Amid a surge in gun violence and protests sparked by the death of George Floyd, the nation’s third-largest city is on edge, waiting for possible greater tension in the form of a plan by President Donald Trump to dispatch dozens of federal agents to Chicago. The White House plan emerged just days after a downtown protest over a statute of Christopher Columbus devolved into a chaotic scene of police swinging batons and demonstrators hurling frozen water bottles, fireworks and other projectiles at officers. Then, on Tuesday in another neighborhood, a spray of bullets from a car passing a gang member’s funeral wounded 15 people and sent dozens running for their lives. Tension in the city has climbed to a level that, if not unprecedented, has not been felt in a long time. “I’ve never seen things worse in this city than they are right now,” said the Rev. Michael Pfleger, a Roman Catholic priest and longtime activist on the city’s South Side. Much of that strain stems from the fact that it remains unclear exactly what the federal officers will do here. The plan seems to be a repeat of what happened in Kansas City, Missouri, where the administration sent more than 100 law enforcement officers to help quell violence after the shooting death of a young boy. Mayor Lori Lightfoot said she expects Chicago to receive resources that will back up federal agencies that already work with the city, including the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Agency and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. But given the longstanding animosity between city officials and Trump, leaders from the mayor on down worry that the city might witness the kind of scene that unfolded in Portland, Oregon, where unidentified agents in camouflage have beaten unarmed protesters and stuffed some of them into unmarked vehicles. ”We can’t put anything past the Trump administration,” said the mayor, who vowed to “rush to court” at the first sign of such federal activity. Trump announced the plan Wednesday, saying he would send federal agents to Chicago and Albuquerque to help combat rising crime. Using the same alarmist language that he has employed in the past to describe illegal immigration, Trump painted Democrat-led cities as out of control and lashed out at the “radical left,” even though criminal justice experts say the increase in violence in some cities defies easy explanation. “In recent weeks, there has been a radical movement to defend, dismantle and dissolve our police department,” Trump said, blaming the movement for “a shocking explosion of shootings, killings, murders and heinous crimes of violence.” “This bloodshed must end,” he said. “This bloodshed will end.” If the federal agents do as they have done in Portland, one prominent minister on the city’s West Side said the situation will turn the city into a “magnet” for the same kind of people who infiltrated the statue protest, put on dark clothes and distributed and threw projectiles at police from behind umbrellas. “It’s going to be like that, but on steroids,” the Rev. Marshall Hatch warned. “Chicago is one of those epicenters where you already have an unsettled social situation and racial situation, and you’re going to find out that Chicago is a lot more volatile in the middle of a long hot summer than Portland is.” […]

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