I get the feeling....Rush and Lightfoot just don't like cops

Rush says cops lounged in his burglarized campaign office as nearby stores were looted, Lightfoot is livid again
“They even had the unmitigated gall to go and make coffee for themselves, and pop popcorn, my popcorn, in my microwave,” U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush said at a news conference Thursday.

By Fran Spielman Jun 11, 2020, 1:26pm CDT

A Chicago police officer stretches his back on the couch in the burglarized office of U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush; after eating his brownbag lunch. Images of security video from the office were released at a news conference Thursday. In all, 13 officers can be seen, making coffee and popping popcorn at the office in an area that was beset by looting. Provided

Thirteen Chicago Police officers — including three supervisors — slept on a couch, popped popcorn and drank coffee in U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush’s South Side campaign office while looters had a field day in the same strip mall earlier this month.

An outraged and emotional Mayor Lori Lightfoot, her voice breaking at times, apologized to her former
political nemesis on Thursday for the “unspeakable indignity” and vowed to hunt down the officers responsible.

“Let me lead by apologizing to you again on behalf of our city that you and your office were treated with such profound disrespect. That’s a personal embarrassment to me. And I’m sorry that you and your staff had to deal with this incredible indignity,” the mayor told Rush at a City Hall news conference.

Lightfoot said the officers’ “deplorable failure to do their jobs” will only underscore the widespread perception that police officers “don’t care when black and brown communities are looted and burned.”

“You’re not serving and protecting when you make movie popcorn and put up your feet while your fellow officers are getting the hell beat out of them just a few doors away,” Lightfoot said.

U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush at a news conference Thursday, where he discussed Chicago police officers caught on video lounging in his burglarized campaign office. Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

The mayor said “tentative identifications” have been made for some of the officers involved and police are working to pinpoint the others, using the video provided by Rush.

It’s not a simple process, since the officers were drawn from across the city by the rampant looting and mayhem that occurred on Sunday, May 31. The video picks up at 1 a.m. on Monday, June 1, the mayor said.


Officers were on the scene for “four or five hours,” and “came in and out,” she said.

“You know who you are. You know what you did. Don’t make us come find you,” the mayor said, displaying some of the appalling photos.

“The utter contempt and disrespect on so many levels is almost hard to fathom. … I do have a range of emotions as I stand here. But, mostly, I’m done. We cannot go on like this any longer...Not one of these officers will be allowed to hide behind the badge and go on and act like nothing ever happened. Not anymore. Not in my city. Not in your city.”

CPD Supt. David Brown issued his own apology to Rush.

The superintendent said he summoned his command staff to a meeting Thursday morning to talk about the incident after viewing the tape provided by Rush. The congressmen had met with the mayor and Brown to show them the video on Wednesday evening.

When commanders told Brown he was being “too harsh” in disciplining officers, he told them, “It’s time for you to stop talking. Our words are cheap when we defend officers for their misconduct. That the integrity of the Chicago Police Department is far more important than any individual’s friendship with you or familyl relationship with you.”

He told them this was a “seminal moment” for the Chicago Police Department and that it was time to “reveal their leadership.”


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Echoing what his mom told him when he misbehaved as a kid, Brown said he told his commanders, “I’m not playing with you” and that supervisors “need to step up or step out. …Let’s now be the good cops who hold the bad cops accountable by rooting them out of this profession. Period. No question mark. No grey area.”

“If you sleep during a riot, what do you do on a regular shift when there’s no riot? What are you doing when there’s no crisis? And what makes you comfortable enough that a supervisor won’t hold you accountable?” the superintendent said.

The latest in a string of embarrassments for the Chicago Police Department comes as the death of George Floyd at the hands of now former Minneapolis police officers has touched off demonstrations across the nation and demands for police reform.

It happened early on Monday, June 1 at Rush’s campaign office in the Grand Boulevard Plaza shopping mall, 5401 S. Wentworth.

Some time during that Sunday when looting and mayhem that had raged that day before in downtown Chicago spilled over into South and West Side neighborhoods, Rush got a call that his campaign office had been burglarized.

When he finally got around to viewing the video, Rush said he was horrified by what he saw.

“We saw eight or more police officers, including three white shirts, in repose, relaxing during these most difficult times. They had their feet up on the desk. One was asleep on my couch. … One was on his cell phone,” Rush said.

“They even had the unmitigated gall to go and make coffee for themselves and to pop popcorn — my popcorn, in my microwave — while looters were tearing apart businesses within their sight, within their reach. They were in a moment of relaxation and they did not care about what was happening to business people in this city. They absolutely didn’t care.” 

U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush’s campaign office, 5401 S. Wentworth Ave. A damaged window has been boarded up. Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

Rush had taken time at the start of the news conference to praise Lightfoot, whom he had not backed in the mayoral election. In fact, in March 2019, Rush warned during a campaign rally for then-mayoral challenger Toni Preckwinkle that the “blood of the next young black man or black woman” killed by police would be on the hands of Lightfoot’s supporters if the former police board president was elected mayor.

Lightfoot was livid. They didn’t speak for months. In fact, the mayor held a grudge against those elected officials who were on the podium with Rush at the Preckwinkle rally and did not immediately denounce his vitriolic and racially incendiary attack.


On Thursday, all was forgiven.

The congressman was so impressed with the mayor’s handling of the incident, he urged all Chicagoans to “line up behind this mayor” who has led them through a pandemic and is now attempting to heal the city.

“She has the right stuff...She needs our absolute commitment to work with her to right the tremendous wrongs that have existed in this city for decades with the police department at the forefront of that,” Rush said.

“Let’s get behind this courageous, dedicated, committed mayor who can bring us to a higher level and make Chicago, instead of being the laughingstock of the nation, she can make this city the wonder of the world. I believe in her.” Mayor Lori Lightfoot at a Thursday press conference, vowing to discipline a group of Chicago police officers seen on video lounging in the burglarized campaign office of U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush (right). Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

Lightfoot said she plans to use the embarrassment to demand reforms that might otherwise have been unthinkable.

That includes the licensing of police officers statewide, a movement that failed just five years ago, and changes to a police contract that, she has long claimed “codifies the code of silence” in the Chicago Police Department. She also noted that disgraced former Area 2 Commander Jon Burge held onto his police pension until his death.

“There’s nothing right about that. That’s offensive...We’ve got to right that wrong as well,” the mayor said.

A former Police Board president, Lightfoot co-chaired the Task Force on Police Accountability appointed by then-Mayor Rahm Emanuel in the furor that followed the court-ordered release of the Laquan McDonald shooting video.

The task force demanded changes to a police contract that, it claimed, “codifies the code of silence” that Emanuel famously acknowledged exists at the Chicago Police Department.

The City Council’s Black Caucus has threatened to hold up ratification of any police contract that continues to give officers 24 hours before providing a statement after a shooting. The Caucus has also taken aim at anonymous complaints and the portion of the police contract that allows officers to change statements after reviewing video.

On Thursday, Lightfoot reaffirmed her commitment to delivering a police contract that makes it easier to discipline wayward officers even though the Fraternal Order of Police is under new and more militant leadership.

“There will be a reckoning for the FOP. And that moment is now,” she said.

FOP President John Catanzara could not be reached for comment.