More than 100 people were arrested on Sunday night and Monday morning in Chicago after city residents smashed windows, looted stores, and vandalized buildings around the Magnificent Mile and other areas. Chicago police said 13 officers had been injured.
Scenes from the area Sunday night showed people walking in and out of shattered luxury stores carrying merchandise with no visible police presence around, in scenes reminiscent of looting seen in New York and other cities in the aftermath of George Floyd’s killing earlier in the summer.
But there were also confrontations with police. Authorities said shots were fired at officers, and some conflicts were caught on video:
The mêlée seemed to have been touched off after Chicago police shot and injured a 20-year-old man on the city’s South Side earlier on Sunday. The Chicago Sun-Times reports that authorities claimed a man was shooting at them when they returned fire, wounding him — though this account was contradicted by a man claiming to be his brother — and that the situation escalated from there, per Deputy Chief Yolanda Talley:
About an hour after the shootout, neighbors engaged in a standoff with officers that Talley described as “very hostile.”
“Emotions were running high. They were responding to misinformation,” Talley said.
Some members of the community had heard a “young person” had been shot, while others were responding to a report that a witness who videotaped the shooting had his phone taken by officers. She said those reports were inaccurate.
During the incident, one officer was maced and another suffered a shoulder injury, Talley said. The first officer was taken to Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn and the other was treated at the scene. A brick was also lobbed through the window of a police vehicle, she said.
Following the incident, hundreds of people made their way to the Magnificent Mile area.
“What occurred in our downtown and surrounding communities was abject criminal behavior, pure and simple,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said. “And there cannot be any excuse for it. Period.”
To stem the tide of people coming downtown on Monday morning, Chicago took the unusual step of raising the city’s bridges.
The Chicago Transit Authority also temporarily suspended some bus and subway lines at the request of public officials.
