Chicago’s embattled Mayor Lori Lightfoot got into an expletive-laced exchange with a city alderman who raised concerns over the city’s preparedness for protests over the death of George Floyd in police custody.
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Ald. Raymond Lopez, who is a harsh critic of Lightfoot, took part in a conference call on May 31 to address steps that the city was taking to address looting. CBS 2 obtained the audio of the conversation that deteriorated into a profanity-laced grilling.
Lopez said the city was not prepared. He said “we can’t expect our police, and I don’t fault them at all, to be able to control this. Half our neighborhoods are already obliterated. It’s too late.”
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The report said that Lopez raised concerns that looters would soon move on from the city to residential homes. He said protesters will not be going to bed at 8 p.m.
“They’re going to turn their focus on the neighborhoods. I’ve got gang-bangers with AK-47s walking around right now, just waiting to settle some scores. What are we going to do, and what do we tell residents, other than good faith people stand up? It’s not going to be enough,” he said.
The report said that Lightfoot did her best to avoid responding to Lopez, but when the alderman called her out, she laced into him and said she believed that he is “100 percent full of s***.”
“F*** you, then. Who are you to tell me I’m full of s***?” Lopez said. “Maybe you should come out and see what’s going on.”
Chicago has seen looting and violent protests since Floyd’s death in police custody. The city is in such bad condition, Walmart reportedly said that it is considering whether it will reopen in some of the locations where there has been looting.
“We are still assessing the damage,” the Walmart spokesperson told Business Insider. “No decision has been made.”
Violence in the city is reaching historic levels. May 31, a Sunday, marked its deadliest day in six decades with 18 murders, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
Max Kapustin, the senior research director at the University of Chicago Crime Lab, said, “We’ve never seen anything like it… I don’t even know how to put it into context. It’s beyond anything that we’ve ever seen before.”