The interruptions at Thursday’s aldermanic town hall meeting on the overhaul of the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA) began immediately.
The Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression gathered nearly 40,000 signatures in support of the idea over the last three years. For a full minute, a representative from the group led the room in a chant of “Sixteen shots and a cover up”—a reference to the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald in October 2014.
“It is clear that a totally new agency is required to rebuild trust in investigations of officer-involved shootings and the most serious allegations of police misconduct,” he wrote.
Which brings us back to Thursday’s meeting.
“We want to speak!”
Nineteen speakers followed, mostly black community members from the south and west sides. They spoke of torture, beatings, and shootings at the hands of police, the need for black officers in black communities, and being more scared of CPD officers than of armed gang members. Many speakers implored the aldermen to harness support for CPAC. The audience periodically broke out in chants.
