The Chicago Black community has accused the police of unjustifiably killing two unarmed Black men during the first week in August in separate incidents and abusing those who have come into the street to protest those killings.
On August 4, Gefrey Johnson, 42, of Chatham, died after two bolts from a Taser and a dose of pepper spray. Johnson was unarmed and naked in his mother's home when killed by police. He had just been released from prison with an untreated drug problem. The police had been called to the house to deal with a "domestic dispute".
On August 6, police killed 18-year-old Aaron Harrison on Chicago's West Side. Harrison had come out of a store with friends. He was "playing around, dancing" when two police cars pulled up and officers ordered the group to stop. Harrison, who was on probation, ran "to avoid trouble", according to witnesses. Police then killed him with a single shot in the back.
Police officers claim they found a loaded pistol "next to the body", but eyewitnesses say that Harrison was unarmed and that the police planted the gun after killing him. The police story has changed several times.
First, they said they saw Harrison with a gun and shot him when he fled. Then, they said they saw him "tug at his pants" and thought he had a weapon. Finally, they said Harrison drew the gun and was aiming it at police when they shot him in the chest. The medical examiner, however, has confirmed that the bullet wound was in the back of Harrison's left shoulder.
Hundreds of outraged residents spilled into the street on August 7 to protest. Some marched to the police station and others pelted police with bottles and bricks. Police attacked the crowd with dogs, arrested five people for assault, and smashed two cameras belonging to Terrence James, a Chicago Tribune photographer who was covering the incident.
Seventeen-year-old Deonte Thomas, one of those arrested during the protest, said he hadn't thrown anything at police. He told the Chicago Defender that he was made to lie on the ground and was kicked and repeatedly maced by police even after being handcuffed.
Another protest march took place on August 8. The police arrested four young men who were involved in the protests, taking them into custody out of the district without notifying their parents. Residents marched on the police station again, demanding to know their whereabouts.
On August 10, an evening rally of 400 people took place at Madison and California, in front of a restaurant owned by former alderman Wallace Davis, who himself survived a police shooting in 1976.
Speakers included Reverend Al Sharpton, whose National Action Network group has opened a Chicago office; veteran anti-police brutality activist Reverend Paul Jakes; public housing activist and writer Beauty Turner; community activist Wallace "Gator" Bradley; and Reverend Caleb Muhammad of the Nation of Islam. The rally was emceed by Coz Carson, former staffer for Congressperson Cynthia McKinney and now program director for Black-owned WVON radio.
Sharpton said: "The only way that I've experienced that we get justice in these cases is if we get ready for the long haul. We need a protracted struggle. It may take going downtown every day. It may take a big march downtown. It may take some civil disobedience. It may take whatever it takes."
Speaking on behalf of the family of Aaron Harrison, his aunt LaShaundra Harrison told the rally: "I want you all to be prayed up and to be united and really in this fight, because my nephew couldn't come into town for a barbecue, and couldn't go to the store to bring snacks and drinks back, so that we could all socialise together like I thought we could do in these United States, without being beat down and intimidated and humiliated and now murdered by the Chicago Police Department ... If nobody else can walk down the street and shoot somebody in the back as a coward, the Chicago Police Department should not be able to do it."
Family member Kenny Shannon declared: "They're not going to detain us and it's the last straw. Today it's my nephew, tomorrow it's yours. Let's make this the last one. Today we stop them. We tell the mayor, tell [State's Attorney] Dick Devine, it's done, no more! You will not murder our kids any more."
Organisers urged participants to pack the next meeting of the Chicago City Council's Fire and Police Committee and to gather in front of City Hall on August 28.
As the rally ended, police cars and wagons arrived in force, lights flashing, trying to provoke an incident. Rally participants lined the streets with signs, refusing to be provoked or intimidated, and the police ultimately departed.
[Sources for this article include the Chicago Defender. Reprinted from Workers World (<http://www.workers.org>).]