Illinois Congressman compares Chicago Police Union to KKK
Illinois Congressman Bobby Rush (D) is facing criticism after he likened the city of Chicago’s police union to the Klu Klux Klan. Rush said that both organizations were like kissing, hugging and law-breaking cousins.
“The number-one cause that prevents police accountability, that promotes police corruption, that protects police lawlessness, is a culprit called the Fraternal Order of Police,” Rush said in an interview with Politico. “They’re the organized guardians of continuous police lawlessness, of police murder and police brutality. The Chicago Fraternal Order of Police is the most rabid, racist body of criminal lawlessness by police in the land. It stands shoulder to shoulder with the Ku Klux Klan then and the Ku Klux Klan now.”
Rush says that the union has a long history of protecting officers from wrongdoing instead of removing them from the ranks.
Rush’s recently caught police officers lounging and eating popcorn in his district congressional office the weekend following the death of George Floyd, while looters and rioters were damaging local businesses.
“They even had the unmitigated gall to make coffee for themselves and to pop popcorn, my popcorn, in my microwave, while looters were tearing apart businesses within their sight, within their reach,” Rush said. “And they did not care about what was happening to businesspeople, to this city. They didn’t care.”
Rush and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot haven’t had the greatest relationship. Rush has often accused Lightfoot of being too close to the police union.
“That’s a personal embarrassment to me,” Lightfoot told Rush at a press conference. “I’m sorry that you and your staff even had to deal with this incredible indignity.”
The Chicago Police Union has fired back at Rush and Lightfoot claiming that the congressman and his staff asked for the officers to sit in his office and protect it on the night of the riots.
“Shame on her for even questioning their valor and the heroism and the officers of CPD to make it sound like they were letting other officers get the crap beat out of them while they sat there and slept,” said John Catanzara, the union president, “That is a disgusting accusation. She owes the men and women an apology for even implying that.”
Catanzara called Rush and Lighfoot’s press conference a ridiculously melodramatic, over the top production, pre-planned.
“It was the mayor’s attempt to pour a tanker of gasoline on top of a fire that was starting to smolder,” he said.
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