Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is in hot water after she made a comment on a hot mic calling a Chicago Fraternal Order of Police Official “a clown.”
The official, Patrick Murray, spoke right before the beginning of a Wednesday city council meeting when Lightfoot uttered on a live microphone “this FOP clown,” the Chicago Sun-Times reported.
Murray, who is the union’s second vice president, spoke before the city council meeting to defend four police officers fired by a Police Board for covering up for the officer responsible for shooting 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.
Democrat Lightfoot turned her head to corporation counsel Mark Flessner, telling him, “Back again. This is this FOP clown,” which was picked up on the city council livestream.
The mayor, who then realized she was picked up by a hot mic, issued a half-apology after the meeting.
“It was not appropriate for me to say that out loud,” the mayor said after the meeting.
When reporters asked if she planned to issue an apology to Murray or the police union— she is attempting to negotiate a new contract with— Lightfoot deflected.
“I think I just did. I think I said I shouldn’t have said that out loud,” she said.
Chicago’s Fraternal Order of Police slammed the mayor for her “contemptous remark” in a statement on Facebook:
“Mayor Lightfoot’s contemptuous remark is a misguided and dangerous thing to say to a 30-year veteran police officer and FOP representative, particularly at a time when the city is facing such chronic violent crime,” the police union said in a statement.
“It is also telling that the Mayor would not even apologize. The red noses, however, belong on the members of the Chicago Police Board, her former agency, for their despicable decision to fire three police officers and a sergeant last week for no good reason whatsoever,” the statement continued.
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