In order to keep their jobs as of Oct. 15, City of Chicago employees are required to show proof they got the COVID-19 shot. Many of the city’s 13,000 police officers are refusing to do so, however, likely as a sign of solidarity with those who have not rolled up their sleeves, and now a standoff is afoot between far-left Mayor Lori Lightfoot and the powerful 10,000-member police union.
As that standoff continues, a spokesman for the Indiana State Police used social media last week to inform those CPD holdouts their next-door neighbor is hiring. “No vaccine mandate,” the tweet reads, “lower taxes, great schools, welcoming communities.”
Indiana’s state line borders Illinois and the outskirts of sprawling Chicago. The city of Hammond, Indiana, a suburb with a population of 76,500, is only 25 miles from Downtown Chicago.
Micah Clark, executive director of the American Family Association of Indiana, says Chicago’s sad war with its own employees is highlighting a rivalry with conservative Indiana that goes back many years.
“We have billboards in Indiana, around Chicago and Illinois, talking about our lower tax rates, how we're a better place for business,” he explains. “And this is just another example of that."
U.S. Sen. Mike Braun (R-Indiana) echoed the State Police tweet with one of his own. “My office stands ready,” he wrote, “to help connect Chicago police officers to and Indiana police department that is hiring now and doesn’t have a vaccine mandate.”
Braun later told Fox News he posted that comment because police “do the hardest job in the world” and they don’t deserve to be fired for refusing to comply with a “ridiculous vaccine mandate.”
Elsewhere in the nation, Florida's governor Ron DeSantis has said The Sunshine State welcomes law enforcement officers who leave their jobs in other states. He is asking state legislators to pass a bill offering a $5,000 bonus to those first responders, too.
In the Democrat-led state of Washington, where approximately 1,900 non-jabbed state employees have quit or been fired, the Arizona Dept. of Public Safety was recruiting in the state in mid-September.
