Clisham Benefit

An Officer's family needs a hand:

• In 2003 Paul was diagnosed with colon cancer and aggressive measures were taken to fight this cancer. Paul went on and off of the medical as he went through chemotherapy and other treatments. While this was going on, Paul and his wife Catherine were learning that their young daughter Tori had AUTISM. Paul believed that he was going to beat cancer, but on September 16th, Paul lost his battle.
  
• Paul was an exceptional husband, police officer, father, and friend. As friends of his, and fellow police officers, we believed we needed to do something to help his family. The Tori Clisham Foundation has been established so that we can provide some financial security for Catherine and Tori.
  
• A benefit party will also be held at Bourbon Street on June 1st, 2008. Information about the benefit and the Tori Clisham Foundation can be found at paulclisham.com. Donations of any kind for the silent auction are being accepted and tickets are now being sold for the benefit as well as raffles.

Detective Joseph Bowes is one of the go-to guys for the benefit and can be reached at Area 2. Click the link at paulclisham.com for specifics.

Is This a Done Deal?

The Tribune is certainly making it sound like a "Letter of Agreement" has been reached. But as we all know, that could be propaganda:

• Chicago police officers could be teamed up with their very own personal trainers and given tailored diets if they fail mandatory fitness tests proposed Tuesday by the city in contract negotiations with the department's union.
  
  Officers would have up to 90 days to buff up before retaking the test. If they fail a second time, they would be referred to the department's medical services section for "further evaluation regarding the officer's fitness for duty."
  
  The proposal doesn't say what would happen to officers after that, and neither side is commenting.
  
  The yearly tests would be mandatory for new or promoted officers starting in 2009 and voluntary for everyone else.
  
  Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis, a fitness enthusiast who took office earlier this year, previously talked about changing the department's policies on physical fitness tests. They have been strictly voluntary, and officers received financial incentives for passing.

The language in the letter (click here for the FOP Update) seems to imply that anyone seeking a promotion will be required to pass the tests? No grandfathering in old timers with pre-existing conditions like injuries and such? And there's nothing in the Appendix outlining financial incentives - are they gone?

If we recall the last of the Nolan days correctly, the arbitrator allowed all the so-called "Letters of Agreement" to stand. Months later, every single Nolan Team member lost their jobs. As were headed to arbitration anyway, are we seeing history repeat?

More Blame on the Way

Can someone tell us what purpose this serves?

• Lawyers in the R. Kelly case added five more jurors Tuesday to the panel that will decide whether the singer is guilty or innocent of child pornography charges.

• The jurors selected Tuesday include a 20-something white woman studying criminal justice who aspires to be a police officer.

  Asked her views of the justice system, she said, "I like it and think it is a fair system when done properly.

And the headline in the Sun Times read, "Aspiring Cop on Kelly's Jury." Is this some twisted media attempt to blame the "aspiring" police in case R. Kelly ends up getting the chair for child porn? What if she never ever makes it to a police academy and ends up a defense lawyer or something?

Man, we can't wait for the Sun Times to go under.

Finally!

Foie Gras is back!

• With Mayor Daley's blessing, Ald. Tom Tunney (44th) helped spearhead a move to repeal the ban, and Wednesday he rounded up enough votes. Tunney does not serve foie gras at his Ann Sather restaurants, and did not before the ordinance passed.

Now let's get some serious work done, like our 48% funded pension.

Morons.

City Hijinks

Is it just us or is the Chicago City Council just about the most useless legislative body in existence? Observe the following:

• Not only did they waste god knows how many hours and dollars banning foie gras, now there is a movement afoot to repeal the ban:
• Aldermen opposed to Chicago's controversial restaurant ban on foie gras said they will try to force a vote Wednesday to repeal the measure, which gained the City Council widespread notoriety since its approval two years ago.
• Not content to drive jobs out of the City with anti-big-box ordinances, the City Council was about to drive hundreds of small venue music shows out of town, voiding out millions in entertainment taxes, liquor sales and assorted jobs:
• The ordinance was drafted in response to an independent panel's recommendations after the E2 tragedy of 2003, where 21 people died after a stampede in an overcrowded nightclub. The proposal would require event promoters to apply every two years for a license that could cost up to $2,000. Promoters also would be required to obtain at least $300,000 in liability insurance.
• And to top it all off, whose fault is it that substandard road material was used to construct thousands of miles of road in the city that can't stand up to a regular winter? The State's fault even though the State supplied the City with the block grants to spend as they saw fit...spend crookedly evidently:
• Chicago is fighting a losing battle against potholes because arterial street re-surfacing has been put on hold for the last two years, aldermen were told Monday.

  First Deputy Transportation Commissioner Tom Powers blamed a shortage of state funding, apparently tied to the Illinois General Assembly's failure to approve a capital plan.

We've seen this proposal a few times before and perhaps it's time for some enterprising reporters and politicos to try it out - cut the number of aldercreatures by half. The savings in property taxes alone would be enough to balance out a few of those outstanding pension obligations at the very least.

Real Police?

Anyone mouthing off about suburban guys and gals (or the state) not being the real police, read this:

• One man is hospitalized with a gunshot wound and another is in police custody after police interrupted a home invasion in west suburban Franklin Park on Tuesday morning.
• As the two suspects fled, they fired shots at two responding officers, who returned fire, striking one of the suspects in the head, according to police. The other suspect was captured. Neither officer was injured.

Glad to see no cops got hurt. Too bad the shithead lived, but you can't have everything. But this really ought to put to rest any BS about who is and isn't "real" police. Good job officers.

BEST Conspiracy So Far

Priceless police humor:

• This is a scare tactic to make more people buy bottled water so the city could collect the tax.
  

We have the funniest readers ever.

From the Comments

Truth or Fiction?

• While on a street stop the other night I got into a political discussion with a high ranking member of the GD's while I ran his name. it goes like this:
  Dirtbag: hey office you boys ain't running like you used to huh?
  
  Me: What the hell does that mean?
  
  Dirtbag: ever since your new boss came to town, police dont come at us hard no more.
  
  Me: yeah
  
  Dirtbag: I think it's funny, it's like the bossman is on our side.
  
  Me: well he does like the revrends
  
  Dirtbag: ha ha come on man not all of them get cuts from us.
  
  Me: I'm sure there is one or two who have the community in mind
  
  Dirtbag: i sees on the news all the time about him taking your badges cause of any made up story. thats funny too, cause you know when we gets caught dirty- we call our lawyer then OPS or IAD to make up some bullshit story to help us outta the jam, and them dumb motherfuckers believe anything you tell em.
  
  Me: oh trust me i know that, I've heard some good ones, we should start sueing you motherfuckers ha ha.
  
  Dirtbag: what you gonna take? My Buick? Nothings in my name office.
  
  Me: No get out of here are you serious? Is you license valid too (we both laugh at that one)
  
  Dirtbag: where are all these rifles at you supposed to be rolling with?
  
  Me: don't know some guys don't get one cause of a power test.
  
  Dirtbag: you mean the fat mother fuckers?
  
  Me: some but not all, knee, ankle, injuries whatever doesnt help.
  
  Dirtbag: well all the running us bangers gotta do is to the house to get our choppers..thats kinda kinda bad for you mother fu*kers.
  
  Me: everyone agrees with you there.
  
  Me: get outta here call it a night
  
  Dirtbag: be careful office, summer gonna be bad, since they don't let the poliece be the poliece, we running the shit now "G". Tell your big man thanks (with a smile)
  
  Me: see ya numbnuts make sure you duck and cover, get outta here before i find something to lock you up for.
  
  TRUE STORY THIS IS WHAT BANGERS THINK...YOUR DOING AWESOME JODY KEEP IT UP.

  5/12/2008 05:21:00 PM

Anyone care to opine? Verify? Call it BS or a vision of the future?

The AP Article

Via a few letter writers and some more in the comments, Officer.com has the complete AP article we referenced a few days ago covering J-Fed's first 100 days. Get a load of this:

• Everyone expected Jody Weis to make changes in the Chicago Police Department when he left the FBI to become the first outsider in decades to head the city force.
• J-Fed, as the former head of the FBI's Philadelphia office is called by more than a few street cops, brought in his own command staff, including another former FBI agent hired specifically to make officers more accountable for their actions.
  

The INTERNATIONAL MEDIA is calling Weis "J-Fed" now! Is that hilarious or what?

Anyway, the writer from AP, Don Babwin wrote to us looking for insight into J-Fed's first 100 days. And as we stated, he used exactly none of our replies. We guess it didn't fit in with AP's bias about bringing an "out-of-control police department" to heel. The letter and our reply is a bit lengthy for a single post, but this is the response we were really hoping made the report:

• Babwin: you touched on this in one article, but i would like to know if the federal charges in the wheel chair case sent a message to the force that Weis would not hesitate to charge officers with abusing their powers.
• SCC: It showed that Weis is a petty, vindictive individual. The officer was the subject of an internal investigation, found guilty and given a two year suspension. He also pled guilty in a State Court, was sentenced to two years probation and ordered to undergo mandatory classes, including anger management. The Police Board, a group of civilians appointed by the mayor, reinstated this officer following his appeal. Then-Superintendent Cline appealed the Police Board finding of reinstatement to the Courts in a further attempt to fire this officer, but lost. The officer served his two years, completed all the required classes and had no further incidents while off the job.
  
  Let's just review:
• guilty by the internal investigation - 2 years suspension
• guilty by the courts - 2 years probation
• won an appeal before the Police Board
• won an appeal before the courts

• And note that neither of his wins in any way reduced the amount of his suspension time or probation time or mandatory class time. He served it all. The Friday before the officer is to report back to duty, a single count of Civil Rights violations is handed up, not by a state court, but by a Federal Grand Jury. And we're being run by a former fed? Hmmm.
  
  Isn't the basis of the criminal justice system rehabilitation? Or is that only for the crack dealer and the rapist? The message wasn't one of "don't abuse your power." The message was "if I can't win in your courts, I'll take it to mine."

But none of this made it to the AP article. Perhaps we'll put up the entire exchange over the next weekend or so. We certainly are going to be eager to hear what happens at the "meeting" Wednesday.

Don't Drink the Water?

No, not some third world country with inadequate sanitation needs. Right here in Chicago!

• The City of Chicago is fine tuning a program designed to keep old prescription drugs from ending up in the area’s water supply.
  
  Officials say they’re harmless, but traces of pharmaceuticals have been found in Chicago’s drinking water. Alderman wants to see city residents to have a better way of disposing of their prescription drugs than flushing them down the toilet. So, the City’s getting a federal grant to create a safe disposal system.

And guess where they're going to have disposal pick up points? We'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count:

• Chicago Aldermen and City officials agree they don't want people flushing their expired prescription drugs down the toilet, and some—like North Side Alderman Marge Laurino—suggest setting up receiving boxes for old pharmaceuticals at police and fire stations.
  
  But, city Environment Commissioner Suzanne Malec-McKenna says the law requires police to be around whenever controlled substances are turned in, so Fire stations are out.

Fantastic! We're going to have all sorts of substances (controlled, toxic, expired, and who-knows-what) collected in what? Vaults? Flag disposal boxes? Who's liable if some junkie or homeless guy swipes a bunch of crap? Or someone dumps a leaky container inside the vault and creates some toxic brew?

Does OSHA want to weigh in on this one? Or the FOP Safety Committee? Before the City starts installing SHARPS containers and some low bid Chinese made cardboard "safe" in the lobby?

And before anyone says we're complaining and not contributing to the solution, here's a link to the Illinois EPA that lists collection points all over the State, County and City that collect not only hazardous waste, but unwanted medicines with a handy schedule. Just because some Daley relative needs another municipal contract supplying medical waste containers doesn't mean we have to use police stations as dumping grounds.

Record It!

The meeting is tomorrow night. They are checking ID's at the door.

No one has said if they're frisking officers upon entering and making you check in your gun like they do at court. We're pretty certain they aren't checking pockets. And pocket recording devices aren't all that expensive - right Al?

It sure would be nice to have a permanent record of J-Fed and Aunt Bea waltzing through a question/answer session like they waltzed in the Cinco de Mayo JibJab cartoon.

We're just saying.

Good Riddance

For four years or so:

• A Maywood man who won a $1.75 million settlement after being beaten by Chicago police officers in 1997 was sentenced Monday to 4 years in prison for violating his 2006 probation for selling crack cocaine.
  
  Jeremiah Mearday, 29, pleaded guilty in 2006 to selling crack to an undercover police officer in Glendale Heights. For that December 2005 offense, DuPage Judge George Bakalis sentenced him to 2 years of intensive probation and 180 days in the DuPage County Jail.
  
  Assistant State's Atty. Paul Marchese filed a notice of violation of probation earlier this year, contending that Mearday missed seven months of meetings with the probation department, failed a drug test that indicated the use of marijuana, refused to take another drug test and didn't have a job for a year, as stipulated by his probation requirements.

And he claims to be broke after getting $1.75 million. Even after getting a pile of money, moving out of the city away from the "bad influences" of gangs, and fleeing the "persecution" of out of control Chicago Police, he still manages to revert to selling dope. We wonder if he was going to be "turning his life around" any time soon? Maybe he can find his way in prison. See you in a few years dirtbag.

The Meeting

D-Day:

• May 14 @ 7pm in the 35 & Michigan multi-purpose room.

We've debated here over the past day and we've come to a sort of consensus on this event. It would be better to show up than to boycott. Because by not showing up, J-Fed can claim he made the effort to reach out and was rebuffed. If everyone shows up AND hammers him with questions, we can prove our theory that he's nothing but a puppet and it's business as usual with the Mayor pulling all the strings.

So, how to approach the upcoming meeting? We know the conspiracy buffs have been active in the comments, pointing out that everyone needs to present ID to attend, that only patrol officers can attend, that much of the FOP leadership will be unavailable in Washington DC for this meeting, and that the entire media room is wired for sound and pictures.

We feel that the FOP really ought to be taking some sort of lead in this, gathering questions and designating some person in authority to present these questions in a formal manner since it isn't really a big leap to say that the political powers will put a brick the size of Manhattan on anyone who questions them too aggressively. Any of the inside FOP guys would be good as they can't be moved. Bella would be ideal.

We hereby offer this comment section to post any question that might come to mind and then the FOP or some KMA member who doesn't really give a fuck because he's happy working midnights in Area 2 can ask it at the meeting. And more importantly, the questioner can demand a realistic answer. "I don't know" or "I'll get back to you" isn't a legit answer. Once J-Fed or Aunt Bea says those words, you know for a fact it's a bullshit meeting with only one purpose - smokescreen.

SCC's #1 question:

• Define "merit" and how mere mortals can strive to reach "career goals" so that we too, might one day be deserving of a promotion that doesn't involve bloodlines, birthright or brown envelopes of cash to aldercreatures.

Have at it.

007 Shooting

No cops hurt. Bad guy wounded. Gun recovered, but IPRA is still investigating.

And that's like the entire media coverage. No reverends, no community outcry, no family claiming he was just about to turn everything around and get that GED Brain Surgeon qualification that every family dreams of.

J-Fed has been a complete and utter bust, but this IPRA thing about not talking to the media is still working like a charm. We're constantly amazed.

UPDATE: Ok, the family is getting their bullshit on TV again. We were spending the weekend far from here and didn't get local news. Still, without the Department and IPRA going on TV with a standard canned speech, the whole thing dies out in a single news cycle. That still beats marches and replaying the same BS over and over and over and over. So far.

Free Dennis!

Even the retirees are fair game now:

• Dennis Farina has been arrested after a loaded gun was found in his luggage at the Los Angeles International Airport on Sunday.

  The veteran actor had told security personnel that he had forgotten he had the unregistered 22-calibre handgun in his hand luggage.

Remember though, we don't imprison our celebrities. They get fines and community service. Hopefully, LA doesn't hold the CPD thing against him

Want to be Mope-rah's Boss?

Seriously. How would you like to have Mope-rah and Steinberg and Sneed all answer to you? It's within reach, right now:

• Sun-Times Media Group Inc., hurt by declining ad revenues and eroding circulation, said its first-quarter loss deepened to $35.8 million from $4.8 million a year ago.
• Like other companies in the newspaper industry, Sun-Times Media has been hurt by an ongoing exodus by readers and advertisers to the Internet. "We expect the secular move from print to the Internet to continue probably forever," Freidheim said on a conference call.
• The results were announced after the close of regular stock market trading. During the session shares dove 24.6 percent, to 52 cents.

$0.52 a share? Fifty-two cents to become a stockholder? Mere pennies to be able to tell Jesse Jackson and Mariotti and even that guy Roeper that they work for you and you pay their salary.

For fifty-two bucks, you can get a hundred shares and Mope-rah probably has to come by and mow your lawn once a summer.

Mope-Rah Jumps the Rails - Again

Evidently, the columnist everyone loves to hate is off her meds again. She was actually making sense for a while, falling in line with Dr. Bill Cosby's assertions that police shouldn't be doing the job that parents ought to be doing, personal responsibility and pride of accomplishment. But politics seems to bring out the worst in Mary (no link for Mope-rah as per standing policy):

• One thing's for sure: Hammond has seen the last of me. You heard me.

  Instead of crossing Indianapolis Avenue for lower-priced gas, I'll save the gas and patronize the pumps in Illinois.

Mope-rah actually drove to Indiana for gas? From Maywood? Excuse us for wondering about that one. Unless she's running cigarettes at the same time, this would seem to be an odd trade off. And what has driven Mope-rah to the extreme of spending money in Blago's worker paradise?

• I'm not trying to start anything, but after watching Hammond's mayor, Thomas McDermott, on CNN after Indiana's primary, I'm keeping my money on this side of the border.

  Although Lake County is close enough to Chicago to be a suburb, McDermott boasted that eight mayors in the county worked tirelessly to win Indiana for Sen. Hillary Clinton.

  [...] But how do these Lake County mayors justify using their political muscle to help the candidacy of someone from a state more than 700 miles away and turning their backs on the candidate next door?

Mope-rah is basing her economic boycott of Indiana gas entirely on the fact that American citizens exercised their rights to support the candidate of their choice instead of the guy Mope-rah supports who happens to live "next door." We've heard some crazy ideas for boycotts in the past, but this one ranks right up there. If you don't vote for her guy, you ain't going to see her money.

And then she goes off into that democratic fantasy land that for people to prove they aren't racists, they have to vote for the black guy because Hillary is using "code words" like "blue collar" which every knows means "white working class." Otherwise Jim Crow is back, the cotton plantations reopen and blacks will leave the democratic party to vote for someone else - and in a two party system, that means they all vote republican.

Someone please adjust her dosage.

Meeting with J-Fed?

Someone in the comments claims there's a notice or fax out from downtown saying there will be a meeting with the Superintendent in the multi purpose room? No Supervisors, just PO's?

Can anyone verify? Is there an AdMin notice number on this or is it just the ramblings of the demented?

METRA Did What Now?

We're listening to WBBM 780 and METRA, the best run of all the mass transit organizations (which we guess is like being the tallest midget in the circus) is complaining about lack of money for "capital improvements." The money it seems is tied up in another Blago disaster in Springfield. So METRA does what a responsible company does and starts looking for deals.

So far so good. The search people find 5 used train cars in West Virginia. The trouble is that these are the same 5 train cars METRA sold a few years back as being too outdated to maintain and use on the local rails. And get this...

METRA sold them to the West Virginia people for one dollar a piece. The buy back price? $10,000 per car PLUS $100,000 to refurbish each. Un-freaking-believable. That entire $550,000 ought to come out of the METRA Board salaries. Minus the $5 METRA got a couple years back of course.

Why do we have the feeling that if someone did a little digging, they'd find some distant second cousin of some Illinois politician living in West Virginia who deals in used rail bars?

You Tube Gangsters

Hey Mitchell, Jackson, Sharpton, Pfleger, Meeks - watch this:



We often hesitate to put up clips like this. They exist everywhere on the internet and they bring out the worst in the comments section.

That being said, this is reality. Or at least, reality eighteen months ago when it was filmed around 102nd and State and posted for everyone to see. Who knows how many of these assholes are dead or jailed now. But it's the reality coppers face every day.

In broad daylight, these jagoffs are firing at least two guns in the alleys. And CPD will respond to these calls and chase these fools and might catch them and could find the guns. They might also get shot at or injured in the process. And for all the talk and bluster in the comments about laying down on the job, a hot call like this is going to get a decent response. They haven't quite beaten that out of us yet.