Protestors counted up from zero to 16, and chanted “sixteen shots” to voice anger as Dyke reloaded and fired his gun sixteen times at the teen. By the time the shooting stopped, Laquan McDonald had his young life taken away from him.
Advertisement
Jackson, U.S. Rep. Danny Davis and more than a dozen other ministers and leaders crowded onto the steps of the historic tower.
Van Dyke was charged this week with first degree murder over the 17-year-old’s death as footage of the 2014 killing was released by officials. – Chicago politicians are calling for the police chief to resign after Tuesday’s release of a video showing a white officer killing a black teenager.
Van Dyke’s lawyer, Daniel Herbert, did not return a message left Wednesday by The Associated Press.
Van Dyke shot McDonald at a range of about 15 feet. He is being held without bond, NBC News reports. Gary Nix, of South Chicago, waved an American flag in the middle of the street in support of both the protesters and the police, who he says are not represented by Officer Van Dyke.
“For some, the night ended just before 10 p.m., outside the Best Buy at the John Hancock Center – with an exchange of handshakes between protesters and some of the police officers they’d kept busy much of the day”.
The Black Friday march moved north along Michigan Avenue through the downtown district’s collection of high-end retailers.
The Chicago police said they did not have a crowd estimate, though there appeared to be hundreds of protesters. “How are they going to get out?” She also said: “With these charges, we are bringing a full measure of justice that this demands”.
“That needs to end”. A police spokesman says there were three arrests during the demonstration, two of them traffic related and the third resulted from a battery, but he didn’t elaborate.
“I’m outraged”, said Gabriel Sheridan, a teacher at Ray Elementary School in Chicago’s Hyde Park neighborhood.
“Explain to me why Tom Balanoff would be at the front of a march for a dead black child”, Maze Jackson said. “But I’m not sure of the strategy and the actions that we’re actually trying to yield here”.
One of the organisers told me: “We’re going to stop the money, the revenue which hurts the city and the state to show them this is going to hurt them in the long run”. Some stores along MI voluntarily locked their doors as the march went past. A Saks Fifth Avenue store redirected shoppers to an employee entrance in the back of the building where salespeople guided them up stairs, through back storerooms and onto the showroom floor. And we want change in the way they treat black and brown people.
Many shoppers seemed to take the disturbance in stride. Plenty stood at the side and snapped cellphone photos of the protest.
Several protesters were seen lying facedown on the ground in handcuffs, but a police spokesman said she hadn’t been informed of any arrests.
However, protesters have said they specifically targeted the Magnificent Mile because they don’t want it to be business as usual on Black Friday; they want to keep attention on McDonald’s death, and the need for reforms within the Chicago Police Department.
“The storefronts that were blocked by the demonstrators certainly had an impact on some of the businesses”, he said.
Advertisement
The other demonstrations have been largely peaceful. There were a few reported arrests involving chastised protesters.
