Mayor Lori Lightfoot is losing more control over her city by the day. After sharing in a press conference that COVID-19 vaccines are going to be required for all city employees, everybody started fighting back.
The Chicago Police Department, in particular, said they stand with cops in making their own medical decisions and that the mayor can see them in court. Yet Kanye West’s recent concert did not require their 38,000 attendees to submit vaccination forms or negative test results. They did not even require masks. It’s clear that Democratic leaders are cherry-picking policies to attack the working class while allowing anything that makes them money to slide right through. That’s why Dr. Anthony Fauci flip-flops his opinion so often.
Lightfoot’s vaccine declaration received immediate pushback from city workers, with thousands of police officers threatening to quit before the Oct. 15 deadline.
Fraternal Order of Police President John Catanzaro shared that it was a “hell no” for us and that they will not mandate a vaccine that doesn’t have studies for long-term side effects or consequences.
“We are 100% against mandated vaccines for our members. It cannot be mandated. It’s that simple. Our members don’t want to be mandated to do anything like that,” Catanzaro said.
While the police union gets ready to battle Lightfoot in court, other Chicago residents are facing restrictions of their own. One Chicago mother is currently appealing a court order that revoked her parental visiting rights because she wasn’t vaccinated against COVID-19.
Mother Rebecca Firlit and her ex-husband were participating in a child support hearing video call when Cook County Judge James Shapiro asked Firlit about her current vaccination status. She told the judge she hadn’t received the vaccine because of other adverse reactions she had to vaccines. He ordered Firlit to be stripped of parental rights to visit her son until she has been vaccinated.
Firlit’s attorney, Annette Fernholz, said that the father didn’t even bring this issue to the court and that the judge is making this decision on his own. The father, Jeffrey Leving, said that he was surprised by the Judge’s decision but that he was “supportive” because every kid should be safe. Others argued that a judge cannot make medical decisions for a parent and restrict their access to their own children as an ultimatum.
It’s hard to believe that Lightfoot is so focused on building a vaccine-obsessed city when crime continues to skyrocket. There were at least ten people shot this past Friday and at least eight were shot on Thursday. In one fatality just before midnight, a 27-year-old man was driving in the 900 block of West 59th Street when he was shot to death by someone in a vehicle that pulled up alongside him.
Two of the people shot in Chicago’s most recent crime wave were 17 and 17. One 14-year-old was sitting in his home when he was struck by a stray bullet from outside. The 17-year-old was out walking in the 6900 block of South Jeffery Boulevard around 5 a.m. when he was shot in the leg. While both shootings were not fatal, Lightfoot has created a city where you can’t even sit in your own home without the risk of being shot.
At least 44 people were shot last weekend in Chicago, with seven of them fatal.
Some things in Lightfoot’s Chicago never change. How many shootings and killings are enough for the people of Chicago to stand up and vote differently?