A lot of people deserve thanks for their work this weekend. We gave the Bicycle guys and gals their due yesterday. We'll try to cover a few more here:
- The CFD paramedics and Haz-Mat teams. All the friendly rivalry between the CPD and CFD is just that - friendly. And your people were in the thick of it with us at times or standing by in case you were needed. Many thanks for the quick responses when Officers went down;
- The Federal cops. Obviously, we weren't anywhere near the Federal security perimeters, but the DHS people downtown were great.
- The Illinois State Troopers. They grow them big and serious downstate, but a trip to the city is always a good time. While we can't apologize enough for the asshole politicians we send down to Springfield, we're pretty sure you don't hold it against the boys and girls in blue.
- Outside agencies who sent personnel to take over the mundane, but necessary tasks so Chicago could cover more of its own territory. We don't have a comprehensive list of everyone who came (we only met a bunch of Milwaukee cops - fun people for cheeseheads...we tease!), so if we were to attempt to thank you by agency, we might miss a few and unintentionally hurt some feelings. CPD - if you met some people from out of city/state, thank them here. If you were one of the officers from out-of-town, give yourself a shout-out in the comments.
- Everyone who stayed behind in the Districts. The folks here at SCC had people in the thick of it downtown, on the rail lines (CTA and Metra) and a few who stayed behind in the districts. To a man, the district people wanted to apologize for not being downtown. From everything we heard and saw, the downtown detail was about the crappiest of them all. Anyone not downtown did the necessary work to keep the rest available for what could have been a bad scene. Some military people told us that for every one person on the front line, between 7 and 10 support people make it possible. CPD did that with a hell of a lot less to keep a few thousand cops downtown. Don't apologize.
Were there glitches? Hell yeah. Dumb moves and missteps? Yes. We could spend the next week listing them we're sure. And what would it accomplish? Not much. Hopefully, some people in power recognize the shortcomings and work to address them so we can spare the next generation of cops the same mistakes. Then we'll all have war stories about how we had it so much harder in 2012.
So again, to everyone listed and anyone overlooked, thanks. It was a true collaborative effort. Be safe.