Chicago - A message from the station manager

The [Tuesday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

Let’s interact with the news, shall we?
1. When Chicago Cops Moonlight, No One Is Watching.
“CPD has the weakest oversight of secondary employment of any of the nation’s 50 largest local and county law enforcement agencies, according to a Chicago Reporter review of agency policies. CPD is the only one of the 50 departments that does not require its officers to get permission to work a second job.”
Why is that important?
“The lack of oversight exposes the city to potentially costly misconduct lawsuits when things go wrong.”
And this being Planet Earth, and this being Chicago in particular, things go wrong.


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“I’m very surprised that Chicago does not have a policy that requires [officers] to report and get approval for engaging in secondary employment, especially police-related secondary employment,” Darrel Stephens, executive director of the Major Cities Chiefs Association and a former police chief in Charlotte, North Carolina, told the Reporter. “The department has an obligation, from my perspective, to provide guidance and directions, and to know what police officers are doing.”
“Two-thirds of the departments, for example, limit the number of hours an officer can work a second job in a given day or week. Most department cap an officer’s combined regular shift and second job at 16 hours per day or even less. Chicago has no such regulations.”
Hey, let’s get government off government’s back! Too many regulations!
“The Justice Department noted the lack of regulation in its report on the findings of its civil rights investigation of CPD. The report stated that ‘a significant amount of alleged officer misconduct’ involves moonlighting.”
Oh.
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This is a lengthy piece of reporting, with lots more, including the inevitable culpability of IPRA and the police union. Recommended.
2. Cops Outgunned By Gangs? Can’t Tell From CPD Firearm Seizures.
“Cook County prosecutors on Monday said what wounded two Chicago cops in the Back of the Yards neighborhood last week was an assault-rifle attack,” WBEZ reports.
“The police department said assault rifles were also used in two gang shootings that killed a total of three people and injured eight others on Sunday in Brighton Park.
“Some aldermen, meanwhile, are pushing to get more cops trained to use semi-automatic ‘long guns’ because, they say, gangs are increasingly armed with assault weapons.
“But a police dataset raises questions about the extent of the problem.
“The department’s recovered-firearm inventory shows that the number of seizures of assault rifles and weapons has not changed much over the last decade. Last year’s total was 215, five fewer than in 2007.”
This is a particularly interesting piece of reporting because the police and pols are pushing the narrative of a surge in gangs using assault rifles, and the media has gone along with propagating that message enthusiastically. My understanding is the that the use of such weapons between rival gangs in Back of the Yards is nothing new – which doesn’t it make it acceptable, but which should better inform police and policy responses to the latest incident, as well as misleading media coverage.
3. Preckwinkle vs. Rauner.
“Preckwinkle swipes at Rauner on health care bill,” by Chicago Tribune’s Hal Dardick, via Natasha Korecki’s Politico Illinois Playbook:

“Democratic Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle took a swipe at Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner on Monday, saying he should have done more to oppose GOP efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act. The board president said she urged the governor in March to contact Republicans in the state’s congressional delegation and ‘tell them how important the ACA is to Cook County,’ but Rauner declined. Preckwinkle said she told Rauner during that phone call she was ‘deeply disappointed.’ A Rauner spokeswoman called Preckwinkle’s account of the conversation ‘simply untrue.’ ‘On the contrary, President Preckwinkle thanked Gov. Rauner during their phone call for urging Congress to move thoughtfully through the health care debate, and the governor stressed his concerns about how the Medicaid population in Illinois would be affected by the proposed changes,’ Rauner spokeswoman Eleni Demertzis said in a statement.”

Korecki: “Ok, what? Is the governor’s office saying Preckwinkle just lied about their phone call? I circled back with Preckwinkle’s spokesman, who stood firm on Preckwinkle’s account of the phone call.”
Preckwinkle is known to be a fairly straight shooter while Rauner is known to make plenty of things up, including meetings and conversations with legislators, so most likely we know who is lying in this case. It would be nice to see in one place a list of all of Rauner’s lies and prevarications so the public can see these incidents as part of a pattern that started with his campaign and not as discrete political spats. Assignment Desk, activate!
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Losing Logan Square
A rapid loss of culture, identity and affordability that is neither natural nor inevitable, but the result of purposeful policy choices. A nine-minute video featuring a stellar cast.
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Anti-Muslim Incidents Increased In 2016
The acceleration was due in part to Donald Trump’s focus on militant Islamist groups and anti-immigrant rhetoric, a study found.
A previous study found an increase in anti-Semitic acts attributed to Trump’s campaign.
Increased attacks on Christians have not been found.
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Jonathan Pie: Strong & Unstable
How the media carries the carefully crafted messages of pols to evoke a sentiment in voters that is the opposite of actual actions.
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The Weekend In Chicago Rock
Is still in pre-production – as is last week’s Week in Chicago Rock – I’ve fallen behind.
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BeachBook
Bob 2020.

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Chops Sawyer.

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At the corner of Get It Together & Walgreens.

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Deep Inside Macron Country | We must now confront an uncomfortable question. Why did so many French people vote for Emmanuel Macron? Was it a lack of economic anxiety, or a lack of racism?

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Six Ways The New York Times Could Genuinely Make Its Op-Ed Page More Representative Of America.

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TweetWood
A sampling.


Still would like to know what NEIU administrators thought they were gettting out of this.
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The Beachwood Tronc Line: Existential.

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Posted on May 9, 2017