Cops and Robbers

 Chicago police have long been notorious for bribery and other forms of corruption.  That's why the feds sent in Elliot Ness to tackle Al Capone, all the local cops had been bought off.  I remember there was a big scandal about cops taking bribes when I was a kid.  I don't remember if anything ever came out of it, for all I know they're still doing it.  One thing they did was rig the blue bubble lights on top of the squad cars so that they recorded every time the light was turned on.  If, at the end of his shift, a cop had turned on his light more times than he had written tickets, he had some 'splaining to do.  The way the cops dealt with that was, they didn't use the bubble light any more than was absolutely necessary.  If they wanted to pull you over, they would honk their horn and flash their headlights.  That might mean they just wanted to talk to you about something or give you a warning.  If the blue bubble light was on, however, you knew you were going to get a ticket, do not pass "Go" do not collect $200.

Then there was the case of Richard Morrison the Babbling Burglar.  I wasn't sure if I remembered it correctly, so I looked it up to be sure.  Wiki didn't know what I was talking about, but Cortana took me right to it.  Man, that girl is good!  Turned out that I remembered it pretty well, except that I thought he had died in that assassination attempt.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2013-07-07-ct-per-flash-summerdale-0707-20130707-story.ht

Old Dog brought up some good points in his latest post, one being that cops mostly deal with criminals and other cops, which is bound to affect their general attitudes.  I remember when I was subbing for the day shift custodian at the junior high and this bunch of grown men showed up a 5:00 AM to play basketball.  After an hour or so of this foolishness, they showered, shaved, and dressed for work.  They were all cops, city, county, and state.  I wondered who was protecting Cheboygan while all these guys were playing around like a bunch of kids, but I suppose that 5:00 AM is a slow time in the police business.  My buddy and I used to get up at that hour to go fishing at Marquette and Sherman parks, and that was the safest time to ride a bicycle on the streets of Chicago.  Little traffic and no hoodlums, we had the park to ourselves.