'It's a nice hashtag': Chicago's Lightfoot pushes police reform, not defunding

[brooklynite]

This discussion thread was locked as off-topic by Omaha Steve (a host of the Latest Breaking News forum).

Source: Politico

CHICAGO — Lori Lightfoot was a federal prosecutor handling a big drug conspiracy case in the late 1990s when she asked to go on a ride-along with Chicago police officers on the city’s South Side. It was a chance to get a first-hand look at how deals went down on the street.

As they cruised from block to block, the officers made a surprise stop. They got out and grabbed a Black kid they saw at a corner. “Scared the bejesus out of everybody, me included,” Lightfoot said in an interview this week.

When Lightfoot asked why they made the stop, the answer was stunning in how routine it turned out to be, she recalled: “We thought the kid had a gun.” Did he? “No, we were wrong,” they said. And they went on about their day after Lightfoot scolded them.

“That had a really, lasting impression on me,” said Lightfoot, who is now Chicago’s mayor — the first African American woman to hold the office. “Those are the kind of things where you … don’t feel like you have claim to the geography under your feet, where people can just be stopped for any or no reason. How do you build on that? How do you have trust?”

Read more: https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/24/chicago-lightfoot-police-defund-336414

[marie999]

1. I was born in Jacksonville, NC and my family moved up to Boston in 1955.

The area was Roxbury and 50% Black and 50% Jewish. Nobody cared what your color was or your religion. I lived there until I join the army. By the time I was 7 or 8 I had joined a gang that was mixed, run by the Hood brothers. We used to hang out on street corners. Not once did the cops on the beat tell us to move on or ask what we were doing there. Not once were any members of my gang arrested or hassled. We did not commit any crimes though we did get into barehanded fights with other gangs and if there wasn't anyone else to fight we fought each other. Never anything but a black eye or a bloody nose. I wrote the above so you know where I came from. Now my question. What happened?

[janterry]

8. I have a friend who grew up in Roxbury

She is black and middle aged. She spent several years homeless and addicted to drugs. I remember we went to a conference a few years ago and she ran into someone who also grew up there. They knew many people in common.

The convo went something like this: Remember X, lived over on Y ave
Oh, yeah. Him. He died. OD

Remember Z?
Oh, I knew his sister. She died - shot.

My friend and I talked about that convo (my memory of it - and her reflections). There were a lot of traumas around Boston - and certainly around Roxbury.

I didn't grow up there, but I lived in boston for many years. I happen to be white, and in the 80's and 90's and I wouldn't walk alone - in most sections of Roxbury (too dangerous).

[marie999]

9. I missed Roxbury. We lived right across the street from Franklin Park.

By the time I was 6, my mother would let me got to the zoo there by myself. I remember feeding the elephants the pink popcorn. Even back then, I hated that they kept the animals in cages. I went back in the middle 70s to visit family in Boston and went to the zoo, it had changed for the better. I know one big problem was white flight to the suburbs. I think we were one of the last white families to move. We had lived in a 2 family house and the owner sold it and when we went by it a few years later there were 6 mailboxes out front. Who is to blame? I don't know, but I do know when my mother died, my father sold his house in Framingham. More than one neighbor called him when the house was for sale and told him not to sell it to any "negroes". I guess they didn't think they were racists because they didn't use the "N" word. Which word and kike I had never heard until we moved to a real Catholic town. But anyway no "negroes" came to see the house so he sold it to a Chinese family.

[marble falls]

2. Lightfoot has a handle on it. "Defunding" was too loaded and at the same time detail free.

[rpannier]

3. Reform is a nice idea

But the police will fight it every step of the way. Impee anything until they get their way
And they likely will
Nothing gets reformed with the police because they know they can wait it out

[Steelrolled]

4. Sounds like a status quo mayor.

[mucifer]

5. Yup cops here in Chicago are really bad. She wants to keep them in the schools

I am very sad about that.

[brooklynite]

6. Much better to be a status quo Mayor who achieves something than a radial Mayor who doesn't...

[theaocp]

7. Whatever. I can't wait to see the results of the contract negotiations she says

she is optimistic about. Again, whatever. They'll bend to the cops. AGAIN. Defund and reallocate.

Literally “defund” the police, Lightfoot said, puts newer recruits the city needs at risk because they lack seniority. “We'd have to get rid of the youngest, most diverse, most well-trained officers."

While Lightfoot may butt heads with the demands of “defund” protesters, she seems to align with the principles in spirit.

“The status quo has failed,” she said.

And she agrees with redirecting officers so they’re not answering social-service-related calls that they’re not always equipped to handle. The first responder has been police, and “that doesn't make sense. And we know that,” she said. The city is looking at models used in other cities where dispatchers are trained to know who to send to an emergency call — maybe it’s a police officer, maybe a social worker, or both.

She's talking out of both sides of her mouth and it's way too transparent. Just push for the changes and let the cops cry about it. Their fucking FEELINGS about the negotiations are those of a spoiled brat and I'm sick of it. Let them cry themselves out and continue to parent them. It's a bumpy road, but status quo is what the cops want.

[Omaha Steve]

10. After a review by forum hosts....LOCKING

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