Several downtown buildings vandalized; protesters march to Springfield Police headquarters

After the City of Springfield issued an advisory Sunday evening for its residents to stay at home, several downtown businesses were spray painted with graffiti.

Protesters were back and forth between Springfield Police Department headquarters and the Capitol Building late Sunday before dispersing early Monday morning.

Earlier Sunday, a Black Lives Matter Springfield procession attracted around 3,000 vehicles.

A protest at the Capitol Building at 3 p.m. Monday had been widely publicized on several social media platforms using the Black Lives Matter logo. It wasn’t the same group that organized Sunday’s protest, said Sunshine Clemons, president of Black Lives Matter Springfield.

Police Chief Kenny Winslow said there was some attempted looting earlier Sunday at White Oaks Mall and that other businesses had received threats.

Winslow said no one was hurt, no arrests were made and there’s been no property damage in association with the attempted looting.

That situation may have prompted Chick-fil-A at 2431 Wabash Ave. to close its store Monday. Also closed was Illinois Supply and Provision’s downtown store.

Springfield Police were being stationed at different businesses around town and doing extra premises checks, said SPD Lt. Sara Pickford.

Other businesses and places vandalized downtown include the Illinois Community College Board building and the city parking ramp, both at Fourth and Capitol, the Hoogland Center for the Arts in the 400 block of South Sixth Street and the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services building at Fourth and Monroe.

Another unoccupied building at Eighth Street and South Grand Avenue was spray painted.

An Illinois Secretary of State spokesman said that graffiti was also spray painted on the Herndon Building in the 400 block of East Capitol sometime Sunday. A window in the guard shack at the Secretary of State Visitors Center parking lot on West Edwards Street was also discovered broken.

A crowd of protesters gathered at the Springfield Police building around 9 p.m. before heading to the Capitol and then back to the police building. The crowd was chanting “Hands Up, don’t shoot,” a slogan popularized after the 2014 slaying of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, “I can’t breathe” and “No justice, no peace.”

Contact Steven Spearie: 622-1788, sspearie@sj-r.com, twitter.com/stevenspearie.