The protesters have several goals that they’d like to see come out of their very vocal protest. A police spokesman says there were three arrests during the demonstration, two of them traffic related and the third resulted from a battery, but he didn’t elaborate. He didn’t give details.
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Police Supt. Garry McCarthy lauded his officers for a “remarkable” job monitoring protests to ensure they remain peaceful.
Among the marchers Friday was Frank Chapman, 73, of Chicago, who said the video confirms what activists have said for years about Chicago police brutality. So while protesters locked arms to block entrances to stores, police huddled on the street watching. A Saks Fifth Avenue store redirected shoppers to an employee entrance in the back of the building where salespeople guided them up stairs, through back storerooms and onto the showroom floor. Some even snapped photos of the crowd.
“You can not kill our children and expect us to be quiet any longer”, protester Quovadis Green said. “I’m an American. I just want to shop”, one woman said as she pushed into the Apple Store, according to Chicago Tribune reporter Kim Janssen.
The largest is a peaceful group led by the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who is leading a prayer from the steps of Chicago’s historic Water Tower.
The video released Tuesday shows McDonald jogging down a street and then veering away from Van Dyke and another officer who emerge from a police SUV drawing their guns.
Others are yelling at the police officers lining the route.
Hundreds of activists chanting “16 shots! It is chilling”, she said.
McCarthy says: “we’re not going to stand by and watch something happen”.
“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.
Black Friday 2015 for Chicago was marred by protests over the deadly shooting of black teen Laquan McDonald by a white police officer a year ago.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) fought to withhold the video from public view for months until a judge ordered it released.
The protesters used Black Friday as the ideal day to start their campaign, hoping to dent the economy of Michigan Avenue and force the police commissioner to resign, pending a federal investigation into his department. Chicago police shot an average of 50 people a year in that period, against 31 a year for Los Angeles, 27 in New York City, and 14 in Houston. Taking Friday’s demonstrations to the city’s main shopping area ensures high visibility. North Michigan Avenue merchants haven’t said how the protests hurt their bottom line.
Nordstrom, a big shopping department store on the street, was among the stores blocked.
Alvarez, who faces a tough primary election in March, was criticized by her opponents, among law officials and constituents, for the timing of the charges against the officer and the release of the dash-cam video. The videos, including the one from Van Dyke’s vehicle, did not include any audio of officers talking, either in the vehicles or over police radios, raising questions about why sirens outside the vehicles are audible but voices and other sounds from inside the vehicle are not. On Thanksgiving Day, many families received “robo calls” with a recording from Reverend Jackson himself, exhorting them to join the protests: “Join us Friday, the day after Thanksgiving at 11 AM…to march down the “Magnificent Mile” to express our outrage and our sense of dignity”.
Prosecutors on Tuesday charged with first-degree murder for the 2014 death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, who was shot 16 times.
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To Kalven, the most important issue here is not just the shooting but how governmental institutions – from the police to the mayor’s office – responded to it, he says.
