So who wins if the activists interfere with O’Hare access – the CTA?

Monday is the day that activists upset with the problems of urban violence in predominantly-black neighborhoods of Chicago say they want to impact O’Hare International Airport.

Activists want to ruin postcard-perfect image of O'Hare -- for a day

Figuring that such an act will get themselves national attention in ways that clogging up the Dan Ryan Expressway or the neighborhood surrounding Wrigley Field earlier this summer could not.

THE ACTIVISTS SAY they want to make it difficult for motorists to drive to O’Hare on Monday, which is Labor Day (a holiday weekend with a significant boost in travel traffic). They hope that such an act will offend the sensibilities of people whose economic well-being relies upon the airport that they will then pressure Mayor Rahm Emanuel to do something to address the problem of urban violence within parts of Chicago.

There may be some people who have that reaction. Although I also wouldn’t doubt there will be many others whose reaction will be to order Emanuel about to have the Chicago police do an encore, of sorts, of their behavior during the 1968 Democratic Convention protests.

What with all the attention the activity of 50 years ago has received in recent weeks, I wouldn’t doubt the idea would crop up into at least a few heads.

I do find it interesting that these activists at least have the sense not to try to interfere with airport operations proper. That, after all, would constitute a federal offense. Which would mean the federal courts and prosecutors getting involved.

Could this be O'Hare's easiest access on Monday?

IT ALSO WOULD put them in the bullseye of the officials in charge of this Age of Trump our society is now in. Not exactly a crowd that cares much about urban problems – except to the degree they can score cheap rhetorical points off of them for themselves.

So what should we think of the activity, where protesters say they’re going to gather around Noon to try to interfere with traffic using the Kennedy Expressway westbound from Cumberland Avenue to East River Road.

Which is the path that takes motorists into the airport grounds.

Is offending these peoples' sensibilities the goal of Monday activity?

Some activists have told the Chicago Sun-Times they are considering having some people jump over the median to try to interfere with eastbound traffic taking people out of the airport and back into the city proper.

REGARDLESS, IT WILL be interesting to see just how law enforcement behaves on Monday – a day that I’m sure they will wish they could focus on the usual inanity that tends to take place during holiday travel weekends.

Because they’re going to venture onto the Kennedy, this becomes an Illinois State Police matter – rather than one for the Chicago Police Department to address. Just think if they ventured a little farther west onto airport property and all of a sudden it became an issue for the FAA, the FBI and any other federal agency that could be dragged into the alphabet soup.

It would be a jurisdictional nightmare.

Although I couldn’t help but notice reports in recent weeks urging people who have to travel to O’Hare on Monday to consider using the Chicago Transit Authority to get there.

SPECIFICALLY, THE BLUE Line trains that run from downtown through the Northwest Side and wind up all the way at the airport.

Or is it all about embarrassing Rahm?

In theory, you can ride your train in to the airport, and wave bye-bye to all the protesters who think they’re causing chaos and bringing our society to a shutdown. I suppose activists could try blocking train tracks, but that would be insane on account of the legendary “third rail” (the electrified one that feeds power to the rail cars).

I’d hate to think there are people determined to die for this cause, which is supposed to be about reducing the level of people who are killed in Chicago.

Because they’d learn pretty quick just how apathetic many Chicagoans can be about this particular issue, which really reeks of a strong overtone of “It’s not my problem” for those who don’t live in the neighborhoods where the violence tends to focus upon.

  -30-

Some people are just determined to see Rahm fail, even when he doesn’t

It isn’t surprising to see that, even though the oft-discussed weekend protest march up the Dan Ryan Expressway is over and done with, the political equivalent of Monday-morning quarterbacks are determined to relive the incident.

EMANUEL: Came across as influential

Even if their outrage and bickering takes place Monday evening.

YES, THERE ARE people upset that Mayor Rahm Emanuel didn’t make a total fool of himself and probably handled a tricky political situation about as well as he could.

Meanwhile, Gov. Bruce Rauner – the man who technically had jurisdiction over the issue and should have been the one who made a final decision on what should be done – turned out to be fairly irrelevant to the happenings of the weekend.

For those who already are trying to forget (personally, I didn’t have to venture into downtown, so I didn’t have reason to drive along the Dan Ryan), Illinois State Police initially tried to reduce northbound traffic from 79^th Street to 67^th Street (the place where the protest took place) to two lanes of traffic.

That would have given space for the marching protesters expressing their contempt over the way municipal officials are all too eager to ignore the problems of violent crime because it runs rampant only in certain parts of the city.

PFLEGER: Wound up getting his way

BECAUSE THE DAN Ryan Expressway (and other interstate highways in Illinois) fall under the jurisdiction of the Illinois State Police, they were the law enforcement entity that would have had to make the arrest of the nearly 1,000 people who insisted on marching onto the interstate pavement.

Usually an act that would be suicidal because of the speeding traffic headed into and out of downtown Chicago along the Dan Ryan.

But when it became blatantly obvious that reducing the Dan Ryan to a two-lane road in northbound traffic was still too hazardous a condition for the protesters, that is when the state police, with support from the Chicago Police Department, cut off access for just enough time for the protest to take place.

SCHMITZ: Made the call for public safety

By afternoon Saturday, the traffic patterns were restored.

NEWS REPORTS INDICATE that it was Emanuel who made the call to his police, who then passed along word to the state police counterparts – where state police Director Leo P. Schmitz made the call purely based on public safety. Failing to consult with the governor, who might have had his own political circumstances to take into account.

For the record, no one was arrested. Nor was anyone injured by a passing motorist.

Which I don’t doubt a few sick-and-twisted individuals would have loved to see occur. They probably would have wanted a protester or two maimed. They’d probably say those people got what they deserved.

Since it didn’t work out that way, they’re going to shout and scream and bicker and whine and piss and moan as much as they can – hoping desperately somebody will take them seriously now, even though no one has done so up to this point in time.

CHICAGO REPUBLICAN mayoral and gubernatorial dreamer William J. Kelly says he’s now on board with former Gov. Pat Quinn’s attempt to create a term limits measure that would prevent Emanuel from being able to run for another term as mayor. How dare the mayor not treat protesters like some sort of nuisance to be swatted away at will!?!

South side 'paper' barely acknowledged protest

“If Rahm Emanuel can shut down the Dan Ryan Expressway, we can shut down Rahm,” Kelly said in advance of the press conference and political rally he plans to have Monday night in suburban Merrionette Park.

That is a municipality adjacent to the Mount Greenwood neighborhood – a part of Chicago where the Age of Trump is viewed favorably and where there have been past protests essentially about whether black people ought to exist anywhere in their proximity.

Because maybe what really bothers these Emanuel critics is that they were forced to acknowledge an issue of urban violence that they usually prefer to think of as merely a fact of Chicago life – and not something they should actually do something to try to reduce.

  -30-

What will the carnage be like along the Dan Ryan come Saturday morning?

By the time you read this, it may be over.

DAN RYAN: A major Chicago thoroughfare

The “it” being the protest march by which some eight busloads of people being led by Rev. Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina parish will try to force the majority of Chicagoans who like to ignore the problem of urban violence to acknowledge the situation.

PROTESTERS SAY THEY plan to gather at 79^th Street along the Dan Ryan, then walk onto the interstate highway (I-90/94) to march north for a mile-and-a-half – ultimately finishing their political statement at 67^th Street.

Their intent is to disrupt the flow of traffic to the point where, for a bit of time Saturday morning, people won’t be able to easily commute around the city of Chicago.

Considering that the Dan Ryan Expressway is THE major path leading motorists from the South Side into downtown, these protesters could cause some serious inconvenience if they truly are capable of blocking up traffic.

Although the fact that they’re choosing to do so on a Saturday morning means they’re not messing with the rush of workers to jobs downtown that exists every weekday morning. I suppose that is Father Pfleger’s one concession to the rest of Chicago in staging this protest action.

I HAVE HEARD some people who say they plan to join in the protest that they’re not terribly concerned about interfering with traffic because they’re more concerned about the level of violence that occurs in parts of Chicago.

Some will say they think their inconvenience living in certain South and West side neighborhoods and having to tolerate such violence as an everyday fact of life is far worse than any drive into downtown that will be messed up Saturday morning.

But the part that has me wondering is for the people who feel compelled to drive along the Dan Ryan and have to pass through the portion from 79^th to 67^th streets.

The portion that protesters want to clog up

I have to confess – I am a South Side native who often has driven along the Dan Ryan (more than any other Chicago expressway) and that particular stretch of the road is one that I’m used to whizzing right past. I might occasionally catch a glimpse of a commuter waiting for a CTA Red Line ‘el’ train that runs down the middle of the Ryan.

BUT IT IS a part of the city that many pass by without giving it, or the surrounding neighborhoods, much of any thought.

I’m wondering how many people trying to drive along the Dan Ryan will suddenly find the pedestrians trying to walk in the road and will have trouble stopping in time.

Will we have protesting pedestrians being rushed to the hospital, or a pileup of a few automobiles that collided because they were trying to avoid hitting someone in the street.

There’s a reason that state law specifically prohibits people trying to walk along the expressways, and why the Illinois State Police (who have jurisdiction over the Dan Ryan) have warned they will arrest anybody who tries to carry out their protest to the fullest extent of their threats.

WHICH COULD MEAN there won’t be much of a protest along the Dan Ryan – instead, it will be eight bus loads of people being loaded into wagons and hauled away for arrest, Eventually, they will face court dates on charges of Criminal Trespassing to State-Supported Property – and any other charges that police and prosecutors deem necessary.

How busy will they be Saturday

Which will likely be decided by how peacefully they cooperate with police Saturday morning. The ones who persist in putting up a fight are the ones who most likely will get charges piled on – and wind up having no chance of working out a deal that results in all charges dropped.

The “worst case” scenario for Saturday morning is that protesters wind up getting killed, and a majority of people in this city turn cold-hearted and say they got what they deserved for walking along an Interstate highway.

Which would truly be the worst possible message that could be sent by people who are trying to make for a safer Chicago for all of us.

  -30-

Civil disobedience against violent crime? Or just a pain in the keister?

If the people of Chicago are complaining about something, there’s always a good chance that the Rev. Michael Pfleger is involved.

PFLEGER: Trying to 'tie up' Chicago?

That’s certainly the case these days, as Pfleger – the pastor of St. Sabina parish in the Auburn/Gresham neighborhood – has his plans to do a large-scale protest act come next weekend that is supposed to draw public attention to the level of urban violence we have in Chicago.

SPECIFICALLY, PFLEGER HAS plans to do his march along the Dan Ryan Expressway come the morning of July 7 – which is a Saturday.

Theoretically, Pfleger wants to have his supporters march along the highway that is a major thoroughfare leading people into and out of the various neighborhoods of the South Side.

He talks of wanting to clog up traffic so bad that people will have one heck of a time getting anywhere. Pfleger wants to create a massive inconvenience for the people of Chicago – which he says is nothing compared to the conditions that residents of select neighborhoods in Chicago have to endure when it comes to being at risk of being shot or killed in, or near, their own homes.

It seems the Police Department is trying to cooperate with the idea of a protest act. But the Chicago Sun-Times reports that they want Pfleger to turn his action into a march through the neighborhoods.

BECAUSE TO MAKE it anything other than risky for protesters to try to block up traffic along the Dan Ryan is going to mean several hundred police officers being diverted from their home police districts and doing duty along the Dan Ryan.

Anthony Riccio, a first deputy superintendent for the Police Department, says having that many officers reassigned potentially makes high-risk neighborhoods even more dangerous. Although it should be noted the Dan Ryan (Interstate 94) technically is under the jurisdiction of the Illinois State Police.

I already can envision the stories that will result if somebody gets killed in the Englewood neighborhood that Saturday because there were not the usual accompaniment of police in the South Side neighborhood.

Can Pfleger's protesters really jam up the Dan Ryan?

Not that Pfleger is swayed by such logic. He tells the Sun-Times that police are routinely diverted from their usual beats for events a lot less significant than his.

HIS BOTTOM LINE?

Pfleger and his followers plan to be along the Dan Ryan, starting around 95^th Street, at 10 a.m. on July 7 – which is next Saturday.

I suspect that Pfleger thinks he’s already made enough of a concession by holding his protest on a weekend, rather than a weekday, when traffic would be even more intense.

Then again, it’s a bit of practicality. I have no doubt that if protesters tried to clog up the Dan Ryan during the week – even if it wasn’t during a morning or evening rush hour time slot – there would be many of those commuters trying to get to, or home from, downtown jobs who would persist in driving right through the protesters.

AND AFTER SUCH an act of “hit and run,” they’d argue that they’re the victims, with the protesters being trouble-makers who are able to engage in such actions solely because they’re “out of work bums” (or perhaps they’ll use more vulgar language).

Law enforcement of Chicago … 

For what it’s worth, I understand the point of doing a Dan Ryan protest rather than a neighborhood action. It would be way too easy for people to dismiss the latter as something irrelevant to their lives because they never set foot in “those” places.

A part of me thinks one person posting their thoughts on Facebook had a point this week when saying that if Pfleger really wanted to get the city’s attention, he’d try to clog up the Edens Expressway. As in a road traveling north to those neighborhoods and suburbs where the locals think urban violence is irrelevant to them.

… and Illinois will be busy July 7

Although I must also confess the protest is unlikely to impact me, no matter how out-of-hand it gets. I have an aunt who’s organizing our family’s annual summer get-together for that very same day; which means I won’t be anywhere near the Dan Ryan – although I’m sure my assorted cousins and I will be able to debate the merits of Father Pfleger’s actions for ourselves.

  -30-

Do we have right to goof off on the job?

One summer back when I was in college, I had a job with the Cook County recorder of deeds office where I still remember the first day of work – where my superior gave us the lecture about goofing off and sleeping while on the job.

Not because of any concern about the peoples’ work being done. But because the office had recently been the subject of one of Walter Jacobson’s “Perspectives” reports that showed workers goofing off.

THE OFFICE COULDN’T afford to have any more public embarrassments. That is what I’m sure is being felt these days by the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District – which is being sued by two of its former police officers who are upset that they were fired for a series of infractions.

Including being caught talking about goofing off on the job in ways that included napping and drinking.

Yet we have two former police officers who have the nerve to take their case to the courts, where they’re not only suing their former employer, but also the Illinois State Police and Motorola.

They want someone to pay, and pay big, for the fact that their behavior on the job was less than professional and that they got caught!

IN THIS PARTICULAR case, the two officers were showing a new recruit around the water district’s plant in suburban Stickney and they were telling him about the secret place where they kept a refrigerator stocked with beer so they could drink, or nap, while on duty.

They also used racial slurs to describe at least one of their colleagues.

The reason we know about this conversation is because that the new recruit’s radio microphone was activated, and their conversation was not only picked up, it was broadcast over a frequency used by the Illinois State Police.

Hence, according to the lawsuit now pending in the U.S. District Court, the rights of the police officers were violated by the water district when they were fired for goofing off on the job and using racial slurs.

BUT THE STATE police also violated their rights by broadcasting their message to everyone in the area with a police scanner set to the right frequency, and also by Motorola – which came up with defective equipment with open microphone problems.

As pointed out in the lawsuit, there were at least 21 incidents in December 2014 that officials did nothing to fix. Which resulted in these particular officers being denied their right to drink on the job, as well as make insulting comments about whomever they wanted to.

Which is the most pathetic part of this whole affair – someone wants to take absurd behavior and try to turn it into their right. As though they’re somehow doing us a favor by drinking on the job and going about spewing slurs about everybody who isn’t exactly like themselves.

It comes across as a bastardization of the rights that we are supposed to have in this free society – if anything, it winds up providing the justification for those in totalitarian societies to mock us as being hypocritical.

PERHAPS IT’S BECAUSE I keep in mind any time I’m knowingly around recording equipment to watch what I say. And law enforcement officers who openly wear such devices ought to know this better more than anyone else.

Unless they’re the type of officers who expect such technology to be used against other people, and not themselves. Which sounds like the real violation of anyone’s rights.

I just wish I had known of this line of logic, because then I could have told my supervisor in Cook County government where to stuff it. It was my right to nap or goof off, regardless of what Channel 2 news cameras might pick up.

Although, somehow, I suspect that attitude would have got me fired long before any attempt to catch a little sleep off in the distant corner of the office where we were out of sight of the bosses.

  -30-

A DAY IN THE LIFE (of Chicago): We have to watch where we are

A week from Monday is when the new process kicks in that theoretically allows people to start carrying pistols on their person for self-protection

And as is to be expected, everybody seems confused.

I STUMBLED ACROSS a pair of news reports (the Chicago Tribune and the Bloomington Pantagraph) that makes it seem as though nobody knows what to expect from the new law.

 
All the exemptions for the Chicago area create conditions where someone can ride his bike through a public park or forest preserve property while carrying a pistol. But the instant that person gets off the bike, that person becomes an offender who could face jail time.

But the confusion in the rest of the state seems to stem from the fact that the Illinois State Police (who will issue the “concealed carry” permits) will have 90 days to act on applications (120 days if someone chooses not to submit fingerprints with their application).

Why would it take so long? And why bother to submit fingerprints – as though they’re some sort of criminal? Although the fingerprints are part of the background check to ensure that people with criminal records don’t get the permits.

WHICH IS SOMETHING that nobody of any sense ought to have an objection from.

Although I thought the Chicago Tribune came up with the perfect example of the chaos that will be created by the new law. Someone walking along Western Avenue during the South Side Irish parade who is trying to get to his car is not violating the law. But he is if he stops to try to enjoy the parade festivities.

How many drunken parade-goers will now try to claim they were trying to walk home, and just happened to wander into the parade?

What else is of note along the southwestern shores of Lake Michigan on this final weekend of 2013?

DOUBLE LAWSUITS, WHO’S RIGHT?:  Ninth Ward Alderman Anthony Beale filed a lawsuit this week against a former school principal whom he claims is trying to defame his public reputation.

BEALE: Victim? Or oppressor?

Of course, that principal, Dushon Brown of Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory school in Beale’s Far South Side ward, claims the alderman tried several years ago to get her fired after she refused to give him sex.

Beale says his retaliatory lawsuit is in response to Brown’s attorneys sending him letters asking for $1 million in order to settle her claims against the alderman. Who’s to say who is actually at fault in this case!

The Chicago Sun-Times reported that Beale tried ignoring the former principal’s claims for as long as he could, while the newspaper was not able to contact Brown or her attorneys.

TAINTED MONEY? EXCUSES, EXCUSES:  Nobody seems to want to take a $3,000 charitable donation because the money was raised by a suburban Morton Grove man who is an atheist.

The Chicago Tribune has written about how he tried donating the money to his local park district. Then, to the local public library. Both of them turned it down – the first said it could create a “First Amendment issue” they didn’t want to deal with, while the latter had a board member who called the atheist and his web site “a hate group.”

Now, he says he wants to give it to a food pantry that benefits people in the northwest suburbs of Niles Township. Which would be of significant benefit to area communities. You’d think all would be willing to accept such a donation.

How often do people claim that “tainted” money winds up being cleansed, so to speak, by putting it to charitable use. Even if you really find atheism to be so abhorrent, you’d think somebody would want to use this as a way of benefitting the public good!

  -30-

Everything takes its sweet ol’ time in world of Ill. government operations

In a quarter-century of watching up-close government in operation, the lasting impression I have gained is that nothing is done in a timely fashion.

Relying on government agencies for something (regardless of what level the agency in question is at) ensures you will ultimately get the benefit in question. As far as how quickly, it will come whenever it comes.

PEOPLE WHO ARE capable of doing things on deadline (such as myself) are often the most frustrated with the endless delays – some of which were due to bureaucratic bumbling while others were due to politically-partisan delays.

Sometimes, people who desperately oppose something count delays in its implementation as being a political victory.

Take the whole matter of health care reform – which is in law and which in theory should start showing benefits next year. But Republicans in the House of Representatives (at least the most ideologically-motivated ones) are engaging in any actions they can to cause delays.

Although their blatantly-partisan efforts will be aided by those efforts by the state governments that will encounter their own delays in helping people enroll in the efforts meant to provide some form of health insurance coverage for all.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS reported this weekend that while Illinois expects to eventually have 1,200 workers in place to help people with questions as they decide exactly what health coverage plan best suits their needs, there are only about 100 such workers currently in place who are fully certified.

Considering that the six-month period in which people have to get themselves some sort of health insurance begins Tuesday, it would appear obvious that many people will have to figure out things on their own.

Perhaps the state figures that many of us are inherently procrastinators, and that the need for all those people trained and certified to help on this issue will not be needed until later in the process – perhaps around March when the sign-up period is coming to an end.

Will we get an ugly rush of people by the end of March seeking health insurance; similar to the ugly rush we get every year around April 15 when the masses decide to finally break down and file their income tax returns?

OR WILL THERE be early applicants who will become so frustrated with the lack of help that some may wind up erroneously deciding that those Republican ideologues may have been on to something with all their rhetoric about how health care reform was some sort of messed-up scam?

All I can say at this point is that I hope people are patient as they work their way through the intricacies of GetCoveredIllinois.gov – the site that people are supposed to use to sign up for help with health insurance.

But health insurance isn’t the only issue where the state is lagging behind in offering help. Take “concealed carry,” the matter of people being allowed to carry a pistol on their person in public for self-defense.

People wishing to have their firearm holstered (or tucked away in a purse or duffle bag) will have to gain permits from the Illinois State Police, who will require them to complete 16 hours of training from state-approved instructors. The process for applying to take such training will begin Jan 5.

BUT IT SEEMS that thus far, the state police only have 54 instructors approved to offer such training – and most of them are in the more urban six-counties of the Chicago metro area.

Some downstate Illinois counties don’t have any instructor yet, and it’s not clear when they will.

I’m sure from the perspective of the people who wanted to start carrying a pistol in a shoulder-holster the very day that the General Assembly overrode Gov. Pat Quinn’s amendatory veto of the issue, this is an unconscionable delay. Plus the fact that they won’t be able to go to a local office and may have to make a trip to a distant county to get the permit is scandalous to them!

I’m not as offended by that concept, because I realize it can take time to get people into place – just as it will take time to get all those workers certified to help people gain health insurance.

I ONLY HOPE that the delays for both of those groups of people can be resolved in a timely manner – and not with one significantly taking longer to fix than the other.

Because I’d hate to think that sometime in the near future, someone who could not get some sort of health insurance coverage would wind up dying from gunshot wounds inflicted by someone who was too quick on the draw because they thought their personal safety was being threatened!

  -30-

Don’t send in the troopers or Guard

We may have seen a bit of evidence as to the potential harm we could face from having Gov. Pat Quinn as the only credible candidate for the Democratic Party’s nomination for governor in next year’s election cycle.

He has too much time on his hands, and we may wind up getting a lot of potentially hair-brained schemes inflicted upon us as a result!

I’M REFERRING TO the news accounts circulating this weekend that are being interpreted by some as evidence that Quinn is considering sending in the Illinois State Police, and potentially calling out the National Guard, to treat Chicago as a combat zone in trying to address the problem of urban violence.

I’m skeptical such an effort would accomplish anything of significance. It might turn out to be a complete failure! It probably would do little of anything, except allowing Quinn to claim he tried to act to resolve a problem that is ongoing and is beyond any simple solution.

It seems that Quinn, while making an appearance on Saturday in the Little Village neighborhood, talked about ways in which the state police could offer assistance to the Chicago Police Department.

“It has to be done in a coordinated fashion with the local law enforcement, with their full cooperation,” Quinn told reporter-type people.

WHICH IS TRUTHFUL enough. Sending in the state police with Chicago P.D. opposition would likely do little more than create a whole lot of stupid jokes about “Mount-me” hats.

If anything, it might just put more uniformed officers in the crossfire that all-too-often occurs.

I honestly believe it would do nothing but exacerbate the problem by putting more of a uniformed presence in the city. You might very well anger up those idiots with their high-powered weapons even more, and make them want to shoot at even more targets – as though they’d get a trophy if they could claim they “bagged” a cop!

Now I don’t mean to demean the significance of the violent outbursts we have experienced in Chicago in recent times (although it should be noted that we’re not close to setting any kind of records for this, and it really does go in cycles).

FOR ALL THE outcry about the late Thursday shooting incident in the Back of the Yards neighborhood that left 13 wounded, it should be noted that another eight individuals suffered assorted gunshot wounds Saturday night and early Sunday.

Those incidents were actually more typical of the violent weekends we occasionally experience in Chicago – they were seven different shootings scattered all about the South and West sides of Chicago.

A whole lot of senseless incidents that will soon be forgotten.

Which may be the real tragedy of the violence that is afflicting us. Too much of it occurs in select parts of Chicago that many of us would just as soon forget; if we even pay attention to those parts of the city to begin with.

IF WE WERE serious about wanting to resolve the problem, we’d be trying to figure out ways to break the culture that allows for life to be so cheap in those neighborhoods.

Instead, we get talk about sending in the National Guard – as though we could declare those parts of Chicago to be “the enemy!” As though we ought to be isolating those parts of Chicago even more. The real problem is that they have become too isolated from the mainstream of the city.

QUINN: Will his better half prevail?

But ideas like these may be the harm of letting Quinn run unopposed in the primary election cycle. He’s going to have time to play “governor” and come up with ideas and schemes that will make it look as though he is effectively governing on behalf of the people of Illinois.

So while four Republicans fight it out amongst themselves for the right to take on Quinn come November 2014, we’re going to have a governor with the potential for too much free time to come up with schemes. Let’s just hope his better half keeps himself from carrying them out.

  -30-

DUI – it seems anyone is capable of it, but do they show any remorse for it?

A pair of stories will pop up in the local news report this week involving driving under the influence of alcohol. Both involve public officials from south suburban towns who managed to get caught driving their cars after having imbibed alcohol.

One of those officials, Roel “Roy” Valle, who happens to be the elected village clerk of Lynwood, is suffering the ultimate ordeal. He has a court date scheduled for Wednesday for the criminal charges he faces – for which, if found guilty, he could go to prison. Considering that he’s 64 years old, any prison term regardless of length is going to dominate the rest of his life.

THE OTHER OFFICIAL is Harvey Police Chief Denard Eaves, who supposedly was seen driving his car after having spent some time last April at a bowling alley in nearby Dolton drinking beer. He doesn’t face charges for the actual driving while intoxicated. But he is the subject of a lawsuit that contends he used his police position to try to threaten and intimidate the people who tried reporting him for drunken driving.

I know many people are more offended by the predicament of Valle, who last month was arrested by Illinois State Police when he drove the wrong way on Illinois Route 394, hitting another car head-on and causing a chain reaction that hit a third vehicle that was nearby at the moment of impact.

A woman was killed in that auto accident, in which police say alcohol was involved. That woman had a husband and young children, who will now have to grow up without their mother. The fact that the woman’s family has filed a lawsuit seeking millions of dollars in compensation isn’t going to make up for that fact.

There also is the fact that Illinois State Police took more than a week before making it known that charges of aggravated driving under the influence involving death and reckless homicide were filed against Valle – who had been a Lynwood elected public official (first a village trustee, then its clerk) for more than 20 years.

THE FACT THAT he also suffered some injuries in the auto accident have caused some of his court appearances to be delayed. Some people are going to want to believe that he’s getting some sort of special consideration because he’s a public official.

Yet this is a case that will move forward in due time. His court appearance in Markham on Wednesday is meant to be a preliminary hearing, although there is a chance Valle will learn that he has been indicted by a grand jury – superseding any criminal charges already filed.

My point being he is in the Cook County criminal justice system. Unless we learn some previously unknown fact that completely reverses our perception of this case, he will pay for what has happened.

Which is a lot more than we can say about Eaves of Harvey.

HE WAS DETAINED by police in Dolton following the incident on April 23, 2010, but no charges were ever filed.

It seems that it was one of Eaves’ own police officers who turned him in – calling 911 to report that he say his off-duty police chief driving erratically after having been at the bar.

That officer has since filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court, claiming that Dolton police threatened him with arrest, and that Eaves himself has threatened the officer. His lawsuit claims he once received an anonymous note telling him, “Police Don’t Snitch on Police, You Dead Bitch.”

The officer himself has spent the past year on a medical leave of absence from his police post, and I would be surprised if he ever returns to that job.

I DON’T KNOW what Eaves’ blood-alcohol level was at the time of the incident. But the story described in this lawsuit (which seeks at least $75,000 in damages for the officer who needs to find a new line of work) is one of police officials covering up for each other, and demonizing the lone officer who tries to be honest about a moment of wrong-doing.

Among those named in the lawsuit are the then-chiefs of both the Dolton and Harvey police departments (Dolton’s chief has since moved on to a new position), the internal affairs commander of Harvey police who is supposed to be keeping his department’s officers honest, and the former inspector general of Dolton village government – none other than Robert Shaw; the one-time Chicago alderman whose brother, William, later became the south suburb’s village president. It sounds like a closed club – one that is meant to bolster each other and knock down anyone who might dare to look too closely at their flaws.

Which is why I cannot get totally outraged at the situation that occurred out of Lynwood. By the time this criminal case is closed, Valle likely will express some serious remorse for his actions, and probably will accept whatever punishment the court deems him worthy of.

I can’t say I see the same thing ever happening in the other case, where those police officers probably think they’re the victims, being picked upon by nosy people.

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Is gun ownership a public issue?

I wish the ideologues would make up their minds, when it comes to the new “hot-button” issue in Illinois over whether the list of people who have permits to legally own firearms ought to be public information.

MADIGAN: Making names public



Personally, I see no reason why it shouldn’t be. But it doesn’t surprise me that it isn’t, and under typical conditions, I’d be inclined to find other issues to comment on – figuring there are more important things in my life to worry about.

YET IT IS a contradiction in the arguments I have heard all week that makes me now want to chime in. Supposedly, the reason why it is bad policy to make the list of legal gun owners public is that the “criminals” will now have a checklist of which homes to hit so they can steal guns.

Or, is it that the criminals will now have a checklist of which homes to avoid because the owners could be upset enough to shoot them. The would-be burglars will focus their attention on the rest of us.

Make up your mind people, which is it?

Personally, I don’t think it would play much of a factor in a thief’s decision where to hit. Most of them go for convenience and take whatever is in front of them at the moment they get the urge to steal. No state-sanctioned list is going to play that much of a role in the decision.

IN CERTAIN CIRCLES, this issue has been ongoing for some time now. There are various groups that have been trying to get the Illinois State Police to release their records of who has been issued Firearm Ownership Identification Cards.

The state police, being like other police, are taking a cantankerous attitude, figuring they’re not releasing nothing unless they have some explicit court order telling them they have no choice but to make the information public. That is a law enforcement mentality on so many issues that it doesn’t phase me much anymore.

Which is why law enforcement-types are now upset that the Illinois attorney general’s office is getting into the mix. Because their actions of late are a step toward that court order telling them that this list of gun owners is something they don’t have any business keeping private.

Specifically, state Attorney General Lisa Madigan had her staff issue a legal opinion on this issue. In and of itself, this is not unusual. The attorney general’s office issues legal opinions all the time on various issues, and they are taken as her opinion only.

SOMETIMES, THEY INFLUENCE the way the courts ultimately rule. Other times, they get ignored.

DILLARD: Can he win this fight?

This one is not going to get ignored. State Sen. Kirk Dillard, R-Hinsdale (the guy that the Bill Brady backers were convinced was way too liberal to be Illinois governor) is now sponsoring a bill in the Illinois General Assembly that explicitly makes the gun ownership list private information. Activists plan to turn out in force on Thursday at the Statehouse in Springfield to muscle their own view into prominence.

If the Legislature and Gov. Pat Quinn were to go along, it would have the effect of nullifying any legal opinion that Madigan’s staff might have. Of course, I take some relief in the fact that I know how ornery and disagreeable our legislators can be, and that it is a long-shot that Dillard’s bill will become law anytime soon.

Now in what some think was her gesture of compromise, the opinion written in the name of Madigan says that only the names (and no other personal information) of gun owners would be public.

OF COURSE, TRYING to craft a compromise on this issue is as ridiculous as anyone who thinks Quinn can find a way to please everybody with regards to the bill he is considering to abolish capital punishment in Illinois (within 13 days, we’ll learn whether the governor has enough backbone to sign it, but that is a commentary for another day).

The people with rifles and pistols, some of whom are just a little too eager to find an excuse to shoot another human being for me to be comfortable around them, are going to start behaving like the late Charlton Heston waving around that musket at a National Rifle Association gathering.

I’ve always been skeptical of the idea of people truly using that pistol to defend themselves, because I can easily envision so many circumstances where something goes wrong and they wind up shooting themselves – with the would-be burglar getting yet another “item” for his booty.

So I just don’t see some “noble” reason why this information collected by the state ought to be kept private, particularly if the real key data of street addresses or specific types of firearms owned won’t be part of the record.

I KNOW SOME people will disagree with this statement, but I have always viewed the ability to own and use a firearm as being comparable to being able to own and drive an automobile. We don’t have any problem with licensing drivers, and penalizing them severely if their driving gets reckless and someone gets hurt.

To my knowledge, the state doesn’t hesitate in providing information about us gathered from our driver’s licenses to certain entities. So I really can’t comprehend how this is any different, just because some people want to have delusions of rural hunters living off the land in a state that is two-thirds Chicago-area, with just over half of the people of the state living in a suburban environment.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Differing opinions on this issue? Chicago Tribune columnist John Kass on Friday came out in opposition to publicly identifying firearms owners (while also telling us about his own hunting experiences), while the Chicago Sun-Times this week threw the muscle of its scrawny 60-page newspapers in support of Madigan in taking an official editorial stance to make the names public.