Every time we turn around, Lori Lightfoot’s Chicago is making it easier for criminals and harder for the police. It’s almost as if the liberal mayor wants to let criminals run free. Who wants to provide a safe city for tourists, anyway? Obviously, she’s not interested.
Over a year ago, two foot pursuits resulted in officers fatally shooting a 22-year-old man and a 13-year-old boy. A draft policy has been put into place to prevent such things from happening again.
Chicago police officers can no longer chase people on foot over minor offenses.
Superintendent David Brown made a statement to explain the policy in detail. “The safety of our community members and our officers remain at the core of this new foot pursuit policy. We collaborated internally with our officers and externally with our residents to develop a policy we all have a stake in.”
Obviously, there are instances where a criminal is going to run. The police officers now have to consider whether they should chase or not. It’s no longer about simply capturing a criminal so that they can answer for their crimes. Now, officers must decide whether they believe the person is guilty of a misdemeanor or a felony.
The only time the officers can chase a suspect on foot is if they are believed to be committing a felony…or a Class A misdemeanor such as domestic battery or drunk driving.
If someone has simply committed a parking violation or is drinking in public, they cannot chase a person on foot. That means that those who are not an “obvious threat” to anyone can simply commit their crime and run without fear of being chased.
According to the policy, “People may avoid contact with a member for many reasons other than involvement in criminal activity.”
This really sets the wrong kind of precedent. Why would anyone run from the police unless they were guilty? We should be teaching society that they must obey the police, not be able to run from them.
When the policy was announced, the story of the 13-year-old and the 22-year-old were not mentioned. Of course, they wouldn’t be. Both of those individuals were armed when they ran from the police. It’s one of the reasons why the police ended up shooting them.
Police officers often have to shoot if a suspect is running after committing a crime. Things like “Stop or I’ll shoot” or “You’re under arrest” don’t seem to resonate with criminals anymore. And Mayor Lightfoot is protecting the criminals instead of protecting the community.
As reported by NBC News, the new policy says that “If officers realize they do not know exactly where [the suspects] are, which is possible in a chaotic situation in which they are running through alleys and between houses, they must stop.”
The foot pursuit policy is not something new. Chicago adopted it only after other cities have implemented similar policies. Those cities include Baltimore, Portland, and Philadelphia. Want to know what all of the cities have in common? They’re all liberally run – and they are all known to have high crime rates.
This is yet another example of poor leadership. They are working to protect the criminals instead of the community. They’ll prevent the cops from chasing down a criminal and shooting them when the better solution would be to teach the criminals to drop their weapons and stop running when the police approach them.
