THE LIE ABOUT THE BAGPIPES AT THE MORGUE
Lightfoot’s story was designed to protect First Deputy Superintendent Eric Carter from himself as Officer French’s body was taken to the morgue. Lightfoot’s defense fell apart on Wednesday. Earlier this week, I reported what Carter had done.
For years, Carter has handled the somber, heartbreaking ritual of police funerals for officers killed in the line of duty. He knows the drill, so what he did at the Medical Examiner’s office was inexcusable.
As French’s body was being brought to the morgue, hundreds of officers lined up outside the ME’s office to pay their respects. There were bagpipes, and a drum, and the officers who lined up saluted.
“It’s a sad, slow roll,” a senior police source told me. “The drums, the pipes, it’s what we’ve done for decades when a police officer is killed and taken to the morgue. It’s our last chance to salute before the body is processed. It’s what we do. It’s what we’ve always done. It’s always been slow.”
But Carter didn’t like slow. He didn’t like waiting. He wanted to get the procession moving. He rushed them.
“We don’t have 20 minutes for this s—,” he’s recorded as saying on a video from outside the morgue, within earshot of several stunned officers under his command.
This s—?
“We’re not gonna be waiting on the bagpipes. Go ahead and get the vehicle inside. Take it all the way inside. Do not stop,” Carter says on a police scanner a few minutes later.
Take ‘it’ inside? That is the body of a murdered Chicago Police officer. Cops were outraged, and rightfully so, and many want Carter fired or demoted.
But Carter is Lightfoot’s guy now, and she’ll protect him like a boss.
“Lightfoot defends First Deputy for trying to speed up ritual at morgue for Officer Ella French,” was the headline of a story by the paper’s savvy City Hall reporter Fran Spielman.
In it, Lightfoot said it was Carter’s decision to speed up the procession, “and I support what he did.”
Spielman quoted the mayor as saying a “well- meaning but not well-organized group that wanted to hijack the procession, which would have meant that the family would have been delayed exponentially in getting to the morgue.”
Hijacked the procession? That’s bad enough. Then Lightfoot really stepped in it.
“Given the new restrictions that the new coroner has put in place, that wouldn’t have been fair to them,” Lightfoot was quoted in the Sun Times as saying. “So, a call was made under those circumstances to focus on the family. Eric Carter made the right call. I support what he did. And I’m horrified that, in this moment, people are trying to savage him for whatever agenda or purpose.”
A funny thing about those “new restrictions,” that Lightfoot was talking about. They don’t exist. Natalia Derevyanny, a spokesperson for the Cook County Medical Examiner’s office, issued this statement:
“Protocols for processions at the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office have not changed since the pandemic began. First responders have always gathered in the office parking lot and dock to pay respects to fallen police officers and firefighters.
“Early Sunday morning, police officers gathered in the parking and dock area as usual, and bagpipers accompanied the body of Officer Ella French through the parking lot to the dock. At no time did personnel from the Medical Examiner’s Office try to impede officers or bagpipers.”
You need a translation?
Mayor Pinocchio, your pants suit is on fire.
And Toni Preckwinkle, boss of Cook County government, which runs the Medical Examiner’s office, isn’t going to put it out for you.
What’s truly astounding is that Lightfoot would put herself in Preckwinkle’s hands that way, like some foolish rookie getting picked off third base in the 7th inning of a tight game. Or like some incompetent, inexperienced politician who’s great at doing friendly interviews on MSNBC, but still doesn’t know how to play politics.
Lightfoot kept stepping in it, saying police don’t like Carter because he isn’t part of the old “friends and family program.”
But Carter’s wife, who also works in the police department, was recently, perhaps miraculously, promoted to the rank of acting commander, meaning increased status and a pay bump for the Carter household.
That’s the “friends and family program.” It’s called the Chicago Way, Lori.