Police were caught on video taking some time off during the looting in the early days of the Chicago protests.
According to Block Club Chicago, Democratic Rep. Bobby Rush's Englewood office was closed, but that didn't stop police from using it as a place to relax.
"Rush, whose office is at 55th Street and South Wentworth Avenue, said he got a call that his office had been burglarized during the widespread looting and vandalism that took place throughout the city early June 1," said the report. "After viewing security footage, Rush’s staff saw a group of about eight uniformed police officers enter the office while looting took place nearby."
“They even had the unmitigated gall to go and make coffee for themselves and some popcorn — my popcorn — in my microwave while looters were tearing apart businesses within their sight, within their reach,” Rep. Rush said. “They were in a mode of relaxation and they did not care about what was happening to businesspeople, to this city. They didn’t care. They absolutely didn’t care.”
At one point there were as many as 13 officers, including three supervisors, chilling in the Congressman's office. Meanwhile, businesses nearby were being burned down and broken into. More than one dozen people were killed in the city.
Barber DeAndre Sanders said that the police told him that they should leave as protests began. He did, only to come back and see his shop destroyed.
“How much were they really trying to save 55th Street?” said Sanders, who cited at least $50,000 worth of equipment stolen. “How did this happen with a police station that close?”
The footage showed that the officers didn't break into Rush's office, but “they definitely made themselves at home in a place that wasn’t theirs,” a spokesman for Rush said.
“Perhaps what is most harmful about this is that for so many people on the South and the West side, the actions of these officers, the deplorable lack of responsibility to do their job at a time when the city and their fellow officers needed them most, their conduct will confirm the perception that too many people on the South and the West side were left to fend for themselves, that police don’t care that Black and Brown communities were looted and burned,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said.
Police Supt. David Brown agreed it was a problem, saying that it prompted him to wonder what the officers do during a normal shift, when the protests are not going on.
See a WGN news report showing the photos below:
