Elgin! It’s time to pull the plug on the Police Task Force!

Elgin! It’s time to pull the plug on the Police Task Force!

When we see others as the enemy, we risk becoming what we hate. – Desmond Tutu

And that becoming what you loathe dynamic has completely co-opted the disastrous experiment known as The Elgin Community Task Force on Policing. Not even this semi-jaded journalist could’ve possibly imagined this pathetic group would go so completely off the rails and directly into full trainwreck status before issuing as much as one official proposal.

Despite my frequent admonitions against it, you can set your grandfather clock to a minority group becoming far worse than their “white oppressors” the second they get a taste of the same power.  Put more simply, if the guillotine was still in style I’m convinced that Elgin heads would already be rolling.

Every time task force members Walter Blalark and Kevin Zaldiver open their mouths it’s just another embarrassingly sanctimonious and self-serving diatribe about how they’ve been relentlessly harassed by law enforcement everywhere. Poor babies! Apparently their mothers told them life would always be fair, so the sole reason for their task force participation is to exact their warped version of revenge.

Their mothers failed to warn them about opening their mouths and removing all doubt, too.

Even my good friend Marcus Banner, one of the few task force voices of sanity, has fallen into the trap of recounting wrongs that occurred 20 long years ago. The question I would ask my generally thoughtful friend is, “How can that possibly be helpful?”

For reference purposes only, I’ll stack my 20 years of Federal harassment as the prime subject of the Unabomb investigation, not to mention the Geneva Police Department’s fascinating variety, against anyone on that task force. But as imperfect as I am – my readers tell me so – I still manage to maintain a reasonable law enforcement perspective.

And trust me, you haven’t been harassed until you’ve been FBI harassed. But enough about me because if I keep going I’ll start to sound just like Blalark and one of him is more than enough for any inhabited planet.

The group’s first unofficial proposal is for the City to install a nine-person civilian police oversight board with no fewer than five black members. I’ll pause to let that possibility sink in for a bit…

Really?

First, it’s patently illegal. And the incredible irony there is it’s the very laws that protect minorities that disallow these kinds of racial and ethnic government board quotas. And second, using our “flip-it” test, what the bleep do you think would happen if the task force stipulated that five of those board members had to be white?

All hell would break loose.

And five blacks? Considering Elgin’s racial and ethnic demographics, that’s a special kind of bigotry. Apparently, Hispanics don’t count in the City in the Suburbs. Even Asians now outnumber Elgin African Americans, so if you apply the appropriate representative math that board should consist of four Hispanics, three Caucasians, one Asian, and one black.

But wait, there’s more!

Veterans would also be banned from the board because, according to the task force, “They’re used to killing people who look different than them.” I have no words to adequately explain that theory other than to say there’s no bigotry like minority and progressive bigotry.

To absolutely no one’s surprise, both current and former law enforcement officers, as well as their families, would not be allowed to serve on the board. God forbid those snowflakes should have to endure a perspective other than their own – if you can call what they’ve managed to come up with a “perspective.”

Oh! And that’s not all! The task force want’s that group to have complete autonomy from City Hall and subpoena power to go along with that omniscience. What? No Bentleys for board members, too?

What could possibly go wrong with giving a group of overly entitled “woke” nitwits that kind of power? Isn’t this exactly the kinda of thing the task force has been railing against? Police departments with no real oversight? So, apparently the solution to the problem is the problem itself.

And subpoena power? Who’s gonna enforce it? The Elgin Police Department? Perhaps the task force should submit a proposal to start their own brownshirt militia, too.

Though I have my doubts about the City Council, thankfully, this won’t pass the EPD union collective bargaining laugh test, because if it did, the City of Elgin wouldn’t be able to recruit another police officer for the next 20 years. Isn’t the gig tough enough without having an “oversight” group bent your utter destruction breathing down your neck.

And please tell me, where are the “consultants,” Kearns and West, in all of this? Aren’t they supposed to be “moderating” this group instead of letting them run amok? Wouldn’t it have been far more prudent for them to nip these illegalities in the bud before they went public?

Elgin’s already paid these idiots $160,000 for the privilege of promoting these preposterous proposals and now Kearns and West wants another $94,000 to continue this charade. Unless you speak up now Elgin, you know damn well the City Council progressives will happily hand over that check.

For years I’ve been trying to explain that the basic problem with all-white male suburban police departments is their inherent lack of perspective. How can you begin to understand a minority mindset when there isn’t a single minority officer on the force?

So, I want to thank the task force for going out of their way to prove my point. With panel members intent on seeking their pound of blue flesh, and without a single law enforcement voice to provide some badly needed perspective, all you’ll ever get is something straight out of a dystopian Kafka novel.

And if this is the best 160 grand can buy, then it’s time for the Elgin City Council to pull the plug on this task farce before they further embarrass the city and completely destroy its reputation. This group has willfully become so much worse than everything they loathe through a false wokeness run rampant in the form of a bigotry worse than anything they’ve had to endure.

Should the progressive council posse – Tish Powell, Corey Dixon, John Steffen, and Carol Rauschenberger – persist in this irredeemable and irresponsible insanity, I will be more than happy to tie this political albatross around their necks for each and every upcoming election. And I’m pretty good at it, too. Ask Joe McMahon if he’s still state’s attorney.

But the real effort here has to come from you Elgin. This bullshit can only continue if you allow it to continue. The time to speak up and end this farce is now.

 

3 thoughts on “Elgin! It’s time to pull the plug on the Police Task Force!

  1. Hhhhmmmmmmmm . . .

    I believe an extreme psych evaluation should be given to ALL Police anually . . former military Bi-Annually . .

    I believe ALL Police should have their social media checked regularly and addressed by an internal committee . .

    I believe new recruits should be triply checked, recusing Bullies, Racists, Bigots, Sex offenders, Spousal abusers and Nazis . .

    I believe new recruits that were former military should be quadrupedally checked for all of the above . .

    When the Police commit a crime (i.e. MURDER) they should NOT be given paid time off but sit in jail like you or I would if we were accused of committing the same offence . .

    there’s more . . this is a good start . . . .

  2. My, my, my, where do I begin. It appears that you get most of your knowledge of what police do from television and the movies. That is a shame, those sources are all fantasy and have little to no use in reality. Let’s address your points, one, a psych eval is not the know all end all. You can test a person 5 times in one week and you will get 5 different results. These tests will give you at best a middle ground and show you the fringes, but none will tell you how a person will act under stress or in different situations. Why wouldn’t those sacred psych tests weed out the Bullies, Racists, Bigots, Sex offenders, Spousal abusers and Nazis. Maybe we should weed out Catholics and Jews too according to you. So, I would ask you which one of your Constitutional freedoms you want to give up to do your job? Freedom of speech one of them? So why when you get this job would you have to give it up.? And who would you have on this committee? Looks like you would have anti Constitutional people and police haters. I have heard something about police officers that you will find quite disturbing. Police officers are people too. That means they can make mistakes yet they are still afforded protections under the Law and the Constitution. I don’t know what you do for a living koko, but I am sure you are not micromanaged as much as the police are. The police operate under the US Constitution, State Constitution, State Statutes, Local Ordinances, Police and Fire Board Rules, Police Department Rules and Regulations and Police Department Standard Operating Procedures. That is 7 different sets of rules and laws. Yet you get a speeding ticket and you think they are out of control.

  3. Thought I would share this. From John Prigge – Former Elgin City Councilman Facebook page; who posted a link to your above First Ward Report. This is a response he received: >>Steve Starobrat This guy is amazing…he just cant hear how racist he is. “you can set your grandfather clock to a minority group becoming far worse than their “white oppressors” the second they get a taste of the same power.” We wouldn’t want them to have the same power ….now would we.<<

    To anger a conservative, lie to him. To anger a liberal, tell him the truth. – Teddy Roosevelt
    You hit the ball out of the park with that quote. Truth really angered Steve Starobrat.

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