Chicago Mayor explains her shift: the federal assistance is based on the city’s staggering violence and not against civil unrest
Approximately 1,000 protesters marched to the home of Mayor Lori Lightfoot in Chicago on Thursday evening.
The protest came after Lightfoot shifted her position, and agreed to President Donald Trump’s plan to send 200 federal agents to the city.
READ MORE: Trump calls Chicago a ‘disaster,’ to send ‘surge of federal law enforcement’
Lightfoot maintains that the federal assistance was in response to gun violence, not peaceful protests.
A photographer named Vashon Jordan, Jr. shared images on Twitter saying, “Words can’t express how live Chicago is right now, near the Mayor’s block.”
Joshua Potash, a Black Lives Matter activist in the city, shared one of Jordan’s videos saying, “Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot agreed to let feds into Chicago. So this is the scene outside her house tonight.”
On Wednesday, Lightfoot’s office released a statement that said that Trump reached out to the Mayor in a brief conversation.
The Chicago Sun-Times reports that “Mayor Lightfoot maintains that all resources will be investigatory in nature and be coordinated through the U.S. Attorney’s office.”
“The Mayor has made clear that if there is any deviation from what has been announced, we will pursue all available legal options to protect Chicagoans.”
In an exclusive interview with the newspaper, U.S. Attorney John Lausch said the effort was not about patrol, as is the case in Portland, Oregon.
“This is not against civil unrest,” he said, “This is working with the Chicago Police Department to do what we can to reduce the staggering violent crime we’re facing right now.”
Lausch said the federal teams will be focused on “gangs, guns, and drugs.” He also stated that agents will not be dressed in camouflage.
READ MORE: 150 federal agents to be deployed to Chicago: report
Protesters had other issues to present to the city’s executive.
The crowd called for Lightfoot to defund the police, reduce some of their responsibilities, and reinvest the portions of the allocated budget assigned to the department into other programs.
They also demanded justice for an 18-year-old man named Miracle Boyd who was allegedly punched by a Chicago police officer last week during a demonstration against a statue of Christopher Columbus in Grant Park.
Boyd lost several teeth following the confrontation. Lightfoot recently vowed to remove the statue.
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