This is not suppose to happen on Michigan Avenue near where I used to work. Chicago is fucked up. This is ridiculous.

Chicago police raised downtown drawbridges, including the bridge on Michigan Avenue.

Wall Street Journal

Chicago Closes Parts of Downtown After Looting

Authorities say attacks sparked by shooting in which suspect fired at police, who then shot him.

By Joe Barrett and Erin Ailworth

Updated August 10, 2020 12:36 pm ET

CHICAGO—Hundreds of looters descended on Chicago’s upscale Magnificent Mile and other shopping areas overnight, breaking windows and clearing out brand-name stores and mom-and-pop shops alike in what appeared to be orchestrated attacks that came hours after a suspect fired at police who then shot him on the city’s South Side, police said.

Police raised downtown drawbridges, closed freeway ramps and made more than 100 arrests in the chaotic early morning hours. Officers arresting a suspect with a cash register looted from a business were fired upon by a passing car and returned fire, police said.

“This was not an organized protest, this was an incident of pure criminality,” said Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown in a Monday briefing, noting that the police had uncovered multiple social-media posts urging looters to converge on downtown in a caravan of cars. Police deployed 400 officers downtown.

Superintendent Brown ordered a downtown curfew and said he would deploy officers to other neighborhoods to prevent further looting. Police were placed on 12-hour shifts and time-off was canceled.

The Chicago Transit Authority temporarily suspended bus and train service into downtown early Monday morning at the request of public-safety officials, according to an alert posted on its website just before 4 a.m. local time. Service resumed around 8:30 a.m., according to a tweet from the CTA.

As shop owners and volunteers worked to sweep up glass Monday morning, many downtown streets and highway ramps remained closed.

Chicago is facing a surge in shootings, which are up roughly 50% year-to-date compared with the same period of 2019. There were 31 shootings over the weekend, including three homicides, police said.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot condemned the violence.

“What occurred in our downtown and surrounding communities was abject criminal behavior,” she said. “This was straight up felony criminal conduct.”

Police said the looting was sparked by a shooting that happened around 2:30 p.m. local time Sunday when Chicago police tried to confront an unidentified male matching the description of a person seen with a gun. The 20-year-old ran and shot at pursuing officers, police said. Officers fired back and hit the male, they said. The suspect was transported to a hospital. He is expected to survive.

Police described the suspect as a 20-year-old male with four previous arrests. They said a gun was recovered from the scene.

Superintendent Brown said a crowd of protesters gathered at the site of the shooting and that anger rose as misinformation spread through the crowd.

“Tempers flared fueled by misinformation as the afternoon turned into evening,” Superintendent Brown said Monday, noting that there were 31 shootings throughout the city over the weekend.

Local media coverage showed people loading up cars and taking off from stores, an ATM abandoned in the middle of a city street and social-media posts of groups of looters from businesses mostly in the city’s upscale shopping districts, but also some neighborhoods on the South Side.