Chicago - A message from the station manager

The [Thursday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

“Almost half of adults living in Chicago are spending more than they can afford on their homes or apartments, and they have dealt with the burden by taking on second jobs, moving to less safe areas, or cutting back on food or the quality of their children’s education, a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation study released Thursday shows,” the Tribune reports.
Almost half of the rest are lying.


Prop Shop
“The head of the mayoral security detail told a fellow officer that several of Mayor Richard M. Daley’s Bridgeport-raised bodyguards were ‘motherfucking racists,’ according to testimony Wednesday in a lawsuit filed by former members of the security team who say they were dropped from the team and replaced with black officers,” the Sun-Times reports.
“On the witness stand Wednesday, Officer Carol Weingart said she joined the detail the same day as Brian Thompson, who would go on to lead the mayoral security team for the last months of Daley’s term and continue in the post under Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Weingart is one of 11 white or Latino officers who say they lost their jobs when Emanuel took office to make room for African-American officers or cops who had volunteered to help Emanuel’s campaign.”
That, of course, would violate the Shakman Decree.
Here are a couple other parts of this report that struck me:
“City attorneys pointed out that most of the officers who were on the detail had no special training or underwent any testing to get their jobs on the mayoral detail, considered by many in the department’s rank-and-file to be an assignment offered only to cops with political juice.”
A. No special training? I just kind of figured officers on that sort of security detail would be trained in what to look for, how to position themselves, what to do in various scenarios. I mean, Secret Service officers are trained, right? I thought it’d be a junior version of that.
–
COMMENT 6:34 P.M.: From Sun-Times reporter Andy Grimm:
I should have made clear that while they had no special expertise in security when they were promoted to the detail, they do go back to the academy and spend a month in Secret Service executive protection training after they get the job.
–
Aha. Thanks for the clarification, Andy; very much appreciated.
–
B. I have known that these assignments are considered particularly juicy, but I’ve never really understood why. Don’t cops want to be out there on the street fighting crime instead of essentially baby-sitting the egotistical tyrant-pricks who tend to be our mayors?
–
UPDATE 6:38 P.M.: I’m probably underestimating the extra pay. But still.
*
And:
“Officers also seemed aware race played a role in the day-to-day functions of the unit: It was a practice on the detail to have black officers positioned closest to Daley when the mayor was in predominantly African American neighborhoods, or an Italian officer when the mayor traveled to a predominantly Italian area.”
So the officers physically closest to the mayor aren’t there because of their expertise and training at handling the lead position, they are there as racial and ethnic props. Do they at least get SAG cards?
PLM vs. BLM
“Several Chicago aldermen are organizing a ‘support your local police’ rally under the tag line ‘Police Lives Matter’ at the Jefferson Park District Headquarters on the Far Northwest Side on Thursday,” DNAinfo Chicago reports.
I commented on this at length on Twitter this morning.
–
Dork Calculates Chance Of Catching Ferris Bueller
Formula changes if he’s not rich and white.
*
Ferris’s Life Mattered.
–
BeachBook
Illinois Company Run By Really Rich Crazy People.

*
The Shopping Mall Bubble.

*
Media Calls For Rules On Targeting Journalists.

New link: Dozens Of News Orgs Demand DOJ Release Its Secret Rules For Targeting Journalists With National Security Letters.
–
TweetWood
A sampling.


*


*


–
The Beachwood Tronc Line: New and unimproved.

Permalink

Posted on June 16, 2016