Chicago protests after release of tape showing police murder of Laquan McDonald
Chicago, IL – Hundreds of Black youth marched through the streets of Chicago Nov. 24, to express out-rage at the police murder of a Black high school student, Laquan McDonald.
However, the murder didn’t happen recently. It took place more than a year ago.
The protest is happening now because a video of killer cop Jason Van Dyke shooting 17-year-old McDonald was finally released. Laquan McDonald was shot 16 times in what is being called an execu-tion. The video was only released after a court order forced Mayor Rahm Emanuel to do it.
The video, released shortly after 6:00 p.m. Nov. 24, has been apparently tampered with by the police before releasing it, because it has no audio of shots being fired. Just before the city released it, an ABC news reporter described a version of the video they received including the sound of the 16 shots.
Even without the audio, it is clear that the young man was no threat to the cop who shot him, and then riddled his body with bullets as he lay on the ground. The film shows the body jerking and smoke rising as each shot strikes his body.
The mayor and Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy have hyped the danger of ‘violence’ by people in response to the release of the video. The Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression released a statement responding to this attempt to blame the people. The statement read in part, “We reject the attempt to characterize the people's righteousness as violent. The police are the source of the violence.”
The statement also said, “Righteous angry reactions are not the enemy. The subject must be what the administration is going to do about systemic violence that causes these reactions. Let us take the right-eous anger of the people and channel it into building the most powerful, militant grass roots movement Chicago and this nation have ever seen for an all elected all Civilian Police Accountability Council.”
Protesters demand firing of McCarthy
The court case, along with the powerful protest Black Lives Matter movement, forced Mayor Emanuel to release the video. In addition, only hours before the release of the video, State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez finally brought first-degree murder charges against Van Dyke.
LaCreshia Birts, of the Black Youth Project 100 and the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Re-pression, called for further action. “The institutions that are in place to hold police accountable do just the opposite. The police have impunity,” she declared. “As a step toward police accountability, we de-mand that Mayor Emanuel fire Superintendent McCarthy.”
#ChicagoIL #PoliceBrutality #RahmEmmanuel #ChicagoAllianceAgainstRacistAndPoliticalRepression #LaquanMcDonald #BlackYouthProject100 #JasonVanDyke