Fine for impersonating officer could increase
The fine for impersonating a Chicago police officer would rise to as much as $1,000 under a City Council ordinance introduced Wednesday. After a 14-year-old boy tricked police into briefly accepting him as one of their own last month, Ald. James Balcer (11th) learned that the fine for pretending to be an officer is as low as $10 and no higher than $100. Balcer said police told him there were 33 cases of impersonating an officer in the past year.
Time to start paying up more for parking
Change at the meters starts Friday.
The increases are part of a 75-year lease that city leaders recently approved with a new private operator. The timetable for the initial increases:
*Loop: $3.50/hour starting Friday.
*Near North, Near West and Near South: $2/hour starting Saturday.
*Lincoln Park: $1/hour Feb. 18-19.
*North Side: $1/hour Feb. 20-28.
*West Side: $1/hour March 1-2.
*South Side: $1/hour March 5-9.
Ex-priest sentenced for having sex with boy
A prominent former Catholic priest convicted of taking a boy on religious retreats to have sex with him was sentenced Wednesday to 25 years in prison. Calling the crime”a very, very serious sin,” U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer went above the maximum of what federal sentencing guidelines called for in sentencing defrocked priest Donald McGuire, 78. McGuire did not apologize anddescribed himself as nearing the end of his life.
Onlooker stops attack with shovel
A good Samaritan beat a man over the head with a shovel Wednesday after witnessing the man stab a woman during a domestic-related attack on a North Side street, police said. Police responded to a call of a person stabbed in the 5300 block of North Hoyne Avenue. “A good Samaritan grabbed a shovel from the back of his truck and struck the [attacker] in the back of the head,” said Chicago Police Officer Daniel O’Brien.
