Chicago Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot threatened those who host and attend house parties during the stay-at-home orders that have been implemented to combat the coronavirus pandemic and went as far as to suggest that those who use social media to promote gatherings will face consequences from authorities.
Lightfoot, who was previously caught violating her own stay-at-home order, made the remarks on Saturday night in response to reports of widespread house parties throughout the city.
“Now I’ve directed Superintendent Brown to order all police districts to give special attention to these parties and this is how it’s gonna be: we will shut you down, we will cite you, and if we need to, we will arrest you and we will take you to jail,” Lightfoot said. “There should be nothing unambiguous about that. Don’t make us treat you like a criminal but if you act like a criminal and you violate the law and you refuse to do what is necessary to save lives in the city in the middle of a pandemic we will take you to jail.”
“So, that means if you host a party, if you promote a party, if you go to a party, we’re not playing games, we mean business and we are going to shut this down one way or the other,” Lightfoot continued. “The time for educating people into compliance is over, don’t be stupid don’t come out, don’t advertise on social media, we’re watching you and we are going to take decisive action.”
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TRANSCRIPT:
I’ve called this press conference because of widespread in the house parties and other large gatherings that took place last night including parties that CPD broke up of 50 and even a 150 people and unfortunately we know that more are planned tonight.
This frankly doesn’t come as a surprise given the warm weather, we’ve all been cooped up, we all miss our friends, and we all want to get go outside and gather in groups.
However, those aspirations simply cannot become a reality in the middle of a pandemic. Those desires are absolutely no excuse for breaking a law, ignoring the stay at home order, violating social distance, and putting you and everyone you come into contact at risk. COVID-19 is dangerous and deadly. It’s still here, folks, ruthlessly attacking people all over this city.
We have spent six weeks working and sacrificing to halt the spread of this disease and save lives and you better believe I’m not going to allow any individuals to upend the progress that we’ve made or add more deaths to our cities toll.
Today or tomorrow, we’re gonna top 1,000 deaths in our city, think about that, 1,000 people dead simply because of COVID-19.
I can’t make this any clearer you, absolutely must stay at home and that means your home not somebody else’s home, not an air B&B, not some party place, you need to stay at your home. That’s what this means.
Going to a party now during this pandemic, while Chicagoans are still dying every day, is a height of foolishness and why is it foolish? Let’s look at the data, just because you’re young doesn’t mean you can’t get it, you can. 3,491 young people 18 to 29 and counting every single day have contracted this virus in our city and yes folks, black people can get COVID-19. The first death in our city was that of a black woman who got the disease and unfortunately passed away as a result and what we also know is that 53% of the deaths in Chicago are among black people, 23% are among Latino and growing every single day.
What do these numbers make plain? That you are risking your own health, you are risking the health of every single other person you come into contact with when you go out and party in these large settings.
When you go out and party when you go home to your mama, your grandma, or anybody in your household who has an underlying medical condition, you are bringing death to their doorstep, make no mistake about it.
And if you care about them, you will stop this foolish, reckless, behavior and that goes double for communities like this one on the west side where we’re seeing disproportionately large numbers of cases and yes deaths and this is not the only community across the city where that is true.
If you want to hang out with your friends, call them. If you want to have a dance party, Tik-Tok, some other form of video, but for every foolish person that hosts a party, for every foolish person that goes to a party, what you’re doing is putting yourself in danger, putting others in danger and making this crisis harder and longer and more difficult for us to control and contain.
We all need to be thinking about the long game and having these parties, when we need people to continue to stay at home, it’s just silly. What’s it going to mean? It’s going to mean that we’re never getting out of this.
Your actions are going to make a difference between whether or not we get out sooner or later, whether or not we have a summer or we do not, so it is absolutely essential that we stay the course and people stay home.
Now we know the heroes in our communities are doing exactly what they need to do and even going a step further and telling us where some of these parties are actually happening and we commend the people who are stepping up and recognizing that they have a responsibility and that we all have a responsibility.
Now I’ve directed Superintendent Brown to order all police districts to give special attention to these parties and this is how it’s gonna be: we will shut you down, we will cite you, and if we need to, we will arrest you and we will take you to jail. Period. There should be nothing unambiguous about that. Don’t make us treat you like a criminal but if you act like a criminal and you violate the law and you refuse to do what is necessary to save lives in the city in the middle of a pandemic we will take you to jail. Period.
So, that means if you host a party, if you promote a party, if you go to a party, we’re not playing games, we mean business and we are going to shut this down one way or the other. The time for educating people into compliance is over, don’t be stupid don’t come out, don’t advertise on social media, we’re watching you and we are going to take decisive action.