A bizarre weekend where the high exceeded 80 degrees also brought a rash of violence across Chicago, which left at least 10 people dead and some 40 others wounded.
via CBS Chicago.
There’s no end in sight. CPD is so undermanned that little can be done.
Whatever the Mayor’s is doing, it’s not working.
A key City Council committee Monday signed off on a $3.6 million settlement in a lawsuit filed by a man who spent nearly 10 years in prison for an attack on a woman who later said she made a mistake when she identified him as her assailant.
Robert Wilson had sought $9.9 million, a figure reflecting the nine years and nine months he spent behind bars on an attempted murder conviction before he was released in 2006, said Leslie Darling, an attorney for the city. Wilson, who alleged that his confession to the crime was coerced, was pardoned in 2008 by Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
“I think he deserves $10 million,” said Ald. Proco “Joe” Moreno, 1st. “In this case, I think approving the $3.6 million is a cost-saving measure and quite prudent.”
…
If the deals are approved, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration will have settled nine cases involving alleged police misconduct for a total of $9.4 million since September. All the alleged misconduct — ranging from improper response to medical needs to railroading innocent defendants — occurred during the 22-year tenure of former Mayor Richard Daley.
via Chicago Tribune.
Of course the 800 pound gorilla in the room is Jon Burge. The fallout from this corrupt cop’s actions have only begun to spill. And lest we forget who was the Cook County State’s Attorney while Burge was running roughshod over the South Side? Ya, none other than Da Mare himself, Richard Daley.
Our children’s children will pay for the corruption of the Daley years. And yet history will probably be kind to him. It’s a very sad state of affairs.
When Rahm Emanuel was a first-time candidate for Congress, Greg Goldner was behind him, quietly marshaling the patronage troops that helped get him elected. When Emanuel ran for mayor, Goldner was there again, doling out campaign cash to elect Emanuel-friendly aldermen to City Council.
And when the rookie mayor was looking for community support for his school reform agenda, there was Goldner, working behind the scenes with the ministers who backed Emanuel’s plan.
Now, it turns out the longtime allies share another interest — the installation of automated speed cameras in Chicago.
As consultant to the firm that already supplies Chicago its red-light cameras, Goldner is the architect of a nationwide campaign to promote his client’s expansion prospects. That client, Redflex Traffic Systems Inc., is well-positioned to make tens of millions of dollars from Emanuel’s controversial plan to convert many of the red-light cameras into automated speed cameras.
via Chicago Tribune.
The rest of the article is the standard, ‘A has nothing to do with B.’
Uh huh. This is still Chicago after all.
6:00 a.m. CDT, March 11, 2012
At least eight people were shot Saturday night and Sunday morning on the South and West sides, according to police.
via Chicago Tribune.
Eight in one night. It appears that all the criminals are willing to carry despite all the laws Rahm et. al. keep passing. So what are the innocent to do?
-=-=-
One day I’m going to investigate how Anita Alvarez prosecutes these cases. My guess is that we have all these guns laws and none are being applied.
It’s an Op-Ed, but it’s also propaganda:
Mayor Rahm Emanuel was in Peoria earlier this week talking about how Chicago and Downstate politicians need to stop fighting so much.
“The politics of the past where we used to play Chicago versus downstate is over. It doesn’t serve the people of Illinois,” Emanuel said, adding, “It’s not working anymore.”
Note to Rahm: It never worked.
…
One of the biggest issues in downstate politics is guns. …
The basic caricature is that Downstate politicians love guns and want one in every citizen’s hands, while Chicago politicians are afraid of guns and want to ban them entirely. …
Emanuel got along great with Downstate legislators last year. … But then a few weeks ago the mayor announced that he wanted a new law to register all the handguns in Illinois. The mayor scored some routine political points with his gun-hating Chicago constituents, but he infuriated Downstaters, and the resulting explosion was cataclysmic.
Downstaters who had worked with Emanuel just days before began publicly ripping into him as if he were some sort of evil dictator bent on grabbing all their guns. Most are now using their opposition to Emanuel in their campaigns. Ironically enough, Emanuel helped boost Downstate legislators politically while simultaneously alienating them from his legislative agenda.
On the other side of the equation, though, is the Downstate ignorance about how deeply so many Chicagoans hate guns. Many Chicagoans are as insulted and infuriated by Downstate demands that people be able to legally carry loaded handguns on the city’s streets as downstaters are that they’ll have to pay $20 to register every handgun they own.
So, if the mayor really wants to work toward peace, he’ll first have to find a way to get past these gun issues. And if he can do that, he’s a better man than most.
via Chicago Sun-Times.
Kudos to Rich Miller for pointing out how Rahm is causing the divide he claims he wants to repair. Oh, wait… Miller didn’t do that, I just did.
The bigger issue with Miller’s piece is his create choice of language; he choose his word carefully. By saying, “the Downstate ignorance about how deeply so many Chicagoans hate guns” he doesn’t have to claim that a majority of people (or voters) hate guns but he can create the inference as such.
The truth is that so many Chicagoans really really really want the right to own (most of those want to be able to carry) a handgun. Perhaps if Mr. Miller would get outside of the liberal cocktail party set he would realize that many residents feel terrorized in their own homes. A black minister once told me, “Many in my congregation don’t want to police harassing the folks in their neighborhood. But they also want to keep a .38 under the pillow.”
Most logical open minded people know that when seconds count the police are just minutes away. A firearm is used in defense far more often than in offense. Mr. Miller and his anti-gun friends just can’t get their heads around the facts. They really should read John Lott’s More Guns, Less Crime.
Concealed Carry works. Illinois is now the only state in the union without any sort of CCW. I’m not a believer in the “if everyone jumped off a bridge logic” but it appears that our foot dragging is making us look foolish, childish. States like Alaska and Vermont have no laws restricting carrying a concealed firearm at all. Florida has a very open CCW policy (they even gave me a permit;) and yet Miami doesn’t have near the gun violence of Chicago. Compare Dallas or Houston as well.
The bottom line is that the Downstaters have it right and the political elites in Chicago have it wrong.
A CTA bus driver was treated at an area hospital tonight after a woman threw a liquid believed to be rubbing alcohol in the man’s face when the two argued about an expired fare card, police said.
via Chicago Tribune.
One word yet on whether Rahm’s going to demand from Springfield a Rubbing Alcohol Registry.
Big News!!
The Group of Eight meeting will be moved to Camp David, according to the White House, but the gathering of NATO allies and the International Security Assistance Force will go on in Chicago as planned in mid-May.
Camp David will more closely approximate the remote settings in which the G8 leaders prefer to gather. Summits in large cities typically see clamorous protests, while those in the countryside are calmer and more sedate.
via Chicago Tribune.
Of course this has absolutely nothing to do this this:
The Occupy movement is likely to escalate months before the Sept. 3-6 event. A slew of extremist organizations, some tied to Obama, are preparing protests to coincide with major NATO and G-8 summits slated for Chicago in May.
Foreshadowing possible violent confrontations, some of the same radical trainers behind the infamous 1999 Seattle riots against the World Trade Organization have been mobilizing new protest efforts geared toward world summits. …
One endorsing group, which calls itself the Committee to Stop FBI Repression, is also a main organizer of the protests being scheduled for Chicago’s NATO and G-8 summits in May.
via Klein Online.
And then there’s this:
“To facilitate a free-flowing discussion with our close G-8 partners, the President is inviting his fellow G-8 leaders to Camp David on May 18-19 for the G-8 Summit, which will address a broad range of economic, political and security issues,” the White House announced this afternoon. “The President will then welcome NATO allies and partners to his hometown of Chicago for the NATO Summit on May 20-21.”
Maybe I’m reading English here, but that sounds like the president concluded it would be harder to have a “free-flowing discussion” in Chicago—yet still wanted to throw Rahm Emanuel a bone. NATO summits don’t generally excite people as much as meetings of the most powerful money guys in the world. …
Not even a carefully crafted statement from the City Hall press machine could conceal his disappointment: “We wish President Obama and the other leaders well at the G8 meeting at Camp David and look forward to hosting the NATO Summit in Chicago. Hosting the NATO Summit is a tremendous opportunity to showcase Chicago to the world and the world to Chicago.”
So far, aldermen haven’t been briefed. “Do you think this administration tells us anything?” says Second Ward alderman Robert Fioretti, who for months has been wary of Emanuel’s behind-the-scenes summit planning.
It’s safe to say there is a LOT more to this story than we’re being told. Of course we’ll never find out. But it can be a lot of fun to think about.
And lastly… only time will tell if this move will reduce the protests.
Chicago celebrated its 175th birthday Sunday to the tune of protest rants.
A small group shouted during part of the ceremony about Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s plan to close six mental health clinics in the city.
As the mayor stood beside a colorful birthday cake and the Chicago Children’s Choir, protesters yelled that the closings make it harder for people to get help and ultimately cost lives.
Emanuel quickly left the room looking mildly insulted and without responding to anyone in the group. A voice directed partygoers to the next room. “Please join us in the next room for birthday cake,” the voice said.
via NBC Chicago.
So Rahm cannot keep protesters out of a small birthday celebration. How’s he ever going to keep protesters in line during the G-8/NATO summits?
Just say’n.
This is the third or fourth stabbing in the last two weeks.
A 61-year-old man is in custody after police said he stabbed another man this morning after the two had an argument that began when the victim tried to swat the dog away in the Longwood Manor neighborhood. …
An argument escalated and resulted in the stabbing of the younger man, said O’Brien.
The man was stabbed in the back and was taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in serious condition, officials said.
via Chicago Tribune.
No word yet on whether or not Rahm is going to request a statewide registry on knife owners.
Yes, this is a few days old:
Two controversial gun control proposals advanced to the full House Wednesday.
On a partisan vote, the Democratic-controlled House Executive Committee approved a measure requiring handgun owners to register their weapons with the state.
The panel also signed off on legislation that would create a special 2 percent tax on ammunition, which would finance trauma facilities that treat gunshot victims.
Both measures headed to the floor after failing to win support from Republican committee members. They said it remains unproven that such laws will reduce crime. And, they added, downstate gun owners would be unfairly burdened with the changes.
via The Quad City Times.
This is of course ridiculous. I have already written on how gun control registries are expensive and don’t live up to their claims. But I guess the gun control Nazis don’t care about such things.
Thanks to the folks over at Second City Cop, I did not a little research and found out that in the U.S. (my previous writing was on the Canadian registry) criminals actually cannot be prosecuted for not registering their weapons. Really? Yes, really!
The USSC (United States Supreme Court) ruled in Haynes v. United States that:
Miles Edward Haynes was a convicted felon who was charged with failing to register a firearm under the Act. Haynes argued that, because he was a convicted felon and thus prohibited from owning a firearm, requiring him to register was essentially requiring him to make an open admission to the government that he was in violation of the law, which was thus a violation of his right not to incriminate himself.
In 7-1 decision, the Court ruled in favor of Haynes.
You see, in Illinois if you are felon you cannot get a FOID card which is necessary to possess — even touch a single bullet — a firearm or ammunition in the state. So if you don’t have a FOID you cannot register your handgun. However, because registering your handgun would force you to demonstrate that you do not have a FOID means that you would be incriminating yourself by trying to register. Therefore, registration would violate your 5th Amendment right against self incrimination.
So, this registry has absolutely NOTHING to do with getting guns out of the hands of criminals — the don’t have to register them!!
It’s all about creating a list of law abiding citizens (including police officers) who happen to own handguns.