Chicago is prepared to handle protests and unrest that might be triggered by the verdict in the trial of Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer charged with murder in the death of George Floyd, Mayor Lori Lightfoot said Tuesday. “Don’t test us, because we are ready,” she said.
Protest
Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced he has activated the Illinois National Guard at the request of Mayor Lori Lightfoot “to support the Chicago Police Department with a verdict expected in the trial of Derek Chauvin,” the former Minneapolis police officer charged in connection with the death of George Floyd.
Several hundred people gathered Sunday evening in Little Village to mourn the death of Adam Toledo and participate in a peace walk through the neighborhood. The 13-year-old was fatally shot by a police officer on March 29.
Hundreds of people have gathered outside the heavily guarded Brooklyn Center police station every night since Sunday, when former Officer Kim Potter, who is white, shot 20-year-old Black motorist Daunte Wright during a traffic stop.
Thousands of protesters gathered in Chicago’s Logan Square neighborhood Friday evening to protest the police killing of 13-year-old Adam Toledo last month. Toledo was fatally shot by a police officer in the Little Village neighborhood, about 6 miles south of the protest.
Police and city officials have been preparing for anticipated demonstrations following the release of videos showing the police shooting of 13-year-old Adam Toledo, as well as a verdict in the trial of former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin, who is charged in the death of George Floyd.
In anticipation of potential outcry over the video of Adam Toledo’s shooting, and in the wake of the Daunte Wright shooting, police have taken precautions “to maintain the safety of our city and its residents,” like canceling scheduled days off for detectives and members of strategic policing teams.
A white police officer who fatally shot a Black man during a traffic stop in a Minneapolis suburb resigned Tuesday, as did the city’s police chief — moves that the mayor said he hoped would help heal the community and lead to reconciliation after two nights of protests and unrest.
The police officer who fatally shot a Black man during a traffic stop in a Minneapolis suburb apparently intended to fire a Taser, not a handgun, as the man struggled with police, the city’s police chief said Monday.
Dozens of people gathered in front of the Minnesota governor’s mansion on Saturday to demand accountability for police officers, days before a former Minneapolis officer is scheduled to go on trial in the death of George Floyd.
Many in the community consider George Floyd Square, the place where former Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for about nine minutes, to be a sacred space, but it also has presented some headaches for the city.
According to a federal complaint, James Massey posted multiple videos and messages on Facebook calling for people to gather in downtown Chicago and engage in property damage and looting last summer.
The author of a scathing report from the city’s Office of Inspector General says the senior leadership of the Chicago Police Department failed both their front-line officers and the public during the unrest that followed the killing of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer.
The Chicago Police Department was “under-prepared and ill-equipped, and thus critically disserved both its own front-line members and members of the public,” according to the inspector general’s report, the first in-depth examination of the police department’s response to the unrest.
Since the city earmarked approximately $180 million in 2020 for overtime costs for all city departments, the final bill is more than double what the city budgeted, according to city data.
City officials fired an employee of the Chicago Department of Transportation after he sent “unprovoked offensive, racist, harassing and violent” messages to a Chicagoan on Facebook during the protests sparked by the death of George Floyd in late May, according to a report from the city’s watchdog.
