Hundreds of protesters in Chicago shut down Michigan Avenue on Friday as part of a march along the city’s “Magnificent Mile.”
The demonstrators took to the streets to bring attention to the 2014 police shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald, whose death occurred under dramatically different circumstances than those described in official police accounts, video released last week shows. Jason Van Dyke, the officer involved in the shooting, has been charged with first-degree murder.
Police accounts of the shooting said the teenager was acting strangely and lunged at officers with a knife. While McDonald did have a small knife on him, the video shows he was walking away from officers when Van Dyke opened fire, emptying his entire ammunition clip into the teenager and then attempting to reload.
Video of the protest Friday captured demonstrators yelling “16 shots,” a reference to the number of times Van Dyke shot McDonald, and “Stop the cover-up.”
Police accounts of the shooting reported the teenager was acting strangely and lunged at officers with a knife. While McDonald did have a small knife on him, the video shows he was walking away from officers when Van Dyke opened fire, emptying his entire ammunition clip into the teenager, then attempting to reload.
"This is something that has touched the conscience of our entire city," Reverend Marshall Hatch, one of the protesters, told ABC7. "We need to project just how the pain that we're feeling in neighborhoods now needs to be felt on Michigan Avenue."
Hatch also appealed for demonstrators to keep the march peaceful.
Protesters called for the resignation of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, Cook County State's Attorney Anita Alvarez and Chicago Superintendent of Police Garry McCarthy.