On August 24, 2020, a group of Chicago community members, organizers, stakeholders and faith leaders issued an urgent call to Mayor Lori Lightfoot to immediately cease her fearmongering and misguided and harmful escalation of law enforcement. 

The leaders ask the Mayor to listen, reflect and lead the city instead of signing a blank check to the Chicago Police Department to commit more violence in the name of “quelling” protestors and protecting property. 

"As Mayor of Chicago you occupy one of the most powerful and influential platforms for change in our city, and we are facing a pivotal moment that begs for moral leadership. Unfortunately, your response has been to point fingers at other city leaders and double down on the use of heavily armed, militarized police to protect property interests, all while ignoring urgent calls for meaningful police reform. We can and must do so much better if the unrest is ever to end."

India Jackson of Good Kids Mad City: "When Mayor Lightfoot first ran for office, she visited one of our events in Hyde Park where we were collecting donations for Maurice Granton Jr.'s family after he was killed by the Police Department, leaving his two daughters and the mother of his children to fend for themselves. She came in support of us and Maurice’s family. Where is that support now? How many more lives have been lost since then? As mayor, Lightfoot now has a unique opportunity to change this by heeding our collective voices for substantive changes.” 

Tanya Watkins of Southsiders Organized for Unity & Liberation (SOUL): “What’s needed in this city is not more policing, not more incarceration -- but equity. Our obsession with locking up Black and brown people in record numbers and oversaturating their communities with militarized cops, while concurrently defunding their schools, shuttering community hospitals and health care centers and depriving vulnerable residents of needed resources is actually the problem. Shifting the blame to other government bodies who are actively taking the steps to restore harm and invest in communities does nothing to address any of these issues in the city.”