One day after calling up 375 members of the Illinois National Guard in Chicago, Gov. JB Pritzker announced another 250 guardsmen will be activated as he issued disaster proclamations for nine counties amid ongoing protests and riots across the state.
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SPRINGFIELD — One day after calling up 375 members of the Illinois National Guard in Chicago, Gov. JB Pritzker announced another 250 guardsmen will be activated as he issued disaster proclamations for nine counties amid ongoing protests and riots across the state.
“Since that deployment, we have received additional reports of escalating situations and requests for assistance from communities around the state,” Pritzker said at a news conference in Chicago Monday. “We have now called up an additional 250 members of the Illinois National Guard, to be ready to assist other cities across the state that have faced a surge of destructive action, notably looting, over the last 24 hours.”
The counties receiving disaster proclamations are Champaign, Cook, DuPage, Kane, Kendall, Macon, Madison, Sangamon and Will. The governor also ordered Illinois State Police to provide an additional 300 state troopers to support local municipalities Monday night into Tuesday.
Pritzker made the announcement at the James R. Thompson Center in Chicago. Protestors took to the streets in that city in objection to police violence against black Americans over the weekend. Those protests were sparked around the nation, and around the world, by the death of George Floyd, an unarmed man who died Monday, May 25, in Minneapolis after being pinned to the ground for nearly nine minutes with a white police officer’s knee on his neck.
Some at the protests engaged in widespread looting, arson and property destruction, but Pritzker and members of law enforcement drew a line at the news conference between those who protested peacefully and those who incited violence or destruction.
Lt. Col. David Byrd, deputy director of the Illinois State Police, said as a black man, he was hurt by Floyd’s death. As an officer, he said he was also “ashamed” when he watched the footage.