Four friends in a silver Jeep with large rear speakers drove along side streets and alleys on Friday, following the route of a protest march calling for the Chicago Police Department to bedefunded.
They blasted house music, hung the flag of Puerto Rico off the side of their vehicle and held hand made signs reading, “Peace Love Unity” and “Black Lives Matter.”
Protesters on foot danced and cheered as they passed the Jeep.
“We love music so we wanted to give it to the people. Give them something to march to, to keep them going,” said one of the Jeep’s occupants, Naitsirhc Gnarly, 22, of Gage Park. “We wanted to spread a good message of love.”
The protest started around 6 p.m. in Union Park on the Near West Side. It was organized by several organizations including Black Lives Matter Chicago, Chicago AfroSocialist + Socialists of Color Caucus and Right to Recovery Coalition. It began with speakers who stood on the top of metal bleachers, leaned over the railing and spoke into a microphone.
“I need you all to know that it does not stop here. We came here with demands. We didn’t just come here to march. We didn’t just come here to say ‘Black Lives Matter.’ We came here to get a change,” said a speaker with Black Lives Matter Chicago.
Hundreds listened and cheered in response as vehicles on Ashland Avenue honked.
The protest was one of many in Chicago and nationwide over the last couple of weeks sparked by the death of George Floyd while under arrest in Minneapolis. Floyd, a black man, died May 25 after Minneapolis police Officer Derek Chauvin, who is white, was captured on video with his knee into Floyd’s neck despite Floyd’s protestations that he was unable to breathe.
The activists Friday evening called out for a reduction in the Chicago Police Department’s budget, which is $1.78 billion. The city’s total budget is $11.65 billion.
They also spoke about supporting Civilian Police Accountability Council ordinance, which is currently in the public safety committee of the Chicago City Council. If enacted, the council would be composed of elected officials who each represent police districts to oversee the police department.
Past proposals to establish an elected board that would have power over Chicago police to investigate and fire officers were voted down by aldermen.
The activists also spoke about taking school resource officers out of Chicago Public Schools.
Speakers also told the crowd to remember Breonna Taylor, who was shot to death while she was in bed on March 13 in Louisville by plainclothes police detectives who entered her home using a no-knock warrant.
Taylor would’ve turned 27 on Friday. Some protesters held birthday gift-wrapped signs with her name on it.
“Today is Breonna Taylor’s birthday. Say her name!” one of the speakers said.
“Breonna Taylor!” the crowd shouted back.
The protest had marshals with red armbands who helped direct the crowd. A few people who held a large black sign that read “Black Lives Matter” led the crowd north on Ashland toward Grand Avenue.
“From the West Side to the South! CPD, we want you out!” the crowd chanted as it began to walk.
Two young girls — Tia James, 5, and Nivea Sandoval, 7 — stood in the front of the sign wearing clear face masks and white shirts that said, “I can’t breathe!” around the neck. They held hands and also held up their fists.
After seeing all the protests and looting, Nivea started having nightmares that someone was going to break into her home and steal her, said her mother, Blanca Sandoval, 35, of Cicero.
“This is part of history,” Sandoval said. “I wanted to show her it’s not all bad.”
The two girls have been friends for two and a half years, said Tia’s mother, Jennifer Hill, 35, of West Pullman.
“I want my son and daughter to know that they shouldn’t be judged by their skin, just their character, and be given a fair chance,” Hill said.
Most of the protesters were wearing masks during the march, while most of the Chicago police officers who walked along Ashland to monitor them were not. Some officers had small containers of hand sanitizer hanging off their vests, and many carried extra hand restraints.
Once the march came to Chicago Avenue, marchers paused for a while, unsure whether to go east or west, but eventually continued east to Noble Street. On Chicago and Noble, many neighbors came out of their homes or leaned out of their apartment windows to get a look at the march or wave at protesters.
One man and a white dog poked their heads out of a window that was covered by a Chicago Cubs poster. The dog barked back at the protesters whenever they cheered.
The protesters eventually headed back toward Union Park. Some protesters on bikes would try to get up ahead and then line up their bikes to create a barrier between the officers and other marchers.
One man held up a peace sign to the officers. “Nobody? Nobody?” he said, until two officers returned the peace sign. “OK, the rest of y’all …” the protester flipped up a middle finger at them.
Over the police scanner, there was a report of someone throwing eggs at officers at Ogden Avenue and Randolph Street.
“It’s going to start escalating, and I’m not going to have my guys sit here and get eggs thrown all over them all day,” an officer said over the air.
Chicago police’s news affairs did not immediately have numbers on any arrests from the protest or the number of officers deployed.
Around 8:45 p.m., most of the protesters reached the end of their 2-mile march at Ogden and Randolph.
They all stopped and, like dominoes falling, got down on their knees and raised up their fists.
They were silent for 8 minutes and 46 seconds, the amount of time Chauvin kept his knee on Floyd’s neck.
Dozens of officers all stood and watched on either side of Ogden. The only sounds that were made were police scanners, the passing “L” trains, helicopters above and music from portable speakers.
After the moment of silence, the protesters began to disperse. One black protester looked at a black sergeant and yelled, “You’re a traitor!” He didn’t respond.
Some people held up their fingers to let others know how many open seats they had available in their car to transport people.
Daniella DeLuna held up a sign that read, “Black Trans Lives Matter.”
“Clearly the system we have now is not working, and it feels like a really important time to be physically present and not silent,” she said. “If black trans lives don’t matter, then the message of ‘Black Lives Matters’ itself is lost.”
The four friends in the silver Jeep, who identified themselves as Naitsirhc Gnarly, Theodore Jimmy Ruiz III, Hector Jay Perez and Manuel Silva Salcido, were able to find a spot by the intersection to play music for the marchers as they left.
“It’s disturbing that people aren’t out here,” Ruiz, 20, of Gage Park, said. “We should be out here to show love.”
“(The cops) don’t act friendly,” he said. “They act like robots. All of us see these officers did not take a knee in unity with us. They had these badges to be our heroes, but our heroes couldn’t stand alongside us.”
![Cameron Prince testified Wednesday that Maximilliono Farias was driving the tow truck on May 16, 2022 that struck and killed his friend John Garner, 19. He and Garner had been walking back from the mall and were cutting through a parking lot west of Mississippi Street in Merrillville when Prince, then 18, heard an engine rev up behind him. Prince said he turned around to see if he was in the way. He realized the driver was coming right at them. It happened in 2-3 seconds, he said. Farias was driving, while his wife Dezarae Farias, the passenger, was “freaking […]](https://www.chicagotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Post-Tribune.jpg?w=620 "Cameron Prince testified Wednesday that Maximilliono Farias was driving the tow truck on May 16, 2022 that struck and killed his friend John Garner, 19. He and Garner had been walking back from the mall and were cutting through a parking lot west of Mississippi Street in Merrillville when Prince, then 18, heard an engine rev up behind him. Prince said he turned around to see if he was in the way. He realized the driver was coming right at them. It happened in 2-3 seconds, he said. Farias was driving, while his wife Dezarae Farias, the passenger, was “freaking […]")
