Alderman Willie Cochran said he was joking when he referred to the “gangsters” amont the Chicago Aldermanic Black Caucus earlier this month. But looking back, maybe he was serious after all. At least in reference to himself.

The statement comes less than a month after Cochran, a retired police officer, mocked a group of activists gathered at the Chicago Aldermanic Black Caucus’s annual fund-raiser at a Loop cocktail lounge.