Ka-ching!The Rev. Michael Pfleger, the activist peace priest who is fighting gun violence in the city’s at-risk South Side neighborhoods, has gone on Facebook to fight a cop.
• To wit: Pfleger is calling out Chicago Police detective Dante Servin, who was acquitted in the 2012 fatal shooting of Rekia Boyd, 22, for pulling the plug on his 22-year career Tuesday — two days before a termination hearing was set to begin.
“That’s outrageous. It’s all about money. By quitting early, he [Servin] took it out of the hands of the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA) and the Police Board.
“IPRA can’t do anything about this now, but the Chicago Police Board can — and we must now demand that his pension be revoked,” Pfleger added.
Stay tuned.
OPINION
The Lucas file . . .
Chewbacca on this!
Chicago, San Francisco and Los Angeles aren’t the only cities that have pitched wookiee woo to snag “Star Wars” czar George Lucas’ Museum of Narrative Art.
Sneed hears an overture for the Lucas Museum had also been made by Washington, D.C.
“It’s true, but the process of finding an appropriate site is still focused on Chicago, L.A. and San Francisco,” a top Sneed source said.
• Backshot: Earlier this week, it was reported San Francisco was re-wooing Lucas to build his museum on Treasure Island in San Francisco Bay.
• A strange hiccup: San Francisco Bay gazillionaire/philanthropist Marc Benioff, who heads the giant Salesforce software company — supports the Lucas Museum, but surprisingly took to tweetdom Tuesday to dispatch a “no way” message unless Lucas helped the city’s homeless, schools and hospitals.
• A bizarre twist: The tweet caused a bit of head-scratching because Lucas pledged in 2012 to donate a huge chunk of the $4 billion he made from selling Lucas film to educational charities. It also prompted a call from Lucas’ wife, Mellody Hobson, a major force behind the museum, to check out his concerns.
• Benioff told the San Francisco Chronicle: “They want to get their museum built for sure — and I think they are at a point where they will take it wherever they can get it.”
Lady and the Trump . . .
The Donald’s wife, Melania, is chock full of sizzling info: She told DuJour magazine she doesn’t think Bill and Hillary Clinton gave them a wedding gift, and uses the following adjectives to describe herself: “I’m not only a beauty, I’m smart. I have brains. I’m intelligent.”
The Trumpster dumpster . . .
Attorney Kent Gray, Donald Trump’s “dumped” Illinois campaign director (his contract wasn’t renewed in March), just had a formal complaint for dishonest conduct filed against him by the Attorney Registration and Disciplinary Commission (ARDC), which disciplines errant lawyers.
• Explanation: The ARDC alleges Gray did not comply with a 2014 order by a Sangamon County judge to provide various tax returns to the attorney of his wife, Aimee, during divorce proceedings. (The complaint also contends Gray did not file federal or state income tax returns for the years 2010 through 2014.)
• The flip side: Gray told Sneed the charge is “bogus” and “unfounded” and everything will be cleared up soon.
“The judge just felt I wasn’t entirely truthful with him by getting transcripts to him on time, but I can assure you I didn’t lie to him. There is a backstory to everything. Things take time to percolate through the system,” he added.
“I will have a response to the complaint next week.”
P.S. Gray is the guy who booked Trump’s disastrous UIC event canceled when protesters shut it down.
The Gray fray . . .
Meanwhile, Gray is preparing to run as a Trump delegate at the state Republican Convention in Peoria this weekend . . . “now that Trump is the presumptive nominee,” he said.
Be still my tongue.
Sneedlings . . .
I spy:Film director Spike “Chi-Raq” Lee was not only spotted huddling with Father Pfleger at Hugo’s Frog Bar on Saturday night, but he was spotted directing his crew to film the mass from his third-row seat at St. Sabina Sunday after interviewing victims of South Side violence the day before. . . . Today’s birthdays: Andrea Pirlo, 37, Kevin Garnett, 40, and Jay Levine, ageless.
