My Blog

Category: Crime

  • Rooting Out Bad Cop

    Cops are people.  Some are going to be trouble no matter how hard you try to keep them out.  However this is just nutty:

    Of 441 police misconduct lawsuits that led to city payments between January 2009 and November 2011, nearly a third—or 145—involved the “repeaters,” shows a Reporter analysis of federal and state court records. This small group—140 in all—proved costly. Despite making up 1 percent of the police force, they accounted for more than a quarter—or $11.7 million—of all damage payments incurred from police misconduct lawsuits. The city defended a good number of those officers in additional cases as well; nearly a third of the 140 officers were named in at least five misconduct lawsuits since 2000.

    via The Chicago Reporter.

    Looks like our politicians need to stand-up to the police union on this one.  Bad cops are also bad for the good cops.  Give the whole department a reputation.  The goods ones don’t want the bad ones around.

    Seems like a no brainer.

  • Derrick Smith ‘I intend to fight these charges’

    State Rep. Derrick Smith on Monday spoke publicly for the first time about his bribery case, saying he would not “cower” and vowing to fight the charge against him.Holding a prepared statement in front of him and talking in a shaky voice minutes after he pleaded not guilty to a federal court indictment, the West Side Democrat referenced “shenanigans” he said the FBI pulled on him. Smith’s lawyer later castigated the government’s confidential informant.

    “I intend to fight these charges. I look forward to having the opportunity to clear my name,” Smith said in a press availability at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse. Smith said he was troubled by “the shenanigans being played by the FBI to lean on people around me.”

    “I will not cower,” Smith vowed. “I intend to stand tall with my wife, family, friends, House colleagues and lawyers.”

    via Chicago Sun-Times.

    Seems to me like he’s going to be headed to prison but there’s no doubt that he’s entitled to plea not guilty and get a fair trial complete with a jury of his peers.

  • Trayvon Martin Case Causing More Beatings?

    Mobile police need your help to catch a mob that beat Matthew Owens so badly that he’s in critical condition.

    According to police, Owens fussed at some kids playing basketball in the middle of Delmar Drive about 8:30 Saturday night. They say the kids left and a group of adults returned, armed with everything but the kitchen sink.

    Police tell News 5 the suspects used chairs, pipes and paint cans to beat Owens.

    Owens’ sister, Ashley Parker, saw the attack. “It was the scariest thing I have ever witnessed.” Parker says 20 people, all African American, attacked her brother on the front porch of his home, using “brass buckles, paint cans and anything they could get their hands on.”

    Police will only say “multiple people” are involved.

    What Parker says happened next could make the fallout from the brutal beating even worse. As the attackers walked away, leaving Owen bleeding on the ground, Parker says one of them said “Now that’s justice for Trayvon.”

    via The Daily Caller.

    NOTE:  Photo of Mr. Owens in the hospital at link.

    Violence begets violence until someone stands up and shouts STOP!!

    But that hasn’t happened.

    What has happened is the MSM, black “leaders”, the new black panthers, and Left leaning talking heads of all sorts have been yelling form the mountaintops “No Justice No Peace.”  Matthew Owens is the result.

    Our society is so screwed.

  • Pentagon Smears Critics

    The first casualty when war comes is the truth.
    — Hiram Johnson

    No one knows this better than the folks at the pentagon.

    The newspaper USA Today said Friday an editor and reporter probing Pentagon propaganda efforts have been targeted by an online “misinformation campaign.”

    Fake Twitter and Facebook accounts have been created under the names of the reporter and editor with postings denigrating their professional reputations, according to the daily.

    The timing of the online harassment coincided with stories by Pentagon correspondent Tom Vanden Brook, who has written about the military’s “information operations” program that spent large sums on marketing campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.

    The program has faced criticism in and outside the Defense Department as “ineffective and poorly monitored,” the paper said.

    The false online accounts, including a fake Wikipedia entry, started appearing only days after the reporter first contacted Pentagon contractors for the story, the newspaper wrote.

    Two weeks after enterprise editor Ray Locker’s byline appeared on a story on the same subject, a fake website under his name — RayLocker.com — popped up, the paper said.

    You see?  you go writing things about the pentagon that they don’t like and misinformation about you will magically appear out of this air.  But worry not…

    A US official confirmed to AFP that the Defense Department had made inquiries to contractors doing public relations work to ask them about the false online accounts.

    The contractors denied any such activity, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

    But the websites were taken down following the Pentagon’s inquiry. Some other accounts were removed for violating Internet providers’ terms of service, USA Today said.

    The Pentagon said Friday it had not launched a formal investigation of the case.

    No no… why would a formal investigation be necessary?

    “We’re aware of the allegations and are not dismissing them outright to be sure,” press secretary George Little told reporters.

    via Yahoo! News Canada.

    Uh huh, right.

    Know this:  If the misinformation department at the pentagon is willing to take on a reporter and an editor from the USA Today — the nation’s largest paper — who have research staff and other resources at their disposal to fight back, then it would have no problem whatsoever totally destroying an ordinary citizen who exposes the truth.

  • Michigan’s Armed Raids on Small Pig Farmers

    NaturalNews can now confirm that the Michigan Department of Natural Resources has, in total violation of the Fourth Amendment, conducted two armed raids on pig farmers in that state, one in Kalkaska County at Fife Lake and another in Cheboygan County. Staging raids involving six vehicles and ten armed men, DN[R] conducted unconstitutional, illegal and arguably criminal armed raids on these two farms with the intent of shooting all the farmers’ pigs under a bizarre new “Invasive Species Order” (ISO) that has suddenly declared traditional livestock to be an invasive species.

    via Natural News.

    It’s worth noting that Natural News’ writing contains some hyperbole.  So I went looking for another source for the story….

    Implementation of the ISO, as of April 1st, not only takes private property without compensation it also denies farmers of fundamental private property rights and the right to make a living.  It will reduce or eliminate customer access to heritage breed pork, a product that has become increasingly popular with health conscious consumers and restaurants across the state.

    The ISO allows DNR to seize and destroy pigs raised by Michigan farmers; Michigan DNR has publicly stated they will not compensate farmers whose pigs are destroyed. Possession of prohibited swine after April 1, 2012 is a felony with penalties of up to two years in jail and $20,000 in fines.

    Attorney Joseph O’Leary is suing the DNR on behalf of four of the aggrieved business owners. He explains, “Wildlife is owned by the state; it is the role of the DNR to regulate and control state property. Livestock on farms is privately owned and properly belongs in the jurisdiction of the Department of Agriculture. When a governmental agency blurs these lines, people had better wake up and take notice because at that point we are all in a lot of trouble.”

    via Global News Wire.

    A little more perspective there.  And I tend to agree with attorney O’Leary.  Government intrusion into our private lives rarely ends well.  This story reminds me of Reagan’s old line about the nine most terrifying words in the English language being, “I’m from the government and I’m here to help.”

    But we still don’t know what’s really going on here.  Why is the Michigan DNR going after small pig farmers in the first place?

    The Michigan Pork Producers Association and other large agribusiness interests, as well as conservation groups have worked together with the DNR to push for the ruling to be implemented. For the factory pork breeders, this is about eliminating the competition. The ISO ensures consumers will only have the choice of pork raised in confinement, known as confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs).For more than a decade, the Michigan Department of Natural Resources has worked politically to drive private hunting preserves out of business. However, the Michigan state legislature repeatedly rebuffed their attempts. Elected officials recognize how important private property rights are, and they were unwilling to prohibit landowners to raise and harvest animals in open areas. Now, backed by large Agribusiness interests in the state, DNR has done an end run around participatory democracy and declared swine with certain characteristics “feral” which not only includes animals raised at hunting preserves but thousands of other small farms across the state.

    “The DNR has strayed into the unfamiliar territory of agriculture regulation. Given the nebulous and open ended description by which pigs are targeted, farmers fear for their futures,” says Pete Kennedy, Esq., President of the Farm-to-Consumer Legal Defense Fund.

    Wow!

    You see, it doesn’t matter whether it’s the GSA partying in Vegas or the MI DNR, power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.  People placed in positions of power will abuse that power if not constantly checked on by the people.

    I hope this story gets some MSM attention and people understand that the few should not get away with oppressing the many.

  • CHA Relocations = Higher Crime Rates?

    According to the Sun-Times:

    Crime was worse in neighborhoods where former Chicago Housing Authority residents used vouchers to move into private apartments, a new study found.

    From 2000 to 2008, violent crime was 21 percent higher in neighborhoods with high concentrations of voucher-holding former CHA residents — when compared to similar neighborhoods without them, the Washington-based Urban Institute found. Property crime also would have been lower without relocated residents in those neighborhoods, the study said.

    via Chicago Sun-Times.

    This is rather indicting.  Of course, the most powerful quote comes at the end of the story:

    Some communities are not very happy to have them. Chatham, where generations of African-American teachers, lawyers and other professionals have called home, has seen an influx of former CHA residents with vouchers — about 120 of them.

    “It has been disastrous for Chatham,” said Keith Tate, president of Chatham-Avalon Park Community Association.

    “Never did we see individuals sitting on their cars drinking 40-ounce bottles of beer.”

    Tate said the community is experiencing a clash between longtime residents with a strong work ethic and former CHA residents on the dole.

    “We have opened our arms to accept anyone into our community,” Tate said. “But it has caused a tremendous problem. We have had more burglaries than normal, more shootings. . . . We’re fighting on all fronts now to satisfy the needs of the long-term residents and the new residents who just moved here.”

    Yikes!

  • Another Deadly Weekend

    It started out peaceful enough.  So much so that Drudge reported, “Only 1 Dead, 5 Wounded in Chicago.”

    A woman was killed and four men wounded in five separate shootings between 11:30 p.m. Friday and 4 a.m. Saturday.

    via Chicago Tribune.

    It wasn’t even that warm.  But only 5 shot overnight, hardly worth mentioning.

    Then we had Saturday night:

    2 Dead Among 15 17 Shot Overnight Across City

    A 13-year-old boy and 41-year-old woman were killed by gunfire Saturday night, and 15 others were wounded across the city, police said.

    via Chicago Tribune.

    The early morning count was 15, I guess someone in the newsroom got it wrong.  Or thpolice were so backed-up that it took CPD awhile to get the actual numbers out to the press.

    Regardless, something is very wrong within our inner city neighborhoods.  We have a systematic failure of society.  From the babies to the grown-ups and from the city to the fed, there’s plenty of blame to go around.

    It time to take some bold action to begin changing 60 years of failed inner city policies.

  • Derrick Smith Using William Beaver’s Defense

    Today’s Story:

    Victor Henderson, the lawyer for accused Illinois State Representative Derrick Smith tells “The Don and Roma Show” on WLS, that the reason federal authorities charged Smith with bribery, was because they wanted him to give up information about possible wrongdoing by Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White, Smith’s long-time political mentor.

    via WLS 890AM.

    February 25th, 2012:

    Cook County Commissioner William Beavers, an old-school Chicago politician who likes to call himself “The Hog With the Big Nuts,” has been indicted on federal tax charges.  …

    But Beavers, 77, called the indictment “horse s— I’m not worried about.”

    He said the feds only indicted him because he refused to wear a wire on fellow Commissioner John Daley, the brother of former Mayor Richard M. Daley and of former White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley.

    So let me write… again…

    Assuming this is true, isn’t this just about the last thing you want to say?  How does this help Beavers Smith or Daley White?  It doesn’t.

    Can you imagine some knuckle-dragging bent nose Tony Soprano wanna’be getting indicted and walking out of booking shouting, “They wanted me to wear a wire on Tony.”  Now what you’ve done is tie the two of you together and make both of you look guilty of somethin’.

    Absolutely hilarious!!

  • Clout Boosts Ex-Police Chief $30k per Year

    The Machine taking care of its own:

    At first blush, a pension bill adopted by the General Assembly in 2007 seemed to have a laudable goal: extending retirement benefits to local police force employees’ widows after they remarried.

    But buried within the legislation was something considerably less altruistic: a provision that enabled a member of one of Chicago’s better-known political families to boost his pension by more than $30,000 a year — while saddling unsuspecting taxpayers in Oak Brook with nearly $750,000 in funding liabilities, the Chicago Sun-Times and Better Government Association have learned.

    The recipient of that larger pension, Thomas Sheahan, is a former police chief in Oak Brook, the current village manager in Lyons and a member of a Democratic clan that has helped rule Chicago’s Southwest Side for decades.

    Sharp-tongued and unapologetic about benefitting from the provision that no one else has used, the 59-year-old Sheahan said of his pension: “I worked for 24 f—— years [in the public sector], I deserve every penny of it and I deserve a lot f—— more.”

    Retiring from Oak Brook last spring, Sheahan now is drawing an annual payout of nearly $77,000. Although pension records show that’s about $32,000 more than he would have received had he retired at the same point without the legislation, Sheahan said it’s still a relatively modest sum. “I get about what a sergeant gets,” he said.

    Sheahan — brother of former Cook County Sheriff Michael Sheahan and James “Skinny” Sheahan, a long-time aide to ex-Mayor Richard M. Daley — wouldn’t say if or how he was involved in the origin of the pension sweetener.

    via Chicago Sun-Times.

    When will the people rise up and say “Enough!”  A foul-mouth connected punk thinks he deserves more.  Go get a real job in the private sector and find out what you’re really worth.

    But that’s not even the end of the story:

    The main sponsor of the bill, then-state Rep. Bob Molaro (D-Chicago), told members of the Illinois House that the tweak to the state’s pension code was intended to help one person, according to a transcript that didn’t identify the person.  …

    Molaro declined to be interviewed, but released a statement to the Sun-Times indicating he did not know Thomas Sheahan at the time the legislation was crafted, something Sheahan echoes. They came to know each other, however, after Molaro left the Legislature in late 2008 and, with a partner, became a $5,000-a-month lobbyist for Oak Brook.

    Molaro said in the statement: “Any attempt to connect the sponsorship of this bill and my being part of the lobbying team for the village of Oak Brook is completely unfounded and absurd.”  …

    Sheahan now is village manager in Lyons, where he said he’s paid roughly $65,000 a year for fewer than 20 hours a week.

    So this political hack is now drawing $140,000 per year from the taxpayers.  Unbelievable.

    And Molaro… the tool that he is, doesn’t even know who he’s working for.  He’s just doing what he’s told; nothing more than a warm body filling a seat collecting $80,000/year from the taxpayers to be Michael Madigan’s bag man.

    Speaking of Madigan… Where’s Lisa Madigan in all this?  Shouldn’t the state’s highest law enforcement officer look into the matter to see if a crime’s been committed?

  • McCarthy (Rahm) Shakes-up Police Brass (Not Really)

    This past week Rahm launched an ambitious plan to revitalize the city.  However in order to make that work, he must first prevent Chicago from becoming Gotham.  The post below talks about how the lack of enough police officers is causing a false reduction in the number of crimes being reported.  I personally think that Rahm and McCarthy know this. But while money’s so tight, they just have to make due until sunnier days come along.

    Nevertheless, they have to maintain the appearance of doing something to stay on top of criminal element.

    So along comes this story about McCarthy moving some top folks around at CPD:

    With Chicago suffering a 35 percent spike in murders this year, police Supt. Garry McCarthy announced a reshuffling of his command staff Friday, replacing commanders in five of the city’s 23 districts.

    McCarthy also promoted three supervisors to deputy chief positions. He said the changes were made to “strengthen the department’s ongoing efforts to reduce violence” and create a “more efficient departmental structure.”  …

    A police spokeswoman said no district commanders were demoted to make way for the changes in those five districts. They replaced commanders who were promoted to other positions or retired, she said.  …

    As of Thursday, there have been 114 murders this year in Chicago — up 35 percent compared with the same period last year.But department records also show that, through March 18, overall crime has dropped 10 percent throughout the city compared with the same period in 2011.

    via Chicago Sun-Times.

    This is not a shake-up.  A shake-up is where people are shown the door for poor performance.  People are held accountable.  …

    Rahm and McCarthy know that it’s not really these folks fault.  Everyone knows that the real problem is that there’s not enough officers to go around.  This is just a PR stunt — feeding something, anything to the masses — to create the illusion that Rahm and McCarthy are taking this seriously.