CHICAGO (AP) — More than a dozen Chicago police officers and supervisors were captured on video “lounging” inside a burglarized congressional campaign office and even appeared to be making popcorn and brewing coffee as people vandalized and stole from nearby businesses as protests and unrest spread across the city, a visibly angry Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Thursday.
Chicago, like other U.S. cities, saw large protests overshadowed by criminal activity in the days following George Floyd’s death in custody after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee into the black man’s neck for several minutes.
Rush said the officers appeared to be relaxing inside the office that was broken into earlier in the day, still sounding like he could not believe what unfolded on the video.
He accused Lightfoot of staging a “Hollywood production” to push a political agenda that includes licensing of all police officers in Illinois.
Top leaders of the city’s police department called the officers’ actions indefensible, and Superintendent David Brown pledged that they will be disciplined because the department’s integrity is at stake.
