Residents dispute property manager's claim they're ready to leave city as local, federal law enforcement team up to prosecute looters
CHICAGO (WLS) -- Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx says this week's looting attacks and the upheaval in late May and early June were not coincidental crimes by rogue thieves, but rather orchestrated attacks to loot Chicago stores. Now a panoply of law enforcement agencies are working to figure out who is responsible.
The latest looting video released from early Monday morning shows two men appearing to know just what they wanted from a retail outlet on North Weed Street.
"It is not a surprise to me that some of this is coordinated efforts, the misperception that this is just a bunch of rogue people going, there are a considerable amount of people who are out there as individuals, but the coordination that has occurred, both what we saw this past weekend and what we saw previously, would suggest that there are those who are orchestrating this," Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx said at a press conference on Friday.
Two and a half months ago, looting caravans descending on high end stores. The U.S. Attorney in Chicago confirmed federal prosecutors now have 22 cases from the first round of looting. Prosecutors tell the I-Team those cases mainly involve illegal gun possession, ATM theft, and arson.
There was blowback Friday to a scathing letter from one of Chicago's top residential property companies to Mayor Lightfoot. As the I-Team reported Wednesday, the president of Sudler management, Steven Levy, told the mayor their 38,000 residents "do not feel safe."
"I thought it was very unprofessional. For a property management firm, working on behalf of my condo association to issue a statement like this, where they are claiming to represent the views of property owners and they haven't actually consulted the property owners," said Gino Generelli, a resident of one of Sudler's properties.
Two residents of a Sudler high rise on North Sheridan Road are among those livid the property management company presumes to speak for them.
"It was a little offensive to kind of be sort of co-opted without even being asked," said Kevin Curran, a resident of a Sudler property.
"I feel that it's important, you know, for Mr. Levy to reassure residents of the facts, instead of engaging in what I consider to be fear mongering," Generelli told the I-Team.
We asked Sudler management about the complaints, and how they determined residents "do not feel safe." The company has not responded.
