2 shot, more than 100 people arrested, 13 officers injured amid widespread downtown looting

A CVS at LaSalle and Kinzie was one of the stores hit as part of widespread looting in downtown Chicago. Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

After the shooting, a crowd gathered in the area. “Tempers flared, fueled by misinformation,” Brown said.

At a later news conference, Lightfoot said the shooter was “not an unarmed juvenile” as was “propagated on social media.”

Nonetheless, as the unrest in Englewood grew, police became aware of “several social media posts” about looting planned downtown, Brown said, and as a result, the department reacted by deploying 400 officers to the area.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Chicago Police Supt. David Brown held a news conference Monday morning at CPD headquarters to address looting that occurred overnight. Anthony Vazquez/Sun-Times

But looters still scattered throughout downtown and surrounding neighborhoods. “Criminals took to the streets with the confidence that there would be no consequences for their actions,” Brown said.

The Dior store at Rush and Walton streets was among the high-end boutiques looted early Monday. Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Sun-Times

At a news conference later in the day, Foxx said she shares the mayor’s and superintendent’s frustration about Sunday night and Monday morning’s events — but insisted that her office is prosecuting looting cases from May and June to the fullest extent of the law.

‘Looters have been charged and are awaiting trial; peaceful protesters have not had their cases pursued,” she said.

“I don’t know what they used to prepare for that press conference this morning,” Foxx said of Lightfoot and Brown.

Cleanup efforts were underway throughout the downtown area Monday morning. The signs of looting were still apparent, as shards of glass littered the sidewalk and board-up crews worked to install plywood over shattered windows.

Scores of people, many out walking their dogs or going for a morning jog, milled about on the Magnificent Mile, snapping iPhone photos of broken windows at more than a dozen high-end retail stores.

Many of the most recognizable stores along and near the famed shopping strip had their windows broken and inventory stolen, including Coach, Timberland, Nike, Burberry, Chase bank, Ugg, Pandora jewelry, Zara, Saks Fifth Avenue, Ralph Lauren, Verizon, Omega, Louis Vuitton, Bloomingdale’s, Swiss Fine Timing, Allsaints, Dior, Brunello Cucinneli, Oliver Peoples, Hermès, Giorgio Armani, Jimmy Choo and Saint Laurent.

Stephen Kelly and Sarah Burgan have lived in Streeterville for about a year and were out surveying the damage along Michigan Avenue Monday morning.

“It’s scary,” Kelly said. “It’s just so sad, you know, just to see a city like this just be completely destroyed within a couple hours. It’s horrible.”

Michigan Avenue remained closed to cars between Ohio and Walton streets throughout the morning.

Further south in the Loop, several shops along Lake, Randolph and State streets were also looted, as were a jewelry store and McDonald’s near the Daley Center.

One woman, who declined to give her name, said she brought her own baseball bat for protection as she swept up glass outside the McDonald’s.

Looting stretched into the Near North Side, where several businesses were hit, including grocery stores, boutiques and an interior design store.

Jewel-Osco, 102 W. Division St., was closed Monday morning as employees cleaned up the mess from looters, who hit the store in the early hours Monday. Beauty products could be found amid the shattered glass, though a store spokesperson said “no product was taken.”

Ken Londe, owner of Londo Mondo on the Near North Side, said his women’s fashion boutique was hit at about 2:30 a.m. He said there was well over $25,000 worth of lost merchandise and that looters also went away with his cash drawer.

“This is my livelihood,” Londe said. “All this merchandise they took is on credit cards [that] still needs to be paid. And now we’re going to have to order more. And we have limits on our credit cards, so not good.”

This is the second time in three months Londo Mondo has been hit by looters. The first happened in May amid the civil unrest over the police killing of George Floyd. Londe has owned this store for more than 30 years and has “never seen anything like what we’re experiencing now.”

“We were just getting back on our feet and things seemed to have been going better,” said Londe, who’s considering moving his store. “We were down three months because of the coronavirus and just before we opened up, we got looted [in May]. … And then we got that cleaned up … we had a nice month of business and then we got hit again, they just keep knocking us down.”

Community members and area business owners rallied together on the Near North Side around 3 a.m. to protect stores, several people said. Some had baseball bats and weapons. Londe said he pretended to call the cops to deter looters.

Londe and other business owners said the city needs to call in the National Guard and have armed security guards on every corner and in condo buildings.

“The people that are doing this are hardened criminals, they’re losers, they’re opportunists,” Londe said. “These are not protesters, and if they are protesters, then they’re frauds because these are not peaceful in any way, shape or form.”

At a news conference Monday morning, Lightfoot said she had already talked to Gov. J.B. Pritzker about the National Guard, and decided against it.

“Both of us believe this is not an incident that requires the National Guard,” Lightfoot said. “We do not need federal troops in Chicago. Period. Full stop.”

Workers clean up the shattered glass left by looters who broke into the Binny’s Beverage Depot in Lincoln Park overnight. Stefano Esposito/Sun-Times

A sickly sweet odor hung in the air and the concrete floor glistened with spilled booze inside the Binny’s Beverage Depot in Lincoln Park.

“Were frustrated we have to do it all again,” said Brian Stein, the company’s vice president, as he surveyed the damage Monday morning. “We don’t want to have to become experts in riot response.”

The looters went for cases, not single bottles, and they smashed their way into the “Rare and Collectibles” room. They grabbed fistfuls of cigars.

“This is a home away from home for a lot of people — we have a very close-knit team,” Stein said. “Unfortunately, we’re bonding over the fact that this is now multiple times we have to rebuild.”

Rafael Gutiérrez cleans the windows at Art of Pizza, 727 S. State St. He owns a window-clearning business and projects losing $500 this month after many of his customers were looted Monday morning. Manny Ramos/Sun-Times

By the morning most businesses that were ransacked in the South Loop were boarded up or being boarded up. Owners left their doors locked so they could assess the damage.

Rafael Gutiérrez owns a window-cleaning business and operates heavily in the South Loop and the surrounding areas. He talked about his dissatisfaction with the recent events as he cleaned the windows of a pizzeria set to open within the hour.

“I’m not a rich guy, you know, and I am barely getting by as it is, but when the looting starts it really hurts me too,” Gutiérrez said. “All of my stores are closed, and I can’t make any money right now.”

Gutiérrez said he has a contract with almost a dozen 7-Eleven convenience stores in the South Loop area that were all affected in some way by the early-morning looting. He expects to be short at least $500 in revenue this month.

“[Looters] are ruining my business, and they are not thinking about the people that this affects,” Gutiérrez said. “They think they are just hurting the store owners, but these stores receive a lot of outside services like mine.”

Employees with Tecta America, a roofing company, were boarding up one of the 7-Eleven stores, 600 S. Dearborn St., where Gutiérrez usually cleans the windows.

Fabian Rodriguez said they had about five work orders this morning.

“It has been and will keep being a busy day for us,” Rodriguez said.

Fabian Rodriguez fastens a board over the door of a looted 7-Eleven convenience store at 600 S. Dearborn St. in the South Loop. Manny Ramos/Sun-Times

Chief Judge Timothy Evans ordered all Cook County courts in downtown Chicago closed Monday due to restricted access to the area. Bond courts at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse, the Domestic Violence Courthouse, the Juvenile Justice Division and the suburban municipal district courthouses will remain open.

All non-bond cases scheduled for Monday will be continued for 30 days and affected parties will be notified of their new court dates, according to the chief justice’s office.

Federal court in Chicago was closed as well.

Videos posted to social media showed large crowds breaking windows and entering stores along the Magnificent Mile.

A second man was shot about 2 a.m. in an attempted carjacking near Adams and Wabash, police said. The 20-year-old was also taken to Northwestern, where his condition stabilized.

Police said smash-and-grab burglars hit a store in the South Loop late Sunday night, but it was not immediately clear whether that incident was related to the other large crowds of looters.

Outside a Best Buy store near Marcey and Halsted streets, two dozen or so store employees and neighborhood volunteers, like Bruce Ackerman, were out cleaning up after a night of looting. Much of the parking lot was strewn with empty flat-screen TV boxes and shredded styrofoam.

Ackerman, 30, who lives nearby, said he was thinking of starting up his drone to survey the area, and then thought he could be more help with a broom.

“This is the least I could do,” Ackerman said. “This is unfortunate. It isn’t really helping any cause. I’m a Black guy living in this neighborhood too. What if (Best Buy) closes and they don’t want to reopen? It hurts the whole neighborhood.”

Bruce Alper, 66, was helping clean up at Best Buy. Alper, a lawyer, drove up from River North after hearing about the destruction.

“I’m terribly sad and horrified as to what happened last night,” Alper said. “It makes no sense. It’s just criminal activity. It’s not related to any cause. … This is just criminals and punks destroying our city and neighborhoods.”

Chicago and the surrounding suburbs saw widespread looting and vandalism in late May and early June during unrest in the wake of the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd. Officials estimated the looting caused more than $20 million in damage in Cook County.

Ackerman, 30, who lives nearby, said he was thinking of starting up his drone to survey the area, and then thought he could be more help with a broom.

“This is the least I could do,” Ackerman said. “This is unfortunate. It isn’t really helping any cause. I’m a Black guy living in this neighborhood too. What if (Best Buy) closes and they don’t want to reopen? It hurts the whole neighborhood.”

Bruce Alper, 66, was helping clean up at Best Buy. Alper, a lawyer, drove up from River North after hearing about the destruction.

“I’m terribly sad and horrified as to what happened last night,” Alper said. “It makes no sense. It’s just criminal activity. It’s not related to any cause. … This is just criminals and punks destroying our city and neighborhoods.”

Chicago and the surrounding suburbs saw widespread looting and vandalism in late May and early June during unrest in the wake of the Minneapolis police killing of George Floyd. Officials estimated the looting caused more than $20 million in damage in Cook County.

Crews clean up outside the Best Buy store near Marcey and Halsted streets on the Near North Side. Much of the parking lot was strewn with empty flat-screen TV boxes and shredded foam packaging. Stefano Esposito/Sun-Times

Contributing: Fran Spielman, Stefano Esposito, Sam Charles, Madeline Kenney, Manny Ramos, David Struett