My Blog

Category: Crime

  • Emanuel’s Foolish TIF for Police Plan

    Over the weekend Rahm Emanuel became the latest local politician to propose tapping funds from the city’s tax increment financing districts to help pay for city services.

    Emanuel said that if he is elected mayor he would use $25 million in TIF money to pay for 250 new officers that could be dispatched around the city as needed. This, he said, would let the city avoid making the “false choice” of deciding whether to move police districts away from some neighborhoods and into others with more pressing crime problems.

    There all kinds of problems with this idea.  Mick Dumke at the Chicago News Cooperative points to a legal one:

    Under state law, the city is required to spend TIF money in the area where it was generated (or, in some cases, in a nearby area). And currently most TIF funds are designated for use in downtown districts, according to a balance sheet on the city’s website.

    (Full story here.)

    Yes indeed, that’s a problem.  But here’s another one: in a department that is no less than 2,500 sworn officers short 250 is not enough to do anything!

    This is the equivalent of someone getting their leg shot off and Rahm wants to offer then a band-aid.

    I have an idea about how to solve the police crisis… and TIF reform… details coming soon but here’s a hint.  Tom Allen’s idea was a good start.  I say we go further.  I say we go all the way.

  • CPD Considers Reallocation of Officers

    Police districts on Chicago’s North Side would lose beat officers to South Side and West Side districts if the city were to reallocate cops based on the volume of 911 calls and backups for police service, a Chicago Sun-Times analysis has found.

    (Full story here.)

    The Second Ward is on both ends of this; Weis probably wants to both take from those in Printer’s Row and give those on the South and West sides.  The facts are what they are and without seeing the details, there is little to evaluate.

    However, the question I have is: if this is such a great idea why wasn’t it done two years ago?

    This is similar to his “sit down” with “gang leaders” a few months back.  It’s not necessarily a terrible idea in theory, but if HE thought is was a good idea, then why did he wait so long to do it?

    Mr. Weis just seems to be grasping at straws.  There is no real clear strategy to deal with crime in this city.  No preemptive plan; no reactionary plan.   I sense attending CAPS meeting that we’re out here on our own.

    Very sad.

  • They Don’t Want You to Know

    I bet you have no idea how many shootings there have been in Chicago this year.

    Me either.

    And it’s not because I haven’t tried to find out. About two months ago, I started reporting on crime and public safety. In light of the on-again, off-again handgun ban and Supt. Jody Weis’ insistence that there are too many guns out there, I was certain the Chicago Police Department would track shootings.

    And by shootings, I meant just that. Any time a loaded gun was fired. I thought that was clear enough.

    …

    The Chicago Police Department records crimes in a very specific way. Aggravated batteries with firearms are incidents in which someone is shot. But according to Sgt. Antoinette Ursitti, a department news affairs officer, this only includes the number of incidents, not victims. If five people are shot in a club, it’s recorded as a single incident even though a minimum of five shots were fired.

    And when three people were shot Wednesday morning in front of a Taco Bell next to Wrigley Field, police said the case report classified it as a single incident of aggravated battery with a firearm.

    (Full story here.)

    Mr. Weis and the Mayor tell us over and over that “crime is down.”  But something inside of us tells us otherwise.  What’s amazing here is that it take some college students to find out how badly the Chicago Police Department keeps its books.

    It takes awhile for this to sink-in because it doesn’t make sense, but in CPD world unless there’s a report there was no crime.  I recently wrote about how at a recent CAPS meeting we were told that there were 17 calls to 911 that resulted in zero (0) reports being filed.  Conclusion of CPD brass?  No crimes occurred.

    Why keeps stats this way?  Because they don’t want you to know what’s really going on.

    This needs to change.  We need to start measuring crime in practical ways.  I will be writing more about my plan to reduce crime in the near future.

  • Strong-arm Robbery

    At 12:30 a.m., a female Roosevelt University student was robbed of her iPhone in the 600 block of South Michigan Avenue, according to Central District police.

    (Full story here.)

    This is the kind of event that troubles me.  No camera is going to stop this.  And let’s be honest, it’s just not practicable to say that “no one should ever walk alone.”  The only solution is more police on the street and locking up the criminals.

    We need more police, a real State’s Attorney who will take crime seriously, and judges who give out long sentences.

  • More Crime Nonsense

    Let’s start with the premise:

    Chicago police officials reported today that October crime statistics continued a drop in violent and property crime for the 22nd consecutive month.Total crime dropped by 3.7 percent compared to the same time last year while property crime dropped by 2 percent and violent crimes dropped by 9.8 percent, police said.

    The only reported increase was in motor vehicle thefts, which were up by 22.7 percent compared to last year’s figures.

    (Full story here.)

    Daley Watches Crime Stats
    Daley Watches Crime Stats

    Why this is udder nonsense:

    So I’m at the recent Beat 1211 CAPS meeting and the very nice CAPS officer is telling us about the recent success of the extra “hot-spot” protection we’ve been getting over on the West Side.

    The officer tells us about 17 calls to 911 within a two square-block area in the month of October dealing with everything from “kids being loud” to a “man with a gun” and one call for “shots fired.”  However the kicker is that these 17 calls resulted in ZERO reports.

    Seventeen calls to 911, zero reports.  So you know how the Mayor looks at it?  No reports, no crime.

    Perhaps if CPD was not understaffed response time would be reasonable so that when people call 911, you know, an officer shows up in 5 or 10 minutes.  Then maybe the person who called would still be around to, you know, file the report.

    Incredible.  Simply incredible.

  • The Chicago Way

    With the election now behind us I’d like to pause on a great little story in the Trib. today.

    Cook County voters Tuesday narrowly retained four Circuit Court judges who had been deemed unqualified to continue on the bench by several legal groups.

    Jim Ryan and Susan McDunn each garnered about 63 percent of the vote, just above the required 60 percent to be retained; Dorothy Jones pulled in 64 percent; and William O’Neal recorded 66 percent.

    (Full story here.)

    This is nothing short of embarrassing.  We must do whatever it takes to change the crooked system that keeps unqualified people in office.  Apathy is not an excuse, let alone a reason, for poor judges to be retained.

    All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

    — Edmund Burke

    That about sums it up.

  • Daley: Fewer Police Next Year

    Even on the way out Mayor Daley cannot be straight with us.  After weeks and weeks of hammering away telling us that crime is down — when anyone west of the lake knows it’s not — along comes this half-truth.

    The city at the end of this year will have about 950 vacant police officer positions, said Gene Munin, the city’s budget director. Although the city plans to hire 200 officers next year, it projects that 300 will leave the force.

    Munin later conceded that the projection of 300 departures was not in keeping with historical patterns. Typically, about 450 officers retire or leave the force for other reasons each year, he said.

    (Full Trib. story here.)

    The truth is that we’re already down about 2,500 – 3,000 police officer positions.  So the reality is that we will be short another 950+ police next year.  That “another” is a key word missing from the Mayor’s mouthpiece.

    Police are critical to the viability of this city.  Residents must feel safe not only in their homes but on the streets where they travel.  Tourists will find other places to visit if we do not maintain law and order.  People who travel for business may be forced to come, but they will hide in their hotels and get out as soon as they are able.

    You may have noticed that travel to Mexico is extremely cheap now-a-days.  It’s a violence plagued place where American’s not longer want to travel.  This is NOT a comparison, residents know Chicago is safer than many big cities in the U.S.  But we cannot deny the reality that continuing to short change the residents on police protection is a sure fire way to create a city that no one wants to live in or visit.

  • CPD May Scrap Entrance Exam

    Local NBC is running with this story that the Chicago Police Dept. may Scrap Entrance Exam.  Hello insanity my old friend.

    Dropping the exam would bolster minority hiring and avert legal battles, according to one source, while others confirm that the exam could be scrapped to open the process to as many people as possible.

    I’m sorry, but I like my police beyond competent.  If we could get away with it I would require a master’s degree and military experience in order to be a police officer in this town.  People who are given the authority to take a life when necessary should not be whoever we can get; they should be the best and brightest among us.

    What’s next, do we allow non-violent felons to apply too?

  • Chicago Homicide Reality

    Ok, I have this theory.  It’s a theory about the homicide rate in Chicago and how it’s being touted by everyone from the Mayor to the media but the truth is that we’re being sold a bill of goods.

    “Chicago homicides drop for 2009” screams the Tribune headline and when I read it my jaw fell and I was like “Wha?”  My theory is that it’s not da Mayor’s gun laws, or his new G-man police superintendent, or even the generally hard-working blue shirts out there on the street getting the murder count down.  No, it’s the silent work of dozens of EMTs, ER doctors and nurses, and advancements in emergency medicine that is keeping shooting victims alive.

    So I did a little poking around.  Over at Everyblock I could search the CPD database and found that in November there were 34 homicide reports filed in the city.  Yet there were 134 cases of aggravated battery with a handgun in the same period.

    So then I looked at November 2008.  37 homicides, 120 aggravated battery with handgun.  2008 has less shooting but more dead.

    Now this is not scientific and far from perfect because there are more categories of aggravated battery including a handgun, e.g. domestic, so don’t read too much into this.  (also, November 2007: 28 and 115.)

    But when you see some talking head touting 2009’s low murder rate ask about the rate of aggravated batteries.

    Perhaps someone out there (maybe with knowledge and access of CPD records) would be willing to do a proper study and share the numbers with me so that I may share them with you.  Anyone?