'Traumatized' tamale vendors told to go cashless by Lori Lightfoot, some paying gangs for protection
Evita Duffy reports from Chicago as minority communities deal with surge in robberies
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Chicago street vendors are bearing the brunt of the city's crime surge, and they are not at all pleased with Mayor Lori Lightfoot's advice to go cashless to counter the violent trend.
The Federalist reporter Evita Duffy spoke with tamale vendors, who have been targeted by criminals, to discuss their reaction to Lightfoot's advice.
"All of the vendors that I talked to said that is just not a possibility," Duffy told Tucker Carlson. "We work on a cash-only basis. Our customers are on a cash-only basis. This is very normal for impoverished communities, especially ones that have a lot of illegal migrants in it. And Lori Lightfoot would know this if she cared about them remotely. But the vendors that I talked to said she doesn't care."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Duffy explained many of the street vendors are up all night making tamales, and getting up very early to prepare the food to sell to blue-collar workers.
She noted how many vendors have been beaten and robbed at gunpoint.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"All of the vendors that I talked to were absolutely traumatized," she said.
The Federalist reporter spoke with a tamale street vendor in Chicago about Mayor Lori Lightfoot's advice to go cashless
One tamale vendor described an attack where he was assaulted, and the suspect stole the "little change" that he had on him.
"So it was four guys. … They just came with their guns and pointing them on me," he recalled.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}CHICAGO MAYOR LORI LIGHTFOOT SINGS TIKTOK KARAOKE AMID 37% INCREASE IN VIOLENT CRIME
In the 10th police district, where Chicago's Little Village neighborhood is located, there has been a 13% increase in robberies in 2022 when compared to 2021, with 477 robberies taking place in 2022, according to public data.
As a result, Lightfoot has encouraged businesses to avoid using cash, if possible.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"We have been in Little Village working with those street vendors, understanding what the nature of the crime is, making sure that we're doing things in concert with them to help them make sure that their money is secure, not use money, if at all possible, using other forms of transactions to take care of themselves.," Lightfoot said while appearing on ABC7 Chicago for a mayoral debate.
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But Duffy was quick to note the irony in Lightfoot's advice, given the victims that are shouldering the burden of the crime surge are the communities that she, and far-left District Attorney Kim Foxx, claim to protect - minorities.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"They are all day preaching to us about equity and making policies around equity, and yet the people that are being hurt the most, by the way, that the city is run, are poor minorities."
Some in the community, Duffy reported, have had to start paying protection money to gangs to avoid being robbed.
"It's gotten so bad that they've had to rely on local community organizations, but also local gangs for protection, which is the kind of thing that you see in Third World countries, the kind of countries that these people fled from," she continued.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"They came for the American dream, and what they found is a Lori Lightfoot Chicago nightmare."
Fox News' Adam Sabes and Bradford Betz contributed to this report.