Your breathtakingly cavalier attitude toward the crowd in downtown Naperville disappoints. In the context of what’s been going on in the streets of America, I don’t understand how you arrive, in your recent editorial, at such a lenient attitude.
Admirably, the Naperville police showed great restraint. But the leaders of the city and your board don’t seem to anticipate the trouble brewing when a crowd illegally disrupts traffic — thereby inconveniencing thousands of non-participating, innocent bystander motorists — and proceeds to disrupt the common way at an intersection.
Can’t you just imagine the rising heat of anger, frustration and anxiety, all building to a toxic head? This is a recipe for the explosive violence to come.
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I take your point that protest needs to be uncomfortably thought-provoking and has its place. But not in the middle of town, where everyone who doesn’t share the views of the protestors is angered or inconvenienced for equally fair reasons.
Why do I need to listen to a foul-mouthed bullhorn when all I want to do is get on with my own life? The protestors don’t influence my progressive thinking on their object of complaint.
Rather than having police standing against a mob waiting for the firecracker, the beer bottle, the bricks and the epithets to be tossed into their peacefully restrained ranks, why not check and localize the crowd into any number of large, public spaces where they can chant, sing, gesture and flash to the media and their fellow man all they want?
Cities and towns have every right to require protests be controlled, legal and safe. A liberal policy on permits to assemble and parades comes to mind, for starters. In the meantime, your editorial stance ignores the potential for mob violence against the police and city, and seems mind-numbingly blind to the potential for looting and rioting.
Complex issues, I know. Thank you for hearing another opinion and for writing so intelligently and consistently all these years.
Dennis Allen, Wilmette
The privileged among us
Dear CPD: Who do you serve? Who do you protect?
You, reading this, are likely to be statistically a lot like me, just a little older.
I am white. A registered voter. College educated. Tax-paying. And, above all else, privileged enough to pretend that the protests in neighboring streets are a world away from me.
It took four days to arrest anyone for the murder of George Floyd. It took less than an hour of protesting for me to be arrested.
Why was I hit with batons while I helped someone up from the ground in the middle of a crowd? Why was I arrested? Why was I thrown to the ground when I came forward with my hands up? Why was I detained for 13 hours?
The violence perpetuated by police in Chicago and America is in question. But it is not being questioned by those who are likely reading this now. You may have condemned the looting, the destruction of private property, the stores destroyed. But not the destruction of black life at the hands of police, kneeling on a black man.
You, reading this, do not have to take to the streets to have a voice, to stand toe-to-toe with officers as they smirk and twirl their baton, seemingly excited at the possibility to use force against civilians. You do not have to see them turn their name tags and badge numbers inside out, so the crowd cannot identify them, or witness an officer take his phone out and snap photos of protestors. You do not need to receive the unprovoked attacks from armed officers of the state. You do not need to be arrested.
You don’t need to do these things, because we have already done them for you.
So, folks of privilege — Chicago Privileged Department — who do you want to serve and protect?
Sam Mago, Lakeview
Get Trump, no matter what
After reading your editorial on our president, it is evident you are very biased.
This is not an opinion page, it’s a “get Donald Trump” page, against the president no matter what.
This editorial has several half-truths, such as “Gov, Pritzker wants dialogue and calm.” Really, when people are shooting, robbing and setting buildings on fire, he wants people to stay calm? If it’s that easy, why did he not go to one of the riots and say to the thugs “Stay calm”?
As far as the president abdicating his role as a leader and leaving it up to governors to head the fight, why not? All I heard from Mayor Lightfoot and Governor Pritzker was, “We can handle this, we don’t need the president to step in.”
Anything to make the president look bad .
Donald J Lazo, Gage Park
