Chicago police reportedly caught making popcorn and sleeping in Rep. Bobby Rush’s office as businesses were looted nearby
Protests in Chicago apparently gave some police officers cover to do some breaking and entering of their own.
Rep. Bobby Rush, a Democrat who represents part of Chicago, got a call June 1 that his campaign office on the city's south side was broken into as looting went on in a shopping center nearby. And when he looked at security video of the incident, he saw at 8 officers, three of them apparently supervisors in white shirts, making popcorn, brewing coffee, and even taking a nap on his couch.
Nationwide protests against police brutality and systemic racism have, in some places, given way to looting. That was true in Chicago, where several hundred people have been arrested for looting, though those numbers have died down in the past few days.
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But while all that was going on, at least 13 Chicago police officers entered Rush's office, the longtime congressmember and civil rights activist said at a Thursday news conference with Mayor Lori Lightfoot. "One was asleep on my couch in my campaign office. They even had the unmitigated gall to go and make coffee for themselves and to pop popcorn, my popcorn, in my microwave," Rush said.
Lightfoot apologized to Rush for the officers' "profound disrespect," and said "we should take the strongest possible action" to deal with them.
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Kathryn is a graduate of Syracuse University, with degrees in magazine journalism and information technology, along with hours to earn another degree after working at SU's independent paper The Daily Orange. She's currently recovering from a horse addiction while living in New York City, and likes to share her extremely dry sense of humor on Twitter.
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