CHICAGO — Less than 24 hours after his office insisted that Mayor Brandon Johnson attend Monday’s funeral for slain Chicago police officer Enrique Martinez despite the wishes of the grieving family, Johnson changed course Saturday.
Johnson’s office now says the mayor will not attend.
“We all want to do right by Officer Martinez and his family and give the CPD family the space to grieve,” the mayor said Saturday, making an obvious point that any decent human being would have known immediately .
Earlier this week, CPD police union head John Cantanzara said Martinez’s family had made it “very clear” they did not want the mayor or governor to attend. While the governor quickly acknowledged and honored the request, Johnson stubbornly insisted he would appear anyway on Friday evening.
Johnson, his office said in a written statement, “will attend all honorable funeral services for any police officer, firefighter or EMT killed in the line of duty.”
State Rep. Angelica Guerrero-Cuellar told ABC7 on Friday that she had personally conveyed the family’s wishes directly to the governor and the mayor.
“Immediately, without hesitation, the governor respected the family’s wishes,” Guerrero-Cuellar told the news station. “I’ll call the mayor directly. He didn’t answer. I sent a text message clearly stating the family’s wishes… I still haven’t heard a response.”
She told the Chicago Tribune that Johnson’s chief of staff, Christina Pacione-Zayas, “disrespectfully and rudely failed to understand the message I was trying to convey.”
When Bryan Zarou, vice president of policy at the Better Government Association, heard that Johnson had changed course on Saturday, tweeted“Why can’t the mayor’s office ever get ahead of the most obvious decision-making there is? Countless times they have had to withdraw decisions they made within 48 hours. This is the second time with a funeral.”
