There are so many names: Flint Farmer, Rekia Boyd, Laquan McDonald, Dakota Bright, Ronald Johnson, Quintonio LeGrier, Bettie Jones, Harith Augustus, Adam Toledo, Anthony Alvarez, and many more—all shot and killed by Chicago Police.
From 2013 to 2021, the Chicago Police Department, the second-largest in the United States, shot and killed eighty-five people, including twelve minors. Though the city’s mayor, Lori Lightfoot, was elected on the promise of police reform, efforts to change the system have been slow, at best.
But as long as these issues have existed, Chicagoans have been in the streets demanding an end to the murders through reform or by defunding or abolishing the department as a whole. Protesters have locked arms, shut down traffic, marched on the homes of multiple mayors, occupied City Hall; they have repeatedly demanded not only accountability and justice, but an equitable distribution of resources in a city that often relies on cops to solve its problems.
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Aaron Cynic
Demonstrators march through the Chicago Loop after a judge found former police officer Jason Van Dyke guilty of second-degree murder for the shooting of Laquan McDonald on October 5, 2018.
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Aaron Cynic
Activists create a display of cardboard tombstones, plastered with the names of those killed by police, in opposition to the construction of a new officer training academy on March 28, 2018.
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Aaron Cynic
In Chicago, efforts to defund the police department in June 2020 included demands for the police department to remove officers from public schools.
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Aaron Cynic
Chicago spends nearly 40 percent of its operational funds—$1.7 billion—on policing; in 2020, the city directed $281.5 million from its $470 million allotment of federal COVID-19 relief funds to the police.
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Aaron Cynic
Protesters assemble outside of Chicago City Hall on August 18, 2020, during a demonstration dubbed “Black to the Future” to demand that the city defund the police department and invest in Black and brown communities.
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Aaron Cynic
Chicago police described their March 29, 2021, shooting of Adam Toledo, a thirteen-year-old Latinx boy, as an “armed confrontation.” But when footage of the incident was released, it was clear that Toledo had raised his hands before the officer opened fire.
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Aaron Cynic
Hundreds of protesters take to the streets on April 16, 2021, in the wake of Toledo’s shooting. “Adam should be with us,” they chant.