NY Post
Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot — who last year proposed cutting $80 million from her city’s police budget — publicly pleaded with the feds on Monday to bolster the ranks of her city’s cops amid a surge in shootings and homicides. Lightfoot called on US Attorney General Merrick Garland to send agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to the Windy City for a six-month crackdown on illegal guns. “We cannot continue to endure the level of violence that we are now experiencing,” Lightfoot said during a 40-minute speech. “I feel the urgency every day.” The desperation move made Lightfoot — who’s said she opposes the “defund the police” movement — the second big-city Democratic mayor in days to announce dramatic steps to restore law and order as crime spirals out of control. On Dec. 14, progressive San Francisco Mayor London Breed — who last year pledged to shift $120 million from the city’s law enforcement budget to social spending — reversed course during a speech in which she vowed to end “the reign of criminals who are destroying our city.”
