A Burger King manager who accuses Chicago police of erasing surveillance video in the case of a black teenager shot previous year by a white officer says he has testified before a federal grand jury investigating the shooting.
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“We are aware of the various protests happening here in Chicago and across the country”, said Mitchell Feldman, senior general manager of Water Tower Place shopping centre.
The entrances to stores -trying to attract shoppers on Black Friday- blocked by the crowd. The protest began as a march from Wacker Drive, and protesters stopped in front of stores.
Hundreds of protesters blocked traffic and access to storesup and down Chicagos premier retail stretch on Friday, the years busiest shopping day.
Thanks to the Laquan McDonald protesters, Black Friday in Chicago took an interesting turn in the city’s most esteemed shopping district.
Activists chanting “16 shots! Too many have already died”, said Chapman, whose organization, the Chicago Alliance Against Racism and Political Oppression, is pushing for an elected, civilian police accountability council. “Another protest meeting will be held on Saturday at 63rd Street and Cottage Grove”.
“All Americans should be sickened by the video of Laquan McDonald’s murder”, the Vermont senator said. The police have allowed protesters to march in the middle of the street and even hold rallies in the middle of intersections, and on Thursday the department said it would handle Friday’s march much the same way. “It’s the FOP’s job to support him”, he said. “I feel sorry for him, and what they did is wrong, but don’t take away other people’s freedom”.
“If you and I were in a fight, man to man, that’s one issue”. He says despite people screaming in their faces, getting hit with spittle and thrown objects, officers are acting in a professional manner.
Last week, Mayor Emanuel stood up against the IL attorney general’s office after they asked police to release the footage. Police made a handful of arrests during downtown marches south of the Chicago River since the release of the video.
More than a year after the October 2014 shooting, Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez this week announced a murder charge against Officer Jason Van Dyke in the slaying of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. It was a series events that even saw US President Barack Obama weigh in with a pre-Thanksgiving message on Facebook. She urged the U.S. Justice Department to widen its investigation into the McDonald case to identify anyone who participated in a cover-up of this murder for the past year.
“The police leadership has to change as well as its infrastructure”, Jackson said moments before Friday’s march.
“Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy said he considers the demonstrations have gone “extraordinarily well” in large part because his officers have gone out of their way to let demonstrators express their outrage”.
Emanuel, a former top aide to Obama, won re-election.
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In the wake of the video’s release, protesters and community leaders want a Justice Department investigation similar to ones conducted into the police departments in Cleveland and Ferguson, Missouri, and one now being conducted in Baltimore. But worse than that… the city and the [authorities] union didn’t tell the facts about what occurred, they both said hours after the shooting that this young man lunged at authorities.
