Chicago police made coffee and popcorn in US Rep. Bobby Rush's office while shopping plaza was being

[sabra]

Source: Chicago Trib

Chicago police officers made popcorn and coffee in U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush’s office while nearby businesses were being looted, he announced at a stunning news conference alongside Mayor Lori Lightfoot.

Rush’s South Side campaign office was looted about two weeks ago during widespread civil unrest in the wake of George Floyd’s killing by Minneapolis police. Looters also went into a nearby plaza of businesses, he said.

Rush said he got a call that his campaign offices at 54th Street and South Wentworth Avenue had been burglarized, and there was video of eight or more police officers “lounging in my office” as looters were in the shopping center nearby.

Rush looked at the video and saw eight or more cops, including three supervisors, with their feet up on desks, he said.

Read more: https://www.chicagotribune.com/politics/ct-chicago-police-looting-popcorn-20200611-je3afw3lxbhknicv37ijnncgkq-story.html?fbclid=IwAR34XCcdQbQV0fOhl0nab1Q3Ro5a6fjzpXnIlLftCwrSAPJjG1lEFaDoKm8

[LizBeth]

1. Breaking in and lootin' too, while on duty being paid.

[The Magistrate]

2. Worth Noting, Sir, Rep. Rush Is Alive Today

Only because he did not go home one night, and that was the night a murder squad from the Chicago Police Department came to kill Fred Hampton and the rest of the Chicago Black Panthers, in an attack authorized by the state's attorney, 'Mad Dog' Eddie Hanrahan.

This was towards the end of 1969. There had been a gunfight between Panthers and the police a month before, that killed two officers. The raid on the Panther headquarters and all-around pad was straight vengeance. Police opened fire on entry, the only shot gotten off by a Panther was fired up into the ceiling as he died. The people who weren't killed but only wounded were beaten and indicted for various felonies, charges eventually dropped. Civil suits brought a couple of millions in judgements against the police. There's no doubt at all about the course of events, it was clear what had happened within days, and it has been exhaustively investigated.

[Judi Lynn]

3. Thank you, Magistrate, for sharing the background information on their long-standing hatred,

dating over back 50 years.

That's some strong grudge-bearing from people who got the last word. Apparently they hate Bobby Rush for not having been murdered.

[The Magistrate]

4. I Was Around Back Then, Ma'am

Not on that spot, but out in the street....

[frazzled]

6. There was an excellent documentary on PBS Independent Lens

last night that included Hampton, Rush, and others, regarding efforts of the Panthers in 1969 to form the first Rainbow Coalition with the Puerto Rican Young Lords and poor whites on the North Side (Young Patriots). Fascinating, affecting, and ultimately depressing in that you realize we are having the same damned conversations 50 years later. Highly recommended, especially in these times.

In 1969, the Chicago Black Panther Party, notably led by the charismatic Fred Hampton, began to form alliances across lines of race and ethnicity with other community-based movements in the city, including the Latino group the Young Lords Organization and the working-class young southern whites of the Young Patriots. Finding common ground, these disparate groups banded together in one of the most segregated cities in postwar America to collectively confront issues such as police brutality and substandard housing, calling themselves the Rainbow Coalition. The First Rainbow Coalition tells the movement’s little-known story through rare archival footage and interviews with former coalition members in the present-day.

https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/films/the-first-rainbow-coalition/

You can watch the whole thing on the PBS app, but only I think if you are a Passport member.

[scarletwoman]

8. That film had me in tears. I second your recommendation. (nt)

[Evolve Dammit]

5. Yeah, this sounds like a corrupt to the core PD.

[LiberalFighter]

7. They all need to be fired.