Burke, Cops Spotted on Wisconsin Golf Course

Here’s an Ed Burke anecdote from the blog Second City Cop, which describes itself as “Sarcasm and Silliness From A Windy City Cop”:

On Friday I attended the O'hare golf outing at Elkhart Wi. A city car pulls up to the bag drop off. Out comes two officers in suits. One officer go to the trunk and takes out a set of golf clubs.

The other opens the rear door and out pops Alderman Burke. Burke then golfs the outing. Does he really need CPD protection to drive him to golf outings out of state???   After all that recent drama and debate about whether or not Burke needs a bodyguard detail, here he is pulling up to a golf outing in Wisconsin in a city vehicle with two Chicago Police Officer escorts? That's definitely some arrogance.

Earlier this year, Burke stopped efforts to remove his police detail by pointing out that he was granted protection by a court order, and can’t have it taken away without another court order.

But let’s remember that Burke was given protection in the 1980s because of threats he received due to his opposition to Mayor Harold Washington in the City Council’s racially-motivated Council Wars.

According to the census, there is not a single African-American in Elkhart Lake, Wis. If there’s one place Burke doesn’t need protection from a madman still holding a grudge about a quarter-century old racial conflict, it’s Elkhart Lake.   

I suspect Burke holds onto the police detail for the same reason he wears expensive cufflinks and nests his coffee cup in a saucer monogrammed “EMB”: he wants to look like a big shot. That’s going to be a problem no matter how much time passes, or where he travels. 

Buy this book! Ward Room blogger Edward McClelland's book, Young Mr. Obama: Chicago and the Making of a Black President , is available Amazon. Young Mr. Obama includes reporting on President Obama's earliest days in the Windy City, covering how a presumptuous young man transformed himself into presidential material. Buy it now!

Contact Us