HEAT FOR MARY

Well I take pleasure in the fact that I put out an opinion on the Mary Mitchell article before the much larger Second City Cop did. With that being said I did not approach the subject with as much vigor as my friends at SCC did. Kudos to you folks.
I am not the least bit surprised by the manipulation and the skewing of facts by Mary Mitchell. Apparently Mitchell has now taken to ginning-up poll numbers in order to sway public opinion. Mary's written words (lies) were not enough to cause the animosity she desired so she cooked the books to create the desired effect.
FOP has taken an interest in this remarkable statistical anomaly. My hope is that the rest of the Chicago media and the Chicago Police Department take a long look at this garbage and call it for what it is. Mary Mitchell needs to be taken to task enough is enough.



Fraternal Order of Police Chicago Lodge 7
Mark Donahue, President
FOP PRESS RELEASE NOVEMBER 7, 2007
The Chicago Sun-Times conducted an electronic poll yesterday regarding an incident
where a hammer wielding senior citizen was Tasered by police. The incident has been the
subject of two columns by Sun-Times writer Mary Mitchell; one yesterday and one today. Aside
from the obvious Monday morning quarterbacking of the police, the FOP is also very upset about
today’s reporting regarding the Sun-Times poll.
The web poll asked: “Should cops have Tasered an 82 year old?” There were only two
answer choices: Yes or No. Several people that answered the poll during the day yesterday were
pleasantly surprised to find that the poll results favored the police. 61% (Approximately 2,600)
of the respondents voted “Yes” and 38% (Around 1,700) voted “No.” You can imagine my
surprise when I opened the Sun-Times this morning and the headline screamed just the opposite:
“SUN-TIMES READERS TO POLICE: DON’T TASE HER!” In the piece written by Mary
Mitchell today, she claimed that 37% (2,940) of poll respondents voted “Yes” and 63% (5,027)
voted “No.” She claims that these numbers were generated “late Tuesday.” If the Sun-Times
article today is correct, it means that of the approximately 3,600 people that voted after we were
pleasantly surprised with the 61% “Yes” vote, about 3,300 (about 11 out of 12) voted “No.”
This cannot be.
Today, I went to the Sun-Times website and checked the poll results again. At 12:42
p.m. today, 6,171 (or 51%) were said to have voted “Yes” and 5,868 (or 48% voted “No.” In
other words, since Miss Mitchell checked “late Tuesday”, the poll has apparently done yet
another wild flip-flop with 3,131 “Yes” votes and 841 “No” votes since she checked the stats.
Again, statistically speaking, this really cannot be. I am requesting that the Sun-Times
investigate this matter and produce records to show that the poll was not tampered with and
skewed to support Mary Mitchell’s column today. It is bad enough that this writer constantly
baits and second-guesses the Chicago Police. While she is entitled to her opinions, the Sun-
Times readers are entitled to the truth when it comes to the facts. The credibility of this
newspaper depends on it.