REVIEWING THE WEEK: Handling ourselves respectably in cop attack

Around about the time many of us were clearing the table and doing the dishes following the Christmas Day holiday meal, the Chicago police used deadly force on a man.

The incident occurred Thursday night in the Woodlawn neighborhood when police responded to a call of a man who was threatening to kill himself.

IT WOULD APPEAR the man was less than mentally stable, because the presence of police aggravated the situation to the point where the man took his knife and lunged at police.

The Chicago Sun-Times reported that one officer had his body armor struck twice by the knife. And for the record, the answer is “no,” bullet-proof vests can't protect you from the blade of a knife.

Which is what caused police to fire shots at the man, who died late Thursday at Stroger Hospital. The police officer who was attacked was in “good” condition at a different hospital. The Chicago Tribune reported that police have recovered the knife in question.

Assuming that no as-of-yet unknown facts come forward and that we know the “whole truth,” this is not likely to turn into an incident. Regardless of his mental state, lunging at an officer with a device that can be a weapon gives the officers the legal justification for use of force.

BUT WITH THE number of incidents occurring nationally, we’re sort of on a heightened sense of alert about such things. Just about any incident involving a police officer has potential to rise to an unpleasant and embarrassing level. There are bound to be some people who will want to believe the worst.

Which is why it was wise for the Chicago police chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police this week to advise local officers to be careful in the way they handle potential situations to avoid escalating them to violence.

Although hearing those same officials complain that they’re the ones being singled out for abuse was a little sickening. It seems some people don’t comprehend the fact that not everyone feels relief when they see the police coming down their neighborhood streets, and that it ought to be the police trying to build trust within the community for the real problems to be resolved.

What else of the happenings this week in Chicago is worthy of further note?

WILLIE WILSON CAN STAY: Perhaps it is evidence that Mayor Rahm Emanuel does not feel threatened any longer by the millions of dollars that Dr. Willie Wilson could potentially spend on his campaign for mayor.

For the people aligned with Emanuel who had challenged the nominating petitions for Wilson to try to get him kicked off the Feb. 24 mayoral ballot withdrew their objections.

Which means voters will be able to choose Wilson from amongst the many Emanuel challengers, if they so wish. No official explanation was given for the withdrawal, although Wilson backers claimed it was Emanuel backing off what was a racist ballot challenge.

Personally, I’m inclined to think it is the fact that 2^nd Ward Alderman Robert Fioretti and Cook County Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia, D-Chicago, have become the major challengers, and that Wilson’s millions (he took a few McDonald’s franchises on the South Side and turned them into a fortune) weren’t likely to get him more than 2 percent of the vote.

I DON’T THINK I REALLY MISSED ANYTHING: “The Interview” wound up being shown on Christmas Day at select theaters across the country, including assorted theaters in the suburbs of Chicago. Buffalo Grove, Woodridge, Naperville and Griffith, Ind. – to be exact.

Meaning anybody who wanted to see the film on its Opening Day had to make a trip. Although anyone willing to wait until the weekend can see it at Chicago theaters such as Ford City on the Southwest Side, Regal City North 14 and the AMC River East theater near downtown.

Supposedly, Thursday’s showings grossed about $1 million nationwide, and I saw some news coverage of people who said they felt they were making a patriotic statement by going to see the film.

Personally, I wonder how many of them would have bothered to see it at all if not for the North Korea controversy that has taken an otherwise ignorable film and turned it into a political cause.

UGH!!!: Leave it to the Chicago Bears whose attempt at a statement concerning their high-priced quarterback wound up turning into a bigger fiasco.

For Jay Cutler got his starting job back for the Bears’ finale Sunday against the Minnesota Vikings, even though everybody still thinks he stinks and that the Bears would be better off without him.

Yet the backup quarterback whom the Bears promoted to the top spot to try to humiliate Cutler wound up suffering a concussion. “Jimmy Clausen” is now the answer to the trivia question that goes “Who replaced Bears Quarterback Jay Cutler for one game in 2014?” It probably will be the only thing Clausen is remembered for in his NFL career.

This likely to become a 5-11 season for the Bears can’t end soon enough. Only two more months until we get to see Jose Abreu hit home runs for the Chicago White Sox and we get to see whether the presence of Joe Maddon as manager makes one bit of difference for the Chicago Cubs.

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Can you libel North Korea? Is it all a film industry plot for attention?

It is one of the old gags of being a reporter-type person who covers a lot of crime activity – “You can’t libel the mob!”


No matter how critical one is in the details they write about organized crime, what are the gangsters going to do – file a lawsuit and testify under oath that you’re wrong?

I COULDN’T HELP but remember that thought when I read an Associated Press dispatch from Seoul, South Korea, about how the North Korea government late Sunday accused the United States of spreading “reckless” rumors about its alleged involvement in a hacking of Sony Pictures computers.

The wire service reported that a National Defense Commission statement said officials planned “our toughest counteraction” against the United States, which it said is a “cesspool of terrorism.”

It also said the North Korean government has proof that it had no connection to the computer invasion that wound up disclosing sensitive information about Sony and stirred up enough attention and fear about the upcoming film “The Interview” that Sony officials decided not to release it at all.

Now I’m not going to claim to have any specific detail about U.S. foreign policy or North Korean affairs. Although it wouldn’t shock me to learn that the people who actually did break into the Sony computers are not actual government officials, but sympathizers of the Communist regime that we technically have been at war with since 1950 (although no shooting has taken place since 1953).

ALTHOUGH I DON’T expect anyone to seriously offer proof of that. Because that would involve people, possibly even Kim Jong Un, to have to “take the stand,” so to speak, and tell the truth.

It’s easier for them to spew trash talk. Just like much of our own government’s rhetoric that has blown a potentially third-rate film up into an international incident. We’re talking about putting North Korea back on the list of nations that engage in “state-sponsored terrorism.” Considering that we’re going to have to remove Cuba from that list because of the plans to restore diplomatic relations, it means there’s a vacancy to be filled.

For those of you who have been hiding away in a cave (perhaps the one that Osama bin Laden once used to hide from the U.S. military), this is the film meant to be a comedy about two men hired to assassinate Kim.

But it is a comedy because the two would-be killers are portrayed as a pair of bunglers and the film tells the story about all the things that go wrong during their escapade.

IT MAKES “GET Smart” sound downright intellectual. It sounds like something that should have starred Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels (the crew from “Dumb and Dumber”).

It’s a stupid laugh, and if the North Korean government had any sense, they’d use the film against us as evidence of just how far our society has declined. Instead, they took it seriously and are reacting like nitwits, which had enough people connected to the film industry in this country concerned that the release of the film on Thursday was cancelled.

Which gave us that “Saturday Night Live” sketch this weekend where Michael Myers’ “Dr. Evil” character lambasted Kim as a buffoon and a disgrace to evil leaders the world over.

It also has Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Ill., talking about trying to get a print of the film somehow (I’m not sure if he has that kind of connections) so he can show it during the fundraisers he will have to have in coming months if he is to have enough campaign cash to get re-elected in 2016.

HOW MANY PEOPLE are now going to pay $2,000 or so per ticket to watch an allegedly verboten film? How much unwarranted attention is “The Interview” going to get?

Then again, perhaps Myers’ involvement was appropriate. Because this whole saga has taken on the inane character of a storyline from one of the Austin Powers series of parodies about James Bond-type films.

Which actually makes the conspiracy-theory portion of my intellectual makeup wonder if Sony is eternally grateful for the attention that caused them to stop the film’s distribution.

When it does finally get out, people will think they’re making a political statement by going to see it. Instead of just watching what could have turned out to be a corny story that would have been out of the movie theaters shortly after the coming of the New Year.

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