In the early morning hours of August 9th, looters ransacked stores along Chicago’s Magnificent Mile. Known for its high-end retail shops, the 13-block stretch along North Michigan Avenue filled with people, quickly descending into chaos and overwhelming the Chicago Police Department (CPD).

Early reports claimed the rioting and protests were in response to police shooting and killing a child Sunday afternoon in the Englewood neighborhood. That was quickly proven false when police reported the actual incident involved a shootout with a 20-year-old man who was wounded, but not fatally, and had fired first at officers in an hours-long standoff.

But that did not matter to leaders of the group Black Lives Matter Chicago. The Chicago Sun-Times reported the group warned the City’s Mayor Lori Lightfoot in a statement that the unrest would not end until “the safety and well-being of our communities is finally prioritized.”

The statement continued, “The mayor clearly has not learned anything since May, and she would be wise to understand that the people will keep rising up until the [Chicago Police Department] is abolished and our Black communities are fully invested in.” True to their word, the group has continued to hold protests around the city.

CPD Superintendent David Brown said that police have arrested over 100 people, two were shot that night, and 13 officers were injured. Brown described the looting as “pure criminality.” BLM Chicago countered that people were just “protesting.”

According to the BLM Chicago statement, “Over the past few months, too many people — disproportionately Black and Brown — have lost their jobs, lost their income, lost their homes, and lost their lives as the city has done nothing and the Chicago elite have profited. When protesters attack high-end retail stores that are owned by the wealthy and service the wealthy, that is not ‘our’ city and has never been meant for us.”

The next morning, Superintendent Brown said the shooting led to a wave of overnight looting downtown and on the Near North Side that resulted in two people being shot, over 100 arrests, and 13 injuries to officers. Though Brown characterized the looting as “pure criminality,” Black Lives Matter Chicago again claimed that those involved were protesting.

Ariel Atkins

That same day at a demonstration in the city, Ariel Atkins, a Chicago BLM organizer, encouraged looters to take “anything they want to take” as “reparations.”

“I don’t care if somebody decides to loot a Gucci, or a Macy’s, or a Nike,” Atkins said, “because that makes sure that that person eats. That makes sure that that person has clothes. That’s a reparation. Anything they want to take, take it, because these businesses have insurance.”

Atkins doubled down on her previous statement the following day, telling WBEZ radio that BLM supports the looters 100% and they should take “anything they want” as “reparations.”

When questioned about the looters who tried to break into a nearby Ronald McDonald House where frightened sick children and their parents were staying, Atkins defended them, stating, “I will support the looters ’til the end of the day. If that’s what they need to do in order to eat, then that’s what you’ve got to do to eat.”

It’s not just Atkins and BLM Chicago who feel that way. In June, CNN’s Christine Amanpour interviewed Nikole Hannah-Jones, the lead writer for the New York Times’ 1619 Project. Amanpour asked Hannah-Jones about a statement she had made about the act of taking being symbolic for restitution. Hannah-Jones replied,

When we see someone killed by the police, that is the worse manifestation of police violence,”  “but it doesn’t get to the daily violence that doesn’t end in death, or the daily degradation that black Americans face. The fact that these communities have been preyed upon by predatory lenders, it goes on and on. When we think about someone taking something from some big-box name store, it is symbolic. That one pair of shoes that you stole from Footlocker is not going to change your life, but it is a symbolic taking.

Columnist decries looters

Liberal Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell came out against the looters in her August 10th column. “Sunday night’s assault on downtown businesses was a brazen display of criminal behavior, pure and simple,” she wrote.

Countering the BLM organizer’s statement, Mitchell wrote,

The people who smashed their way into luxe boutiques didn’t do it because they were fed up with police shootings, or because they are out of work and desperate.

They did it because they saw an opportunity to steal stuff they couldn’t afford to buy and because they have no respect for the rule of law.

More than a week has passed since BLM Chicago made its demands. CPD has bolstered efforts to track down looters through social media. Officers are working 12-hour shifts and days off are canceled. Businesses downtown are boarded up and some retailers have announced plans to leave the city. And the protests continue.

Will the mayor acquiesce to their demands? What exactly will it take for BLM Chicago to feel “the safety and well-being of our communities is finally prioritized?” Could the city see the violence get even worse as the November elections approach? Will President Donald Trump send federal intervention? Could the religious community unite and stand as one to push back the evil that’s overtaken Chicago? So many questions… no clear answers.

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The State of Illinois Seizes Sick Child and Blocks Hospital Transfer

In today’s America the severing of sick children from their parents by the state has become so common it has a nickname “the Parentectomy.”

You may recall the highly publicized ordeal of the Pelletier family. Justina’s parents, Lou and Linda Pelletier, gained national attention and garnered public support when their very sick 14-year-old daughter, Justina, was taken by the state. Her parents were charged with “medical child abuse.” In other words, they disagreed with the diagnosis of a new doctor and wanted her transferred to another hospital.

It’s easy to dismiss the Pelletier case with “there must be more to the story.” Be careful with that thought. It is a defense mechanism that can lead to a false sense of security.

Michelle Rider explains it this way. “We are taught that hospitals are safe, that doctors are safe, and DCFS intervenes when intervention is needed. So when we accept the fact that this is really happening, we are accepting that we are not safe and our children are not safe.”

Sadly, these are the words of experience every parent needs to hear because it’s happening in Illinois. Michelle Rider, a 34 year-old single mother was charged with medical abuse for seeking a transfer to another hospital for her critically ill son.

Isaiah was born with the genetic condition neurofibromatosis type 1 also known as NF1, a condition that produces pain and tumors on his nerves, in his abdomen and on his spine. Isaiah has spent most of his life in and out of hospitals undergoing and recovering from surgeries. As a young teen he endured an amputation, with the hope the suffering would end.

Michelle, a registered nurse by profession, sought out a specialist to remove the tumors and found Dr. McKay McKinnon. Together they decided to travel from their home state of Missouri to Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago for the surgery.

During the surgery another medical issue returned. Isaiah’s leg, one that had been amputated the year before, began to convulse. In the past this had produced excruciating pain that lasted for weeks. The first time it happened he was transferred to Boston Children’s Hospital where they did manage to stop the pain, but failed to produce a diagnosis. This time around, a week into his stay at the Chicago hospital, he was admitted into ICU for pain management of the convulsive stump.

After two weeks of watching her son suffer, it was clear to Michelle that Isaiah’s doctors had no idea how to make the pain or the shaking stop. Nor did they understand what was causing it. Michelle requested a transfer to the only hospital that had any success relieving his pain. She wanted to take him back to Boston Children’s Hospital.

As Michelle readied herself to leave the Ronald McDonald House, where she was staying at night, Isaiah begged his mom by phone to hurry. Before she could board the transport shuttle to the hospital another call came. It was a social worker eager to know when she would arrive.

This same anxious agent of the state met Michelle at the hospital entrance. She was chipper and pleasant, making polite small talk and inquiring about Michelle’s night’s sleep. “I have someone that wants to meet with you,” she told Michelle. The social worker then went on to explain that the woman waiting to meet her was Dr. Zena Leah Harris, the director of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU).

Instead of going to Isaiah’s room as Michelle expected, this new doctor led her back into another area of the hospital. Not knowing what was going on, Dr. Harris and two social workers ushered Michelle into a small room with few chairs. Pushing pleasantries aside the doctor announced, “We’re taking your son for 48 hours.” Then Dr. Harris informed Michelle, “I will be making medical decisions for your son going forward.”

“I will never forget those words,” Michelle said. “They had the shuttle that had brought me, waiting for me to take me back to the Ronald McDonald House. They took my hospital band off of me and then they waited until I stopped crying before they took me back out into the lobby.”

The hospital had her evicted from the Ronald McDonald House. At that point, all communication with Boston Children’s Hospital ended. She was completely severed from her child’s care, and Isaiah from her protection, when he needed and wanted her the most. The state of Illinois, with the blessing of the hospital that was supposed to help them, isolated Isaiah from his family and left him to suffer alone in a strange city.

After 30 days in ICU at Lurie Children’s Hospital, they sent him to Maryville Children’s Hospital. It only took 48 hours before Maryville requested to send him back to Lurie. But Lurie refused and suggested he be sent to a shelter.

Not willing to discard the boy and not able to return him to his family to recover, Maryville held him for two weeks until DCFS sent into a foster home in the south side of Chicago. There, Isaiah has told his mother he was attacked, exposed to prostitution and held at gunpoint. The details of that traumatizing ordeal are just beginning to surface.

Although Isaiah is now in the custody of his grandparents, he remains in the clutches of the state of Illinois and is once again in a medical crisis with critical level pain. The involuntary violent shaking has returned.

Inside sources say that Cincinnati Children’s Hospital is willing and capable of helping Isaiah’s rare condition, however the state of Illinois is blocking the transfer to Cincinnati.

Instead, the state extradited him from his home state of Missouri against his will and that of his family and sent him back to Chicago, to the very hospital that took him from his mother, failed to help him, and cast him aside.

Today, a judge will decide whether he will be allowed to return home or be sentenced to suffer the ongoing medical neglect and abuse at the hands of DCFS.

“Isaiah is currently being held and isolated with an electronic bracelet while his mother is concerned that he’s being needlessly drugged in this incredible human rights violation,” explained Attorney Randy Kretchmar.

“The State’s case is complicated by a lack of any evidence whatsoever and that Michelle actually did anything to cause Isaiah’s medical condition, which all parties acknowledge to be a real, chronic genetic disorder.”

A protest was scheduled outside of Cook County Juvenile Court at 10:00 a.m. on Monday, December 15th, against the Illinois DCFS and Lurie Children’s Hospital while Michelle Rider stands before Judge Nicholas Geanopoulos for today’s hearing.

“The actions by Lurie Hospital and Illinois DCFS are destroying this young man. This case is not unique. It is happening to thousands of families across this country. The willingness to destroy families to achieve a private agenda is unacceptable. Worse yet, it goes against the grain of the work they are mandated to do,” said Hanna Roth, Founder of The Rainbird Foundation, a global organization committed to the end of child abuse.

Take ACTION: Please pray for Michelle Rider, Judge Geanopoulos and all involved in this disturbing case.

Please support the work of Illinois Family Institute.