Previous post
Next post
Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown is preparing for a showdown this weekend. So is Mayor Lori Lightfoot. As a result, the Windy City will see its downtown flooded with 1000 extra officers. Chicago may be bleeding, but its police force is determined that radicals will not take over its streets, as has happened in Portland.
Appearing at their first press conference after last weekend’s lootings, both Brown and Lightfoot claimed that no one had planned the violence. It just happened. But later in the week, Lightfoot reversed her story.
“When people showed up on Michigan Avenue in the downtown area with U-Haul trucks and cargo vans, and sophisticated equipment used to cut metal, and the methods that were used, and how quickly it got spun up, that wasn’t any spontaneous reaction.”
Gee, ya think? Especially when you consider how rapidly the looting spread throughout Chicago. One business owner said:
“Eleven o’clock is when everyone converged. Are they prepared for something like that? I’ve seen police a lot in our area. I’ve never seen them so unprepared for what happened”
As a result, Chicago police will flood the downtown with 1000 extra officers this weekend. Police are suspecting that 12-hour shifts will be in the works.
Credit: Arvell Dorsey Jr./flickr/CC BY 2.0.
Supt. Brown is preparing for a showdown.
“If that means deploying stop-strip to puncture your tire, if you’re caravanning cars to loot, we will disable your car to prevent the caravan. And we will work very hard to do so. If that means deploying tow trucks to impound your cars that are caravanning, CPD will do so.”
Not only that, but police also plan to box in looters by blocking streets.
The superintendent means business. His city will not become Portland.
Brown and Lightfoot may have another showdown: with State’s Attorney Kim Foxx, who keeps letting perps walk, in particular the looters who were arrested in May and June. What’s more, according to the Chicago Tribune, in three years, Foxx dropped a lot more felony cases than her predecessor.
But Foxx tried to explain everything away in an editorial in the Tribune:
“But, pointing fingers of blame will not make us any safer. It won’t bring us any closer to justice. It won’t stop the shooting or the looting, and our communities deserve more.”
She also promised to do better:
“If, as it has been alleged, policies of my office are proven to contribute to looting or lawlessness, I will be the first to change them.”
Yeah, right. I don’t believe that for a second. First of all, the Chicago Council of Lawyers has Foxx’s back, writing in a letter to the editor in the Tribune. Increase in crime? Pffft! that’s right-wing talking points:
“The notion that Foxx’s policies have caused a crime wave in Chicago is untrue.”
“It is vital that our policymakers continue to prioritize anti-violence work that has warranted positive results instead of advocating for the punitive, “tough-on-crime” policies that have been continually disproved.”
In addition, Toni Preckwinkle, Cook County Board president and Foxx’s mentor, wrote an op-ed in the New York Times in which she defended her protegé. It wasn’t Foxx’s bail reform that led to the spike in Chicago crime. It was . . . wait for it. . . COVID-19 and the “economic crisis of a lifetime.”
On top of that, in February, George Soros gave $2 million to Foxx’s primary campaign through a PAC. Perhaps he’s throwing money at her general election this November, too. But that’s another story.
Supt. David Brown has a showdown or two ahead of him. Not only does he need to keep the businesses and good people of Chicago safe, he also has to deal with a state’s attorney who buys into social justice theories. Oh, yes, her office bragged that it charged 42 looters with felonies after last week’s mayhem. But her judges still continue leniency in issuing bail.
Take, for example, the account of Demisck Lomax. While prosecutors charged him with attacking a cop with a brick, trying to rob a Burberry store, and resisting arrest, he waltzed out of court after he posted a $500 bond. Other perpetrators posted bond as low as. . . get this. . . $100.
Supt. David Brown has been on the job as Chicago’s top cop only since April 22, having held that same job in Dallas prior to moving north. Can Brown keep Chicago — the nation’s third largest city — from becoming Portland? Or New York City? The extra 1000 cops on the street this weekend is a good start. Insisting that Kim Foxx’s office do its job is another. But he’s got a tough road ahead.
Featured image: Charles Edward Miller/flickr/cropped/CC BY-SA 2.0.
Lloyd says: And, do they think we will applaud this action…however late ?? The Chicago toilet has been in “flush mode” for quite some time. Where were the “authorities” for so long?
1 Comment