A week’s worth of developing stories, odd events, and signs of the times, culled from the desks, inboxes, and wandering eyes of the editors
Rahm (Sort of) Defends Cops
In a conversation with Attorney General Loretta Lynch last week, Rahm Emanuel described Chicago police officers as “fetal.” He later clarified this puzzling characterization, explaining that officers—in the wake of Baltimore, Ferguson, and similar incidents—fear losing their jobs, or worse, causing them to hesitate over previously easy decisions. Presumably, Rahm’s statement was partially in reference to the recent emergence of a number of video recordings, like the one released this past June that showed Chicago police officer Marco Proano firing multiple times into a car full of six black, unarmed teens. (Proano’s case is still under investigation.) Fortunately, some police officers appear to be taking matters into their own hands: after seventeen-year-old Laquan Mcdonald was shot sixteen times by a CPD patrolman, a group of officers allegedly deleted the footage of the shooting from a nearby security camera.
Marrython
Trade champagne for paper cups of Gatorade and a teary audience for hordes of sweaty, selfie-taking runners and you’ll be picturing Sunday’s most unconventional wedding. Lakeview residents and runners Stephanie Reinhart and Mark Jockel tied the knot at an under-four-minute ceremony at mile eight of the thirty-eighth annual Bank of America Chicago Marathon, surrounded by friends and family, before they got back on the course to complete the next eighteen miles. It’s a truly inspirational (and, let’s be real, maddening) tale for all the single and sedentary. While the Chicago Marathon brought matrimony to one couple and glory to the winners, Dickson Chumba and Florence Kiplagat of Kenya, it brought frustration to the non-marathoners attempting to navigate the city.
Jailbyrd?
In keeping with the long tradition of corrupt Chicago politicians, former CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett was indicted last week for—among other things—taking hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gifts in exchange for giving a $20 million no-bid contract to her former employer, Supes Academy. Investigations into Byrd-Bennett’s scheme began after South Side resident and Catalyst-Chicago reporter Sarah Karp called attention to the fishy no-bid contract. Byrd-Bennett, who resigned in May when district records were first subpoenaed, will plead guilty. Supes executives Gary Solomon and Thomas Vranas—who opened trust funds in the names of two of Byrd-Bennett’s relatives and promised jobs to the CEO’s friends and family—have also been charged with fraud, bribery, and conspiracy. Each of her twenty counts of fraud are punishable by up to twenty years in jail. The best part of the coverage of Byrd-Bennett’s unbelievable greed are the absurdly transparent emails including such incriminating gems as Byrd-Bennett writing that she had “tuition to pay and casinos to visit.”
“Hello? Hello?”
“The number you have dialed has been disconnected or is no longer in service.” That’s the message you get when you call someone who hasn’t been paying their phone bill, and the last message you would ever expect to hear upon dialing 9-1-1. However unlikely the latter scenario, it grows more likely with every day that Governor Rauner continues to squabble with the Democrats over the Illinois budget impasse, which is leaving 9-1-1 call centers short $32,000 per month, no small portion of their budgets. Sorry, Illinoisans, but it seems that Rauner values his game of political chess over the safety and well-being of his constituents.