Protests shut down Chicago strip

“She waited even after City Hall was prepared to pay the McDonald family $5 million in damages”.

In response, police closed northbound Michigan Avenue and later shut down the southbound direction, the Tribune reported. 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.

Chapman reminded protesters that “we want to keep the focus here” after a man wearing a revcom.us shirt took the microphone and began chanting in support of victims of police brutality around the nation. The charges came just hours before the court-ordered release of the dashboard camera video that shows the officer shooting McDonald, who was holding a knife and had PCP in his system at the time of his death.

Demonstrators shrugged off a cold drizzle to turn the traditional start of the Christmas shopping season on Michigan Avenue’s Magnificent Mile into a high-profile platform from which to deliver their message: The killing of Laquan McDonald, 17, was another example of what they say is the systemic disregard police show for the lives and rights of black people.

“It’s not enough to focus on what brought us here today – the execution of this young man”, Jackson said Wednesday. 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.

Hundreds of protesters blocked traffic and access to storesup and down Chicagos premier retail stretch on Friday, the years busiest shopping day. It was the police who issued misleading information, saying McDonald was shot as he “continued to approach the officers”. Activist say they plan to protest for up to thirty days and they plan on hitting Chicago’s financial district some time soon.

Just north of Water Tower Place, protesters reportedly grabbed barricades at the Best Buy on the first floor of the John Hancock Center and used the barriers to prevent shoppers from both entering and leaving. One protester told a local news reporter, “The fact that all of us need to be here shutting down commerce in order to maybe get people to think that black lives are important, as everyone else is, is really sick!”

The release of the video, after a 13-month legal battle against ferocious resistance by the Chicago city government and Democratic Party Mayor Rahm Emanuel, does more than document the actions of a killer cop. A police spokesman said three people were arrested, two traffic-related and a third.

“This is what they need to do: Clear the air, make it clean”. The protests were peaceful until around 7 p.m. when things took a turn.

“We believe CPD officers have engaged in the systemic use of excessive force and carried out a pattern of discriminatory harassment against African American residents in the city”, Chicago Urban League Interim President Shari Runner said in a statement.

Max Thomas said he was born and raised in Chicago’s south side, one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, and he’s exhausted of experiencing segregation. The union’s vice president, Jesse Sharkey, did take part. Like McDonald, most of the victims are black.

In addition to calling for the removal of Alvarez and McCarthy, Jackson demanded the appointment of a special prosecutor to try Van Dyke.

McCarthy said the officer, who had been on desk duty while the shooting was investigated, is no longer being paid.

Van Dyke, 37, was charged with first-degree murder earlier this week.

In nearly all cases, investigations of the Chicago Police Department’s officer-involved shootings find that lethal force is justified.