BLAME THE FIREMEN

From FOP Lodge 7:

PENSION PORTABILITY PROGRESS 06/02/08

The language for the Pension Portability issue that we have been working on for the past 6 years was attached as an amendment to SB2520 last Wednesday, May 28th and sent to the Rules Committee. On the 29th it was sent from Rules to Personnel and Pensions. On the 30th, Personnel and Pensions voted in favor of it unanimously. In the meantime three other amendments were added to the bill, the last being by Local 2, Chicago Firefighters which stalled the entire bill in being called up for a vote. By the time it did get called up it was at 2200 hours on the 31st and was voted in favor almost straight down party lines. This happens all too often in the last hours as nobody is playing well with each other and others who see the potential for a Pension Bill to move will jump on board often causing the legislation to sink. As I said it passed out at 2200 hours, unfortunately the Senate, which needed to concur on the “amendments,” had already adjourned for the session. So we are now in a position that requires the Senate to vote on concurrence before the bill can be sent to the Governor for his signature. This can happen if the Senate is called back in over the summer as is being discussed, or in the veto session in November. After all that was done to get the City, the Pension Board and members of the legislature to agree to our language, it is disappointing that our issue has failed to pass. Actions are under way to ensure its passage as soon as we can get it back into the Senate, but this delay should not have been allowed to happen.

Like little children....Me Too!

DEPARTMENT GOES TO GLOCK

The current class of recruits is now required to purchase and train with either the Glock 17 or 19, according to the Sun-Times.

Supt. Jody Weis made an argument for a uniform weapon in March, speaking at the Union League club.

Current sworn members will not be affected by any of the changes, and they will still be allowed to choose any gun they want from the approved manufacturers.

According to the article the officers primary weapon will be the Glock during their 18 month probation but it is unknown what their options will be after probation.

NU STUDENTS DISAPPOINTED

Northwester University students were less than enthusiastic about their commencement speaker. Some even plan on boycotting the ceremony. Tribune

"He is a questionable source for giving graduating seniors advice on how they go about taking that next important step in life."
-Social policy major Alexandra Broin

Ironic isn't it Alexandra? Well those thoughts go through my head year after year when I'm required to submit to "ethics" training.

MEMORIAL DAY 2008

Freedom Is Not Free
I watched the flag pass by one day.
It fluttered in the breeze.
A young Marine saluted it,
and then he stood at ease.
I looked at him in uniform
So young, so tall, so proud,
He'd stand out in any crowd.
I thought how many men like him
Had fallen through the years.
How many died on foreign soil?
How many mothers' tears?
How many pilots' planes shot down?
How many died at sea?
How many foxholes were soldiers' graves?
No, freedom isn't free.

I heard the sound of TAPS one night,
When everything was still
I listened to the bugler play
And felt a sudden chill.
I wondered just how many times
That TAPS had meant "Amen,"
When a flag had draped a coffin
Of a brother or a friend.
I thought of all the children,
Of the mothers and the wives,
Of fathers, sons and husbands
With interrupted lives.
I thought about a graveyard
At the bottom of the sea
Of unmarked graves in Arlington.
No, freedom isn't free.
- Kelly Strong

I'M BACK

Went away for the weekend. Enjoy the holiday for those who are off and stay safe for those who have to work.

WHY WE FIGHT

Believe it or not during WWII we had to employ propaganda to keep the war effort moving positively. Frank Capra was commissioned by the War Department to produce 7 films that accomplished that mission.

The series faced a tough challenge: convincing an isolationist nation of the need to become involved in the war and ally with the Soviets, among other things. In many of the films, Capra and other directors spliced in Axis powers propaganda footage – recontextualizing it so it promoted the cause of the Allies instead... Wikipedia

Twenty years after World War II we find ourselves in Viet Nam in a completely different war. During the 40's Americans obtained their war reports from daily newsprint and weekly newsreels. Fast forward twenty years later and people are watching nightly news broadcasts from Viet Nam and are horrified by what they see.

In a sense, Vietnam was the first televised or "living room" war. Each evening, the networks would show film of the fighting that was, at times, gruesome. Unlike the practice during World War II, the film was neither censored nor subject to any systematic scrutiny by the government. Thus, the public was shown scenes of battles in progress, the dead and wounded, and the coffins of the dead being unloaded.

In the Second World War the scenes were no less horrific than those in Viet Nam but the difference being what the citizenry were exposed to. During the 2004 Democratic Convention Michael Moore asks Bill O'Reilly "would you sacrifice your child for Fallujah?" The question is ridiculous. The opening scenes from Saving Private Ryan gave a realistic portrayal of the carnage brought on to our boys during the landings on D-Day. What would have happened had there been 24 hour cable news during D-Day. Would a 1940's Michael Moore be asking Edward R. Morrow, would you sacrifice your child for Normandy? Now you can say that World War II was a just war and Iraq isn't but I would beg to differ with you.
Lately an anti-war commenter has been trolling on this site and claiming to be a Republican voting for Obama. I'm calling bullshit!

The Virginian said:
1st, what makes you think this same battle would not be occurring over there without us? Right now, what exactly are we doing besides standing between Sunnis and Shiites, Saudia Arabia and Iran? Let them fight it out.

2nd, what exactly does anything in Iraq have to do with 9/11? Seriously, who of the people who attacked the U.S. on 9/11 has ever even stepped foot in Iraq, let alone fought the U.S. there?

I will reproduce an article printed by someone who I share a view with about the war but not much else.

So, Mr. Hitchens, Weren't You Wrong About Iraq?
Hard questions, four years later.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, March 19, 2007, at 1:53 PM ET
Four years after the first coalition soldiers crossed the Iraqi border, one can attract pitying looks (at best) if one does not take the view that the whole engagement could have been and should have been avoided. Those who were opposed to the operation from the beginning now claim vindication, and many of those who supported it say that if they had known then what they know now, they would have spoken or voted differently.

What exactly does it mean to take the latter position? At what point, in other words, ought the putative supporter to have stepped off the train? The question isn't as easy to answer as some people would have you believe. Suppose we run through the actual timeline:

Was the president right or wrong to go to the United Nations in September 2002 and to say that body could no longer tolerate Saddam Hussein's open flouting of its every significant resolution, from weaponry to human rights to terrorism?

A majority of the member states thought he was right and had to admit that the credibility of the United Nations was at stake. It was scandalous that such a regime could for more than a decade have violated the spirit and the letter of the resolutions that had allowed a cease-fire after the liberation of Kuwait. The Security Council, including Syria, voted by nine votes to zero that Iraq must come into full compliance or face serious consequences.

Was it then correct to send military forces to the Gulf, in case Saddam continued his long policy of defiance, concealment, and expulsion or obstruction of U.N. inspectors?

If you understand the history of the inspection process at all, you must concede that Saddam would never have agreed to readmit the inspectors if coalition forces had not made their appearance on his borders and in the waters of the Gulf. It was never a choice between inspection and intervention: It was only the believable threat of an intervention that enabled even limited inspections to resume.

Should it not have been known by Western intelligence that Iraq had no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction?

The entire record of UNSCOM until that date had shown a determination on the part of the Iraqi dictatorship to build dummy facilities to deceive inspectors, to refuse to allow scientists to be interviewed without coercion, to conceal chemical and biological deposits, and to search the black market for materiel that would breach the sanctions. The defection of Saddam Hussein's sons-in-law, the Kamel brothers, had shown that this policy was even more systematic than had even been suspected. Moreover, Iraq did not account for—has in fact never accounted for—a number of the items that it admitted under pressure to possessing after the Kamel defection. We still do not know what happened to this weaponry. This is partly why all Western intelligence agencies, including French and German ones quite uninfluenced by Ahmad Chalabi, believed that Iraq had actual or latent programs for the production of WMD. Would it have been preferable to accept Saddam Hussein's word for it and to allow him the chance to re-equip once more once the sanctions had further decayed?

Could Iraq have been believably "inspected" while the Baath Party remained in power?

No. The word inspector is misleading here. The small number of U.N. personnel were not supposed to comb the countryside. They were supposed to monitor the handover of the items on Iraq's list, to check them, and then to supervise their destruction. (If Iraq disposed of the items in any other way—by burying or destroying or neutralizing them, as now seems possible—that would have been an additional grave breach of the resolutions.) To call for serious and unimpeachable inspections was to call, in effect, for a change of regime in Iraq. Thus, we can now say that Iraq is in compliance with the Nonproliferation Treaty. Moreover, the subsequent hasty compliance of Col. Muammar Qaddafi's Libya and the examination of his WMD stockpile (which proved to be much larger and more sophisticated than had been thought) allowed us to trace the origin of much materiel to Pakistan and thus belatedly to shut down the A.Q. Khan secret black market.

Wasn't Colin Powell's performance at the United Nations a bit of a disgrace?

Yes, it was, as was the supporting role played by George Tenet and the CIA (which has been reliably wrong on Iraq since 1963). Some good legal experts—Ruth Wedgwood most notably—have argued that the previous resolutions were self-enforcing and that there was no need for a second resolution or for Powell's dog-and-pony show. Some say that the whole thing was done in order to save Tony Blair's political skin. A few points of interest did emerge from Powell's presentation: The Iraqi authorities were caught on air trying to mislead U.N inspectors (nothing new there), and the presence in Iraq of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a very dangerous al-Qaida refugee from newly liberated Afghanistan, was established. The full significance of this was only to become evident later on.

Was the terror connection not exaggerated?

Not by much. The Bush administration never claimed that Iraq had any hand in the events of Sept. 11, 2001. But it did point out, at different times, that Saddam had acted as a host and patron to every other terrorist gang in the region, most recently including the most militant Islamist ones. And this has never been contested by anybody. The action was undertaken not to punish the last attack—that had been done in Afghanistan—but to forestall the next one.

Was a civil war not predictable?

Only to the extent that there was pre-existing unease and mistrust between the different population groups in Iraq. Since it was the policy of Saddam Hussein to govern by divide-and-rule and precisely to exacerbate these differences, it is unlikely that civil peace would have been the result of prolonging his regime. Indeed, so ghastly was his system in this respect that one-fifth of Iraq's inhabitants—the Kurds—had already left Iraq and were living under Western protection.

So, you seriously mean to say that we would not be living in a better or safer world if the coalition forces had turned around and sailed or flown home in the spring of 2003?

That's exactly what I mean to say.Related in Slate

It is not my intention to persuade Virginian to support the war but this article may help others who aren't so sure one way or another to move in this direction.

NEW SERGEANTS

MERIT SELECTIONS:
189 Banuelos, Ulysses A.
211 Bielecki, Lee C.
606 Cepeda Jr., Thomas
640 Christoforakis, Jenny C.
008 Dineen, Michael E.
141 Gibbs. Ronald W.
177 Grant, David C.
189 Hallihan. Joseph F.
193 Hawkins, Brian R.
021 Hunter, Michael A.
006 Jackson, Eric
189 Kimble, Ronald N.
606 Lewis, John A.
019 Mendoza, David T.
216 Papaioannou, Chris
196 Parker, Michael K.
606 Pellegrini, John F.
141 Rhein, Charles W.
193 Roberts, John E.
014 Roman Jr., Wilfredo
141 Tiado, Jose M.
189 Walker, Traci L.

RANK ORDER SELECTIONS:
610 Alderden, Jacob M.
023 Bartz, Michael E.
620 Beltran, Eduardo L.
022 Bird, Joseph J.
006 Clark, Llowyn R.
022 Cooney, Michael P.
008 Costello, Michael N.
650 Delafont. James K.
019 Dombrowski, Anthony M.
610 Dougherty, Phillip J.
019 Fitzgerald, Michael A.
012 Flisk, Margaret J.
141 Gade Jr., Lawrence R.
640 Garcia, Jose J.
015 Gilfillan, Gregory D,
013 Gopez. Frederich G.
196 Guerra, Cindy I.
650 Hajdu,.Karoly R.
016 Hernandez, Julio A.
620 Hindman, David J.
022 Hoover, Terry
606 Inzerra, Maurizio P.
640 Isakson, Roy A.
640 Kane III, Robert E.
650 Keane, Thomas P.
025 Kearns, Mark -E.
650 Lamperis, Dimitrios J.
253 Losik. Richard F.
141 Magno, Michael S.
610 Mahaffey Jr., Louis D.
011 Mc Kee. Luke J.
023 McHugh, Shane F.
620 Mishler, Elizabeth C.
004 Mitchum, Patrina L.
620 Piechocki, John M.
384 Pierri, Frank
189 Polan. Melinda M.
192 Ouinn, Patrick T.
010 Ramaglia, Frank V.
008 Ryan, Thomas W.
017 Salgado, Agustin
017 Schniar, Brian T.
011 Silich, Steven A.
016 Stadnik, Richard
196 Stevens, Jill M.
017 Tirado. Marco A.
141 Torres, Arturo
640 Tsoukalas, Christ
124 Washington, Monique J.
377 Wieczorek, Laura A.
610 Winstrom, Eric W.
193 Wolf, Timothy A.
141 Wurm, Gabriella N.

CONGRATS!!

NEGOTIATIONS

Last night the Superintendent met with department members below the rank of sergeant at a town hall style meeting. The meeting was a question and answer secession and was attended by blogger Rue St. Michel. Visit his site and read his synopsis of what transpired.

Weis has indicated that future hires will be required to pass the POWER test on a yearly basis and that future promotions will also be required to pass the POWER test. No grandfather clause. Apparently a letter of agreement has been tendered to the FOP. That agreement would lock in future hires and promotions to the ranks of D2-sergeant. On the other hand, a separate agreement would have to be made with both the Sergeants and Lieutenants Associations for promotion above the rank of sergeant.

It was announced that future promotion lists will designate who was promoted by merit. Mr. Weis has stated that he wants more transparency in the merit process, I only hope that this isn't the only change implemented. Mr. Weis would garner more respect from the members if he were able to whittle the merit percentage down to a more reasonable ten percent. However, his comments on the Roe Conn Show indicate that he has no desire to so. Weis stated that it's only 30% (merit promotions) so if you have one hundred sergeants that's only 30 (thanks for the math lesson).


An update on the sergeants site has a letter from President Pallohusky to the members concerning the contract negotiations and issues. President Pallohusky reminds us that these issues will be discussed at the general meeting tonight. I have other commitments this evening so I will not be able to attend.

Since I last updated our members on the progress of the contract negotiations the following issues have been discussed at the bargaining table.

Length of the contract
Health Insurance
Discipline issues and the grievance process.
Random drug and alcohol testing (on-duty & off-duty involved incidents).
Bidding and Watch selection process; including expanding biddable units.
Economic issues (wage increases, duty availability, quarterly differential and uniform allowance).
Pension issues
Reduction from the current age of 60 at time of retirement for health insurance premiums to be paid by the employer.
Holidays, B.F.D.’s and P-Days
Promotional process
Detail pay and working out-of-grade.
The above captioned topics will be discussed in more detail at the next General Membership Meeting on 15 May 2008.

The next contract negotiation meeting with the City is scheduled for 5 June 08.

John Pallohusky
President
Chicago Police Sergeants Associations

I wonder if the issue "promotional process" deals with the POWER test?

JUST CANT LOOSE THAT GHETTO

Jeremiah Mearday is in the news again. Via the Tribune

In October 2005, the Chicago City Council approved the award to Mearday (1.75 million dollars)

Jeremiah Mearday, 29, pleaded guilty in 2006 to selling crack to an undercover police officer in Glendale Heights.(note: the arrest occured in Dec 05, two months after his award)

DuPage Judge George Bakalis sentenced him to 2 years of intensive probation and 180 days in the DuPage County Jail.(Wonder what the outcome would have been in Cook County)

Assistant State's Atty. Paul Marchese filed a notice of violation of probation earlier this year, contending that Mearday missed seven months of meetings with the probation department, failed a drug test that indicated the use of marijuana, refused to take another drug test and didn't have a job for a year, as stipulated by his probation requirements.

An assistant public defender was appointed earlier this year by Bakalis to represent Mearday after the defendant claimed he was broke. Mearday again said Monday that he was broke after Marchese asked Bakalis to charge the defendant for the use of the public defender.

If Mearaday split the award with his lawyer then he should have had approximately $875,000. That is more than 10 years pay for the average sergeant in this city and asshole is already broke in two and a half years.

Judge Bakalis sentenced Mearady to 4 years for violating his probation.

Lets get something straight here. The Trib claims Mearady "won a $1.75 million settlement after being beaten by Chicago police officers in 1997". No! The settlement wasn't because he was beaten but because it is expedient and it is how the city does business.

BARAK

In today's Tribune Barak has a problem with those who question his patriotism.

Reading a speech to several thousand people at the Charleston Civic Center, the Illinois senator said patriotism means more than saluting flags and holding parades.

Just because someone salutes a flag doesn't automatically make them a patriot but your actions certainly show your true colors.

AN OUTSIDERS VIEW OF THE M4

Read this article from Bob Owens of Confederate Yankee as it appeared in Pajamas Media.

Fifty-four shootings in two weekends. Shot-up bodies recovered in groups of three and five. Is this Ramadi? Basra? No.

Welcome to Chicago.

Read what Mr. Owens thinks about our Mayor and Chicago style gun control.
Via Pajamas Media

PHILADELPHIA PD SGT MURDERED

Philadelphia Police Department
Pennsylvania
End of Watch: Saturday, May 3, 2008

Biographical Info
Age: 40
Tour of Duty: 12 years
Badge Number: Not available

Incident Details
Cause of Death: Gunfire
Date of Incident: Saturday, May 3, 2008
Weapon Used: Rifle; AK-47
Suspect Info: Shot and killed

Sergeant Stephen Liczbinski was shot and killed while responding to a bank robbery call at approximately 11:30 am. Two men dressed in female Muslim garb had robbed a bank on Aramingo Avenue. Sergeant Liczbinski encountered the suspects on East Schiller Street and stopped their car. Before he was able to exit his patrol car, a suspect opened fire with an AK-47, killing Sergeant Liczbinski.

One of the suspects was fatally shot by other officers a short time later on Louden Street. The other suspect, and possibly a third accomplice, remain at large.

Sergeant Liczbinski had served with the Philadelphia Police Department for 12 years and is survived by his wife and three children.

Agency Contact Information
Philadelphia Police Department
One Franklin Square
Philadelphia, PA 19106

Phone: (215) 686-1776
Please contact the Philadelphia Police Department for funeral arrangements or for survivor benefit fund information.


While we honor our fallen on this Sunday please keep a place in your heart for Sergeant Stephen Liczbinski and his wife and three children.

SERGEANTS CLASS???????

I have been hearing rumours that a sergeants class will start on Monday. SCC has been reporting the same thing with class size anywhere from 50 to 80. Good news for 6 northsiders working in Area 2 districts and a little relief for the rest of us.

NYPD VERDICT

To anyone who knew the facts of the case and understood the law, Friday’s acquittal of the three New York Police Department detectives charged in the November 2006 shooting death of Sean Bell was entirely predictable.


Read the rest at Pajama's Media.com

RAMBLINGS

Mr. Weis got a break this weekend from the violence of the week before. Hopefully Mr. Weis acknowledges that a near 40 degree drop in temperature and constant rain was the cause for the drop in violent crimes. Having SWAT go on patrol is not the answer.

Speaking of SWAT. Kudos to the boys in olive drab!

On Saturday Rigoberto Lopez entered an auto shop on the southeast side. Lopez took three hostages at gun point and after police arrived he refused to release them. Lopez fired at SWAT members. SWAT members moved in on Lopez. Lopez is dead and all the hostages were freed and unharmed.

Excellent job to all those involved.

I'll believe it when I see it. During this past week the Mayor announced that Chicago Police officers will carry M4 carbines. Monique Bond, in the Tribune, already pouring some cold water on the Mayor's comments....

"It's very preliminary. It's really under review. It is something being reviewed. As far as all of the logistics, the training component, might be premature to discuss it at this point," Bond said.

I'm not going to hold my breath.

By the way, Fox News32 thought it newsworthy to run an unscientific poll to see how the viewers felt about us being armed with the M4 carbine. On their website they asked if it were right or wrong that we be armed with high power rifles. Well the uniformed opinions flowed in as usual.
This one from Sherrie5870: WRONG!!!
How can having high powered guns for the police stop crime. Its not like the crimes are happening in front of the police because they are not. The people that are committing the crimes are getting away because there is no police presence. If there were police patrolling more often the criminals would be scarce. I moved here to escape the violence from Gary, IN. I feel like right out of the frying pan and into the fire now. I now homeschool my children. I'm now trying to find somewhere safer.
Sherrie

No Shit Sherlock! The purpose for being better armed is not to deter crime but make sure we aren't out gunned you idiot. AK47 Vs. 9mm = dead police

And this pearl of wisdom from Keto: They shot at that cougar 21 times an hit him 3 times,
now they want them to have these weapons ? What A joke.

Get over the cougar asshole!

If you didn't catch the Roe Conn Show with Mr. Weis you can hear it here.
If that were an official police report we could be looking at a couple rule 14 violations. Is it just me or is he slightly delusional?

IS MR. WEIS IN OVER HIS HEAD?

22nd district tact car fired on by offender with AK 47
left click picture to enlarge (Via SCC)
Thank God these officers are still with us. Great job job 22nd district.


What a weekend here in the Windy City. Over at CBS2Chicago.com the headline reads like this;

Bloody Weekend: At Least 21 Shot, 4 Dead
This just after the department made these stats available:

From January through March, murders decreased 1.1 percent and aggravated batteries decreased 0.8 percent, according to a release Friday from police. Criminal sexual assaults were down 13.9 percent, the release said. Robberies were up 16.3 percent in that time period. Overall crime was up 1.9 percent, though. The Harrison District on the West Side had the largest decrease compared to the same period last year, the release said, with an overall reduction in crime of 16.1 percent.

Fast forward to this evening and and look at CBS2Chicago.com

There have been 26 shootings this weekend, four of them fatal – that's seven more than this same weekend last year.

The department will be targeting gang leaders, enhancing bike and foot patrols and saturating violent zones or areas of the city with more resources.

What resources Mr. Weis?
On Friday Mr. Weis thought it prudent to gut TRU of 91 officers and 6 sergeants effective the 6th period. Despite the attitude by many readers over at SCC I take a contrary opinion to the relevance of TRU. Why? I think large departments need a large unit that can be deployed at the drop of a dime to a critical incident. For instance, an airplane rolling off a runway at Midway Airport, a bomb blowing up downtown or a commuter train derailment. Besides,deploying 25 tact teams to handle a protest march is ridiculous. Tact teams and gang teams need to stay in their district where they know the players and the game. When there isn't a critical incident then a unit like TRU can be deployed to hot spots throughout the city to saturate and be a deterrence to increased violence.
Early Friday the department announced the decline in homicides and aggravated batteries between the months of January thru March. This may have been the news that motivated Mr. Weis to decide it was time to eliminate two companies from TRU. Now if you believe that the addition of six sergeants to patrol is going to make a difference then you my friends are drinking the Federal Kool-aid. The addition of 91 officers to patrol sounds like it may make a difference but keep in mind that these officers are detailed and would be sent back to their districts. Depending on which districts they are from, at best, 5-6 patrolmen may be back to your district. Sorry but that isn't the solution to our manpower needs. The problem is the lack of hiring and the attrition rate, plain and simple.

This is just my opinion but I think the Former SAC is in way over his head and if he thinks gutting TRU is a great idea then beware.
By the way Mr. Weis, January thru March was cold and miserable and there is a call for a long hot summer.

Would love to hear from sergeants in patrol and from TRU.

Comments about hair gel and 2 year wonders may not be published. Lets take a few things a little more serious.

UPDATE: The final weekend count From CBS2Chicago.com

In all, at least 37 people were shot, two were stabbed and at least seven people are dead.

A couple of comments from readers of the L.A. TIMES concerning the

"I am totally disgusted by Chicago Police and will report them to PETA for their horrible attack on an innocent animal. Do they not know what a tranquilizer gun is????? I cried at the injustice for this poor animal lost in a concrete jungle. I hope those officers can sleep safe in knowing that they were only protecting themselves and their pride while they could have waited for animal services to take the animal back to its natural habitat. Foul and cowardices. And may I say stupidity." -- Animal Rights

On the other hand....

"I'm cracking up reading all the comments about the 'beautiful innocent animal' ...what a bunch of whiney hippies. It's a dangerous predator. It could have killed any of those officers easily, not to mention any children who it might have happened upon. Beautiful innocent children. What is this country coming to when the life of an animal is given higher value that the life of a human??" -- Wyzbok

Read more at L.A. Unleashed.



You're God Damn right they killed that animal to protect themselves! Nothing to do with pride and everything to do with survival and the survival of others. I'd give my life for my child but not a fucking animal. People like "Animal Rights" are fools.

This animal..........

was in this neighborhood,

and some residents are questioning the use of force used by the police.

Well at least we have the support of the superintendent.

"There's no doubt that lives were saved as a result of his actions and his fellow officers' attempts to contain the animal away from innocent bystanders," Police Supt. Jody Weis said in a statement.

However, the ramblings of the Mayor were classic....

Mayor Richard Daley also added his support for the police response. .

"First of all, it happened at 5:30 in the afternoon [in] the Roscoe Village community. It was seen running between buildings. The cougar charged a police officer," he said in remarks at an unrelated event.

Daley noted that a principal at an elementary school where a day-care program was still active alerted the police of the animal's presence in a school parking lot.

"Now, I just want to tell you, if the cougar attacked a child, they'd sue the city because the police officer didn't do their job. So everybody second guesses, you know. So let the cougar run around and attack children. Everybody would be filing lawsuits, and yelling at the police and all the local officials. … Too bad that we didn't have an animal care and control personnel. [They] were en route to the scene. But again you have to make individual decisions. I didn't see a neighbor run out and grab it and say, 'Oh I love you' and bring it in the house. This is unbelievable. I mean, I just, I just. … 'Don't worry about it.' "

He added, "A cougar is a beautiful animal. I mean, it really is."

I'll give him an "A" for effort.
Read the whole story in the Tribune.

HELICOPTERS

I am a big advocate of the use of helicopters for law enforcement. I have written about this before and the Chicago Police Department lags way behind departments a quarter of our size. With that being said, I would like to applaud the work that is done by the crews of the aviation unit despite their limited resources. A couple of evenings ago helicopter 1 monitored a pursuit in the suburb of Burnham and proceeded to assist. The vehicle being pursued was involved in a robbery in Hammond, Indiana. The driver crashed his vehicle and fled on foot. The helicopter was able to locate the offender and radio his location to officers on the street. (Story on Fox) Well done guys.
Sergeants don't be reluctant to request the assistance of the helicopter and don't be discouraged if you are denied. Remember these crews are working with limited resources and at this time of year weather plays a big role.

In todays Tribune, John Kass writes an article on the ludicrous sentences of Pichino Hill versus Mike Mette. On 22 March I wrote a post on the same issue. Did I inspire John Kass? Probably not, John has been a great advocate in the press for Mike Mette's cause.
Keep up the good work.