WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 23rd July, 2020) Federal law enforcement agents being dispatched to Chicago amid a surge in violence will not be allowed to arrest people or patrol city streets, the city's Mayor Lori Lightfoot said in an interview on Thursday.
"Were not going to have unnamed federal agents patrolling our streets, pretending to be the police, sweeping people off and denying them of their constitutional rights. That is not going to happen in Chicago," Lightfoot told MSNBC.
President Donald Trump announced Wednesday he will send federal agents to Chicago and other US cities as part of an initiative dubbed "Operation Legend" to combat recent spikes in shootings and murders.
Lightfoot said she had drawn a "very very sharp line" in a "pretty straightforward conversation" with Trump. "I think we understand each other."
The mayor also said the city would would not accept "anything like what's happening on the streets of Portland, Oregon."
Trump sent the federal forces to Portland to help maintain law and order and to protect the federal courthouse, the focus of ongoing protests over the last several weeks.
The Chicago deployment targets a spate of gang violence that led to a spike in shootings, including a barrage of gunfire that wounded 15 people near a funeral home on Tuesday.
