The protest encampment had been set up to protest the November 15 officer-involved shooting death of Jamar Clark.
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“Honestly it’s the cold that’s likely to scare us away first”, said Christopher Smithe, who was visiting from London with his girlfriend. Protesters closed a stretch of Michigan Avenue and blocked would-be customers from entering high-end stores on Chicago’s famous Magnificent Mile, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. They found a man dead with a gunshot wound inside, and arrested another man inside the house.
Sen. Jeffrey Hayden, one of three black lawmakers in the 201-member state Legislature, wants to start a possible special session with proposals that got a thorough airing last session but didn’t make it across the finish line. “I think [activists] might be in part saying, ‘Look, we have to keep sort of relations with the police”. One person has been arrested for allegedly trying to break a store window at Westlake Mall with a rock, while a second person was arrested a short time later as the crowd tried to force their way past officers at Pacific Place Mall, police said.
By 8 p.m., more than 100 protestors had converged downtown, many of whom were holding signs showing some of the names we’ve seen on newspaper headlines, names that have permeated the news, names of black men killed by police.
Friday’s rally was held “in solidarity with the occupation of the police station in Minneapolis, protesters demanding justice for Laquan McDonald in Chicago, and all victims of white supremacy and police terror”, Black Lives Matter Cincinnati said.
Brandi Miller joined the hundreds of people for the Black Lives Matter movement rally on Black Friday.
Organizers posted on Facebook in reference to Black Friday, “Cheap deals do not matter”.
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Tweets showed dozens of people were gathered outside the precinct for the service.
