Chicago - A message from the station manager

The [Monday] Papers

By Steve Rhodes

“In early 2011, as the Chicago Police Department began re-investigating a homicide involving a nephew of Mayor Richard M. Daley, a high-ranking cop had a secret meeting with the retired detective who didn’t solve the case seven years earlier, according to records obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times.”
The conspiracy continues to unravel.


“The records show the meeting between Lt. Denis P. Walsh, a homicide case supervisor, and retired Det. Ronald E. Yawger took place in January 2011 – the same month Walsh reported Yawger’s original file on the David Koschman case was missing.
“Months later, that missing file ended up in a safe inside Walsh’s Northwest Side bungalow, the Sun-Times has reported.”
I believe the inference here is that Yawger told Walsh to stash the file. Or perhaps asked Walsh if he still had the file stashed.
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“There’s no record of the meeting in police files that have been released on the Koschman case. Nor is there any mention of the meeting in the 162-page report released in February by special prosecutor Dan K. Webb on Koschman’s death and two police investigations that found no cause to charge Daley nephew Richard J. ‘R.J.’ Vanecko, who pleaded guilty early this year to involuntary manslaughter. Webb wrote that Walsh and Yawger had exchanged calls and text messages over several months and then met at a North Side police station in June 2011.
“The revelation about the Walsh-Yawger meeting in January 2011 is buried in one of 900 e-mails on the Koschman case released to the Sun-Times by Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez’s office under the Illinois Freedom of Information Act.”
Maybe they should have met at the Pepper Canister.
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“Alvarez received the e-mail from the staff of city of Chicago Inspector General Joseph Ferguson on Oct. 28, 2011, when their offices were reviewing the case prior to Webb’s appointment. It contains a list of witnesses compiled by the inspector general’s office.
“According to Ferguson’s witness list, ‘Yawger told IGO during interview that in January 2011, Walsh came to see him about the re-investigation.’
“Nothing else is noted about the meeting, including where or the date it took place, what was discussed or why the two men met in person.”
Maybe it was at the Pepper Canister, then.
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“Asked about the meeting during a brief phone interview last week, Yawger – who retired with a pension from the police department in 2007 and now works as an investigator for Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan – said, ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.'”
Wait – Yawger works for Lisa Madigan now?
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“The Walsh-Yawger meeting has come to light as the two cops are facing a federal civil rights lawsuit filed by Koschman’s mother Nanci Koschman that accuses them and others of engaging in an ‘official cover-up’ and conspiring for more than a decade to keep Vanecko from being charged.”
So, wholly relevant.
“Also named in the suit are 18 other current or former members of the police department including former Supts. Phil Cline and Jody Weis, Cook County prosecutors including Alvarez and former State’s Attorney Richard Devine and unnamed Daley family members.”
Yay! Now here’s the bad news:
“City Hall has hired four law firms to fight the lawsuit, one of them hired solely to defend Walsh.”
That’s right – you and I are paying for the defense of the guy who has no idea what we’re talking about and the guy whose safe the missing file was found in.
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“Walsh is among six current Chicago cops Webb considered charging with crimes over their handling of the second investigation in early 2011.
“But Webb decided he didn’t have enough evidence under Illinois law to convict the six cops, including two officers he found had fabricated statements in police reports to portray Koschman as the aggressor during a drunken confrontation with Daley’s nephew on Division Street near Dearborn in April 2004.”
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Go read the rest for more on the most missing file ever – until it wasn’t.
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The Beachwood Radio Hour #20
The Murder Mayor, The Goofball Governor & The Twinkie As Metaphor For America.
Plus: CPS creates scary hovels out of safe havens; Judy Baar Topinka, God’s Special Creature; and Ferguson vs. Chicago – The Outrage Is In Your Face.
Schooled By JRW
In The White Sox Report.
The Cub Factor
Will appear on Tuesday.
SportsMonday: Shell-Shocked
Sorry, Bears fans, the road to the Super Bowl goes through Century Link Field.
Beachwood Sports Radio
Bearsgate vs. Tarpgate.
The Weekend In Chicago Rock
Featuring: DakhaBrakha, Flesh Panthers, My My My, The Brothers Gross, Zero Boys, Mickey, Midnight, La Armada, The Walking Shadows, Röyksopp & Robyn, Heavy Times, The Rubs, X_X, Home & Garden, MC Frontalot, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Steve Winwood, Tesla the Band, Passenger, Feed Me, Marco Antonio Solis, Train, and HEMI.
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BeachBook
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“[I]nstitutions create favored classes of insiders who develop a stake in the status quo and resist pressures to reform.
“In theory, democracy, and particularly the Madisonian version of democracy that was enshrined in the U.S. Constitution, should mitigate the problem of such insider capture by preventing the emergence of a dominant faction or elite that can use its political power to tyrannize over the country. It does so by spreading power among a series of competing branches of government and allowing for competition among different interests across a large and diverse country.
“But Madisonian democracy frequently fails to perform as advertised. Elite insiders typically have superior access to power and information, which they use to protect their interests.”
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$500,000.
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I’m making one for them right now.
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* FBI Scuttles Contested $500 Million, No-Bid Deal With Motorola.
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Captain Serious had been the 7-5 favorite.
* How Konami Got The Simpsons Arcade Game Right.
“[D]evelopment began in February 1990, and after a successful trial in Chicago, it was rolled out in American arcades on March 12th 1991.”
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The Beachwood Tip Line: Welp.

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Posted on August 25, 2014