Blame everybody but yourself.....

There should be a study of how many arrests are made compared to how many calls for service are made. The favorite phrase of Chicago Police Officers is, "let's let them kill each other." More garbage about McCarthy.

London Fog

Someone doesn't want Garry Poppins to get the England job:

• Hello London? Chicago calling.
  
  Former Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy is on the short list to become the next boss of greater London’s Metropolitan Police Service, if we here at our city’s tabloid are to believe recent reports in one of the U.K.’s scrappy daily newspapers.
  
  On our side of the pond, the general response to the stories in The Sun can be summed up like this:
  
  Have you gone bloody mad?!

The author then lists a lot of McCompost's failures and shortcomings, some political, some police related, some completely out of his control. They do point out that the last two jobs McStreetlight had led to federal "oversight" of the Departments he ran - not a very good record.

But we can't say it's a totally unfair report.

New Superintendent

Here is an idea: why not sew together a white male, a black male, a Latino and a female to combine as one new super superintendent, that should satisfy everyone!

Thirty Nine Candidates

And of course, the Sun Times has to publish the most important qualification right up front in the headline:

• 39 candidates, most of them black, apply to be next police supt.

The story:

• Thirty-nine candidates, many with big-city policing experience, will vie for the right to replace fired Chicago Police Supt. Garry McCarthy.
  
  The furor over the Laquan McDonald shooting video that triggered a federal civil-rights investigation of the Chicago Police Department appears to have slightly dampened the interest in the $260,004-a-year job.

Whoop-de-do. We'll just say for the record that we don't give two shits what color the Superintendent is. Never have, never will.

We would certainly prefer that he be from the Chicago Police Department, seeing as how the last two outsiders have driven the CPD to this point, but we understand that the "merit" system has left the entire Department bereft of anything resembling competent leadership. We can't think of a single boss that hasn't made one or more promotional ranks via the "meri-clout-orious" process, meaning that somewhere along the way, they owe someone.

We also understand that whomever ends up in the top spot is going to be a puppet of Rahm as he fights for his political life. They are going to be, first and foremost, a tool. Hopefully, Rahm has been practicing with the ventriloquist dummy we sent over last year so that when the superintendent's mouth moves, you don't see Rahm's lips moving along with the script.

We saw this list in the comment section:

• "Chicago Tonight" has learned of a list of candidates from within the CPD, put together by African-American aldermen, clergy members and community leaders. They include:
  
  • Ernest Brown, chief of Cook County Department of Homeland Security and Emergency Management
  • Eddie Johnson, chief of patrol
  • Fred Waller, deputy chief
  • Eric Washington, head of Community Policing
  • Eugene Williams, head of the Bureau of Administration

We certainly hope that the media does it's homework for once and disqualifies the first name on that list. It isn't too difficult. His name is all over any number of lawsuits and has appeared prominently in a number of posts here and elsewhere.

The smart money is on Gene Williams right now.

Labels: new super

This is why Anita Alvarez must resign.

From the Sun-Times ..

A high-profile case involving allegations of rape at Loyola University Chicago was quietly closed earlier this year after the defendant pleaded guilty to a lesser offense.

But a Better Government Association review found that the Cook County state’s attorney’s office made a potentially significant blunder as the case unfolded, raising questions about whether the mistake had any impact on the case’s outcome, according to court records and interviews.

In 2013, the state’s attorney’s office charged Colin Kennedy, then a freshman at Loyola, with criminal sexual assault for allegedly raping two female Loyola students he knew, in two separate incidents within a 24-hour period at a university dorm.

Kennedy pleaded guilty earlier this year to misdemeanor battery, a much less serious charge. He was sentenced to one year of probation, and the other charges were dropped.

The state’s attorney’s office, headed by Anita Alvarez, refused to explain what happened or answer any questions about the case.

Court records indicate that the prosecutor, Assistant State’s Attorney Ashley Moore, intervened as defense attorneys were trying to gather records from the two women who made the accusations against Kennedy as well as other students. Moore stated she would get the information from the students so they wouldn’t be bothered by the defense before final exams.

But Moore apparently forgot to try and collect certain cellphone records until months later, after it was too late, records show.

Kennedy’s defense attorneys had wanted copies of text messages exchanged between one of the accusers and her friend, but the friend got a new phone before the prosecutor told her it needed to be saved, according to court records.

“Your honor, honestly I think it slipped my mind for a few months,” Moore said, according to the transcripts. “I think what happened was I was expecting her to call me and she didn’t. And then I got busy with other things unfortunately.”

Judge Thaddeus L. Wilson called the lapse “disturbing” and said he was “very concerned about the lack of due diligence on the part of the state,” court documents show.

Kennedy’s attorney Michael Schmiege then filed a motion to dismiss the case, claiming that without the evidence from the phone, the defendant’s rights to due process and a fair trial had been violated.

“The government was aware the defendant was seeking this particular evidence and knowingly failed to gather or preserve these materials despite ample opportunity to do so. As a result, the information sought in the subpoenas was deleted and is now permanently destroyed,” the motion reads.

A plea agreement was subsequently reached in which the felony charges were dropped, and Kennedy agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor battery.

Moore declined to comment, saying she wasn’t authorized to talk to the press.

Schmiege said in a statement that other texts and Facebook messages contradicted the two women’s statements to police so he was “able to convince the Cook County state’s attorney that there was a conspiracy and collusion between the two alleged victims to frame Mr. Kennedy for a crime he did not commit.”

The two accusers either couldn’t be reached or wouldn’t comment to a reporter.

A Loyola spokeswoman said via email to direct questions to the state’s attorney’s office.

It’s unclear how often the state’s attorney’s office agrees to lower charges from criminal sexual assault or drop them altogether. The agency would not provide data related to its track record on sexual assault cases.

The BGA attempted to get basic information about the state’s attorney’s sex crime division, including the experience level and average caseload for attorneys, the number of cases prosecuted and their success rate, and the number of cases that have not passed felony review and the reasons why.

Alvarez’s office denied the BGA’s request – which was filed under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act, the state’s open records law – saying “FOIA does not direct public bodies to answer questions or provide data upon request.”

Alvarez’s press secretary, Sally Daly, didn’t respond to subsequent inquiries.

Alvarez has targeted sex crimes as one of her signature issues throughout her tenure. Last year, she established the office’s first prosecution unit for sexual assault and domestic violence cases.

But this isn’t the first time questions have been raised about how her office handled a sexual assault complaint.

As the BGA previously reported, a woman who had been working as an intern at the Forest Park Police Department filed a lawsuit against the village claiming a Forest Park police officer raped her in an unmarked squad car after the two went bar-hopping one night in 2011.

The state’s attorney’s office declined to file charges, saying there was not enough evidence. Prosecutors never interviewed the cop, and their decision-making relied, in part, on a report from a private investigator who was hired by the village to look into the matter.

Contact reporter Katie Drews at kdrews@bettergov.org or 312-821-9027.

Is this the 21st Century?

Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee said Wednesday that the 1857 US Supreme Court decision Dred Scott v. Sandford, which ruled that people "of the African race" are not US citizens, is still "the law of the land."

The ruling, widely considered the worst in American history, was overruled in 1868 by the 14th Amendment.

The Republican presidential candidate made the remarks to radio host Michael Medved shortly after Huckabee's rally in support of Kim Davis, a county clerk who refused to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

BuzzFeed broke the story and has a recording of the audio.

"The Dred Scott decision of 1857 still remains to this day the law of the land, which says that black people aren’t fully human," Huckabee said. "Does anybody still follow the Dred Scott decision?"

Medved quickly corrected Huckabee, telling him that the Dred Scott decision was overturned, although he incorrectly said it was overturned by the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery, rather than the 14th, which addressed citizenship rights.

The decision in Dred Scott v. Sandford established that African Americans, whether slaves or free, could not be citizens. It also ruled that the federal government could not regulate slavery in territories and that slaveowners could not be deprived of their Fifth Amendment rights to "property," including slaves.

Obergefell v. Hodges, ruled on in June, established the nationwide legality of same-sex marriage.

Huckabee said he wouldn't try to overrule Obergefell with a constitutional amendment.

"It goes back to what Jefferson said, which is that if a decision is rendered that is not borne out by the will of the people, either by the elected representatives and going through the process," Huckabee said. "If you just say it's the law of the land because the court decided it, then Jefferson said, 'you now have surrendered to judicial tyranny.'"

Huckabee has repeatedly referred to the Supreme Court justices who ruled in favor of gay marriage as "five unelected lawyers," and said Thursday that by acting without a congressional mandate the decision was akin to Dred Scott.

"They made it up, and they made it up out of thin air," Huckabee said. "Therefore, until Congress decides to codify that and give it a statute, it's really not an operative law."

John Marshall, the fourth Supreme Court chief justice, who was in office from 1801 to 1835,established the court's right to judicial review. The doctrine grants the Supreme Court the final authority to judge whether the legislative or executive branches are acting within the powers granted to them in the Constitution.

Read the original article on INSIDER. Copyright 2015. Follow INSIDER on Twitter.

What the..what

The Northern Tier Anti-Trafficking Consortium (NTAC) is a federally funded collaborative of 6 partner organizations and over 40 service providers, led by Heartland Human Care Services (HHCS).  NTAC coordinates and provides quality, trauma-informed and culturally appropriate services to foreign-born survivors of human trafficking and their family members in New England, New York, New Jersey, the Great Lakes, and the Upper Midwest. Heartland Human Care Services in Chicago, IL is the coordinating agency for the Midwest Region (MI, WI, IL, IN).  To date, NTAC has helped over 350 participants transition to safety, health, and independence! 

NTAC cannot provide services to individuals with a U-Visa, U.S. Citizens, Lawfully Permanent Residents, or Green Card holders.

Anti-violence Gun Control

From SCC

• The Cook County Board has approved appointing a gun violence coordinator who will be expected to “live, eat, breathe and sleep gun violence,” reports WBBM [...].
  
  Commissioner Richard Boykin, who is behind the idea, said the yet-to-be named gun violence coordinator will certainly have his or her work cut out for them with roughly 2,500 shootings in the city this year so far.
  
  “This will be the first gun violence coordinator, to my knowledge, in the United States of America,” Boykin said.
  
  “The Cook County Board heard the people who said this is intolerable, we’ve got to change it,” said Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, chairman of the Criminal Justice Committee.
  
  Boykin said he hopes the person is in place before the end of the year.

Well, let us be among the first to say that coordinating gun violence is loooooong overdue. All these people (and folks) running around with guns, firing willy-nilly, wounding thousands who can't even begin to pay their bills must end.

First up should be "Target Identification" and "Checking Your Backstop." Those two courses alone would cut down on the "Unintended Victim" phenomenon almost overnight. Next, "Controlling Your Weapon." And finally, "Getting Away With It," which unfortunately, seems to be the course that all of the shooters in recent memory have no problem passing.

You know what might be some good alternatives instead of expanding government? How about some of these courses?

• "The Present Father"
• "Complete Families"
• "I an NOT a Ho - A Lesson in Self Respect"
• "The Pitfalls of Materialism"
• "Passing 3rd Grade (and 4th, and 5th, etc)"
• "Respect for Others"
• "How to Earn a Living - Step One: Laborer"
• "How to Earn a Living - Step Two: Assembly Lines"
• "Conflict Resolution Without Guns"

So the only question now is who gets this new highly paid government spot that will waste more and more tax money - Ernie Brown or Jody Weis? Charlie Williams is the outside shot.You think we're joking?

Labels: county, dumb ideas

Another school shooting and more calls for gun control.

At this point it should be obvious that gun control is not what is needed. We need hate control. We need people to stop their own violence and the habit of grabbing a gun to satisfy petty arguments and disagreements or the worst case scenario, bullying.

In schools, children should be taught to respect each other and themselves. This is not being done. Self respect, courtesy and integrity should also be taught at home.

Laws and news laws have not and will not stop the violence, it is time to look to for simple solutions.  It is time to realize people are stressed and unhappy and need to stop hating and stressing and live life to the fullest, to love themselves and others and learn to turn the other cheek sometimes and walk away.

It is also time to stop glorifying violence, Bonnie and Clyde were not heroes, they were criminals. Yet they are always portrayed as beautiful people committing glamorous crimes such as robbing banks and shooting police officers.  If your money is being stolen, I am sure you know there is nothing glamorous about that.

Games, violent video games and paintball games further enhance the idea that violence and shootings are glamorous. Not.

It is time for out society to realize we need to stop the hate and anger. Until then more calls for gun control will solve nothing.