“I pay to keep it unlisted”, she said.
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Samantha Vazquez, 18, joined those locking their arms in front of stores to block shoppers from the high-end shops on Michigan Avenue. Some stores along MI voluntarily locked their doors as the march went past. “Shut it down.” Entrances were also blocked at the Disney Store, the Apple Store, Nike, Tiffany & Co., and Neiman Marcus, among others.
Many shoppers seemed to take the disturbance in stride. Some even snapped photos of the crowd.
Thousands have protested on Chicago’s main shopping street against the killing of a black teen by a police officer. The large majority of Chicago’s homicide victims are black, as are the vast majority of perpetrators. “Shut this down! Shut this down!”
“I used to want to grow up and be a police officer”.
The responding officers didn’t have a Taser.
Activists chanting “16 shots!” I’m 56 years old.
She wouldn’t say which agency had conducted the forensic probe, however.
The powerful Chicago Teachers Union on Thursday endorsed a “Black Friday” march organized by civil rights leader Reverend Jesse Jackson, to protest McDonald’s shooting, and called for an independent investigation of what it described as a “cover-up”.
Discussing how Chicago avoided the violence that followed controversial cases of police killings of young black men in other cities, WBEZ’s Natalie Moore spoke to Veronica Morris-Moore, a protest organizer who said, “I think people expected Chicago to burst in flames because the dominate narrative out there is that black people are reckless and we don’t care about our communities or neighborhoods”.
Several hundred demonstrators have gathered in the drizzling rain, many with umbrellas and plastic-wrapped signs. The graphic dash-cam video shows Chicago Police Officer Jason Van Dyke shooting McDonald 16 times in 15 seconds. “Too many have already died”, said Chapman, whose organization, the Chicago Alliance Against Racism and Political Oppression, is pushing for an elected, civilian police accountability council.
“Now, the video would not have shown the actual shooting, but it would have shown the events leading up to the shooting and perhaps some of the witnesses during the course of the shooting and the police interaction with the witnesses following the shooting”, he added. The rally blocked shoppers on the US’ biggest shopping day, Black Friday.
Just after 4 p.m., a small group of protesters left Michigan Avenue and tried but failed to take over Lake Shore Drive, a very busy north-south thoroughfare. “Black lives matter, not Black Friday!”
The march along the Magnificent Mile comes after two nights of protests downtown after the video of McDonald’s death was made public.
CTU President Karen Lewis issued a statement urging members to express their “outrage and dignity” by participating in Friday’s march on Michigan Avenue on a stretch called the Magnificent Mile.
Just before the video was released, Cook County prosecutor Anita Alvarez announced that she was officially charging Officer Van Dyke with first degree murder.
Under a judge’s order, the city released police squad vehicle video showing the shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald.
As they have all week, protesters – frustrated by the fact that it has taken more than a year for Officer Van Dyke to be charged – on Friday demanded the resignation of Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy and the assignment of a special prosecutor to take over the case from Cook County officials.
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Protests in recent days have been largely peaceful. He said he feels that the color of his skin means he can not trust the police.
