Protesters march through Chicago following mayor’s apology

Hundreds of protesters spilled into the streets near Chicago’s City Hall moments after Mayor Rahm Emanuel said the city needs “a painful and honest reckoning into what went wrong” in instances in which police officers used excessive force.

On Wednesday, the mayor apologized for the 2014 shooting of a black teenager during a special City Council meeting that he called to discuss a police abuse scandal at the center of the biggest crisis of his administration, and promised “complete and total” reform to restore trust in the police.

A state lawmaker from Chicago has introduced a proposal that would allow for a mayoral recall.

Wednesday morning’s speech will come two days after U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced a Justice Department civil rights investigation to determine if there are patterns of racial disparity in the police department’s use of force.

The mayor’s critics complain that his pledge to reform the Independent Police Review Authority is too limited because he seeks to improve an existing system rather than scrapping it and starting over. Emanuel cried “crocodile tears”, one protester said. They’re also circulating a petition of “no confidence” in Emanuel.

“At some point we all have to get together and say, ‘enough is enough, ‘” Tucker said. With police brutality being the most visible evidence of corruption for the protesters, though, the issue is driving the crowds.

“Each time he comes home, my heart is in my throat in case he meets up with a racist cop”, Davis said.

“With release of this video it’s really important for public safety that the citizens of Chicago know that this officer is being held responsible for his actions”, she told Reuters in November.

At least four other protests were scheduled for later Thursday.

Last week, Earnest said that “by commenting on this at great length, I think would be viewed by some as improperly interfering with an ongoing independent criminal investigation”.

Davis, who has said he was sacked after refusing to change findings that showed police were at fault, said Emanuel made bad hiring decisions, pointing to former Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy and former Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett, who pleaded guilty in October to bribery charges.

“I take responsibility for not only that but to also fix it”, said Emanuel.

La Shawn Ford (D-Chicago) would amend the “Revised Cities and Villages Act of 1941” by establishing procedures to recall the Mayor of Chicago.

According to the Chicago Tribune, one protester yelled, “This is not a black problem, this is a democracy problem”. They chanted, “Step down!” To set up some loose boundaries for this thesis, we can say that first there was Homan Square and then there was the almost successful attempt to cover up the extra-judicial execution of Laquan McDonald. Officers who saw Van Dyke shoot McDonald portrayed the teen as far more menacing than he appeared on screen.

To make her case that Hernandez could have been in fear for his life and the life of his fellow officers, she showed a video from a separate case in which a man running from police fired a gun behind him without looking, striking a pursuing officer.