Officer Bob

CHICAGO – If you’re like me, the first thing that comes to mind when you think of street crime is a guy in a wheelchair. These rollin’ roustabouts ain’t foolin me – and they didn’t fool the seven Chicago PD officers named in a recent federal lawsuit.

A quadriplegic man sued the Chicago Police Department in federal court Thursday, claiming officers yanked him out of the passenger seat of a car in 2006, dragged him to the ground and beat him up even though he kept yelling “I’m paralyzed.”

“They were kicking me and punching me,” Daniel Casares said. “I was scared for my life.”

Casares, 28, can’t use his legs and his right hand — and his left arm and hand are “significantly paralyzed,” said his attorney, Blake Horwitz.

On Oct. 9, 2006, Casares was a passenger in a car driven by his brother. They were parked in an alley in the 10300 block of Avenue M in the East Side neighborhood.

Casares said he was waiting for a man to bring him money for a car deal when officers approached. The cops suspected the men were smoking marijuana and told them to get out of the car, Horwitz said.

The brother was handcuffed and taken away. Drug charges were later dropped, Horwitz said.

So this guy’s handicapped, but he can still use his arms to dial a phone to call a lawyer?  Come on.

In Episode #6, It’s a slow day on the streets, so Officer Bob answers emails from concerned citizens on a variety of topics.

 Officer Bob Episode #6 - Bob's Got Mail [1:56m]: Download (591)

JERUSALEM – Over in Israel, they know what to do with the local malcontents.  And they don’t let a little thing like being handicapped get in the way of justice, either. Hell, one time, they shot a missile from a helicopter at a guy in a wheelchair – now that’s what I call gettin’ the job done.

This week, those uppity handicapped are at it again, and it took Israeli cops to bravely face ‘em down

Alleging police brutality by officers on the scene, and lamenting a lack of much-needed aid from the state, a dozen wheelchair-bound citizens continued their protest in the sweltering heat outside the Welfare Ministry in Jerusalem on Sunday, telling reporters they will not leave until their demand for help is answered.

But the most troubling complaints from protesters were that police officers had abused them physically, throwing them out of their wheelchairs and preventing them from using the bathroom.

A man with fresh gashes on his head told The Jerusalem Post he was hurt when he fell out of his wheelchair as police tried to force him from the entrance to the Welfare Ministry on Saturday night.

“We were originally near the entrance,” another man said, “and after Shabbat, a decision was made by the police to clear us out. About 40 of them came up, not in the blue uniforms, but in the black ones [of the Yasam elite anti-terror unit], as if we were Hamas, and they just started lifting us up and tossed us out into the street. People were hurt. We asked them to stop, but they kept going. It’s forbidden to touch someone in a wheelchair at all – who knows what kind of problems they may be suffering from.”

South of de border down Mexico way, the cops have had their hands full lately. Coupla weeks ago, a bunch a people got trampled when the police tried to clear out a overcrowded disco fulla teenagers. I don’t know why the Mexican kids are so skittish, isn’t everybody used to a buncha riot cops showing up in an enclosed space and and shoving people around to the front door?

Well, trouble takes no siesta for the federales, it seems. This week, it’s news of what dere calling “training” videotapes showin’ up with Mexican cops torturing suspects. When are these people going to learn about the dangers… of videotape? Never, I guess.

Two of the videos — broadcast by national television networks and displayed on newspaper Internet sites — showed what Leon city Police Chief Carlos Tornero described as training for an elite unit that must face “real-life, high-stress situations,” such as kidnapping and torture by organized crime groups.

But many Mexicans saw a sinister side, especially at a moment when police and soldiers across the country are struggling with scandals over alleged abuses.

“They are teaching police … to torture!” read the headline in the Mexico City newspaper Reforma. Watch parts of the video »

Human rights investigators in Guanajuato state, where Leon is located, are looking into the tapes, and the National Human Rights Commission also expressed concern.

“It’s very worrisome that there may be training courses that teach people to torture,” said Raul Plascencia, one of the commission’s top inspectors.

Episode #5 finds Officer Bob in history class, teaching the lessons of police surveillance through the ages.

 Officer Bob Episode #5 - Cops through da Ages: Download (566)

So the word is the Amnesty International has got its undies in a bundle over de Chicago Police. They’re sayin’ that Chicago cops have a record of brutality and dat they’re considering protesting the International Oympic Committee about it.

Normally, their opinion would matter about as much as, well, ordinary Chicagoans’ opinions about the cops – little to none, thank you very much. But since the great City Dat Works is looking to host the 2016 games, and dat’s a lotta scratch thinking about coming to town, well, we’re all gonna pretend we care about brutality for a few months til’ this blows over.

Using Chicago’s Olympic bid as a pressure point and the alleged 2006 harassment of a gay man as evidence, Amnesty International turned up the heat on Mayor Daley today to fix, what it called the city’s “flawed approach” to investigating police brutality.

At a news conference outside the mayor’s office, civil rights activists reiterated arguments they made last summer, when the City Council approved Daley’s plan to sever the Office of Professional Standards from the Police Department.

They argued that the landmark ordinance is undermined by a union contract tailor-made to protect rogue officers.

The contract bars the agency now known as the Independent Police Review Authority from investigating anonymous complaints about “anything short of criminal conduct”—even though many victims “fear retaliation” from police—and limits the use of past complaints needed to establish a “pattern of conduct, said Wendy Park, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union.

DAYTON, OH: Officer Michael MacDonald, perhaps exhibiting a Scotsman’s concern for thrift, thinks he was short-changed at the Wendy’s drive-thru window.

Now if you’re like old Officer Bob, you know that police never ever make any mistakes and that the people who work for minimum wage are thieving scumbags out to pick the patrolman’s pocket. That’s why we get out of our squad car to spray tear gas in the faces of people who we think short-changed us. You got a problem widdat?

A few years ago, a Chicago guy named Nevles Taylor made the mistake of getting in the way of Chicago cops. First, he struck the front of their moving squad car with the back of his bicycle – and if that wasn’t enough, he then repeatedly attacked the officers’ fists and clubs with his face and upper body.

After the encounter, the officers wrote up Taylor on charges that were going to send him to the state pen.

Somehow, a few busybodies at the University of Chicago “Law” “School” jumped in and instead of letting CPD put this dangeous guy behind bars where he belongs, they actually got him off the charges AND won a $30,000 settlement for him.

Sad, sad, sad.

There’s a lot to learn from these other countries. I don’t mean by travelin’ there, I mean by watching video onna internet of course.

In Greece, they got a different way of handing out love taps to guys they arrest. Instead of the cop doing the beating, they make the suspects beat the crap-opolis outta each other! I hope alla you guys and gals onna job out there are takin’ notes.

Hey, cops have job pressures da rest of you wouldn’t even dream about. Sure, it looks like we do whatever we want whenever we want, but you try and handle that responsibility widdout blowing off a little steam. So what if we take it home and every now and again the ladies in our lives of crimefighting walk into a doorway or two?

Apparently it’s a big deal enough for a coupla broads in Seattle to write a story about it: Cops Who Abuse Their Wives Rarely Pay The Price.

Although that was back in 2003, so I guess the problem’s all cleared up by now.