The Response to the Police Protest

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The mayor's response to the spike in violent crime is really kind of like old school policing. She raised bridges downtown over the Chicago River to try to prevent people from getting in and out of downtown when there was all the mayhem and destruction. Lightfoot increased the police budget, but we actually lost officers because so many were leaving the department. But does she make people feel more safe? Because as we discussed in our last episode, sometimes perception of crime is the name of the game.

Chicagoans feel unsafe, and many blame Mayor Lori Lightfoot. The two Democrats on the ballot to replace her have starkly different views on what the city should do next. WBEZ’s Patrick Smith and Mariah Woelfel explain.

This episode was produced by Miles Bryan, edited by Matt Collette, fact-checked by Laura Bullard, engineered by Patrick Boyd with help from Paul Robert Mounsey, and hosted by Sean Rameswaram.

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