Our Boss is Losing It

**Pedro56** · 03-31-07, 09:28 AM

Cline: I'd like to take a swing at cop in video
'If I could hit him with a baseball bat, I would'

March 30, 2007
BY RUMMANA HUSSAIN AND LISA DONOVAN Staff Reporters

Chicago Police Supt. Phil Cline, still fuming over Police Officer Anthony Abbate's alleged attack on a petite female bartender, said he would have liked to take a swipe at the disgraced officer himself.

"We stripped him of his police powers. He's been charged criminally, and we're moving to fire him, and if I could hit him with a baseball bat, I would. But I can't, so I mean we've done everything we can to take the right action against him," Cline said Thursday on the Roe Conn Show on WLS 890-AM.

Cline also reiterated his embarrassment over the dissemination of the video that shows the burly, off-duty Abbate kicking and beating the 115-pound bartender after she refused to serve him alcohol at Jesse's Shortstop Inn on the Northwest Side.

"I don't want a guy like that on the job," Cline said of the 12-year veteran during the afternoon radio program.

Bat comment 'figurative'
When asked about the "baseball bat" comment, Cline's spokeswoman said it was a figure of speech.

Pressed about the appropriateness of the comment, considering the department has been dogged by allegations of police brutality, police spokeswoman Monique Bond went on to say: "His comments were used figuratively. It's a colloquialism used by many and shouldn't be interpreted any other way. The Roe Conn Show is a very relaxed show."

As far as the Abbate case goes, Cline "takes this matter very seriously," Bond said.

Cline, on Conn's program, also touched upon the alleged Dec. 15 West Loop bar beating of four businessman by off-duty Chicago officers.

He refused to discuss a Sun-Times report in Thursday's editions that the altercation was allegedly sparked when one of the businessman made fun of one of the officers who was in the bar and crying about the recent death of his father.

But Cline said, "I could just tell you what I read in the paper this morning, I didn't find anything wrong with."

rhussain@suntimes.com

ldonovan@suntimes.com