Mayor Lori Lightfoot plans to take a major step to combat Chicago’s growing violence, proposing an ordinance that would allow the city to seize the assets of gang members in civil court. 

Lightfoot is scheduled to propose the ordinance Monday (Sept. 13) to allow the city’s lawyers to file the lawsuits, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

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State’s attorneys in neighboring counties have used the Illinois Street Gang Prevention Act to sue gang members, seeking civil damages and court orders to bar them from associating together and possessing guns, the report notes.

Indeed, she says the anti-gang ordinance is not a way to side step Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx with whom she has clashed over the handling of gun cases, carjackings and other crimes, the Sun-Times writes.

“We can’t wait for anybody else,” Lightfoot said, the news outlet writes. “We have an opportunity to bring these violent street gangs into civil court, out of the shadows, expose them for what they are — and, if we’re successful, and I think we will be, take their assets and the profit motive for killing our babies.

“We have to put a marker down that we are using every tool in our toolkit to push back against these violent gangs that are leaving a trail of blood and death and misery in their wake,” Lightfoot stated.