Safety Alert

From a reader:

Modern ingenuity.  Be careful out there.

Haz Mat

A couple of years back, we ran a series of photos from various police districts showing unsafe, unsanitary and pretty gross conditions. We also pointed out some structural failings due to shoddy construction and on-the-cheap contracting.

J-Fled was trying to upgrade certain things while the city built the last of the new stations. The rehab work is still going on places (Rahm couldn't revoke the contracts evidently), and the 011th District clocks in a new one (the first was excrement dripping from the ceilings - a throwback to the old Ivory Tower):
As the work crew strips the old asbestos pipes, they just toss them in the dumpster, endangering cops, garbage men, neighbors, and the can guy picking through the trash. Watch yourselves Fillmo.

Safety Equipment

This new Cannabis Order is a difficult read. Difficult in that it doesn't seem to do anything except discourage weed arrests. Officers are supposed to "guess-timate" the weight of the Cannabis, one person says by comparing it to the weight of 3 nickels. Now comes this word:

• Read the MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheet) for the Duquenois-Levine Reagent 908 Cannabis Testing Kits
  
  Is the Department going to provide the LEGALLY REQUIRED PPE and Exposre Controls including
  
  chemical goggles or safety glasses with side shield splash protection, impervious neoprene or nitrile gloves. Further, an eye wash fountain and safety shower should be readily available to those using the test.
  
  According to the federally mandated MSDS potential Health Effects Include severe corneal burns, irritation and or severe chemical burns by direct contact with the skin.
  
  Will any of the Unions hold the City and Department accountable and protect their membership.

Is all the testing done at the desk, exposing Officers to these chemicals and resultant by-products? And if the "testing officer" spills anything at the desk, is it a Haz-Mat situation? We'd suggest using the now empty Watch Commander's Office, but too many lieutenants are disregarding the General Order that says they're supposed to be sitting at the Front Desk.

In any event, if you are one of the "testing Officers," you are doing the work of a technician, processing evidence and filing a report concerning the same - that sounds like D-2 pay to us.

Foot = Foot

Once again:

• SCC, unless I missed it there has been no mention of what GMac said at Compstat re: Foot patrols. To wit: Commanders must justify why a fixed post police officer gets a car from now on. Inclement weather is the only real reason, otherwise all fixed posts must be on foot.

These "posts" aren't storefronts or downtown spots with tourists all around. These posts are deep in enemy territory at high traffic dope spots. Spots where weapons are commonplace and turf wars rage. Spots that are easy to hide dope and where the dealers can operate out of sight.

We certainly hope that downtown has thought this one through. And then the supervisors mention their concerns. And finally, the FOP can ensure that officer safety concerns are paramount and in the front of everyone's mind.

OEMC Crashes

Dispatching manually:

• Officials with the city's Office of Emergency and Management Communications confirmed that its state-of-the-art computer aided dispatch system, which routes emergency calls to police officers in the field unexpectedly crashed late Monday night.

  Technicians were at the OEMC's Near West Side facility this morning trying to repair the system, but city officials still hadn't determined what caused the system crash, nor provided a time frame for when it would be repaired.
  
  "The exact cause remains to be determined," said Delores Robinson, a spokesman for the OEMC.

  In the meanwhile, dispatchers were manually directing officers to emergency calls through their radios, Robinson said.

  Despite the abruptness of the system failure, service for emergency calls haven't been impacted, she said.

  "The problem has not had an impact on response times at all. We're getting all calls to the officers, assisting them through radio for now," Robinson said.

"State-of-the-what-now?" OEMC hasn't been state-of-the-art for quite some time now. Nothing has been significantly upgraded in years, the dispatch stations are buggy as hell - and when we say "buggy" we mean both computer-wise and critter-infested.

And response times aren't affected because we're still shorthanded as we've been for years now.

Party Bus Problem

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Use of Force Policy Changed

Unilaterally, two days before the biggest event to hit town since the 1996 Convention.

McOleoresinCapsicum has decreed that he, AND ONLY HE, will authorize the use of OC spray in a crowd situation.

Can anyone recall being notified of this, seeing a training video, or attending a refresher course anywhere prior to this order being issued? Yeah, we can't either.

Good luck with that one McDoofus.

CompStat Claims Another Victim

An unidentified lieutenant collapsed at this week's CompStat meeting and had to be rushed to the hospital.

No word on the lieutenant's condition, but we here at SCC think full consideration should be given to canceling the entire CompStat disaster, seeing as how it hasn't stopped (or even alleviated) crime but has affected the health of at least two officers, possibly three.

Truly Stupid Idea

(Long post - read it all to get a feel for what's going on)

Once again, reinventing the wheel, but reinventing it stupidly. Our comment section is alive with some truly asinine policies invented by downtown:

• God help the 011 district. McGoofs newest idea is going to get a copper killed. If you are on a beat car that has a violence zone, you must stay in that box the whole tour. You must have a PDT in the car, and ask for a relief for lunch and personals. You only take calls that are in your box.
  
  If you are a beat car with no zone, you run your ass off all night, running all over the district ,working off the backlog. 6 beat cars right out of roll call are not taking jobs.
  
  [...] NOW they want a FIXED FOOT POSTS IN THE VIOLENCE ZONE!! Further curtailing the cars responding to jobs and providing backup! Original idea was to have a car drop them off to STAND in 011 for their entire tour. Each a block from each other. And on all watches!!! How insane to expect any copper to stand by themselves on a damn block in a violence zone in 011 on any watch (1st watch- really???)
  
  The first night they were allowed to have cars (must have a working PDT aka GPS) but how long will that last? Also the troops were ask to curtail their requests for time off in roll call.
  011 is not the district to have 4 to 5 cars answering jobs. Back up is non existent and now fixed foot posts. The situation just gets worse and worse for the officers in 011. The bosses have put the 011 coppers in a very dangerous situation , that will only get worse!
  

Another comment on the same subject:

• Last night in 011 on first watch, 9 out of 18 cars were either in a zone or or a fixed posts-responding only to calls in their assigned zone. That's 9 cars remaining for a busy district to pick up the slack.the zone cars have to get relief for lunch and personals. Nothing like asking permission to pee! Mc Goof is an asshat. This strategy is dangerous.

And another:

• I'm surprised to see that no one is talking about what that piece of New York Shit told the 11th district commander. Besides the whole time due thing. He was told to have a police officer posted 24/7 at drug spots that the police shut down. [He] wants a copper standing on the street by themselves (like a lame duck in the middle of the ghetto) without a squad car or partner. [He] was grandstanding when he asked the room full bosses if anyone wanted to challenge him on this great idea. There was NOT one boss in that room that had the balls or even an ounce of courage to stand up to [him] and tell him what a stupid idea that us and that it will jepordize the safety of all officers assigned to that detail. This department has truly turned into a joke. Now I know why they made all the exempt ranks under 50 years old , because they are all to scared of loosing their spots by speaking up and the bosses over 50 are just scared little people that don't even belong on this job!

And e-mails:

• Today we were visited in roll call by Commander Washignton and Captain Bay (XO). They informed us that now IN ADDITION to these ridiculous zones that tie down 3 primary beat cars and 6 rapid/06 cars a night, we will now have 4 fixed foot posts, each manned by a 99 officer on all watches. On third watch today, 1125 and 1131 were removed from their beats and put on these foot posts, which are on 1112's beat. We were also advised that the p/os on said foot posts will not have a car, because according to McCarthy, if you give them a car, they will sit in it. All of this coming less than a week after 3 p/os in 011 went on IOD from having to wrestle with shitheads, and bricks were thrown at the police while they tried to pursue an agg batt offender.
  The REAL kicker though came when Cmndr Washington informed us that time due will be restricted. The number of people allowed to take off on any given day will be greatly reduced, especially on the weekends. If we wanted to discuss these issues with the Commander, we were told we had to wait because he was going out of town with his family (this is before my slip for Easter Sunday that I put in two months ago got denied). Apparently 011 and 007 are experiencing some kind of emergency situation that requires the Department to deny time due??
  Then we were told by Bay and Washington that they aren't looking for more arrests, but more contact cards because if you get out and contact card these people "they won't come back." (These are our "leaders" that actually believe this)
  The backlogs are literally hours long in 011. All priority 1a jobs have an avearge of 30 to 60 minutes on them because there is nobody that can come out of a zone or off of a corner to answer them. We are told that we need to ask permission to use the bathroom because we can't leave our "zone" or corner without a face to face relief. This is such a fucking joke and someone needs to fix it before, God forbid, somebody gets killed.

Another:

• ...twelve cars held down every single shift on all watches. The shift starts in backlog and hands off a backlog --twenty-four hour straight backlog! Downing beat cars to cover violence zones means entire square miles of the district have no police coverage.
  

One person complaining might be just someone with an axe to grind. Two might be a sympathetic ear for the first. Three people with the same basic complaint makes us sit up and notice and think there's something to this after all.

We've gotten a few dozen complaints along with at least that many e-mails, all relating the same thing:

• 011 is holding down three violence zones with 8 cars every single day, all shifts
• 011 is covering four fixed posts with 4 cars, every single day, all shifts
• manpower hasn't changed, but the bosses are restricting time due to three people on some days
  

That's 12 cars down every shift and almost no time due granted. Downing multiple beat cars is the dumbest thing we're heard. We have officers alleging that the backlogs are running 24 hours straight and we are starting to believe it.

We don't have any solutions for the 011 people. We did notice the FOP is making noise to address the time due restrictions but that isn't going to make up for missing holidays, birthdays and family events in the short term. Readers?

Another Haz-Mat

Didn't this just kill an officer last year?

• Chicago firefighters were called to the Ogden Dstrict police station on the West Side this morning after several officers reported irritation to their eyes and throat, officials said.

  Fumes from a cleaning solution apparently caused the problem at the station at 3315 W. Ogden Avenue, said Police News Affairs [...].

  A Level 1 Hazmat situation was called around 9 a.m.....

  Three officers and three other people at the station had complaints of irritation, but only one officer was taken to an area hospital for observation.

We're going to go out on a limb and imagine the cleaning crew mixed up a couple of things that aren't supposed to be in contact with each other except in a well ventilated area, and even then it isn't recommended.

Rough 24 Hours

Three separate attacks, no injuries:

• Three separate attacks on Chicago Police within a wild 24-hour period were mercifully unsuccessful, authorities say.
  
  But a trio of defendants now face felony charges in connection with the unrelated attacks Friday and Saturday.
  
  They began at lunchtime Friday, when Jenkins Cooper, 40, allegedly fired four shots at an FBI agent and Chicago cops as they executed a search warrant on his Englewood home.
  
  
• Early Saturday morning, officers again got lucky when a gunman opened fire at them — this time on the West Side.
  
  Self-confessed Vice Lords gang member Terry Jones, 26, allegedly shot at two officers as they sat in a marked Chevrolet Tahoe on the 1400 block of South Avers, guarding a car that had been seized following an earlier police chase.
  
  
• And at lunchtime Saturday, insurance worker Ashley Day, 25, attempted to run over two downtown bicycle cops in her 2005 Corvette, prosecutors allege.
  
  Initially stopped for texting while driving and making an illegal U-turn near Randolph and Stetson, Day, of Hazel Crest, escaped by reversing at the first cop, it’s alleged.
  
  Cornered again by police in the 200 block of North Michigan, she allegedly tried the same trick again on a second bicycle cop, before she was arrested and charged with two counts of aggravated assault of a peace officer, fleeing and eluding and the original traffic offences.

Warmer weather and G8 are right around the corner.

Someone Was Wondering...

...where's the promised equipment?

• When are the replacement shields coming in as promised? When are the new gas masks coming in as promised? When and where do I get my eye glass inserts? Why am I hearing that I have to pay for them? What about the insert for the helmet to stop the pee and poop or bleach from running down off my helmet into my eyes blinding me after jagoffs through this shit at me? Do we all get a shield? Are they supplying the front line officers with relief every other hour? How about water, gatorade, sandwiches? Porta Johns? Extra Mace? Extra Ammo? Flex Cuffs? Emergency first aid kits? I say call in the National Gaurd and put them througout the city in groups of 25 troops. Let the people know if shit goes postal, the military will do what needs to be done to restore order.

We were promised the same thing. After more than a few Bulls riots, we can barely see through the plastic shield.

Whoops Again

Rumor or fact?

• there was an escape from 008 lockup about 0045 hours. one p.o. took a restroom break and second p.o. was escorting arrestee into cell when arrestee over powered p.o. taking the master key to all exit doors for lockup the officer was then locked in a cell. p.o. returns and discovered partner locked in cell.

At the very least, out number the prisoner. That way someone can call for help if it looks like 2-on-1 isn't working. Be careful boys and girls, especially if they're attacking us in our backyard.

UPDATE: Additional info - comments are claiming this was a mis-bonding issue. If true, it sure makes the station supervisor look overworked. Maybe if we had a Desk Sergeant, like New York?

Welcome Mentally Ill Patrons!

Again, how about a locked, secure door with a doorbell, closed circuit TV and inch thick glass. In numerous suburbs, this guy wouldn't even get in the front door. But here?

• A Northwest Side man was charged early this morning with heaving chunks of concrete at a large plate glass window at the 16th District police station in Jefferson Park Thursday night.

  Three officers were injured when they tried to arrest the 38-year-old man, Chicago Police News Affairs [...] said.

  Andrzej K. Borowiec, of the 5300 block of West Wolfram Street was charged with three counts of aggravated battery to a police officer, one count of criminal damage to property and one count of misdemeanor resisting arrest. He was ordered held in lieu of $200,000 bail following a hearing today in Cook County Central Bond Court.

Mentally ill people wandering into police stations with rifles, destroying equipment, getting tasered 30 times, and now, bringing concrete into the station to inflict mayhem.

But everything is fine.

Safety First? Not Really

Unfortunately, the push for safety (and security) fell through the cracks during J-Fled's tenuous tenure. Now the FOP is reduced to filing safety grievances in the hopes of shaming the City into doing something that should have been covered years ago:

• The Fraternal Order of Police has reportedly filed a safety complaint in Chicago.
  
  The police union is especially concerned about safety at the Harrison District.
  
  "There is more security at a Chicken Shack at this neighborhood than at a police desk," said Pat Camden of the Fraternal Order of Police.
  
  What Camden is talking about is the front desk inside Area 4 Police Headquarters. Located in the high-crime Harrison District, the station has had four security breaches in the last six months.
  
  On June 7, a man entered the station, threw computers on the floor and assaulted at least one officer. On Aug. 11, a man walked in with an unloaded assault rifle. On Sept. 10th, a man jumped onto the station's front desk screaming and waving his fists. And finally, on Nov. 24th, a man walked into the station carrying a fully-loaded assault rifle.

While somewhat "minor" in the fact that no one got killed during any of these breaches, the problems faced by Area 4 are not unique. In fact, each of the Area HQ buildings feature an easy to leap over, unsecured, wide open desk and lobby area. 025, 019, 005 and 002, along with 011 have the same security issues. At least with the new stations, you have to run around a 4 foot high desk area to get at the desk personnel. We're pretty sure it's just pressed particle board, so it provides minimal protection in the event of an attack, but some shielding is better than none in the cases of the Areas.

We're also pretty sure that exactly nothing will be done until someone gets seriously hurt, or god forbid, killed.

Bad Idea

Trust this Department to come up with some decent training on one hand, then put everyone taking it in harm's way:

• SAFETY ALERT....
  
  For anyone attending the Mobile Field Force Operations class at UIC. Be advised that a bureaucratic tactician, in his or her infinite wisdom, has decided that all participants, including instructors, should be unarmed. Also, the facility is unsecured. Anyone can walking into the facility at any given time. I'm not sure why this training isn't being conducted at a secured police facility. Kinda of funny that they would have a "law enforcement sensitive" training open to the public and at the home of Bill Ayers and other radical student groups. Just remember, shit happens anywhere, even on a university campus. Just remember...Va Tech, Univ of Iowa and Univ of Texas. So, do what I did and make sure you have that back up weapon on you or accessible.

We've already heard reports of "students" filming the training and fleeing when confronted. Anyone who has attended UIC knows the campus is wide open, and as the commentator says, the past home to some very radical persons.

We're also aware that during training, accidents can happen, so securing firearms is usually a good idea. But to disarm instructors? You've just created an overly target rich environment without any chance for defense. At least the doors were locked at Near North. Even the old School Violence drills held at various high schools back in the day had armed police riding along at all stages, dressed as "out-of-play" but armed with radios and guns in case something bad happened.

MORE Mold?

Just not in Chicago:

• Philadelphia police officers complained to city officials Tuesday that their stations are plagued with faulty heating and leaking up sewers insect infestations.
  
  "You name it, we got it," said John McNesby, president of the Fraternal Order of Police, which filed a grievance with the city hoping to put the issue in the hands of an independent arbitrator who could order that repairs be done.
  
  The police group, which acts as the contract-bargaining unit for the city's 6,600 officers, has paid for some repairs itself, he said.
  
  Police stations suffer from heating and cooling problems, sewers that backup and roofs that leak, he said.
  
  Some are so infested with bugs that the police organization has sent exterminators to the homes of officers because of fleas and bed bugs they took home with them, he said.

Why hasn't Chicago had the national coverage that this is getting?

More Mold

These are pictures from 012:


The scene has since been bleached, but our readers stored the pictures. So we have the following:

• Locker rooms in 011 that we posted photos of from over a year ago
• Academy mold
• 024 hallway mold
• 012 locker room greenery
  
• Elevators at Homan Square that look and smell like a Louisiana swamp
• Memories of the Area 5 mold disaster
  

Any more?

Mold Makes the News

Amazing - it appears here, then it appears everywhere:

• The Chicago Police Department says it is investigating reports of a mold problem at the Police Academy, at 1300 W. Jackson Blvd.

• “A grievance has been filed by the FOP several weeks back, and we’re waiting on the Illinois Department of Labor to send out a safety inspector to take a look at the conditions that are there,” said FOP spokesman Pat Camden.

  Camden said it is not clear where in the building the mold located, but “it’s enough to where somebody has complained to the union in regards to it, and that’s when we filed a grievance.”

We guess this means they'll address 024's mold issue tomorrow, and 012 the day after that. Problem solved! Or maybe not.

Mold in 024

You thought the Academy was bad? Look what's seeping through the floor in 024:


There are some truly disgusting work places throughout this Department. Probably more than enough to keep an entire team of environmentalists busy for years.