A group of 23 Chicago aldermen on Thursday called on CPD Supt. Larry Snelling and the city’s Law Department to conduct a full review of the City Council’s safety protocols in light of the assassination of political activist Charlie Kirk near Salt Lake City this week.
In a letter to Snelling and Corporation Counsel Mary Richardson-Lowry, the aldermen cited Kirk’s murder as an example of public discourse becoming “poisoned with toxic levels of political acrimony not seen in generations.”
The aldermen pointed to numerous instances of “rancorous” City Council meetings after which members needed escorts to leave City Hall and “protective services” because of the subjects discussed during meetings and the votes taken.
“Local ward offices have found themselves vandalized with graffiti, guillotine stickers, and more,” the letter claims. “City Council has long been an open, accessible body to the residents of the City of Chicago; however, we must not leave its members’ safety to chance.”
On Thursday evening, Ald. Raymond Lopez (15th) was more specific.
“Over the last 18 months, I have witnessed mayoral & aldermanic staff bypass protocols in order to bring angry activists into the Council Chamber,” Lopez tweeted. “There is a definite need for a review of existing security measures and their universal application regardless of politics or patronage.”
The aldermen asked Snelling and Richardson-Lowry to “craft, implement and enforce common sense safety procedures in coordination with the City Council’s Sergeant-at-Arms and his team.”
They also requested a review of “all City Hall accessibility measures and exceptions allowed to those measures, such as the ability of mayoral and aldermanic staff to bypass security measures with guests.”
The letter emphasized that any new security rules “must be consistent and universal in their application regardless of politics.”
Security protocols in the lobby of City Hall escalated during Lori Lightfoot’s administration, when stanchions and a police checkpoint were installed at a bank of elevators serving the building’s first through seventh floors. The mayor’s office is on the fifth floor.
Lobby security has tightened further under Mayor Brandon Johnson, with additional stanchions, a police checkpoint, and a metal detector added at a bank of elevators that serves the building’s upper floors.
Before Johnson arrives or departs City Hall, Chicago police officers routinely clear the lobby and the east side of LaSalle Street, even ordering pedestrians to stop crossing the street and wait in the median until the mayor has been whisked in or out of the building.
Signing the letter were Brian Hopkins, Pat Dowell, Anthony Beale, Peter Chico, Marty Quinn, Raymond Lopez, Stephanie Coleman, Derrick Curtis, Michael Rodriguez, Silvana Tabares, Monique Scott, Chris Taliaferro, Felix Cardona, Scott Waguespack, Bill Conway, Gilbert Villegas, Nicholas Sposato, Samantha Nugent, Anthony Napolitano, Brendan Reilly, Bennett Lawson, James Gardiner, and Debra Silverstein.
Editor’s note: This story was updated at 5:05 p.m. on September 11 to add the names of three aldermen who signed on to the letter after its release. It was updated again at 4:47 a.m. on September 12 to include information about Lopez’s tweet.
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