CHICAGO (AP) — After days of protests in Chicago since the release of a video showing a black teenager shot 16 times by a white police officer, demonstrators were poised to disrupt Black Friday shopping with a march through the heart of the city’s most famous retail district.
Demonstrators scheduled the march on Friday, the traditional beginning of the holiday shopping season that packs Michigan Avenue’s Magnificent Mile. Activists hope to bring attention to the Oct. 20, 2014, slaying of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald and an investigation into his shooting that some say was mishandled.
“This is going to give an opportunity for all of Chicago to come out, demonstrate their outrage and their anger in a nonviolent way, (and) interrupt the economic engine of Black Friday,” said the Rev. Michael Pfleger, a Roman Catholic priest and prominent local activist.
The graphic dashcam video that shows McDonald being shot repeatedly by Officer Jason Van Dyke was released Tuesday, the same day Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder. He’s been ordered held without bond.
In recent days, there has been talk that marchers taking part in the Black Friday protest would engage in acts of civil disobedience, such as blocking store entrances to prevent shoppers from getting inside. On Thursday, one of the march’s leaders, the Rev. Jesse Jackson, said no such acts were planned, but they could happen.
“Some people may do that, I don’t know,” Jackson said.
Jessie Davis, of the group Stop Mass Incarceration Network, said there have been calls on social media for people to engage in civil disobedience, and Charlene Carruthers, national director of the activist group Black Youth Project 100, would not rule out such actions.
Pfleger said he thinks the march itself will cost businesses money because the publicity surrounding it will discourage shoppers from even venturing into the area.
It wasn’t immediately clear how many people would turn out. But there were indications that it would be a bigger crowd than the other marches and rallies, which so far have attracted anywhere from a few dozen to a few hundred demonstrators.
“I expect this will be bigger than the others. Maybe the number (of marchers) will be in the thousands,” Davis said.
All previous marches have been largely peaceful. There have been isolated clashes between police and protesters, with about 10 arrests and only a few minor reports of property damage. The police have allowed protesters to march in the middle of the street and even hold rallies in the middle of intersections, and on Thursday the department said it would handle Friday’s march much the same way.
Throughout the week, protesters have expressed anger over the video of the shooting. They’ve also harshly criticized the department for its months-long effort to prevent the video from being released and the state’s attorney’s office for taking more than a year to file charges against the officer, despite having footage of the incident.
Van Dyke’s attorney has said the officer feared for his life when he fired at McDonald and that the case should be tried in the courtroom, not in social media or on city streets.
Van Dyke and other officers were responding to a report of a teen with a knife who had been breaking into cars on the night McDonald was shot.
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. Within seconds, Van Dyke begins firing. McDonald spins around and falls to the pavement as Van Dyke keeps shooting.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
‘There they go…Tying BlackFriday, the most revered day for corporate greed, to BlackLivesMatter. How dare they!!!’ screeches the RWNJ-ers.
What follows is speculation on my part, but I just can’t help wondering…
If you look carefully at the drawings provided by the medical examiner during the autopsy of the murder victim, you must conclude that either the officer is a very poor shot, or he was doing something more than just murder. Police are trained to shoot for the center of the torso. In this case, there are a few shots in that region, but the majority of shots were to the periphery, almost as if the officer had decided that if the victim was going to be fortunate enough to survive, that he wanted the victim to be maimed for life. This wasn’t just an execution…this was also punishment. Either the officer is seriously mentally ill (perhaps compounded with PTSD and who knows what else), or this officer knew the victim and wanted to provide him with lifelong torture.
I’m also going to speculate on another related topic: the missing video security files at the nearby Burger King. If the police did indeed erase those files, then there is a strong probability that someone they knew would be incriminated based on that individual’s presence in those videos. Perhaps an officer (or someone the police are trying to protect such as the shooter or an undercover narcotics officer) met with the murder victim while the victim might have been in the restaurant or within range of the surveillance cameras. If I recall correctly, the medical examiner claimed that the victim had PCP in his system. What if an officer purchased/sold PCP from/to the victim? What if an officer had a run-in with the victim that would incite the officer to planned violence later? Also, did anyone test the officer (who discharged his weapon 16 times into the victim) for drugs? Firing a weapon 16 times in apparent rage smacks of steroid abuse or perhaps PCP.
I just gotta say…in general, Black Friday has become the such an offensive capitalistic undertaking for businesses to increase their bottom line over the holidays, that it almost comes without any holiday joy whatsoever… It has become more contemptible as a means to manipulate people into buying what they assume are bargains, but which really don’t exist like they used to, at least in the last couple of years I believe. Plus, making working-class people give up their family time, or just plain downtime, by being forced to work on Thanksgiving, just rubs most people the wrong way as it should. Better deals can be gotten at better times in better ways many other days of the year than today imo, if that’s what you’re truly looking to go after by way of gifts.
As for BLM…good at ya. Glad they’re out there raising awareness. I think its good that this visibility comes at a price to some businesses. Whenever I see local news showing the storming of businesses on Black Friday, they always seem to show African-Americans at some business trying to bust down the doors in an helter-skelter way…as if white people aren’t out in droves doing the same damn thing. The hype I’m sure for either is just that though…hype. Yet, that’s almost as offensive as seeing my local news showing crime suspects always highlighted as black, but less often showing white suspects in the same identifiable ways. Its kind of the ‘racially-motivated’ way the news media institutionalizes black people as criminals in general. I guarantee they’ll show similar video footage of blacks storming the doors of box store and dept. store this year as well around this time. Its perennial stock footage they always seem to have on hand at this time of year.