Tag: CPD

Defend Yourself from Crazy People

This is blatantly lifted from Second City Cop.  No need to correct perfection.

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Here’s some brilliant freaking idea coming out of a “police executive” group. Confronting an attacker leads to less casualties:
  • The speed and deadliness of recent high-profile shootings have prompted police departments to recommend fleeing, hiding or fighting in the event of a mass attack, instead of remaining passive and waiting for help.The shift represents a “sea change,” said Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, which recently held a meeting in Washington to discuss shootings like those in Newtown, Conn., and Aurora, Colo

    The traditional advice to the public has been “don’t get involved, call 911,” Mr. Wexler said, adding, “There’s a recognition in these ‘active shooter’ situations that there may be a need for citizens to act in a way that perhaps they haven’t been trained for or equipped to deal with.”

This is just coming to national consciousness now, but police departments across the country, including Chicago, rewrote these policies years ago for active shooter scenarios when it was determined that a response, no matter how disorganized, disjointed or small, almost inevitably led to the shooter surrendering or suiciding himself.The NRA has been advocating this for years and been roundly castigated for daring to say it. The issue isn’t guns, it’s people and the unwillingness to confront easily predictable and obvious signs of instability that lead to mass shootings. Columbine and Virginia Tech, the two most often cited examples, were both 100% preventable if the warning signs were recognized and acted upon. So was Newtown. So was Aurora. In fact, records unsealed late last week revealed a shocking fact:

  • A University of Colorado psychiatrist told campus police a month before the Aurora movie theater attack that James Holmes had homicidal thoughts and was a public danger, according to records unsealed Thursday.Lynne Fenton, a psychiatrist at the Denver campus, told police that Holmes had also “threatened and harassed her via email/text messages” in June 2012. He is standing trial for the July 20 shooting rampage that killed 12 and injured 70 during a midnight premiere of the latest Batman movie.
Colorado, which just passed some of the more draconian gun restrictions in the nation, based their anti-gun arguments on the theory that the Aurora Theater shooting could have happened anywhere and been perpetrated by anyone. But the fact is that the theater is the only one in a 20 minute radius with a specific “no guns” rule in effect and authorities were warned by a mental health professional a month in advance of the killer’s threats and violent tendencies and they did nothing to stop him. Everything that could have been done, wasn’t. And gun grabbers are using it to deprive everyone of the Right to self defense, a Right now condoned by police executives.
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This is — for those that read my blog — old news.  I shared the Alabama Dept. of Homeland Security video in January.
In a comment on Facebook I wrote that the critical factor in savings lives in any active shooter situation is the time to engagement by an armed good guy.  Once any armed good guy shows up the carnage always stops within 60 seconds.  Always.

Modern Policing Model: The LAPD?

Sheriff’s deputies caught one of the Bloods before he could vanish into the maze of two-story apartment blocks that make up Imperial Courts. Another suspect got away. Deputies spotted the third ducking into one of the apartment buildings. They were preparing to go in when Phil Tingirides, the Los Angeles Police Department captain responsible for Southeast Division, arrived on the scene. Tingirides didn’t like what he saw. Entering seemed an unwise tactic; in fact, LAPD guidelines called for the use of a Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team. Tingirides was also disturbed by the atmosphere developing among the assembled group of roughly 15 spectators, including the suspect’s mother, sisters, and brothers. Almost as soon as she had arrived, upset and worried, the mother had gotten into it with one of the deputies, who began upbraiding her for raising a gangbanger. Meanwhile, Tingirides noticed, one of the brothers had started an argument with a group of PJs nearby.

Any cop who’d worked the public-housing developments of Watts during the 1980s and 1990s had seen it happen: the gang skirmish that escalates to a shooting; the crowd that turns on the cops. But not this time. Tingirides interrupted the deputy’s harangue, saying, “Hey, I got this.” Then he introduced himself to the mother and the sisters as a cop and a parent. “Your priority needs to be getting your son out of here safe,” he said. He explained what had happened. This was news to the mother, who had simply gotten a call from her son saying that the cops were chasing him for no reason. These things can happen, Tingirides said. Disgusted at the way Tingirides was talking about a hard-core gangbanger, the deputy left. Tingirides and the mother then went over to the brother, who was still arguing with the PJs. Mom and the highway patrol pulled him aside. “Once she understood what had happened and had someone talking to her as a person and a fellow parent, it totally changed her demeanor and dynamic,” says Tingirides.

The crowd was losing interest. So were the deputies. Tingirides told them that LAPD guidelines prohibited an attempt to make an entry. Fine, they said; in that case, we’re handing this off to you. The deputies pulled back. And then the suspect emerged. His brother had called him on his cell phone and explained the situation. South Gate police took him into custody. The crowd dispersed. “There was never any element of hostility toward our department at all,” Tingirides says.

For more than half a century, many African-American Angelenos and more than a few Latinos considered the LAPD an oppressor—“an occupation force,” in the words of former Urban League president John Mack. That is no longer the case. Over the past decade, the department has transformed itself radically, along with its relations with local minorities. Nor has the police department become popular by sacrificing public safety: violent crime in Los Angeles has been falling for years. How the LAPD’s reconciliation with L.A.’s minorities came about may be the most important untold story in the world of policing. What makes the reconciliation even more remarkable is that its architect was the same man who had already transformed the New York City Police Department: William Bratton.

via City Journal.

A lengthy and excellent piece about how Bill Bratton transformed the LAPD from a jack-booted thug operating under a federal consent decree to a modern crime fighting force that understands the needs of minorities.

Too bad that Gerry McCarthy’s ego is too big for him to do anything but continue to blame other people for his lack of leadership at CPD.

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.

Milwaukee Sheriff’s Says Arm Yourself

Milwaukee County Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr. set off alarm bells Friday with a radio spot some view as a call for citizens to arm themselves.

In the radio ad, Clarke tells residents personal safety isn’t a spectator sport anymore, and that “I need you in the game.”

“With officers laid off and furloughed, simply calling 911 and waiting is no longer your best option,” Clarke intones.

“You could beg for mercy from a violent criminal, hide under the bed, or you can fight back.”

Clarke urges listeners to take a firearm safety course and handle a firearm “so you can defend yourself until we get there.”

“You have a duty to protect yourself and your family. We’re partners now. Can I count on you?”

via Milwaukee Journal Online.

Sound advice from a serious man.

Why is it in Chicago all we hear from McCarty and Rahm is that you cannot protect yourself?

When seconds count the police are just minutes away.

 

CPD Cop Shoots Puppy; His Buddies Intimade Witnesses

While FOX 32’s Larry Yellen was interviewing the dog’s owners, two police officers drove by the home. 90 minutes later, they came back, asked why Phillips why he had contacted the media and gave him a ticket for not keeping Colonel [the puppy] on a leash.

via FOX 32 News.

So on the same day that the City of Chicago determines it wants to settle a lawsuit and set aside the verdict that the CPD has a Code of Silence (which in the Abbatte case was not just silence but actual harassment of witnesses,) there’s another story about how CPD officers are out actively protecting their own.

This is abuse by CPD.  No doubt about it.

Pensioners Take Note, Municipal Bond Storm Coming

[B]ut California too is now starting to hand it to bondholders. Cities in California are now testing the limits of bankruptcy law, and not paying the debt nor the payments for retirees to the state system. Thus this article describes how the state retirement system (CALPERS) is suing to demand payment, and saying that retiree obligations come AHEAD of creditors (municipal bond holders) in the queue.

“The issue is, do Calpers obligations supersede unsecured bondholders?” Fabian said in a telephone interview. “There’s an awful lot of unsecured bondholders in California. If you put pension obligations to Calpers as secured and senior to unsecured debt, in effect those bonds have been downgraded.”

In the Stockton and San Bernardino cases, Calpers is arguing that pension contributions must be made ahead of payments to other creditors because they are so-called statutory liens, or debts that state law requires to be paid. Bondholders and other creditors that oppose Calpers argue that pension debt is a contractual obligation like any other.

You’d have to be nuts to buy California municipal debt if Calpers has precedence and employee retirement benefits can’t be cut, since this is the MAIN THING that is driving these cities into insolvency. In the future likely these municipalities would just contract out everything to third parties that wouldn’t pay their employees those giant benefits, but the cities have to jettison these liabilities to put their fiscal house in order today.

via Chicago Boyz.

In case this is a little tough to follow, in bankruptcy debts are paid according to a priority.  There’s a decent primer here.

The “Illinois” based pensions are probably ok. e.g. ITRS.  There is no statute permitting a state to file for bankruptcy protection.

However cities are corporations; they can (and do) file for bankruptcy protection.  CPS, CPD, CFD employees and retirees should watch these cases in California closely.  They may be getting a real haircut if they have to defer to the bond holders to get their money.

It’s all very very sad.

 

CPD Brass Wasting Money Trying to Track Gunshots

The Police Department began using gunshot detection technology early last month in two 1.5-square-mile areas to try to better pinpoint the location of gunshots, Superintendent Garry McCarthy disclosed Thursday. The sensors sometimes give officers information before 911 calls are made, he said.

In the past decade, the city twice installed the devices but ultimately removed them because of their high price tags and ineffectiveness. Since then the technology has improved “dramatically,” McCarthy said.

“What we can do with this is overwhelming right now,” McCarthy said at a news conference. “It’s gotten a lot better, and obviously as it’s out there longer, it’s a lot cheaper also.”

The one-year contract for the ShotSpotter system costs about $200,000 — money that will come from drug forfeitures and other property seized by police, authorities said.

via Chicago Tribune.

So it didn’t work before and was too expensive.  Boy, that’s not what we were told last time.

Given the success of the pilot program, in September 2003, Mayor Daley announced that a new phase of PODs would be deployed throughout the City. Subsequently, the number of PODs increased from 30 to 80 by December 2003. Some of the new second generation PODs were also equipped with technology to detect gunfire. Using wireless technology, these units transmitted gunshot alerts, as well as the usual video images, directly to the City’s Emergency Management and Communications Center, thereby providing crucial intelligence on criminal incidents involving guns. Several of the 30 existing PODs were also upgraded with the same technology during that time period.
— CPD Website, dated June 15, 2003

and

Chicago police plan to add 50 new remote-controlled cameras in city … The new cameras will be equipped with gunshot detectors….
— Herald & Review, dated April 7, 2004

and

Chicago police have installed 30 surveillance units in high-crime locales. The system uses four microphones to zero in on firearm discharges.
— USA Today, dated June 6, 2005

The USA Today article ends with:

Adding SENTRI to an existing surveillance camera is not cheap, however. The system costs between $4,000 and $10,000 per unit. In Chicago, money forfeited by criminals is used to pay for both it and the accompanying cameras.

As a result, Police Superintendent Phil Cline told a recent U.S. Conference of Mayors meeting, “the drug dealers are actually paying to surveil themselves.”

I guess everything old is new again.

 

CPD Brass Wants Tighter Gun Tracking

Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said today that he would like to see gun owners in Illinois have to report when their weapons are stolen, lost or sold – steps he said would lower the number of firearms in the hands of criminals.  …

“We keep trying to pass comprehensive gun legislation,” he added. “And my recommendation is to really start small. The fact is that if there was a requirement to report the loss, transfer or theft of a firearm in the state of Illinois, that would significantly limit the number of firearms in the city of Chicago.”

via Chicago Tribune.

Media simply reports what the man says as gospel and doesn’t ask any questions.

Please tell us Mr. McCarthy how part one, a “requirement to report the loss, transfer or theft of a firearm” leads to part two, and “significantly limit the number of firearms in the city of Chicago?”

Person A has a gun.  Person A goes on vacation and while gone Gang-Banger B breaks into Person A’s house and steals Person A’s gun.  Person A reports to the police that the gun has been stolen.

First, Person A is going to file a report b/c guns are expensive and he or she is going to want to make the insurance claim that the gun was stolen.

Second, Person A is going to file a report b/c they don’t want the police knocking at their door when the gun is used in a crime.

But just in case that’s not enough…  let’s just say we do create a new law to force Person A to notify the police that the gun was stolen.  Now just exactly what is the police going to do with that information to keep the stolen firearm out of the city of Chicago?

I would really like to know.  Where is the nexus between knowledge of a stolen gun and action that keeps that gun out of the city?

Can someone please explain?

Mayor Booker Gives Rahm & McCarthy an Idea

This will be “policy” in Chicago within the next 12 months.

Controversial Newark, N.J. Mayor Cory Booker wants to make an offer to local drug dealers that they can’t refuse.

Cory Booker and former New York Gov. David Paterson spoke Tuesday morning about recidivism and racism at a panel hosted by Stroock law firm.

One of Booker’s most shocking policies is dubbed a “call in,” something he borrowed from High Point, N.C. During a call in, police and other government officials meet with known drug dealers and try to convince them to choose another path.

“What we’ve decided to do in Newark is bring them all in and sit down with them and not have a ‘you’re going to get arrested’ conversation but ‘hey, this is the pros and cons,'” Booker said.

When the suspects come to the meeting, law enforcement has already collected evidence against them, including pictures of them dealing drugs.

“And we basically said to them, ‘you can work with us, we have people here with housing, jobs, everything possible,” Booker said. “Or you can go out and continue doing [crimes], but if there’s one shooting in this area again […] we will come in and find every reason that’s legally allowable to arrest everybody you know.'”

via Business Insider.

Now mind you, I’m not saying that it’s going to be a miserable failure… I’m just saying that Rahm and McCarthy are going to bring this forward as a new and creative idea all their own after the current policy is a demonstrated failure.