Rally against police brutality ends near Grant Park after failed attempt to walk on Dan Ryan Expressway
By MADELINE BUCKLEY
CHICAGO TRIBUNE | AUG 15, 2020

Anti-police-brutality protesters gather in the intersection of East 35th Street and South Indiana Avenue as the group marches north on Aug. 15, 2020, in Chicago. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

A massive presence of Chicago police officers and Illinois State Police troopers blocked a group of about 200 protesters from marching on the Dan Ryan Expressway on Saturday afternoon, thwarting a planned protest meant to disrupt traffic there to draw attention to police brutality.

The group, which gathered at Robert Taylor Park at 39 W. 47th St. around noon, instead marched north through Bronzeville, and then onto Michigan Avenue in the South Loop, carrying signs with names of people who died due to violent encounters with police. The march wrapped up around 5 p.m. near Grant Park.

“We’re here on this stage to fight for justice for stolen lives,” organizer Rabbi Michael Ben Yosef told the crowd before the march.

People protesting police brutality march north on South Indiana Avenue from 47th Street on Aug. 15, 2020, in Chicago. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

Yosef, president of humanitarian group Tikkun Chai Inter-National, hoped for a crowd of up to 25,000 to march onto the expressway, reminiscent of a similar one in 2018 organized by the Rev. Michael Pfleger to put a spotlight on crime, joblessness and poverty plaguing city neighborhoods.

In that earlier march, demonstrators started by using half of the northbound lanes, while traffic proceeded in the remaining lanes. Eventually, though, the marchers took over all northbound lanes.

But Yosef acknowledged Saturday afternoon that the turnout fell short of expectations, saying the crowd should have been bigger.

He demanded an end to what he said was qualified immunity for law enforcement officers, an abolishment of police unions and the redirection of police funding to mental health services he said was shuttered by former Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

The group is marching East away from the Dan Ryan with a lot of police on each side. pic.twitter.com/ZczolD7VX1— Madeline Buckley (@Mabuckley88) August 15, 2020

A woman carrying a poster board with a photo of her husband spoke to the crowd, relaying that her husband died of COVID-19 in the Cook County Jail in April.

“He walked in a healthy man,” she said, criticizing mass incarceration.

The event, though, drew some criticism, as a group of counterprotesters used microphones to proclaim that the event brought floods of officers into the South Side neighborhood and disrupted life in the neighborhood.

“Take this back to the North Side,” a counterprotester said.

Chicago and state police officers block East 43rd Street at the Dan Ryan Expressway as anti-police-brutality protesters march north. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)


A man hands out water bottles as Illinois State Police officers in riot gear wait in the intersection of East 35th Street and South Indiana Avenue. (Erin Hooley / Chicago Tribune)

As the march began to step off, a wall of Chicago police officers and Illinois State Police troopers in riot gear blocked 47th Street so the crowd could not walk west to the Dan Ryan Expressway.
The marchers turned around and instead marched east on 47th, away from the highway, and then turned north on Indiana Avenue.

Lines of law enforcement officers blocked off cross streets on foot and bicycle, moving with the crowd, so the marchers could not try again to move toward the expressway. A trail of police vehicles followed the crowd from behind.

“I have been protesting since May almost every weekend,” said Amira Abuarqoub, a 20-year-old from the northwest suburbs, noting that she was not surprised to see such a large police presence.

Even though the crowd did not make it onto the Dan Ryan, Abuarqoub said it felt meaningful to take to the streets to send their message.

She carried a sign with the name of Joseph Jennings, an 18-year-old shot and killed in Kansas in 2014.

mabuckley@chicagotribune.com
Madeline Buckley
is a reporter for the Chicago Tribune. She has previously reported on criminal justice issues in Indiana and Texas and is a graduate of the University of Notre Dame.