SOS: 24th District Cops Out of Control

Fellow New Media Journalists: Please give this your attention, and help bring it to the attention of your readers. Bloggers - the free media - are under siege in Chicago's 24th Police District. This is a story for newspapers to latch onto as well - if they care about free media and free speech and police harassment. (They claim to - do they?) Where are the so-called, self-professed Free Speech Liberals? Craig and I have written about this extensively. Where are the ACLU types, so eager to defend neo-Nazis's free speech? Nazis can speak freely, even march past the homes of Auschwitz survivors, say the ACLU members. But bloggers? Why, they're bloggers! That's just unacceptable! Where are the so-called "community leaders" who call themselves "Progressives?" Where are our fellow bloggers? Where is Commander Steven Caluris, 24th District, who claims he is against the type of behavior that some of his troops are engaging in? They are silent, virtually all. Granted, a handful of people (mostly anonymous) are leaving comments on Craig's blog. Oh, how brave! Thanks for your virtually silent, anonymous-and-therefore meaningless support. The so-called civil libertarians of the 49th Ward in Rogers Park are precisely the opposite: They are boot licking sycophants to the local powers. They march lock step with Joe Moore and his cronies. None of them has stepped up to the plate, none has openly spoken out. That is why we need outside attention. Like a third world nation with a tyrant in power, we appeal to outside entities for assistance. All we ask for is your attention and assistance in getting the word out about official harassment of journalists in Rogers Park, the 49th Ward, the 24th Police District. To be sure, not all of the officers in the 24th are behaving badly. Most are not. But it only takes a handful of bad apples to make the whole house smell rotten. I am getting some of the abuse, but friend and fellow writer Craig Gernhardt is being harassed the most. Examples: * On June 28, Craig and I were assaulted by first responders (in front of the Ald. Moore's office). A paramedic committed assault and battery on Craig, then attempted strong arm robbery (no weapon) of his camera. A cop assaulted me, tried to steal my camera, brushing my hand with his in the attempted robbery. I have a formal complaint filed with Internal Affairs. See the video here. * In mid-June, Craig recorded video of some young kids working on the site of a gut rehab building. There is a police connection here, although weird. The kids were hauling fiberglass and other waste materials with no protective clothing or masks. (See * Child Labor Used in Rogers Park Rehab.) In any normal community, Craig would have been lauded as a hero for exposing the outrage - but here in socially dysfunctional Rogers Park, he is being attacked for it. Why? Mental cases here accuse him of making a child porn video! According to Craig, The kids are fully clothes, not doin anything sexual, are in broad daylight, in plain view of the street. The only sick people involved in the incident are the people accusing Craig of doing anything wrong. THE POLICE CONNECTION: About a week after Craig made this video, a female cop pulled Craig over and expressed her displeasure about it. She had no business doing this - it is a civil matter, not a police matter. * On July 6, a police car responded responded to a call about illegally parked vehicles where Pratt Avenue ends at the beach. The officer sees me, she also sees five illegally parked vehicles, and says to me, "I have a call that you're photographing cars. It's illegal to photograph cars." Huh? I ask her which ordinance makes it illegal to photograph a car in Chicago. Of course, she could not cite her make-believe ordinance. She wrote a ticket for a guy whose car was parked with two wheels over the curb, but ignored four life guard vehicles. (More about that over here....) This was not exactly harassment, but the message was loud and clear: The police (some of them) are more interested in hassling civilians than in doing their job.

For space considerations I'll stop here for now. But there will be more to come.