Chicago police seen ‘lounging’ in US congressman’s office during riots

A group of Chicago Police officers entered Rep. Bobby Rush’s closed Englewood office and lounged, napped and made popcorn, doing nothing while looters destroyed South Side businesses nearby, video shows.

Several Chicago police officers were captured on video relaxing inside the recently-burglarized office of Congressman Bobby Rush while nearby businesses were looted, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Thursday.

Surveillance video taken inside the longtime congressman’s office in the early hours of June 1 shows a group of officers sitting, making popcorn and in one case napping, “while small businesses on the South Side were looted and burned,” Mayor Lori Lightfoot said at a joint news conference with Rush Thursday.

“Officers were on the front lines truly taking a beating, and these guys were lounging, in a congressman’s office,” Lightfoot said.

Lightfoot joined Rush and police officials during a press conference Thursday in which they shared images from the videos while saying the officers involved would be held accountable.

Rush’s office was burglarized on Sunday, May 31. Lightfoot said the video shows officers lounging inside the office starting around 1 a.m. the following day, with a core group coming and going over the course of four or five hours.

As many as 13 officers were in the office at one time, Lightfoot said, including three supervisors.

Rush brought the video to City Hall Wednesday night after the congressman’s staff contacted the mayor’s office, and Lightfoot viewed the video and images with Chicago Police Department Superintendent David Brown and other police officials.

“I asked last night when we were all assembled looking at these pictures and videos for anything that could even remotely be defensible here, and to a person each one said no,” Lightfoot said.