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    ‘She doesn’t want the drama’: anger as Chicago mayor comes up short on police reform

    On 20 May 2019, the freshly elected Chicago mayor, Lori Lightfoot, delivered her inauguration speech to a jubilant audience.It was imbued with promises of fundamental change – tailored care for blighted neighborhoods, solutions to government corruption and endemic violent crime, an ambitious agenda for tackling deep-rooted faults in the city.“For years they’ve said Chicago ain’t ready for reform. Well, get ready, because reform is here,” Lightfoot, Chicago’s first Black woman and openly gay mayor, and a former federal prosecutor, said.She pledged to reform the Chicago police department, promising to “continue the hard but essential work of forging partnerships between police officers and the community premised on mutual respect, accountability and a recognition that the destinies of police and community are inextricably intertwined”.Police reform seemed like a perfect task for Lightfoot given one of her prior roles of leading the city’s special taskforce on police accountability and reform.She issued a scathing report on the department in 2016, addressing broken trust between police and community and noting: “A painful but necessary reckoning is upon us.”It urged sweeping change and backed a “widely held belief the police have no regard for the sanctity of life when it comes to people of color”.But sweeping change awaits. Almost two years into office, Lightfoot is under fire, accused of back-pedaling on accountability and reform while botching some high-profile cases involving police killing or misconduct.There’s outrage over Chicago police earlier this month killing 13-year-old Adam Toledo after a chase that ended with the boy being shot dead after stopping and putting his hands up as ordered by the pursuing officer.Elizabeth Toledo, Adam’s mother, had not been notified about his death until two days after the shooting, leaving her to think her son was missing. Lightfoot choked up while admitting “we failed Adam”.He was one in a growing record of police killing children across America, with victims disproportionately being Black and Hispanic youth.But the Mapping Police Violence project found that between 2013 and 2021, Chicago police killed more under-18s than any other local law enforcement agency in the country – at least 12.And Lightfoot last December bungled the fallout from an incident that had happened before her mayorship, where Anjanette Young’s home was raided by police who had the wrong address, guns drawn, and she was handcuffed while naked.The mayor admitted she knew about the raid in 2019, contradicting previous claims otherwise, and the city also attempted to block the video release of the raid, Lightfoot later calling the attempt a “mistake”.Activists called for Lightfoot’s resignation in both instances, and all amid a surge in shootings within city communities.Progress on police reform is close to fruitless, leaving activists, many city council members, or aldermen, and Chicagoans distrustful.“I view her as not having fulfilled those campaign promises, because she hasn’t,” said Chicago’s first ward alderman Daniel La Spata, bluntly.Lightfoot succeeded Rahm Emanuel, whose mayorship was controversial on several fronts. Emanuel was accused of an attempted cover-up of the murder of Laquan McDonald, a Black 17-year-old, by Jason Van Dyke, a white officer.McDonald was shot 16 times by Van Dyke in 2014 as he was moving away from the police.Following McDonald’s death, a Department of Justice investigation into Chicago police delivered a blistering report that found an epidemic use of racist, excessive force as well as corruption among officers.The new mayor said in 2019: “I campaigned on change, you voted for change.”But is change coming?“When you’re replacing a mayor like Rahm Emanuel – who in many ways had to leave office because he covered up the murder of Laquan McDonald – and you look at the way that the murder of Adam Toledo has been handled, you begin to see a lot of similarities,” said the 35th ward alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa.For decades, rectifying Chicago’s broken policing system has remained a vital priority.The shooting death of Cedrick Chatman, 17, by officers in 2013, and the 2015 killing of 22-year-old Rekia Boyd made national headlines, as well as McDonald’s murder.And there was “Homan Square”, a notorious interrogation warehouse used by Chicago police, which ignited international outrage after the Guardian reported in 2015 on thousands of people being illegally detained and tortured by police into false confessions.Alongside more well-known travesties, there are also thousands upon thousands of allegations made against Chicago police, according to data from the Citizens Police Data Project, a tool created to publicize allegations of Chicago police abuse, with little result.Lightfoot promised to “implement civilian oversight of CPD”, according to her campaign platform on public safety. And she vowed to produce a civilian oversight board in her first 100 days of office, but it hasn’t happened.She had supported a plan for a local law to create such a board, generated by the Grassroots Alliance for Police Accountability (GAPA), until she backtracked in October last year.The mayor renounced her support of the GAPA ordinance after claiming activists were unwilling to compromise or “come forward with a proposal that solves … outstanding issues”.But Carlil Pittman, a youth organizer with Southwest Organizing Project, co-founder of the Goodkids Madcity advocacy and a representative of GAPA, described an unproductive environment, saying the mayor would lapse in communication with organizers, cancel public safety committee meetings and refuse to negotiate ordinance policy.“Her words were, ‘If you’re here to negotiate [that] policymaking power be in the hands of this community commission, we can stop this conversation now’. Her exact words? ‘I’m not giving up policymaking powers’,” Pittman told the Guardian.Alderman Rosa called Lightfoot “obstructionist” over civilian oversight of police.Lightfoot, instead, has repeatedly asserted that her own ordinance on civilian oversight is coming.In the meantime, a joint proposal called the empowering communities for public safety ordinance, created by GAPA and the Civilian Police Accountability Council that would lead to a referendum on creating an elected policing oversight body, has gained support among progressives, with many calling for the mayor to support it.Lightfoot has celebrated progress on transparency, including reforms in police union contracts and a creation of guidelines to release materials about police misconduct.However, a proposal requiring Chicago to publish closed complaints against the police dating back to 1994 received her public disapproval.“She doesn’t want any of the drama that comes with the acknowledgment that for years, for decades, [Chicago] police have been operating in a disturbing and disgusting way,” said Trina Reynolds-Tyler, a human rights organizer and the director of data at the Invisible Institute, a journalism production company on Chicago’s Southside focused on holding public bodies to account.In a recently passed $12.8bn budget, Lightfoot allocated $65m to housing and anti-homelessness efforts. She also included $20m in community mental health programs and $1m for a new program to pair police with mental health workers on some emergency calls.Amid calls for reorganization she reduced the police’s eye-popping $1.69bn budget by just $58.9m.Chicago’s population of 2.6 million makes it the third largest US city, but it has the second highest per capita spending on police after New York, according to US News & World Report, and the most officers per capita, according to the Injustice Watch journalism non-profit.Yet many Chicagoans feel underprotected. And the city is still far behind on goals set under yet another indictment of its track record, a court-ordered consent decree to overhaul policing.It was issued in February 2019 but also stemmed from the murder of McDonald, with legal action involving the state attorney general, Black Lives Matter Chicago and the American Civil Liberties Union of Illinois.Last summer, in light of George Floyd’s murder by a white officer in Minneapolis, Lightfoot was part of a group of city mayors who promoted reform while rejecting defunding as a route to transformation.The Guardian contacted Lightfoot’s office about progress of her promised reforms, but they declined to comment.But while Lightfoot’s limited results may seem surprising, a look further back shows a pattern of sidestepping real reform, Reynolds-Tyler argued.In 2002, as chief administrator of the Chicago Office of Professional Standards (OPS), a weak and now defunct police oversight body, Lightfoot rarely managed to get any cases of police misconduct prosecuted, according to the Appeal non-profit site, and backed officers in some highly contentious cases.The outlook is grim, and yet the need for transformation is as great as ever.Alderman Ramirez-Rosa said: “The people of the city of Chicago are crying out for change as it relates to our broken policing system. We owe it to Anjanette Young, we owe it to Laquan McDonald, we owe it to Rekia Boyd, we owe it to Adam Toledo to pass police reform as a first step to ending racist policing.” More

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    Talk of Rahm Emanuel in Biden cabinet outrages his Chicago critics

    Of all the names bouncing around as prospects yet to be tapped for the incoming Biden-Harris administration, there’s one triggering intense emotion, especially in his home town.News that Rahm Emanuel is being considered for transportation secretary or another position in Joe Biden’s cabinet or senior team has sparked outrage among Chicagoans who believe his controversial tenure as mayor of that city should disqualify him from a return to the highest echelons of Washington.Emanuel is a Chicago native with a track record as an Illinois congressman before serving as Barack Obama’s chief of staff then two terms as Chicago mayor.But he’s a divisive figure who long ago upset liberals, most prominently in Washington, by discouraging Obama from pursuing what became his signature legislative achievement – healthcare reform via the Affordable Care Act – and then in myriad ways as mayor of Chicago from 2011 to 2019.He’s been endorsed by key moderate figures such as the Illinois senator and Democratic whip Dick Durbin, ex-transportation secretary and former Illinois Republican congressman Ray LaHood, current congressman Mike Quigley and Chicago South Side alderman Michelle Harris, who described him as “the perfect candidate” for the transportation job.But prominent progressives in Chicago and elsewhere are livid that Biden would even give his name an airing, accusing Emanuel of exacerbating the city’s entrenched, acute inequalities and, most dramatically, botching the handling of Black teenager Laquan McDonald’s killing by a white police officer in 2014.Rahm Emanuel “covered up the murder of a young Black man in Chicago in order to advance his political career”, city alderman Carlos Ramirez-Rosa said of his potential appointment.Dashcam footage of 17-year-old McDonald being gunned down by officer Jason Van Dyke, who was convicted in 2018 of the murder, was suppressed for more than a year before a judge ordered it released. Emanuel’s role in that delay ignited weeks of local and national protests and calls for his resignation. It left an indelible stain and he didn’t run for a third term.Eva Maria Lewis, a Chicago artist and organizer as well as the founder of the Free Root Operation, a non-profit fighting poverty-induced gun violence, said that a post for Emanuel in the Biden-Harris administration would mean “people don’t care” what Black Americans have to say.“You can’t argue against the information, the evidence is all there – 16 shots and a cover-up, everyone knows what that means. He was essentially ousted. People were not going to go for him being in office after the Laquan McDonald cover-up,” she said.In the aftermath of the scandal, Emanuel opposed a federal investigation into the Chicago police department and failed to cultivate a community oversight board for the police, as had been promised.Elsewhere, the New York congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and congressman-elect Jamaal Bowman spoke out along similar lines, as did Missouri congresswoman-elect Cori Bush.What is so hard to understand about this?Rahm Emanuel helped cover up the murder of Laquan McDonald. Covering up a murder is disqualifying for public leadership.This is not about the “visibility” of a post. It is shameful and concerning that he is even being considered. https://t.co/P28C0E4fYP— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 23, 2020
    Liberal critics in Chicago are opposed on additional grounds.Ramirez-Rosa pointed to the infamous closing of 50 Chicago public schools under Emanuel. He added: “He passed policies that balanced the city of Chicago on the backs of working people. I think he’s shown that he is not fit to serve in Biden’s cabinet and really do what needs to be done to undo the harm that was caused by President Trump.”And he accused Emanuel of focusing on wielding power “on behalf of the interests to billionaires”, including ultra-wealthy Republicans.Emanuel divested from Chicago’s public education after mandating millions in budget cuts as well as 1,400 layoffs, leading to a dire reduction of school nurses, librarians, social workers, and others. In 2012, Chicago teachers went on strike for the first time in almost 25 years.The school closures, the most at any one time, were concentrated in majority-black, poorer neighborhoods and disrupted many families’ lives.“Children had to cross gang territory to get an education. Schools were overcrowded. People were forced to attend dilapidated schools. The budget was not equitably distributed – closing the schools was avoidable,” said Lewis.Notoriously, Emanuel closed half of Chicago’s public mental health clinics with most of them concentrated on the South Side. The closings resulted in wide disparities in access to mental health treatment, with 0.17 licensed mental health clinicians for every 1,000 South Side residents versus 4.45 for every 1,000 residents on the city’s wealthier North Side. The closing led to a convoluted transition process, with hundreds of unaccounted for patients and overburdened neighboring community mental health providers.Then there is his style, typical descriptions ranging from tough and effective to abrasive and bullying and, obviously, his reputation on transportation, which is glaringly inconsistent.“If you didn’t agree on an issue, he was extremely confrontational. I often had one-way confrontations with him where I would ask him questions that should’ve been asked on different issues – such as the ‘Elon Musk tunnel’,” said Scott Waguespack, alderman of Chicago’s 32nd ward.He added: “Even asking questions about that was met with pushback from him. He didn’t like anyone questioning his projects like that. That’s what people have to expect.”Emanuel touted a project with Tesla’s Musk to built a high-speed underground transportation system to link downtown to Chicago O’Hare airport, which ultimately failed.“It was all imagery he put up, that in the long run really had no substance to it,” said Waguespack.The mayor also created the Chicago Infrastructure Trust, claiming to have secured $1bn worth of private investment and pledging to create 30,000 jobs over three years. The promises didn’t come to fruition and the current mayor, Lori Lightfoot, has since dissolved the trust.Overall, Emanuel has a mixed legacy on an ambitious transportation vision for Chicago, credited with expanding walking paths and biking lanes in some neighborhoods, making essential upgrades to Chicago’s public transportation and improvements at O’Hare – but a drive towards sustainability and greater equality in services was missing.The Guardian contacted Emanuel for comment but did not receive a response.And there is another constituency whose opposition to a great “Return of Rahm” should give Biden pause – trade unions, including in transportation, whose support was a crucial source of votes in Biden’s win last month.The Transport Workers Union of America (TWU) called the prospect a betrayal and Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, called Emanuel a union buster.Again, no. DOT is effectively the labor department for aviation – 80% union. It plays a major role in transportation trade too. We do not need a union buster setting the rules for workers in aviation. That just doesn’t reflect @JoeBiden’s deep commitment to workers & our unions. https://t.co/IjEvqwxbKK— Sara Nelson (@FlyingWithSara) November 30, 2020
    Emanuel had a hostile relationship with representatives of teachers and other city employees.“We didn’t work our asses off to have Rahm Emanuel as the secretary of transportation … he’s anti-trade union, he’s anti-worker,” John Samuelsen, international president of TWU, told the Intercept.Chicago alderman Ramirez-Rosa concluded that any elevation of Emanuel would be a sign that a Biden administration meant “more of the same” political culture in Washington that has eroded public faith.He said it would signal that “if you have lobbyists, big donors, or billionaires backing you up, they will be able to put you in that cabinet so you can carry water for them”. More

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    Christopher Columbus statue removed in Chicago following protests

    A statue of Christopher Columbus in downtown Chicago’s Grant Park was taken down early on Friday, a week after protesters trying to topple the monument to the Italian explorer clashed with police.The controversial statue was taken down at the direction of the city’s mayor, Lori Lightfoot, according to the Chicago Tribune.Crews used a large crane to remove the statue from its pedestal as a small crowd gathered to watch. The crowd cheered and passing cars honked as the statue came down about 3am. Several work trucks were seen in the area, but it was unclear where the statue would be taken.The removal came after hours of vocal confrontations between protesters and supporters of the statue on Thursday night. And a week ago, protesters clashed with police, who used batons to beat people and made arrests after they say protesters targeted them with fireworks, rocks and other items. At least 20 complaints of police brutality were filed against Chicago police officers, the Tribune reported.“This statue coming down is because of the effort of Black and Indigenous activists who know the true history of Columbus and what he represents,” Stefan Cuevas-Caizaguano, a resident watching the removal, told the Chicago Sun-Times.The removal also comes amid a plan by Donald Trump to dispatch federal law enforcement agents to the city to respond to gun violence, prompting worries that the surge will inhibit residents’ ability to hold demonstrations. A collection of activist groups had filed suit on Thursday, seeking to block federal agents sent to combat violent crime from interfering in or policing protests.State officials in Oregon had sued for similar requests following the arrival of federal law enforcement officials after nearly two months of protests in Portland since the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.Protesters across the county have called for the removal of statues of Columbus, saying that he is responsible for the genocide and exploitation of native peoples in the Americas. The Columbus statue in Chicago’s Grant Park and another in the city’s Little Italy neighborhood were vandalized last month, and statues of Columbus have also been toppled or vandalized in other US cities.The Tribune reported that not all Italian American leaders in Chicago were on board with the decision to remove the statue. Lightfoot had previously refused, saying it was not appropriate to erase history.The Associated Press sent an email on Friday seeking comment from Mayor Lightfoot’s office. More

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    Governors: Trump making ‘delusional’ comments on testing and restrictions

    State leaders say they cannot embark on Trump’s three-phase program to ease stay-at-home orders without widespread testing Coronavirus – live US updates Live global updates See all our coronavirus coverage Virginia Governor Ralph Northam: ‘We don’t even have enough swabs. For the national level to say that we have what we need, and really to […] More

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    Prominent Obama donors will hold Chicago event for Bloomberg

    John Rogers and Mellody Hobson to host African American speakers next week as billionaire seeks black votes Two prominent Democratic donors in Chicago with deep ties to Barack Obama will next week co-host an event for former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg. Related: Once a longshot, Bloomberg is gaining ground in California. Will it last? […] More

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    Socialism used to be a dirty word. Is America now ready to embrace it?

    What’s left, America? Democrats In the fourth part of our series we examine how voters’ feelings on socialism have shifted. Half of Americans under 40 say they would prefer to live in a socialist country ‘I’m interested in a government that looks out for people who need to be looked out for.’ Illustration: Guardian Design/The […] More