Chicago - A message from the station manager

The Weekend Desk Report

By Steve Rhodes

For completists, there was no column on Friday.
“A Tribune investigation of nearly 700 complaints upheld by IPRA found the agency routinely obscured its findings and misled the public about how its investigations played out, often giving victims of police misconduct a false sense that they had prevailed and eroding the already fragile trust between the police and the community. Indeed, the agency’s already low record of finding allegations credible – 3.8 percent of all cases closed by the end of last year – provides a skewed picture of its work.”
In other words, even at 3.8 percent, IPRA’s rate of sustaining complaints is inflated.


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Go read the whole thing – you’ll learn anew how Chicago’s police disciplinary system is designed to protect cops, not citizens. And how it’s really an anti-disciplinary system built in part on the seemingly correct assumption that the cops who come before it are generally liars.
Body Guarding
“A federal jury Thursday found there was no racial bias by senior Chicago Police officials who chose bodyguards to serve newly elected Mayor Rahm Emanuel in 2011, but Emanuel still will have to testify next week about claims that security team jobs went to officers who worked on his campaign,” Andy Grimm reports for the Sun-Times.
Also, please note:
“Most of the officers on Daley’s detail had no prior experience in security, though they received training from the State Police or Secret Service after being promoted. New officers on Emanuel’s detail received similar training once they were put on the security team.”
On Thursday, I marveled that the officers chosen for this detail had no previous training in this sector of law enforcement; they get the training after they are selected, it turns out.
I also added a comment from Grimm on this point to Thursday’s column.
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Now, to advance the story:
“When Rahm Emanuel was running for his first term as mayor in 2011, there were at least five Chicago Police officers who volunteered to work in their off-duty hours for his campaign, working security at his various offices or driving the candidate and his staff to events,” Grimm reported on Friday.
“When Emanuel won the election that April, guarding Emanuel became their day job, as all five landed on a special security detail for the mayor-elect. When Emanuel was sworn in, all but one of them were promoted to Emanuel’s mayoral security team, bumping out officers who had spent years as bodyguards for Richard M. Daley, according to testimony Friday in a lawsuit brought by four officers who were ‘dumped’ from the detail.”
In other words, cops who choose their mayoral candidate wisely and put in the volunteer time with enthusiasm can set themselves up for a plum assignment later.
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“Attorneys for four officers who said they were demoted from those security jobs questioned whether it was entirely coincidence that some of them were replaced by fellow officers who had worked for candidate Emanuel.”
A coincidence only in the sense that in Chicago there are no coincidences.

“Would you agree that it’s highly unlikely out of those 12,000 sworn police officers you had to chose from, the five most-qualified would be people that just happened to be campaign volunteers for Rahm Emanuel?” [one lawyer] asked Terry Hillard, who served as interim police chief for the last weeks of Daley’s final term and signed off on the promotions.
“I dealt with what was on the list that was handed to me,” said Hillard, who once was a bodyguard for both Jane Byrne and Harold Washington. “They were selected before I got there as interim superintendent. I wasn’t there to upset the apple cart. I was there for 10 weeks and 10 weeks only, and I was out.”

Perhaps it’s unreasonable to have expected a short-timer like Hillard – who had previously served 5 1/2 years as the real police chief in a 35-year career on the force before going into consulting, including offering his expertise in overseeing reform – to upset the apple cart.
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“CPD officer Hakki Gurkan . . . testified Friday that he volunteered for Emanuel’s congressional office in 2004 and spent his vacation working an internship at Emanuel’s Washington D.C. office the next year. When Gurkan signed paperwork before he was promoted onto Emanuel’s security team, he did not mention his political work for the mayor.
“In 2011, Gurkan took furlough days for the month of January to help out with the campaign, and recruited several fellow CPD officers to volunteer to use their off time to be drivers and bodyguards for Daley’s heir apparent. Most said they had never been politically active before volunteering for shifts at Emanuel’s campaign officers or driving the candidate around on their off-duty time.”
Maybe they were attracted to the campaign by Emanuel’s charm.
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For more on how the mayoral security detail operates, please revisit “Daley’s Police Detail Under Scrutiny,” a fascinating 2013 report by Tim Novak, Chris Fusco and Carol Marin.
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Beachwood Photo Booth: Auto Parts Overlords
Enlarge for proper viewing.
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Beachwood Sports Radio: The Freeze No Longer Tastee
Segments include: Milkshakes To Soothe The Annual Painful Blackhawks Departure; It’s Silver’s Series Now; Hollywood Butler Going Minnesota?; The Welcome Willson Wagon; #FreeRickHahn; and KOPA Kabana.
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The Week In Chicago Rock
Is in pre-production. Featuring: Unmanned Ship, Anti-Nowhere League, Dave East, Florence and the Machine, CeeLo Green, Iris DeMent, RL Grime, Frankie Valli, Jimmy Buffett, Alice Peacock, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Gregory Alan Isakov, Warrant, The Hollows, and the Ponys.
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The Sound Opinions Weekend Listening Report: “Nervy guitars and pounding drums can perfectly convey the restless sensation of being on the verge of breaking down. Jim and Greg share their favorite Anxious Anthems. Then, they review the new album from venerable songwriter Paul Simon.”
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Weekend BeachBook
This series is your weekend read.

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‘End’ of Afghan war.

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Bad ruling from Trump judge.

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TweetWood
A sampling.


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AHEM!


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Read the whole thread.


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Burke could’ve done it in six.


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Finance CEO = Chicago’s Terry Duffy.


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The Beachwood Tronc Line: Ritronculous.

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Posted on June 18, 2016