On Sunday, as criminals and radical groups tore through the poorer areas of Chicago, smashing windows, looting, and burning stores, Mayor Lori Lightfoot was accused of not keeping people safe during a leaked conference call. The aldermen were distraught and one had a cursing match with the mayor. Another alderman was crying over the damage. Stores in the poorest areas were destroyed and the people have nowhere to shop. The elderly can’t get medicine or food, nothing is left. They had to bring in heavy equipment to stop the anarchists who were also stealing the buses.
WTTW News obtained a recording of the online conference between 50 aldermen and the mayor.
While one alderman wept, others grew angry with the mayor, demanding to know what her strategy was to stop the violence that began in earnest late Saturday.
Listen to the audio at WTTW, it proves they were NOT “peaceful protests” or “mostly peaceful protests” as Democrats would have us believe. We have a brief clip here to give you an idea. The full audio is one hour and eighteen minutes.
It’s very important to go to the site and listen to the entire meeting. It shows there were NO peaceful protests. The media and the Democrats are lying. It also shows the need for police who can do their jobs.
HOW CAN THEY CONVINCE BUSINESSES TO STAY
The recording begins with Ald. Michelle Harris (8th Ward) wondering how she could convince businesses like Walmart and CVS to rebuild on the South Side after the destruction.
“It’s like, what are we going to have left in our community?” Harris asks her colleagues before answering herself. “Nothing.”
[Kris Wyrobek, president and CEO of 7-Sigma, decided to move his business out of Minneapolis after rioters burned his plant to the ground.
Wyrobek does not “trust public officials who allowed his plant to burn.” The city will lose 50 jobs.]
The Chicago City Council’s Black Caucus criticized Lightfoot’s decision to use 375 members of the Illinois National Guard to block off the Loop and the central business district starting Sunday morning, making business corridors on the South and West sides an “easy target” for looters and criminals because they “did not have the same level of protection.”
Lightfoot claimed it was untrue and illogical.
Ald. Pat Dowell (3rd Ward) said she felt helpless to protect older residents, who she said were struggling to buy food and get prescription medicine.
“I’ve worked really hard over the last seven years and now I feel like I am five feet back,” Dowell said.
“I feel like I am at ground zero,” Harris responded. “My major business district is shattered. Why would Walmart or CVS come back to our communities?”
Ald. Emma Mitts (37th) said her West Side ward was like “the wild, wild west out there.”
Nearly five minutes into the call, Lightfoot speaks for the first time, saying she had been trying to speak for five minutes. She defended herself and said she was offended — deeply and personally.
“We’ve been working our a– off,” Lightfoot said. “It is all over the city.”
THEY HAD TO BRING IN HEAVY EQUIPMENT, POLICE IN ARMED COMBAT
Lightfoot said it took three hours for officers to clear the area near Madison Street and Pulaski Road, and even after officers “gassed [the crowd] with pepper spray twice, they didn’t give a s–t.”
The mayor said officers were in “armed combat” with those intent on committing crimes on the West Side only making progress after bringing in “heavy equipment and stronger pepper spray.”
Lightfoot said a crowd of 30-40 people gathered outside a clothing store near 111th Street and Michigan Avenue as a “dude with a sledgehammer” broke into the store to allow it to be looted.
“I don’t know about you, but I haven’t seen s–t like this before, not in Chicago,” Lightfoot said.
[I know, let’s get rid of the police. Great idea that is coming from Democrats.]
Lightfoot vowed to launch a “Herculean effort” to convince businesses to rebuild and reopen.
ANARCHISTS COMMANDEERED BUSES
Lightfoot said she had no choice but to shut down the CTA after reports buses were being “commandeered” by “anarchists.”
Dowell asked Lightfoot to use the National Guard to protect grocery stores and pharmacies, but the mayor said “they are not a magic tool, they are the military.”
In other cities, National Guard troops have made things worse, “not better,” Lightfoot claimed. [We doubt that]
Ald. Derrick Curtis (18th) said he had called 911 to report looting, and got no answer. Rich Guidice, the director of the Office of Emergency Management and Communications, acknowledged that the system was overwhelmed.
“There are no easy answers here,” Lightfoot said.
Organized groups of criminals were responsible for the majority of looting in Chicago, prompting nearly 65,000 calls to the city’s emergency operations center, Lightfoot said
Ald. Susan Sadlowski-Garza (10th Ward) broke down while pleading with Lightfoot for help.
S***SHOW, SHOOTING AT POLICE
“My ward is a s–t show,” Sadlowski-Garza said, adding that cop cars and banks were burned. “They are shooting at the police.”
Sadlowski-Garza began to cry as she said the unrest began about 11 a.m. Sunday, when a group of 40 people broke into a marijuana dispensary but had nothing to do with a protest.
“I have never seen the likes of this,” Sadlowski-Garza said. “I’m scared.”
Sadlowski-Garza wept as she told Lightfoot new businesses had been destroyed, while other shops were being protected by owners with shotguns.
“This is a massive, massive problem,” Lightfoot said. “People are just f—–g lawless right now.”
WARNING, VULGAR EXCHANGE WITH THE MAYOR
Ald. Raymond Lopez (15th Ward) demanded that Lightfoot develop a plan to stabilize Chicago’s neighborhoods for five days, calling his Southwest Side ward “a virtual war zone” where gang members armed with AK-47’s were threatening to shoot black people.
[I don’t understand, they have great gun laws!]
The call came to a screeching halt when Lightfoot declined to address the substance of Lopez’s remarks, and Lopez demanded that she respond.
Lightfoot told Lopez he was “100% full of s–t.”
“Well, f–k you then,” Lopez responded.
“I understand you want to preen,” Lightfoot told Lopez.
As aldermen objected, Lopez continued to speak.
“Mayor you need to check your f—–g attitude,” Lopez said.
THEY CAN’T USE DEADLY FORCE
At one point, towards the end, one police officer was running for his life and another policewoman was dragged around by her hair. “Was there an order not to shoot,” one asked. “What’s going on?”
There is not an “explicit order,” but they are told shooting someone escalates the violence. The police are probably afraid to use any deadly force for fear they will be in jail for murder.
You can read the rest of the exchange on this link. You can also listen to the audio file.
See, no police and let them destroy everything in sight.
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