Chicago’s mayor, Lori Lightfoot, and its police superintendent, David Brown, weighed in on the police-involved shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin, that sparked significant unrest overnight, noting that they are “monitoring” the situation and urging “civil and criminal authorities” in Kenosha to investigate the incident.
Meanwhile, Chicago suffered 66 individual shootings over the weekend, from Friday until Sunday evening — violence that took the lives of at least five people, per the Chicago Sun-Times.
“What happens in Wisconsin or any other city in our country does affect all of us,” Brown said Monday. “And yes, we are monitoring that situation. All of our deployment strategies are being practiced and we are obviously adjusting based on the information coming from, not only what happened in Wisconsin, but what happens here in Chicago.”
The concern is, of course, that violence in Kenosha, Wisconsin, which is just a little more than an hour away from downtown Chicago and accessible by the city’s light rail system, could spread to the Illinois city.
Although details are scant on the incident, it is clear from a now-viral video that Jacob Blake, a black man whom police were investigating as a result of a domestic disturbance call, was shot in the back several times by a white police officer.
“Blake was taken to a Milwaukee hospital and was in serious condition, the Kenosha Police Department said in a news release, in which it didn’t refer to him by name. The three officers were placed on administrative leave, as is standard practice in any officer-involved shooting,” according to Chicago’s WTTW.
Overnight, what started as protests over the incident quickly turned into violence and property damage as demonstrations grew into riots that left buildings and businesses on fire.
Wisconsin state authorities, as well as federal authorities, are involved in investigating the initial incident. Kenosha’s police department, which took swift action in spending the officers involved, has been quiet about details of the shooting as they question officers and witnesses.
Lightfoot weighed in on the Kenosha shooting Monday morning on social media.
“Yesterday in Wisconsin, a police officer shot Jacob Blake, an unarmed Black man, a father, 7 times in the back,” she tweeted. “I am deeply disturbed by the video capturing part of the incident. I urge civil & criminal authorities to pursue an immediate & thorough investigation of the shooting.”
The mayor, though, did not acknowledge another deadly weekend in the city, with 66 people shot.
“Five people were killed and 61 others, including three teenage boys, were injured in shootings across Chicago this weekend,” the Sun-Times reported. “Surging summer gun violence has prompted activists to call for Gov. J.B. Pritzker to declare a state of emergency and have the National Guard deployed to the city.”