CHICAGO — After Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot downplayed her administration’s slow implementation of police reforms during a speech in 2020, a lawyer for the Illinois attorney general responded in court by criticizing the city’s handling of the consent decree.
Lightfoot fired back by texting Attorney General Kwame Raoul directly that his office took a “cheap political shot” by questioning her administration’s handling of police reforms instead of calling her first personally to discuss it.
“Kwame, do you really want (a) public fight with me over the consent decree? Your flak’s comments today in court were way over the line. You have never once engaged with me over the consent decree, so this is shameful,” Lightfoot texted Raoul. “It was a cheap political shot that I would have thought was beneath you, but now I know the terms of engagement.”
The last phrase is one the mayor also used texting with Gov. J.B. Pritzker, when she accused his office of stoking negative press coverage of her. The messages were sent during a first term in which she privately called other officials names from “jackass” to “dumb, dumb person of color,” while also chastising her staff for sending her memos that she said might later become public.
The texts with Raoul — recently released to the Chicago Tribune as part of an open records request — came in June 2020, 1 1/2 years into a consent decree implemented after a lawsuit by the AG’s office.
The mayor had just defended the city’s handling of the consent decree in a speech, but a lawyer for Raoul criticized the city’s efforts in court — prompting Lightfoot to text Raoul directly.
Lightfoot’s texts with Raoul delve into a particularly sensitive political issue for the mayor, a former federal prosecutor who vowed to reform the Police Department but has faced criticism from advocates who say she hasn’t done enough.
The attorney general’s office sued to force Chicago police reform efforts, citing a federal civil rights investigation “that confirmed what many Chicago residents already knew — that CPD has a history of serious problems endangering the lives of both residents and police officers. That history has had terrible consequences for both police and residents,” according to a special website the state attorney general has set up on the issue.
Debate over Chicago’s handling of the consent decree came to a head in June 2020, following nationwide protests over the murder of George Floyd by then-Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin.
In a State of the City address on June 2, 2020, Lightfoot announced a slate of reform directives she delivered to police Superintendent David Brown. But on the reforms mandated by the consent decree, she said, “Yes, we are under a consent decree, but the process of reform has been too slow and too narrowly focused.”
Three days later, at a court hearing related to the consent decree, Lightfoot’s statement was criticized by Shareese Pryor, an attorney for Raoul’s office, who also told U.S. District Judge Robert Dow that the city should be more quickly implementing the reforms already ordered in the decree.
“Earlier this week, we were surprised to hear Mayor Lightfoot publicly describe the consent decree as too narrowly focused and the reform process too slow,” Pryor said, according to a transcript of the hearing.
Pryor appeared to have taken issue with Lightfoot’s implication that the consent decree itself is not meeting reform needs. To the contrary, Pryor said, the city and the Police Department were failing to meet the minimum requirements of the document, pointing to numerous missed deadlines in the early months of the consent decree timeline.
“The problem with the consent decree implementation has not been the consent decree, which was crafted after years of investigation, advocacy, negotiations and community involvement,” Pryor said. “The problem is with the defendant, the city of Chicago.”
Pryor said the mayor is responsible for ensuring that the Police Department meets its deadlines with quality reforms and by allocating enough resources to make that possible.
“The mayor has the process to move this, has the power to move this process forward with the urgency it deserves,” Pryor said.
Those comments drew a strong, private rebuke from Lightfoot to Raoul.
“Your person didn’t just say it was slow. She mocked my announcement from earlier this week, called me out by name and said the city is intentionally, intentionally foot dragging,” Lightfoot wrote in a follow-up message to Raoul. “I know you are pissed at me, but throwing gasoline on a raging fire is stupid and irresponsible. If you actually wanted to discuss the consent decree process, I would have expected you as the leader of your office to actually reach out to me. I have had zero engagement from you, so the comments today were ridiculous in light of the lack of engagement by you personally.”
Lightfoot promised to “highlight the lack of engagement” if she was asked about it by reporters.
Raoul responded: “I fully expect you to do that. … I will communicate as well.”
During the text exchange, Raoul also defended what Pryor had said in court.
“I don’t believe anything that my lawyers conveyed was a ‘cheap political shot.’ There have certainly been some things that I have endured that I would consider ‘cheap political shots,’” Raoul wrote. “However it is (in) my opinion to make certain that the integrity of the consent decree process is preserved.”
Lightfoot ended the communication with more admonishment.
“This is silly Kwame. The shot was cheap, unnecessary and highly irresponsible for the chief law enforcement officer of the state,” Lightfoot said. “Yes, I disagree with some of the things your folks have done and written with zero consultation. I have (been) very up front with you directly about that. Sorry if you are offended.”
Lightfoot’s office did not respond to a request seeking comment on the exchange.
The attorney general’s office said it “remains committed to ensuring the consent decree is implemented as quickly as possible, but not at the expense of turning this process into a box-checking exercise.”
“We are still early in what will be a lengthy process, but the city and Chicago Police Department have made progress,” the statement said. “We will continue to collaborate with the court monitor, the city of Chicago, the Chicago Police Department and other parties to the consent decree so that progress is made more quickly because, ultimately, lives depend on it. We continue to work collaboratively with the mayor, the city of Chicago and the Chicago Police Department on various other matters.”
The texts with Raoul came to light as part of the Tribune’s yearslong push to get Lightfoot’s administration to release certain emails and texts, which her administration has at times refused to do, until the state attorney general has determined that her office violated state open records law. (Raoul’s office, as part of its duties, oversees appeals of the Freedom of Information Act, and it can order other government agencies to release records they’re trying to keep secret.)
Late last year, the Tribune published a trove of text messages revealing the extent to which the mayor — who campaigned as a reformer aiming to unite the city — has sometimes resorted to name-calling and shaming of her perceived enemies as she governs the city.
Some of Lightfoot’s comments to Raoul mirror exchanges she’s had with other officials, including Pritzker, whose office she blamed for negative media coverage.
In spring 2020, for instance, Lightfoot texted Pritzker a Chicago Sun-Times opinion piece with the headline, “Mayor’s gaffes won’t help Chicago get a lift from Pritzker and Springfield.”
“Super helpful,” she wrote.
Pritzker responded: “Mayor. I didn’t write this nor did I foster it. I get bad press too.”
The mayor texted back, “It is your people. That is very clear. I would never (do) this to you. But now I get the rules of engagement.”
Since the hearing more than a year ago, the Police Department has increased its rate of compliance with the consent decree — missing fewer deadlines in recent reports and coming into at least some compliance with more than half of the provisions reviewed so far. Department leaders have stressed that it takes years to comply with a consent decree.
But the city’s sluggish pace and ongoing concern that the department’s efforts aren’t trickling down from paper reforms to practical implementation have drawn criticism from activists and civil rights lawyers.
Some reform advocates have pointed out that a roughly 52% compliance rate is still off the mark. High-ranking city employees have said the department focuses on checking boxes over ensuring the results are substantive.
A Chicago civilian police leader tasked with making reforms wrote to Lightfoot as he resigned last year that officials fail to “even feign interest in pursuing reform in a meaningful manner.” Lightfoot’s former public safety adviser Susan Lee similarly raised concerns about the department’s ability to “keep moving the ball forward” as she resigned.
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(Chicago Tribune’s Joe Mahr contributed to this report.)
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