Chicago Showdown: Following Continued Chaos, the City Adds 1,000 Officers to Stop the Insanity

AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast
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Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot responds to a question after Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced a shelter in place order to combat the spread of the Covid-19 virus, during a news conference Friday, March 20, 2020, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)
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Chi-Town is sending in the troops.

At a press conference Thursday, Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown announced the Windy City will be adding 1,000 more cop shifts from Friday through Sunday.

As noted by The Daily Wire, the beefing is similar to a recent 1,200-officer increase in a southwest neighborhood where gang violence has been on the rise.

The thousand-strong upgrade, of course, follows yet more social unrest — including last week’s stunning looting in the Magnificent Mile, Rush Street, Oak Street, and Loop shopping areas.

As I covered Monday, that looked something like this:

On Friday, Mayor Lori Lightfoot confirmed the law enforcement lift, indicating the Department of Streets & Sanitation will be chipping in to stop mass theft.

Furthermore, she said, police will employ “new and enhanced tactics” in the shutting down of opportunistic “caravans.”

“Vans” is an appropriate term to throw in — from Fox News four days ago, reporting on the weekend:

The Chicago Tribune reported that it observed people carrying shopping bags full of merchandise in the areas where the looting was happening, and at least one U-Haul van was seen pulling up.

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Amid chaos in the streets, Mayor Lori hasn’t exactly taken a bite out of crime — she’s blamed it on Trump. But now her mouth’s full of tough talk:

“There can never be any place in Chicago where businesses are afraid to open, where residents and visitors are afraid to travel and shop, or where employees are afraid to go to work.”

According to Fox32, Superintendent David explained the city’s supplemental soldiers will be guarding business interests:

“Brown gave a stern warning to would-be thieves in a Thursday evening news conference. He said the Chicago Police Department would be testing deployments downtown Thursday night and is prepared to use every method possible to stop looters.

“We are going to deploy all tactics necessary to prevent and stop looting. [That may mean] deploying spike strips to puncture your tires. We’ve increased our numbers, we have extended our hours that our officers work. There’s an increase of 1,000 officers that would normally be here.”

Shops and the like are sick of the anarchy that’s been allowed, and major movers and shakers are threatening to hightail it outta there.

From TDW:

Monday’s looting — the second such rampage in less than three months — left more than a dozen Chicago police officers injured and caused an estimated $60 million in damages. Businesses, including anchor stores like Macy’s that have operated on the Magnificent Mile for decades, have informed the city that unless something drastic is done to curb the violence, they will abandon their leases and move elsewhere.

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But will looters be prosecuted, or will Chicago continue the Democratic trend of giving participants a pass?

David weighed in:

“What I want the looters to learn is how committed we are to not only stopping the looting but, if they escape, working tirelessly to find them, punish them and prosecute them.”

That’s a very different tune than the one so far played — in a press briefing Tuesday, David pointed to Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx: Her office, he suggested, had purposefully dropped rioting and looting cases dating back to the end of May.

However, Kim’s crew claims most of those cases are still in the air.

Moreover, via a statement, she said 42 people have already been charged with felonies committed during Sunday’s appropriation extravaganza.

Meanwhile, as noted by the Wire, Chicago PD has released security footage of thieves and is asking for the public’s help in identifying them.

One of those may not be too hard to find — city leadership (and, some might say, leadership across the country) has engendered such a culture of crime at this point, one looter streamed herself stealing (Language Warning):

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You’ve got some big problems, Chicago. And 1,000 officers may be a start, but I’d guess you — and we, nationally — have a long way to go to peace, civility, and safety.

-ALEX

 

See more pieces from me:

Drew Brees Kneels on Taking a Stand: Systemic Racism is a Problem, and He’s Sorry He ‘Hurt a Lot of People’

#Cancel Culture Climax: Actress is Pressured to Apologize – For Something ‘Ignorant’ She Did When She Was Nine

A Pop Star Calls Out Cancel Culture’s God Complex: ‘I Am So Grateful God Never Canceled Me’

Find all my RedState work here.

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