Chicago implements new curfew for teenagers amid crime surge

Najuma WilkinsonMay 26, 2022

Chicago mayor Lori Lightfoot speaks during the groundbreaking ceremony for the Obama Presidential Center at Jackson Park on September 28, 2021 in Chicago, Illinois.(Photo by Kamil Krzaczynski / AFP) (Photo by KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

OAN NEWSROOM
UPDATED 10:00 AM PT – Thursday, May 26, 2022

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot (D-Ill.) implemented a permanent curfew for residents in the Windy City. Alderpeople passed the curfew in a 30-19 vote as an increase in shootings plague Downtown and following the killing of 16-year-0ld Seandell Holliday near The Bean at Millennium Park.

“As a city, we must ensure that our young people have safe spaces to congregate and that in those spaces they are peaceful and actually safe,” Lightfoot said in a statement. “I am calling on all parents, guardians, and caring adults to step up at this moment and do whatever it takes to prevent a tragedy like this from happening again and to encourage appropriate behavior when our young people gather anywhere in this great city of ours. We all must model and enforce the respect and peace we expect from our young people.”

City Council members passed the law on Wednesday, which will require all minors 17-years of age and younger to be home by 10 p.m. The previous curfew only applied to minors aged 16-years and younger.

Protect children, not gun laws.

— Lori Lightfoot (@LoriLightfoot) May 25, 2022

The Democratic Mayor claimed the curfew would reduce crime that spiraled out of control over the past two years amid calls to defund the police. Lightfoot said a curfew has been on the books in Chicago since 1992. Alderpeople who voted against the curfew asserted that it wont reduce crime.

“We’re tweaking what already exists, changing and making it uniform across every single day,” the mayor stated. “It’s not Armageddon and with due respect, it’s offensive and wrong and demonstrably false to say these modest changes are going to increase gun violence.”

Lightfoot admits the shootings are an issue happening all over the city.