travesty of justice is about right

my firsthand experience with chicago police officers has been, mercifully, limited. really, aside from the one time they mistakenly thought i was an auto thief, pulling me over and descending upon my own car swat-style, with guns drawn – they’ve pretty much left me alone. i’ve had a couple bogus tickets stuck under the windshield wiper of my car, and been unable to rectify the situation (because the system to challenge tickets is rigged in favor of the ticket givers, not the recipients, and i didn’t have “a guy” on the inside) – but that might have been overzealous parking enforcement persons. anyway, that’s the way it is in chi, and i don’t see it changing any time soon. i can’t honestly say whether most chicago cops are honest and respect the law they’ve been hired to uphold – or whether they let their power over citizens go to their heads a little bit. i do know, living in close proximity to a cop shop, that patrol cars are routinely the most blatant traffic law offenders. but whether moving violations are a gateway drug to more serious infractions, i can’t rightly say. i’d like to believe there are more good cops than bad ones, yet i’ve also been accused (rightly) of being naive before. regardless, after reading so much about the horrible things some of the men in blue have done, i gotta say, it pleases me quite a bit to see headlines like this one: former chicago police commander arrested.

i think neil steinberg in the sun-times today sums up quite nicely how i feel about this.