Controversial 'Lakeview Scream' Political Ad Pulled Off Airwaves

CHICAGO — A local television station has refused to air a controversial political ad produced by a conservative group that features security footage of a brazen daylight robbery on Chicago's North Side.

Using video recorded by a doorbell camera and first reported by CWBChicago, the new 30-second and 15-second political spots produced by the People Who Play By The Rules PAC feature audio of the robbery victim's scream and conclude with an image of Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot while asking the viewer, "How much worse does it have to get?"

The ads open with the message, "On a Sunday afternoon in Chicago's Lakeview neighborhood," accompanied by audio of birds and dogs that have been added to the original surveillance video's audio track. The ad's producers then overlay the audio of the victim's scream onto that artificial ambient sound, desynching it from the original video and removing the voices of the robbers.

Citing complaints from "a number of NBC 5 viewers" — presumably focused more on the disturbing nature of the woman's scream than the authenticity of its ambient audio track — WMAQ-TV station management pulled the advertisement from the airwaves this week, the station reported.

According to police, the incident depicted in the ads took place around 3 p.m. Sept. 4 in the 2900 block of North Seeley Avenue in the North Center neighborhood.

A 45-year-old woman was approached by four unidentified attackers, with at least one of them brandishing a gun and demanding her property. The group fled west in a black sedan. No one has been charged in connection with the attack, police said.

Pritzker was asked about the ad Monday at an unrelated news conference. He questioned whether the victim had approved of the use of her image and voice in the advertisement.

"It’s a terrible commercial," Pritzker said. "They’ve chosen a particular crime in which there was a white woman who was the victim and apparently black perpetrators. That’s the ad they want people to see, particularly in the suburbs. That’s part of the entire racial tinge of everything that's being put out by that PAC."

People Who Play By The Rules PAC was founded in March as an independent expenditure committee. It is operated by Dan Proft, a former Republican candidate for Illinois governor and conservative radio host based in Florida.

Proft responded to the governor's accusations of racism on social media, questioning whether the victim's race was the most important thing about the attack.

"And, actually, I can't make out the race or races of the [perpetrators] on the video," he said. "The governor either has racial X-ray vision or just wants the attackers to be black. Why?"

Proft's PAC has received funding from a single source: Lake Forest billionaire Dick Uihlein, the founder of Pleasant Prairie-based shipping company Uline.

Uihlein gave the group $1 million in March, $2.55 million in April, $4.545 million in May and $20 million in July for a total of more than $28 million, according to state campaign finance records.

Proft did not respond to a request for comment about the station's decision or written questions about the ad buy.

In a social media post on Tuesday, Proft said WMAQ ran the same video during newscasts and speculated that the local NBC affiliate would not pull governor's "incendiary pro-abort ads" if viewers complain they have been traumatized by them.