The “Odd Mix” of Chicago Looters
15th August 2020
The Chicago police arrested 43 people who participated in the looting spree along the city’s Mag Mile earlier this week. Who were these looters?
According to the Chicago Tribune, they were “an odd mix of peer-pressured college students, out-of-work parents, and convicted felons.” It would be interesting to know how much time the convicted felons had served, and for what crimes. Their looting could be another product of America’s under-incarceration problem.
Ostensibly, the looting was a response to a police shooting in the Englewood neighborhood. Yet, according to the Tribune, none of arrested looters was from Englewood.
In fact, no one who made a statement in court upon being arraigned even mentioned the incident. Not only was the police shooting a pretext for the looting, it was so far from the looters’ consciousness that they forgot to mention it.
The prevailing motive of this “odd mix” wasn’t “police brutality,” it was the desire to snatch free stuff and, at least some cases, to smash things. In other words, envy and resentment, not “social justice.”