Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is being accused of not having her priorities exactly straight as she introduced a mascot dubbed the ‘Census Cowboy’ to the same city that is seeing a spike in violent crime.
“Giddy up, Chicago. I'm calling on the Census Cowboy to help improve our Census response rates across Chicago,” Lightfoot tweeted along with footage from a press conference where she introduced this Census Cowboy, a man on horseback who will be visiting the 10 communities with the lowest response rate to the US census to encourage them to take part.
“I’m rarely speechless…” journalist Mickey White tweeted in response.
“My tax dollars at work,” wrote author Carol Roth.
“How embarrassing,”added author Juanita Broaddrick.
Others were equally stunned by the move, especially considering the fact that Chicago has seen a recent spike in violent crime.
Shootings in the city increased 71 percent over last year in May, with 409 people becoming the victims of gun crime, up from 332 in May of 2019.
To make the case of the Census Cowboy even stranger, Lightfoot actually compared him to the comic book character Batman, a vigilante who fights crime in the city of Gotham. The difference between the Batman and the Cowboy, however, is one fights crime in a city spiraling out of control, and the other encourages you to fill out paperwork while shootings rise around you.
Lightfoot issued a warning to citizens about the Census Cowboy, saying seeing him in your community is “not a good thing.”
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The actual Census Cowboy is Adam Holingsworth, a 33-year-old former boxer who gained local press attention for riding his horse in Chicago at protests following the May 25 death of George Floyd.
Lightfoot has pushed the blame for rising violent crime in her city on the federal government for not helping enough to police illegal guns.
“There’s way too many illegal guns on our streets, and we can’t fight that fight alone,” she told MSNBC.
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