The Best Local Columnist, Who Might it Be?

Constitutionality of stop and frisk wasn't the point of this thread, or even that column, but, noted.

It's interesting (perhaps only to me) that the columnist some regard as the titan of city-side columnists was someone who'd be viewed today as a peddler of conservative wrongthink.

 

It isn`t that the police wouldn`t like to do more. But thanks to the zeal of various lawyers, civil libertarians and judges, the gangbangers now laugh at the cops.

A few years ago, they didn`t laugh much. They didn`t have time to even giggle. That`s when the police gang unit hassled them on sight. Any time they stuck their heads out the door, they ran the risk of being hauled in and charged with disorderly conduct.

It was only a misdemeanor, almost always dropped in court. But it kept them hopping and looking over their shoulders, which prevented some shootings and resulted in a lot of weapons being confiscated.

But lawyers went to federal court and pursuaded a judge that this was harassment and a terrible violation of the gangbangers` constitutional rights. It probably was a violation, although I`m not sure how terrible it was. A bullet in an infant`s head is far more damaging than a few hours in a police lockup.

So the federal judge said that the police could no longer violate the rights of some vicious punk who might have an Uzi hidden under his jacket.

Then there was the time Mayor Jane Byrne decided that the Cabrini-Green housing complex shouldn`t be the country`s biggest outdoor shooting gallery. Kids were dropping like bowling pins as the gangs went after each other.

So Byrne flooded the place with cops. They seized guns and dope, locked up punks and the body count promptly dropped to zero.

But the cry went up from lawyers, street workers and gangbangers` mothers that Byrne was turning Cabrini-Green into a police state.

 

When someone writes it was probably a violation, I think that's acknowledging the unconstitutionality of the issue. But that's JMO.

And I agree on the nature of stop and frisk. Noted.

 

Rex Huppke of the Chicago Tribune is excellent. (And no, I’m not Rex.)

 

Easy call. Mike Royko.

 

Advocating for it anyway, knowing it's unconstitutional, is likely why he incited "protest."

 

Also, good as he was, Royko wasn't the only great local columnist in history.

Breslin, Hartman, Hiassen, Caen, Barry, Ivins, Grizzard, et al, ad inf.

How about Falkenburg, Messenger, Archibald, Stockman, Schmich or Williams?

 

I like Mellinger and Vahe at the KC Star and Ben Frederickson at the Post-Dispatch.

I used to read Bianchi and Greene in Orlando, and Leonard Pitts, and Joel Achenbach and a bunch of others from around the country. Pretty much liked them all. I can’t afford subscriptions to all those papers, so I’ve cut back to sports subs and a NYT sub.

 

I haven't lived in Chicago for many years, but I remember getting hassled on the street by a trio of plainclothes cops in an unmarked car in the early '70s. Probably the Gang Squad, although they also had a Red Squad: "Empty your pockets." "What's this shit?" Etc., etc. Fortunately for me I was a white kid, so the hassle was only verbal, not physical.

If you want to get Royko's take on cops back then, read "Boss." He paints them as corrupt graft-takers. You want to avoid a speeding ticket? To paraphrase, "I've got three pencils, a $10 pencil and two $20 pencils. I think you need a $10 pencil, don't you?" The $20 pencils were for prostitutes giving blow jobs in the back of the corner bar.

When I see a TV show that paints Chicago cops like phalanx of heroes, I have to laugh. Even Hollywood can't erase history. The Meaning of "16 Shots," the Phrase Chicago's Urban Prep Chanted at Mayor Rahm Emanuel
Fred Hampton - Wikipedia

 

I've read Boss. Great stuff.

My the 90s, the end of Royko's career, more than a few of his columns sounded, however, like what this board would call shitposting. Not because of how he wrote them, but what he thought.

 

Nope.

 

It’s been years since I’ve been a regular reader, but Mark Woods did/does a nice job in Jacksonville.
Definitely not one to delve into local politics or other third rails, though.