Sign-on Letter

To Mayor Lori Lightfoot:
We are a group of Chicago community members, organizers, stakeholders and faith leaders who
are calling on you to immediately cease your misguided and harmful escalation of law
enforcement in response to the uprisings over the past few months. As Mayor of Chicago you
occupy one of the most powerful and influential platforms for change in our city, and we are
facing a pivotal moment that begs for moral leadership. Unfortunately, your response has been to
point fingers at other city leaders and ​double down on the use of heavily armed, militarized
police to protect property interests​, all while ​ignoring the ​urgent calls for meaningful police
reform.
The most recent unrest, triggered by the police shooting of Latrell Allen, follows decades of
mistreatment, abuse, oppression and violence by Chicago police against Black and brown
communities and reawakens painful memories of Laquan McDonald. Police have argued the
shooting was necessary, ​but they were not wearing body cameras and witnesses dispute how it
happened​. Instead of being transparent and immediately releasing information, law enforcement
met protesters with yet more police violence. Allen’s shooting came on the heels of repeated
instances of police abusing protesters, including in incidents where peaceful protesters were
arrested​, pushed ​in front of police cruisers, tripped, pepper-sprayed, and beaten​. In fact, the
Chicago police union president has made clear that any efforts by police to demonstrate support
for Black Lives Matter protests would be met with ​disciplinary action​.
All of this conflict has played out against the backdrop of a police department that is infamous ​for
corrupt and racist policing​. For decades, the Chicago police department ​tortured people​, including
over 100 Black men, to force confessions or to get them to falsely incriminate co-defendants. A
2017 Department of Justice investigation concluded that the Chicago police department had
“​violated the constitutional rights of residents for years, permitting racial bias against blacks,
using excessive force and shooting people who did not pose immediate threats​,” and in 2019 the
department was ​placed under a consent decree​. In the past decade alone, police misconduct has
cost the city more than $700 million on settlements and legal fees related to lawsuits alleging
police brutality.
In the aftermath of Mr. Allen’s shooting two weeks ago, the right thing for you to do would have
been to hold the police accountable and address the pain and fear our community felt in the wake
of yet another act of law enforcement violence. Instead, we witnessed that in your eyes, the
destruction of property is a far graver sin than state-sanctioned anti-Black violence. You denied
the righteousness of our indignation in the wake of another shooting by an historically corrupt
police department, writing it off as criminal behavior that must be subdued through ever more

 aggressive policing. You blamed other law enforcement officials, including ​Cook County State’s
Attorney Kim Foxx​, for the fury of protesters, ignoring the fact that Foxx - who came into office
in the wake of the McDonald shooting- won the 2016 general election and her recent 2020
primary - despite being dramatically outspent - on the strength of her promises to reform
Chicago’s criminal legal system and hold police accountable. With your response, you are playing
right into Donald Trump’s narrative that Chicagoans are dangerous, chaotic criminals who must
be “quelled” by heavy-handed law enforcement. You are directly fueling the cycle of police
violence and distrust between law enforcement and Chicago residents.
We can and must do so much better if the unrest is ever to end. The Cook County Board ​recently
took an important, though symbolic, first step to a reimagined public safety system by passing the
Justice for Black Lives resolution. This resolution calls for the county to redirect funds from
policing and incarceration to public services not administered by law enforcement. The movement
to defund the police, which you reduced to a “​nice hashtag​,” is actually far more than that. It
encompasses substantial, transformational concepts, envisioning a public safety system that
dramatically scales back the scope and depth of law enforcement responsibilities while investing
in violence prevention programs, community health services, and non-law enforcement
emergency response teams, among other things. It envisions a city where heavily militarized law
enforcement are not dispatched for every social need or infraction, where police violence is a last
resort instead of a common occurrence, and where historically abandoned communities are rebuilt.
A ​number of large cities are embracing this vision, reducing their law enforcement budget so they
can meaningfully implement other, far more effective strategies.
But doing this will take a true commitment that involves putting our city’s money to a wholly
different use. We have certainly invested heavily enough in the “law and order” strategy: This
year, the ​Chicago Police Department’s budget totaled $1.68 billion, with ​$5 million spent on
policing every day​. While you have offered support for directing $7.5 million toward violence
prevention programs, your 2020 ​budget proposal also features a ​7 percent increase in the CPD
budget at a time when our city is facing budget shortfalls and other ​cities across the country are
cutting back on police spending. In fact, ​Chicago is still spending ​more on policing per person
than at any time in the last half-century​, ​despite a persistent drop in crime over the last two
decades.
You were elected on a promise to change Chicago’s Police Department. You recognized that “​[a]
militarized response to the violence isn’t what people want, and more to the point, it’s not
effective​.” But your actions over the last few months belie your campaign commitments, and ​we
urge you to abandon the course you are now on. Listen to the wounded and angry Black and
brown Chicago communities — the same ones who voted enthusiastically for you — and make
good on your promises by embracing a reimagined and transformed vision of public safety.

 Signed,
Alan Mills, Executive Director
The Uptown People’s Law Center
Alexander Fruchter, Co-founder and Owner
Closed Sessions
Amy Campanelli, Cook County Public Defender
The Law Office of the Cook County Public Defender
Betsy Rubin, Acting Co-Leader for Communications
Indivisible Chicago-South Side
Billy McGuinness, Founder and Executive Director
Just Art
Brendan Shiller, Managing Partner
Shiller Preyar Jarard & Samuels
Candace Colemen, Racial Justice Community Organizer
Advance Your Leadership Power (AYLP), Access Living
Carol Nesteikis, ​Co-Founder
Legal Reform for People with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (LRIDD)
Rev. Ciera Bates-Chamberlain, Executive Director
LIVE FREE Chicago
Circles & Ciphers
Darcy Regan, Executive Director
Indivisible Chicago Alliance
Emmanuel Andre, ​Executive Director and Lead Attorney
Northside Transformative Law Center

 Good Kids Mad City
Marta Popadiak, Organizing Director
The People’s Lobby & Reclaim Chicago
Melanie Schikore, Executive Director
Interfaith Community for Detained Immigrants
MiAngel Cody, Founder and Executive Director
The Decarceration Collective
Nekita Brar, Executive Director
Chicago United for Equity (CUE)
Precious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation
Rich Harvard, Pastor
The Inclusive Collective
Richard Wallace, Founder and Director
Equity and Transformation (EAT)
Ryan Keesling, Executive Director
Free Write Arts & Literacy
Stephanie Skora, Executive Director
Brave Space Alliance
Tanya Watkins, Executive Director
Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation (SOUL)
Tanya D. Woods, Executive Director
Westside Justice Center
Rev. Dr. Waltrina Middleton, Executive Director
Community Renewal Society
Xavier Ramey, Chief Executive Officer

 Justice Informed