“Those kinds of things begin to break down the trust between police and community”, Trotter said.
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About 1,000 people took part in the march, including some of the highest-profile protesters since the video was made public Tuesday. The Tribune reported that Cook County Commissioner Jesus “Chuy” Garcia and U.S. Reps.
There was an element of the surreal throughout the day.
Police kept a distance from the protesters and blocked traffic from entering onto Michigan Avenue.
Although the protests hampered traffic along one of the city’s busiest thoroughfares during one of the busiest shopping days of the year, some expressed support for the protests.
The Laquan McDonald case has led to a series of protests and demonstrations in Chicago.
Numerous protesters said they felt hitting at stores’ bottom lines would get them more attention than simply marching.
“We are prepared for the long haul”, he said. “City administrations depend on these police departments to maintain law and order; city officials feel that antagonizing them may compromise this goal”.
Demonstrators block the entrance to Victoria’s Secret as they… Some stores along MI voluntarily locked their doors as the march went past.
The man, who was trying to get into a Crate and Barrel store, said that protesters should be protesting in front of police stations or city hall.
Not everyone was enthusiastic about the tactic.
Meanwhile, civil rights groups have joined calls for Chicago’s police superintendent and a top prosecutor to quit for the way they’ve been handling the case. Shut it down! She said she was representing her family, including her three grandchildren. “I didn’t know they were going to delete it”.
Among the marchers Friday was 73-year-old Frank Chapman of Chicago, who said the disturbing video confirms what activists have said for years about Chicago police brutality.
The video’s release came just hours after Cook County state’s attorney Anita Alvarez announced that CPD officer Jason Van Dyke, who fired all 16 shots that struck Laquan, had been charged with first-degree murder. She also added that they wanted to make sure they were following all the rules so the indictment would not be dismissed due to tainted evidence.
All previous marches have been largely peaceful. The large majority of Chicago’s homicide victims are black, as are the vast majority of perpetrators.
Protesters appeared to be waiting until the day after Thanksgiving, the so-called “Black Friday” that marks the traditional kickoff to the holiday shopping season, before returning to the streets. Those calls were funded by members of the Chicago Teachers Union. Emanuel’s administration systematically hid the truth about the deadly shooting from the city.
The Chicago Sun-Times’ initial reports had Laquan McDonald as a threat to the safety of the police officers on the scene. A murder charge like Van Dyke faces has often proved elusive in such cases, though in Baltimore several officers will go on trial next week after a young man died in police custody in spring.
“I’ve never quit on anything in my life”, McCarthy said. Then Van Dyke starts to shoot and keeps on shooting even though McDonald already collapses on the pavement.
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Aside from suppressing the incriminating video for a year, Chicago police also lied about the shooting, and reportedly erased surveillance footage from a nearby restaurant.
