This week, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot accused officers in the Fraternal Order of Police of attempting to “create an insurrection” for protesting against the mandate that was put into effect this past Friday.
“The city’s mandate will put officers who don’t give proof of vaccination before the upcoming deadline on a ‘no pay’ status. The Chicago police union is working on a lawsuit against the city,” as reported by The Washington Examiner on Oct. 13.
Last week, the President of the Chicago Order of Police, John Catanzara, gave a video in which he said, “Do not fill out this information. … I have made my status very certain as far as the vaccine is concerned, but I do not think the city has the ability to force this onto anybody — let alone details about your medical history.” He said, “I can guarantee you get no-pay status no more than 30 days. There is no way they will sustain a police dept. workforce at only 50% capacity for more than seven days.”
A reporter asked Mayor Lightfoot this week, “The big question is why court action, but there is a much different tone coming from Chicago Public Schools, and from Pedro Martinez; he was asked what is going to occur to the people who don’t have vaccines, and he replied the other day, ‘We are going to work with them. We will talk to them. We will ensure we understand what is going on.’ So why a different tone for Chicago schools than the police?”
“Well, I do not think there is a different tone,” Lightfoot said. “CEO Martinez has said that every adult in the system should be vaccinated. And this agreement was gone back months ago and they have been working very hard to work on that agreement with all the agencies that employ the people at Chicago schools. So it’s a very hard set of circumstances and I believe he thinks it will be a very small selection that stays either unvaccinated or are not signing up. And so he knows that accountability is crucial, as do we.”
“You asked this question about why the lawsuit,” she said. “Because we think the FOP leadership is attempting to foment an illegal work strike. Plain and simple.”
“What we have seen from the Fraternal Order Police, and especially their leadership, is a ton of misinformation and frankly a lot of flat-out lies, to induce an insurrection,” she said. “And we are not having this. So we want to make it very certain that the law is on our side. We are confident about this and what he stated even after this lawsuit was filed and we sent them the notice, is urging members of the dept. to ignore the current chain of command.”
#BREAKING: Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot accuses the Fraternal Order of Police of trying to "induce an insurrection" in opposition to mandates. pic.twitter.com/TJuxgIsdlq
— Forbes (@Forbes) October 18, 2021
Author: Steven Sinclaire