The leader of Chicago’s police union downplayed the damage caused by the thousands of Trump supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol earlier this week.
“There was no arson. There was no burning of anything. There was no looting. There was very little destruction of property,” John Catanzara, the president of the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police, told WBEZ in an interview on Wednesday evening. “It was a bunch of pissed off people that feel an election was stolen, somehow, some way.”
He added: “It’s an inconvenience at this point, is all it is. This is not some mass insurrection, coup attempt. They’re not destroying or burning down the fricking Capitol building. This hyperbole and this emotion that the media is spewing now, like this is some kind of end-of-times scenario, is ridiculous.”
His remarks drew swift condemnation from Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot over Twitter.
“This wasn’t ‘frustration.’ It was a violent insurrection. The comments by John Catanzara, Chicago FOP President, either demonstrate clear delusion or reckless disrespect for the rule of law—or both,” she wrote.
Lightfoot and Catanzara’s relationship has grown increasingly strained over the last year as Chicago has seen a sharp uptick in violent crime. Law enforcement blames lax criminal justice policies by the mayor and State Attorney Kim Foxx for the 50% increase in murders last year. The city also saw a 60% increase in shootings from 2019.
Last year, text messages between the two showed Lightfoot calling Catanzara a “clown” and “total fraud.”
“99.9% of the department has zero respect for you, what you say, what you stand for and even less confidence you give a rat’s ass for their well-being,” he shot back.
Lightfoot’s budget for the new year proposes stripping the Chicago Police Department of $60 million and the cutting of 600 vacant officer positions.
Catanzara is also the subject of a Chicago Police Board investigation over a number of alleged social media posts he made from November 2016 to November 2018. In one Facebook post, Catanzara wrote, “Wtf its [sic] seriously time to kill these motherf——.”
Disciplinary action from the Chicago Police Board could result in the removal of Catanzara from the department.
