Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is facing backlash at home after it was revealed her administration spent $281.5 million in federal COVID-19 relief funding on Chicago Police Department personnel costs.
Details on the spending were released Wednesday while the mayor sought City Council approval to send nearly $65 million in unused federal coronavirus relief money into the 2021 budget, following the Biden administration’s move to extend the deadline to spend federal dollars until the end of the year, the Chicago Tribune reported.
Local officials and activists voiced consternation that police received an influx of money, which the budget office said was used for reimbursing coronavirus-related police costs, after a summer of social unrest undergirded by the rise of the “Defund the Police” movement.
“We asked for assurances they wouldn’t spend it all on police,” said Daniel La Spata, alderman of Chicago’s 1st Ward, on Wednesday. “That’s the last thing people wanted, to infuse hundreds of millions more dollars into the police department right now.”
The United Working Families, a liberal advocacy group, tweeted a series of accusations and questions targeted at the mayor’s office for spending millions on the CPD while other departments received fewer allocations from CARES Act funding.
“The Department of Public Health received just over $18 million; the Office of Emergency Management received just over $8 million; the Department of Family and Support Services got less than $200,000. The Office for People with Disabilities got only $2,000,” the group penned in a Twitter thread.
Comparatively, the Department of Public Health received just over $18 million; the Office of Emergency Management received just over $8 million; the Department of Family and Support Services got less than $200,000. The Office for People with Disabilities got only $2,000.
— United Working Families (@UWFIllinois) February 17, 2021
On Thursday, United Working Families held a news conference with community organizers talking about what would have been a better use of the money. Amika Tendaji, the executive director of Black Lives Matter Chicago, said the funds could have gone toward struggling individuals and families across the city.
“This is a city that also is under a consent decree, that’s already being watched by the federal government because its officers could not follow the law and were already brutalizing its citizens and doubled down on that over the summer,” Tendaji said.
The city’s budget office said it worked with other departments to ensure it had the “necessary resources” to meet community needs.
“Throughout this pandemic our first responders, including our police, firefighters, and EMTs stepped up and kept our communities safe — from performing wellness checks to securing testing sites and quarantine facilities,” the office said in a tweet thread on Thursday. “Of the $1.2B in CARES Act funds, the federal govt allows $470M to be used for personnel costs, including public health and public safety depts. Had the City not used this reimbursement, we would have been forced to pass the burden onto our taxpayers.”
Protests took place in Chicago over the summer, as social unrest spread across the country following the death of George Floyd on Memorial Day. Floyd, a black man, died after a white police officer placed a knee on his neck for nearly nine minutes and repeatedly said he could not breathe.
Thousands of demonstrators participated in anti-police demonstrations throughout the summer in Chicago and demanded changes to quell police brutality, including calls to defund the police, which faced resistance from Lightfoot.
The unrest in Chicago reached a crescendo on Aug. 9, when hundreds of people took to the streets, leading to looting and vandalism overnight. Participants smashed windows, stole from stores, and engaged in violent confrontations with police. At one point, gunfire was exchanged between law enforcement and civilians.
The city’s Black Lives Matter division lashed out at Lightfoot for complaining about “looters” following the night of theft and arson in downtown Chicago. “Black lives are and always will be more important than downtown corporations,” the group said in a statement at the time.
CHICAGO GUN VIOLENCE RISES 50% THROUGH END OF OCTOBER, WITH 67 OFFICERS SHOT AT IN 2020
One Chicago alderman, Raymond Lopez, criticized Lightfoot for not taking a stronger stance against threats of looting across the city’s downtown area, saying the mayor and police were not acting on intelligence reports.
Alderwoman Jeanette Taylor, of the city’s 20th Ward, took to social media Thursday to say Chicago’s mayoral office “shouldn’t be trusted,” responding to a UWF tweet citing a “departmental breakdown” showing more than $280 million going to CPD from the $403 million allotted discretionary federal funds for COVID-19 relief.
We knew back in April that the Mayor’s office shouldn’t be trusted to actually get these resources to our communities. We have to do better for our people. https://t.co/sGOkmIv0NM
— Alderwomen Jeanette Taylor (@taylorfor20th) February 18, 2021
Other activists at the Thursday news conference, such as members of the anti-violence group GoodKids MadCity, said funds have gone toward grassroots efforts to stop gun violence in Chicago.
Chicago gun violence rose 50% through the end of October, and the city ended 2020 with 769 homicides reported throughout the year.
