Mayor Lori Lightfoot imposes 10 p.m. curfew on minors following teen’s shooting near The Bean

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot will implement a 10 p.m. weekend curfew for minors in an attempt to reduce crime after a teenager was shot and killed at Millennium Park over the weekend.

Lightfoot had already announced Sunday that she was restricting evening and nighttime access to Millennium Park and will allow minors in the park after 6 p.m. on Thursdays through Sundays only if they’re accompanied by an adult. That starts this weekend.

“Anyone coming into our public spaces should be able to enjoy them safely,” she said Monday, calling the weekend shooting a tragedy and adding she spoke to the slain teen’s mother. “Young people are absolutely welcome downtown but in the evening hours they must be accompanied by a responsible adult.”

Many young people are looking for space “to hang out” and are tired of being indoors, Lightfoot said, and that’s understandable. But she lamented the large, chaotic scene over the weekend where a teenager was shot and large crowds of teenagers flooded downtown, stopping traffic and jumping on vehicles.

“We need to make sure they are safe and importantly that our young people understand and respect basic community norms, respect for themselves, respect for each other, and we must ensure that everyone of our residents and visitors no matter who they are, where they come from… are able to enjoy our public spaces,” Lightfoot said.

She noted the city has had a curfew for minors for many years; she moved it up from 11 p.m. to 10 p.m.

The mayor also lamented Chicago’s high gun violence, saying, “We have to end this pipeline of young people to the graveyard.”

Millennium Park is a “unique situation,” she said. Hundreds of youth recently gathered at the park to enjoy a nice summer evening “but unfortunately as we saw, the scene devolved into one of violence and chaos.”

Anyone coming to public spaces has the right to enjoy them peacefully, Lightfoot said.

For that reason, Lightfoot said, the city is taking steps to prevent “any further tragedies happening.”

The mayor urged parents and guardians to know the curfew laws and will work with Chicago Public Schools to get the word out. She called it “extremely distressing” that preteen children are going downtown at night without adults.

“It’s not smart and it’s not safe,” she said.

She called for full prosecution of those who accused of providing weapons to minors.

Lightfoot repeatedly deflected questions about how the city will enforce its curfew or the ban on unaccompanied minors at Millennium Park.

“Our goal here is to educate people into compliance,” Lightfoot said. “Our goal is not to bring down heavy hammer penalties on kids or their parents.”

Government officials will put “appropriate signage” all over the park letting people know teenagers can’t be there by themselves in the evenings on weekends. When unaccompanied young people come, Lightfoot said, park security and police “will let them know what the rules of the road are” and she expects them to comply with the law.

“Our hope is that example we’ve seen in other instances across the city will hold here in Millennium Park,” Lightfoot said. “My interest is not rounding up young people and throwing them in the back of the wagon. That’s not what this could or should be about.”

“We don’t want to arrest children,” she added. “If we have to because they’re breaking the law, we will.”

Lightfoot’s latest efforts followed the shooting Saturday of 16-year-old Seandell Holliday of the Roseland neighborhood near The Bean, for which another teenager is being held. Police said the shooting occurred during an altercation at a time when large groups of young people had gathered at the downtown park in a scene that became chaotic.

The mayor said she’s been thinking about these actions “for some time” but Saturday night’s shooting catalyzed the need to take “decisive action.”

Lightfoot consulted with her team, members of the faith community and youth organizations to get their sense of what actions the city should take. There was a “general consensus” that this was “the right way to move forward.”

But the move was met with opposition from racial justice advocates and the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU of Illinois released this statement later Sunday: “The Mayor’s announcement suggests that our City’s showcase park should not be available for all residents of Chicago. Curfews and bans create group culpability for all young people — whether they are there to enjoy the sights and sounds of downtown or something else. The vague description — relying on an undefined ‘responsible adult’ — allowing young people to be present in the park and the promise of strict enforcement will result in unnecessary stops and arrests and further strain relations between CPD and young people of color. We will continue to monitor this situation closely.”

Lightfoot said Monday she’s confident the rules won’t be enforced unfairly and downplayed the ACLU’s criticism.

“I have a lot of respect for the ACLU but here on Planet Earth, in reality, we have a crisis in our city and we have to take action,” Lightfoot said. “Doing nothing is simply not an option. I will listen, I will engage with them, but … I think the modest, very surgically narrowly defined actions that we’re taking make sense in this moment.”

Lightfoot’s latest moves are reminiscent of her decision in 2020 to raise bridges into downtown repeatedly as a way to keep potential looters or other criminals out of the Loop.

That decision provoked fierce criticism from residents who said the city was making downtown inhospitable to Black and brown residents from the South and West Side, though Lightfoot defended the bridge raising as necessary to prevent civil unrest.

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