The Chicago Tribune has obtained many of Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s (D) text messages that reveal combative interactions with aldermen and city workers while shedding light on how the Democrat mayor runs the crime-ridden Windy City.
The outlet obtained upwards of two and a half years of the mayor’s text messages through Freedom of Information Act requests. “Her staff failed to comply… until the state attorney general admonished them and the Tribune threatened a lawsuit,” the outlet reports. The admonishment and lawsuit threat led to Lightfoot’s office producing hundreds of pages of documents, including the mayor’s text messages.
When asked about the text messages, the mayor’s press secretary Cesar Rodriguez released a statement on Thursday, the Tribune reports. “The past two years have been some of the most challenging times for local elected leaders.”
“Governing is a tough business. Emotions can at times get the best of each of us,” the statement added. “The mayor is fully focused on working together with (aldermen) and other stakeholders to continue to address the very serious issues that face our city every day.”
Lightfoot’s Belittling Texts
One text exchange with Ald. Pat Dowell was particularly eyebrow-raising. The mayor called someone “a dumb, dumb person of color.” The subject of the exchange centered around an October city council push headed by Ald. Silvana Tabares to hamper Lightfoot’s ability to enact a vaccine mandate without the council’s approval. Lightfoot suggested the political battle was merely about stripping her power, according to the Chicago tribune.
“It has everything to do with (Fraternal Order of Police president) John Cantazara. That racist SOB, trying to prove that he has more power than the black mayor and the black supt,” Lightfoot wrote in a text. “And Burke, per usual, found a dumb, dumb person of color to do his bidding. It is classic racial politics.”
Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot. (Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP)
When asked by the Tribune, Lightfoot’s office did not address who the comment was about.
The Tribune reports that two days prior to the text message, the mayor publicly wondered why Tabares advocated for the ordinance.
“Honestly, I really don’t understand a woman of color carrying the water for a guy who’s demonstrated over and over again he’s racist,” Lightfoot said, per the Tribune.
In another incident, Ald. Nick Sposato texted the mayor in May of 2020.
“Shitso is an a——!” he wrote, which was apparently a reference to Byron Sigcho-Lopez, the Tribune reports.
“There are no words for that jackass,” Lightfoot responded.
Sposato had another exchange in July of 2020 regarding the Chicago Teacher’s Union, per the Tribune:
Nick Sposato texted Lightfoot in July 2020 to ask if the Chicago Teachers Union had apologized for a tweet depicting an apparent cartoon version of her tied up, wearing a police uniform and being unmasked by the characters from the “Scooby-Doo” TV show.
“Of course not, that would require humility and the ability for self reflection,” she replied. “They took it down because they were brutalized on social media, but these are the same people who did equally horrible things during the campaign.”
“It will continue until I beat them again in the next election,” she added.
Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot speaks during the groundbreaking ceremony for the Obama Presidential Center at Jackson Park on September 28, 2021 in Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP via Getty Images)
While Lightfoot stated she wanted aldermen to think for themselves and supported an independent city council during her time as a candidate, according to the Tribune, some of her text message exchanges seem antithetical to that sentiment.
After Lightfoot’s first budget passed, she created a website that was critical of the budget’s dissenters, the Tribune reports.
“Not understanding your decision to target Aldermen,” Ald. Maria Hadden texted the mayor. “It seems contrary to the desire for an independent City Council and I find it very troubling.”
“I am not sure why showing how people voted is ‘targeting,'” Lightfoot responded.
Hadden texted, “Coming from a political site the information is not neutral.”
In the time before the city’s 2020 budget vote, Lightfoot told black aldermen that if they were not behind her budget, then “Don’t come to me for s—.”
Ald. Walter Burnett, a black man, texted the mayor, saying her comments hampered his effort to whip votes for the budget.
“Sorry if I offended people by being candid, but it is only fair to support the people who support (your) programs,” Lightfoot responded. “In what world does the opposition get rewarded?”
Lightfoot has heavily criticized businessman Elzie Higginbottom, who wields political influence in the Windy City. Lightfoot previously told the Tribune that when she and Higginbottom make eye contact, he “goes in a different direction.”
Ald. David Moore called Lightfoot out for her assessment of their relationship in a June 2019 text message.
“Unfortunately, your comment about him going in a different direction when eye contact is made is not true and it builds walls instead of bridges,” Moore wrote.
More recently, Ald. Rossana Rodriguez Sanchez, a democratic-socialist who has believed in defunding police, called the mayor out after Lightfoot said the alderwoman “frequently calls me” to request police.
“I think it’s incredible that you would say that I call you frequently asking for police,” Rodriguez Sanchez texted the mayor. “We haven’t talked on the phone in over a year.”
Lightfoot did not respond to the message.
Law and Order Texts with Aldermen
In January of 2020, Ald. Pat Dowell texted the mayor regarding train robberies on the red line.
“South Loopers are complaining of course and there is talk on ‘leaving the city,'” Dowell texted. “My commander has taken steps to address but the public transit division of (CPD) doesn’t have enough resources.”
Lightfoot responded saying, “I am very concerned and focused on CTA [Chicago Transit Authority] issues.”
Dowell texted Lightfoot in the summer of 2020 regarding “the lack of police response” in her ward. She added in another message that she was “frustrated with the police. They don’t engage people or deter crime.”
“Finance doesn’t ticket people who ignore parking restrictions so I have a thousand people in two parks doing illegal fireworks, drinking and smoking (weed) and peeing all over the place,” Dowell said.
Lightfoot did not get back to Dowell on the matter, according to the Tribune.
During the looting and rioting that took place in the city following the police killing of George Floyd in the late spring and early summer of 2020, Ald. Chris Taliaferro asked the mayor if she was taking steps to restore order to the city.
“Mayor, the wards are experiencing heavy looting and large crowds gathering,” he texted. “Will the National Guard or police redeploy to the south and west sides before we lose control of them?”
The Chicago Tribune reports:
Lightfoot replied with images of police on the West Side and a text of her own: “Also, this problem is all over the area, not just in Chicago. And if the (Black) caucus wanted to be helpful, activate your faith, community and other stakeholders to be in the streets to help calm it down and call people out.”
He followed up, suggesting a “sunset to sunrise curfew,” prompting Lightfoot to say, “Man, I’m getting s— for even daring to implement anything!”
Chicago mayor Lori E. Lightfoot, left, speaks Thursday, Feb. 11, 2021, during a news conference at the William H. Brown Elementary School after a tour of the school. (AP Photo/Shafkat Anowar)
In September, Lightfoot had a text exchange with Ald. Brendan Reilly over the city’s crime issues after Reilly was critical of police Superintendent David Brown, calling him a “moron” who “won’t listen.”
“Brendan, shameful and unhelpful. How about pickup the phone instead falsely creating the appearance of doing someone at everyone else’s expense?” Lightfoot texted Reilly. “Really bush league.”
Reilly responded:
He’s a fine cop, but I’m looking at … my crime stats & can honestly say that, in my 26 years living downtown, I’ve never seen lawlessness to this degree. It’s sickening. So I’ll apologize for using the word ‘moron.’ And I am anything but ‘Bush League.’ I want you to be successful, Mayor & I support you. But (this) has to change ASAP. We are losing downtown.
“Lightfoot said she shares ‘the levels of concern’ but the 18th police district ‘has tons of resources so there is no excuse for what is happening,'” the Tribune reported.
Chicago’s Lawlessness
Between Friday night and Sunday morning, 20 people were shot in the city with two dying, Breitbart News’s AWR Hawkins reported. On December 9, Hawkins published an article detailing the number of homicides in Chicago throughout 2021:
Over 750 people have been killed thus far in 2021 in Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s (D) Chicago, and there are still three weeks left in the year. On December 9, 2021, the Chicago Sun-Times reported a total of 754 homicides in the city.
ABC News noted that Chicago already had 739 homicides when November 2021 came to a close, and those 739 killings were “up 3% from 2020.”
On December 31, 2020, the Sun-Times reported 774 murders in Chicago during 2020 and observed that those killings represented “an increase of more than 50% from the 506 murders in 2019.”
At the current pace, Lightfoot’s Chicago could reach or even surpass the number of homicides committed in 2020.
Chicago has also been the site of extreme looting in recent months. In the hours leading up to Black Friday, a group of “organized burglars” hit multiple stores.
Breitbart News’s Warner Todd Huston reported:
Between 1:30 a.m. and 3 a.m. a group of men traveling in a 3-car convoy broke into and burglarized four stores in Chicago’s Wicker Park area. A fifth store had its front entrance damaged, but it was not clear if the place was also rifled through, according to a Chicago Police Department report highlighted by crime watch website CWBChicago.com.
…
Items stolen included electronics, jackets, sportswear, and shoes, the stores told police.
Looters and thieves also struck a list of Chicago stores last week in the wake of the Kyle Rittenhouse verdict. At least two incidents of groups of looters flooding stores and running out with arms full of merchandise occurred on Chicago’s South Side, and northward up through the city’s Magnificent Mile shopping district. Neiman Marcus and a Foot Locker outlet were targeted.
On Black Friday, a group of three men waltzed into a Chicago Foot Locker, filled trash bags with merchandise, and fled the store, Breitbart News reported.
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