Cops are Such Little Boys

This time, for serious. In Chicago, a 14 year old somehow got a hold of a police uniform, walked into a police station and was sent out on patrol, in a car, with a partner. He completed a five hour shift before he was found out and arrested. What the what?

The AP describes the boy as "muscular" and 5' 3". He plead not guilty today to impersonating an officer. Apparently the kid is obsessed with the police.

The real story here is the security breach allowed by the police force this kid infiltrated, well, and the fact that he's obsessed with police, someone should give him a good talking to. At least he didn't taser or intimidate anyone.

COP LOVE FREE STARBUCKS!

Check out this sweet one from Chicago. A plain clothes police officer in Chicago had been popping in to her local Starbucks looking to get a little sweet sugary handout. Apparently, she got a little resistance now and then and decided she could be more persuasive if she flashed her badge and her GUN(!!!) to the employees. This seems to have all gone down between 2001 and 2005 (not really sure why it's just making the news now). The officer claims she never demanded free coffee and snacks and definitely never flashed her gun. However, she was suspended for over a year and ordered into counseling after being found guilty of theft by a police board.

Protesting Rainforest Destruction

Yesterday, a group of protesters hung a 50-foot banner on the Board of Trade building in Chicago. The targets of the protest were Archer-Daniels-Midland (a large sponsor of PBS programming by the way), Bunge, and Cargill, three large agribusinesses. In order to hang the banner a number of the protesters scaled the outside of the building up to the 23rd floor. Pretty intense.

The day before, Tuesday October 9th, the group purchased an ad in the Chicago Tribune naming the three companies as the "ABCs of rainforest destruction". The three companies responded to the accusation with what can be best described as "cluck-squawk-huh", aka, we care about the environment even though we clear cut the rainforest.

Chicago Gives Up On WiFi

The city of Chicago's plans to provide city wide WiFi were scrapped because of the cost. The city was in negotiations with EarthLink, Inc. to build and provide the system.

Because the city realized a large portion of the project would have to be publicly financed, the city backed out of its plans. This is too bad. The digital divide is a big problem and this would have been a great advance in bridging the divide. You can check out a previous post about bringing WiFi to Harlem and the implications of the digital divide right here.