Chicago City Wire

(Note: This article has references to profane language.)

Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Alderman Ray Lopez engaged in an argument that turned profane and emotional during a set of conference calls on May 31. 

The calls between Lightfoot and members of the Chicago City Council, were conducted to update the aldermen on the city's actions to contain neighborhood violence and looting, according to a June 1 report by the Chicago Sun-Times.

Lopez asked Lightfoot how the city planned to protect neighborhoods following the sealing of a downtown area that had been ravaged by looting, vandalism and arson the night before.

Lopez told the newspaper that Lightfoot said she had a plan for every neighborhood in the city.

“I said, ‘I heard on the scanners that we have hundreds of people, caravans, driving in from Indiana and other places to come and terrorize our city,’” Lopez said in an interview with the Sun-Times. “She rebuffed that. She said, ‘I’m dealing with issues. That’s an unsubstantiated rumor. You can chase that if you want, Ray.’”

During a second conference call several aldermen reportedly became shaken and in tears about damage in their communities.

“I asked her point-blank. I said, ‘I told you this was gonna happen in the morning. I warned you. What is our plan for the neighborhoods? How are we gonna stabilize the communities? We need a five-day plan. The assumption that this is all gonna go away because you’ve got a curfew is wrong. We need to stabilize the communities. I want an answer,’” said Lopez.

Instead of answering Lopez’s questions, he said that she “she basically said, ‘OK. Next.’ and tried to move onto the next alderman without answering me.”

Lopez says he persisted, demanding an answer, and claims the mayor proclaimed him “full of s--t for saying that all she cared about was downtown and [saying] that she wasn’t prepared and that there’s nothing she could say intellectually that would make sense to me.’”

Lopez’s response: “I told her, ‘F--- you. You don’t know what’s going on. You need to come out from wherever you’re hiding and see what’s going on in the neighborhoods.’ I said, ‘You need to check your f---ing attitude.’ That’s not what this is about right now. That just underscores and totally proves the fact that she had no plan for the neighborhoods.”

Two aldermen have confirmed Lopez’s story. 

On Monday, Lightfoot did not mention the exchange, but talked generally about the conference calls.   

“We invited all the aldermen to participate. We had a briefing early [Sunday] morning. And then, we followed up to update them on what had transpired over the events of the day,” said Lightfoot. “We heard a lot of feedback.”

Lopez says that during both calls the mayor asked aldermen to support her during one of the most difficult moments in Chicago history.

“I’m 100 percent for that,” said Lopez. “But I am not gonna be put down by this mayor or anybody else who thinks that what’s going on in my community is somehow being used as leverage for some political purpose.”

The profane exchange with Lopez wasn’t the only emotional moment during Sunday’s conference call.

Alderman Susan Sadlowski-Garza (10th Ward) was in tears talking about burned businesses, torched police cars and shootings, something she’d never seen. Sadlowski-Garza is Lightfoot’s chosen chair of the Workforce Development Committee.  

Budget Committee chair Pat Dowell, who represents the third ward, said that her Near South Side ward has been set back by five years by the violence. Dowell’s ward includes Bronzeville and the surrounding neighborhoods.