Chicago officials step up fight against gun violence

Thu, 31 Jan 2013 12:14:00 -0600

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel and Police Supt. Garry McCarthy faced an unusually large number of cameras Thursday as they addressed questions about gun violence at a press conference at a police station. There were no less than 16 TV cameras in a town where six television stations typically cover the news.

It’s an indication of the heightened interest in guns, as potential laws are discussed on the state and national levels and as Chicago continues to struggle with violence, including the Tuesday night killing of 15-year-old Hadiya Pendleton.

In announcing the latest crime fighting effort Supt. McCarthy said the police department is moving 200 officers from administrative duties to the street.

“We should have clerks doing clerical work. We don’t train people to be police officers and have them doing clerical work,” McCarthy said.

The move comes one week after Chicago’s inspector general issued a report saying Chicago was wasting millions of dollars every year paying sworn police officers to do jobs that could be done by less expensive administrative staff.

A spokesman for Mayor Emanuel says 200 people will be hired to pick up the administrative duties now being done by the sworn officers.

Of the 200 officers being reassigned, Superintendent McCarthy says 60 will be placed in “saturation units,” which are similar to tactical units disbanded when Emanuel first took office. Those units go to crime hotspots but there’s an interesting backstory here.

When he was running for Mayor, Emanuel promised to put 1,000 more police on the street. On his eighth day in office he took 500 officers out of anti-gang units like the mobile strike force that went around the city to crime hotspots. He and McCarthy reassigned those cops to beats and counted them toward the “thousand new police officer promise.”

At Thursday’s press conference Emanuel admitted the saturation units are very similar to the strike force.

“It is the same objective in the sense of the strike force, in saturating an area before a flare becomes a fire, or before a flame becomes a fire you put it out,” he said.

Police Supt. Garry McCarthy says the 60 officers will be added to about 200 other officers already in the saturation units. McCarthy says the units are different than the disbanded mobile strike force because the strike force moved citywide and the saturation units divvied up the city into three areas and they stay in their respective areas.

The president of the police union, Michael Shields, is skeptical of the proposed changes. He says the mayor’s office has not told them which 200 positions they’re shifting to from sworn officers to lower-paid administrative positions. He says Thursday’s announcement is another example of policing by press conference.

The mayor’s press office could not provide a list of the positions being changed.

Rep. Todd Akin's ridiculous "legitimate rape" comments

Mon, 20 Aug 2012 09:17:00 -0500

Lead story: In case you didn’t hear, or if you did and needed to have a rage stroke again, Rep. Todd Akin, the GOP candidate for Senate in Missouri, implied that most women who are victims of “legitimate rape” don’t get pregnant.

Setting aside for the moment Akin’s use of the phrase “legitimate rape,” let’s look at what he said and why he’s wrong. In an interview KTVI-TV, Akin, who is a 60-plus-year-old white man and reportedly has never been raped, pregnant, or even has a uterus, said, “First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare. If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” Just like his colleague Arizona Senator Jon Kyl, Akin fudged with numbers to misrepresent science and facts to further his agenda.

As Talking Points Memo points out, a 1996 study revealed about five percent of rapes resulted in pregnancy. That is a small percent, but that doesn’t take into account other scientific things like rapist’s completion of the sexual act, the victim’s use of birth control, the victim’s fertility or ability to get pregnant, and a myriad of other factors. At least when Kyl lied he used numbers, no matter how made up they were; Akin just pulled this assertion out of thin air and doesn’t even pretend to back it up with “sources.”

The point is, it does happen and, more importantly, women don’t really have a choice in the matter.

Which brings us back to Akin’s notion of “legitimate rape.” Him being a Republican, Akin was using this moment of diarrhea of the mouth as a means to say no one should have abortions ever. And he did it the old-fashioned way by undermining rape victims with his use of “legitimate rape” and implying if a woman gets pregnant because of rape, well, it’s not really rape and it’s her fault anyway.

Apparently, Akin thinks women possess a magical ability to point a wand at their womb and go, “Expelliarmus!” (Not surprisingly, Akin was a co-sponsor of the GOP House bill that wanted to redefine rape as a means to limit abortion funding.) It’s one thing to fudge numbers to support your cause but it’s another thing altogether to be an old white guy trying to tell women what they can and can’t do with their bodies and in the process make Insane Clown Posse look like Nobel laureates. And the kicker? He’s leading in the polls. Good night, America, it’s been swell.

Also: It was another violent weekend in Chicago as at least 36 people were shot across the city over the weekend, killing at least six people. The violent weekend followed a public debate in which Gawker shed a national light on the city’s shootings. Not that everyone agreed with their perspective. Chicago Magazine’s Whet Moser, one of the sharpest journalists in the city, picked the Gawker story apart and then revisited the oft-cited notion that Chicago is more violent than Kabul. (For what it’s worth, Mother Jones also tackled this “fact.”) And Moser closed the week with this look at the way the CPD is now trying to tackle violence by refusing I-bonds for gang members.

And then: Sad news from Lombard where Bill Mueller, village president since 1993, died over the weekend from complications stemming from the West Nile virus. Mueller was also suffering from blood cancer that weakened his immune system and made him susceptible to such diseases. He’s the second mayor in DuPage county to die this year following the April death of West Chicago’s Mike Kwasman.

RIP: Singer and songwriter Scott McKenzie who sung the popular 60’s hippie anthem, “San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair)” and, over 20 years later, co-wrote the Beach Boys hit “Kokomo.”

Elsewhere: Romney advisers confirmed the presumed GOP presidential candidate’s campaign is adopting a “Just Trust Me” tagline because they couldn’t think of anything else that’s both so perfectly ridiculous and condescending

The Tampa Police are ensuring no one is going to have any fun at the RNC because if the GOP parties when it's overseas, goodness knows what Florida will do to them.

I am originally from Alabama and the story of a man fighting authorities over the right to bury his dead wife in his front yard in no way surprises me.

The story of San Francisco Giant star Melky Cabrera’s steroid suspension has taken a really bizarre turn.

A good reason to not leave the keys in your fire truck.

Members of Russian punk band Pussy Riot recorded a new single in response to the two-year sentence handed down to three of its members last week.

Guys, the Mars rover Curiosity fires laser beams!

Looking ahead:

News broke late last night that film director Tony Scott committed suicide in Los Angeles yesterday, allegedly by jumping off a bridge.
The shooting death of Megan Boken garnered headlines this weekend and the investigation continues to unfold.
Popular Logan Square restaurant Longman & Eagle failed a recent health inspection but is quickly moving to get a clean check-up.
The jury is picked and opening statements in the Christopher Vaughn trial are slated to get underway.
Police continue to investigate a strange accident in the Loop over the weekend wherein a man purposely crashed his car into another, tried to stab the driver of the other car, and then stabbed a security guard who responded to the crash.
The state’s pension reform continues to be a hot mess and Gov. Quinn is trying everything.
And the drought worsens.

Sports: There were some hiccups on Saturday but holy moly did the Bears’ offense look sharp on the first few drives in their victory over the Redskins … Chris Volstad, now 24 games without a win but at least the Cubs have re-upped Starlin Castro … Kobe Bryant went to China … The hottest sports team in Chicago is the Fire who have won three straight matches … The White Sox were swept by the Royals over the weekend but thanks to two straight Tigers losses, they remain 1.5 games up on Detroit.

Finally: Olympic withdrawal still got you down? Enjoy the below video full of 8-bit fun (and check out more here). [via Have You Seen This?]

WBEZ | chicago shootings

Chicago officials step up fight against gun violence

Rep. Todd Akin's ridiculous "legitimate rape" comments