A few cops snuck away from the protests going on in the streets of Chicago earlier this month, and headed into a local congressman's office to make coffee and popcorn and have a snooze, according to officials. On Thursday (June 11th), The Chicago Tribune reported that at least eight Chicago PD officers were hiding out in US Rep. Bobby Rush's district office at 54th Street and South Wentworth Avenue on June 1st while protests were in full swing outside. Rush, a Chicago congressman since 1963 and founding member of the Illinois Black Panther Party, caught the officers red-handed after he'd received a phone call indicating that his office had been burglarized. He proceeded to review his security footage and was shocked by what he discovered.
“One was asleep on my couch in my campaign office,” Rush noted at a press conference. “They even had the unmitigated gall to go and make coffee for themselves and to pop popcorn, my popcorn, in my microwave while looters were tearing apart businesses within sight and within their reach. They were in a mode of relaxation and they did not care about what was happening to businesspeople, to this city. They didn’t care. They absolutely didn’t care.”
Rush informed Mayor Lori Lightfoot of the wild misconduct, which had her "enraged." “That’s a personal embarrassment to me,” Lightfoot confessed, as she publicly apologized to Rush on Thursday. “I’m sorry that you and your staff even had to deal with this incredible indignity. Not one of these officers will be allowed to hide behind the badge and go on and act like nothing happened." Lightfoot indicated that the Chicago PD's Internal Affairs Division will be reviewing the incident while the state attorney general’s office launches an investigation. She urged the guilty officers to come forward and reveal themselves.