Chicago’s Felons with Guns Go Free

Do you know where Chicago ranks in terms of enforcement of the federal gun laws? Out of 90 jurisdictions in the country, they ranked 90th. Why doesn’t NBC News start with, “Shocking news on Chicago. Of all the jurisdictions in the country, Chicago’s dead last on enforcement of the federal gun laws?” Why doesn’t the national press corps, when they’re sitting down there with Jay Carney and the president and the vice president, why don’t they say, “Why is Chicago dead last in enforcement of the gun laws against gangs with guns, felons with guns, drug dealers with guns?

via NewsBusters.

I’ve been saying this for over a year now.  Exactly!!

Why is it that Anita Alvarez does not refer felon with gun cases to the federal government?  Why?

Why is it that CPD Superintendent Garry McCarthy does not make news by telling people that Anita Alvarez is not referring felon with gun cases to the federal government?  Why?

Why is it that Mayor Rahm does not come out and make news by telling people that Anita Alvarez is not referring felon with gun cases to the federal government?  Why?

Because the WANT the gun crime on the streets because it creates the perception that there is a NEED for MORE gun laws.

It’s all a charade.

 

Red-Light Camera Co.’s Chicago Corruption

The chairman of the Australian company behind Chicago’s red-light program resigned this week and trading in the company’s stock was suspended amid an intensifying investigation into allegations of corruption in its Chicago contract.

Redflex Holdings Ltd. announced the extraordinary actions just days after board members were briefed by an outside legal team hired to examine ties between the company’s U.S. subsidiary and the city official who oversaw its contract, a relationship first disclosed in October by the Tribune.  …

The internal probe found that company executives systematically courted former city transportation official John Bills with thousands of dollars in free trips to the Super Bowl and other sporting events, sources familiar with the investigation told the Tribune.  …
The internal probe and a parallel investigation by city Inspector General Joseph Ferguson are also raising more questions about the company’s hiring of a longtime Bills friend who received more than $570,000 in company commissions as a customer service representative in Chicago, the sources said.

via Chicago Tribune.

The Tribune got the OK to print this story because John Bills was one of Daley’s guys.  Since Daley is gone Rahm gave the nod.

Hello Lisa Madigan?  Anita Alvarez?  Either of you awake?

 

15 y/o Arrested 19th Time After Armed Robbery

A 15-year-old boy with nearly 20 arrests on his record has been charged with armed robbery after he held up a man near his home, police said.It was Jesus Castaneda’s 19th arrest, according to police, and his second gun-related charge. He was last arrested in August 2012 for unlawful use of a weapon, police said.

via Chicago Tribune.

Where’s Anita Alvarez on this?  Where’s the court system on this?

Why has the Tribune disabled the comments for this story?

Felons with Guns Go Free

Bail was set at $150,000 today on weapons-related charges for a Brighton Park man already on parole in an attempted murder case after beat officers saw him firing a gun near his home this week.

Edgar Jasso, 29, faces charges of unlawful use of a weapon by a felon and reckless discharge of a firearm, and also has been charged with violating his parole for a 2005 attempted murder case, according to police and court records.

via chicagotribune.com.

This story is what I’ve been talking about for years!  Grrr….

Turns out a LOT of Illinois residents don’t know how gun laws work in the State of Illinois.  First off, if you want to touch a bullet or a firearm in Illinois you must first acquire a FOID — Firearm Owners I.D. — card.

To get your FOID you must apply to the Illinois State Police who takes your application, conducts a background check to make sure you’re not a felon, and that you’ve never been arrested for a weapons charge or convicted of any domestic violence, and then they send you your FOID.

In Illinois possession of a single bullet without a FOID is a felony.

In Illinois you cannot buy any firearm or ammunition without presenting a valid FOID card.  Neighboring states are aware of Illinois’ laws; so when you buy ammo in either Indiana or Wisconsin and they ask for your drivers license, when they see you’re from Illinois they always ask to see your FOID card.

Additionally, when you go to purchase a firearm you must show your FOID and then hold-out for the waiting period (3 days for handguns, 1 day for everything else) and the FFL that sells you the firearm must perform an instant background check w/ the BATF/FBI.

This idea that people are buying guns in Illinois w/out a background check is absurd.

As an aside, I’ve already covered that it’s illegal to convict a felony for NOT getting a FOID card prior to acquiring a firearm.  Yes, really.  Check out the link.  It’s self incrimination to apply for a FOID when you know you can’t have one.

This is why gun registries will never work.  Criminals will never register their guns.  And honest folks will immediately become criminals by not registering their guns.  … Well that and history shows that gun registries have never solved a single crime.

But I digress…

18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) is the federal firearms law that states that felons are barred from possession of any firearm.  It’s a mandatory sentence of not less than a year.  But get this.  If the person has 3 or more felony convictions then the minimum sentence is 15 years.

Why is State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez not sending these goons to the Feds?  They the federal government house, feed, try, sentence, and punish these guys.  Would save the state millions and get these career criminals off the streets.   It’s a win-win.

UPDATED:  Corrected some bad grammar and added two paragraphs.

Most Shooters In Chicago Never Face Charges

Last year, gunmen who shot and wounded someone got away without criminal charges 94 percent of the time, according to a DNAinfo.com Chicago analysis of police data.

That’s even worse than 2011, when 91.5 percent of shooters escaped charges, according to the data.

Chicago’s top cop said the “no-snitch” code of silence on the street is the biggest contributor in his department’s struggle to charge shooters.

via DNAinfo.com Chicago.

This is incredible!!

Garry McCarthy — Chicago’s “Top Cop” — wants to blame the people who live in constant fear in gang controlled neighborhoods for not coming forward and turning-in, and testifying against the gang members that run the place.  Asshat!!

Then you get our worthless State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez who won’t even speak for herself and instead walks out the “Chief of Staff” who says ‘It’s not our fault either.’

We have over 400 dead (mostly black) school children every year in this town and our leaders are playing pass-the-buck.  It’s embarrassing but these clowns are too dumb to even realize they should be ashamed of themselves.

Newton CT – Day 3

I wrote something short on the Facebook page of an old friend who called for more “gun control.”  He wrote back.  I wrote this response.

 

I actually live on the “West Side” near [omitted.]  My first comment on the Newton matter was to wonder why the events in Newton & Aurora get big news while we can’t get any real media attention about Chicago killing 450 black (and brown) children ever year in this city. We may not live near Fenger but we’re touched by violence. My wife was out walking our baby (now six) in a buggy when a block away a kid was shot by Crane H.S. The wife and kid were nearly trampled in the ensuing stampede of children away from the scene. She was also out walking with the baby the day that they beat a kid to death with a baseball bat or golf club or something literally on the steps of the H.S.

And that my old friend is the telling part – if the gang wants you dead they don’t need a gun to make that happen. The same day as the tragedy in Newton some wacko killed 20 kids with a sword at a school in China. Banning guns will not prevent crazy & will not stop mass killings.

There are many many things that went wrong in Newton. Mom should have been a better gun owner and kept her guns in a safe (I keep my guns in a safe.) It appears that access to the school was through a broken window. Perhaps the physical infrastructure needed to be improved. Having talked to people “on the job” I know that CPD policy in Chicago is that 1st on the scene does NOT go into the building b/c they don’t know what they’re dealing with. I think this is a bad policy. You cannot have cops literally 30-40 feet away standing around while kids are getting shot. My guess is that L.E. took a long time to “secure” the building which delayed EMS from getting to the victims. And my guess is that EMS in Newton is simply not equipped to deal with gunshot wounds the way that we deal with them here (I believe the Army still trains field surgeons at County.)

It’s just easy to blame the firearm. There are about 250 million vehicles in the country. There are about 310 non-military firearms (via CNN Aug. 9, 2012.) According to the CDC in 2010 children ages 5-9 were 6 times more likely to die in a traffic accident than by a firearm. Children are over twice as likely to drown and 1.5 times as likely to die in a fire over being killed by a gun. These are facts at the second link in my previous post. So if you’re serious about saving kids lives look at making cars and pools safer.

As for who as access and training, perhaps you raise a point. However I have been trained. I’ve completed a 4 hour class on gun safety. A 10 hour NRA class on safety and marksmanship. 40 hours on the laws in Illinois (despite already being an attorney.) I train regularly at a local range which costs $70-80 per visit (fees + ammo.) I’m fully prepared to stop anyone who should attack me or my family yet I pray everyday that I never need to. But I’m lucky; I have the means to make this happen. It is very expensive.

Self defense is everyone’s right. Recently there was this story: http://abcnews.go.com/US/kendra-st-clair-oklahoma-girl-12-shoots-intruder/story?id=17524438#.UM9OU3fzEyg This girl had no training and my guess is that her family did/does not have the means to send her and the rest of her family to training at $200 a head. This type of situation plays out everyday (the old man in the FL internet cafe also recently made news b/c there was security video.) Guns are used defensively far more often than offensively. There’s a good chance that Kendra St. Clair would be dead if she didn’t have her mother’s gun.

And that is where the NRA and the so called “Gun Lobby” is coming from. Yes, the events in Newton and VA Tech and everywhere else are tragic. But for every Newton there are 50 or 60 or 100 Kendra St. Clair’s. Battered wives and girlfriends who are able to protect themselves from abusive men. Store owners who use their guns to prevent a crime from happening simply by not being an easy target. What about these people?

When seconds count the police are just minutes away. A few years ago some kids were popping off a few shots out of a revolver in the alley beside my house. I called 911 and reported “shots fired.” It took over 15 mins for CPD to arrive. That’s the response time in an urban area to shots fired. If these kids kicked-in the door to my house we’d all be dead by the time CPD arrived… if I didn’t have the ability to shoot back (well that and our 145 pounds worth of dogs.) You can imagine what the response time would be out in the sticks. I sleep better knowing that if someone’s in the house odds are nearly perfect that I won’t need to actually shoot them. I can put two rounds into the bathroom shower and the intruder will not stick around to see where the next ones go.

Your experience at OTSC is common. I know of parents who made their kids sleep in the bathtub for fear of a stray round coming through the wall or window. But no law is going to take those guns out of the hands of gang-bangers. A good start would be to get the Democratic machine that runs this town to turn over all felons w/ guns to the feds. 5 year min law is on the books but Ms. Anita Alveraz refused to send them over to the feds. Why?

Ya see… there are a LOT of gun laws on the books that are simply not enforced. I truly believe this is b/c Rahm, Obama, Holder, and the rest of the Democrat cabal actively choose not to enforce them so they can demand new laws. It’s a sham.

So to recap:
– Guns are not the single cause of the tragedy;
– Guns are not as deadly to kids as cars, pools, or fires;
– Guns are mostly used defensively and save thousands of lives each year;
– Most gun violence is caused by illegally held guns; and
– We should start by enforcing the laws already on the books and insisting that violent offenders do real time.

$2M in Unemployment to Inmates

More than 1,100 people have collected nearly $2 million in unemployment benefits while they were in county jails or state prisons, including $43,000 that went to a person in the Cook County Jail, a state agency said Tuesday.

Now they may face state or federal criminal fraud charges as well as having to repay what they shouldn’t have taken in the first place, said Greg Rivara, spokesman for the Illinois Department of Employment Security.

In Cook County alone, there were 296 inmates tied to $722,689 in wrongful payments. In Will County, 21 inmates collected $85,159. Lake County was another leader with 20 inmates collecting $84,533, the agency said.

via Chicago Tribune.

WT…?!  You couldn’t make this stuff up.

#1. Where are the two wonder-twins of justice in this?  Nothing from Lisa Madigan or Anita Alvarez?  Why?  Where have they been?
#2.  Who the hell is running this agency?  Jail and prison records are actually a matter of public record.  You’re telling me no one ever bothered to cross-check the payouts against another public record?

#3.  It kinda makes you wonder how much fraud is really going on in the system.  After all, The Machine has their corrupt friends running all these agencies there is really no limit to how much might be missing.

Certainly not last… This is just another fine example as to why any service run by the government is doomed to ultimately doomed to fail.  People are incentivized to cheat the system.  But government employees are also incentivized to get as many people as possible into the system so they can justify their jobs and get more jobs and thus become more politically powerful.  As such, no one is watching the money.
The government that works the least is most often the government that works best.

Emanuel Plans Changes to City’s Gun Law

A few days ago…

Mayor Rahm Emanuel wants to rewrite Chicago’s firearm ordinance in response to a ruling by a federal judge who struck down a section of the city’s law he called vague and unconstitutional.  …

Last week, U.S. District Judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayan called that regulation “indiscriminate and arbitrary.””There is something incongruent about a nonviolent person, who is not a felon but who is convicted of a misdemeanor offense of simple possession of a firearm, being forever barred from exercising his constitutional right to defend himself in his own home in Chicago against felons or violent criminals,” Der-Yeghiayan wrote.  …

Having strong gun laws is part of the city’s overall approach to stemming violent crime, Emanuel said at an unrelated news conference.”Sensible, smart, targeted gun laws keep guns out of the hands of gangbangers and drug dealers,” Emanuel said, calling such laws “key to a strategy of reducing violence.”

via chicagotribune.com.

How’s that again Rahm?  You have the nation’s most restrictive gun law.  It’s failing miserably by any standard.  You have failed to ‘keep guns out of the hands of gangbangers and drug dealers.’  You have also failed to create any ‘strategy of reducing violence.’

Rahm:  You should start by enforcing the existing state and federal laws already on the books.  First show that they are somehow inadequate before creating a whole new system of bureaucracy to harass law abiding citizens.

Get a real Cook County State’s Attorney.  Get a real Illinois Attorney General.  If these prosecutors would charge crimes already on the books (e.g. felons with guns do federal time) you would not need any new laws to lock-up gangbangers and drug dealers.

Chicago’s Suburbs Corrupt Too

A former Chicago alderman is pushing for the creation of a suburban inspector general’s office to thwart corruption in the 1,200-plus government agencies spread throughout the suburban landscape.

In a report released Monday, Dick Simpson, a former alderman and current head of the University of Illinois at Chicago’s political science department, cited more than 100 cases over the past three decades involving suburban officials convicted of corruption.

via DailyHerald.com.

The article provides a couple of examples of corrupt behavior by suburban pols.  Nothing surprising; and missing some of the bigger players (Mayors Blaze & Stephens.)

What’s missing from the article, and from the report apparently, is any mention of the dynamic duo of legal prosecution Ms. Anita Alvarez and Ms. Lisa Madigan.  Both of these positions have investigation divisions.  Each is certainly capable of putting corrupt politicians in jail.

That Anita and Lisa simply refuse to protect the citizens from corrupt politicians means they both need to be replaced.

FYI, You CAN Cheat on Your Property Taxes

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and Assessor Joe Berrios on Tuesday urged state lawmakers to give them more power to go after property owners who improperly claim tax breaks, saying they could recover more than $150 million in three years with the new authority.

Under legislation pending in Springfield, counties could go after back taxes from people who have wrongly received homestead exemptions. The tax break should only be applied to a property owner’s primary residence, but people often also claim it for rental properties, vacation homes and secondary residences. Other property owners get inappropriate property tax reductions for being a senior citizen, disabled person or disabled veteran.

People who claimed multiple improper homestead exemptions also would be fined a percentage of their unpaid taxes, and the county could place liens on the properties to try to compel property owners to pay up.

via Chicago Tribune.

Wha?!

So let me get this straight… right now, I could file for a homestead and senior freeze exemptions on properties I own but don’t live at and despite the fact that I’m not a senior?

How stupid are the politicians in Springfield?  They grant all these exemptions but provide no way to enforce them.  This would be funny if not so sad.

Of course, there is someone who can do something about it; two in fact.  Both women… both lawyers… both elected to put bad people — like people who lie on government documents — in jail and fine them.

So rather than pushing for new laws, why doesn’t the county just ask Anita Alvarez to file charges against these people?  And if she’s too busy, Lisa Madigan could take some of the cases.

Of course both Alvarez and Madigan are too busy doing nothing.
So instead Preckwinkle and Berrios are asking for another new law so they can hire more government workers to police this new law.

$50 million a year in new revenue… $50 million a year in new expenses for staff and pensions.  The taxpayer will end up with nothing.