Via an email from a reader:
Last night thieves stole an industrial air conditioning unit off the roof of the Animal Welfare League‘s intake facility at 62nd and S. Wabash, endangering the lives of hundreds of animals just in time for a super-hot holiday weekend…
__
The League’s looking for foster folks who can take in an animal for the weekend. If you’d like to share your hot dogs with some hopefully not-so-hot dogs, you can contact the League at 312-909-9680 for more info.
ETA: Pared down at the request of Chicago Reader’s editor; you can still click the link for more.
kc
I sent’em some money.
stuckinred
This shit is rampant in Atlanta and they get peanuts for the copper.
irmaladuce
This shelter is in one of the poorest areas of the city, full of desperate people. So the snide ellipses used dehumanize the thieves are fucking gross.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
Sent Trio some money. Every little bit has to help some.
Cheers,
Scott.
IP Guy
Here’s more on this story, which is genuinely awful: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-thieves-take-animal-shelters-air-conditioning-units-20110701,0,5117767.story?track=rss
Also, the original Chicago Reader story that is quoted above has been updated if you click on the link.
stuckinred
Damn, I sent em some dough but they want way too much info. Here comes more email bombs!
jacy
.
Really? I think they did a pretty good job of dehumanizing themselves. Fuck them.
I’m sending the word out for donations. Have some contacts in the Chicago area.
slag
Thieves can be assholes too.
stuckinred
irmaladuce
Is this better? Sorry ass motherfuckers.
Alison
I’m in CA but I have a few FB friends in the area (and others who aren’t but know people who are), so I posted there to boost the signal.
And irmaladuce, I (as others) took the ellipses as a sort of “I want to say shitheads here but I’ll digress from cursing” kind of thing. And really…I couldn’t give a fuck about the hurt little feelings of thieves who put the lives of a bunch of animals at risk for a few bucks.
Jewish Steel
@irmaladuce: Yeah, those thieves are real heroes. So are you.
jo6pac
Yep the new Amerika no jobs, no UI, no food stamps, so you have to do something. This is a problem in Calif. also and has been a problem for a couple of yrs. You all should be glad you aren’t one of the above.
irmaladuce
“
The lawSocial mores, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich and the poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.”What is the point of taking rhetorical potshots at poor people?
Jewish Steel
@irmaladuce
There isn’t a scrap of evidence, rhetorical or otherwise, that the author had any class-malice in mind. Anything other than a sense of disgust at those who put the already powerless and disadvantaged animals harms way.
The poor deserve a better champion than halfwits like you.
wobblybits
@irmaladuce: Taking that which belongs to someone else who has paid for said object with their own hard earned money will invite my scorn every mother fuckin time.
Catsy
@irmaladuce:
On a blog that features matoko_chan, Bender, and various other sanity-challenge individuals, I can safely say that this is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen written on this site. You are a fucking thoughtless imbecile.
Nobody is taking rhetorical pot shots at poor people.
We are taking rhetorical pot shots at thieves who stole and sabotaged the air conditioning units for an animal shelter and put the lives of every animal within at risk. This isn’t even a question of innocent until proven guilty until there’s an actual suspect: the fucking AC unit didn’t steal itself. And the animals sure as shit didn’t do it.
Seriously. Fuck them. And fuck you while we’re at it. Go concern troll somewhere else, preferably on a subject that doesn’t make you look like you were beaten in the womb with a baseball bat made of frozen stupid.
Alison
Irmaladuce – If these were poor people desperate for food or rent money or something, I could certainly forgive them stealing food from a store or whatnot…but they chose instead to steal the fucking A/C from an ANIMAL SHELTER in the fucking SUMMER. They could have take an A/C from a million other places where the theft wouldn’t put the lives of completely innocent animals at risk. But they chose to do this, for whatever reason, and so even though they might be poor and in dire need, that does not mean they are not also assholes.
If a starving person snatched food from a toddler’s hands, I’d feel bad that he/she was starving, and I’d also call them a turdface for stealing from a child. Being an asshole is not the domain of only the well-off and non-oppressed. It is the one thing we can all share, sadly enough.
wobblybits
@Catsy: I’m going to have to steal that last line. Fortunately, I won’t have to wait long to use it.
Amir_Khalid
@irmaladuce:
These particular poor people, if indeed they are poor, are thieves who stole, not a loaf of bread that they needed to eat, but a fairly large $10,000 A/C unit from an animal shelter, while damaging another unit beyond repair. Presumably they had some sort of vehicle in which to haul the A/C unit away, as well as also had the means to strip it down for salable metals — which suggests their desperation was less than immediate.
BO_Bill
These youths are becoming more brash and seem to cross new lines of depravity everyday. We were all outraged when they broke the leg of our iconic editor of The Onion, Emily Guendelsberger. Now they are stealing shit from animal shelters. We must stand up to this menace or our film festivals will be next.
Remember the puppies!
Joy
I’m sending a check to help. Thanks for letting us know about the need.
Catsy
@wobblybits: As great as that line indeed is, I cannot claim it as mine (around 3:10).
irmaladuce
None of you wonder what the hell kind of life a PERSON must be living to steal an big ass industrial air conditioner for scrap metal? Maybe y’all just don’t get what 62nd and Wabash means.
Is it this just the white folks and their animals thing? The Micheal Vick deserves the death penalty thing? Would it have been better if they had stolen an air conditioner use to cool the home of people?
Well, I hope you guys and the Chicago Reader enjoyed your 2 minute hate on some poor, desperate people.
Catsy
No, can’t say as I really do. You know why? Because it doesn’t fucking excuse what they did. I don’t know why they did it, and I don’t give a shit what their rationalizations were. I’ve been desperately poor and hungry. I’ve been on the streets with no home and nowhere to go. Somehow I managed to get through that without jacking an AC from an animal shelter.
And unless you personally know the people who did it and their circumstances–or are one of them yourself–you don’t know what their reasons were either. Which puts you in the position of completely fabricating this speculative fantasy of downtrodden, desperate poor people coordinating a cunning operation to remove an industrial AC unit from the roof of a building and somehow get it down to a getaway vehicle–but somehow it’s not their fault, because they’re poor and desperate, and we’re being disgusting meanie-heads for calling them out for the assholes they are.
Put simply: you are either inventing this out of whole cloth but really know nothing about the circumstances of the perpetrators, or you actually know something about this crime and John ought to forward your IP to the authorities. Take your pick.
Concern troll is concerned. Save it for someone who’s buying what you’re selling.
slag
Actually, I suspect the multiple minutes of hate on you was probably more enjoyable since it was so obviously well-deserved. At this moment, the thieves are an abstraction. You, however, have now shown yourself to be a palpable asshole.
wobblybits
@irmaladuce: Nevermind. Not going to waste my breath.
Amir_Khalid
@irmaladuce #23:
Have you wondered what sort of resources it would take to disconnect and haul away an industrial A/C unit? I’m guessing you’d need a pretty good set of tools and a pickup truck. Maybe a workshop as well, where you can strip salable metal/parts from the unit in privacy. So I doubt that this theft was the work of desperately hungry people.
jo6pac
irmaladuce
Maybe all that sent money to the animal shelter could send or help out at local human shelter? Yes I can see no one here has been homeless, it’s not fun people and you can’t believe what you might think of doing so you and family can eat.
jo6pac
Amir
It takes a sawsall and a truck that’s all. You are only stealing the copper or alum. I did HVAC for 15yrs.
kc
What is the point of taking rhetorical potshots at poor people?
How do you know they were poor? Could have been an organized gang of copper thieves for all you know.
Joel
@irmaladuce
Have you wondered how big a rooftop HVAC is? On the small side, you’re talking about something that’s the size of a small Volkswagen, weighs at least a ton, and typically requires a crane to load on a rooftop. Do you think that small-timers fallen on hard times arranged to avoid a perimeter fence by moving the unit from the roof of a neighboring building? You really think that’s just some desperate living, just the modus operandi of poor people living on the South side? Sounds like you’re the one making some assumptions here. As for the rest of the post, I reckon you should think it over a bit.
wobblybits
@jo6pac: So how did you make the jump from industrial air unit thieves to homeless? Those must be some big ass shopping carts given that that would be the only means of transportation. I would like to believe your just being an ass for laughs but….
Phyllis
@jo6pac: Been homeless. Lived in my car for several months. Went hungry. Never once thought of stealing. Being poor does not axiomately equal desperate.
And I feel pretty certain if the story concerned an AC unit stolen from a ‘human shelter’, folks here would contribute to remedy that as well.
TK-421
I feel dumb for asking this question, but…property insurance?
Yes yes, I know having insurance won’t solve the immediate problem of how to keep these pets cool right effing now, but I can’t help but wonder about that “this will cost us $25,000” assertion in the article. Can a commercial property policy’s deductible actually be that high?
jenn
jo6pac – what the heck makes you think that none of us have been homeless? And what the heck makes you think that we don’t contribute to homeless shelters and food banks? It’s entirely possible to support people and pets at the same time, thankyouverymuch. And for the record: poor does not equal criminal, for fuck’s sake. The people who did this are criminals, and I’m not going to hesitate to call them so. And to whine about that is pretty fucking insulting to the 99.99% of poor people who manage to get by without stealing and vandalizing shit. And for the record #2, it’s pretty damn obvious that the original writer is trying to refrain from dehumanizing the people who stole from and vandalized the shelter … that would be why they called them “people” rather than heartless criminal bastards.
spark
I’ve done the rigging on those rooftop units. It takes a crane to get them up there. Something weird about this story.
Linda Featheringill
Uh, guys . . . .
Where is your evidence that the thieves are poor folks? Thieves of all levels of prosperity have been known to cruise around for likely targets and then hone in on them.
I think that you don’t know that they were poor, homeless, hungry, or even living in that area.
Amirite?
CaseyL
Money sent. Poor critters.
People who steal from the helpless are as low as it gets. I don’t care what their own stories are or might be. They’re scum.
jo6pac
wobblybits
Not everyone that’s homeless lives with a shopping cart, in my small town there’s about 20 people that live in cars/trucks. I lived in a VW for a few months trying to get a job. I had a guy living on my road I asked the sheriff about it said he needed gas and some money to buy food and gas to get to a town 70mi away. I took him 10 gallons of gas and $50 and pump up the tires on his old car. Just asked him when he had few extra bucks to help someone else. I live on the last extension of unemployment right now.
Julia Grey
I wouldn’t palpate it with a ten-foot length of copper tubing.
Elizabelle
Get out your checkbook, Oprah.
Maybe an HVAC company or philanthropist can donate new units and their installation costs, or repair the old ones.
I’ve seen this happen to a church in North Carolina; congregation was moderate and low income African Americans. Church services were sweltering, and it wasn’t full on summer yet.
Putting Granny and Aunt Emily at risk of heat stroke; mm mm mmmm. (Shakes head.)
slag
Elitist.
wobblybits
@jo6pac: I am fully aware that not all homeless people have shopping carts. I was making a point about your jump to them being ‘homeless’ without any evidence that they are and when many have pointed out how big this unit is and how they couldn’t just saunter off with it.
I’m sorry about your unemployment and I do hope that something comes your way soon.
Really?
Hey everyone, let’s get back to the problem. Someone (poor, rich, who gives a fuck) stole air conditioning from animals who were abandoned, neglected, abused, unloved, etc. If you want to donate to help, please do and you’re a better person for it. And if you prefer to help humans over animals, then go donate to a shelter for humans instead of being a prick on this thread. Dont stick up for people who steal either. Get a goddamn job. I make very, VERY little money and I still spend as much time and effort as I can to help these animals. So don’t assume we are all some wealthy, “white” people who don’t know what 62nd and wabash means. I’m well aware.
Elizabelle
For reasons unknown, I have a blog ad at top left of “Kortney” with a foot long curved zucchini in her mouth, and cleavage aplenty.
And some cute pets and pet products at the right.
No gay male dating ads.
Trying to remember what ads came up with the Halperin posts. Maybe “Kortney” is left over from that …
PurpleGirl
Having recently sold a number of solid brass drawer knobs and pulls for scrap (because I really was down to no money that week), I can tell you they wouldn’t have to strip out the different types of metal. The scrap yard I went to had piles and stacks of different kinds of industrial things all around the yard.
(Oh, and I got the munificent sum of $6.00 for the brass; and transit to scrap yard cost me $4.50.)
The thieves probably did a lot of work for not very much money.
irmaladuce
Aww, Julia I’m heartbroken. How ’bout I make it wink? Will that entice you and your impressive length to take interest?
@Jenn: The writer is not refraining from dehumanizing the thieves. He is nudging his readers, inviting them to fill in those ellipses with their own dehumanizing language, and to speculate about what he WOULD say if the Reader weren’t a family newspaper.
@all of you: Right. A well-financed gang of moneyed copper thieves robbed this shelter.
jenn
@jo6pac – For the record #3 – only the first bit of my rant was directed at your comment; the rest was to irmaladuce. Sadly, edit was not my friend. Good luck with the jobhunt; hopefully your “pay it forward” will come around to you.
irmaladuce
True. But stealing shit for scrap metal equals poor. And usually addicted as well.
Jewish Steel
@irmaladuce: And why do you leap to the conclusion that the thieves local? Because it’s the South Side? Would you think that if it was, say, Elk Grove?
Again, poor folks deserve better than racist assholes lik you.
jo6pac
Jenn
No problem, at 62 a chance of a job in the corp. blue collar world are 0, but I’ve saved my money and have cheap rent in rural Calif. and large garden. If they don’t steal my SS I’m OK
Purplegirl yep a lot work for not much $$ but every little bit helps when you have none
Spark yes I agree but when your stealing time is against you, it slash and burn then toss the parts off the roof all you’re stealing are the coils. They can be cut up to fit in a car truck if it 10 tons and under. I’ve done rigging/install on hundreds of units from 3 tons to 120 tons the size of a train box car.
This is why UI needs to be extended like it was in the 70s, you collected until there was jobs again or like Europe. There’s no time limit.
Time for wine
PurpleGirl
jo6pac — I was unemployed in the 1970s and, no, UI was not unlimited. You didn’t have to pay income tax on UI benefits until later (sometime in the 1980s). Luckily, that time (late 1979) I found a new job before benefits ended.
slag
That’s really what this amounts to, isn’t it? Taking advantage of the truly helpless. Like stealing a severely autistic kid’s lunch money. You just don’t take advantage of folks who have no way of defending themselves.
jo6pac
PG I can’t find what I wanted. I thought UI was paid until employment was 5% but I guess I’m wrong. I was lucky during this time, I was a Millright in SF Bay Area.
Slag, right on.
Villago Delenda Est
Unless your name is Koch. Then it’s a virtue, celebrated by glibertarians everywhere.
Joel
From where I sit, it seems like you’re full of shit. Just speaking empirically, of course.
Rihilism
Unfortunately, I am not financially able to contribute. For those who have and those considering, I humbly offer some entertainment as reward/incentive: Hot Dudes with Kittens!
Rihilism
@irmaladuce:
The Reader author may or may not have chosen to imply something about the thieves. Frankly, I don’t give a shit because it’s not germane to the purpose of this post. If you have a problem with the author, take it up with the Reader. People here are trying to do what they can help alleviate the results of the thievery, so please kindly take your grievances to the comment section of the aforementioned Reader article. The author of this post has generously provided a link for your convenience…
Rihilism
Thank you Ronald Mother Fucking Raygun….
Jewish Steel
Damn! And here I thought I was going to be able to read The Straight Dope and reviews of shitty Chicago bands right here on the well-known aggregator site, Balloon-Juice.
Foiled again.
irmaladuce
That Elk Grove thieves stole it. Not a roving band of air conditioner thieves. Asshole.
@Rihilism: I’m sorry my vocal discomfort with the rank classism of this post is getting in the way of your warm and fuzzies.
Jewish Steel
So you can’t wrap your tiny, dessicated brain around the notion that thieves may, follow carefully here, live in one place and thieve in another?
No?
Then by all means, keep fucking that chicken, Grand Wizard.
Rihilism
@irmaladuce
I can assure you that nothing gets in the way of my warm and fuzzies…
Catsy
Oh, horseshit. You still have not addressed and cannot escape this fact: you either know no actual facts about the circumstances of the people who committed this crime and have invented this fantasy of poor desperate people with no choice but to steal an industrial AC unit from an animal shelter in order to have an excuse to get outraged about the wrong things… or you actually do know something about this crime that gives you a basis for your certainty that this post is bashing poor people rather than thieves, and are yourself committing a crime by protecting the people who did it.
Either way, you’re an asshole with no credibility and are persuading absolutely no one. It’s just that in the former case you’re an asshole who’s making shit up, whereas in the latter case you’re a criminal asshole and ought to have your IP forwarded to the Chicago police. Which is it?