Unrest and violence erupted early Monday in downtown Chicago after weeks of bubbling tensions in several neighborhoods in the city and protests on Sunday after a man was shot by police on the south side.
More than 100 people were arrested Monday after pockets of disturbance escalated last night in looting at the so-called Magnificent Mile central shopping district and some destruction in other parts of the city, authorities said.
Police Superintendent David Brown said the problems in downtown were “not an organized protest” but instead “an incident of pure crime” that began after a person was shot by police on Sunday near Englewood, who 10 miles from north side streets of flagship stores.
At one point early on Monday, shots were fired at police officers and officers returned the fire. Brown said a heavy police presence was expected in downtown until further notice.
Hours earlier, on Sunday afternoon, police shot a man after he opened fire on officers, according to the department. The incident apparently prompted a social media post urging people to convert across the business district, Brown said. Some 400 additional officers were dispatched to the area after the police department located the mail.
“This was a straight-laced crime,” said Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot. “This was an attack on our city.”
Hundreds of people were seen smashing shop fragments and stealing goods on Sunday night. Several people were videotaped with merchandise from stores, including Walgreens and CVS, in which some brought the goods to waiting cars.
There was a large police presence outside a Apple store north of downtown Chicago on Monday morning. Blocks away, pun was strewn in parking lots for a Best Buy and a large liquor store.
Downtown train and bus transportation was temporarily halted at the request of public safety officials, the Chicago Transit Authority said on Twitter. Bridges across the Chicago River were lifted, preventing travel to and from the downtown area, and Illinois police blocked some highway disasters in the downtown area.
Chicago’s private shutdown reflects similar moves taken in the wake of the death of George Floyd, a black man killed on May 25 by Minneapolis police. Floyd’s death sparked a wave of protests against anti-racism across the country, including in Chicago.
Lightfoot said police are investigating the possible link between the recent riot and the shooting of the man in Englewood. But she said that “” can be no excuse “for what she called” brazen and extensive criminal looting and destruction “.
“We will wake up this morning from shock,” the mayor said on Monday. “This has nothing to do with the first expression of the amendment. This was straightforward crime, criminal behavior. It’s deeply painful for any Chicagoan, it’s an attack on our city and undermines our recovery efforts. ”
The unnamed man who was shot by police, thought to be in his teens as early as 20, was in Englewood, and was taken to a hospital in an unknown condition.
Several dozen people gathered locally to protest, in what became a face-off with police in the throat of the shooting, but they then dispersed.
The unrest has led to blame directed at Lightfoot, such as Illinois Governor JB Pritzker for failing to address violent outbursts of varying intensity, culminating in Sunday night’s chaos.
Lightfoot is under intense pressure, not only in the immediate sense, but in terms of underlying factors, such as a history of extreme inequality between weeks, police problems and a recent rise in gun violence in some communities.
Deep-seated problems have been exacerbated by the coronavirus pandemic, the related cratering of the economy and tensions with police amid widespread protests fueled by Floyd’s death, but have sparked outrage over broader systemic racism than police brutality.
“This is a failure of leadership,” tweeted Raymond Lopez, an alderman for the city’s south. “A failure of law enforcement and attorney of state not on the same page. A failure to act on information. We’ve seen this before. The question now is how do we protect the other weeks. How do you hold these criminals accountable? ‘
Other elected representatives in Chicago pointed to the vandalism and theft occurring in the broader context of rising unemployment, differences in health care in the pandemic and community anger at police for disproportionately targeted people of color.
“We not only have criminals on the streets, we have criminals in business administration and criminals in government. “People are starving,” La Shawn Ford, a state representative for the western part of Chicago, told NBC. ‘Right now we see black people in black people calling for help and looting black people. The solution is not to lock them up alone. ”
Donald Trump has regularly portrayed Chicago as a lawless place and threatened federal intervention in the city.
There were sporadic clashes with police in other cities over the weekend, as for the most part peaceful protests split on the fringe as in the early hours.
Police in riot gear stormed a rally on Friday, removing hundreds of protesters by truck. Police in riot gear stormed a rally on Friday, removing hundreds of protesters by truck. Police in riot gear stormed a rally on Friday, removing hundreds of protesters by truck.
In Portland, Oregon, protests that were largely calm across several parts of the city were later thwarted by a collision outside a police union building. Law enforcement officials for the second time over the weekend, following a fire in the building early Sunday, declared the situation a riot, prompting several arrests.
Other protests took place in Phoenix, Arizona, and Seattle, as demonstrations continued in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, which was further encouraged by the assassination of Floyd in Minneapolis, and banners by the U.S. and the United States. foreign tracks.
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