By Steve Rhodes
“Though Mayor Rahm Emanuel has repeatedly claimed that he’s been making big investments in public safety, the number of Chicago police officers has dropped in the last three months,” Mick Dumke reports for the Reader.
“Last October, 11,178 police officers were on the city payroll. By June, shortly after Emanuel took office, that number had dropped to 10,923. As of earlier today, it was down a tad more, to 10,918, according to payroll data.”
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That’s not the perception generated from Rahm’s press, though even noted City Hall stenographer Fran Spielman reported in her “analysis” of the mayor’s first 100 days that “Even the mayor’s claim to have flooded Chicago streets with hundreds of additional beat officers is exaggerated. He campaigned on a promise to solve a severe manpower shortage by adding 1,000 officers not now on the street, 250 of them newly hired with funds generated by tax-increment financing districts.
“But 500 of the officers he has returned to beat patrol have been reshuffled from the same deck of cards. They come from specialized units now disbanded.”
Doesn’t that make Rahm Emanuel a liar? I still don’t get where political “spin” is somehow assessed by its strategic smarts (how well it deceives the public) instead of its truthfulness.
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“Emanuel and [police chief Garry] McCarthy have also pointed out that having more cops isn’t the same as deploying them properly,” Dumke writes. “In June they announced that they were redeploying 150 officers from administrative duties to the street. Last month they announced they were moving 39 more from office jobs to work in the community.
“That might be good news – if the officers weren’t doing any administrative tasks that actually helped prevent or solve crimes. Despite promoting its record on transparency, the Emanuel administration has not said what the officers previous assignments were.”
Apparently the police department has a lot of “desk jobs” where officers shuffle papers needlessly and thus can be deployed to the streets as needed.
“Desks-to-streets announcements are also right out of the big-city political playbook. Former Mayor Richard M. Daley made them when pressure mounted for greater police visibility but he didn’t have money to hire more cops.”
Madigan’s Mouth
“Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn said today he was ‘disappointed’ that veteran House Speaker Michael Madigan, the state’s Democratic chairman, attended a fundraiser featuring Republican U.S. House Speaker John Boehner,” the Tribune reports.
“[Madigan spokesman Steve] Brown said Madigan did not indicate to him whether the two speakers spoke to each other at the Aug. 13 fundraiser for Boehner’s national GOP leadership fund.”
See, that’s why allowing Brown to act as Madigan’s stand-in -as the media has all these years – is ridiculous. Alternative:
“Madigan, who earns a taxpayer-funded paycheck as Illinois Speaker of the House, refuses to discuss his appearance at the Boehner event. Madigan’s spokesman defended his boss on Wednesday even as he admitted he had no idea what his boss was thinking or what he said to who or if he accepted the invitation strictly as a favor to the host or if he had any misgivings about making time for Boehner but not for President Obama when he came through Illinois days later or for Democrat Day at the state fair, which he skipped.”
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“I don’t know that he espoused any support for Mr. Boehner,” Brown said.
Or that he didn’t.
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“Brown said Madigan viewed the results of last year’s elections that put Boehner in the speaker’s chair as a reflection that ‘the public wanted to see political leaders, government leaders, cooperate.'”
That’s a load of crap on its face, but let’s play along: Shouldn’t Madigan have been meeting with Illinois House Minority Leader Tom Cross instead? What does cooperating across the aisle have to do with Boehner?
In fact, Madigan could have spent some time with Quinn and other Democrats and cooperated with them first.
Now seems like a good time to use a line I heard recently: Steve Brown, is your butt jealous of the shit that comes out of your mouth?
Police Pimps
“A former stripper who secretly recorded two Chicago Police Internal Affairs investigators while filing a sexual harassment complaint against another officer was acquitted on eavesdropping charges Wednesday,” the Sun-Times reports.
And her previous occupation is relevant how?
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“Ms. Moore is twenty years old and very much still trying to discover herself in this world,” Chicago artist Chris Drew, also fighting an eavesdropping charge, writes in his e-mail newsletter.
“The Tribune calls her a former stripper but she is first a young woman struggling to survive in a depressed economy. She is too young to have established a career out of anything yet. She has every right to expect justice from our system and she is a brave fighter for women’s rights. She stood up to the intimidation of Chicago police to lodge her complaint of sexual abuse. Anyone who listened to the testimony Tuesday and Wednesday at her trial knows that took a very brave spirit. We should expect more from the newspaper of record in reporting behind the scenes. They should examine in depth the way Cook County State’s Attorneys Office shields police misconduct.
“She fought against a culture of intimidation other women of any background might face when they try to lodge a complaint against the Chicago Police for sexual misconduct. She won putting the Cook County State’s Attorney on notice that they should not be shielding police who violate citizen’s rights with malicious prosecutions of this type. Her win is a win for all women and all citizens who expect justice from Cook County. Her attorney argued that she was being intimidated out of her right to file a complaint by police who were breaking their own rules in doing so.”
Beware The Privatizers
They want to sell your tap water back to you.
Bring Me The Head Of Bruce Levine
ESPN Chicago reporter has no problem with Starlin Castro facing the outfield during pitches.
Hendry Signs McNabb
In Carl’s Cubs Mailbag.
I Give Up
“Daniel Kibblesmith has money,” the Sun-Times reports.
“The Bucktown resident apparently made a small fortune at Groupon as a humor editor, working on corporate ‘cultural initiatives’ like naming an office couch ‘Sofa Coppola.'”
Stop, you’re killing me.
No, really, you’re killing me.
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The Beachwood Tip Line: Pre- and post-mortems.
Posted on August 25, 2011