I cant say that I disagree with anything thats going on, Harlan said as protesters continued their march down the stretch of Michigan Avenue known as the Magnificent Mile. Recently, a judge ordered the Chicago P.D.to release video taken from a cruiser dash camera to the public after a lengthy court battle. Just one day before the deadline to release it, Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez announced that Van Dyke was being charged with first-degree murder.
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The horrific lynching death of Laquan McDonald and the cover-up at the hands of racists cops and racist leaders must be turned into justice and liberation. A large contingent of the Chicago Police mostly kept the protesters marching in the streets and off the sidewalks, but at some point, protesters broke into smaller groups to barricade several store fronts. To be sure, though, Chicago’s murder rate – at 17 per 100,000 people – is significantly higher than the other cities over the same period. They have put the entire nation on notice.
“We believe injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”, said J.D. Anderson, the pastor at Centennial Missionary Baptist Church on the city’s south side.
The spread of similar videos has sparked large-scale protests in some cities.
The Chicago lodge of the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) posted a bail fund appeal for Officer Jason Van Dyke on its website on Saturday. The officer is no longer being paid by the Chicago Police Department. Reverend Marshall Hatch of the New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church said, “This is something that has touched the conscience of our entire city”.
Shutting down Chicago’s Magnificent Mile on Black Friday was a calculated move by those who protested in the wake of the Laquan McDonald video. But worse than that… the city and the [police] union did not tell the truth about what happened, they both said hours after the shooting that this young man lunged at police. At least 15 misconduct complaints had been lodged against Van Dyke over the years, none of which resulted in disciplinary action.
A protest march has begun in Chicago’s shopping district, with the Rev. Jesse Jackson in the middle of a crowd that’s shouting, “What do we want?” Van Dyke reloaded his weapon to continue shooting, but was told to cease his fire. The Chicago protests have been primarily peaceful.
Emergence of the police patrol vehicle dashboard camera video of McDonald’s shooting had already sparked two nights of mostly peaceful and relatively small-scale demonstrations in the city, during which nine arrests were reported by police.
Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy acknowledged at that news conference that those in the public “have a right to be angry”.
The Rev. Michael Pfleger, a Roman Catholic priest and prominent local activist, said he thought Friday’s protest would cost businesses money because the publicity surrounding it would discourage shoppers from even venturing into the area.
It’s not enough for Emanuel and McCarthy to urge calm.
The problem starts in the mayor’s office; implicates the police department’s top brass, the police nion and rank-and-file officers; and runs through the city’s nominally independent police review authority, which routinely dismisses allegations of police wrongdoing.
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Kim Foxx, a former prosecutor, released a statement after Van Dyke was charged Tuesday, saying the delays in pressing charges were a “heinous disservice” to McDonald’s family and the criminal justice system as a whole.
