The protesters held banners showing photos of other black people fatally shot by police in Chicago and elsewhere.
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Chicago will continue its steady boil on Friday when protesters will march on its luxury corridor during a major shopping holiday and press their outrage over an officer’s killing of teenager Laquan McDonald.
Prosecutors charged the officer, Jason Van Dyke, with first-degree murder on Tuesday, hours before police released disturbing dashcam video of McDonald’s death under a court order to make it public. Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez said Tuesday that a 3-inch (7.6-centimetre) knife with its blade folded into the handle was recovered from the scene.
About 30 seconds later, Van Dyke shot McDonald 16 times in the middle of a Chicago road.
Obama said he is personally grateful to the people of his hometown – Chicago – for keeping protests peaceful.
The footage spurred largely peaceful protests around the city in recent days.
Another minister who attended, Jedidiah Brown, said emotions were running so high that there would be no stopping major protests once the video is released. A judge last week ordered that the dash-cam video be released, and it was made public on Tuesday.
President Obama has said he is “deeply disturbed” by the footage of the fatal shooting, while Hillary Clinton said she hoped justice would be served. A Chicago police union official told reporters soon after the incident that McDonald, who had PCP in his system at the time of his death and was holding a knife with a three-inch blade, lunged at the officer. He is a 14-year veteran of the Chicago Police Department and now at Cook County Jail without bail.
Skirmishes broke out between protesters and police, who surrounded officers after they apparently made arrests. The upscale thoroughfare is also called Chicago’s “Magnificent Mile”, ending in the city’s Gold Coast neighborhood.
The case sparked street protests in downtown Chicago this week after the release of a police dash-cam video indicating that McDonald was walking away from the officer at the time and was hit several times after falling to the ground in an initial volley.
City officials and community leaders have been bracing for the release of the video, fearing an outbreak of unrest and demonstrations similar to those that occurred in Baltimore, Ferguson, Missouri and other cities after young black men were slain by police or died in police custody. The next month, Chicago’s city council awarded $5 million to the victim’s family, even though they hadn’t sued. Van Dyke is white; McDonald was black.
The news station noted that audio appears to be missing from the video released by the police department. Later, Van Dyke allegedly bent the man’s arm behind his back when he hesitated about taking a four breathalyzer test. The board concluded in that case there wasn’t enough evidence to prove or disapprove the allegations against the officer.
CNN reported that “several” people had been arrested while WCBS said that six had been detained by late on Wednesday on disorderly conduct charges.
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Although most black protesters declined to talk to media, some people who joined the protests later expressed their support for the sentiment.
