Mayor-Elect of Chicago Releases Statement After Mob Chaos Sweeps City, Jumps to Defend Participants: 'Not Constructive to Demonize Youth...'
There’s a seminal moment/meme from the original “Back to the Future” movie where temporally displaced protagonist Marty McFly exclaims, “Hey, I’ve seen this one before!” about an episode of television — despite reruns not being a common thing quite yet in the 1950s period he visited.
Citizens of the Windy City might have felt an awful lot like McFly after seeing their new mayor-elect’s statements following a crime-riddled weekend.
As Fox News noted, Chicago was rocked by a social media event gone awry over the weekend.
Dubbed a “Teen Takeover,” the event quickly broke down and turned riotous, as evinced by social media videos circulating online.
A view of what’s happening in downtown #Chicago tonight
— 16th & 17th District Chicago Police Scanner (@CPD1617Scanner) April 16, 2023
‘Teen Takeover’ terrorizes Chicago as hundreds of teenagers destroy property, attack tourists pic.twitter.com/miXKjELZTP
— Anny (@anny25717503) April 16, 2023
🚨#BREAKING: Chaotic Scene Unfolds in Downtown Chicago as Teenagers Vandalize Cars and Gunfire Erupts
📌#Chicago | #Illinois ⁰
There is currently a significant police response taking place in downtown Chicago due to a large group of teenagers causing chaos. They have been… pic.twitter.com/n7xhBpsTKs— R A W S A L E R T S (@rawsalerts) April 16, 2023
According to Deadline, the teenager-driven riot ultimately resulted in 15 arrests and two people shot, along with property damage and a general drain on already-limited police resources.
In response to this chaos, Mayor-elect Brandon Johnson offered a peculiar statement.
“In no way do I condone the destructive activity we saw in the Loop and lakefront this weekend,” the Democrat said. “It is unacceptable and has no place in our city.
“However, it is not constructive to demonize youth who have otherwise been starved of opportunities in their own communities.”
— Brandon Johnson (@Brandon4Chicago) April 16, 2023
That’s quite a spin for the rioters.
For citizens of the Second City, Johnson’s remarks have to be an unpleasant reminder of the woman they just voted out — Lori Lightfoot.
The beleaguered former mayor has often been ridiculed and criticized for her soft-on-crime approach. It’s under Lightfoot’s stewardship that Chicago was being compared to Afghan combat zones.
Lightfoot, like Johnson a card-carrying Democrat, couldn’t win re-election in a special February election despite Chicago largely being a Democrat haven.
It was bad enough that, in a very public forum, citizens told her to “get the hell out.”
Part of the logic of replacing Lightfoot was to reroute the city from its path of lawlessness and crime. Things are so dire for Chicago that massive companies are leaving the city over safety concerns.
So far, Johnson has not lived up to that expectation of being tougher on crime.
Quite the opposite, in fact.
Given that he couldn’t even get through the first paragraph of his statement without sympathizing with the rioters, it appears that Chicagoans have, indeed, seen this before.
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