Now that's professionalism

I'm being sarcastic, unfortunately. I blogged last week about Anthony Abbate, the off-duty Chicago cop who decided to beat a woman bartender half to death because she cut him off for being too drunk.

Well, we now find out that Abbate has a few buddies on the force who have decided to stick up for this "hero", by playing games such as using on-duty cops and squad cars to block reporters' access to the courthouse where Abbate was having a hearing, mass ticketing the reporters' cars, and even threatening them with arrest when they complained. What's worse is that all of this "professional" behavior was done on the direct order of the police captain who was on duty as the watch commander at the time. What leadership, huh?

Philip Cline, the Chicago Police Superintendent, has demoted the captain. Why not fire him? That would seem to be a more appropriate punishment for violating peoples' civil rights, but what do I know? I would be more willing to applaud Cline for his action, if the first article hadn't pointed out that that the Abbate investigation uncovered a previous bar beating by six off-duty officers, also captured on videotape, that was handled by Cline doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING for three months, even though the officers were seen on video beating one person to the point that he needed reconstructive surgery on his face.

These thugs were not pulled from duty, nor did they lose their police powers, even as the prosecutor was preparing charges against them.

Now that the light is shining fully on this cockroach Cline, however, he is scurrying to suspend them, and promises to do so promptly in the future. Nothing like getting caught red-handed not doing your job to get things rolling, eh, Phil?

Of course, the six officers got a break from their comrades on the night of their incident as well:

"During the incident, patrons at the downtown bar called 911. When patrol officers responded, the off-duty officers involved allegedly spoke to them and the patrol officers left without intervening, sources have said."

Don't worry, citizen, everything's being handled.

And if all this wasn't enough, it looks like even more serious misbehavior by the Chicago police is going to be revisited:

"The department also is bracing for developments in a state's attorney's investigation of a 2005 fatal police shooting in which new evidence emerged last week that challenges the department's version of what happened."

Strap on your seat belt, I'm sure this is only the tip of what those reporters will dig up, now that the cops have royally pissed them off.

And they wonder why people want the ability to defend themselves. It looks like in Chicago the people have to defend themselves from the cops as well as the bad guys.

To review, Richard Daley, mayor of this pigpen, is on record as believing that "only cops are professional enough to carry guns".

Looks like it's going really well for you there, Mayor.