Lori Lightfoot, the Mayor of the city of Chicago and also a Democrat who put forth the idea of slashing a massive $80 million in funds from the Chicago Police Department budget in 2020, is now sporting a personal police protection unit that is 71 officers strong in order to protect her, and tried to throw the blame for what she claims is her personal need for protection on former President Trump, as reported by the Chicago Sun-Times. “When the president of the United States uses the world’s largest megaphone and platform to target you personally, terrible things happen. And he not only blew a dog whistle, he pointed really evil and dangerous people right at my doorstep.”
Named Unit 544, the special unit consists of 65 officers, five sergeants, and a lieutenant, but that is not all; “Lightfoot also has a separate personal bodyguard detail, which includes about 20 officers, the records show,” claimed The Sun-Times.
Back on the 7th of July, 2020, a memo was issued by the police department to its officers who had dutifully served for the previous five years, stating:
The unit’s mission will be to provide physical security for City Hall, the mayor’s residence and the mayor’s detail command post. … Through the coordination of intelligence and resources, officers will respond to all threats related to the mayor’s physical properties to ensure its protection.
“Around the same time the unit was being formed in the summer of 2020, residents of Humboldt Park and Logan Square were complaining that the Shakespeare district, which covers their neighborhoods, was getting stretched thin because so many patrol officers there were being assigned to keep protesters from gathering outside Lightfoot’s house in Logan Square,” continued the Sun-Times.
The president of Chicago’s Fraternal Order of Police, John Catanzara, stated, “While murders are soaring, while districts are barebones for manpower, all that matters is protecting her castle.”
In the wake of the death by shooting of Officer Ella French this past August, Lightfoot brought forth a plan to “refund the police.” “The very next month, in September, Lightfoot unveiled a $16.7 billion spending plan Monday that boosted funding for the department, lifting the Chicago Police Department’s annual budget to $1.9 billion, up from $1.7 billion in 2021,” stated The Daily Mail. “The plan relied on federal money to help dig the city out of a deficit that reached new heights during Lightfoot’s time in office.”
As reported by the Sun-Times back in January, “As 2021 drew to a close, the city’s murder total rose 3% above 2020, according to CPD statistics, a year that saw killings surge to nearly two-thirds more than the number slain in 2019.”
in February of 2021, when speaking as to why Chicago Public Schools were having so much trouble bringing students back to in-person learning, Lightfoot threw the blame once again on Trump, claiming, “This is a very difficult situation and we’re in it, still, because of the incompetence of the previous administration.”
Going further back, in June of 2020, Trump called out Lightfoot in a letter after the release of a report from the Chicago Sun Times in regards to the rising numbers of people who were killed via gun violence in Chicago. Trump stated, “… Your lack of leadership on this important issue continues to fail the people you have sworn to protect. I am concerned it is another example of your lack of commitment to the vulnerable citizens who are victims of this violence and a lack of respect for the men and women in law enforcement.”
He went on, “The American people (hardworking taxpayers) send you millions of dollars in Federal funding each year to support public safety in Chicago. In 2018 and 2019, the City of Chicago benefited from $136 million in funding from the Urban Area Security Initiative Grant Program, and another $68 million was recently announced for Chicago from this important program. The Department of Justice awarded and is in the process of awarding nearly $20 million to support law enforcement and law-enforcement related entities in the City of Chicago and Cook County across 2019 and 2020, including resources for combating opioid abuse and recidivism reduction. The Department of Labor has also awarded funding to programs targeting prisoner re-entry and recidivism reduction in the Chicago area. My Administration allocated $898.6 million to the City of Chicago and Cook County from the Coronavirus Relief Fund, which helps support your first responders on the front lines. In the absence of any modicum of leadership, however, these substantial sums of taxpayer money are not being turned into results, and the safety of your most vulnerable communities continues to deteriorate.”
He finished off by stating, “Unfortunately, you continue to put your own political interests ahead of the lives, safety, and fortunes of your own citizens. The people of Chicago deserve better.”