CITY JOURNAL
When Authority Vanishes
by John O. McGinnis
August 14, 2020

Riding in trucks and U-Hauls, vandals came to downtown Chicago on Sunday. They jammed streets around the Magnificent Mile, home of the city’s most important shopping district. They came prepared with tools like crowbars to pry open gates and take all the merchandise that they could pack. It was a strike directed at the heart of the city. While the vandals were organized, the police were not. Earlier in the day, a policeman had returned fire and wounded a suspect. False rumors spread that the suspect was an unarmed juvenile. Crowds gathered; social media lit up with menace. But the police did not deploy in force until looters flooded into places with the most valuable goods. READ MORE