Some 2,000 arrested over ‘chaotic’ weekend, and sheriff investigating who was behind orchestrated looting and vandalism

Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle and Sheriff Tom Dart agreed Monday that a line divides the peaceful protesters who were out over the weekend and those who looted and vandalized stores and other businesses.

But they were less certain who was behind what Dart described as an effort to “utilize … the peaceful protesters for their own criminal acts.”

“Whether you’re talking in the city of Chicago, suburban Cook County — we’re seeing it everywhere,” Dart said.

“There’s definitely organization [to the looting] but as far as the overarching organization, that’s being looked at,” the sheriff said.

Preckwinkle said she had “no idea whatsoever” who was behind it.

An estimated 2,000 people were arrested over the weekend, Dart said.

The county’s sheriff said 50 people have bonded out of Cook County Jail, while another 60 are still being held “as a result of not being able to make bond” or no bond having been set.

But the troubling images of men and women walking through shattered windows to ransack stores should not deter demonstrators from their mission, both Dart and Preckwinkle agreed.

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“With the horrific thing that occurred in Minneapolis, please continue your peaceful protesting to have these issues raised in the appropriate way so change can in fact happen,” Dart said.

“But what we can’t do is we can’t conflate that with people who are committing criminal acts on purpose so this notion that someone might have that some of these criminal acts are individuals who are peacefully protesting and then there’s something that changes it and it flips into something more violent — that’s not what we’re seeing.”

What Dart and Preckwinkle, and Bill Barnes, the director of the county’s Department of Emergency Management and Regional Security, are seeing are peaceful protestors who are “thoughtful, trying to get their voices heard” and another group that’s using the protests as a cover for their criminal acts.

The widespread nature of the looting that went on Saturday and Sunday has meant sheriff’s officers have had to spread out, assisting the Chicago Police Department at times and taking over roles while that agency handles other things, Dart said.

An additional 400 to 500 sheriff’s police officers were out Sunday afternoon and night, which was “particularly difficult and chaotic,” Dart said.

Preckwinkle said she stands with those who protested over the weekend, but “we have to understand that the looting and the vandalism provide ammunition to those who want to marginalize, discredit, diminish our critique of America.”

She wouldn’t grade Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s handling of the situation and wouldn’t comment on the police response, saying she didn’t “have sufficient information about the various ways in which the police responded across the city or across the county.”

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Though she saw many people in masks, Preckwinkle said she was “sure” that the county would see a spike in coronavirus cases as a result of people being out over the weekend.

“As we attempt to open up Illinois in stages, we have to be very, very cautious that we aren’t heightening the impact of the pandemic by our carelessness,” Preckwinkle said.

Dart said that while there’s been “a bit of calm right now,” there’s no way to tell how long that calm will stretch on.

“We do not know what tonight and tomorrow will hold, we are monitoring that as we speak,” Dart said during the Monday morning news conference.