The head of Chicago's police officers' union is criticizing Mayor Brandon Johnson's remarks about law enforcemen, and he went to the mayor's neighborhood to do it.
Fraternal Order of Police Lodge Seven president John Catanzara posted a video Friday morning that showed him near the Mayor's block in Austin, making reference to the three squad cars blocking access to the area, "protecting it for him and his family. Yet he calls law enforcement a sickness. What a hypocrite."
His comments refer to a statement the Mayor made at City Hall on Tuesday while responding to a question about National Guard troops coming to the city. After referencing a quote attributed to the Rev. Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. that called militarism a sickness, the mayor said this: "Jails and incarceration and law enforcement is a sickness that has not led to safe communities."
Catanzara said if the mayor were still an organizer for the Chicago Teachers Union, he'd be out calling for police to be defunded: "He hates us, he has always hated us, he just can't say it out loud ... but two (sic) days ago, the truth came out a little bit, because he lost control."
The union leader then disputed the mayor's frequent comments crediting progressive policies for bringing down violent crime in the city. "Shame on him for thinking he has anything to do with it. The men and women of this department have everything to do with it," he said, while giving some credit to Cook County State's Attorney Eileen O'Neill Burke.