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Local organizers, civil rights attorneys and human rights advocacy groups are worried about how Mayor Brandon Johnson’s administration and the Chicago Police Department (CPD) will respond to protests during the Democratic National Convention from Aug. 19-22.
Their concerns come from the way Chicago mayors and the police have handled uprisings and protests in the past. In 1919, a historically-described “race riot” occurred after Black teenager Eugene Williams drowned at a South Side beach at the hands of a white man, and a white police officer refused to arrest the suspect. Days of violent attacks on Chicago’s segregated “Black Belt” resulted in the deaths of 23 Black people and more than 300 Black people injured.
Following the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, Mayor Richard M. Daley ordered police to “shoot to kill” any arsonists and to “shoot to maim or cripple” any looters. Eleven people died, and all of them were Black, 500 were injured and 3,000 arrested.
A few months later, at the 1968 DNC in Chicago, police violence against anti-war protesters and the press resulted in hundreds of hospitalizations and over 600 arrests, with Daley defending their actions. Fast forward to the summer of 2020, protests over the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis saw Chicago police using batons, kettling and tear gas against demonstrators.
“We have seen throughout history, from 1919 to 1968 to 2020, that the Chicago Police Department has used violence and other forms of police misconduct to quell protests, and particularly protests that are challenging the status quo,” Sheila Bedi said. She is a clinical law professor at the Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, and director of the Community Justice and Civil Rights Clinic.
“So there’s a real concern that some of those same strategies will go into play in response to protests for the Democratic Convention in 2024,” Bedi continued.
Cook County State’s Attorney Kim Foxx is upholding her office’s protest policy. The CCSAO does not prosecute peaceful protestors and will decline to prosecute cases with misdemeanor charges including, disorderly conduct, public demonstration, unlawful gathering, criminal trespass to state-supported land and curfew charges.
Although the State’s Attorney Office’s (SAO) protest policy has been in place since the 2020 uprisings in Chicago, Foxx said she reissued guidance on the policy to her staff in October. That month, local Palestinians and organizers began marching for an end to the war and occupation of Gaza, and they’ve been protesting ever since.
“There have been instances where peaceful protesters have been arrested — whether that’s blocking traffic on the expressways near O’Hare, or blocking the escalators at the Ogilvie Street Train Station, or even at the encampments on college campuses that we saw at the end of the spring term,” Foxx told The TRiiBE. “So this is not a policy that has been stagnant since 2020. It’s certainly a policy that we will continue to take into the DNC.”
Foxx’s decision to introduce and uphold this policy has drawn criticism but she reiterated her office is committed to protecting peaceful protestors. Specific cases involving an act of vandalism or violence will be prosecuted, she added.
“Whether it’s the O’Hare 40, or the educators at Northwestern, or the students at the Art Institute. We are consistent. We don’t prosecute these cases,” Foxx said.
Her move stands apart from Chicago’s law department, which opened new charges against 40 Chicago residents arrested for blocking the I-190 expressway entrance to O’Hare International Airport during a pro-Palestine protest in April. Foxx’s office dropped the misdemeanor charges in June before the city picked them back up.
Obstructing traffic, a charge the O’Hare 40 is facing, is a city ordinance violation that can result in jail time.
“The city has made it clear that they want the cases to remain pending, or court supervision to remain pending, for a time period that goes beyond the DNC,” civil rights attorney Amanda Yarusso said. She is one of the attorneys representing the O’Hare 40 pro bono through the National Lawyers Guild.
Because of the pending case against the O’Hare 40, Yarusso said, “Any person, including my clients, who plans to engage in First Amendment activity at the DNC or otherwise during that time period is going to feel more hesitant or constrained.”
“Even if their activities wouldn’t normally carry a risk of arrest, there’s now this added fear that it could jeopardize the outcome of their case — especially because, no matter what people plan to do, they can’t control how law enforcement responds or whether they get arrested,” she explained.
Foxx stated that her office does not coordinate with the city’s law department.
“The city of Chicago has always had the ability to bring these cases if they violate a Chicago ordinance. They’ve always had the ability to do that,” Foxx said.
“Nothing in our history has shown us to be in a coordinated effort with the city of Chicago as it relates to our protest policy. In fact, the genesis of the protest policy came from what I saw in the wake of the [2020] uprisings and what I believed was the city’s failure to adequately address peaceful protesters at that time,” she continued.
The possibility of mass arrests
In recent months, legal battles have emerged between the City of Chicago and groups seeking protest permits for DNC. On Aug. 16, the Coalition to March on the DNC, which is calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, claimed victory after the city dropped its effort to block them from using stages and sound amplifiers during their protests on Aug. 19 and Aug. 22 in Union Park.
There’s still dissatisfaction with the march route. On Aug. 13, U.S. District Judge Andrea Wood ruled against the Coalition to March on the DNC’s appeal for a route with more visibility to congressional delegates at the DNC’s United Center location.
The Chicago Fire Fighters Union Local 2 is still proceeding with daily protests next week, despite being denied a permit by the city. The union is fighting for a new collective bargaining agreement.
The Coalition to March on the DNC in a previous statement said they applied “to march as a gesture of good faith that the police will not introduce violence into our family-friendly protest.”
“They’ll use any kind of pretext to introduce violence into the march,” Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression (CAARPR) organizer Kobi Gullory said, referring to CPD. CAARPR is one of the leading organizations that are part of the Coalition to March on the DNC.
“So that’s part of why we’ve been fighting the city for a permit because we want to make sure that the police don’t have any pretext to start getting involved with protesters,” he continued.
Recent moves by CPD also heightened organizers’ concerns for the possibility of mass arrests.
In CPD’s newly updated mass arrest policy, certain provisions allow officers to delay reporting their use of force, including OC spray and pepper spray. Bedi noted that timely use-of-force reporting is essential for holding officers accountable, but delaying this reporting makes public oversight more difficult. She also pointed out that the policy does not address how CPD will handle the cite-and-release process for minor offenses. During the 2020 Decolonize Zhigaagoong protest, CPD officers sprayed pepper spray into the crowd—sometimes from less than a foot away—and physically attacked multiple people. Despite CPD policy prohibiting such use of force, officers employed these tactics anyway
However, Bedi noted that while mass arrests as a police tactic are dangerous, some aspects of the updated policy address some of the issues that arose during the 2020 uprisings. For example, CPD will give people a QR code when arrested to ensure that their belongings and an arrest report are accessible. That was previously hard to keep track of during the summer 2020 uprisings, Bedi said.
Another concern is CPD Supt. Larry Snelling’s definition of rioting and protesting, which he gave during an Aug. 12 City Club appearance.
“There is a distinct difference in 2020. I often hear reporters refer to that as protesting,” Snelling said. “People were murdered. There were lives lost in downtown. Officers were brutally attacked. We had some officers who had broken limbs from being attacked by crowds of people. There were vehicles burned, buildings and businesses looted, damaged and destroyed.”
Snelling was referring to the 26-year-old man killed in a River North shooting and the three others injured in separate Loop shootings on May 30, 2020. These incidents were unrelated to the protests over George Floyd’s murder.
“There was vandalism. That is not protesting. That is rioting. There were felonies committed at that time. So I just want to be clear, we’re not going to allow that. We’re not going to allow you to riot. Protesting and rioting are two different things. You have the right to protest, but there will be no rioting,” Snelling continued.
Ed Yohnka, the director of communications and public policy for the ACLU, disagrees with Snelling’s comments. He argued that Snelling’s definition of rioting is too broad. In 2020, that sort of broad definition led to police arresting large groups of people when only a small group of people were breaking the law. Within the first ten days of unrest in 2020, according to a 2021 city’s Inspector General (OIG) report, the majority of arrests made by CPD were for protesting not looting. There were 1,519 protest-related and unrest-related arrests according to the OIG report and more than 10 percent of the arrests were for charges such as looting, burglary and theft.
Yohnka also noted that there’s been so much attention on security and policing, but not enough space provided for people to express their concerns freely.
“We are a city where people protest every week, and that largely happens without any of us noticing, let alone frankly, being impacted by it,” Yohnka said.
During the DNC, Yohnka said, “you just hope that there isn’t this over emphasis on security and control and more of an understanding that people are going to come here because they want to demonstrate and to be heard on particular issues, and that’s really important.”
Yohnka also questioned whether police would alter security footprints and routes of marches, or if the city would enact a citywide curfew, lift bridges, or close off access to downtown. Former Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot did those things in 2020.
“We do not anticipate putting up the bridges, which would only happen after extraordinary circumstances that we are not planning to happen. That’s just not our operational plan at this time,” Glen Brooks, CPD director of community policing, said during a public DNC information session on Aug. 13.
Cook County Courts are also preparing for the DNC, specifically for “a scenario in which there may be a significant amount of arrest,” Cook County Public Defender Sharone Mitchell Jr. said. “I don’t know if that is the prediction, but certainly, I think the courts want to be prepared for that circumstance.”
In July, Cook County Circuit Court Chief Judge Timothy Evans issued orders laying out a flow for court proceedings as the DNC proceeds.
A previously closed courthouse at Belmont and Western will be staffed and used to process people in the event of mass arrests. Court hearings will also be held at this former courthouse, which is open from 8:00 a.m. to midnight. If needed, court hearings will also take place at the Leighton Criminal Courthouse on 26th and California Avenue.
Cook County Public Defender Offices — located at 69 W. Washington, 1100 S. Hamilton, and 555 W. Harrison — will be closed to walk-ins during the DNC.
”So any of the functions that have to happen by a matter of law at a particular time are still going to go on,” Mitchell explained, referring to pending court cases. “Initial appearances, detention hearings, preliminary hearings, demand jury trials, things like that, will continue despite the DNC. It’s just some of those other things that could be either pushed back or pushed up.”
Some of the charges brought against protesters during the 2020 uprisings include misdemeanor and Chicago ordinance violations, like resisting arrest and disorderly conduct obstructing traffic, most of which were non-detainable offenses before and after the passage of the Pretrial Fairness Act (PFA). Under PFA, police officers have the discretion to cite and release people for certain traffic offenses and misdemeanor charges rather than detain them.
When asked how officers will adhere to the PFA, a CPD representative at an Aug. 13 DNC information session said that officers will have the option to cite and release individuals if that is deemed the safest course of action.
