Monday, May 11, 2015

Liars Lying About Murders In Chicago

One year after Chicago Magazine reported that Chicago Police Department was under counting the City's murders, the problem persists, and the top brass are up to some new tricks.

This year's tricks are mostly under charging - calling something that was a homicide by a non-homicide name - in order to rig the statistics so it looks like the homicide rate is declining.

It isn't.  In fact, homicides are up.

Chicago Magazine writers David Bernstein and Noah Isackson have written a marvelous story of investigation and deception in Chicago homicide statistics.  I have attempted to excerpt it for this topic, but it is far to rich to be summarized in a few paragraphs.

So this evening when you have a few minutes of reading time, read the full article here.

9 comments:

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

With no meaningful oversight (unlike Los Angeles, Chicago lacks an independent inspector general for the police department) and without political pressure to shape up, police brass appear just as willing now as before to engage in or tolerate statistical sleights of hand to lower the city’s official crime tally.

It's just down to the press willingness to stick their necks out and cover what is really going on.

chickelit said...

From "The City of Big Shoulders" to the City Of Big Shoulder Shrugs And Thugs" in 100 years.

It's political: the City has been controlled by Dems since 1931. They kinda get what they deserve.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

Here is one way they are playing with the numbers...

“So if someone is alleged to have shot back, it doesn’t count as a murder anymore? That’s ridiculous,” the source says. “Gangbangers are pulling guns on each other all the time. So [is the department] going to start saying [all gang shootings] aren’t murders either?”

Unbelievable.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

the media is coordinating the narrative that George Zimmerman was involved in a shooting. George was shot AT.

The media lie. They lie for the narrative. Just wait until they start pimping Hillary.

rcocean said...

There was something similar in SF a while ago. There were playing games with the Homicide numbers in order to make the "clearance rate" seem higher than it was.

Given the medical advances in treating gunshot wounds over the last 20 years, I wonder how many people in Chicago are shot/stabbed every year vs. how many die. I bet if you adjust for that, the decline in Chicago murders over the last 20 years wouldn't be so steep.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

This one was ruled... you be the judge.

According to the police report, he brushed his shoulder against Masharah, staring and making “inappropriate gestures.”

Tingling, who was black, stepped in front of Masharah and asked Firek, who is white, “What are you doing?” Firek replied, “What, nigger?”

Police say that Firek then punched Tingling in the chest. The two traded blows, but Firek gave worse than he got, hitting Tingling several more times in the chest. Masharah called 911. Though Tingling had had some heart troubles in the past, he was able to flee; he and his daughter ran down an alley to a body shop. Short of breath, he sat on a bucket, collapsed, and soon died. The medical examiner’s office ruled that Tingling died of “hypertensive cardiovascular disease”; stress from the altercation, the pathologist noted, was “a significant contributing condition.”

This crime was an aggravated battery, the police department decided, nothing more.

True, the UCR manual states that “situations in which a victim dies of a heart attack as the result of a crime are not classified as criminal homicide.” But according to FBI spokesman Stephen Fischer, the rule is meant simply for those proverbial “scared to death” scenarios: a sleeping person is awakened by an intruder and dies of a heart attack, for example. “A person being assaulted or beaten and [who] dies,” Fischer says unequivocally, “should be counted as a homicide because it was as a direct result of that assault.”

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

“Put the body in the previous year’s count”

Another creative accounting.

ndspinelli said...

Great read. Thanks. The teeny tiny mayor wants to be the first Jew president.

AllenS said...

Telling lies is the only way for Chicago to get the murder rate down.