‘SHATTERED RIGHT NOW’
Protesters condemn killing, take to the streets following release of videos
Protesters took to the streets Thursday to condemn the police killing of Adam Toledo after the release of graphic video footage showed the 13-year-old appeared to be empty-handed when he was shot last month in Little Village.
A group of more than 50 people met in Millennium Park before marching downtown and shouting some of the slogans that were previously staples of the protests that roiled the city last summer.
“Lock the cop up!” they chanted. Jose Herrera, who said Toledo was his cousin, drove around blasting Banda music and waving a Mexican flag, which he said was shattered by Chicago police officers.
“Those cops took my flag and broke it!” Herrera said, holding the busted staff in his hands. “I’m out here protesting the killing of my cousin. He doesn’t and didn’t deserve any of this.”
Herrera said a piece of him was lost when he saw the videos of Adam’s killing — a void, he said, that won’t ever be filled.
“My family is shattered right now, and, like this flag, it came at the hands of the police,” he said.
At a news conference in front of Public Safety Headquarters, 3510 S. Michigan Ave., activist and former mayoral candidate Ja’Mal Green began an impassioned speech by tearing down a piece of police tape that cordoned off the entrance. Green notably called for the dismantling of the Police Department and urged Mayor Lori Lightfoot to resign over her handling of the shooting.
He claimed the mayor “demonized” Adam following his killing and mocked her appeals for peace ahead of the release of the video footage from the March 29 shooting. He also told reporters that he plans to march to the mayor’s house as part of a protest Friday in Logan Square.
“Lori Lightfoot herself said, ‘Oh, we need to figure out why he had a gun. He shouldn’t have been out there,’ ” Green said. “Now you want to say let’s calm the city down. But when do you say let’s calm these killings down that the Police Department are doing?”
Green and others in his group later goaded the roughly dozen officers holding a line in front of the station. But after a few tense interactions between officers and demonstrators, the crowd of roughly two dozen people left peacefully.
Earlier Thursday, the city — and Little Village especially — were on edge in the hours before the videos of the fatal shooting were released.
At the scene where Adam was killed, people walked past his memorial, decorated with stuffed animals, candles, flowers and a large white bow. People were anxious to see what the video showed and whether Adam was holding a gun when he was fatally shot by a police officer. While the video footage appears to show Adam with a gun moments before the shooting, his hands were raised and seemingly empty when he was struck by a single bullet.
About 10 community activists took to 26th Street to demand the mayor’s resignation, some gathering for a tearful embrace as passing vehicles honked in support.
“The veil has been lifted, and what we’re seeing is that the Chicago police feel like they can go out in the streets and kill any boy, any one person,” said Rey Wences, who said they attended the same middle school as Adam. “I don’t care who Adam was or what he was doing at 2:30 in the morning, I’m tired of all of that. The question is, why do police shoot to kill — and that has to be answered.” Tom Schuba and Manny Ramos are SunTimes staff reporters. Sam Kelly is a CST Wire reporter. Ramos is a corps member in Report for America, a not-for-profit journalism program that aims to bolster Sun-Times coverage of Chicago’s South and West sides.