CAPS Beats 2312, 2332, 2333 Meetings Week of Aug. 22

The next CAPS Beat 2312 meeting, in Chicago's Uptown neighborhood, will be held on Tuesday, August 17 at 7:00 PM at Aster Park. That's at 4639 N. Kenmore, between W. Wilson and W. Leland, on the east side of the street (see map here). In case you're interested, here's a concise history of Aster Park. Contact: 23rd District CAPS 312-744-0064. Beats 2332 & 2333 will have a combined meeting at the Inn at Lincoln Park, located at 601 W. Diversey (see map). Contact: 23rd District CAPS 312-744-0064.

Rogers Park Resident Calls CAPS "Silly"

"Sarah" lives in Rogers Park, and recently said I was "silly" for my rants about the higher-than-it-should-be crime in that Chicago neighborhood. Read the flyer from CAPS Beat 2431 here (click to enlarge it). What Sarah does not seem to realize is that if I am silly for being concerned about shootings, armed robbery, assaults, and heavy drug trafficking on Morse Avenue and Howard Street, then so are many Rogers Park residents - including the folks who run and participate in all the 24th District CAPS groups. Here's what Sarah wrote on May 23: "i [sic] don't have a dog and have never worried about my safety after dark in rogers [sic] park [sic] and take public transportation everywhere. I have run into you in the park right by my house after dark and you never were walking a dog either and were usually alone. as [sic] in any nieghborhood in any city, you always want to be aware of your surroundings. i [sic] don't know where your neighborhood angst has come from but it is just silly." See, Sarah, here's the deal. The flyer shown here is a typical one for Beat 2431, in which I lived for 10 years. It's typical of the other CAPS groups, too. Every other month, their flyers say something like "Make Morse Safer" or "Help Reduce Crime" or "Tell Us About Trouble Spots." Sarah, if Morse was already safe, it would not need to be made "safer." If there was no crime in the hood, there would be no need to reduce it. If there were no trouble spots, there would be no need to point them out to the police. The police encourage the CAPS meetings, at which crime in Rogers Park is discussed. Now, Sarah, are the police and the CAPS facilitators and the concerned citizens who attend the CAPS meetings all "silly?" Do you wonder where their "neighborhood angst" comes from, Sarah? I'll tell you, Sarah. It comes from an awareness of the shit that's going down around them everyday in Rogers Park and the 49th Ward, with makes up nearly half of the 24th District, which is the only Level Two district in Area Three. In short, Sarah, we who do not have our heads in the sand are the ones who are concerned about crime. Folks who go to work outside of the hood, come back to their newly acquired, now-hard-to-sell condos, then go straight to a swanky nightclub only to stagger back to their newly acquired, now-hard-to-sell condos, can easily miss the shitstorm of criminal activity around them. They can easily miss it - or willfully ignore it because they are afraid to see it. As for walking in the park after dark, Sarah, how often do you do it alone after 1:00 a.m., far away from your recently acquired beachfront condo? RELATED: The Real Straight Dope - Rogers Park More Dangerous Than Admitted Leave a Comment Here... See our cool merchandise... Chicago News Bench RSS Feed Hey! ChiNewsBench is on Twitter

Meaningless Town Hall Meeting Tonight in Rogers Park

If it's anything like the two Town Hall Meetings in Update earlier this year, tonight's Town Hall in Rogers Park will be just as worthless. The two meetings in Uptown were in response to some particularly spectacular shootings in broad daylight. As News-Star noted, "At July's first town hall meeting, more than 400 Uptown residents packed the Truman College cafeteria after a rash of neighborhood shootings. Only half as many attended the follow-up meeting on Monday night [Nov. 10]. Attendees were asked to sign up for working groups to address public safety in Uptown." Crime continues unabated in Uptown, despite the lies told by cosponsors Illinois Representative Greg Harris and Illlinois Senator Heather Steans (left). Chicago’s 49th Ward is the site of tonight’s “Town Hall Meeting on Public Safety in Rogers Park.” If recent history is any guide, the meeting will involve a lot of posturing by politicians, ranting by local residents, and procrastination by the police at tonight’s meeting. It will be held at the United Church of Rogers Park, 1545 W. Morse (at N. Ashland). There, you will be presented with the spectacle of elected officials pretending they care about crime and that they know their heads from their asses. Steans is the only player in tonight's Rogers Park meeting who also participated in the Uptown meetings. If it's anything like the two Town Hall Meetings in Update earlier this year, tonight's Town Hall in Rogers Park will be just as worthless. The two meetings in Uptown were in response to some particularly spectacular shootings in broad daylight. As News-Star noted, "At July's first town hall meeting, more than 400 Uptown residents packed the Truman College cafeteria after a rash of neighborhood shootings. Only half as many attended the follow-up meeting on Monday night [Nov. 10]. Attendees were asked to sign up for working groups to address public safety in Uptown." Today, crime continues unabated in Uptown, despite the lies told by cosponsors Illinois Representative Greg Harris and Illinois Senator Heather Steans. The Uptown meetings in July and November were, ultimately, admissions of failure. Failure of the police department to be able to cope with enormous volumes of crime every day. Failure of Alderman Helen Shiller (46th Ward) to cooperate with police to embrace CAPS to give it at least a chance to work. Failure of 40 years of bad government policies and bad public housing. Failure of our public schools to instill civic values. Failure after failure after failure has piled up year after year after year, yet people still flock to so-called Town Hall Meetings with some misplaced hope that maybe, just maybe, if the right phrases are repeated enough times, and if enough people sign up for "workshops," and perhaps a neighborhood walk is organized, maybe by some miracle the bad guys will suddenly stop being bad guys. It's never worked, not permanently and not on a large enough scale, yet the same bad experiment is repeated time and again. In other words, the gathering at the United Church of Christ at 1545 W. Morse Avenue at 7:00 p.m. this evening will be a complete waste of time. There are two strong precedents for believing this: A similar meeting in the 46th Ward in Uptown in July and a “follow up” meeting in early November. Both of those meetings were co-organized and featured State Senator Heather Steans. Both meetings produced zero tangible results. The follow up meeting attendance was about half that of the first. Tonight, in Rogers Park, they will try to repeat those sorry performances. If you’ve ever been to a CAPS meeting, you’ll understand what I mean when I say that the two meetings in Uptown, just a couple of miles south of Rogers Park, were essentially CAPS meetings on steroids. Like CAPS meetings, there were those neighbors in attendance who played the roles of complainers, questioners and bestowers of wisdom. Like a CAPS meeting, the police pretended to listen very carefully. Like most town hall-style meetings, the politicians pretended to care. Like a CAPS meeting, the neighbors left feeling that something had been accomplished. Like most CAPS meetings, the officials in charge of the fiasco had a good chuckle or two once they were out of earshot of the departing neighbors. The flyer for tonight’s meeting asks you to “Please join State Rep. Harry Osterman (photo, left), Ald. Joe Moore (photo, below left), State Sen. Heather Steans, Chicago Police Comm. Steven Caluris.” (Osterman, Moore and Steans are Democrats.) The stated goal: “Public Safety in Rogers Park.” Apparently, Osterman and Steans feel they know more about public safety in Moore’s own backyard than he does. Caluris is probably there in an advisory capacity, but they might feel the same way about him. (In any case, Ald. Moore has done nothing in the way of … well, I was going to write “in the way of crime,” but he hasn’t done much in the way of anything. Unless, of course, you count leaning on developers for campaign “contributions” and micromanaging interns as they assemble dossiers on local bloggers.) Failure. The reason for this meeting is failure. The fact that it's being held is an admission of systemic failure, from Alderman Moore - in office for 17 years - to Congress to public schools to lousy parents. The meeting is like the prayer of a dying man. It's worth a try, perhaps, but the odds are that even his most poetic pleas to God Almighty will not change the fact that his time is coming. Two wards south of Rogers Park, the Uptown neighborhood has seen its share of gun play and murder this year, particularly in Alderman Helen Shiller’s 46th Ward. Shiller (photo, left) is notorious in her ward for her open disdain of the police and her resistance to police cameras at bad intersections. Shiller is openly opposed even to CAPS, claiming that it only harasses the poor and non-white (a major portion of her power base there). She seems to ignore the fact that gang bangers, pick pockets and rapists do more to harass people - intentionally - of all races and socio-economic backgrounds than CAPS ever will accidentally. Steans places this meeting low on her list of priorities, so low in fact that she has not bothered to add it to the “Community Calendar” on her web site. Follow the links to November 24 and you’ll see that the only entry for November 24 is something called “Mom and Tots Playgroup.” (That, however, sounds more productive than the Town Hall Meeting.) However, there’s also “Upcoming Events” on the Steans web site. Click on that and we see the following, with no indication of the date. We see the time, but no date. Written by Administrator Wednesday, 23 July 2008 15:46 UPCOMING EVENTS!! Rogers Park Public Safety Meeting Please join State Senator Heather Steans, State Representative Harry Osterman, Alderman Joe Moore, and Chicago Police Commander Steve Caluris for a town hall meeting on public safety in Rogers Park. The meeting will run from 7PM to 9PM at the United Church of Rogers Park, 1545 W. Morse, Chicago, IL 60626. All are welcome to attend. Steans cares so little about tonight’s Town Hall Meeting in Rogers Park that she let an apparently incompetent “Administrator” write it. Steans, who writes bills and votes on laws far more complicated than a simple event announcement, apparently did not bother to check it for accuracy. Or, worse yet, she did check it but missed the glaringly absent date. Steans is not big on detail. On the home page of her web site, there is a translator from BabelFish. The site is in English, and so the translator should be set to translate from English to other languages. Nope, not on the Steans site. Click on a flag to translate, and in every case it tries to translate from French to English, French to Spanish, French to German, and so on. Has Senator Steans ever looked at her web site, or checked it to be sure it’s updated, accurate and working correctly? Does she pay this kind of poor attention to the legislation in front of her in Springfield? Rep. Harry Osterman was not at the two Town Hall Meetings in Uptown. That’s outside of his territory. Steans was joined on those occasions by Greg Harris, another Illinois legislator. Harris, unlike Steans, is detail oriented. Unlike Steans, Harris typed up and published an online report of the meetings. Like Steans, however, Harris is steeped in New Think and cannot see the forest for his ideology. On November 12, 2008, Harris delivered his “Uptown Public Safety Town Hall Minutes” via email blast. He deserves kudos for making what is probably a sincere effort to document and inform. Unfortunately, politician that he is, he just couldn’t keep himself from lying, diverting and mashing the facts up in a twisted Hegelian stew. His email, in its entirety, follows. I challenge anybody to find any significant, meaningful solutions or proposals in Harris’s email. He uses a lot of mushy New Think phrases such as “feeling of faith restored,” “people enjoy diversity,” “youth programming and empowerment,” and so on. No ideas that have not been tried over the past 30 years were proposed. Nothing, in the nearly half year since the first meeting, has had any real effect. Good people who attended the meeting want to help. Good people in the communities want to help. Problem is, folks, the bad guys have no interest in helping, and they sure as hell aren’t signing up for the workshops. The bad guys, people, will not be planting petunias for peace. Wake up. Uptown Public Safety Town Hall Minutes From: "Rep. Greg Harris" Date: November 12, 2008 Subject: Uptown Public Safety Town Hall Minutes Reply-To: Rep. Greg Harris - 13th District November 12, 2008 Uptown Public Safety Town Hall Minutes Senator Heather Steans opened the meeting with a greeting and thanked everyone for attending. After this past election, Sen. Steans noted that there seems to be a feeling of faith restored in the community and all across the nation. Hopefully this sense of faith will help us in our efforts to work on the public safety issues in Uptown. Senator Steans highlighted a study from DePaul University's Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development that named Uptown as the most Diverse neighborhood in Chicago. The study looked at stable, integrated neighborhoods in the city and sought to determine what factors allow these neighborhoods to work so well as a diverse community. The findings of the study were that three factors had the most effect on the ability of neighborhoods to thrive in diversity. They are location of the neighborhood, the amount of assets in the area, and the fact that people enjoy diversity. The study, entitled "A Kaleidoscope of Culture: Measuring the Diversity of Chicago's Neighborhoods" can be found here: http://condor.depaul.edu/~chaddick/Chaddick%20Policy%20Study%20-%20Neighborhood%20Diversity%20II%20new2.pdf Senator Steans mentioned the success that block clubs in the area are having using positive loitering, a process in which community members gather together to make a positive presence at an location that has been identified as a problem area. Representative Greg Harris next explained what had happened since the first public safety meeting in July and what the four working groups set up to handle community driven solutions would be asked to do. Rep. Harris thanked everyone for attending the town hall meetings and began to talk about the town hall held in July. At that meeting, every segment of the community was well represented and offered up a wide range of solutions for crime and problem buildings. After the first town hall, Rep. Harris and Sen. Steans met with community stakeholders from area businesses, social service providers, block clubs, citizen groups, elected officials and the Chicago Police Dept. to work on how to take the testimony from the first town hall and create action and change. Through that meeting, four areas to work on that did not compete with existing structures (such as block clubs, CAPS, etc.) were identified. The four areas are: public policy and advocacy, communications, business issues, and youth programming and empowerment. Each area will have a working group, which will have specific tasks to work on to make Uptown a safer community. Four facilitators for these working groups were identified and were asked to speak about their working group. Rev. Randall Doubet-King, facilitator for the Public Policy and Advocacy working group, outlined the expectations for the group. The group will work on community driven solutions to identify and address city ordinances, state laws, and government organizations that need to be improved. Uptown has a rich network of people who can affect change and raise policy issues and identify allies in order to improve policy. Judy Gall spoke on behalf of the Youth Programming and Empowerment working group. Judy has met with young people, providers and businesses to gather ideas on issues. The group will focus on identifying key issues regarding youth and public safety and identifying barriers and policy issues that need change. Jay Bomberg spoke for the Business Issues working group. This group will identify the challenges businesses in the neighborhood face. The business public safety committee for Business Partners: the Chamber for Uptown identified three focus areas for the working group to address. The three areas are: increasing the amount of private and police security cameras in our business corridors, creating business block clubs to foster better communication between neighboring businesses, and creating a "Safety Fair" for community residents and business owners. Cindi Anderson is the facilitator for the Communications working group but was unable to attend the town hall meeting. Rep. Harris spoke on her behalf. This group's task will be to focus on existing structures in the community like block clubs, CAPS, and the Court Advocacy Committee to make sure new residents are invited to work in these existing structures so they are informed and know where to go with problems they face. The group will seek to break down barriers in the neighborhood where information does not travel freely from groups like block clubs to groups like business associations. Each working group will set their own schedule for meetings and those who have signed up to be a part of the working groups will be notified about the next meeting. If you were unable to attend this past meeting, but would like to be involved in one or more of the working groups, please contact the offices of Rep. Harris at 773/348-3434 or Sen. Steans at 773/769-1717. Paid for by Citizens for Gregory Harris Click here to Unsubscribe. To unsubscribe via postal mail, please contact us at: CompleteCampaigns.com Attn: Unsubscribe 3635 Ruffin Road, Third Floor San Diego, CA 92123 BENCH NOTE: Nice of Rep. Harris to use an out-of-state web service, eh? It's a shame that there are no services like that in Illinois. RELATED ARTICLES: Heather Steans, Miracle Peddler Joe Moore: Like Rodney Dangerfield Alderman Shiller's Bloody Hands Alderman Shiller On Deathbed

Alderman Shiller's Bloody Hands

Yesterday, The Bench asked "Why Did Ald. Shiller Vouch for This Guy???" Seems the aging radical Helen Shiller - known for not being cop-friendly - went to bat for one cop. Trouble is, that person has a questionable incident (to put it lightly) in his/her background. The Sun-Times reported on it yesterday, noting that "Dozens of applicants made the hire list despite drug records, battery arrests and rejections from other departments." They cited three Chicago alderman as patrons of some of those rejected: Three were endorsed by aldermen despite prior problems with the law. Ald. Walter Burnett Jr. (27th) backed a woman arrested for impeding a shooting investigation; Ald. Helen Shiller (46th) vouched for a man who threatened to shoot someone, and Ald. Toni Preckwinkle (4th) supported a man who sold drugs in the late 1990s. Today, the good folks at Uptown Update note that "There's At Least One Cop Ald. Shiller Approves Of." UU notes: There's a widespread assumption that Ald. Shiller is thumbs-down on the CPD. Let us count the reasons why.... Her non-appearance at CAPS meetings (unless they're sham meetings at election time that the mayor can attend). Her remarks that CAPS is elitist and discriminatory. Her son's willingness to sue the CPD, even when the evidence is flimsy or non-existent. Her support of Couraj, which has spawned the Copwatch program and has been sued by the police for making false accusations against police officers. Her bias against blue light police cameras. Remember that triple (yes, triple) shooting on August 29 in the 4800 block of N. Sheridan? That corner of Shiller's ward is well known as a major trouble spot. Yet Shiller has fought, screaming and kicking over the years, to PREVENT a police camera from being installed at the nearby intersection at W. Lawrence, just a couple hundred feet from the shooting. Drug transactions, pickpocketing, sidewalk defecation and aggressive panhandling regularly occur there. Shiller has described both the police cameras and CAPS as being "anti-poor people," a sentiment that is bigoted in its assumption that only poor people break the law. Shiller draws much of her political support from CHA residents. One week ago, I attended a CAPS meeting for Beat 2311. Near the end of the meeting, Aqueela Ali blamed "Jim Crow laws" for breaking up families. There were a few horrified gasps from the mostly white group of 40 attendees. What Ali meant was clear: Whitey is to blame for the shootings, the wife beatings, the drug selling, the drug usage, rampant alcoholism, teenage prostitution, the utter lack of parental supervision, the raging epidemic of teens having babies, the multi-generational habitation of public housing, and on and on and on. Alderman Shiller supports this mindset with her opposition to more police presence. She does it to appease a large voting bloc. It is not "Jim Crow laws" that are tearing families apart, as Aqueela Ali said at the Beat 2311 CAPS meeting. It is the gangs. It is the lack of family unity. It is the constant drum beat of - and embracing of - victimhood. I was at the scene of Pittman's murder at 4:00 p.m., August 29, half an hour after he was killed. Later that evening, I observed a makeshift memorial where Pittman died, one young woman yelled at us, "What you lookin' at, why you still here? Why don't you go up the street and ask why this happened!" The answer is not up the street, I felt like telling her, I'm looking at why this happened. It happened because Tim was killed - and two others were shot - by a black gunman in the prime of his life. It happened because parents have not instilled values and respect for human life in their children. It happened not because there didn't happen to be a cop standing there expecting somebody to start shooting at Tim, it happened because a young black man made the conscious choice to kill. It did not happen because a gun decided to kill; it happened because a man decided to use a weapon, in this case a gun, to murder. The gunman might just as well killed with a knife or a blunt instrument, which happens commonly. Tim Pittman was murdered because people like the girl who yelled at me cannot see that their own community honors and respects and breeds and gives refuge to people like the man who killed Timothy Pittman. Alderman Helen Shiller is one of the those people. She both encourages such behavior and shuns the police who try to keep all of us safe, the same police who might have saved Tim Pittman's life. Had Shiller been less disdainful of CAPS and more willing to encourage the policing of her ward, Timothy Pittman - and perhaps others - might be alive today. They might not be in prison. They might not be in gangs. They might not be dealing drugs. They might not be life-threatening dangers to their neighbors. "LAKESIDE'S FINEST" Ali, the self-appointed president of the Lakeside Square Apartments Tenants Association (LSATA), would probably describe herself as a "community organizer." Look up LSATA on the Internet and you will nothing except a few items where Ali is described as its president. It seems to have no official status. Helen Shiller, however, just loves LSATA and its "president." After all, Shiller gets much political support from Ali and her comrades on Lakeside. You remember Lakeside, right? That's where "Lakeside's Finest," Timothy Pittman, 19, lived before he was fatally shot on August 29 in the 4800 block on N. Sheridan just a few steps from Aqueela Ali's LSATA World Headquarters. Pittman had 12 arrests on his record, according to the police, and about half of those arrests were made within two blocks of where he was killed. "Lakeside's Finest" was surely known to Ms. Ali. Timonty Pittman was a neighbor who was involved with a bad sort of community organizers. Alderman Shiller's anti-CAPS stance, her anti-police attitude and her resistance to police cameras just might have enabled Pittman's string of criminal behavior and, ultimately, his tragic death. Helen Shiller and her supporters have blood on their hands as surely as the gunman who killed "Lakeside's Finest." RELATED: Uptown Update: The Ripple Effect Tribune Letter To The Editor: "Time For A Regime Change" Uptown Update: 46th Ward Office Experiences Broken Windows Uptown Update: Ald. Shiller Turns Her Back On Uptown Crime ... Why Did Ald. Shiller Vouch for This Guy??? Shiller’s critics praise her motives even as they turn up the heat Chicago Uptown Crime Blotter We Won't Put Up With It Uptown Residents Stage Anti-Crime Rally Uptown residents pack meeting to address crime Uptown Justice Group....Says Anti-Crime Group Opposes Low-Income

Memo to CPD Chief Weis: Put Your CAPS On

So, big shakeup in the Chicago Police Department today. Still-new CPD Chief Jody Weis, a former FBI agent, made some huge and very significant changes in the command structure. He had a press conference, sure. He knows about the major media in town. NBC5 reports today that "Superintendent Jody Weis is making sweeping changes within the ranks of the Chicago Police Department, replacing 21 district police commanders and up to 20 more deputy chiefs or upper management positions." But nobody, apparently, has told Chief Weis about CAPS or his department's own web site. The CPD's own web site makes no mention of the major changes in the command structure, none that could be found. And there was apparently no email blast to CAPS chapters around the city, which the CPD should have done as a courtesy, at the very least. Instead, you had episodes of confusion such as the one in the 49th Ward today. Alderman-in-abstentia Joe Moore sent out an email telling people that 24th District Commander Rottner was being replaced by "Sergeant Steve Caluris." In fact, Caluris was Deputy Chief Steve Caluris of the CPD's Organized Crime Division until his promotion today, not a sergeant. This raises more questions: Why didn't the CPD send an email blast to the city's aldermen, who are our elected officials to the City Council? Why didn't Alderman Moore know anything about the man who just became the second most import cop in his life (second to to Rottner, who becomes essentially the general of the north side)? The other questions bear repeating. Why no email from CPD to CAPS chapters? Why no emails to aldermen? This is disturbing. Chief Weis didn't have to pay any attention to CAPS when he was with the FBI. Either he is uneducated about CAPS, or he still feels he doesn't need them. He certainly needs the support of the aldermen. Is Chief Weis really so politically ignorant? Or is he just oh so arrogant?

President Concaildi

Congratulations to the new president of CAPS Beat 2411, Rich Concaildi. Concaildi was elected this evening (Wed., 3/12/08). Concaildi emerged the victor in a hard fought election that took him all around the 2411 CAPS Beat, knocking on doors and kissing babies. He campaigned on a tough anti-crime platform, vowing to get those drug dealers and pimps. Nothing was promised by Concaildi, however, in regard to getting rid of the people in 24th Police District who have egregiously and repeatedly violated election laws. He does, however, have a bitchin' list of things to do to help prevent burglaries. No word yet as to where the Concaildi Inaugural Ball will be held. Congratulatory messages from world leaders are reportedly pouring in. RELATED: CAPS Says Burglaries Up 375 Per Cent Stone should just retire with what little dignity he has left. Greg [Brewer] is honest, pro-active which is a complete 180 from the behavior and back door deals Stone has embraced. As a long time 50th ward resident - we need a change for the better. Posted by: Richard Concaildi November 18, 2006 10:11 PM

Keeping an Eye on Clark Street

Two men keep a watchful eye on N. Clark Street. They stand in the window of Jessica's Western Wear all day, taking notes and calling the police when necessary.

CAPS 2411 Breakin' It Down For You

1 - What is the Law Enforcement Definition of what makes up a gang? 2 - What is the difference between "People" and "Folks"? 3 - What is the driving force for the existence gangs? 4 - Which are the 3 top gangs that are trying to infiltrate our neighborhood? 5 - What symbols are used in Gang graffiti vs. tagger graffiti? 6 - What annual dollar value is estimated to be generated by Chicago street gang narcotic sales? 7 - What significance do the numbers 74 or 274 have? To find out the answers to these questions and many more . . . . . . Attend the next CAPS beat meeting this coming Tuesday Feb 12th at the JCC (3003 West Touhy) starting at 7:00PM.

No security at CAPS Beat 2422 meeting

Read the sign, shown here (click it to see a larger image).

I saw this as I entered the Gateway Senior Apartments at 7450 N. Rogers. CAPS Beat 2422 was meeting at 7:00 p.m. this evening.

The sign says that visitors must sign in. But the management office, just inside the front door, was vacant. A sign on their door said that someone would return at 9:00, but did not specify a.m. or p.m. This meant that I could not sign in, and that for at least two hours - maybe 14? - nobody was watching the comings and goings of total strangers through the front door.

Meanwhile, nine CPD officers sat in on the CAPS meeting there. Eleven neighbors and police discussed ways to make the neighborhood safer. Nobody mentioned the complete lack of security in the very building in which they were meeting.

CAPS 2411: Are You Kidding?!?

There is crime in Rogers Park, even if Bernie Stone and Joe Moore insist that it's going down. On Friday night, there was a near-riot, twice, in Rogers Park. First, as Sullivan High School, then an hour later on Morse Avenue at Greenview. AND CAPS 2411 IS HAVING AN "URGENT MEETING" ABOUT NEW TOWNHOME DEVELOPMENT?!? Is that what CAPS 2411 thinks community policing is? There are crime problems that these folks could discuss? Check out this email string from yesterday: From: ---------------@msn.com Reply-To: CAPS2411@yahoogroups.com To: Subject: RE: [CAPS2411] Urgent Meeting Tomorrow Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2007 17:32:38 +0100 I believe it is the area south of Pratt on Kedzie. There is a development with a large lot of empty spaces and a few big houses. The land goes inwards a bit so you have to look hard to see it-but it is en route to Devon and Kedzie. J. To: CAPS2411@yahoogroups.com From: ---------------@hotmail.com Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2007 08:41:00 -0500 Subject: Re: [CAPS2411] Urgent Meeting Tomorrow Hi, Sorry, I am coming into this a day late and a dollar short. Could someone please tell me exactly where the developer is planning on putting up these townhomes without backyards? Could this lead to towering condominiums? Thanks for the information. T.

Just Beat It

Toni Duncan writes about yet another of Alderman Joe Moore's tricks: "So Thursday evening, knowing there was a CAPS meeting, Mr. Moore sent Eva, the beat facilitator, an email that stated that "I'm sorry, but we will be unable to publicize your meeting." No other council members were copied on the email." FULL POST... COMMUNITY MEETING!! North of Howard Parks Advisory Council Monthly Meeting September 18th, 2007 at 7:00 p.m. Gale Academy, 1631 W. Jonquil Terrace ~ MORE INFO...

ALERT ROGERS PARK – SHOTS FIRED, AGGRAVATED ASSAULT WITH A HANDGUN

SHOTS FIRED, AGGRAVATED ASSAULT WITH A HANDGUN, 06/24/07 Attn: 024th District – Beat 2411 [ROGERS PARK, CHICAGO] About This Crime: A failed carjacking attempt occurred at the corner of Coyle and Washtenaw on Sunday (6/24) at approximately 1:30 A.M. When approaching a stop sign at that intersection, the driver and passenger of the vehicle were approached by two men. The man nearest the front of the vehicle extended his left hand while hiding his right hand behind him and demanded that the driver stop the car. The car occupants refused to stop and pulled away. A call to 911 was placed. After several minutes the driver began to circle the block in an attempt to head home. While driving westbound on the 2600 block of Morse, at least 2 shots here heard, with at least one of them hitting the vehicle. A second more urgent 911 call was placed to which multiple squads replied. Another neighbor at Lunt and Washtenaw had also called 911 to report shots fired. The Offenders are Described As: Suspect 1 – Latino, male, mid 20's, 150-160 pounds, 5' 10" tall, facial hair of a goatee and thin mustache, dark hair that was shaved on each side of his head, wearing long black or blue pants, a long sleeved unbuttoned dark blue shirt over a dark grey t-shirt. The suspect was also wearing a bluetooth earpiece for a cellular phone. Suspect 2 – White, male, mid 20's, 180-200 pounds, 6' 0" tall, dark hair, wearing long dark pants and a long sleeved dark blue shirt. The suspect was also wearing a bluetooth earpiece for a cellular phone. What You Can Do: • Be observant and report suspicious activity especially intersections or at the ends of alley ways • Keep you doors locked at all times while traveling • Be observant of all activity around you when entering or exiting your vehicle If you have any information about this incident, call the Area Three Detectives at 312-744-8266 and Reference RD# HN - 425497 ============ ========= ====== CAPS2411 Board member Richard P. Concaildi rpconcaildi@ netscape. net Cell: 773.294.1777 Work: 773.274.3633

Community Alert - Wanted for Sexual Exploitation of a Child

from CAPS2411@yahoogroups.com today Detective Division Alert #079-07-454 March 25, 2007 About this crime: Chicago Police are looking for an unknown offender for indecent solicitation and indecent exposure to a 12-year-old female. The offender approached the victim in a white minivan and engaged her in conversation. The offender stood up in the minivan and exposed himself. This incident occurred on March 22 at approximately 3 PM in the 6300 block of N. Leavitt Street. The offender is described as: A male, White Hispanic, 30's, 5'08" to 5'10" tall, brown eyes with a medium to dark complexion. He was wearing a black baseball cap with a dark blue bill and driving a white minivan (make unknown) with damage to the driver's rear quarter panel near the fuel door. What you can do: - Inform neighbors of this incident - Do not let children walk alone - Call 911 to report ANY suspicious person(s0 or activities If you have information about this incident then call Special Investigations Unit at 312.492.3810 and reference RD# HN-242634 Special Note: Just so everyone knows - this occurred in the beat just south of 2411 on beat 2413. It is still very close and across a dotted line on a map which "bad guys' don't recognize. I'm just playing it safe with the posting.

Operation Iron Hammer

Thanks to Mr. Morris and CAPS Group 2411 for this information about a major bust in "Operation Iron Hammer," a CPD sweep on drug trafficking on Chicago's west side, which depended in large part on police cameras. To: CAPS2411@yahoogroups.com From: "Henry M Morris" Date: Wed, 21 Mar 2007 14:59:15 -0000 Subject: [CAPS2411] Proof POD Cameras Work We've had discussions at CAPS meetings about getting POD cameras in our beat. Bernie Stone has been against them. Here's evidence that POD cameras work.

CAPS Says Burglaries Up 375 Per Cent

CAPS Beat 2411 reports that in their beat they "jumped to 15 burglaries. In 2006 we had 4." It's not clear if the email's author, Mr. Morris, means that there were 4 burglaries in his beat in February 2006 or for all of 2006; the wording of his memo is ambiguous. Here is the full e-mail. I added all hyperlinks. There are two glaring omissions on this otherwise good list of common sense tips: 1) The word "alarm" does not appear on this list. Get a good burglar alarm system. It could wake you up in time to make proper use of... 2) A gun. Seriously, comrades, any serious robber could overcome most or all of the items on the list. If and when your home is invaded, that night table friend could prove handy. To: CAPS2411@yahoogroups.com From: "Henry M Morris" Date: Wed, 14 Mar 2007 20:19:49 -0000 Subject: [CAPS2411] Burglaries jump 375% in Feb. Is your house safe? In February, we jumped to 15 Burglaries. In 2006 we had 4. This is quite a difference. Thanks to Rich Concaildi, who was kind enough to bring a multipage "Burglary Prevention Checklist For Homes" to the CAPS meeting Tuesday. The original used a lot of empty space and filled several pages. I've retyped it here with all the excess space removed and some wording clarified. This is a really good checklist. If you follow it, you'll find all sorts of things you should consider fixing to make your home safer; many are things you might not have thought of. Even if you have all the proper considerations covered, it's not a bad idea to rethink your home's security every once in a while. Warm weather sees a rise in home burglaries. This is the right time to consider your house's shortcomings and fix them. I hope you'll print this out and take a serious look at how your home matches up with the list. Hank Start with the outside doors on your house and garage: 1. Are all of the outside doors made of metal or solid wood construction? 2. Are the door frames strong enough and tight enough to prevent forcing or spreading? 3. Are the door hinges inside, and thus protected from removal from the outside? 4. Are there windows in any door or within 40 inches of the locks? 5. Are all door locks adequate and in good repair? 6. Are strikes and strike plates adequate and properly installed? 7. Can the locking mechanism be reached through a mail slot, delivery port or pet entrance at the door? 8. Is there a screen or storm door with an adequate lock? 9. Are all entrances lighted with at least a 40 Watt light? 10. Can front entrances be observed from the street or public area? 11. Does the porch or landscaping offer concealment from view from the street or public area? 12. If there is a sliding glass door, is the sliding panel secured from being lifted out of its track? 13. Is the "charley-bar" or a key-operated auxiliary lock used on sliding glass doors? Next, check the entrances from your Garage and/or Basement: 14. Are all entrances to the living quarters from an attached garage or basement that has a door to the outside made of metal or solid wood? 15. Does the door from the attached garage to the living quarters have locks adequate for exterior entrances? 16. Does the door from a basement that has access to the outdoors to the living quarters have an adequate lock operated from the living quarters side? 17. Is the outside basement entrance lighted by an exterior light of at least 40 Watts? 18. Is the outside basement door concealed from the street or neighbors? When checking windows, apply the same standards to your garage windows as you do your house windows: 19. Do all windows have adequate locks in operating condition? 20. Do windows have screens or storm windows that lock from the inside? 21. Do any windows open into areas that may be hazardous or offer special risk to burglary? 22. Do windows that open into hazardous areas have security screens or grills? 23. Are exterior areas of windows free from concealing structure or landscaping? 24. Is the exterior adequately lighted at all window areas? 25. Are all the basement windows adequately secured against entrance? 26. Are trees and shrubbery kept trimmed back from upper floor windows? 27. Are ladders kept outside the house where they are accessible? How about the garage door, itself? 28. Is the automobile entrance door to the garage equipped with an adequate locking device? 29. Is the garage door kept closed and locked at all times? 30. Are the garage windows secured adequately in the same manner as ground-floor windows? 31. Is the outside utility entrance to the garage as secure as your ground-floor entrances in your house? 32. Are tools and ladders kept in the garage? 33. Are all garage doors lighted on the outside by at least a 40 Watt light? Are your fences and gates working properly? Does your gate latch properly? Is your gate latch accessible from outside the gate? Please take these check-points seriously.

CAPS Minutes, Penile Enhancements and Internet Ignorance

A few days ago, I wrote to CAPS Beat 2411 with this question: "Maybe I'm missing them, but I don't see minutes for your CAPS meetings here. Where can we find them, and why do we have to join a group to access information to your CAPS info? Thank you." Excuse me - before you start reading Mr. Morris's kind reply, let me point something out. First, it was nice of him to respond. Second, while I have been very critical of the CAPS groups in the 24th District for not being up to date on their minutes, it must be said that the 24th is unusual for even having CAPS Beats that have web sites. Most don't in the city; Rogers Park is a bit of an anomaly. But Mr. Morris wrote something that speaks to a major part of the problem: A lack of Internet savvy on the part of 24th District beat web site supervisors. The savvy that every 9th grader has. To wit, he wrote that the reason 2411's web site requires registration is as follows: "For a while, I didn't require registering on the WROGERSPK site. We got hit. Plain and simple. By upping the security, I got rid of the problems. So, both neighborhood sites now require registration. We don't charge for membership, either on the web or at our meetings. By getting you to register, it's not for our benefit. It's for yours. "You're free of spam, ads for penile enhancements, and other nefarious worms, Trojans, malware, etc. If I cut the requirements, we'll get buried by this crap. I belong to around 20 other sites that Yahoo.com hosts. I've watched as several have been overrun by this crud and are now either being taken down and disbanded or the owners have finally woken up and are now requiring tighter security." Huh? This blog, which is nothing more than a type of web site, is "free of spam, ads for penile enhancements, and other nefarious worms, Trojans, malware, etc." Why can't the CAPS groups just post their minutes on a blog? It takes only seconds to copy and paste the minutes into a posting (such as this one). Mr. Morris is well-intentioned, I'm sure. But the "solution" he found for preventing the horrors of penile enhancement ads was overly complicated, unnecessary, and ultimately defeats the purpose of transparency in the CAPS community. My unsolicited advice to Mr. Morris and other CAPS groups: Start a blog. It takes about five minutes to create, costs nothing, is quite secure, and is open for all to see. The full response from Mr. Morris: To: CAPS2411@yahoogroups.com From: "Hank Morris" Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2007 17:51:56 -0500 Subject: Re: [CAPS2411] Where are the CAPS Meeting Minutes? Good questions. I ran meeting minutes for 2-3 years. There were four files uploaded every month: monthly agenda for Beat Meetings, monthly agenda for Board of Directors Meetings; monthly Beat Meeting Minutes; and, monthly Board of Directors Minutes. Nobody read them. The amount of file space Yahoo gives us was getting eaten up quickly. By killing the unread minutes, I freed up a lot of space. If people had used the feature, it would still be there. The website is hosted by Yahoo.com. We get the space for free. Because many Yahoo.com forums have been hit by spam and other nasty things, I elected to make registration mandatory. The "bots" used by many spammers, script kiddies, and other malcontents won't work on sites requiring this approach. You may have encountered sites where you had to enter a strange looking sequence of numbers and letters sort of scattered about. This is another way of defeating these all-too-real bots. For a while, I didn't require registering on the WROGERSPK site. We got hit. Plain and simple. By upping the security, I got rid of the problems. So, both neighborhood sites now require registration. We don't charge for membership, either on the web or at our meetings. By getting you to register, it's not for our benefit. It's for yours. You're free of spam, ads for penile enhancements, and other nefarious worms, Trojans, malware, etc. If I cut the requirements, we'll get buried by this crap. I belong to around 20 other sites that Yahoo.com hosts. I've watched as several have been overrun by this crud and are now either being taken down and disbanded or the owners have finally woken up and are now requiring tighter security. Hank Morris Tonight, Tuesday, March 13, is when the next CAPS meeting will be held. 7:00 p.m. at Bernard Horwich JCC. I hope you can be there. --hmm

I can't. You sent your email to me just before 6:00 p.m. Not much notice.

Chicago Police: Failure To Communicate

The Chicago Police are lying to me. I know, I know. You must be as shocked as I am.

There was a "large fight" involving "high school kids" at or very near the intersection of N. Broadway and W. Thorndale in the Edgewater neighborhood. At least some of the kids involved attend Nicholas Senn High School at 5900 N. Glenwood Avenue.

Senn lies within Police Beat 2013. The corner of W. Thorndale and N. Broadway lies along the northeastern edge of Beat 2013.

Although residents nearby confirmed a "large fight," both CPD and Senn H.S. principal Richard Norman denied such an event took place, even as they stood in what amounted to a high-security scenario at 3:15 p.m. on Friday, March 9.

Last Friday I was in a friend's car riding northbound on N. Broadway. I noticed a lot of police cars, both marked and unmarked, zipping through traffic with lights on, some with sirens. I saw at least 20 squad cars and several officers on foot. Traffic was heavy, I had my camera, so I jumped out of the car. "See you later guys, I said, "there's something going on here."

I KNOW NOTHING!

I snapped a couple of photos, spotted a young man who looked like a high school student. He was standing next to squad car, speaking with its occupants. As the car drove away, I approached him and asked if he knew why there were so many police swarming around.

"There was a big fight last week, high school kids," he said.

No reason this kid would lie about that, I thought. So I walked around, snapping more photos. I then approached a heavy female police officer (Officer Kuehn) and a heavy man (Richard Norman, principal of Senn since July 1, 2005). Both held walkie-talkies.

"Hi," I said to both of them, "I understand there was a big fight here last week. Is that why there are so many police in the area right now?"

There wasn't a fight," Officer Kuehn said flatly.

"I was just told by a resident there was," I said. "If not, why are there so many police here right now?"

"Well," Kuehn said, "it's a warm spring day out and kids are frisky."

"It's like this all over Chicago, so are there this many police swarming around every intersection near every high school in the city?" I asked.

"Nothing happened here," Kuehn said.

It was obvious that I would learn nothing here except that the truth was being covered up. So I walked a few yards away and approached three young men, probably high schoolers.

"Excuse me guys, do you know if there was a big fight here last week?" They looked at me funny for a second, but then one of them nodded and said yes, there had been. But at that moment both Kuehn and Norman approached.

"You can't talk with these guys," Kuehn said, and gave me some bull crap about being their guardian and I didn't have permission to speak to minors or high school students.

"You're telling me," I said, "that it's illegal for me to speak with a minor? I doubt that, and am I supposed to ask people for ID before speaking to them?" I was told to move along.

Do you think it's standard procedure for a couple of dozen squad cars to swarm around the neighborhod because it's a warm day and some kids might be "frisky?" Or for a principal to stand with a cop, walkie-talkie in hand, because some kid might have spring fever?

Calling Chicago Police did not prove any less frustrating. A woman who answered insisted that she knew nothing about what amounts to a major police activity, insisted that CPD cannot, does not and never has commented on anything having to do with juvenile. Ridiculous. And just try to find Superintendent Cline's phone number.

Nothing on the CAPS sites, either.

I am waiting for a call back from Alex in Alderman Smith's office. I hope they are more forthcoming than the Chicago Police Department or Principal Norman.

Welcome to CAPS2411. Visit today!

Yesterday I wrote to the CAPS Beat 2411 Yahoo! Group to ask them why people have to join their group to access information. My personal reply came from a robot. Date: 12 Mar 2007 02:30:52 -0000 From: "CAPS2411 Moderator" To: rogersparkbench@yahoo.com Subject: Yahoo! Groups: Welcome to CAPS2411. Visit today! Hello, Welcome to the CAPS2411 group at Yahoo! Groups, a free, easy-to-use email group service. Please take a moment to review this message. To learn more about the CAPS2411 group, please visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CAPS2411 To start sending messages to members of this group, simply send email to CAPS2411@yahoogroups.com If you do not wish to belong to CAPS2411, you may unsubscribe by sending an email to CAPS2411-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com To see and modify all of your groups, go to http://groups.yahoo.com/mygroups Regards, Moderator, CAPS2411

24th District CAPS: A Failure To Communicate

On January 11, I wrote that the web sites for the 24th District CAPS were in sorry shape. CAPS (Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy) websites have not improved. At the top of the site (http://www.caps24.org) is a link for you to report graffiti. Okay, but how about a link to report murder? Or domestic violence? Or drug pushers? Call me crazy, but it seems like right off the bat CAPS tells us that their priorities are not quite right. In case you’re a couple of years behind the news, you can catch up on the National Night Out 2005. That’s right, 2005. Hey folks, update the web site. "Community Policing at it's [sic] Best!" (Not!) Want a “Public Safety Alert?” You can find it here, but only about half of the few items presented are of direct local interest. There’s a link to the Federal Trade Commission. There’s a link to an FBI alert about “New email scheme designed to extract personal financial information and implant virus,” but that’s been there since before January 11 and the link now leads to current news (nothing today about a virus). The FDA issued a new warning about drugs. Okay, how about a local warning about street drugs? The CAPS web site, of the self-described "Community Policing at it's [sic] Best!" is a lousy for local crime news and information. In January I wrote that all but one CAPS beats had no information posted or available to the general public. Has that changed? On January 11 I wrote: CAPS Beat 2411 is hosted on Yahoo! and seems to be for members only; you have to sign in. Why? Shouldn't this be public for anybody to see? What are they hiding in 2411? So, no minutes for the public. Today (March 11), CAPS Beat 2411 is at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/caps2411, and still has no information available for non-members. So I joined. “Congratulations, you are now a member of the group CAPS2411!” Now a member, I was able to see three postings from March 7 about child luring. Period. No CAPS meeting minutes visible, even after I joined the group. January 11: CAPS Beat 2412: It’s a non-interactive PDF that simply gives the dates and addresses of the meetings. No minutes. March 11: No visible change. January 11: CAPS Beat 2413: No posted minutes. Not much of anything but the 2007 schedule. There's a mysterious little phrase in Hebrew at the top right. What does it say? March 11: No visible change. January 11: CAPS Beat 2422: Again, just the 2007 schedule. No minutes. Nothing in Hebrew. March 11: They show minutes for January, but no other months. Oddly, the minutes are hosted at this web address: http://howardwatchers.blogspot.com/2007/01/beat-2422-january-meeting-minutes.html Why does 2422 only show minutes for January and no other months? Note: Kevin O’Neal once told me that CAPS minutes could not be placed on blog sites as a matter of policy, after I offered to host the minutes for 2431 on Rogers Park Bench. Hmmm. January 11: CAPS Beat 2423: Schedule only. March 11: No visible change. January 11: CAPS Beat 2424: Schedule only. March 11: No visible change. January 11: CAPS Beat 2431 was actually the ONLY beat to present minutes to the public. So although they're tardy, 2431 deserves credit for at least trying. Or seeming to try. But the other CAPS Beats are pitifully wanting. March 11: Kudos! January and February minutes have been added. Beat 2431 is still the most up-to-date, most transparent CAPS Beat in the 24th District. January 11: CAPS Beat 2432: Schedule only. March 11: No visible change. January 11: CAPS Beat 2433: Schedule only. March 11: No visible change. Let's get it together, folks.