Several hundred peaceful protesters march from Loop to Bronzeville
With chants of George Floyd’s name, several hundred peaceful protesters marched on Sunday from the still-damaged Loop to Bronzeville, near Chicago Police headquarters.
Before heading south, the protesters took a knee — a not-so-subtle allusion to the Minneapolis police officer who knelt on Floyd’s neck for the last several minutes of his life.
Though protesters at times cursed at the officers who stood and rode along their route, the march remained peaceful. But when the group reached 35th and State streets, they were met by a phalanx of officers and a handful of city plow trucks blocking their path to the sprawling facility.
Organizer Deon Stevenson pleaded with a CPD officer to let a portion of the group through to hold a “peaceful lock-in” at police headquarters. The officer rebuffed the request, explaining that investigators had learned “there’s members of the group that want to storm the building.”
After the appeals to get through proved unsuccessful, the group began to splinter, with some vowing to head back downtown. Stevenson — who said he wanted to set a nationwide precedent of holding a “peaceful protest” in front of a police station — was upset by the “radicals” who prompted Mayor Lori Lightfoot’s citywide lockdown, which includes a daily 9 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew over several square miles of the city’s center.
CTA service in and out of the Loop was suspended early Sunday and by Sunday night all buses and trains had been halted, with service expected to resume Monday morning.
“This is our protest to get the trains open,” said Stevenson, noting that some of the group was heading back to Trump Tower. “They just want to go burn s—-.”
One of the marchers — a man who only identified himself as “Rude” — said: “Things have to change, and sometimes things gotta get a little bit ugly for that to happen. I’m not advocating for that, but it’s just what it is. It’s a reality.”
At 8:30 p.m, a group of protesters marched onto Lake Shore Drive at 53rd Street. After a moment of silence, the protesters began chanting the names of Floyd and Breonna Taylor, an EMT who was fatally shot in her apartment by Louisville police, before walking north.
The group had been gathered in front of at 53rd and Lake Park, where police were guarding an Akira store that had a window broken out.
Northbound traffic was brought to a slow crawl as the group moved along the lakefront, with some drivers pulling onto the grass to get off the roadway.
The group eventually exited the Lake Shore Drive at 47th Street just as the citywide 9 p.m. curfew took effect. The group then marched south on Lake Park, again halting traffic.
As the group moved back to their starting point, organizers offered rides to anyone in need.