“Can Chicago recover quickly? Downtown and bustling North Side areas surely will, but parts of the rest of the city will need concentrated, consistent attention. They did before. They especially do now. Chronic gun violence in some neighborhoods is one obstacle. Then months of businesses shut down due to the coronavirus. Add a weekend of mass destruction, and will business owners reinvest? Or bolt?”

“We recognize that curfews are problematic. By their nature, they place limits on people who are engaged in lawful First Amendment conduct, in this case protesting the police treatment of Floyd and the record of too many similar deaths at the hands of police. They complicate the lives of people who must commute to work during the hours covered by the curfew.”

Said Lightfoot, “If people believe that police have engaged in misconduct, they need to call 311 and file a complaint. And those complaints will be investigated vigorously. This is not a time when we’re bending the rules around police reform and accountability.”

While every officer had riot gear this weekend, they didn’t all have radios. And several times in recent days someone, or several people, briefly blocked police frequencies with their own transmissions.

The American Civil Liberties of Union of Illinois said it was considering legal action over an indefinite curfew that raised “serious constitutional questions that need to be remedied.” Lightfoot, a former federal prosecutor, defended her response as necessary.

Biden asked the mayors what assistance they would like to see from the federal government should he be elected president in November. Lightfoot called for additional funding for small businesses who don’t have the cash flow or lines of credit to stay afloat amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the continuing protests.

“But, in spite of the fact that neither the city nor Protect Our Parks are questioning whether the federal court has jurisdiction, the judges seem to be focused on it, raising the issue repeatedly, commenting that claims like this can be pursued in state court, and complaining that ‘it feels like we’re sitting as a zoning board.'”

“There were 699 arrests just yesterday, primarily for looting in our city. Of those 699, 461 arrests were on the South and West side. Over 64 guns were recovered,” Brown said. He added over 130 CPD officers were injured.

Hoping to help with repairs and curb further incidents, the city is keeping police on patrol throughout residential neighborhoods and city workers are pouring into commercial corridors to start fixing the damage. The city had worked with 180 buildings just by Sunday night.

More than half of the weekend’s victims shot on Sunday.

After talking to several officers in the area, State Rep. LaShawn Ford said it appeared police had “thrown their hands up” and weren’t protecting the small, family-owned business on the city’s underresourced West Side. Without access to the same insurance, capital and loans big-box stores have, West Side businesses will struggle to rebuild.

“I’m worried. I am absolutely worried about a potential outbreak as a result of what we saw yesterday,” Lightfoot said. The mayor said she would consult with Dr. Allison Arwady, the commissioner of the Chicago Department of Public Health, and make a determination soon.

The court still has the ability to move the opening date sooner, but it’s giving itself a target of July 7 “to allow enough time for all justice system stakeholders to ensure that more proceedings will be conducted in a way that protects everybody.”

Asiaha Butler, executive director of Resident Association of Greater Englewood, said she watched looters on Sunday target stores near 66th and Halsted. “What we have seen over the last few days, this is a sense of desperation. It’s layers upon layers of tension built up. To me, it’s more of a direct outcome of our systems in Chicago and this country.”

“Chicago has made measurable progress in reforming its policing practices and training. Pushed and prodded by civil libertarians, community groups and others…the police department entered a federal consent decree to reform its ways after the killing of the aforementioned McDonald in 2014…But the Chicago Police Department has a long ways to go on true reform.”

Police spokesman Paris Lewbel said officers were fired upon with guns during the clashes. A police squad car burned, windows were smashed in city businesses and looting ensued. People pulled up in front of a jewelry store by the carload, crawling inside through a shattered window and later emerging with trays full of necklaces. Illinois State Police officers were brought in to assist.

The lawsuit the ACLU filed in Cook County Court Thursday alleges Clearview AI secretly takes the visual data of subjects from places like Facebook, Twitter and other online sources that give a clear vision of a subject’s face, then makes the data available to law enforcement.

Mayor Bob O’Dekirk said he will be announcing a curfew for Joliet starting Monday night. “What I really took away from tonight was that many of these people are not from Joliet. I’m not sure if most even knew why they were here other than to cause chaos. They have vandalized buildings all over our city.”

The widespread looting and property damage affected at least 135 businesses throughout downtown, said top executives of the Magnificent Mile Association. The cost of the damages was not clear but would total many millions of dollars.

Mark Konkol: “People don’t trust city government to protect them with the same vigor they protect the rich part of town. At 81st and Ashland: ‘The guy at Cosmo Beauty is defending his business. He has a gun with an extended magazine.'”