Showing posts with label Garry McCarthy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Garry McCarthy. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 29, 2011

While crime and flash mobs roil Chicago-area residents, City Hall, Police, Tourism & Business Establishment act like ostriches. Sounds familiar!

View more videos at: http://nbcchicago.com.


WMAQ-TV (Chicago) video: Woman Believes Beach Violence Covered Up. City officials say incidents handled promptly.

Hard as it is to believe, all indications are that the City of Chicago and the Chicago downtown business establishment are STILL trying to deny what so many thousands of Chicago-area residents have seen LIVE over the past few weeks, and what tens of thousands more Americans have now seen via posted videos on YouTube, thanks to quick-thinking witnesses.
It's indicative of many troubling things, not least, a giant fundamental govt. dis-connect to reality.

View more videos at: http://www.nbcchicago.com.


WMAQ-TV (Chicago) video: The Talk: The Real Story Behind the Beach Closure.
Amy Schwartz talks with host Marion Brooks.

The situation in Chicagoland and how poorly it's been handled from the beginning, months before Rahm Emauel was elected mayor, gives you some real insight into how a similar situation down here in South Florida would likely be handled, where much-smaller city governments already have their heads firmly in the ground like ostriches, about what everyone in their own towns (plus visitors) can already readily see for themselves 24/7 about the general state of govt. incompetence, longstanding corruption and the lack of sufficient and properly-trained law enforcement in places where it can make a positive difference.
This despite the fact that Police & Fire personnel costs make up the clear majority of local cities' budgets.

See this post from the CTA Tattler blog,
Flash mobs ride CTA to commit crimes, mayhem on Near North Side


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WLS-7 TV (Chicago) video: Security stepped up for Taste of Chicago

Here where I live in South Florida, in the SE corner of Broward County, as I've often commented with exasperation on this blog, the Hallandale Beach Police Dept. STILL does NOT regularly patrol the actual public beach, even on crowded, three-day holiday weekends.
Like what's coming up in a few days...

But if you ask me, I can tell you exactly where I've watched them sit in their patrol cars on the road for 5-10 minutes with their A/C going when they have shown up to "investigate."
Or, later, where they stand in the shade (of The Beach Club) when they do actually get out of the patrol car -to smoke or check-out the female 'scenery'.
That's many things, but it's NOT the kind of serious patrolling HB taxpayers have a right to expect at one of the main public areas in the city.

Is it true that there are more HBPD police cars than there are actual HB police officers and administrators, and if so, why are there seemingly DOZENS of police cars that NEVER EVER move from the HB City Hall parking lot, no matter what time of the day you happen upon them?

Some answers to these questions may well be forthcoming, but I don't think I'm ruining the suspense when I tell you that I don't think you'll like the facts I have to share with you on this matter.

It's just more of the same inexplicable, inefficient, wasteful and status quo mentality we deal with here on an everyday basis.

Sunday, June 12, 2011

Chicago Trib readers screw w/Trib execs: "The board for this story has been closed because of excessive violations of the Tribune's comment policies"


WBBM-TV, Chicago video

WBBM-TV, Chicago video: Walter Jacobson: Time to be upfront about mob violence
Story at

Upset Chicago Tribune readers are continuing to screw with Trib execs over the paper's fact-free reporting on the rash of mob attacks that have struck the Chicagoland area, prompting the execs to have to shut down their own comment forums.
That these forums, like their blogs, are among the best in the country, and light-years ahead of anything in South Florida goes without saying.

See Chicagoist on "mobs", including this headline, Did Gang Bangers Force Cops to Close North Avenue Beach?, at

This sort of politically correct writing has provoked the counter-force you could expect and that criticism of the Tribune policies and execs has led to the following embarrassing disclaimer being placed at the bottom of news articles:
"The board for this story has been closed because of excessive violations of the Tribune's comment policies. Details of those policies are described below."
Yes, on account of the Trib's self-serving, heavy-handed, condescending and parochial, not-to-mention Politically Correct polices, readers all over Chicagoland are saying f-em and 'shut 'em down!'

Chicago Tribune
3 teens held in downtown attack
By Jeremy Gorner and Dawn Rhodes
Tribune reporters
8:20 a.m. CDT, June 8, 2011

Two teens have told police they were attacked by a group of at least five youths downtown Tuesday evening just west of North Michigan Avenue.
A witness described the incident as similar to last weekend’s downtown attacks when 20 youths were arrested, including five who allegedly robbed and beat several people inStreeterville and on the Magnificent Mile.

Read the rest of the story at:

(Reminder for late arrivals to the blog -I lived in Chicago, Evanston and Wilmette in the mid-80's, including the Bears Super Bowl season.)

Later in the day, under the headline Rahm on the spot over youth mobs this appeared:
The most disturbing feature of the mob crimes is that they seem largely recreational. As early as February, police were warning merchants and residents in the Water Tower neighborhood about "flash mob offenders" — groups of teens who arrived via mass transit to stage shoplifting raids sometimes organized on social media networks. One unruly crowd took over the dining room of a McDonald's in April, forcing it to remain closed for hours after police broke things up.

That led to this eye-roller of a headline on Friday:
Teens feel they're being watched downtown
Most youths don't want to cause trouble, many students say in wake of mob attacks

Well at least the Trib didn't call them "youths" in the story.

Sure, because when you're a news reporter, when something happens, rather than trying to get some answers as to why someone or some group is or was engaged in a particular behavior, you interview a group of people that are NOT doing that, and tell how they feel victimized.
OH, PLEASE!

They still won't interview anyone who was actually involved in any of this because that would involve some work and enterprise, so instead they interview the United Colors of Benneton kids who attend the school for wannabe social activists.
How precious.

Oh, sorry, I mean the Urban Outfitter Crew.

This was all the perfect predicate for the following piece by the Editor of the newspaper which ran in Saturday's Trib.
It tells you almost everything you need to know about the state of American journalism in the year 2011.

Or, put another way, I could've headlined this post "When the PC Police run a newspaper: Chicago Tribune editor writes "When race is relevant in news coverage" Still waiting for Miami Herald's own take on illegal aliens? Good luck!"

Chicago Tribune
When race is relevant in news coverage
By Gerould W. Kern
4:52 p.m. CDT, June 10, 2011

This week the Chicago Tribune published several news stories and related columns about assaults by groups of youths in the Streeterville area of downtown Chicago. More coverage appears Sunday.

A number of readers have asked why we have not included racial descriptions of the assailants and the victims in these incidents.
Read the rest of the editorial at:


See also: Chicago Incapable of Combatting Flash Mobs