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.
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The report by Slate goes on to say that the autopsy – which was only released after a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request – tells a very different story.
The video shows McDonald, 17, being shot on a city street past year by Officer Jason Van Dyke, who this week was charged with first-degree murder. So while protesters locked arms to block entrances to stores, police huddled on the street watching.
Many shoppers seemed to take the disturbance in stride. Earlier this year, a cellphone recording showed North Charleston, S.C., police Officer Michael Thomas Slager firing several shots into the back of an unarmed black man, 50-year-old Walter Scott, who was running away from the officer. It was the police who maintained a code of silence despite at least seven other officers who witnessed the shooting at close range. The officers are not responding.
At the protest chants such as “No profit, no peace”, “16 shots” and more rang throughout the crowd of activists.
Demonstrators chanted “Stop the cover-up!” and “16 shots!” “There is some hope, but the success of these efforts require funding, which is lacking as the state and city are broke – yet Jon Burge continues to receive $3,000 per month”. “I’m Hispanic and I feel like them”, said Dante Franco, who with his family was stuck on Michigan Avenue, their gray minivan surrounded by a sea of marchers. The protest began as a march from Wacker Drive, and protesters stopped in front of stores.
“We need bold comprehensive change in the police department and the criminal justice system”, Jackson said during a news conference at his Rainbow PUSH headquarters.
He says his organization, the Chicago Alliance Against Racism and Political Oppression, is pushing for an elected, civilian police accountability council.
Protesters took to the streets Friday and blocked the roads and passage for shoppers to enter prominent retail shops in a bid to force police into investigating their department. Eventually, the Water Tower, a major shopping site, was shut down along with the other shops on Michigan Ave.
And protests there are nothing new.
People of all races are out here supporting this stoppage of profits over people, said Phillip Jackson, founder of the Black Star Project, an educational and mentoring organization on Chicagos South Side.
Stores were blocked along Chicago’s Magnificent Mile on Black Friday, but not by shoppers waiting in line to score the latest deals. Just before the video was released, Cook County prosecutor Anita Alvarez announced that she was officially charging Officer Van Dyke with first degree murder. In Chicago, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration tried to keep the recording of McDonald’s death from becoming public.
Protesters shut down parts of Chicago’s luxury shopping district Friday and demanded a federal investigation into the police shooting death of teen Laquan McDonald, alleging a wide-ranging coverup that spans a year-long investigation.
McDonald’s killing and the 13-month delay releasing any video taken by dashboard cameras on squad cars at the scene have led to days of demonstrations in Chicago over police treatment of African-Americans and other minorities.
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Protests in recent days have been largely peaceful. On Thursday afternoon, police said they had made a total of just nine arrests.
