Protesters confront police Wednesday on the Michigan Avenue bridge in Chicago.
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It’s a popular phrase, one even chanted on the streets as protesters took to Michigan Avenue in the city. Chicago police scuffle with protesters in Chicago, on Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2015.
“Police officers [are] constantly pulling people over on the side blocks and unlawfully searching them and unlawfully detaining them, you know just doing whatever they want to”, he tells CNN.
It was the first time a Chicago police officer had been charged with first-degree murder for an on-duty fatality in more than 30 years, the Chicago Tribune reported. McDonald, whose name demonstrators are shouting as they march the streets and plan to shut down the city¿s glitziest shopping corridor on Friday, lived a troubled life full of disadvantages and at least one previous brush with the law.
Led by the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr., U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush and other black leaders, protesters flowed over the elegant thoroughfare, also called Chicago’s Magnificent Mile, which leads to the city’s Gold Coast neighborhood. Organizers say it was a flawed investigation and authorities tried to keep the videotape from being released.
The Tribune said no explanation has been given for why it was provided video for just five of the eight police vehicles at the scene.
Several people were arrested during the protests. “As matter of policy, all police departments should have early warning systems in place to pull off the streets officers-such as the one in this case-who receive repeated discourtesy and excessive force complaints”.
It showed McDonald as he was gunned down in the middle of a street.
Most protesters said they weren’t there to start fights but to walk in honor of McDonald and hope for change.
Chicago’s black civic, political and religious leaders have urged for reforms and investigations into the city’s police department for its handling of the October 2014 shooting death of the black teenager.
The Chicago protests began Tuesday after the city released dashcam video of a Chicago police officer fatally shooting a teenager. Natalie Wahlberg, a 33-year-old from Cedar Lake, Ind., was charged with damaging public property; and Jacqueline Spreadbury, a 26-year-old from Chicago, faces two counts each of misdemeanor battery and resisting a police officer.
Also on Wednesday, a Cook County judge dismissed a charge against a man accused of hitting a police officer during a protest.
The video shows officer Jason Van Dyke, who was charged Tuesday with first-degree murder, firing an entire magazine into 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.
For months, city officials and community leaders had feared that the release of the dash-cam video could provoke the kind of turmoil that occurred in cities such as Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri, after young black men were slain by police or died in police custody.
Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez said Van Dyke emptied his weapon before his partner stepped forward and kicked the knife away from McDonald.
Activists also want a special prosecutor assigned to the Van Dyke case.
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The Chicago Police Department directive on dashboard cameras says they “automatically engage audio and video recording when the vehicle’s emergency-roof lights are activated”.
