Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot hits out at reports police turned their backs on her over female officer’s death
Mayor Lightfoot says we are living in a moment ‘where people feel like it is their right to spew hatred at everyone that they don’t agree with’
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Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has slammed coverage of her ongoing feud with the city’s police department days after a group of officers mourning the death of a colleague turned their backs on her.
Mayor Lightfoot visited University of Chicago Medical Center on Saturday night after a shooting left 29-year-old officer Ella French dead and another officer fighting for his life.
Brothers Emonte and Eric Morgan have been charged with the murder of Officer French.
In photos posted to Facebook, officers were shown turning away from Ms Lightfoot as she went to speak to them at the hospital.
Addressing the incident at a press conference, Ms Lightfoot acknowledged tensions are high.
She said the “larger question” than officers turning their backs on her was the “nasty, vicious talk” by some in the press and on social media.
The mayor said that we were living in a moment “where people feel like it is their right to spew hatred at everyone that they don’t agree with”, often via anonymous social media accounts.
She said while the press played a “very important role in our democracy”, she says coverage often becomes a “race to the bottom and it’s all about the fight and it’s all about the conflict”.
Ms Lightfoot was also asked about reports that the Chicago Police Department’s second-in-command had called off a traditional honour guard and bagpipe salute as Ms French’s body was entering the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office.
The Chicago Sun-Times reported First Deputy Superintendent Eric Carter said “we don’t have 20 minutes for this s***” and ordered the ambulance carrying Ms French’s body into the hospital without delay.
She said Mr Carter had simply been following the medical examiner’s Covid protocols. However, the medical examiner’s officer told Chicago media it hadn’t imposed any new rules around Covid.
“I support what he did,” Ms Lightfoot said. “And I’m horrified that in this moment, people are trying to savage him for whatever agenda or purpose. I would just caution you all. Be careful. Be careful.”
Mayor Lightfoot also lashed out at a question that she had visited the hospital against the wishes of the family of the injured officer, saying it was “offensive and insulting”.
“I’m not gonna to respond to that. I don’t force my way anywhere. And that’s offensive, frankly, that you would ask me that question,” Ms Lightfoot said.
In a statement released before the press conference on Monday, Ms Lightfoot tried to ease the tension between her office and the CPD rank-and-file that had been visible at the hospital.
“There were hundreds of officers who were there and I met and talked to many of them,” she said.
“And there was a lot of emotion from a range of the spectrum from total despair, to anger and rage and kind of everything in between - and that’s to be expected. So it’s a really hard loss.”