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Protecting Killer Cops Is A Chicago Prosecutorial Tradition

December 3, 2015 Bruce A. Dixon, www.blackagendareport.com , , ,
By Bruce A. Dixon for Black Agenda Report - If there's any justice the political career of Cook County States Attorney Anita Alvarez will end with the November 2016 election. But we should remember that Chicagoans threw Cook County States Attorney Edward V. Hanrahan out of office over the 1969 assassination of Fred Hampton, and not much else changed. It will apparently take more than running candidates in elections to overthrow the Chicago tradition of prosecutors enabling and abetting its killer cops. The city of Chicago yesterday released a video it had held for 400 days of a police officer apparently murdering a young man with a knife walking away from him.

Laquan McDonald Shows Black Lives Matter Is Right To Target Dems

December 2, 2015 Joy-Ann Reid, www.thedailybeast.com , , ,
By Joy-Ann Reid for The Daily Beast - When Black Lives Matter protesters disrupted Democratic presidential candidates, liberal Democrats hemmed and hawed. Why protest your political allies, many asked, rather than target your foes? Protest is, at its core, designed to move policy. And today, for the vast majority of African Americans, the politicians in the best position to move policy for people of color, particularly at the local level, are Democrats. Democrats run most of the big cities where black people live, and they often lead the county and state prosecutors’ offices covering smaller, Republican-run cities like Ferguson, Missouri.

Mpls Protesters Refuse Calls To End 4th Precinct ‘Occupation’

December 2, 2015 Staff, www.mprnews.org , , ,
By Staff of MPR News - Minneapolis officials and community leaders on Monday called on protesters to end their "occupation" of the street outside the 4th Precinct police station, saying it had become a public safety hazard. Protest leaders, however, responded with a firm "no," setting the stage for a potential clash between police and those outside the precinct building who've been demonstrating since the Nov. 15 police shooting of Jamar Clark. The standoff came on the same day the Hennepin County Attorney's Office unveiled charges tied to the Nov. 23 confrontation near the precinct station that left five wounded.

Black Lives Matter Came Back Stronger After White Supremacist Attacks

December 2, 2015 Celia Kutz, www.wagingnonviolence.org , , ,
By Celia Kutz for Waging Nonviolence - When five protesters were shot by white supremacists in Minneapolis, Minnesota on November 22, my world turned a bit upside down. My time as an activist there, from 2006-13, has largely informed how I organize and do movement building. I knew at a lot of the people involved and was quickly on the phone. The protesters’ campaign demanded justice for Jamar Clark, an unarmed African American who was killed by Minneapolis police a week before. I knew that the protest site, the Fourth Precinct Police Station on Plymouth Avenue, had previously been the location of a storefront center for black activism named The WAY.

Rahm Fired Chicago Police Chief, But Shouldn’t He Resign?

December 2, 2015 Abigail Abrams, www.ibtimes.com , , ,
By Abigail Abrams for International Business Times - Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s announced on Tuesday that he fired police superintendent Garry McCarthy, a statement that comes one week after the release of a video showing a police officer shooting a 17-year-old African-American boy to death. Among the questions asked of Emanuel during the morning press conference, which was originally scheduled to discuss police accountability, was about why his administration kept the 2014 video under wraps until well after he was re-elected in a hotly contested runoff vote.

Mayor Calls For End To Black Lives Matter Encampment

December 1, 2015 Erin Golden and Libor Jany, www.startribune.com , , ,
By Erin Golden and Libor Jany for Star Tribune - Calling a two-week protest outside a north Minneapolis police station unlawful and “unsafe for everyone,” Mayor Betsy Hodges on Monday implored protesters to end their occupation at the Fourth Precinct. Flanked by city officials and several longtime North Side community leaders, the mayor reiterated her support for erasing racial disparities in the city. But she said the demonstrations sparked by the shooting death of Jamar Clark by a police officer have become a hazard for neighborhood residents, police and protesters that should be stopped.

Cash-Strapped Chicago Paid Half A Billion In Police Settlements Since 2004

November 29, 2015 Shaun King, www.dailykos.com , ,
By Shaun King for Daily Kos. With 49 elementary schools closing this summer, with pensions being slashed, and with public services being cut all over Chicago, the city now admits it has paid out over $521 million in settlements and legal fees due to police violence, misconduct ,and abuse over the past 10 years alone—with a whopping 500 cases still pending. What's more, criminal justice experts say new lawsuits will surely keep filling the pipeline until the city addresses a so-called "code of silence" – where officers refuse to tell on each other for misbehavior – and a flawed disciplinary system that together allow misconduct to prosper. In all, the BGA found a total of $521.3 million has been spent to handle police misconduct-related lawsuits from 2004 to present day. The true cost, though, is even higher, as the BGA counted settlements and judgments, legal bills and other fees – but not less tangible expenses related to, say, insurance premiums, in-house lawyers and investigators, and the cost of incarcerating innocents.

Protesters Disrupt Black Friday Demanding Justice For Laquan McDonald

November 28, 2015 Nadia Prupis, www.commondreams.org , , , ,
By Nadia Prupis for Common Dreams - Activists are marching throughout Chicago on Friday to protest the police shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald last year and the subsequent attempted cover-up of his death by city officials. The protests, which began at 11:00am and are set to disrupt the retail bonanza of Black Friday in one of Chicago's biggest shopping districts, were organized after the release this week of a police dashcam video showing Officer Jason Van Dyke, who is white, firing 16 shots at the black teenager as he tried to walk away.

Why Black Lives Matter Protests Were Nonviolent, But Not Calm

November 28, 2015 Nissa Rhee, www.csmonitor.com , , ,
By Nissa Rhee for The Christian Science Monitor - CHICAGO — Charles Preston wants to make one thing perfectly clear. The protests in Chicago Tuesday night were nonviolent, but they were most certainly not calm. "We were loud and angry, but we had a right to be," says the spokesman for Black Youth Project 100, which helped coordinate the protests. Overnight Tuesday in Chicago and Minneapolis, there was widespread relief. Worries that protests against police might turn violent had brought a member of Congress out onto the pavement in Minneapolis and prompted a pleading press conference from Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel Tuesday.

I Filed Suit For Laquan McDonald Police Video. Mundanity Shocked Me

November 27, 2015 Brandon Smith, www.theguardian.com , , ,
By Brandon Smith for The Guardian - The video of Laquan McDonald being shot horrifies in its banality. I’ve been seeking the video since April and, prompted by my lawsuit, it was released Tuesday, shortly after the officer who allegedly shot him was charged with murder. The police dashboard camera footage shows a Chicago officer shooting 17-year-old Laquan. But it’s utterly without fireworks. It’s perfunctory. The lack of sound, and the cold way the officers moved and behaved, made a horrifying act seem almost mundane. The tape shows Jason Van Dyke, the officer now charged with Laquan’s murder, leaving his police car.

New Video Excerpts From Chicago Police Shooting

November 27, 2015 Staff, www.chicagotribune.com , , ,
By Staff of Chicago Tribune - Newly released videos from four other police cars offer new perspective on the moments before and after the 2014 shooting death of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald by police Officer Jason Van Dyke, who has been charged with first-degree murder. Until Wednesday, city officials had released only one video of the events; the new videos raise questions about how police documented the shooting. Here are excerpts from three of the videos. This dash-cam video is from the vehicle of Officer Jason Van Dyke, who fatally shot Laquan McDonald on the night of Oct. 20, 2014.

Police Killings Surpass Worst Years Of Lynching, Capital Punishment

November 26, 2015 Jerome Karabel, www.huffingtonpost.com , ,
By Jerome Karabel for The Huffington Post - Video cameras have transformed how we view police killings. First, there was the horrifying homicide in July 2014 of Eric Garner, placed in a choke-hold for selling loose cigarettes and denied medical assistance for several long minutes despite pleading "I can't breathe" eleven times. Then there was the shocking slaying in April 2015 of Walter Scott, stopped for a non-functioning third brake light and shot in the back in broad daylight while running away from the police. Most recently, there was the fatal shooting this July of Samuel Dubose, stopped for a missing front license plate and shot in the head while attempting to drive away.

How Chicago Tried To Cover Up A Police Execution

November 26, 2015 Curtis Black, www.chicagoreporter.com , , ,
By Curtis Black for The Chicago Reporter - It was just about a year ago that a city whistleblower came to journalist Jamie Kalven and attorney Craig Futterman out of concern that Laquan McDonald’s shooting a few weeks earlier “wasn’t being vigorously investigated,” as Kalven recalls. The source told them “that there was a video and that it was horrific,” he said. Without that whistleblower—and without that video—it’s highly unlikely that Chicago Police officer Jason Van Dyke would be facing first-degree murder charges today.

Charges Dropped Against Activist Arrested During Chicago Protest

November 26, 2015 Staff, www.lawatthemargins.com , , ,
By Staff of NBC Chicago - Charges were dropped Wednesday against an activist arrested during a demonstration in Chicago following the release of dash-cam video showing the fatal shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. Malcolm London, 22, was charged with felony aggravated battery on accusations of wielding a punch to a police officer. Those charges were dropped during a bond court hearing Wednesday afternoon as protesters gathered to call for London's release. Protesters Come Together After Release of Laquan McDonald Shooting Video

5 Shot Near Jamar Clark Protest Site In Minneapolis

November 25, 2015 Doug Glass and Steve Karnowski, www.huffingtonpost.com , , ,
By Doug Glass and Steve Karnowski for The Huffington Post - MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Police on Tuesday arrested two men suspected of shooting five Black Lives Matter demonstrators, while the family of a black man whose death inspired the protests called for an end to demonstrations that have gone on for days outside a Minneapolis police station. No one suffered life-threatening wounds in Monday night's shooting, which took place about a block from the police department's 4th Precinct, where protesters have been demonstrating since the Nov. 15 death of 24-year-old Jamar Clark, who was shot by a police officer.
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