Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot called a video that appears to show at least eight police officers occupying Rep. Bobby Rush’s local congressional office, drinking coffee and eating popcorn, while riots and looting were occurring outside a “personal embarrassment."
Lightfoot pledged to identify the officers during a Thursday news conference with Rush.
“That’s a personal embarrassment to me,” Lightfoot said. “I’m sorry that you and your staff even had to deal with this incredible indignity.”
The Chicago Police Department said on its official Twitter feed that an internal investigation has been initiated into the incident on the night of May 31 into June 1.
Rush, a co-founder of the Illinois Black Panther Party, said he discovered the police using his office after he determined it was burglarized in early June. Surveillance video from security cameras showed the officers, including three in white shirts indicating supervisory personnel, sitting on the chairs and sleeping on the sofas.
“They even had the unmitigated gall to make coffee for themselves and to pop popcorn, my popcorn, in my microwave, while looters were tearing apart businesses within their sight, within their reach,” Rush said. “And they did not care about what was happening to businesspeople, to this city. They didn’t care.”
The looting Rush referred to was during riots that erupted across the country following the death of a black man, George Floyd, in police custody in Minneapolis. A widely circulated video that shows Floyd being restrained face down by a white police officer with his knee on Floyd’s neck has sparked cries of systemic racism in law enforcement.
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