‘We don’t have to live like this’

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot used emotional terms to condemn a mass shooting at a Colorado LGBTQ nightclub Saturday night, tweeting: “I’m sick of this s—-.”

”How many people need to be murdered? How many lives torn apart? Until it actually stops? We don’t have to live like this. And we don’t have to die like this,” Lightfoot tweeted Sunday morning.

Authorities in Colorado Springs said that a 22-year-old gunman opened fire in the Club Q in Colorado Springs, killing five people and injuring 18 before he was subdued by “heroic” patrons and arrested by police.

Lightfoot is one of the highest profile lesbian mayors in the U.S.

As Chicago mayor, Lightfoot leads a city that suffers from chronic gun violence and has faced criticism for not doing enough to stem high crime. Shootings, homicides and carjackings have spiked dramatically during her administration, though she has argued that gun violence is down more than 10% year over year.

The mayor frequently chastises her political opponents for comments that she says models bad behavior for the city’s children. But she will also use expletives and impolite language in public, drawing charges of hypocrisy. For instance, Lightfoot compared her opponents in the 2019 mayoral race to cockroaches scurrying in the dark following revelations that Ald. Edward Burke was under federal investigation, declared “f—- Clarence Thomas” after the Supreme Court decision to undue the landmark abortion ruling Roe v. Wade was leaked, and said her message to former President Donald Trump “begins with F and ends with U.”

Lightfoot has called for stricter gun laws to help stem mass shootings and street violence.

The Associated Press contributed.