Head of Chicago’s Police Union Calls Capitol Riots a Mere ‘Inconvenience’

The head of Chicago’s Fraternal Order of Police has come under fire after saying the rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday were not violent and describing the events as nothing more than an “inconvenience.” John Catanzara told WBEZ that he “wouldn’t have partaken in” the protests, but he believes the election was stolen and that the rioters’ actions were justified. “If the worst crime here is trespassing, so be it. But to call these people treasonous is beyond ridiculous and ignorant,” Catanzara told the outlet. Instead, Catanzara said he believes that Wednesday’s riot was “very different than what happened all across this country all summer long in Democratic-ran cities and nobody had a problem with that,” referring to the Black Lives Matter protests that occurred in response to police brutality and the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor. Catanzara was voted president of the city’s Fraternal Order of Police in May, representing Chicago’s 12,000 police officers. In 2017 he was disciplined for publicizing his support of President Trump and in December he faced possible firing over inappropriate social media posts, including one where he said all Muslims “deserve a bullet.”