Demonstrators block the entrance to Victoria’s Secret as they protest the shooting of Laquan McDonald who was killed by a Chicago police officer in October 2014, Friday along Michigan Avenue.
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A group of protesters cut off the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s speech on Laquan McDonald’s deadly shooting short Friday when they pulled the leader’s microphone and stormed the podium while he spoke outside the historic Water Tower.
The trade organization representing stores along the retail corridor said sales were off on what traditionally is one of the biggest shopping days of the year.
Black Lives Matter protesters also disrupted the nation’s busiest shopping day at stores in Seattle and New York City.
Other shoppers walked with the protesters in order to make their way to their destinations.
“I understand what you guys are doing but I want to shop”, Bruno Behrend of River Forest told them.
Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel is facing mounting criticism from activists and allies of the black community who say he should be held accountable for delaying justice in the case of Laquan McDonald, a teenager who died 13 months ago after being shot 16 times by a Chicago police officer.
Van Dyke was on desk duty, still getting his $84,000 annual salary, until he was charged.
Chicago police blocked off roads to accommodate the march down Michigan Avenue, and officers in some areas formed a barrier of sorts between protesters and stores and helped shoppers get through the doors. Viewers were outraged by how much the footage conflicted with the police department’s initial account of the shooting, which claimed that McDonald was acting strangely and lunged at police before shots were fired.
Former Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley called the “gut wrenching video” a sign of “something wrong in our country when we see these incidents repeated time and time again”. The protesters have several goals that they’d like to see come out of their very vocal protest.
“People will not rest”, said Hatch, senior pastor at New Mount Pilgrim Baptist Church of West Garfield in Chicago.
“When you go home and put on clothes like me, you’re black and they’re going to pull you over because you’re just like me”, Steverson shouted.
Friday’s demonstrations will highlight protesters’ other demands, including the resignation of the police commissioner. Van Dyke was charged the same day with murder, and is being held without bail in the Cook County Jail.
Van Dyke and other officers were responding to a report of a teen with a knife who had been breaking into cars on the night McDonald was shot. They didn’t get into to either.
“Other people shouldn’t have to pay for what happened to him”, Angelica Delgado, a 29-year-old Chicago resident, told the Tribune, according to a live blog of the protest.
And even earlier Friday, not long after the start of the protests, the Rev. Jesse Jackson had been cut off as he spoke about the McDonald shooting.
Despite the crowds of protesters, and cold and rainy weather, plenty of shoppers were still heading into stores on Michigan Avenue, and seemed to be taking things in stride, at least before the protest really caused any disruptions on Michigan Avenue.
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Cook County State Attorney Anita Alvarez described the dashcam video after Van Dyke appeared in Court. Lights flash and from a first-person perspective we drive the streets of southwest Chicago; a siren whines at low volume.
