Saturday night a ‘s--t show’
about increasing National Guard numbers, saying the Guard is “trained in military tactics — not in local policing.” Their value is in freeing up police resources for the neighborhoods, she said.
Catanzara doesn’t buy it. He argued Lightfoot’s “fear of looking too militant” prevented her from allowing officers to dress in full riot gear and using tear gas, if necessary.
“When I talk riot gear, I’m talking the total gear: The knee pads, the shin guards, the elbows — all of that stuff that we had for NATO. Officers have that gear. We were not using it for a very specific purpose: The appearance of being this giant, military-type force was obviously a concern for the mayor and everybody advising her,” he said.
“My members stood shoulder-to-shoulder and defended this city as best they could — as ill-equipped as they were at times. I mean we still — almost nine years after NATO — do not have a single radio for every officer sworn on the job right now. There were two officers sharing one radio in many circumstances the last couple days. That is just ridiculous . . . . It’s a major safety issue.”
Former CPD Supt. Garry McCarthy couldn’t agree more. His front-line leadership during the 2012 NATO Summit helped defuse a potentially volatile confrontation with provocateurs at Michigan and Cermak.
“They’re not being allowed to wear riot gear because it’s too intimidating. Well, it’s also supposed to protect the cops, who are getting rocks and bricks and getting their butts kicked,” McCarthy had said earlier this week.
“The decisions being made are just flabbergasting . . . . I’m not sure exactly where they’re coming from. But, I suspect they’re coming from civilians — not police. And I just see complete disorganization. The anarchists who believe in no order have more order than the police.”
McCarthy said the only way to restore order is to “have a plan to be deployed properly at the places and times that you need to be” and have “mobile field forces in riot gear who can respond to these violent clashes and quell them by going into the crowd and taking the agitators out.”
Instead, “all you see now are lines of cops standing around and getting pelted. The looting goes on. The assaults go on,” McCarthy told the Sun-Times Tuesday.
“I’m not sure if this city is gonna recover from this if we don’t get it under control like now. Just like the West Side still has not recovered from 1968. This could really put the lights out in Chicago if we don’t get a hold on it.”
Chicago aldermen have accused the mayor of being caught flat-footed by violent protests she should have anticipated, then belatedly imposing a curfew and sealing off downtown, pushing looting, arson and mayhem into South and West side neighborhoods.
Catanzara agreed. Downtown was sealed off too late — after the damage was “already done.”
“The South and West Sides happened because they plundered everything downtown. They were just looking for new places to steal from. It was just a natural progression that they were gonna keep moving on and taking advantage of the chaos to steal whatever they could steal,” Catanzara said.
“I hate when they keep referring to these people as protesters. They were anarchists. They were not protesters . . . . People breaking windows are not protesters that are now mad. They’re a------s who are just looking to steal stuff. They’re opportunists.”