Blood stains and broken glass: Suburbanites react to Chicago's night of chaos
The crime spree was not a total shock for Aurelio Lee, but the trails of blood — left by looters who smashed into high-end stores in Chicago's Gold Coast neighborhood early Monday — were.
Lee, a property management firm owner from Wadsworth, was alerted to the crisis by a call at 12:30 a.m.
“One of my labor guys said, 'Are you watching this?'” said Lee, whose firm handles properties in several Chicago neighborhoods, including the Gold Coast and Bucktown.
It was the second time Lee has dealt with vandalism this summer, after a wave of looting in late May and early June caused many stores to replace standard window glass with a strong, reinforced version.
“Folks still found a way to break through,” making small holes until sections of the glass gave away, Lee said. As people surged through the windows, some were cut.
“There were blood trails all throughout the stores,” Lee said. “Folks were just hurting themselves trying to get into the stores.”
The earlier violence in Chicago and the suburbs occurred after vandals took advantage of disruptions caused by protests for racial justice. Authorities said Monday's rampage happened after Chicago police shot a man who opened fire on them Sunday.
Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown and Mayor Lori Lightfoot said the damage and thefts were carried out by criminals.
After meeting with retailers Monday, “I think people acclimatized rather quickly after what happened” earlier this summer, Lee said. Then, “everyone was out of control and freaking out about, 'What are we going to do?' and 'Is this going to happen again?'”
Now the attitude was, “'Well, it's happened again and let's just do what we have to do,'” Lee said. He added store owners seemed confident that “this is a one-off and won't happen again,” and city leaders could maintain order.
Naperville resident Alexander Cordes, an intern at a construction management firm, learned about the looting at about 5:15 a.m. on his way into work in Chicago. His company is working two jobs at stores in the Magnificent Mile neighborhood on Michigan Avenue.
But as he passed Sacramento Avenue eastbound on the Eisenhower Expressway, Cordes saw the first of multiple exits blocked off.
He had received a text earlier stating, “we just got looted,” from his boss, but figured, “well, the other job is going on,” and continued only to find access blocked off from all expressways.
“Oh man — did I miss something when I went to bed last night?” Cordes wondered.
He tried to find a side street but his gas was running low.
“I had just enough gas to get to the city and back. It didn't seem safe to me,” Cordes said. “The streets were blocked for a reason. I drove all the way down here to turn back around.”
Both projects were postponed Monday with uncertainty for Tuesday. “I'm just going to stand by the phone,” Cordes said.
Meanwhile, after a day spent checking on the damage, Lee said he was “fed up and disappointed and disgusted by the behavior of some individuals. People who really needed to go to work today aren't working.
“It was not a spontaneous reaction, like you're so frustrated you need to throw a rock through a window, it was calculated.”