Chicago Police Union Chief Defends Officers Turning Their Backs on Lightfoot: She’s ‘Led to a Lot of Problems’ in the Department

The head of the union representing Chicago police officers defended — on Monday — the Chicago police officers who turned their backs on Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot in the aftermath of two police officers being shot that night with one of them being killed.

The protest took place on Saturday at the University of Chicago Medical Center, where the surviving officer has been fighting for his life. Approximately 30 officers turned their backs on Lightfoot, who visited the floor in the hospital where the critically injured officer is being treated despite her being requested not to do so. She was admonished by the officer’s father, a retired cop, but Lightfoot listened and was respectful toward him, reported The Chicago Sun-Times, citing two sources who were there.

“It was then suggested that Lightfoot say a few words to nearby grieving officers, but as she approached, they all walked away from her and to the other side of a bank of chairs — and turned their backs,” according to the Sun-Times, citing the sources.

One of the sources told the publication that the mayor looked, as the Sun-Times put it, “shaken.” She then went downstairs and conducted a press conference about the shooting, which was at a traffic stop, where the two officers were shot by at least one suspect with one of them, Ella French, 29, being killed.

John Catanzara, the president of the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police, defended the officers who turned their backs.

“To the sentiment that seven floors below at the street level right was where I was with several hundred right officers. It was a very palpable, angry, resentful, just, police force,” he said on The Ingraham Angle on Fox News. “And it wasn’t just because of the incident. It was because the mayor was there and certain brass who have led to a lot of problems within this police department.”

Catanzara added that French “is the face of what this department was supposed to be going forward. The city’s phrase of ‘be the change.’ Ella was trying to be the change. And because of policies that have been encouraged, propagated and actually promoted by city and state officials, these criminals think they can do whatever they want with no repercussions.”

French “was the first Chicago police officer to be shot and killed in the line of duty since Mayor Lori Lightfoot took office in 2019,” reported The Chicago Tribune. Two brothers have been arrested and charged in the shooting.

Watch above, via Fox News.