In a press conference on Monday, Chicago's Democrat Mayor Lori Lightfoot lashed out at the city's police union that's resisting her Wuhan coronavirus vaccine mandate, accusing them of trying to "induce an insurrection" and saying officers who choose not to follow her order are violating their oath to uphold the law.
"We believe that the [Chicago Fraternal of Police] leadership is trying to foment an illegal work stoppage, a strike, pure and simple," said Lightfoot. "We're not having that."
"The police unions are not authorized to strike, it's in their collective bargaining agreement, it's a matter of state law," she continued. "What we've seen from the Fraternal Order of Police and particularly the leadership is a lot of misinformation, a lot of half-truths, and frankly flat out lies in order to induce an insurrection, and we're not having that."
#BREAKING: Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot accuses the Fraternal Order of Police of trying to "induce an insurrection" in opposition to mandates. pic.twitter.com/TJuxgIsdlq
— Forbes (@Forbes) October 18, 2021
While it's been clear over the last ten or so months that the word "insurrection" is a favorite in the Democrats' lexicon, Lightfoot's use of it here is... interesting. Officers choosing not to get vaccinated — or even simply choosing not to attest to their vaccination status via a city information portal as required — does not seem to match the definition of a "usually violent attempt to take control of a government." Like, not even close.
As Townhall reported previously, Chicago's Fraternal Order of Police had called for the city's officers to "hold the line" in defiance of Lightfoot's mandate. Before last Friday's deadline to input their vaccination information into a city website, the city's FOP president released a video claiming that Chicago could face a police force at 50 percent as those who choose not to comply with Lightfoot's mandate face being placed on unpaid leave.
Lightfoot insisted on Monday that "the law is on our side, we feel very confident about it," before accusing the Chicago FOP president of leading "young officers astray." She also said that officers who refuse to attest to their vaccination status on a city of Chicago portal will "destroy their careers" by ignoring her mandate.
"Officers swear an oath to abide by the U.S. Constitution, the state constitution, and the laws of this city," Lightfoot continued. "That is a sacred oath that separates them from civilian employees everywhere. It's a sacred oath and we expect them to abide by it."
So not only does Lightfoot think her city's police union is stoking an "insurrection" by telling officers not to provide their vaccine information, she now views officers who don't abide by her mandate as violating the U.S. and Illinois constitutions. And she wasn't done with her rant.
"We can't expect residents to hold them with any degree of legitimacy if those who are sworn to uphold the law act as if they're above the law," Lightfoot said of officers who ignore her mandate. "We're not going to tolerate that. That's not acceptable. I think what you're going to see is that a lot of officers are going to abide by the mandate and fill out their information — very simple, straightforward — on the portal," she said of the process by which all city employees, including police officers, must provide information on their vaccination status to the city.
In recent months, Lightfoot's actions and rhetoric have failed to win the loyalty of Chicago's finest, with one of the most notable expressions happening in August when officers turned their backs to the mayor when she visited Carlos Yanez Jr., an officer wounded in the line of duty during a traffic stop that also claimed the life of his partner, 29-year-old Ella French. In the wake of the tragedy, Lightfoot had tweeted that some "say we do too much for the police," and subsequently used the wrong last name when referring to French.