Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown has made clear his disappointment with Chicago authorities “emboldening” rioters and looters by dropping charges and refusing to prosecute such criminals to the fullest extent of the law after his officers risk their lives to arrest them.

The criminal acts we saw last night will not be tolerated. This was an act of violence against Chicago and I refuse to let these individuals get away without any accountability. pic.twitter.com/L9b50k52dh

— Chicago Police Superintendent David O. Brown (@ChiefDavidBrown) August 10, 2020

“Criminals took to the streets with the confidence that there would be no consequences for their actions,” Chief David Brown said during a press conference late Sunday night, addressing another round of looting and rioting in the city. “Let me say that again: Criminals took to the streets with the confidence that there would be no consequences for their actions.”

Later in the presser, Chief David Brown stressed: “These looters act as if there are no consequences for their behavior. And they base that on what happened previously, that we made a lot of arrests during May and June and not many of those cases were prosecuted to the fullest extent.”

“We have to have consequences for the arrests that Chicago Police officers make, through great threat to their own safety, they’re being shot at to make these arrests. And these looters, these thieves, these criminals are emboldened by no consequences in the criminal system. They get released, many charges get dropped.”

Captioning the post, the superintendent wrote, “The criminal acts we saw last night will not be tolerated. This was an act of violence against Chicago and I refuse to let these individuals get away without any accountability.”

“I for one refuse to allow these cowardly acts to hold our city hostage,” Chief David Brown said at the presser. “CPD (Chicago Police Department) will not stand by as our beautiful downtown becomes someplace that people fear. I have instructed our detective units to create a special team of investigators to look at the hours of pod camera footage from last night. We have high-definition video of suspects and vehicles.”