Chicago cop pleads not guilty in black teen’s shooting death

According to the Chicago Tribune, more than 100 protesters marched from along North Michigan Avenue through the Magnificent Mile shopping district, blocking some shoppers and holding “die-ins” on the street.

Demonstrators along Chicago’s upscale Michigan Avenue in the USA state of IL have disrupted Christmas shoppers to demand the city’s Mayor Rahm Emanuel quit over what they say is his intentional covering up of police killings of black men.

Hundreds of protesters took to the streets of Chicago, yesterday, Christmas eve, to march en-mass against police violence against black people.

High-profile killings of black men by mainly white police officers since mid-2014 have triggered waves of protests across the country and fueled a civil rights movement under the name Black Lives Matter.

The Chicago police officer charged with murder in the shooting death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald – a shooting that sparked intense protests and calls for the mayor to resign – will be arraigned Tuesday.

The Associated Press reports that Jason Van Dyke, the Chicago officer accused the shooting death of a Black teenager, pleaded not guilty to murder charges on Tuesday.

Chicago police fatally shot two people on Saturday, further straining the relationship between city residents and law enforcement in IL after the killing of Laquan McDonald. The teenager, armed with a knife, was veering away from officers when Van Dyke opened fire.

“We will be a better city for it”, Emanuel said. Statistics show that officers involved in the fatal shootings of civilians, particularly those who are African-American, are rarely convicted in a court trial.

“There is no denying these are considered extremely sensitive cases and for good reason: There is no harder case to win for a prosecutor”, says Lawrence Rosenthal, a former deputy corporate counsel for the city of Chicago under former mayor Richard M. Daley.

A few protesters yelled at Van Dyke and called him names as he approached the courthouse Tuesday morning for his arraignment.

Herbert also said that policy changes in the Chicago Police Department, including more education, would be beneficial.

Other officers have been prosecuted on charges that they committed crimes while off duty, he noted. McDonald was shot 16 times, and numerous bullets hit the boy after he was on the ground.

Emanuel, on holiday in Cuba, has said he will not step down, but he did bow to protesters and fired police chief Garry McCarthy and agreed to a review of police practices by the U.S. Department of Justice.