Rally relocated after longtime Englewood residents push back against police reform protesters
Duane Kidd was angry, and he didn’t mince words.
Standing in the middle of 63rd Street, encircled by police reform protesters, the 42-year-old lifelong resident of Englewood yelled: “None of these m-----f------ are gonna be here tomorrow. That’s why I got a problem.”
Kidd and several other longtime residents of Englewood pushed back on a rally in the neighborhood Tuesday evening that was planned by several local police reform organizations.
According to Kidd, residents of the South Side neighborhood were given no prior notice of the rally. He was especially concerned that Englewood community members would bear the brunt if tensions flared up between police and non-residents.
“They didn’t let the community know. They didn’t put flyers on people’s doors,” Kidd said. “If they would’ve gotten something incited with the police, who’s gotta deal with it tomorrow? The community. Not them. They’ll be somewhere sipping sangria somewhere. I’m telling you like it is.”
About 75 people joined the rally, which was organized by the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, Black Lives Matter, South Siders Organized for Unity and Liberation and Good Kids/Mad City.
“If your issue is with the police, take it to 35th and Michigan [where CPD headquarters is located]. Don’t come in Englewood with it,” Darryl Smith, president of the Englewood Political Task Force, told reporters Tuesday. “If the people on 56th Street want to come over and protest the police, they can do it. But no one from the North Side or Indiana or any place other than Englewood can come here and do that.”
Smith, using a megaphone, also chided the protesters directly, saying: “Y’all don’t come out when a kid gets shot. Y’all come out when it’s got something to do with the f------ police.”
After they were met with resistance from locals, rally organizers opted to move the gathering from outside the CPD’s Englewood station to Ogden Park, just a block south.
The half-hour rally featured dancing and chants disparaging Mayor Lori Lightfoot, the CPD and its budget.
Rally organizers saw the non-residents far more favorably than longtime Englewood denizens, and they offered their thanks to those who made the trip to the neighborhood.
The rally was called in response to the police shooting of Latrell Allen over the weekend. Allen, 20, was shot by officers near 57th and Racine after, officials say, he fired a gun at police. Allen has since been charged with two counts of attempted murder and one count of unlawful possession of a weapon.
Chicago Police Department leaders have said that misinformation about the shooting raised tensions among South Side residents and, ultimately, led to the widespread looting in the downtown area between late Sunday and early Monday.