Lightfoot confronts her Achilles’ heel: violent crime and the perception of it

CHICAGO - Mayor Lori Lightfoot hit the airwaves Tuesday with a campaign ad confronting what mayoral challengers call her Achilles’ heel: violent crime and the perception of it.

The 30-second commercial begins with a middle-aged African American man walking down a neighborhood street with a newspaper under his arm shaking his head in apparent disagreement as his recorded voice says, "You wouldn’t know it by watching the news or listening to the haters."

The man then stops, looks straight into the camera, and says, "But on crime, Mayor Lightfoot’s got a plan. She’s putting more police on the streets and getting more guns off ’em."

The scene then shifts to media headlines that read, "Mayor Boosts Police Spending," "CPD Recovers 12,000 guns" and bold lettering that reads, "Modern Systems," "New Technology" and "Historic Anti-Violence Investment" as the narrator continues to tell the mayor’s crime-fighting story. A series of photos shows Lightfoot talking to a police officer, conferring with police Supt. David Brown, speaking forcefully at a podium and listening intently to constituents.

"When it comes to new strategies, new technology — Lightfoot’s invested more than any mayor. Those are facts. Anyone that says there are simple solutions is lying. We didn’t get here overnight and we have a long way to go. But Lightfoot won’t quit until we’re the safest city in America," the narrator says.

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A former Chicago Police Board president, Lightfoot promised during her inaugural address to stop the "epidemic of gun violence that devastates families, shatters communities, holds children hostage to fear in their own homes" and leaves their parents wondering "if Chicago is a place where they can continue to live and raise their children."

But that’s not what she has delivered.

Chicago closed the books on 2022 with at least 723 people murdered, a 13% decrease from 2021, which was the city’s deadliest year in a quarter century.

But the 723 murders were still more than any other American city and 40% higher than it was when Lightfoot took office calling the violence unacceptable.

In addition, the overall number of reported crimes has risen by more than 12% from last year, unnerving residents and sending some businesses packing.

Lightfoot and Brown have touted their "whole of government" approach to the root causes of violent crime. It calls for flooding long-neglected South and West Side neighborhoods with city resources, allocating hundreds of million of dollars to anti-violence programs and assigning additional officers to the city’s most violent police beats.

The drop in shootings and homicides extended to all but one of the 15 communities targeted in the mayor’s safety plan.

But the stubbornly high levels of shootings, brazen strong-armed and smash-and-grab robberies and carjackings downtown, along the lakefront and in other parts of the city once immune to violent crime has left residents and businesses on edge.

All eight mayoral challengers have vowed to fire Brown and six challengers have unveiled detailed plans to fight crime and attack the root causes of it.

Veteran political consultant Delmarie Cobb said the new Lightfoot ad is clearly aimed at Black voters whose support Lightfoot needs to compensate for the lakefront base she has lost.

"Even the language — her ’haters’. She’s trying to be colloquial. And having a Black man narrate that she’s invested more than any other mayor in crime prevention. And we didn’t get here overnight," Cobb said.

"The target audience, to me, is the Black community. That’s who she thinks is gonna get her over the finish line."

But Cobb said she is not at all certain the mayor’s strategy will work.

"The only reason crime is a major political issue right now is because it’s happening in the white community at a level that it hasn’t before. It’s been happening in the Black community," Cobb said.

"Unfortunately, whoever is in that office at the time that something like this happens wears the jacket for it."

Lightfoot’s dilemma, as Cobb sees it, is the complexity of the "benign neglect" problem behind the surge in violent crime.

"She needs to make the case that it’s the results of many things and she’s been tackling all of those things," Cobb said.

"I don’t know that you can do it in a 30-second spot. You really need an infomercial."