On Chicago: You Think It's Bad Now?

The worst has yet to come

Apologies to all the readers for our lack of writing lately. As you all know, we’ve been kind of busy working days off or being held over most weekend nights for two, three or four hours. All without a single known “threat.” We can only conclude the mayor is messing with everyone as punishment for remembering we are actually American citizens, not subjects of her disastrous regime. We can only imagine this year's overtime bill is going to rival that of a Cubs World Series run or the 2019 Loot-a-palooza.

And it’s about to get worse. Much worse, though you wouldn’t know it reading the so-called media.

A few weeks ago, Alderman Ervin asked a question that was covered countless times on the blog over the years:‍

"The chairman of the City Council’s Black Caucus wants the Chicago Police Department to create “clear criteria for why any positions that civilians can work are filled by sworn officers” and provide quarterly reports on the subject. Ald. Jason Ervin (28th) said “hundreds of sworn officers” remain in “civilian positions,” even though the last four mayors have seemingly made it a priority to get cops out from behind desks and back on the street."

“We go through these exercises, but nothing really changes. … We move people back into the districts and then, some mysterious way, they find their way back at headquarters,” Ervin told the Sun-Times.‍

‍

Ervin, no stranger to controversy and shadiness, (anyone remember the types of people/folks he was renting property to in Maywood for years? Or how his wife, City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin, just cost taxpayers another $100K for violating whistleblower laws?) is merely distracting from his own problems by going after the always-convenient-whipping-boy, the Chicago Police Department.

We pointed out — for YEARS — how HQ would periodically go through the motions of “emptying out” the deadweight and desk dollies who exist solely to generate paper reports for the CompStat meetings, where higher ranking brass questions and denigrates up-and-comers so that they lose the will to actually fight the entrenched system and learn that talent that serves so much of the exempt structure nowadays — suck-up to move up.

After a few weeks of weepy phone calls from dumped officers and their clout, the HQ parking lot would once again fill up, past capacity, and all the house mice would once again be safe from having to actually do what they were (allegedly) trained to do — fight crime.

And Ervin wants to know why? Sometimes it’s because someone needs a cushy spot for their kid. Sometimes, a girlfriend or boy-toy might need to be hidden. Sometimes someone needs a spot to hide someone who knows something that might reflect badly on a boss, a politician or even an alderman. Hint hint. It never seems to be the copper fighting cancer or recovering from surgery though. That’s what callback is for.

Don’t expect Chicago's media to look into any of this. That might mean someone doesn’t get invited to a Lightfoot fund raiser or some other nonsense.

And why is Ervin asking this question? Why now? There isn’t anything in the news....not directly. But if you surf over to HeyJackass.com you might catch a glimpse of the reasons:

• Loot-a-palooza: If it’s slowing down, it’s only because the stores are leaving;
• Michigan Avenue occupancy: We heard it’s down nearly 20 percent, but the city is probably lying;
• Carjackings: It'll be 1,500 before the year ends;
• Homicides: Closing on 800 — up over 300 from two years ago.

By the way, Cook County recorded 1,000 homicides for the first time in twenty-seven years, so congratulations are due to Toni Preckwinkle, too.

Chicago is desperate for a solution. Ervin wants (or pretends to want) more cops on the street. The trouble is there aren’t any more to put there without upsetting the established clout order. And then there are the “progressive” headwinds of “defunding the police” that are blowing through City Hall like an Alberta Clipper coming in from the Great White North.

And what is Mayor Lightfoot's bright idea? Alienate as many cops as she can over a “pandemic” that is increasingly shown to be:

• Lessening in intensity;
• Curable (read about the COVID pill here);
• No more dangerous than the flu to anyone without extensive co-morbidities.

Thousands of us have worked almost two years now, first with expired hand sanitizer, then with cloth masks which were proven to protect nothing, then crammed on crowded buses transported all over the city for days on end and worked to exhaustion. What is our reward? Violate all sorts of expectations of private medical decisions and understood rights to privacy by giving a third party personal medical information and threatening our livelihoods if we don’t comply. The FOP president may have been slightly off in his comparison to Nazis, but he would have been dead-on pointing out that Imperial Japan routinely used POWs and Chinese nationals for biological experiments in World War II.

Someone who frequents various social media sites sent us this the other day which is making the rounds on the CFD side:

"My understanding is that the mayor gets $$$ per fully vaccinated employee from FEMA, and that’s why she is pushing so hard on the portal and mandate."

‍

That would certainly be an interesting development. If only there was an actual investigative media presence in Chicago.

And complicating Mayor Lightfoot's desire to be dictator, is this little study that isn’t getting much play in the media. Titled "Police Force Size and Civilian Race," researchers concluded more police equal fewer black murder victims.‍

"A team of criminologists has found that every 10 to 17 new cops added by a city police department can be expected to save one black person from being murdered."

"The researchers looked at 242 cities over a 38-year period and concluded “that each additional police officer hired abates between 0.06 and 0.1 homicides."‍

‍

Meanwhile, Mayor Lightfoot eliminated 600+ positions in the 2020 budget, the Department is experiencing a massive retirement wave (over 900 this year) and according to an e-mail we received yesterday, another 900 officers are declaring their intent to retire in 2022. We assume everyone saw the District bid lists for next year?

• A 20-to-25 percent manpower cut for all day watches across the city. We're talking about entire Districts being ALL 10-99 units and DOWN two-to-four beat cars....Every. Single. Day. Maybe Ervin is onto something?
  

None of this takes into account younger officers who just up and leave for other departments. We can say we have never seen the amount of officers leaving in the middle of their careers that we are seeing now. Conservatively, we’d estimate it at 250 this year alone, perhaps more. Just the other day, ambassador officers from out of state made visits to a number of Districts across the city, passing out pamphlets and business cards, actively recruiting CPD to relocate somewhere less dysfunctional. Oh, and no one is taking the entry test:

• Even though the City gives the test twice or three times a year,
  
• Does it on-line,
  
• And is waiving all sorts of requirements that usually kept small time criminals from becoming big time scandals.
  

We’re told the last test netted under 500 names to cull through.

It makes us wonder about next years manpower numbers....and the resulting crime statistics.

By the way, we’re going to go out on a limb to declare 011 the 2021 Homicide Winner for the 8th year in a row. 011 passed 100 last week and the second place District (006) hasn’t even hit 80. Eight years running....and not a single gold star is held accountable for the constant failure. Alderman Ervin isn’t asking about that because (A) he lives in 011; and (B) he has named the commander there for years.