Mass Arrests Outside Police Chiefs’ Meeting

Police arrested 66 protesters outside a meeting of the International Association of Chiefs of Police in Chicago on Saturday, as demonstrators gathered to decry racial profiling and police killings in the black community.

Hundreds of protesters marched on the McCormick Place convention center from Chicago police headquarters, to protest where police leaders from around the country are meeting over the weekend, according to the AFP.

During the demonstration, several protesters reportedly chained themselves together, in an attempt to disrupt the annual convention, with law enforcement using handsaws to break through their bonds.

The protest was organized by several anti-police brutality and black power groups, including Assata’s Daughters, We Charge Genocide, Black Youth Project 100, and Organized Communities Against Deportation.

An increase in unlawful arrests and the killing of black people in recent years has sparked campaigns against police brutality and racial profiling in the US, including the prominent ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement. The event ends on Tuesday after US President Barack Obama arrives in Chicago to address the participants

On Thursday, Obama admitted that police violence against African Americans has become a “real” and “legitimate” issue that needs to be addressed.

Addressing a forum on criminal justice reform, the US president said that routine police brutality exists only in black communities, calling it a “legitimate issue that we’ve got to address.”

A string of police killings of unarmed African Americans has led to the creation of the Black Lives Matter movement and raised nationwide debates about police violence.

Numerous demonstrations have been held across the country following white police officers killing unarmed African-American men, including Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri; Tamir Rice in Cleveland, Ohio; Eric Garner in Staten Island, New York and Walter Scott in North Charleston, South Carolina.