As the nation watched with horror as rioters laid waste to sections of Minneapolis following the death of George Floyd on Memorial Day, members of the Chicago Police Department (CPD) braced for the worst. Though the incident did not occur in the Windy City, the revenge killings of five police officers in Dallas and three in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in response to the death of an armed Alton Sterling in 2016 served as a forbidding warning ambush killings would now count among the ordinary hazards Chicago Police face every day.
Although a three-day period passed between the eruption of riots in Minneapolis and the first disturbances occurring in Chicago, by the time Chicago police officers were dispatched to confront demonstrations throughout the city, an online lynch mob was absorbed with stitching together a mosaic of intelligence to mark police and their families. Scouring websites which publish the names and badge numbers of individual officers, online guerrillas affiliated with fringe group Black Lives Matter (BLM) and Left-wing, pro-anarchy group Antifa harnessed social media to spread officers’ personal information. Those rich online resources combined with protesters armed with cameras on the streets hounding police paid dividends: In two separate instances across the city, the homes of police officers were identified for criminal trespass. In one incident, in Beverly, police arrested two men in possession of combustible material and a lighter on the property of one officer; in another instance across the city, a man was arrested on the property of a second officer.
Though the episode in Chicago’s Beverly section occurred on June 1, Mayor Lightfoot ignored the matter and waited until the worst of the weekend protests had passed before addressing the indescribable nightmare which befell Chicago’s streets. In a televised speech on June 2 in which she declined to specifically name or place fault with groups responsible for ginning up chaos, Lightfoot threw oxygen at smoldering racial tension by awakening the memory of Laquan McDonald, Quintonio LeGrier, Rekia Boyd, and, of course, Jon Burge. A woman virtually blind to the unraveling of civil society before her very eyes, Lightfoot’s core message was economic relief to dig Chicago out of the rubble of riots and a pledge to impetuously advance ill-conceived police reform measures over the next 90 days. A circus act with a purpose, instead of demonstrating competent leadership and striking a balance between condemnation of those guilty of rioting and looting while simultaneously defending police officers, Lightfoot chose to advance specious blather about lingering racism beneath every police act and bigotry deeply rooted in our institutions of justice. Days later, as protests continued to boil over, Lightfoot again addressed the collapse of law and order in Chicago at a June 5 press conference. Seeing red mist, although Lightfoot took some issue with the rioting and looting, most of her criticism was reserved for police for allegedly using coarse language with demonstrators, police use of obscene gestures, and officers obscuring badge numbers and identification tags. Though police were concerned with the exposure of their personal information, were exhausted from 12-hour workdays, and the unremitting hostility from rioters, Lightfoot rebuked police and with the gaze of a rattlesnake said:
"It (alleged misconduct) won't be tolerated. We are actively at work identifying the officers who are responsible. In my view, they forfeited their right to be Chicago Police Officers. We'll find that person and in my view, that person needs to be immediately stripped of their police power and start the process for firing him."
Confusing rhetorical messes in which the mayor failed to prioritize a need to quell unrest on the streets and substantially laundered criminal behavior, Ms. Lightfoot did not limit her criticism only to police. On the eve of the first protest in the Windy City, Ms. Lightfoot took to the podium to respond to a tweet from President Trump addressing the turmoil in Minneapolis. Though Trump’s message lamented Mayor Jacob Frey’s failure to exercise office to manage the uprising unfolding on Minneapolis streets and declared his willingness to aid Frey with the National Guard units, Lightfoot, with her customary tough-gal flourish, accused the president of “fomenting violence” and responded: “I will code what I really want to say to Donald Trump. It’s two words. It begins with F and it ends with U.” Days later, as Chicago swiftly disintegrated into lawlessness, the inability of Mayor Lightfoot to keep control over the situation only fostered the looting, violence, and general mayhem downtown to scatter to nearby neighborhoods. A reality which did not go unnoticed by aldermen, in a June 1 conference call to apprise aldermen over the city’s response to Chicago convulsing with riots, an exchange between Lightfoot and her skeptical audience became testy. When confronted by Alderman Ray Lopez (15), who described protesters’ sheer raging hostility at police, his fear law-abiding residents were at risk, and demanded answers for the mayor’s comic mismanagement of the protests, Lightfoot bucked the constraints of civility and impugned Lopez’s motives.
What occurred in Chicago was a complete breakdown of mayoral authority.
If Chicago Police lost control of sections of the city during the protests, the responsibility for this ignominy starts with Mayor Lightfoot, for once police were forced to retreat from enforcing the law and arresting lawbreakers for even minor violations, the disintegration of law and order was certain to follow. As protests roiled Chicago, though Lightfoot frantically labored to present an image of a mayor in control with a brilliant plan to preserve order, what occurred in the city did not go well by any objective standard. A failure in central planning of monumental proportion, a full catastrophe ensued in which portions of Chicago were briefly in the hands of unruly mobs, graffiti was sprayed over the façades of downtown buildings and storefronts, cars were vandalized and torched, police vehicles were overturned, police officers were assaulted, and untold stores were looted and set ablaze. A civil rights jihad, the protests enveloped most of the Loop and turned the high streets of Chicago’s Near North neighborhood and the city’s glittering showpiece, North Michigan Avenue, into what resembled windblown tundra, bereft of the tiniest waft of culture or beauty.
Though the circumstances on the streets compelled an immediate and determined response, Ms. Lightfoot allowed the situation to worsen under the misguided notion the protesters’ revolutionary ardor would eventually fade. Delusional and amateurish leadership, as protests widened and the prospect of violence became palpable, instead of swiftly and aggressively executing a plan to deploy police to potential flashpoints, Lightfoot fell into a state of shock, belatedly imposed a curfew, and, according to police, personally intervened to deny police use of OC spray to disperse rioters. Equally unsettling, Lightfoot withheld hundreds of officers in reserve over her fear a large presence of police confronting rioters would rouse the mood of protesters and incite aggressive behavior among rioters. A genuflect to marauding bands roving Chicago’s streets, Lightfoot’s refusal to marshal police sufficiently and her refusal to consistently and sternly condemn rioters and demand protesters comply with lawful orders from police only abetted and stoked further tumult and criminal activity.
Nonetheless, of the many troubling features of the mayor’s response to protests is the fact amid prevailing disorder Ms. Lightfoot’s held her harshest criticism for Chicago police. Though over 150 hundred officers were reported injured in rolling clashes with protesters, officers were captured on film being assaulted or dragged on streets, and two men were arrested at the homes of officers likely with the intent of committing crimes, Lightfoot’s loudest disapproval remained directed at police for concealing identification and the use of an obscene gesture at rioters and anti-police activists. Although the act of concealing badges was a precautionary measure undertaken by police as word spread police identities were sought by protesters, some officers now face the possibility of dismissal or the removal police powers. A confounding response to officers concerned with the welfare of their families, as egregious as Lightfoot’s errors were, the mayor’s worst performance occurred when challenged by aldermen. As the onslaught in Chicago grew uglier and City Council members posed earnest questions to the mayor over her lethargic response to upheaval throughout the city, to deflect from her atrocious handling of the crisis, the mayor lashed out at City Council members who dared to question her. A fit of rage which revealed the mayor’s willingness to place question marks around the motivations of those with whom she disagrees, it similarly declared Lightfoot’s predisposition to mock, often in crude, profane terms, those who expose her flaws or highlight her organizational and managerial ineptitude. While Lightfoot’s demeanor may woo an audience on the Left, arrogance and insularity are not strong leadership traits.
While the worst of the 2020 riots may have passed, Chicago is entering a new period in which it must now confront a new plight: A crisis of Mayor Lightfoot’s authority. If Chicago learned any lesson over how Ms. Lightfoot navigated the George Floyd riots, we learned from aldermen reasoned debate with the mayor is non-existent, discussion over crisis management is unwelcome or counterproductive, and her judgment is not subject to logical or dispassionate examination. From Chicago Police, we learned appeals for help will go unanswered and punishment awaits those who express anguish in a fleeting moment. We also learned Ms. Lightfoot is more hostile to law-and-order measures than she is to riots and looting. Most important, we learned Ms. Lightfoot will always seek out a villain (President Trump, City Council members) or a scapegoat (Chicago police officers) to deflect attention away from her missteps.
If Ms. Lightfoot were to be graded for her performance at mitigating the crisis, at best her response demonstrated the mayor has abysmal judgement and lacks the ability to comprehend and cope with emergencies. At worst, Lightfoot waved a white flag to opponents of law and order.
[Chicago Reporter] [The Invisible Institute] [cpdp.co]
