CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Mayor Lori Lightfoot said the lessons of George Floyd’s murder at the hands of Minneapolis Police don’t end with this week’s verdicts; and they are lessons for all of us.
Mayor Lightfoot, like many, feels justice was served by the guilty verdict, on all counts, against Derek Chauvin. But, she said, she is thinking about the lessons going forward that have been learned from Chauvin's murder of George Floyd. For one, Lightfoot said, people in government, and especially those in police departments, need to understand that systemic racism is a very real threat to public trust and officers need to truly embrace constitutional policing.
"In the almost year since the horrible murder of George Floyd, there's been a lot of conversation, and rightfully so, about systemic racism and about how that manifests itself in policing. There's a lot more that we need to address, particularly here in this city, but also across the country..." Lightfoot said.
"That starts with building authentic relationships with the communities they are sworn to serve and protect; never, never forgetting that all of us as public servants, and particularly police officers, work for the people. The people are our bosses," Lightfoot said.
And the Mayor said leaders, like her and others, must ask themselves what they are doing to eliminate the systemic racism that seems baked into so many of our institutions.
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