MURDER OF A POLICE OFFICER

A friend called me this morning and asked if I would put up the story of murdered Gilbert, Arizona Police Lieutenant, Eric Shuhandler.

Lieutenant Eric Shuhandler was shot and killed after stopping a vehicle occupied by two males near the intersection of Val Vista Road and Baseline Road, near the border of Gilbert and Mesa.

After pulling into the parking lot of a strip mall, he was shot by the passenger who had a warrant outstanding. Lieutenant Shuhandler was fatally wounded in the exchange.

Two sergeants from the Mesa Police Department heard the shot and found Lieutenant Shuhandler at the same time as Gilbert police received a 911 call reporting the shooting. He was transported to a local hospital where he died from his wound.

The suspects were located minutes later and a 50-mile high-speed chase began along Highway 60, with several units pursuing the pickup through Phoenix-area communities. The suspects fired several rounds and threw objects from their vehicle at the pursuing officers. The vehicle abruptly stopped in the town of Superior, and both suspects were wounded in an exchange of gunfire with officers from four agencies. Both suspects were arrested at the scene.

Lieutenant Shuhandler had served with the Gilbert Police Department for 16 years. He had previously served with the Manasquan, New Jersey, Police Department for a year and a half and the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office for two years as a detention officer and two years as a deputy. He is survived by his two daughters, sister, and parents.

Please visit Officer Down Memorial Page to leave your thoughts and prayers for Lt. Eric Shuhandler. Please keep Eric's family, friends and the men and women of the Gilbert Police department in your prayers.

JUSTICE?

This morning I had the displeasure to read a story in the Chicago Tribune that attempts to discredit two Chicago Police Officers. The officers were involved in a shooting on the west side back in 2004. Now the Chicago Tribune claims doubts are cast on the justification of the shooting of a suspect and a 13 year old bystander. Right away I began to suspect that this "investigation" by the Tribune and Columbia College journalism students was nothing more than a smear job generated by an unsavory law firm.

When pressed by plaintiffs' attorney Russell Ainsworth of Loevy & Loevy about why he did not shoot at Smith, Chatman said he didn't have a good angle.

Well go figure, Loevy and Loevy coincidentally happen to be representing the bystanders. This firm has to be one the most reprehensible group of greedy bastards that "practice" law in Chicago. These people will take any arrest and spin it so that the hard working dedicated police office is seen by a jury as nothing but a thug and the arrestee a victim. They make my stomach turn and they, not the officers, cost the citizens of Chicago millions of dollars because of their greed.
As for the Tribune, try investigating political corruption in this city, county and state and quit being manipulated by the likes of Loevy and Loevy who strive for dollars, not justice.

LIBERAL INTERPETATIONS

I was reading American Police Beat and saw this article:

Resisting Arrest: Not A Crime
Written by Dennis Slocumb
The Multnomah County Sheriff's Office in the Portland, Oregon area recently sent out a memo regarding a resisting case (State v. Oliphant) and its decision's effect on Oregon law enforcement. In essence, the ruling says: an arrestee may defend himself against a police officer's use or imminent use of force if the arrestee believes, as much as a reasonable person in his position would believe, that the officer's use or imminent use of force exceeds the force reasonably necessary to make the arrest.
Oregon effectively is now the only state that gives a suspect charged with Resisting Arrest (ORS 162.315) an affirmative defense that they were defending themselves against what they reasonably believed was an actual or imminent unlawful use of force by a police officer.

Accompanying charges including Assault on a Public Safety Officer will likely be dismissed if the argument stands

Where is the sanity?

NEW POST

Today was the first time I logged on in 2 weeks and was on the verge of just ending the site. It has been well over three years that I have been doing this and I have been aimless in the direction that I wanted to go. I really wanted to be a place to provide basic info and somewhere for sergeants to express opinions. I think the person/people at Second City Cop run a great blog and I can't compete with that.

I like to peruse different sites, be it news or LE, and then post articles I think may be of interest to others who may not have seen it. I may bring up topics that are of concern to the men and women of the Chicago Police Department and in particular the roughly 1200 of us that are sergeants. There is no way for me to run a post every single day but I will try to keep it fresh.

So I have decided to give this thing another shot.

MERRY CHRISTMAS

SPECIAL MEETING

Not much learned at tonights meeting. I would guess that at least 100 attended. Please use the members site for detailed info.

1 DEC NEWS RELEASE FROM CPSA

01 December 2009

We are currently in the process of selecting a location for our special membership meeting on December 17th. We will post the location as soon as we have confirmed a location.


Soon we will have a "member only" section on our website which will include a forum which will be available to active sergeants; this site will also be available to retirees in the future. The "members only" section will be an area where information can be posted by the board to keep the members informed without airing our laundry to the general public. There will also be a forum for members to discuss "hot" topics or any other topics without using the Department E-mail system. We expect to have this available within the next few days.


We are cooperating fully with the ASA's Office and we will post additional information in the "members only" section of our website as information is provided to us. Thank you for being patient as we are aggressively working to gather accurate information regarding the incident which occurred on 20 November 2009.

Robert Kirchner
President

I applaud the CPSA for creating a members only link at the CPSA website. Neither this site nor the department email is an appropriate forum for discussing delicate union business. I will continue to highlight important dates and upcoming meetings concerning union business.

INFO FOR SERGEANTS

Special General Membership Meeting
17 December, 2009, at 1800 hours

On 22 November, 2009, the Board of Directors of the Chicago Police Sergeant’s Association held a special meeting to discuss recent events effecting the organization. At the meeting the board took the following action:

•The Board accepted the resignation of John Pallohusky effective immediately.
•The Board accepted the resignation of Mary O’Toole effective immediately.
•Vice President Robert Kirchner has assumed the office of President immediately.
•Sgt John Stahl from the Inspection Division, who worked as an accountant before joining the Police Department, was appointed as Treasurer.
The Board also wants to inform its members that the association is well funded, including the legal defense and PAC fund.

Contract negotiations between the organization and the city are continuing, and the union offices are open and continuing to operate.

The Board has an annual financial Report prepared but in addition has decided to have an independent audit conducted of the organization’s accounts. However, at this time, all of our financial records have been turned over to the State’s Attorney’s Office.

As further information becomes available, the Board will share this information with the members.

John Pallohusky has retained his own attorney to represent him in this matter. Attorneys who work for the organization are not defending John Pallohusky.

The Board has announced that there will be a special general membership meeting held on 17 December, 2009, at 1800 hours to review these matters.

Robert Kirchner
President

BAD WEEK

Dear Readers,
From time to time I go out of town with my family. This past week I went out of town with my son on a hunting trip. With that being said, I wasn't unable to create a post about news involving the CPSA, as a matter of fact I didn't even hear about it until Sunday evening. Had I been aware of this incident and access to a computer I certainly would have commented.
Thank you to those of you who understand that this is only a hobby and all other aspects of my life take priority.

WOW

We are all aware of the stance Dick Daley has on gun control. Chicago possess some of the strictest gun laws in the country. Chicago also possess some of highest rates of murder, aggravated battery, aggravated assault and armed robberies. Despite the cities prohibition on gun ownership, criminals still manage to ply their trade. Whenever a school violence incident occurs somewhere in the country Daley always manages to use the incident to further his demand for even stricter gun control.

Last week at Ft. Hood, Texas, Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, a muslim, decided to bring jihad to his fellow soldiers. Hasan was armed and entered the Soldier Readiness Center, shouted "Allahu Akbar!" and began shooting, two police officers engaged Hasan and put an end to his murder spree. 13 were dead and 30 wounded. Hasan survived his injuries.

Dick felt a need to interject his opinion on the terror incident at Ft. Hood.

If this wasn't such a dreadfully serious matter, it would almost be funny watching Democrats insist that there’s no elephant in the bathtub. Perhaps the most bizarre of these claims is that of Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, who insists that the core problem behind Fort Hood is that “America loves guns.”

And the idiot keeps getting elected.

If Mayor Daley wants to argue about the inner city gang violence problem, let’s have a serious discussion about why liberal-controlled cities have become cesspools of violence, while many other parts of America have few gun control laws — and little violent crime. Pretending that the Fort Hood massacre wasn’t a terrorist attack — and more outrageously, pretending that the Fort Hood massacre is typical of civilian gun crime — is dishonest pandering to both the multicultural crowd and the rapidly shrinking gun control movement.

via PJM

JARED STANKER

On October 27th young Jared Stanker of Evergreen Park, Il was killed in Arghandab Valley, Afghanistan while serving with the 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment, 5th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, Fort Lewis, Wash.
Jared attended Brother Rice High School and was a parishioner of Queen Of Martyrs Catholic Church. An email campaign began in the neighborhood a few days ago calling on all of us to support the Stanker family by attending Jared's funeral on Saturday. I am confident that the good people of the southwest side will be there to honor Jared and show their support and gratitude to his family.

The procession rode north on Pulaski Road in front of Brother Rice High School. The quiet was only broken by the faint hum of a TV helicopter overhead.

The procession then went east on 99th Street and south on Central Park Avenue to the funeral home.

The 1,450 girls who attend Mother McAuley High School, next door to Brother Rice, also stood quietly, holding flags.

The same held true at Southwest Elementary, which Stanker attended.

There, the 335 students were dressed in red, white and blue, Principal Denise Thomas said.

Finally, at Queen of Martyrs School, the 446 students stood in silence along Central Park Avenue.

Southtown Star

FT. HOOD

Huffington Post

Thoughts and prayers to the victims of the senseless murders at Ft. Hood Texas.

SECOND CITY COP MOUNTS CAMPAIGN TO CUT ALDERMEN IN HALF

SCC has begun a campaign to reduce the amount of aldermen in Chicago from 50 to 25. This campaign is on the heels of Ald Ed Smith's call for police and firemen to take pay cuts.
See the CBS2 story in response to SCC's call.

Many interesting suggestions in the comments at SCC, i.e. term limits and special elections for aldermanic vacancies. Keep up the good work SCC and as always you can count on this site for support.

THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS

Thoughts and prayers for the tragic accidental death of Officer Eric Berger.

An off-duty veteran Chicago Police officer was killed in a rollover crash on the Kennedy Expressway early Monday on the Northwest Side.

Eric Berger, a 17-year veteran of the force assigned to the Albany Park District on the Northwest Side, was pronounced dead at 4:42 a.m., according to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office.

NBC5

PENSION NEWS

Special Pension Seminar
10 AM October 15, 2009
Academy 1300 W. Jackson (2nd Floor)
*Special Guest Speaker Jim McNamee from IPPFA (Illinois Public Pension Fund Association)
Pension trustees and staff will be giving presentations on-
• Investments
• Retiree Healthcare
• Korshak Decision
• And other pension topics
Q&A session will follow the presentations to address any questions concerning the pension.

NO OLYMPICS

The quick loss represents an embarrassment of international and local dimensions for a mayor who has dominated the city landscape and is used to getting what he wants.

Clout Street

SGTS SAY NO

By a 92 percent vote, Chicago Police sergeants are refusing to swallow a new five-year contract that could have freezed their pay through 2012 and mandated physical fitness requirement tied to new promotions.

John Pallohusky, president of the Chicago Police Sergeants Association, said the vote counted today was 926-to-84 after the Daley administration attempted to play hardball.

In exchange for allowing sergeants to retire at age 55 with premium health benefits, the city demanded that sergeants agree to a pay freeze that would only thaw if an independent arbitrator awarded a pay raise to the Fraternal Order of Police.

Sun Times

Most captains and approximately half the lieutenants would be eligible to retire at 55 during the next three years. I would have to believe that was the driving motivation behind their vote to accept the cities ultimatum. Sergeants on the other hand had a couple hundred eligible and only 84 voted to accept. I think we are no worse off by rejecting this offer.

THIS IS WHY WE WAIT FOR BACKUP

Complaints have come in that there was a police car at the end of the block when the Fenger incident occurred. Over at Second City Cop they are covering that allegation on a post.
As SCC points out, "And a single 10-99 unit isn't going to stop a riot, or many "mini-melees" which is what we see on the tape. All you can do is call for back up and wait for the cavalry to fly in."
The officer in Missouri is lucky bigger people and more of them didn't get at him before his back up arrived.
Thanks Fox News Network for showing what most media won't.

SGTS REJECT CONTRACT OFFER

Not official but I received word that of 1010 ballots counted 928 were against.

UPDATE: It is now official we overwhelmingly rejected that horrible ultimatum.

WHY LIBERALS HATE FOX

Michelle Malkin brings to light the corruption that is Chicago and why Obama needed to go to Copenhagen.