Hey all. So, I’ve been blogging at you for a while now, and I want to know what you think. Likes, dislikes, rants, raves? I want to hear them. Post below and let me know.

It’s been eight years since the Chicago anti-violence group took to the streets to fight gang violence.
 
CeaseFire, which almost died when Gov. Rod Blagojevich cut funding in August, may be back in fighting shape soon.
 
The Illinois House recently passed a bill that would double the money that CeaseFire lost last summer. However, the Senate still needs to give the bill the OK.
 
Will CeaseFire be celebrating nine years in 2009? It’s up to Emil Jones.
 
In the meantime, CeaseFire is reaching out to the public for aid and donations.

Last weekend, yet another cop allegedly broke the law. Cmdr. Wesley Scott, 47, was Cicero’s first black police officer, according to the Chicago Tribune. This garnered him both criticism from some camps and praise from others—like Time magazine.
 
All this could be lost if Scott fails a drug test. You see, while he was rolling in the neighborhood he was allegedly rolling something else—pot. Officers pulled him over for running a stop sign and found the remnants of a roach—and not the creepy crawly kind.
 
Apparently, Scott is an exemplary cop who has done a lot of good in the neighborhood. So, maybe the law will go easy on him.
 
Other cops have gotten away with similar escapades—take Edward Sanchez, a police officer from Dearborn, Mich. who arrested someone for possession, confiscated the marijuana, baked it into brownies and then called 911 in a drug-induced panic to proclaim: “We made brownies and I think we’re dead, I really do.”
 
Sanchez resigned, but no charges were pressed. The video of his 911 call, however, made him an Internet star.
 
Do you think that Scott’s track record as a good cop and good citizen should save him from reproof? Or do you think that he should get his just desserts (excluding brownies, of course)?
 

My sister told me a horrifying story last weekend that involved something called “organized stalking.”
 
My sister was riding the bus to work one day when the woman next to her struck up a conversation about the book that my sister was reading: Middlesex.
 
Innocuous, right? Wrong.
 
“That’s a book about a hermaphrodite, right?” the woman asked.
 
“I think so,” my sister replied. “I haven’t started reading it yet.”
 
“I was sexually assaulted by a hermaphrodite,” the woman said.
 
This is where most people would nod, become uncomfortable, and quickly put on their headphones.
 
But my sister– being a very nice person– probably looked concerned, prompting the woman to continue her tale.
 
Apparently, this woman believed herself to be the victim of organized stalking, which is a form of group intimidation—to the extreme. The hermaphrodite was only the beginning.
 
Victims of organized stalking believe that a group of people has set out to ruin their lives. My sister’s bus buddy thinks that American Airlines is also in on the plot—rifling through luggage for information on potential victims.
 
Here’s some signs to look for if you suspect that you’re being stalked in an organized fashion, courtesy of multistalkervictims.org.
 
Symptoms of organized stalking:

__ You find that all of your family, friendship,
and business relationships are going sour
and you have done nothing to cause this

 
Ok, according to this list I am most certainly being group stalked. I mean, my computer habitually goes crazy and turns itself on, kids are constantly doing annoying things around me like screaming or sneezing and I am unusually tired all the time…
 
But, well, that’s not wholly unusual, right? NONE of these things are wholly unusual. According to this list the whole world is most likely being stalked.
 
Paranoid, anyone?
 
Still, search for “Organized stalking” on Google and 6,700 pages come up—some seem legit, but many seem completely insane—like the one run by a woman who thinks that stalkers have trapped her cat on her bed using magnetic fields. O…k…
 
So, organized stalking: Is it a real form of intimidation or egomania?
 
But, more importantly: Should I start flying Southwest?
 
Here’s some more information for anyone who feels like they’re being watched:
 
Organized Stalking Introduction
 
StopOrganizedStalking.org
 
Book Review of Terrorist (Organized Stalking) in America

Someone REALLY didn’t want to go to school on Friday. Apparently, the student body at Kaneland High School got a day off on Friday because someone deflated one tire on each of District 302’s 40 buses.
 
According to chatter on the Topix message board, citizens are concerned that the tire slashing may be gang-related.
 
Others think that the incident was merely a prank—one that backfired, since students must make up the missed day at the end of the year.
 
It’s hard to tell what’s cause for worry and what isn’t in schools today.
 
Every day there’s new stories about kids getting violent at school. Just look at Angel Facio, 16, who was indicted Friday for aggravated criminal sexual assault, aggravated criminal sexual abuse and criminal sexual assault. This boy was not only charged with molesting an 8-year-old girl, he was also charged with stabbing his science teacher with a steak knife.
 
So, who’s to say that this prank doesn’t foretell more trouble? What do you think? Do you think Kaneland has cause to worry? Or were kids just being kids?

The world is full of people who profit from other people’s misfortune, a clichéd phrase but true. On Friday, Michael Spencer, 35, of Palatine was sentenced to 15 years in prison and fined $100,000 for paying girls cocaine to work as prostitutes. This man became a millionaire.
 
The Chicago Tribune quoted Shari Chandra, an assistant state’s attorney, as saying “He’s a dealer in women.”
 
Well, not only is he a dealer in women, he’s a dealer in drugs.
 
A CeaseFire outreach worker once told me that a lot of women get into prostitution because of drugs. A pimp will give them cocaine or heroin for free to get them hooked. Then, he’ll start asking for money. In order to pay for the drugs, these girls sell what they have—themselves.
 
The Center for Problem-Orienting Policing says that crack makes the prostitution issue even worse:
 
Crack cocaine markets drive down the price of street prostitution, as some prostitutes, desperate to buy drugs, sell sex cheaply. Other prostitutes resent them for driving down prices or permitting sex without condoms, and pimps punish them for withholding their earnings to buy drugs. Drug-dependent prostitutes are more vulnerable to violence and more likely to rob their clients. In summary, where drugs and street prostitution are linked, street prostitution becomes less predictable and more dangerous.
 
So, drugs and prostitution deal out a double blow. Take a look at this series of photos from the Hollywood Police Department showing the effects of drugs and prostitution on one woman over the years.
 
Women in the Victorian era became prostitutes in order to survive. This is what survival looks like today.

My LORD! The Drew Peterson case has marched even further into the Twilight Zone. Today, MSNBC reported that when Peterson appeared on WJMK-FM with Chicago radio host Steve Dahl, the ex-cop agreed to come back next Thursday and participate in “Win a Date with Drew Peterson.”
 
WJMK-FM general manager, Peter Bowen, said that “Win a Date” is out of the question—that Peterson and Brodsky asked the station to arrange the match game and that it was by no means the station’s idea. Brodsky begs to differ, crediting Dahl with the kitschy concept.
 
OK.
 
Let’s just take a minute to let this idea sink in: a dating show where the prize is a man with a.) Several ex-wives, b.) One mysteriously deceased ex-wife, c.) One missing current wife, d.) Do I really need to go on?
 
So… Who cares whose idea this was? What I want to know is why this idea was even introduced into the ether in the first place.
 
Just imagine Peterson on other popular dating shows:
 
NEXT:
Ever wish you could bail in the middle of a bad date? Well, NEXT is the MTV show that lets you do just that. We’ll set you up on 5 dates. The minute you get annoyed, angry or just plain bored, simply kick ‘em to the curb by saying “NEXT”, and start over with someone new.

 
Sounds like business as usual for Peterson.
 
Room Raiders:
The show about raiding closets and breaking hearts. This afternoon game show will let contestants decide who to date, based solely on the contents of their bedroom. Watch as one person is sent on a search mission in the bedrooms of three unsuspecting strangers who have no idea that someone will be searching through their things. Without a word of warning, armed with the right tools for the ultimate search (rubber gloves and tweezers, naturally) our searchers are raiding the rooms of three unsuspecting people who will have no time to prepare for the break-in.
 
He should be used to this by now.
 
Parental Control:
On each episode of Parental Control, one set of parents sends their pride and joy on two handpicked blind dates. Their hope? That one of the dates will catch their offspring’s eye, thus leading them to dump their current companion. The twist? Mom and dad will be watching every minute of each date while sitting side by side with their child’s current partner. Yup, they’ll all be on the couch like one big, uncomfortable family!
 
Actually, forget this one. He doesn’t stand a chance.

Ok, so I know is a crime blog, and automatically not fun. But, I thought we should lighten up (only a little) on Thursdays.
 
So, from now on I will post a crime-related song here, chosen by the readers. Here’s the first song, the ending montage from season one of The Wire, a show written by former Baltimore crime writer David Simon. The song is “Step by Step.” The artist, Jesse Winchester.
 
Please send along your suggestions for next week’s Thursday Crime Beat.
 
Note: If profanity bothers you, please be aware that this video contains some. It is an HBO show.
 

Today a boy was shot and wounded by a cop after he tried to bring a gun to school.
 
The boy fled when he set the metal detector off, and the cop shot the boy during the pursuit. The kid is still alive
 
The story got me wondering just exactly when metal detectors became the norm at high school, when they became necessary. I did a quick check and found that they were first introduced in 1994. Apparently, after the detectors and other measures were instituted, violent deaths decreased by 50 percent in U.S. high schools.
 
My high school introduced these measures the year after I left—2002. That year, they had a shooting scare. This wasn’t the first either– that one came when I still attended my old alma mater.
 
Someone left a message on the boy’s room wall saying that he would kill everyone the next day. One of the suspects was in my gym class. For some reason, this kid always talked to me. That day, he told me he didn’t do it.
 
I remember he had also recently burned stars onto the backs of his hands with red-hot cookie cutters.
 
He didn’t do it. But someone did. Maybe the guilty party didn’t mean it. Maybe it was a joke or an idle threat. Regardless, I stayed home the next day, because for every idle threat, there’s a kid who sets off metal detectors.

Chicago Police Supt. Jody Weis may be living up to his promise to clean up the CPD. Officer William J. Cozzi, 50, is supposed to hit the streets once more in April following a suspension. A suspension he was slapped with after beating up a man in a wheelchair. That’s right, a wheelchair.
 
Granted, the man who drunk and raising hell, but he was in a wheelchair.
 
Now, Weis is considering revoking Cozzi’s “Get out of Jail Free” card. The new superintendent was quoted in the Chicago Sun-Times as saying he will take a “hard, close look” at the case. Maybe then Cozzi’s suspension will be permanent.
 
What is going on with these cops? What leads them to rain down the blows on the weak and innocent? Maybe it’s the power? Or maybe it’s the stress? Or maybe these cops are just bad guys?
 
Take a look at some other examples of police brutality and let me know.
 
* Officers Larry Guy and Alexandra Martinez were charged with battery and official misconduct.
 
* Officer Christopher Darr is accused of beating a suspect involved in a New Year’s Day fight.
 
* Officer Anthony Abbate is charged with beating a female bartender (Video)