Jana Kinsman could have been killed in Logan Square area last night by driver and pals thinking they're funny

Basically, some dudes in a purple tahoe grabbed her while she was on her bike and pulled her along next to the car while she was screaming for her life.

Here's her twitter story, storified: http://storify.com/abughat/wtf

If anyone can get info or ideas for further help, please share! Be safe out there, friends.

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Permalink Reply by BK on August 21, 2013 at 3:26pm

Exact same thing happened to me on Milwaukee @ Central Park on the way to work in the early morning hours in February 2012.  Different vehicle though.  I filed a police report too, but nothing ever came of it.  I spoke to the detective assigned to the case and he didn't seem too interested in pursuing anything, not that there was much.  I didn't get the license plate.  Sucks.

Permalink Reply by Adam Herstein on August 21, 2013 at 4:21pm

What the hell is wrong with people?

On a side note, I tried to report an assault about a year ago (cabbie tried to run me off the road), but the cops refused to file a report, claiming that trying to hit someone with a car was not assault. It's nice to know that at least Sgt. Andruzzi apparently agrees with me:

A more serious form of harassment is assault, when verbal threats occur or when someone is using their car as a deadly weapon.

Permalink Reply by Adam Herstein on August 22, 2013 at 3:46am
Permalink Reply by Jason W on August 22, 2013 at 4:29am

The case has been classified as aggravated battery. The offenders have not been found, and there have been no arrests, so no one has been charged. You really got my hopes up there.

Adam Herstein (5.5 mi) said:

Permalink Reply by Jason W on August 22, 2013 at 4:32am

The sarge makes some excellent points. The difference between harassment and assault is important and everyone should know what that means. Report assault and battery! No victim, no crime. And last, you DO have the right to defend yourself!

Permalink Reply by Active Transportation Alliance on August 22, 2013 at 4:54am

Adam, we are sorry to hear about your experience with the police. In those situations, we recommend contacting the desk sergeant in that district with the names/badge numbers of the officers if possible. And you can always email us info @ activetrans.org with any additional follow-up and we can try to help with outreach of our own to the district.

Thanks, 

Ethan, Active Trans

Adam Herstein (5.5 mi) said:

What the hell is wrong with people?

On a side note, I tried to report an assault about a year ago (cabbie tried to run me off the road), but the cops refused to file a report, claiming that trying to hit someone with a car was not assault. It's nice to know that at least Sgt. Andruzzi apparently agrees with me:

A more serious form of harassment is assault, when verbal threats occur or when someone is using their car as a deadly weapon.

Permalink Reply by Eli on August 22, 2013 at 5:09am

Adam's experience is entirely consistent with my own attempts to report driver assaults. In one case the driver actually got out of the car and punched me, in a situation where I was a pedestrian in the LFT-Montrose crosswalk. I was repeatedly hung up on by multiple cops (and if you think you can get a badge number from a cop over the phone, you're living in a different world than I am) and strongly discouraged from filing a report when I finally visited the station in person. I did persist in filing the report but of course the promised followup call from a detective never came. Would be nice if the CPD spent half as much time doing what it claims to do as it does on these bullshit PR puff-pieces wherein it claims to do them.

Permalink Reply by blair on August 22, 2013 at 5:18am

Agree.

Took CPD over an hour to respond to my hit-and-run in the Kinzie PBL last year... the reason it turned into a hit-and-run.


Eli said:

Would be nice if the CPD spent half as much time doing what it claims to do as it does on these bullshit PR puff-pieces wherein it claims to do them.

Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on August 22, 2013 at 6:52am

I'd also like to see CPD respond better.  However, I know that there's a big shortage of detectives right now (many retirements and few promotions in recent years).  How do I know this? My next door neighbor is a homicide detective. He and others have told me about how many retirements they've seen in the last 5 years and how much their caseloads have exploded due to lack of new detectives (almost none) in that time frame.  Priority is usually given to homicides, sexual assaults and other incidents that are deemed the most violent/serious on the list of cases needing investigation.  It really sucks that so many cases don't get follow-up. The manpower shortage is a major factor in this problem.

Now that a few recent classes have gone through the police academy and are out on the streets, there will be more promotions in the works to help ease the shortage created by retirements.  The problem won't get solved right away, but we should see improvement (hopefully) over the next few years.

Eli said:

Adam's experience is entirely consistent with my own attempts to report driver assaults. In one case the driver actually got out of the car and punched me, in a situation where I was a pedestrian in the LFT-Montrose crosswalk. I was repeatedly hung up on by multiple cops (and if you think you can get a badge number from a cop over the phone, you're living in a different world than I am) and strongly discouraged from filing a report when I finally visited the station in person. I did persist in filing the report but of course the promised followup call from a detective never came. Would be nice if the CPD spent half as much time doing what it claims to do as it does on these bullshit PR puff-pieces wherein it claims to do them.

Permalink Reply by Crazy David 84 Furlongs on August 22, 2013 at 7:10am

Yet another residue of the Parking Meter lease.  Under the terms of the lease the CPD cannot "order" its officers to stop enforcing parking meter and other similar violations as this would trigger payments under the lease. 

Add to this the manpower crunch caused by the horrible gun, gang, and drug problems on the South and West sides and the over policing of the "tourist areas", it is not at all surprising that the City doesn't have the people or resources to address all but the most egregious cases.  In large parts of the North Side, its really a question of people following the rules voluntarily.   

And, of course, this is one of the real reasons behind speed and stoplight cameras....  they provide some degree of enforcement without tying up actual cops.  Not that the overly paranoid auto community would think so.  On some on-line boards they are complaining that the speed limit was only raised to 80 mph and should have been to 100 mph (and that the speed limit on Foster should be 55 or 60....   )



Anne Alt said:

I'd also like to see CPD respond better.  However, I know that there's a big shortage of detectives right now (many retirements and few promotions in recent years).  How do I know this? My next door neighbor is a homicide detective. He and others have told me about how many retirements they've seen in the last 5 years and how much their caseloads have exploded due to lack of new detectives (almost none) in that time frame.  Priority is usually given to homicides, sexual assaults and other incidents that are deemed the most violent/serious on the list of cases needing investigation.  It really sucks that so many cases don't get follow-up. The manpower shortage is a major factor in this problem.

Now that a few recent classes have gone through the police academy and are out on the streets, there will be more promotions in the works to help ease the shortage created by retirements.  The problem won't get solved right away, but we should see improvement (hopefully) over the next few years.

Permalink Reply by Adam Herstein on August 22, 2013 at 7:19am

It is for this exact reason that I have a camera rolling at all times when I ride.

I don't believe we're conflating at all here. What happened to me and Eli was assault. What happened to Jana was battery. There's no such thing as "attempted aggression". Either someone is threatening or not. Any threat of violence, verbal or otherwise, is considered assault. Once physical contact is made, it becomes a different issue altogether.

h' 1.0 said:

That sucks.... but we're conflating situations with actual physical aggression with acts that appeared to be attempted aggression here. I am not questioning Adam's perception that the cabbie acted deliberately and aggressively in his situation, but without actual contact with the cab it's going to end up being a "your word against thers" situation and is not going to be considered worth devoting resources to by the majority of cops.

Eli said:

Adam's experience is entirely consistent with my own attempts to report driver assaults. In one case the driver actually got out of the car and punched me, in a situation where I was a pedestrian in the LFT-Montrose crosswalk. I was repeatedly hung up on by multiple cops (and if you think you can get a badge number from a cop over the phone, you're living in a different world than I am) and strongly discouraged from filing a report when I finally visited the station in person. I did persist in filing the report but of course the promised followup call from a detective never came. Would be nice if the CPD spent half as much time doing what it claims to do as it does on these bullshit PR puff-pieces wherein it claims to do them.

Permalink Reply by Jason W on August 22, 2013 at 8:01am

CPD would never order officers to stop enforcing parking. Parking violation money goes to the city. Also, it's the revenue guys that write 99% of the tickets, not cops, so they aren't diverting manpower to ticket writing.

Speeding and stoplight cams generate revenue, not safety. And they generate that revenue at low cost. Also the speed limit was raised from 65 to 70, not 80. They should have raised it more.

Crazy David 84 Furlongs said:

Yet another residue of the Parking Meter lease.  Under the terms of the lease the CPD cannot "order" its officers to stop enforcing parking meter and other similar violations as this would trigger payments under the lease. 

Add to this the manpower crunch caused by the horrible gun, gang, and drug problems on the South and West sides and the over policing of the "tourist areas", it is not at all surprising that the City doesn't have the people or resources to address all but the most egregious cases.  In large parts of the North Side, its really a question of people following the rules voluntarily.   

And, of course, this is one of the real reasons behind speed and stoplight cameras....  they provide some degree of enforcement without tying up actual cops.  Not that the overly paranoid auto community would think so.  On some on-line boards they are complaining that the speed limit was only raised to 80 mph and should have been to 100 mph (and that the speed limit on Foster should be 55 or 60....   )

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