"If the Republican Party is going to be viable in the future it must start at the bottom - at the Ward and Precinct level." Jim GuestIf anyone else would like to place a link for a local Republican candidate please send your request via email to cpdsarge@gmail.com
A trailblazing and high-ranking Cicero police commander was arrested Sunday on Chicago's South Side on a misdemeanor drug charge, authorities said.
Wesley Scott, who was profiled in a 1988 Time magazine article on racism in some of Chicago's near west suburbs, rose from being Cicero's first black police officer two decades ago to his appointment in June 2005 as the town's first African-American patrol police commander.
Cicero town spokesman Dan Proft said Scott, a 21-year veteran, was taken into custody by Chicago police officers. He said he believed Scott, 47, was off-duty at the time.... (more)
Police Week 2008
May 13-16, 2008 Washington DC
A block of rooms has been reserved at the Embassy Suites Hotel in DC. The rate is $279/night. This year rooms are at a premium because of a medical convention in town. This rate includes a free happy hour every night and a free cooked-to order breakfast daily.
We are currently working on airfare in order to ensure the lowest possible group rate.
There will be a private Chicago Police party at Fado Irish Pub in Chinatown, date and time TBD.
194 Police Officers will be added to the wall this year.
The Chicago Police Department has always had one of the biggest groups attending. Please help us keep this tradition.
Contact info:
EMAIL- CPDPOLICEWEEK@aol.com
Please contact us to reserve a room or for more information.
It’s Alderman Ed Burke the Finance Committee Chairman that doles out millions of taxpayer cash like water to campaign contributors like Jenner & Block to do the work of Chicago’s Corporation Counsel’s lawyers. This is done with little or no oversight...... (more)
On 22 January 2008 we had our 7th formal contract meeting with the City since we began negotiations this past August.
Both sides of the bargaining table have presented various proposals and discussions are moving forward. Thus far the major focus has been on health insurance related issues, discipline / intervention procedures and current contract verbiage. Economic issues such as salary increases and benefit packages have yet to be presented and discussed.
As of this last meeting no formal agreements have been reached. Several of our members have inquired as to when we might expect the contract to be formalized and presented to the membership. At this point due to economic issues and ensuring that our member’s contractual rights are preserved it would be premature for me to speculate on a completion date. It is our position, as well as the City’s that it is in the best interest of all parties to reach an agreement in an expeditious manner.
The next contract meeting with the City is scheduled for 29 January 08. We have also scheduled two meetings for February.
John Pallohusky
President
Chicago Police Sergeants Associations
My name is Terrence Knox and I am writing this e-mail to request assistance from your Police Officer Fraternal Organization membership.
Briefly, in 1969 I was working as a Chicago Police Officer when I was shot by Joseph Pannell. Joseph Pannell has been one of the most wanted offenders in Chicago history as he has been in hiding for over 30 plus years for this Attempted Murder of a Chicago Police officer.
In July of 2004, through the efforts of Chicago Police Superintendent Cline, the Chicago Police Cold Case Squad, Local FBI and the GREAT Officers of the Canada Police forces, Joseph Pannell was finally located and arrested.
Since July, Joseph Pannell (AKA Gary Freeman/Douglas Norberg) has done everything possible not to be sent back to face trail in Chicago. This includes having his family set up rallies, web pages, letter writing campaigns, saying it is legal to have shot a police officer in 1969 due to the then civil unrest, and putting pressure upon the Canadian government not to send him back per our US/Canadian treaty.
Because I am only one person, I am asking that you ask your membership to write the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice and Canada's Prime Minister asking for their immediate assistance in this matter in sending Joseph Pannell back to Chicago to finally stand trial. Their mailing address is below:
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
U.S. Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
Main Switchboard:
202-647-400
Paul Martin
Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa
K1A 0A2
e-mail address pm@pm.gc.ca
I ask your membership to support a former fellow police officer. Remember "Victims of Crimes" deserve their day in court just as offenders do. Lady Liberty is "Blind" to offenders and victims when passing out justice but at the end of the day :We all (including the victims) need our day in court to come to some form of closure.
Without the support from all police officers I fear Joseph Pannell will use his side in the press to present only one side and use what ever means is at his disposal to force the Canadian Government to allow him to stay in Canada even though he is not a citizen and there illegally for over 30 years living under a false name.
I really need the voices of the U.S. Law Enforcement Community and Victims of Crime Community to help me ask the Canadian Government and the U.S. State Department to approve the return of Joseph Pannell to Chicago to finally stand trial before the witnesses and the victim die as we are all in our later years of life.
Thank you for taking time to read this and your consideration in assisting me.
I can be reached at terryknox@comcast.net or 312-364-7878
Thanks again,
Terry
Joseph Pannell has given up his fight to stay in Canada.
The Mississauga News has learned that the 58-year-old Mississauga father of four will be extradited to Chicago in the coming days, where he will soon appear in a Cook County courtroom to face allegations he tried to kill a police officer there years ago.....(more)
U.S. District Judge Wayne R. Andersen acknowledged that critics have questioned whether the administration ever will keep hiring free of politics after years of abuses. Just last month, a hiring monitor appointed by Andersen found that the city had slipped backward in 2007 in cleaning up patronage..... (continue)
Man who keyed car gets day in court; so do Marines
By John Kass | Tribune columnist
January 20, 2008
Grodner pleaded guilty in a Chicago courtroom packed with former Marines. Some had Marine pins on their coats, or baseball jackets with the Marine insignia. They didn't yellor call him names. They came to support Marine Sgt. Michael McNulty, whose car Grodner defaced in December, but who couldn't attend because he's preparing for his second tour in Iraq........ (continue)
Prosecutors Attempt To use administrative breathalyzer results at DUI trials 01/18/08
The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office has made it clear that it will seek to introduce the administrative breathalyzer test results against any Chicago Police Officer who is charged with a DUI. The State has already done this on a previous case and at a bond hearing on January 17, 2008, the State propounded its intent on using an administrative result in an upcoming case. Several months ago, the State attempted to use these results in a case against a CPD officer. The Lodge immediately intervened and filed a motion to bar the administrative result. The Lodge outlined its argument in great detail and on November 15th, 2007, the Judge ruled in our favor when he determined that the State could not use the results of the breath test. The State announced that it will appeal the decision and the Lodge will again take the arguments to the Appellate Court. Until there is a ruling from the Appellate Court, the State will continue in its efforts to use these results. The Lodge will fight them in each and every case. However, officers must realize the State’s Attorney will attempt to use these results if an officer is arrested for a DUI. Although the Lodge, and at the very least the Judge who ruled in our favor this past November, believe that results from an administrative breath test must be barred at a criminal proceeding similar to administrative statements, there is a recent Illinois Appellate Court decision that ruled that administrative test results should not be afforded the same protections as do administrative statements. The Lodge believes it is a difference without distinction. The State views it differently. The Appellate Court will ultimately decide.
In the interim, officers must be cognizant of the fact that even though the State will seek to introduce the breath test results, officers should comply with the administrative breath test after being given a direct order to do so. The Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office believes that Chicago Police Officers should be treated as a sub-class of citizens who are not entitled to the same rights as others, such as those afforded to state’s attorneys. The Lodge is confident the Appellate Court will disagree with the opinion of our state’s attorneys. Until the decision, we will continue to fight the State on a case-by-case basis.
¶ Regardless of the number, several high-profile incidents in recent years have cast an unwelcome light on the issue of gangs in the military, including a murder in Germany, several assaults and cases of service members selling or giving stolen military equipment — including weapons and body armor — to street gangs. Most have occurred in the United States.
¶ The loosening of recruiting standards has experts worried that people with criminal backgrounds, particularly association with gangs, are more likely to get into the military than before.
Police corruption divides candidates in domestic abuse debate
by Erica L. Green
Jan 16, 2008
Racial profiling, police intimidation and surface-level investigations by the police department are primary obstacles in domestic abuse prosecutions, according to some Cook County state's attorney candidates.
In a forum sponsored by the Chicago Metropolitan Battered Women’s Network Tuesday, candidates tried to explain dwindling numbers of domestic abuse prosecutions, to which some attributed to an intimidating front line.
“The problem is trust,” Ald. Howard Brookins (21st) told a crowd of law students and domestic abuse advocates at a candidates forum at the Chicago-Kent College of Law. “The problem is that the first responder is the police and people have an inherent distrust of police.”
Cook County Commissioner Larry Suffredin said that one of the crisis of the criminal justice system is the belief that the state’s attorney’s office is an extension of the police department.
He contended that instead, police departments need to be audited more aggressively, confronted when their tactics are crossing the line with victims, and officers should be indicted when victim complaints are found to be true.
Brookins’ ward police responded to 42 reports of domestic abuse in an 8-day time span, between Jan. 1 and Jan. 9. Only seven arrests were made.
But Zellner, the daughter of noted defense attorney Kathleen Zellner, said she was unlikely to send Chloe back to Fetch & Play, which she had been using for the last year and a half. "I'm a little too protective," she said. "I understand it was a mistake. I understand they feel horrible. They've always been good to Chloe. . . .If it was a child [at day care] and they lost your kid for a day, you wouldn't send them back."...more in the Tribune
"I poked my head out of the door, saw the dogs and made a call [to police]," Heinrich said "I never saw such a commotion over a few dogs."
In a nearly unanimous vote, the Chicago City Council today approved the appointment of Jody Weis as the next Chicago police superintendent, the first outsider to hold the post in four decades.
Jody Weis will consider hiring someone outside the department — possibly from the FBI like himself — to run the Internal Affairs Division that investigates police misconduct.
“That’s an area where I would consider bringing in an outside person to head that up,” Weis said in an interview today with the Chicago Sun-Times before he was confirmed by the City Council. “I just think it might be a fresh time for that.”
In recent City Council hearings, Weis was pressured by some aldermen to pick an African-American as first deputy, but he has refused to make any promises about whom he will select.
"Right now, I don't see any radical changes coming about," said Weis, outlining his policing philosophy at length for the first time. "I say that because if you measure a police department in a normal way -- is crime going down? -- Chicago passes the test. Crime has gone down consistently for the past five or six years, which is an incredible accomplishment. I don't want to do anything to mess that up. What I want to try and do is build upon that."............(entire story)
"Supervisors who let minor rule violations slide are making a mistake"
"Supervisors will be on the hook when things go wrong with an officer"
"I am going to be looking for that sergeant and say, 'How did that happen? Where were you in all of this process? You are a manager and you should have been taking care of that young officer."
There's no real justice in Iowa politics
John Kass
January 4, 2008
During the caucuses, with national media crawling through their state, the Iowa establishment ignored Mette. Gov. Chet Culver, a Democrat who no doubt has heard the words "social justice" and perhaps even used the slogan, informed Mette's family there was nothing he could do. He's only the governor.........read more
And I wanted to get Grodner's side of it because he's been accused but not convicted of anything. So we called all the Grodner numbers we could find -- home and business -- including those on the police report and others in the suburbs and Chicago. Many were disconnected, and his cell phone voice mail was full.
I'd like to ask him two questions:
Why?
