Lightfoot ended the call with one last request of aldermen.
“Pray for us all.” @wttw https://t.co/QTcaiO03r4
— Heather Cherone (@HeatherCherone) June 5, 2020
Via WTTW:
As unrest swept the city Sunday, aldermen pleaded with Mayor Lori Lightfoot to help them protect their communities from roving bands of criminals clashing with police and looting businesses.
WTTW News obtained a recording of an online conference call held by the mayor’s office to brief all 50 aldermen on the city’s response to the unrest touched off by the death of George Floyd in the custody of Minneapolis police.
While one alderman wept, others grew angry with the mayor, demanding to know what her strategy was to stop the violence that began in earnest late Saturday.
The call provides a snapshot into the city’s response as of midday on Sunday to the most widespread and damaging unrest since the uprising after the murder of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and the police riots after the Democratic National Convention in 1968.
The recording begins with Ald. Michelle Harris (8th Ward) wondering how she could convince businesses like Walmart and CVS to rebuild on the South Side after the destruction.
“It’s like, what are we going to have left in our community?” Harris asks her colleagues before answering herself. “Nothing.”
The Chicago City Council’s Black Caucus criticized Lightfoot’s decision to use 375 members of the Illinois National Guard to block off the Loop and the central business district starting Sunday morning, making business corridors on the South and West sides an “easy target” for looters and criminals because they “did not have the same level of protection.”