Lightfoot: 'We will reopen tomorrow'

Chicago mayor rebuffs Trump on deploying military against looters: ‘That’s not gonna happen’

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot declares that the city will move forward with plans to reopen the economy as scheduled on Wednesday. (Facebook/Chicago Mayor’s Office)

By Ted Cox

Chicago’s mayor declared Tuesday that the city would ease stay-at-home restrictions as scheduled Wednesday and move to the next phase to reopen the economy.

In the face of looting that had afflicted neighborhoods across the city through the weekend and into this week, Mayor Lightfoot said at a Tuesday news conference: “We will reopen tomorrow and take the important next step as planned.”

Acknowledging a “continuation of events,” including looting, through Monday night — “however, at a decreased level” — Lightfoot said she had toured gutted businesses across the city but primarily on the South and West sides. “It was hard to see. Hard to take in. Painful,” she said. “I also saw people and communities who care deeply about each other. … When you see moments like that, repeated all over the city, that gives you hope.”

According to the mayor, she asked business owners who’d been hit by looters again and again whether the city should reopen as planned on Wednesday or delay in the face of unrest, and the response was almost unanimous: “Mayor, we have to step forward. We have to reopen.”

Although Chicago has its own guidelines for the third phase of reopening businesses in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, it basically follows the state’s Restore Illinois plan in allowing businesses like hair salons and barbershops to reopen, while restaurants and coffeshops serve patrons outside. The state moved on to Phase 3 Friday, but Lightfoot held the city back to Wednesday over its slightly slower course in holding the spread of COVID-19.

Pointing out that the Phase 3 themes to “cautiously reopen” and “Be Safe Chicago” had only gained in meaning with the citywide unrest, Lightfoot told business owners the city was nonetheless dedicated to “reopening safely and securely and getting you back on your feet.”

Lightfoot repeated reports that the city was seeing widespread peaceful protests against police brutality and systemic racism in the wake of the death last week of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers, but that violent criminal elements were using those protests as cover and as a launching point for looting, typically after protesters disperse.

“There are people who join, who are embedded in that, who are not peaceful,” she said. Lightfoot said they engage in looting or, if prevented by police, “try to provoke our police officers into a confrontation,” sometimes as a distraction to loot other nearby businesses.

Police Supt. David Brown said the department was determined to respect peaceful protests and act professionally even in the face of hurled rocks and insults, but there was “no tolerance for looting.”

Most of the bridges across the Chicago River are raised to deter traffic in the Loop. (Facebook/Chicago Reader)

President Trump threatened Monday to deploy the military to cities to clamp down on protests and social unrest, which drew an immediate rebuke from Gov. Pritzker. Lightfoot was equally adamant in opposition on Tuesday.

“That’s not gonna happen. I’ll see him in court,” Lightfoot said. “Keep in mind, this is a man who likes to bluster — let’s not overreact.”

But she also insisted there was no compromise on the issue and charged that Trump was playing politics. “We’re not going to give over our city to the military so the president can play to his reelection,” Lightfoot said. “That’s not gonna happen.”

“We’re not considering that,” Brown agreed. He pointed out that “how we got here” was the excessive force used by Minneapolis police, and that calling in the National Guard for a heavy-handed military response was the exact opposite of the need to deescalate tensions. The Illinois National Guard has aided in monitoring the perimeter of the downtown area, but Brown and Lightfoot both maintained troops were not patrolling the streets.

Brown said he himself had faced rocks thrown by agitators as well as racial slurs, but that he expected officers to remain professional. “If you want to insult me, go ahead,” he said. “I’m a black man who’s comfortable in his own skin. And I’ve been black a long time.”

Chicago Public Health Commissioner Dr. Allison Arwady said the city remained on track on all COVID-19 data points to move on to the next phase of recovery from the pandemic. “New cases continue, but they are on the decline, and that’s a steady decline,” she said. “That’s great news, but it means we are not done. That progress is fragile at best.”

Arwady warned protesters gathering in large groups that they threatened to spread the coronavirus, saying, “Risk is not gone here. And it will not be” for some time.

As protests and other unrest seemed to subside as well, Lightfoot said she’d be reconsidering the city’s curfew, from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., and reopening the downtown business district and the Loop, which was closed to everyone but residents and essential workers, with several of the city’s bridges across the Chicago River raised to prevent traffic. Later in the day, she ordered the Loop reopened and lowered the bridges first thing Wednesday morning, but the curfew held.

Lightfoot called on insurers to pay claims immediately, saying, “These businesses desperately need the monies to which they’re entitled.”

She told Chicagoans, “It may not seem that morning is coming through this dark haze, but it is.”

Brown said he had stopped to talk with one young man who’d been holding up an “I love you” sign on the street while standing alongside a boombox playing Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On,” a song about social unrest in the early ‘70s. Brown said he was struck by the man’s positive message and the song’s conclusion that “only love can conquer hate.”

Brown advised young people unfamiliar with the song to “Google ‘What’s Going On’ by Marvin Gaye, and let me know what’s going on.”