Footage Shows Chicago Officers Making Popcorn In Congressman’s Office During Riots

New surveillance video has been released showing several Chicago police officers chilling inside of the recently-burglarized office of Congressman Bobby Rush while nearby businesses were being looted, Mayor Lori Lightfoot confirmed on Thursday. Rush was made aware of the officers “lounging” in his office after his staff members notified him of the footage.

The footage taken inside the congressman’s campaign office around 1 a.m. on June 1st shows as many as 13 officers, with three being supervisors, seemingly needing some relaxation after the mounting racial protests. They can be seen making popcorn and even catching some zzz’s, “while small businesses on the South Side were looted and burned,” Lightfoot said.

Officers were on the front lines truly taking a beating, and these guys were lounging in a congressman’s office,” Lightfoot said.

During a press conference on Thursday, which featured Lightfoot, Rush, and police officials, they shared images from the videos and stated that the officers involved would be held accountable for their lack of enforcing the law.

“I can tell you one thing for certain — not one of these officers will be able to hide behind the badge and go on and act like nothing ever happened; not anymore, not in my city, not in your city,” Lightfoot declared.

However, police union President John Catanzara had a different take on the video, referring to Thursday’s press conference as “ridiculous.” Catanzara defended the officers, saying that they were present to protect Rush’s office from further damage after it had been burglarized on Sunday, May 31st. He also claims that the nearby looting of businesses was done by the time the officers were caught on film lounging in Rush’s office.

“This was at worst, misconduct. This wasn’t police shooting somebody. They made it sound like when they called the press conference, they were going to have police on video stealing stuff and graffitiing the building and tearing apart his office. They were sitting there protecting it,” he said.

Rush fired back on Twitter late Thursday, standing by the notion that the officers should not have been there, to begin with.

“They should have been outside, with their fellow officers, protecting the people of my district. This isn’t about stolen property—I can buy more popcorn. This is about abdication of duty. … The FOP is engaged in yet another cover-up in order to protect more so-called “bad apples.”

He added, “While looters were tearing apart businesses within their sight, within their reach, they were in a mode of relaxation, and they did not care about what was happening to business people, to this city,” Rush said.

Chicago Police Department Superintendent David Brown also viewed the video.

“If you sleep during a riot, what do you do on a normal shift?” Brown said. “Let’s now be the good cops who root the bad cops out of this profession.”