Black Lives Matter Chicago founder says looting steps on message; condemns Mayor Lightfoot's inaction

EXCLUSIVE: Black Lives Matter Chicago founder Aislinn Pulley says the recent looting in Chicago undercuts the message the organization is trying to convey, while faulting Mayor Lori Lightfoot for slow-pedaling reforms in the city's police department.

While not outwardly dismissing the looting and property damage, Pulley acknowledged it doesn't help address the problem of police brutality.

“I think the goal of the preoccupation around property damage and looting specifically, along the Mag Mile and in the heart of the city’s commerce center, works to distract away from the actual cause of the outrage, the important thing is to intervene and remind people what the causal incident was and continues to be.”

The unrest was prompted by a social media post urging people to converge on Chicago’s business district after police shot a young Black man on the South Side around 2:30 p.m. Sunday.

Officers had responded to a call about a man with a gun in the Englewood neighborhood. While being pursued by police, the man, Latrell Allen, “turned and fired shots” at officers before being struck himself and taken to a local hospital, Deputy Chief Delonda Tally told Fox 32 Chicago.

Pulley lays the blame at the feet of Chicago's mayor, Lori Lightfoot, who unlike other local officials around the country, has not enacted calls to defund the police department's budget.

"The refusal to enact any meaningful change will mean that we will have continued instances like this….the way to resolve that is to actually address the root problems, it’s not with Target, its not with Macy’s or the gold coast Cartier....we can draw links certainly to what gets prioritized, but the root problem is that policing is the absolute same in this city," says Pulley.

Pulley added: "There’s been no significant decreases in the budget for CPD [Chicago Police Department], there hasn’t even been a promise to decrease the budget for CPD, we’ve seen other may... (Read more)

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