Posts Tagged ‘Chicago’

Detective: fraudsters broke limbs of supposed crash victims

Also from the draft-post archives, this time 2003: was it just too grotesque? Detective Ken Bigg “said that in an attempt to ward off suspicion from insurance companies, the [Chicago-area] crew would alternate between breaking arms and legs” of the victims they would then insert into staged crash scenes. “Bigg said police only learned of the scam when authorities at various homeless shelters began calling to report unusual numbers of residents showing up with broken arms or legs,” and that “the homeless ‘victims,’ who were often recruited from shelters, rarely saw much of [the] money, receiving ‘anything from nothing to $1,500’ on settlements that ranged from $10,000 to $100,000 apiece.” [AP/Northwest Indiana Times; one defendant reportedly nicknamed “Bonecrusher”; more on claims fraud]

Schools roundup

  • “Sen. Kamala Harris introduces bill to lengthen school day by three hours” [Yelena Dzhanova, CNBC]
  • “The Hidden Costs of Chicago’s Teacher Strike” [John McGinnis, Liberty and Law]
  • “The logic behind school busing is back. And so is flight from government-operated schools.” [Matt Welch, Reason, mentioning new report on controlled choice by David Armor for the Cato Institute Center for Educational Freedom]
  • Ambition of suppressing or even banning private schooling [earlier] by no means confined to the UK’s loony-Left Labour Party, so be ready for it [Ira Stoll, Education Next]
  • “The Seattle school district is planning to infuse all K-12 math classes with ethnic-studies questions that encourage students to explore how math has been ‘appropriated’ by Western culture and used in systems of power and oppression” [Catherine Gewertz, Education Week; “framework” via Amir Sariaslan on Twitter]
  • “Threatening Teachers’ Ability to Control Their Classrooms: The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights gets it wrong on school discipline.” [Gail Heriot] Survey finds significant rise in number of teachers attacked by students [Hans Bader; earlier here, etc.] More: Max Eden, Quillette.

Wage and hour roundup

  • After Target, under pressure from activists, announced a $15 companywide minimum wage, “workers say they’ve had their hours cut and lost other benefits, such as health insurance.” [Eric Boehm, Reason]
  • New Chicago scheduling ordinance is “the ultimate intrusion of government in the workplace.” [Chicago Tribune editorial; Allen Smith, SHRM; Fisher Phillips]
  • “As predicted, the $15 wage is killing jobs all across the city” [New York Post editorial; Billy Binion, Reason; Michael Saltsman and Samantha Summers, Crain’s New York letter (defenders of hike playing fast and loose with numbers) ]
  • The Federalist Society held a teleforum with Tammy McCutchen of Littler Mendelson on the lower courts’ reception of the Supreme Court’s decision one year ago in Encino Motorcars on FLSA interpretation [earlier]
  • By next year I expect Left Twitter to be asserting in the alternative that this famous Seattle restaurant 1) never existed, 2) remains open and has no plans to close, and 3) was sunk by issues unrelated to the minimum wage. [Jason Rantz, KTTH (Sitka & Spruce)] More on restaurants: Legal Insurrection (closure of West Coast chain); Tyler Cowen (NBER working paper on what kinds of restaurants are most likely to be affected);
  • “In the past five years, nearly two-thirds of companies have faced at least one labor and employment class action and, overwhelmingly, companies report that wage and hour matters are their top concern in this category.” [Insurance Journal, Carlton Fields Class Action Survey]

Schools and childhood roundup

Law enforcement for profit roundup

After a mechanic took it on an unauthorized ride, Chicago impounded her car. And then….

Her car was in the shop for work when a mechanic drove it on an expired license. What the city of Chicago did to her then shouldn’t happen to anyone [Elliott Ramos, WBEZ/ProPublica, Institute for Justice on its suit representing Veronica Walker-Davis and Jerome Davis, earlier]

An especially outrageous angle from an earlier Ramos/WBEZ story, quoted in our earlier coverage: “Chicago has impounded and sold off nearly 50,000 cars for unpaid tickets since 2011. Not a dime of the sales went toward the ticket debt; instead, the city and its towing contractor pocketed millions.”

How Illinois is that?

A very Illinois situation: “An Illinois union lobbyist can keep the public pension windfall he qualified for by spending one day as a substitute teaching, the Illinois Supreme Court has ruled.” [Ray Long, Chicago Tribune via its Twitter]

More on Illinois public employee pensions: “More than 19,000 Illinois Government Retirees Receive Pensions Over $100K” [Janelle Cammenga, Illinois Policy] “Mapping the $100,000+ Illinois Teacher Pensions Costing Taxpayers Nearly $1.0 Billion” [Adam Andrzejewski, Forbes 2016] “Top 200 Illinois Municipal Retirement Fund Pensions as of 2017” [Taxpayers United (park district employees score highly in $150K+ annual pension listings)] (via @TwoBoysCapital on Twitter)

Meanwhile, so delightfully Chicago: “JUST IN: Lawyer for ex-Ald. Willie Cochran ask for six months home confinement, saying ‘”since sending previous aldermen to jail has not done anything to curb Chicago’s tidal wave of aldermanic corruption cases, there is no reason to think that sending Mr. Cochran to jail will.'” [Chicago Tribune reporter Jason Meisner on Twitter]