Already jittery downtown Chicago again jolted by violence over the weekend; Mayor Lightfoot ‘not happy’
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Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Monday that she was “not happy” about violence that again touched downtown Chicago over the weekend and ended with a cancellation of Sunday night’s performance of the musical “Moulin Rouge.”
“We’re working our tails off every single day. Obviously not happy about this weekend,” Lightfoot told reporters at an unrelated news conference. “Particularly distressing is, again, the number of young people that seemingly are involved in acts of violence. It’s clearly not acceptable and that’s why we’ve got to keep doing the things that we know are working.”
The violence follows a period of concern among hoteliers and restaurateurs who rely on downtown tourism for their livelihoods. It also comes at a politically fraught time for the mayor, who could announce at any time she is seeking reelection, and for her police Superintendent David Brown, who some of her opponents have promised to dismiss if they unseat her.
Chicago police statistics have shown an uptick in violence that coincided with the COVID-19 pandemic, and that was marked by more crime spreading into traditionally safer parts of the city.
In one shooting over the weekend, Chicago police said six men were engaged in a drug deal inside a downtown taco restaurant Sunday when one of the men robbed three others. All six fled the business and one of the victims fired shots, striking two bystanders behind the Chicago Theatre just before 5 p.m.
The victims, two men ages 27 and 55, were taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where the younger man was treated for a wound to his right hand and the other treated for a nonfatal wound to the head.
The shooting led to the cancellation of a production of “Moulin Rouge.” The Broadway in Chicago group issued a statement attributing the scuttling of the show to the nearby disturbance.
“We are so very sorry for the late notice to you, our patrons,” the statement read.
Hours earlier, in the city’s Gold Coast neighborhood, an 18-year-old man was killed during a shootout inside the Sonesta ES Suites hotel in the 200 block East Walton Street, according to authorities. At a midday news conference Monday, police said women renting a room at the hotel let several men in through an emergency exit and the shooting followed a verbal altercation. The shooting happened in an area known for its expensive condominiums and five-star hotels.
“I’m not going to rest and I know the superintendent and the entire department shares my resolve that we’ve got to do more to give people confidence and make them feel safe because they are safe,” Lightfoot said.
“As I’ve said, we’ve made progress this year, but it’s not good enough, and we talked a lot over the course of the weekend and again today about more resources we need to commit to the CTA and making sure people have confidence not only in the CTA but all modes of transport and downtown. We’ve obviously got to step up our efforts,” the mayor said.
Chicago’s central downtown business district, which includes the Loop, the Mag Mile and the Gold Coast, is one of the city’s most-policed areas, though it is nowhere near being among the most violent areas, which have remained for years in communities on the South and West sides. Downtown remains outsized in its political influence as the city’s chief economic engine, with its concentration of tourist and shopping destinations, as well as City Hall.
Safety concerns about downtown have risen since a rash of looting at high-end stores and hundreds more businesses that took place after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. The CTA has also grappled with crime and violence on trains and at stations, a reality that has come with promises of fixes from police and city leaders.
In all, Chicago had 32 shooting victims and seven homicides during the period from Friday evening to Sunday night, according to police.
Brown said at a news conference Monday that homicides and shootings were down at the end of April, compared to last year. But that news, coming after a two-year surge in gun violence, was eclipsed perhaps by the shootings in the downtown area.
Brown blamed a widespread increase in the use of guns to resolve conflicts for the spike in violence.
A third shooting over the weekend saw someone killed during a domestic argument on North State Street outside a bowling alley. Police also highlighted a carjacking that took place to the south of downtown.
“Almost everywhere in this country personal conflicts are being resolved with guns,” he said. “I don’t want you to characterize this as a victim downtown is more important than a victim on the West Side or the South Side.”
But Brown also pledged to beef up police resources downtown even before this weekend.
“Were putting together immediate plans that will start this week to add even more resources to our downtown area,” he said.
In a statement, the Chicago Loop Alliance called Sunday’s shooting near the theater district unfortunate, but pointed to ways that it had addressed safety, including its contracting of unarmed private security to patrol State Street overnight four days a week, and its “Ambassadors” program, a team of workers who clean State Street and answers questions from the public.
“These isolated occurrences do not represent the average day or night for those of us who live, work, and play in downtown Chicago,” said Michael Edwards, alliance president and chief executive officer.
Lightfoot said Brown still has her 100% confidence. She also bucked questions about facing more questions about crime during an election year.
“It doesn’t have anything to do about the election. It’s about making sure our city is livable for our residents, particularly those residents in neighborhoods that have long suffered from outrageous amounts of crime and violence,” Lightfoot said. “It’s about making sure people in those neighborhoods also feel safe because they have lived with the lack of investment, they’ve lived with a lack of focus and attention on violence for way too long.”
