s just not gonna pay attention. What do we do to make sure we keep that person safe and minimize the risk they’re gonna pose to other people?"

• Memorial Day Weekend

• The Cook County Forest Preserves officials announced Monday that they plan to close additional parking lots for the Memorial Day weekend in an effort to curb crowding.
  
  Dan Ryan Woods and Schiller Woods will join a list of six sites that have already seen their parking lots closed over the weeends due to concerns about social distancing and other public health guidelines. The parking lots at the other six preserves — Busse Woods, Maple Lake, Saganashkee Slough, Catherine Chevalier Woods, LaBagh Woods and Bunker Hill — were already closed Fridays through Sundays in April and will remain closed on Memorial Day itself, a statement from the county agency said.

Labels: events, general

• Speaking of 3-year wonders, any word on the copper from 006 who was arrested on Thursday in Englewood for discharging his weapon while in front of his house, causing the shot spotter to go off. I’m hearing he was arrested and charged with failure to identify himself as an officer, Agg discharge, battery to the four officers who were arresting him, and assault for saying he was "going to kick their ass".
  
  Hearing Tina Skahill directed the arrest. He must be some connected idiot since I’m hearing he shouldn’t have been on the job to begin with after his background check was flagged, but he still managed to get through. Who was in charge of the unit doing background checks at the time he can on your ask? Well none other than merit LT. Petit and Chief West.

Labels: scandals

Labels: blogging

• The salutary lesson future Chicago Police officers glean from the visit to the Holocaust Museum could not be clearer: Beware of politicians who would leverage the power of police to deprive residents of their Constitutional rights, control the population, and fulfill executive fiats. In essence, individual rights and freedom are noble goals worth defending, do not permit elected lawmakers to erode either our cherished freedoms or our understanding of truth and falsehood and what is right and wrong.

• It might seem far away and unrelated to Chicago, but the scandal surrounding the actions and motives of the Obama Justice Department against General Michael Flynn might shed more light on Chicago than any bumbling articles that pass for journalism in the city. In particular, this scandal might provide more insight into one of Chicago’s most influential media figures in the last thirty years, Eric Zorn, a columnist whose rise coincided with that of former president Barack Obama.

Labels: media