ARMOR FALL
Sneed hears two military grade armed personnel carriers were used in the police shootout with fugitive Daniel Brown last Tuesday...
@ SNEEDLINGS
Sneed exclusive . . . The police blotter . . .
Sneed is told the Chicago Police Department has been placed on suspension by the feds.
Translation: The CPD has been suspended from accessing federal military surplus supplies — guns, ordnance, armored vehicles — for the past three years by the Illinois Department of Central Management Services, which distributes surplus owned by the U. S. Department of Defense, because of improper inventory paperwork.
And the CPD was under suspension when the NATO Summit of 28 countries was held in Chicago in May 2012, which luckily turned out to be relatively peaceful, despite threats of battalions of violent protesters!
Police Supt. Garry McCarthy, who lauds the use of military vehicles in case of extreme emergencies — and credits the use of an armored personnel carrier in a gunbattle and standoff last Tuesday — tells Sneed: “Our inventory screw- up should not have happened. The buck stops with me.”
“When I came into office in 2011, a paperwork screw- up occurred based on a reorganization change and a subsequent personnel problem,” he said.
“It happened on my watch,” he added. “Nothing is missing, we have been suspended for bad paperwork because our inventory reporting wasn’t proper and things just fell through the cracks.
“We are working to get that all cleaned up soon. We should be back on track in the next two months.”
McCarthy claims that one of the two armored military vehicles used Oct. 7 to successfully move 30 police officers and civilians inside a safety perimeter was borrowed from federal military surplus. The second armored vehicle was purchased with a special federal grant for the NATO Summit.
“When people criticize the militarization of the police, they should be aware of how important having armored vehicles can be in extreme situations like last week,” he said.
Hmmm: Considering the Chicago Police Department was in suspension during the NATO conference, is that why they had to pay for an armored vehicle, rather than borrow it from military surplus?
The Fioretti file . . .
Bob is bobbin’ along! Mayoral candidate Ald. Bob Fioretti ( 2nd) is letting no grass grow under his feet in his trek for the city’s top job.
No sooner had Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis — a potential mayoral contender — bowed out Monday because she has a cancerous brain tumor, when Fioretti sent an email that alluded twice to Lewis being his “friend.”
Postscript: Fioretti removed himself from a mayoral bid against Rahm Emanuel in 2010 when he was diagnosed with tonsil cancer.
The Ebola virus . . .
The living and the dead: Sneed is told that Dr. Stephen Cina, the Cook County medical examiner, who is trying to upgrade what used to be a grisly workplace where bodily fluids were once strewn haphazardly, just gave instructions on how to deal with a body of an Ebola victim — if one arrives at the morgue — to everyone who works in the office, administrators included.
Bill swill . . .
Ring. Ring. Actor Bill Murray, who occasionally visits his Chicago roots but is notoriously difficult to reach via phone, told Variety he just got an old BlackBerry so he can text his sons — and has given his recent “St. Vincent” co- star, Naomi Watts, his very elusive cellphone number.
A music note: Murray, the singer Bono, and a gal pal of George Clooney serenaded guests at Clooney’s wedding to Brit barrister Amal Alamuddin at breakfast the next day with an eight- piece orchestra, calling themselves: “The Venetian Blinds.”
This & that . . .
Aloha: Facebook billionaire Mark Zuckerberg has reportedly paid more than $ 100 million for a swath of land in Kauai, one of the Hawaiian islands. But the beach ain’t private. It has to remain open to the public in Hawaii.
Sneedlings . . .
Wednesday’s birthdays: Sarah Ferguson, 55; Dominic West, 45, and Keyshia Cole, 33.