Latest news with #DemocraticNationalConvention
Yahoo
2 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Chicago's new FBI boss touts new squad focused on fentanyl and says immigration enforcement is a ‘sustained effort'
As a newly minted special agent for the FBI in the early 2000s, Douglas DePodesta cut his teeth on a squad that went after Colombian and Mexican drug cartels that used the city as a hub for trafficking thousands of tons of narcotics every year. Two decades later, DePodesta has taken over the reins of the FBI's Chicago Field Office amid a push from the Trump administration to go after a new generation of cartel bosses and the dangerous drugs they import, particularly the powerful synthetic painkiller fentanyl. 'It's killing an American every seven minutes,' DePodesta said, adding fentanyl has been cited routinely as a source for an epidemic of overdoses and deaths across the nation. 'That is scary, one poor individual takes a pill and it kills them.' Larry Hoover 'deserves to be in prison,' Chicago FBI boss says of Gangster Disciples founder as lawyers praise Trump choice 'This was an act of cowardice': Charges filed against Chicago man in the fatal shooting near DC Jewish museum DePodesta's comments came in an exclusive interview with the Tribune on Thursday, several months after he started his role as special agent in charge in August. To help combat the growing fentanyl problem, he told the Tribune he recently created a 12-member squad with agents from various jurisdictions to focus on trafficking by the cartels in an attempt to disrupt a complex network that spans from Central and South America to Asia. 'We are looking to cut off the supply of fentanyl and also the precursors to fentanyl, the chemicals,' DePodesta said. 'It's really interesting. It's a little different problem than just the cartels, but it's also the same, right? Because it's a chemical we're trying to cut off. So we're working with our international partners (because) a lot of it comes from China. … I'm very excited about it.' Taking over the nation's fourth-largest FBI field office has been a sort of homecoming for DePodesta, 54. Though he's a Detroit-area native, he spent 14 years as a special agent in Chicago, where he rose to head the office's Technical Program that mines digital and multimedia evidence to support investigations. Though initially tasked to investigate cartels, DePodesta eventually had a hand in some of the era's biggest investigations, including the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks and its connections to financiers in Chicago, and the corruption probe that same year that felled then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich, he said. DePodesta said that while he only assisted in the Blagojevich probe, it stood out in his mind 'just how rampant the corruption was in that investigation.' 'It was crazy, right?' he said. 'Anything to get a dollar.' DePodesta was selected for the plum Chicago position by then-Director Christopher Wray, and landed here a week and a half before the Democratic National Convention. Though it was a bit of a trial by fire, DePodesta said he was fortunate to inherit a 'great team' that had spent years planning how to mitigate security threats while still leaving room for protests and other events. 'It really showcased how great this city is and the law enforcement partnerships we have here,' DePodesta said, sitting in his corner office at FBI headquarters on West Roosevelt Road with views of the downtown skyline. 'And the great people, right? At the end of the day it was about the people, everyone from the hotel workers, the bus drivers. It really showed what Chicago is and what it can be.' In January came the change in administrations and with it a new boss in Washington, FBI Director Kash Patel. DePodesta acknowledged there have been shifting priorities for the bureau since, but said that's typical whenever there's a change in leadership. 'This is my fourth director. And each time a new director comes in there are new priorities and new shifts, so we are seeing a little bit of a shift in priorities now,' he said. 'But I can tell you our core mission is the same: Uphold the Constitution and protect the American people.' In addition to cartels and fentanyl trafficking, DePodesta said his agents have had a hand in one of the Trump administration's other hot-button issues: immigration enforcement. DePodesta said the Chicago FBI, which has more than 1,000 total employees, has partnered locally with the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, embedding some of the FBI's 450 agents on the street 'helping them effect arrests.' The targets, DePodesta said, 'are people that have removal orders that have a criminal history — murderers, rapists,' adding that the effort was 'ongoing' and had no timetable for a conclusion. 'It is not a surge; it is a sustained effort,' DePodesta said. He said no new agents have been added to fulfill the FBI's role in immigration enforcement — instead, agents from other squads have rotated and worked overtime. DePodesta said that despite the new priorities, the FBI will continue to focus on its bread-and-butter areas of operation, including terrorism, gang and gun violence, crimes against children, drug trafficking and public corruption. 'The great thing about Chicago is we have about 1,100 employees here, so we have the ability to concentrate on a lot of things,' he said. 'Although we're getting pulled in different directions … we are big enough we can do a lot of stuff really well.' As always, the bureau has had to adapt with the times. As gangs have fragmented, he said, the FBI has learned to deploy resources more strategically, with agents assisting Chicago police and other local authorities in targeting violent offenders on the street. One of the FBI's biggest assets, he said, is time, with the agency having the ability to step back and look at the bigger picture of who is driving violence. 'We have to look to see where we can make the most impact, get the most bang for our buck,' he said. 'So we determine which cases we should go after, if it's the most violent offenders, if it's the leaders of gangs, that's where we go.' One of Chicago's most notorious leaders, Gangster Disciples founder Larry Hoover, this past week had his federal life sentence commuted by Trump. Though Hoover is still serving a 200-year sentence for his state court conviction for murder, making him likely to stay behind bars for the time being, DePodesta said in his interview with the Tribune that Hoover 'deserves to be in prison.' 'The president of the United States has the authority to pardon whoever he wishes,' he said. 'I think Larry Hoover caused a lot of damage in this city and he deserves to be in prison and he will continue to be imprisoned in the state system.' DePodesta also noted that homicide rates were way below their high-water mark during the pandemic, and that non-fatal shootings were also down last year — drops he attributed in part to federal efforts, including the Crime Gun Intelligence Center recently established by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. 'I think that's really shedding light on who's doing a lot of these shootings, and we've been able to bring those people to justice,' he said. While multinational terrorist threats such as Al Qaeda and ISIS have quieted somewhat in recent years, the bureau's counterterrorism efforts are 'not going away,' DePodesta said, pointing to the the assassination of two members of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., last week, a crime allegedly carried out by Chicagoan Elias Rodriguez. DePodesta said that although Rodriguez was charged in Washington, the Chicago FBI, which conducted a raid on Rodriguez's Albany Park apartment on the morning after his arrest, is continuing to have a role in that investigation. 'As you can imagine we follow every thread, every lead to understand exactly everything that subject was going through, anyone he was talking to, figure out the whole thought process he was going through,' DePodesta said. 'And that's for two reasons. Obviously for prosecution, but also, we want to understand what someone like this is thinking to try to stop the next one.' As for public corruption, DePodesta noted the parade of political titans that have been felled in recent years in part due to the FBI's work, from former governors such as Blagojevich and George Ryan to ex-Chicago Ald. Edward Burke, who is currently in prison, and former House Speaker Michael Madigan, who will be sentenced in two weeks. 'Obviously our public corruption program is unfortunately still very busy,' DePodesta said. Asked if the most recent conviction of Madigan in February put an end to politicians with their hands out, DePodesta gave a slight smile. 'I don't think that's true,' DePodesta said. 'Unfortunately there is a culture of corruption in this city and it's my job to ensure that the taxpayers get honest service for their tax dollars.' DePodesta grew up in the Detroit area, where his father worked in the steel industry, and he still considers it home. He graduated from Ferris State University in Michigan with a degree in criminal justice. He began his career in law enforcement as a patrol officer in Cincinnati, where he eventually worked his way up to investigations and joined a multi-agency task force focused on cargo shipping. 'Back in the day it was baby formula. … A truck full of that, even back then, was like $250,000,' he said. 'So that kind of gave me the thirst to do something different.' He joined the bureau in 2002 and was assigned to Chicago, which he acknowledged was 'not my first choice.' But after settling in Wrigleyville, he said, he quickly grew to love the city — though his baseball loyalties still remain with the Detroit Tigers. 'It's different neighborhoods quilted together to make a community,' DePodesta said of Chicago. 'And I would say the law enforcement community is some of the strongest partnerships I've seen.' In 2016, DePodesta was promoted to chief of the Sensitive Operations Support Unit at FBI Headquarters in Washington. He later moved back to Detroit, where in 2019 he became assistant special agent in charge of the FBI field office there, responsible for managing all violent crime, gang, and drug investigations across Michigan. From there, DePodesta went back to headquarters to head up what he called 'the business side of the house,' the Finance and Facilities Division, where he was in charge of a $1 billion budget that included more than 650 field locations and 18 million square feet of office space. He was named interim special agent in charge of the Memphis Field Office in 2023 and spent about a year and a half there before finally landing back in Chicago. He now lives in Evanston with his wife and their 3-year-old golden retriever, Charlie. With three years to go before the FBI's mandatory retirement age of 57, DePodesta said he'd love it if he could call it a career here. But there still a lot to do. 'I think I have a lot left in my tank,' he said. jmeisner@
Chicago Tribune
2 days ago
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
Chicago's new FBI boss touts new squad focused on fentanyl and says immigration enforcement is a ‘sustained effort'
As a newly minted special agent for the FBI in the early 2000s, Douglas DePodesta cut his teeth on a squad that went after Colombian and Mexican drug cartels that used the city as a hub for trafficking thousands of tons of narcotics every year. Two decades later, DePodesta has taken over the reins of the FBI's Chicago Field Office amid a push from the Trump administration to go after a new generation of cartel bosses and the dangerous drugs they import, particularly the powerful synthetic painkiller fentanyl. 'It's killing an American every seven minutes,' DePodesta said, adding fentanyl has been cited routinely as a source for an epidemic of overdoses and deaths across the nation. 'That is scary, one poor individual takes a pill and it kills them.' DePodesta's comments came in an exclusive interview with the Tribune on Thursday, several months after he started his role as special agent in charge in August. To help combat the growing fentanyl problem, he told the Tribune he recently created a 12-member squad with agents from various jurisdictions to focus on trafficking by the cartels in an attempt to disrupt a complex network that spans from Central and South America to Asia. 'We are looking to cut off the supply of fentanyl and also the precursors to fentanyl, the chemicals,' DePodesta said. 'It's really interesting. It's a little different problem than just the cartels, but it's also the same, right? Because it's a chemical we're trying to cut off. So we're working with our international partners (because) a lot of it comes from China. … I'm very excited about it.' Taking over the nation's fourth-largest FBI field office has been a sort of homecoming for DePodesta, 54. Though he's a Detroit-area native, he spent 14 years as a special agent in Chicago, where he rose to head the office's Technical Program that mines digital and multimedia evidence to support investigations. Though initially tasked to investigate cartels, DePodesta eventually had a hand in some of the era's biggest investigations, including the 2008 Mumbai terrorist attacks and its connections to financiers in Chicago, and the corruption probe that same year that felled then-Gov. Rod Blagojevich, he said. DePodesta said that while he only assisted in the Blagojevich probe, it stood out in his mind 'just how rampant the corruption was in that investigation.' 'It was crazy, right?' he said. 'Anything to get a dollar.' DePodesta was selected for the plum Chicago position by then-Director Christopher Wray, and landed here a week and a half before the Democratic National Convention. Though it was a bit of a trial by fire, DePodesta said he was fortunate to inherit a 'great team' that had spent years planning how to mitigate security threats while still leaving room for protests and other events. 'It really showcased how great this city is and the law enforcement partnerships we have here,' DePodesta said, sitting in his corner office at FBI headquarters on West Roosevelt Road with views of the downtown skyline. 'And the great people, right? At the end of the day it was about the people, everyone from the hotel workers, the bus drivers. It really showed what Chicago is and what it can be.' In January came the change in administrations and with it a new boss in Washington, FBI Director Kash Patel. DePodesta acknowledged there have been shifting priorities for the bureau since, but said that's typical whenever there's a change in leadership. 'This is my fourth director. And each time a new director comes in there are new priorities and new shifts, so we are seeing a little bit of a shift in priorities now,' he said. 'But I can tell you our core mission is the same: Uphold the Constitution and protect the American people.' In addition to cartels and fentanyl trafficking, DePodesta said his agents have had a hand in one of the Trump administration's other hot-button issues: immigration enforcement. DePodesta said the Chicago FBI, which has more than 1,000 total employees, has partnered locally with the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, embedding some of the FBI's 450 agents on the street 'helping them effect arrests.' The targets, DePodesta said, 'are people that have removal orders that have a criminal history — murderers, rapists,' adding that the effort was 'ongoing' and had no timetable for a conclusion. 'It is not a surge; it is a sustained effort,' DePodesta said. He said no new agents have been added to fulfill the FBI's role in immigration enforcement — instead, agents from other squads have rotated and worked overtime. DePodesta said that despite the new priorities, the FBI will continue to focus on its bread-and-butter areas of operation, including terrorism, gang and gun violence, crimes against children, drug trafficking and public corruption. 'The great thing about Chicago is we have about 1,100 employees here, so we have the ability to concentrate on a lot of things,' he said. 'Although we're getting pulled in different directions … we are big enough we can do a lot of stuff really well.' As always, the bureau has had to adapt with the times. As gangs have fragmented, he said, the FBI has learned to deploy resources more strategically, with agents assisting Chicago police and other local authorities in targeting violent offenders on the street. One of the FBI's biggest assets, he said, is time, with the agency having the ability to step back and look at the bigger picture of who is driving violence. 'We have to look to see where we can make the most impact, get the most bang for our buck,' he said. 'So we determine which cases we should go after, if it's the most violent offenders, if it's the leaders of gangs, that's where we go.' One of Chicago's most notorious leaders, Gangster Disciples founder Larry Hoover, this past week had his federal life sentence commuted by Trump. Though Hoover is still serving a 200-year sentence for his state court conviction for murder, making him likely to stay behind bars for the time being, DePodesta said in his interview with the Tribune that Hoover 'deserves to be in prison.' 'The president of the United States has the authority to pardon whoever he wishes,' he said. 'I think Larry Hoover caused a lot of damage in this city and he deserves to be in prison and he will continue to be imprisoned in the state system.' DePodesta also noted that homicide rates were way below their high-water mark during the pandemic, and that non-fatal shootings were also down last year — drops he attributed in part to federal efforts, including the Crime Gun Intelligence Center recently established by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. 'I think that's really shedding light on who's doing a lot of these shootings, and we've been able to bring those people to justice,' he said. While multinational terrorist threats such as Al Qaeda and ISIS have quieted somewhat in recent years, the bureau's counterterrorism efforts are 'not going away,' DePodesta said, pointing to the the assassination of two members of the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., last week, a crime allegedly carried out by Chicagoan Elias Rodriguez. DePodesta said that although Rodriguez was charged in Washington, the Chicago FBI, which conducted a raid on Rodriguez's Albany Park apartment on the morning after his arrest, is continuing to have a role in that investigation. 'As you can imagine we follow every thread, every lead to understand exactly everything that subject was going through, anyone he was talking to, figure out the whole thought process he was going through,' DePodesta said. 'And that's for two reasons. Obviously for prosecution, but also, we want to understand what someone like this is thinking to try to stop the next one.' As for public corruption, DePodesta noted the parade of political titans that have been felled in recent years in part due to the FBI's work, from former governors such as Blagojevich and George Ryan to ex-Chicago Ald. Edward Burke, who is currently in prison, and former House Speaker Michael Madigan, who will be sentenced in two weeks. 'Obviously our public corruption program is unfortunately still very busy,' DePodesta said. Asked if the most recent conviction of Madigan in February put an end to politicians with their hands out, DePodesta gave a slight smile. 'I don't think that's true,' DePodesta said. 'Unfortunately there is a culture of corruption in this city and it's my job to ensure that the taxpayers get honest service for their tax dollars.' DePodesta grew up in the Detroit area, where his father worked in the steel industry, and he still considers it home. He graduated from Ferris State University in Michigan with a degree in criminal justice. He began his career in law enforcement as a patrol officer in Cincinnati, where he eventually worked his way up to investigations and joined a multi-agency task force focused on cargo shipping. 'Back in the day it was baby formula. … A truck full of that, even back then, was like $250,000,' he said. 'So that kind of gave me the thirst to do something different.' He joined the bureau in 2002 and was assigned to Chicago, which he acknowledged was 'not my first choice.' But after settling in Wrigleyville, he said, he quickly grew to love the city — though his baseball loyalties still remain with the Detroit Tigers. 'It's different neighborhoods quilted together to make a community,' DePodesta said of Chicago. 'And I would say the law enforcement community is some of the strongest partnerships I've seen.' In 2016, DePodesta was promoted to chief of the Sensitive Operations Support Unit at FBI Headquarters in Washington. He later moved back to Detroit, where in 2019 he became assistant special agent in charge of the FBI field office there, responsible for managing all violent crime, gang, and drug investigations across Michigan. From there, DePodesta went back to headquarters to head up what he called 'the business side of the house,' the Finance and Facilities Division, where he was in charge of a $1 billion budget that included more than 650 field locations and 18 million square feet of office space. He was named interim special agent in charge of the Memphis Field Office in 2023 and spent about a year and a half there before finally landing back in Chicago. He now lives in Evanston with his wife and their 3-year-old golden retriever, Charlie. With three years to go before the FBI's mandatory retirement age of 57, DePodesta said he'd love it if he could call it a career here. But there still a lot to do. 'I think I have a lot left in my tank,' he said.
Yahoo
2 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Opinion - Fake news: No, Joe Biden was not in decline
I have worked in the arena. As a White House intern in the Office of Presidential Correspondence, an elected delegate to the Democratic National Convention, and a veteran of campaigns at every level, I have had the chance to see how government really works — behind the speeches and the soundbites. I have seen former President Joe Biden — not resembling the caricature in these new political tell-alls that people keep publishing, but as a man committed to serving others, listening when it's hardest and leading when others duck responsibility. That's why it is disheartening to see the growing shelf of books peddling the idea of a president in decline. Each new volume seems less concerned with truth and more invested in narrative — a cheaply packaged tale of malarkey for the cable news set and the Beltway cocktail circuit. These books offer little that is new, but much that is convenient for those looking to profit from pessimism. They rely on anonymous sources, innuendo, and a tired playbook. They question the man's faculties, reframe routine deliberation as dysfunction, and ignore inconvenient facts that contradict the thesis. There is clearly a market for these portrayals — just not among those who actually take the time to govern. The audience is a self-satisfied chorus of the 'permanent, professional chattering class,' as Naomi Biden rightly put it. They rarely step into the arena but make a living from narrating its battles. And they seem far more comfortable speculating about the president's gait than engaging with the gravity of his work. There is a deeper cynicism at work here — one that goes beyond politics. These books reflect a broader contempt for the idea that decency can still exist in public life. To the authors and pundits profiting off these narratives, it's unthinkable that someone would choose service over self-promotion, empathy over ego, or duty over drama. So they invent a version of Biden that makes more sense to them: a man propped up by aides, out of touch, fading. It is an easier story to sell, even if it is not true. I have seen people moved to tears by a letter from the president — a letter sent not as a press stunt but in the quiet aftermath of grief, of hardship or of triumph. I have worked alongside staff who saw firsthand the care Biden gives to decisions most will never hear about, the hours spent preparing for moments the public will only ever see for thirty seconds. That is not decline. That is the burden of leadership. There are legitimate policy debates to be had, and we should have them. But we should reject the idea that personality assassination, wrapped in the language of reportage, is public service. What these books trade in is not journalism — it's performance. It absolves the powerful of real analysis and distracts from urgent problems with recycled gossip. If you must focus on one halting debate performance, talk also about the electric midnight rally that came afterward. History sorts signal from noise. The books that matter will not be the ones written to chase a news cycle—they will be written to explain a presidency that helped guide a battered nation through recovery, war, and democratic peril. When they include the metrics we can see even now, that see indicators for everything from manufacturing investment to institutional strength skyrocket with President Biden, the truth will be unavoidable. Joe Biden is not perfect. But he is a good man. And sometimes that alone is what people cannot abide—the idea that integrity might actually persist in someone they've decided to mock. That decency might be real. I didn't come to that conclusion because I was told to. I came to it because I saw it. And no amount of anonymous sourcing will convince me to unsee it now. Charles Horowitz is a former White House intern and delegate to the Democratic National Convention. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
The Hill
2 days ago
- Politics
- The Hill
Fake news: No, Joe Biden was not in decline
I have worked in the arena. As a White House intern in the Office of Presidential Correspondence, an elected delegate to the Democratic National Convention, and a veteran of campaigns at every level, I have had the chance to see how government really works — behind the speeches and the soundbites. I have seen former President Joe Biden — not resembling the caricature in these new political tell-alls that people keep publishing, but as a man committed to serving others, listening when it's hardest and leading when others duck responsibility. That's why it is disheartening to see the growing shelf of books peddling the idea of a president in decline. Each new volume seems less concerned with truth and more invested in narrative — a cheaply packaged tale of malarkey for the cable news set and the Beltway cocktail circuit. These books offer little that is new, but much that is convenient for those looking to profit from pessimism. They rely on anonymous sources, innuendo, and a tired playbook. They question the man's faculties, reframe routine deliberation as dysfunction, and ignore inconvenient facts that contradict the thesis. There is clearly a market for these portrayals — just not among those who actually take the time to govern. The audience is a self-satisfied chorus of the 'permanent, professional chattering class,' as Naomi Biden rightly put it. They rarely step into the arena but make a living from narrating its battles. And they seem far more comfortable speculating about the president's gait than engaging with the gravity of his work. There is a deeper cynicism at work here — one that goes beyond politics. These books reflect a broader contempt for the idea that decency can still exist in public life. To the authors and pundits profiting off these narratives, it's unthinkable that someone would choose service over self-promotion, empathy over ego, or duty over drama. So they invent a version of Biden that makes more sense to them: a man propped up by aides, out of touch, fading. It is an easier story to sell, even if it is not true. I have seen people moved to tears by a letter from the president — a letter sent not as a press stunt but in the quiet aftermath of grief, of hardship or of triumph. I have worked alongside staff who saw firsthand the care Biden gives to decisions most will never hear about, the hours spent preparing for moments the public will only ever see for thirty seconds. That is not decline. That is the burden of leadership. There are legitimate policy debates to be had, and we should have them. But we should reject the idea that personality assassination, wrapped in the language of reportage, is public service. What these books trade in is not journalism — it's performance. It absolves the powerful of real analysis and distracts from urgent problems with recycled gossip. If you must focus on one halting debate performance, talk also about the electric midnight rally that came afterward. History sorts signal from noise. The books that matter will not be the ones written to chase a news cycle—they will be written to explain a presidency that helped guide a battered nation through recovery, war, and democratic peril. When they include the metrics we can see even now, that see indicators for everything from manufacturing investment to institutional strength skyrocket with President Biden, the truth will be unavoidable. Joe Biden is not perfect. But he is a good man. And sometimes that alone is what people cannot abide—the idea that integrity might actually persist in someone they've decided to mock. That decency might be real. I didn't come to that conclusion because I was told to. I came to it because I saw it. And no amount of anonymous sourcing will convince me to unsee it now. Charles Horowitz is a former White House intern and delegate to the Democratic National Convention.
Axios
3 days ago
- Politics
- Axios
How the George Floyd protests reshaped public safety in Chicago
The murder of George Floyd five years ago set off not just protests but full-scale riots around the country, including in Chicago. Why it matters: The protests fundamentally changed the way Chicago handles public demonstrations and protects communities. The city still uses some of the police tactics used in 2020, such as expressway ramp closures and curfews, to handle large-scale protests and celebrations. Flashback: On the night of May 29, 2020, mass gatherings grew unruly across the city, with riots sparking up in neighborhoods like Chatham and the South Loop. In the days following, downtown protesters set fire to police cars and looted several businesses along the Mag Mile. Then-Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the Chicago police made the rarely-used call to bring in the National Guard and raise the bridges along the Chicago River to control protests. What they're saying: "That horrible series of days is a big milestone in my time as mayor," Lightfoot told Axios at a recent event. "We were faced with the kind of crisis that this city hadn't faced in decades, since the death of Martin Luther King. I made a lot of decisions in the moment, some of which I never would have thought I'd make, like calling in the National Guard." Lightfoot said the city knew major crowds were heading downtown but that the crowds were hijacked by people intending to fight the police and cause chaos. "I remember sitting at OEMC [911 Center] watching this mayhem play out all across the city," Lightfoot continued. "There was a CTA bus caught on Wacker Drive, going eastbound. The crowd was trying to flip the bus with passengers in it. That told me a lot about the moment we are in, which was part of why we had to raise the bridges to give our police department a chance to maintain public order." Yes, but: Lightfoot and then-police superintendent David Brown also authorized questionable tactics to control protesters, including kettling. There were reports of physical altercations with batons. The city shut down expressway ramps to deter protesters from coming downtown and instituted a rarely used curfew. Over 100 protesters were arrested and several officers were injured on the night of May 29 alone. Zoom out: Lightfoot used curfews again in 2022 to curb downtown teen gatherings, while Mayor Brandon Johnson and new police superintendent Larry Snelling used temporary curfews and kettling during the 2024 Democratic National Convention, according to protesters, but Snelling has denied using kettling. Expressway ramp closures and checkpoints have been utilized again for downtown celebrations, including the Mexican Independence Day caravans, while the City Council is debating " snap curfews" to give the police more power to deter large teen gatherings in the Loop. Since the looting on Michigan Avenue, many retailers have left the area or have hired extra security. The police just ended scarecrow policing — parking police cruisers on public roads with their flashers on to prevent crime — along the Mag Mile last year, after it had been used since the looting in 2020. Between the lines: Lightfoot says the protests left a lasting mark on her political career. "You can't be the mayor of Chicago because you want everybody to love you," Lightfoot said. "You have to make decisions that are in the best interest of the well-being of the city, not by just following which way the political winds are blowing. I feel proud of my administration's legacy, but I think that cost me a lot."
