Karolina Obrycka, outside the Dirksen Federal Building after testifying Tuesday. October 22, 2012 | Scott Stewart~Sun-Times

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The notorious viral video of off-duty Chicago cop Anthony Abbate brutally beating barmaid Karolina Obrycka already cost Abbate his job — and indirectly, former Supt. Phil Cline his police career.

On Tuesday, it tripped up another veteran Chicago officer.

Peter Masheimer — the cop dispatched to investigate Abbate’s February 19, 2007 attack at a Northwest Side tavern — endured a torrid afternoon on the stand in Federal Court as clips from the security camera footage were played by Obrycka’s attorneys in an attempt to show that he was part of a police cover-up.

“I did not remember,” Masheimer testified repeatedly.

At the same time, he was presented with video evidence showing that within an hour of the attack at Jesse’s Short Stop Inn he was given Abbate’s full name on a piece of paper by Obrycka, told that Abbate was a Chicago Police officer and told that there was a video of the entire incident.

None of those details made it into a police report that Masheimer filed, which described the attacker as an unknown man named Tony.

Nor does audio recording of the barroom match sworn testimony Masheimer gave an internal police probe of his conduct in which he told investigators he “never had [a] conversation” with Obrycka about the cameras, claimed Obrycka “never made that statement” about Abbate being a cop, and denied he was given Abbate’s last name, he admitted.

Masheimer — given a 30-day unpaid suspension for his handling of the report — said he only recalled the damning details much later “after reviewing the tape.”

He left them out of his report because he knew detectives would follow up, because he was given three versions of the spelling of Abbate’s last name and could not verify that Abbate was a cop, he said, adding that he did not know Abbate and was not asked by anyone to hush up the incident.

Masheimer’s uncomfortable testimony came on the second day of a civil jury trial expected to take three weeks. It could cost Chicago taxpayers millions if officers — including cops far above Masheimer’s pay grade — are found to have conspired in a cover up before the video of the attack went viral and Abbate was eventually slapped with felony charges.

Earlier Tuesday, Abbate, whose testimony began on Monday, told the jury that he was having “a bad day” and had decided to get drunk on the day of the assault because his dog had been diagnosed with cancer.

“I was on a mission to get totally inebriated ... blacked out,” Abbate said.

He said he was so drunk on Canadian whiskey, Rumple Minze schnapps and blackberry brandy that he could barely remember any details of the attack, nor of the next 24 hours, during which phone records show he and his close friends and fellow officers exchanged hundreds of calls.

Obrycka’s attorneys allege those calls were part of the cover-up but Abbate testified that he had never asked anyone to do him any illegal favor. The lengthy calls he made in the hours after the incident were merely cases of “drunk-dialing,” he said.

Asked what he meant by that, he answered, “Just acting like a jackass.”

Abbate dialed back his previous claim that he was acting in self-defense when he attacked Obrycka, saying he was only acting in self-defense at the start of the confrontation.

He acknowledged that he had been investigated for four previous complaints made by fellow officers or by the public, including for allegedly dragging a pregnant, handcuffed woman along the ground.

Amid the sometimes heated exchanges with Obrycka’s attorneys, he also attempted a joke.

Asked by city attorney Barrett Rubens why the video shows him flexing his biceps so often, Abbate said, “I guess that’s what you call ‘beer muscles.’”

19 Crazy Things That School Children Are Being Arrested For in America

With each passing year, the difference between America’s prisons and America’s public schools becomes smaller and smaller.  As you read the rest of this article, you will be absolutely amazed at some of the crazy things that school children in America are being arrested for.
  When I was growing up, I don’t remember a single police officer ever coming to my school.  Discipline was always handled by the teachers and by the principals.  But today, there are schools all over the country that have police officers permanently stationed in the halls.  Many other schools will call out police officers at the drop of a hat.  In the classrooms of America today, if you burp in class, if you spray yourself with perfume or if you doodle on your desk, there is a chance that you will be arrested by the police and hauled out of your school in handcuffs.  Unfortunately, we live in a country where paranoia has become standard operating procedure.
  The American people have become convinced that the only way that we can all be “safe” is for this country to be run like a militarized totalitarian police state.  So our public schools are run like prisons and our public school students are treated like prisoners.  The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world by far, and our schools are preparing the next generation to either “do time” in the prison system or to live as good little slaves in the Big Brother prison grid that is being constructed all around us.  But what our schools are not doing is giving these children the critical thinking skills that they need to live as free citizens in a nation that used to be “the land of the free and the home of the brave”.
Of course very few people would deny that the character of American schoolchildren has changed dramatically over the decades.  Back in the 1950s, some of the biggest school discipline problems were gum chewing and hair pulling.  Today, kids bring knives, guns and drugs with them to school.  Gang activity is rampant in many of our schools and in some schools kids are even having sex in the school bathrooms.
So there is definitely a discipline problem in our schools.
But what is going on in many areas of the country is absolutely ridiculous.  For example, in 2010 alone police down in Texas issued an astounding 300,000 tickets to school children.
Yes, if a kid pulls a knife on someone the police should get involved, but teachers and administrators should be able to use some common sense and handle the vast majority of discipline problems that happen themselves.
What you are about to read is absolutely going to amaze you.  The following are 19 really crazy things that school children are being arrested for in America….

#1 At one public school down in Texas, a 12-year-old girl named Sarah Bustamantes was recently arrested for spraying herself with perfume.

#2 A 13-year-old student at a school in Albuquerque, New Mexico was recently arrested by police for burping in class.

#3 Another student down in Albuquerque was forced to strip down to his underwear while five adults watched because he had $200 in his pocket.  The student was never formally charged with doing anything wrong.

#4 A security guard at one school in California broke the arm of a 16-year-old girl because she left some crumbs on the floor after cleaning up some cake that she had spilled.

#5 One teenage couple down in Houston poured milk on each other during a squabble while they were breaking up.  Instead of being sent to see the principal, they were arrested and sent to court.

#6 In early 2010, a 12-year-old girl at a school in Forest Hills, New York was arrested by police and marched out of her school in handcuffsjust because she doodled on her desk. “I love my friends Abby and Faith” was what she reportedly scribbled on her desk.

#7 A 6-year-old girl down in Florida was handcuffed and sent to a mental facility after throwing temper tantrums at her elementary school.

#8 One student down in Texas was reportedly arrested by police for throwing paper airplanes in class.

#9 A 17-year-old honor student in North Carolina named Ashley Smithwick accidentally took her father’s lunch with her to school.  It contained a small paring knife which he would use to slice up apples.  So what happened to this standout student when the school discovered this?  The school suspended her for the rest of the year and the police charged her with a misdemeanor.

#10 In Allentown, Pennsylvania a 14-year-old girl was tasered in the groin area by a school security officer even though she had put up her hands in the air to surrender.

#11 Down in Florida, an 11-year-old student was arrested, thrown in jail and charged with a third-degree felony for bringing a plastic butter knife to school.

#12 Back in 2009, an 8-year-old boy in Massachusetts was sent home from school and was forced to undergo a psychological evaluation because he drew a picture of Jesus on the cross.

#13 A police officer in San Mateo, California blasted a 7-year-old special education student in the face with pepper spray because he would not quit climbing on the furniture.

#14 In America today, even 5-year-old children are treated brutally by police.  The following is from a recent article that described what happened to one very young student in Stockton, California a while back….
Earlier this year, a Stockton student was handcuffed with zip ties on his hands and feet, forced to go to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation and was charged with battery on a police officer. That student was 5 years old.

#15 At one school in Connecticut, a 17-year-old boy was thrown to the floor and tasered five times because he was yelling at a cafeteria worker.

#16 A teenager in suburban Dallas was forced to take on a part-time job after being ticketed for using foul language in one high school classroom.  The original ticket was for $340, but additional fees have raised the total bill to $637.

#17 A few months ago, police were called out when a little girl kissed a little boy during a physical education class at an elementary school down in Florida.

#18 A 6-year-old boy was recently charged with sexual battery for some “inappropriate touching” during a game of tag at one elementary school in the San Francisco area.

#19 In Massachusetts, police were recently sent out to collect an overdue library book from a 5-year-old girl.
Unfortunately, what is going on in our schools is a reflection of the broader society as a whole.  Our schools are being turned into prisons because our entire society is being turned into a giant prison.
Our nation is rapidly heading down the toilet, and the children of this nation do not have a bright future to look forward to.

If the police really want to find some criminals, they should start investigating some of the sickos that are in charge of some of these classrooms.
It seems like almost every day now there is a news story about some public school teacher that is involved in some kind of really perverted stuff.
For example, just check out what police down in Los Angeles recently found that one teacher was hiding….

A former Los Angeles elementary school teacher has been arrested for felony molestation of nearly two dozen students, accused of gagging children and putting live cockroaches on some of their faces. Deputies say the crimes were committed on campus.

Sickos who do that kind of stuff to kids should be punished very severely.
America’s schools are changing, and not for the better.
Personally, I went to public schools all my life, but I would not recommend that anyone send their kids to public schools today.  There is just way too much crazy stuff that goes on.

And our kids are learning less than ever in these public schools.  As I have written about previously, many of them are coming out of the system as dumb as a rock.  Instead of teaching our kids how to think critically and examine all sides of an issue, these schools areindoctrinating our kids and pushing particular social and political agendas on them.

There are a few public schools out there that are still good, but the vast majority of them are horrible.  They are not producing the leaders of tomorrow and they are not preparing the next generation with the tools that they need to survive in a complex world.

So is there much hope that our schools can be turned around?  Feel free to leave a comment with your opinion below….