More 911 calls won't get in-person response starting Sunday

The Chicago Police Department hopes to free up the equivalent of 44 officers a day by no longer dispatching cops for certain crimes, like burglaries and car thefts in which the offender is no longer at the scene and no one is in immediate danger.

Police confirmed the change, which takes effect Sunday. Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy told aldermen last year he was considering a move in that direction.

The change is not related to plans by Mayor Rahm Emanuel and McCarthy to shift what they indicated was as many as 200 officers from administrative duties to beats so more officers can be assigned to teams that saturate crime hotspots, city spokesman Bill McCaffrey said.

The 911 dispatch changes and redeployment of officers come in the wake of the city’s most deadly January since 2002. A total of 42 people were murdered in Chicago last month, including 15-year-old band majorette Hadiya Pendleton, an innocent victim whose South Side slaying drew national attention.

Crimes that will no longer result in the dispatch of an officer to the crime scene include vehicle theft, theft, garage burglaries, criminal damage to property, the passing of bad checks, lewd or obscene phone calls, threatening phone calls that don’t pose an immediate danger and animal bites, McCaffrey said.

Officers will be dispatched if a suspect is still at the scene or is expected to return immediately, the victim is not considered safe or needs medical attention, an officer could make an immediate arrest or an officer is needed for an immediate investigation, McCaffrey added.

When no officer is sent to the crime scene, a report will be taken by phone by cops assigned to light duty. Last year, 74,000 reports were taken that way. The new rules are expected to more than double that number.

It’s hoped that the changes will free up the equivalent of 44 officers each day to respond to more serious crimes and work at crime prevention, McCaffrey said.

Ald. Howard Brookins, 21st, said he thought the change will be good, “especially if it results in a quicker response time to more serious crimes when they are happening in real time.”

Brookins said he often hears from residents who complain that response is tardy or even non-existent when they call 911 to report drug sales, fights or burglaries in progress. He said he also hopes that it results in more officers on visible patrol, which he said serves as a deterrent to crime.

During budget hearings last year, McCarthy said dispatch changes needed to be made, saying officers in Chicago responded to half of 911 calls, compared to about 30 percent in most other jurisdictions.

“I’m not joking when I tell you that we’ve handled calls that say my children are fighting over the remote control,” McCarthy told aldermen. “My daughter does not want to go to school, my son does not want to eat his mashed potatoes.

“Those are the types of calls for service quite frankly where I don’t know why we would tie up a police officer when that officer can be on patrol doing something affirmative, preventing something from happening.”

Police officers contacted by the Tribune concur that not having to respond to every call could help cops on the street respond to more serious crimes. "It's almost like you increase your manpower when you reduce the number of calls," one police supervisor said.

But he gave an example of one potential drawback, in the case of a garage burglary, saying there could be a delay in the investigation if a detective doesn’t immediately canvass the area.

Still, said one rank-and-file officer, by not responding to all the less-serious crimes, cops on the street will be able to become more "proactive," instead of running around the district and bouncing from call to call.

"It's really a drain on resources to go to every nonsense call like the dog's barking or the music's too loud," the officer said.

hdardick@tribune.com
jgorner@tribune.com

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5 Fascinating Facts We Learned From Reddit This Week

Click here to view the gallery: Reddit Facts 2/2

If you’ve ever wanted to learn how to game the French lottery of 1728 (and who hasn’t, amirite?), you’ve come to the right place. This week’s edition of Reddit Facts has some delightful tidbits about the Fab Four, a famous photograph and a funky fruit.

[More from Mashable: 10 Quirky Etsy Finds to Celebrate Groundhog Day]

Homepage image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

[More from Mashable: 10 Valentine’s Day Gifts for the Special Geek in Your Life]

This story originally published on Mashable here.

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Beyonce says sang along to pre-recorded track at inauguration

NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – Singer Beyonce said she sang along to a pre-recorded track at the inauguration of President Barack Obama, but delivered a stirring a cappella version of the U.S. national anthem at a Super Bowl news conference on Thursday.

She also said would be singing live at the half-time show of the National Football League championship game between the San Francisco 49ers and Baltimore Ravens at the Superdome on Sunday.

Beyonce‘s performance of the “Star-Spangled Banner” at the January 21 inauguration ceremony sparked a debate over whether she had lip-synched her performance in Washington.

“I am a perfectionist and one thing about me is that I practice until my feet bleed and I did not have time to rehearse with orchestra,” the Grammy-winning artist said on Thursday.

“It was a live television show and a very, very important emotional show for me and one of my proudest moments, and due to the weather, to the delay, due to no proper sound check, I did not feel comfortable taking the risk.

“It was about the president and the inauguration and I wanted to make him and my country proud, so I decided to sing along with my pre-recorded track, which is very common in the music industry, and I am very proud of my performance,” she said.

Beyonce, 31, one of pop music’s biggest celebrities, surprised the media on Thursday by asking them to rise at the start of her news conference and launching into a solo version of the U.S. national anthem.

After the applause in the room died down, she asked the hundreds of media representatives, “Any questions?”

Asked if she planned to sing live during the Super Bowl game, annually one of the most-watched TV events in the United States, the singer said: “I will absolutely be singing live. This is what I was born to do, it is what I was born for.”

The NFL also said that Jennifer Hudson would perform “America the Beautiful” with the chorus from Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, where 20 children and six adults were killed in a mass shooting in December.

Alicia Keys will sing the national anthem before the game’s kickoff, while other artists, including OneRepublic and Matchbox Twenty, will be part of the televised pregame show.

(Editing by Jill Serjeant and Peter Cooney)

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Concerns About A.D.H.D. Practices and Amphetamine Addiction

Before his addiction, Richard Fee was a popular college class president and aspiring medical student. "You keep giving Adderall to my son, you're going to kill him," said Rick Fee, Richard's father, to one of his son's doctors.

VIRGINIA BEACH — Every morning on her way to work, Kathy Fee holds her breath as she drives past the squat brick building that houses Dominion Psychiatric Associates.

Andrea Mohin/The New York Times

MENTAL HEALTH CLINIC Dominion Psychiatric Associates in Virginia Beach, where Richard Fee was treated by Dr. Waldo M. Ellison. After observing Richard and hearing his complaints about concentration, Dr. Ellison diagnosed attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and prescribed the stimulant Adderall.

It was there that her son, Richard, visited a doctor and received prescriptions for Adderall, an amphetamine-based medication for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. It was in the parking lot that she insisted to Richard that he did not have A.D.H.D., not as a child and not now as a 24-year-old college graduate, and that he was getting dangerously addicted to the medication. It was inside the building that her husband, Rick, implored Richard’s doctor to stop prescribing him Adderall, warning, “You’re going to kill him.”

It was where, after becoming violently delusional and spending a week in a psychiatric hospital in 2011, Richard met with his doctor and received prescriptions for 90 more days of Adderall. He hanged himself in his bedroom closet two weeks after they expired.

The story of Richard Fee, an athletic, personable college class president and aspiring medical student, highlights widespread failings in the system through which five million Americans take medication for A.D.H.D., doctors and other experts said.

Medications like Adderall can markedly improve the lives of children and others with the disorder. But the tunnel-like focus the medicines provide has led growing numbers of teenagers and young adults to fake symptoms to obtain steady prescriptions for highly addictive medications that carry serious psychological dangers. These efforts are facilitated by a segment of doctors who skip established diagnostic procedures, renew prescriptions reflexively and spend too little time with patients to accurately monitor side effects.

Richard Fee’s experience included it all. Conversations with friends and family members and a review of detailed medical records depict an intelligent and articulate young man lying to doctor after doctor, physicians issuing hasty diagnoses, and psychiatrists continuing to prescribe medication — even increasing dosages — despite evidence of his growing addiction and psychiatric breakdown.

Very few people who misuse stimulants devolve into psychotic or suicidal addicts. But even one of Richard’s own physicians, Dr. Charles Parker, characterized his case as a virtual textbook for ways that A.D.H.D. practices can fail patients, particularly young adults. “We have a significant travesty being done in this country with how the diagnosis is being made and the meds are being administered,” said Dr. Parker, a psychiatrist in Virginia Beach. “I think it’s an abnegation of trust. The public needs to say this is totally unacceptable and walk out.”

Young adults are by far the fastest-growing segment of people taking A.D.H.D medications. Nearly 14 million monthly prescriptions for the condition were written for Americans ages 20 to 39 in 2011, two and a half times the 5.6 million just four years before, according to the data company I.M.S. Health. While this rise is generally attributed to the maturing of adolescents who have A.D.H.D. into young adults — combined with a greater recognition of adult A.D.H.D. in general — many experts caution that savvy college graduates, freed of parental oversight, can legally and easily obtain stimulant prescriptions from obliging doctors.

“Any step along the way, someone could have helped him — they were just handing out drugs,” said Richard’s father. Emphasizing that he had no intention of bringing legal action against any of the doctors involved, Mr. Fee said: “People have to know that kids are out there getting these drugs and getting addicted to them. And doctors are helping them do it.”

“...when he was in elementary school he fidgeted, daydreamed and got A’s. he has been an A-B student until mid college when he became scattered and he wandered while reading He never had to study. Presently without medication, his mind thinks most of the time, he procrastinated, he multitasks not finishing in a timely manner.”

Dr. Waldo M. Ellison

Richard Fee initial evaluation

Feb. 5, 2010

Richard began acting strangely soon after moving back home in late 2009, his parents said. He stayed up for days at a time, went from gregarious to grumpy and back, and scrawled compulsively in notebooks. His father, while trying to add Richard to his health insurance policy, learned that he was taking Vyvanse for A.D.H.D.

Richard explained to him that he had been having trouble concentrating while studying for medical school entrance exams the previous year and that he had seen a doctor and received a diagnosis. His father reacted with surprise. Richard had never shown any A.D.H.D. symptoms his entire life, from nursery school through high school, when he was awarded a full academic scholarship to Greensboro College in North Carolina. Mr. Fee also expressed concerns about the safety of his son’s taking daily amphetamines for a condition he might not have.

“The doctor wouldn’t give me anything that’s bad for me,” Mr. Fee recalled his son saying that day. “I’m not buying it on the street corner.”

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Never too early to plan for college expenses

Look at your cute baby, and imagine the little tyke wearing a high school cap and gown about 17 years from now.

Picturing the child holding a diploma, when he or she can't even hold a rattle yet, is probably next to impossible. But that day will come. And if you are like most parents, as you watch junior walk across the stage to pick up a diploma, you will be vacillating between feelings of pride and utter fear. At that point, your child will be headed to college, and the price tag will be so shocking you'll be tossing and turning at night.

If college prices continue to climb as they have the past few years, by the time today's newborns go to college, the sticker price will be about $37,700 for one year of tuition, room and board at a state university and $98,200 at a private college, said Kalman Chany, a college financial aid consultant and author of "Paying for College Without Going Broke." For a four-year education, it will be about $161,500 at a university in your state or $426,400 at a private college, he estimates. To put that into perspective, many public colleges now run about $20,000 a year, and some private colleges are more than $55,000.

So maybe at this point you figure you will stick a bat or ball in the little tyke's hands the moment he or she can hold it in hopes they are on the road toward winning an athletic scholarship. But let's face it: That's a remote possibility. Should you despair? 

Remember, you don't need the entire sum saved for college the day junior moves into a dormitory room. And during the next 17 years, your salary probably will rise along with college costs, so the numbers won't look as shocking as they do today. In addition, low- and middle-income families don't have to pay the full sticker price if they are smart about college choices.

But if you want to make paying for college as painless as possible, you are going to have to start planning now. For the next 17 years, you will have to keep your eye on the calendar. Before children are old enough to get braces, some savvy parents start helping them build the type of resumes that will win scholarships.

Still, don't count on scholarships to do all the heavy lifting. No matter how polished your child turns out to be in high school, the chances are you will have to come up with a good sum of money yourself. So start now by saving as much as you can. Anything is better than nothing. If you start saving $100 a month for college and invest it in a balanced mutual fund that's roughly divided half and half in stocks and bonds, you should have about $40,000 by the time you pack up the car with junior's belongings and head to college.

But also make sure you have your priorities right. Too many parents — especially those laden with their own college loans — want to spare their children college debt. So they plop money into a college savings account for their children, while neglecting to save for their own retirement. This is upside-down planning.

I've heard from many parents who can't retire because they put their child's education ahead of their own savings, and their child ends up finished with college, enjoying a Wall Street or a law firm salary, and is debt-free.

The rule of thumb for saving enough money for retirement is: Start saving 10 percent of pay in a 401(k), IRA or both, beginning in your 20s. If you wait until your 30s, it's 12 to 15 percent. If you happen to have an employer that offers the typical 3 percent matching money for a 401(k), you can stash away 7 percent of your own pay and — with the free money from your employer — you will hit the 10 percent mark.

For college savings, you can make investing easy and the most profitable if you keep Uncle Sam away from taxing your savings. Plop either the $2,000 limit a year into a Coverdell college savings account, or if you can manage to save more, skip the Coverdell and use a 529 college savings plan offered by a state government. Anything you save in these accounts will be tax-free for you and your child if it goes to pay for college. Tell grandparents and other relatives about the child's 529 plan, so they can send birthday and other gifts into the college fund.

Elementary school

Maybe you've been saving diligently since you helped the little tyke blow out the candle on that first birthday cake. If you were making life easy on yourself, you evaluated 529 plans, chose one with low fees and solid performance, and you've been letting the investment experts at the plan invest your money in the manner that typically is appropriate for your child's age.

Are you satisfied with the 529 plan you chose, and the investments you've chosen within the plan? You are allowed to make changes once a year — selecting a plan in another state if you want, or different investments in the plan. Remember, you don't have to stick with the plan in your state, although many states give you an extra tax break if you do. And you can save money if you go to a state 529 plan directly rather than using a financial adviser. According to Morningstar, the average cost if you do this on your own is about 0.60 percent, but with an adviser it's 1.5 percent — a much higher amount that will detract from the amount you amass.

Say your child received $2,000 from grandma at birth. In the cheap 0.60 fund, the savings would become about $6,680 by college if the investments earned 8 percent. The same investments in the 1.50 fund would be $5,720. Try this calculator: tinyurl.com/seccalc.

To identify funds Morningstar thinks are best, go to tinyurl.com/bestfunds. Also check out savingforcollege.com.

As you evaluate the investments, keep in mind what "age-based" means. With that approach, the plan typically invests for you based on the child's age. Up to 4 years old, the money was probably invested about 80 percent in stocks and 20 percent in bonds. Between 5 and 10, it was probably 65 percent in stocks and 35 percent in bonds. The idea is to increase the money as much as possible when the child is young by using a significant amount of stocks. Then the closer the child gets to college, the more conservative the investing becomes so there's less chance of a loss when the first tuition bill rolls around.

You can lose money in 529 plan investments when the stock market goes down, but if investments turn more conservative along the way, you generally have time to recover by college. Many plans offer conservative investments if you can't stomach stocks. But remember the trade-offs. If you select a money market fund or CDs paying 2 percent interest, your $100 in savings a month would total less than $25,000 by the time a newborn makes it to college.

If you have been getting raises every year, consider increasing your contributions to the 529 plan — maybe setting up your account to move money automatically each payday. Also make sure you tell grandma and grandpa not to open any UGMA or UTMA account in the child's name. If your child is going to qualify for financial aid when he or she goes to college, a UGMA or UTMA will poison his chances.

Want to know if you are likely to get financial aid? For a ballpark idea, try the "estimated family contribution" calculator at the college you think your child might attend or: tinyurl.com/finaidest.

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Shootings leave 1 dead, 2 hurt

A bike lies abandoned in the snow near the spot where a 22-year-old man was found fatally shot Friday night. (Adam Sege, Chicago Tribune)

By Adam Sege

1:04 a.m. CST, February 2, 2013

A pair of shootings on a cold and snowy Friday night left a 22-year-old man dead and two people injured, Chicago police said.

The fatal shooting happened about 8:30 p.m., Chicago Police Department News Affairs Officer Ron Gaines said.

Officers found the man near a three-story apartment building in the 3900 block of North Central Avenue, in the Northwest Side's Portage Park neighborhood.

It was not clear, however, whether the man had been shot there, police said.

Paramedics rushed the man to Our Lady of the Resurrection Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

Later, as snow coated Central Avenue road and several squad parked near the scene, police searched for shell casings and photographed a bike lying by the an entrance on the building's north side.

Police have launched a homicide investigation in the shooting.

In a separate shooting, a 19-year-old and a 20-year-old were wounded about 11:30 p.m. near the intersection of South California Avenue and 52nd Street.

Both people were taken to Mount Sinai Hospital, where they were listed in good condition Gaines said.

The shooting happened in the Gage Park neighborhood on the Southwest Side.

Check back for more information.

chicagobreaking@tribune.com

Twitter: @ChicagoBreaking

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Nintendo says it won’t cut Wii U price despite slumping sales

Nintendo (NTDOY) has a lot riding on its latest video game console, but sales have been slow thus far. Gamers have not responded to the bulky new GamePad controller, which could be considered the biggest point of differentiation on the Wii U. As a result, Nintendo recently slashed its sales outlook on Wii U consoles for the March quarter. Following some speculation that Nintendo might cut the price of the Wii U in an effort to bolster sales, the company confirmed alongside its third-quarter results that dropping the console’s price is not an option.

[More from BGR: BlackBerry doesn’t need to catch up with Android and iOS overnight, it needs to live to fight another day]

“With Wii U, we have taken a rather resolute stance in pricing it below its manufacturing cost, so we are not planning to perform a markdown,” the company said. “I would like to make this point absolutely clear. We are putting our lessons from Nintendo 3DS to good use, as I have already publicly stated. However, given that it has now become clear that we have not yet fully communicated the value of our product, we will try to do so before the software lineup is enhanced and at the same time work to enrich the software lineup which could make consumers understand the appeal of Wii U.”

[More from BGR: Mark Cuban unloads on American patent system, says bad patents are ‘crushing small businesses’]

Nintendo stands firm behind its new console, and the company says it will gain traction once consumers become more familiar with the new GamePad controller and other Wii U features.

This article was originally published on BGR.com

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Actress Kerry Washington wins big at NAACP Image Awards

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Actress Kerry Washington was the big winner at the NAACP Image Awards on Friday, picking up awards for her roles in the slavery-era Western film “Django Unchained” and television drama “Scandal,” as well as a special honor for professional achievement and public service.

But on a night that celebrated the successes of artists of color, actor and activist Harry Belafonte struck a somber note when he admonished the black community for failing to speak out in favor of gun control, saying “the group most devastated by America’s obsession with the gun is African-Americans.”

Washington received the best supporting actress in a movie award for her role as a slave in Quentin Tarantino‘s “Django Unchained” and best actress in a television drama for “Scandal,” in which she plays a crisis-management expert.

“This award does not belong to me. It belongs to our ancestors,” Washington said in accepting her award for “Django Unchained,” which has received a mixed reaction from the black community for its portrayal of slavery and its violence.

Both Washington and “Django” co-star Jamie Foxx, who received the entertainer of the year award, thanked Tarantino for making the film.

“‘Django’ was an absolute blessing of a movie,” Foxx said. “Thank you Quentin Tarantino for having the courage to do it.”

“Django” failed to pick up the image award for best movie, losing to “Red Tails,” a film about African-American wartime pilots.

The NAACP also honored Washington with a special award for both her political activism, including her work on President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign, and for being the first black woman in 40 years to star in a prime-time drama on network television.

“I stand here tonight on the shoulders of those who have blazed a path of art and activism,” Washington said, mentioning Belafonte specifically.

Belafonte took the stage later to accept his own special award for his decades of political activism. He used his speech to implore the black community to support gun control, an issue that has received heightened attention since a December shooting at a Connecticut school killed 20 children and six adults.

“In the gun game, we are the most hunted. The river of blood that washes the streets of our nation flows mostly from the bodies of our black children,” Belafonte said. “Where is the raised voice of black America? Why are we mute?”

The night’s other winners included Denzel Washington, who won the best actor in a movie award for his role as an alcoholic pilot in “Flight,” and LL Cool J, who picked up best actor in a TV drama for “NCIS: Los Angeles.”

The NAACP Image Awards celebrate the accomplishments of people of color in the fields of film, television, music and literature, and also honor individuals or groups who promote social justice.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, founded in 1909, is the oldest and largest civil rights organization in the United States.

(Reporting By Nichola Groom; Editing by Eric Beech)

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Ferrol Sams, Doctor Turned Novelist, Dies at 90

Ferrol Sams, a country doctor who started writing fiction in his late 50s and went on to win critical praise and a devoted readership for his humorous and perceptive novels and stories that drew on his medical practice and his rural Southern roots, died on Tuesday at his home in Lafayette, Ga. He was 90.

The cause, said his son Ferrol Sams III, also a doctor, was that he was “slap wore out.”

“He lived a full life,” his son said. “He didn’t leave anything in the tank.”

Dr. Sams grew up on a farm in the rural Piedmont area of Georgia, seven mud-road miles from the nearest town. He was a boy during the Depression; books meant escape and discovery. He read “Robinson Crusoe,” then Mark Twain and Charles Dickens. One of his English professors at Mercer University, in Macon, suggested he consider a career in writing, but he chose another route to examining the human condition: medical school.

When he was 58 — after he had served in World War II, started a medical practice with his wife, raised his four children and stopped devoting so much of his mornings to preparing lessons for Sunday school at the Methodist church — he began writing “Run With the Horsemen,” a novel based on his youth. It was published in 1982.

“In the beginning was the land,” the book begins. “Shortly thereafter was the father.”

In The New York Times Book Review, the novelist Robert Miner wrote, “Mr. Sams’s approach to his hero’s experiences is nicely signaled in these two opening sentences.”

He added: “I couldn’t help associating the gentility, good-humored common sense and pace of this novel with my image of a country doctor spinning yarns. The writing is elegant, reflective and amused. Mr. Sams is a storyteller sure of his audience, in no particular hurry, and gifted with perfect timing.”

Dr. Sams modeled the lead character in “Run With the Horsemen,” Porter Osborne Jr., on himself, and featured him in two more novels, “The Whisper of the River” and “When All the World Was Young,” which followed him into World War II.

Dr. Sams also wrote thinly disguised stories about his life as a physician. In “Epiphany,” he captures the friendship that develops between a literary-minded doctor frustrated by bureaucracy and a patient angry over past racism and injustice.

Ferrol Sams Jr. was born Sept. 26, 1922, in Woolsey, Ga. He received a bachelor’s degree from Mercer in 1942 and his medical degree from Emory University in 1949. In his addition to his namesake, survivors include his wife, Dr. Helen Fletcher Sams; his sons Jim and Fletcher; a daughter, Ellen Nichol; eight grandchildren; and nine great-grandchildren.

Some critics tired of what they called the “folksiness” in Dr. Sams’s books. But he did not write for the critics, he said. In an interview with the Georgia Writers Hall of Fame, Dr. Sams was asked what audience he wrote for. Himself, he said.

“If you lose your sense of awe, or if you lose your sense of the ridiculous, you’ve fallen into a terrible pit,” he added. “The only thing that’s worse is never to have had either.”

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Chicago beer firm Crown Imports is caught in antitrust fight

An antitrust brouhaha in Washington has thrown the future of Crown Imports, a Chicago-based beer importer, into question.

The company, which ranks third in U.S. beer sales volume, is a joint venture between New York-based Constellation Brands Inc. and Mexico's Grupo Modelo, which makes Corona Extra, the leading imported beer in the U.S., and other brands. Crown sells Modelo brands as well as China's Tsingtao.

As part of its proposed sale to Anheuser-Busch InBev, Grupo Modelo agreed to sell its 50 percent stake in Crown to Constellation Brands for $1.85 billion. The separate transaction was meant to ease possible antitrust concerns that the merger would eliminate Crown Imports as a competitor.

But on Thursday the U.S. Department of Justice filed an antitrust suit against AB InBev to block its acquisition of Grupo Modelo. Antitrust officials said the merger would further increase the concentration of the U.S. beer market, leading to higher prices for American consumers.

The lawsuit said the sale of Modelo's interest in Crown Imports to its partner would only create "a facade of competition" between AB InBev and the importer.

"In reality, Defendants' proposed 'remedy' eliminates from the market Modelo — a particularly aggressive competitor — and replaces it with an entity wholly dependent on ABI," the Justice Department said in the lawsuit.

The suits cites as evidence part of an internal memo that Crown's chief executive, Bill Hackett, wrote to employees after the transactions were announced in June. According to the suit, Hackett wrote, "Our #1 competitor will now be our supplier ... it is not currently or will not, going forward, be 'business as usual.'"

Under the terms of the proposed merger with Modelo, AB InBev also had the option to terminate its agreement with Crown Imports after 10 years, giving it full control of Corona distribution.

Constellation Brands on Friday attacked the Justice Department, saying in a statement that the suit "demonstrates its incomplete understanding" of the proposed merger. Constellation and AB InBev have indicated that they plan to challenge the suit.

In a detailed defense, Constellation said its full control of Crown would improve competition, not harm it. According to the lawsuit, Modelo controls about 7 percent of U.S. beer sales, far behind AB InBev's market-leading 39 percent.

Constellation attempted to ease concerns that AB InBev's merger with Modelo would lead to higher prices. Hackett said in a statement: "Our Crown team independently develops, implements and refines pricing, promotional and sales strategies for each of our brands in the U.S."

The proposed beer merger had reduced uncertainty hanging over Crown Imports because the Modelo-Constellation joint venture was set to expire at the end of 2016. The Justice Department action creates a new level of uncertainty, said Benj Steinman, president of Beer Marketer's Insights, a beer industry trade publication.

"Crown's fate is hanging in the balance," Steinman said.

asachdev@tribune.com

Twitter@ameetsachdev

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