Tuesday, August 18, 2020

What happened this weekend with the Dan Ryan protests

On Saturday morning, I wrote a post about a planned protest on the Dan Ryan. I reminded everyone about the Dan Ryan protest held further south near 79th street back in 2018 which was held without incident though controversial as this one was more controversial considering the times we're living in right now.

We have a pandemic going on and not only that the week before downtown Chicago and 87th street evidently had events of mass looting. Then we still have unrest around the nation especially since the death of George Floyd which largely hadn't settled down and every urban area has experienced some form of civil unrest.

Thankfully there was no protest on the Dan Ryan which would've started near 47th Street on Saturday. I wrote that post assuming many of you read the blog before you do anything else in the AM, although I don't always post in the morning though my goal is to post at 8:30 AM when possible.

According to this report from CBS 2, protesters didn't have the turnout they expected to hit the Dan Ryan on Saturday. Instead they marched through the Bronzeville neighborhood and found their way to Grant Park downtown where clashes between these so-called protestors and police happened. [VIDEO]
There were videos of people trying to get to their homes in Bronzeville, but not allowed to walk down their street due to the police presence. The language here in coarse so it's not safe for work of some Bronzeville residents going back and forth with a wall of state police blocking their street.


I also want to share this round-up from yesterday on the CapFax. It's pretty fair if you're concerned about peaceful demonstration and the actions of police. Unfortunately there are those in the so-called peaceful demonstration crowd who are itching to cause trouble and sometimes the police response isn't perfect itself. This is the first time I have heard of kettling where police will box in people although you want a crowd to disperse they're not able to if police are in the way. Authorities have gotten in trouble for it and it was noted the city settled a lawsuit over such a practice.
Otherwise after what's been going on in recent weeks, it's good to see the police have a strong presence and that the situation didn't get worse. I see there are people complaining about the actions of police during this discussing overreach or too aggressive on demonstrators although some were looking for a fight. It also appeared as I looked for any reports that police kept demonstrators off the expressway for the most part so there wasn't a lot of disruption in that regard.

Were still dealing with the fallout there as we're still discussing arrests, in one case I saw complaints about doxing by police - that is making public available personal details such as a person's address. Of course to be fair when someone is arrested usually they do share roughly where a person resides if not their direct address. That doesn't exactly hold water, although now I might wonder why authorities feel that's necessary to share.

Either way there was some commotion downtown on Saturday during protests, I'm glad it was handled. [VIDEO]
After what happened at the end of May and the early morning looting of last week this was truly necessary. I want people to peacefully assemble for a cause they care about, most important I'd rather there would be peace. CPD and the Illinois State Police I hope will continue to do what's necessary to keep the peace.

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