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LOCAL News :: Crime & Police

Youth Rally To Oppose Police Brutality and Racial Profiling

Chicago’s African American, Latino and Arab youth kicked out some of the movement’s more imaginative chants as hundreds gathered at police headquarters on Chicago’s south side Thursday evening to oppose police brutality and racial profiling.
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Chicago’s African American, Latino and Arab youth kicked out some of the movement’s more imaginative chants as hundreds gathered at police headquarters on Chicago’s south side Thursday evening to oppose police brutality and racial profiling. While the action had been scheduled for some time, the protest was particularly timely -- coming on the heels of the death of three people of color, including an 8-year-old child, in the last two weeks as a consequence of police actions.

The youth held a short press conference at cop central at 35th and Michigan, where young people demanded that Chicago mayor Richard Daley and police superintendent Phil Cline publicly acknowledge rampant police brutality and racial profiling throughout the department. At 6PM sharp, the protesters stepped off to march on Daley’s house at 15th Place and Indiana, a posh neighborhood of high-priced townhomes and gated residences where a small number of non-white working class residents remain of the thousands who’ve been gentrified out of the area.

Some of the more boisterous chants included “Serve and Protect! Don’t Disturb and Disrespect!”, “Daley, Daley, Meet With Us! And Stop the Cops From Beating Us!” and “Give us Education! Not Probation!”

The group, which came together under the banner of the youth activist organization Generation Y, also demanded that the city push for an independent investigation into the death in police custody on May 26 of activist and mother May Molina. They also demanded that the city release the names of all people who have died in police custody in the last year.

“We demand our basic rights as human beings and we must question if the police are really here to serve and protect us,” said Liliana Rodriguez of Generation Y. “We stand in solidarity with Comite Exigimos Justicia and May Molina’s family in demanding that every prisoner receive the healthcare and medication they need. We demand that our police force stay responsible and accountable to the people and communities of Chicago. We demand our rights as human beings. How can an activist die in the custody of the people who are supposed to protect us? How can police harass, beat or kill youth of color on the streets? Who should be held accountable? We demand a response from superintendent Cline and mayor Daley because we are not here as individuals or as communities, but as a united city committed to ending police brutality and racial profiling, and committed to fighting for our rights!”

Late last year, Generation Y wrote to Daley and Cline requesting a meeting to discuss the findings of their research into police violence and youth in Chicago. In that research, they found that 41% of 810 surveyed youth had experienced some form of racial discrimination by police. In January, Cline’s general counsel sent the youth a reply denying the validity of their research.

Generation Y’s research shows that the police have racially profiled one out of five youth of color on Chicago’s southwest side. “The police don’t listen to their own laws,” one student from Curie High School told the surveyors. “Some male officers search females, others trespass where they’re not supposed to.”

The young activists want the city to establish an independent youth complaihnt reviw board that would keep the police department and the Chicago public schools accountable to the needs of young people, and to develop a youth-friendly legal space to facilitate youth action against harassment by law enforcement. The youth are also demanding that Daley enforce the executive order of late Chicago Mayor Harold Washington, which prohibits police officers from acting as immigration officials or collaborating with la migra -- and punishing officers who do.

During the summer of 2003, 43 young people from different high schools on Chicago’s southwest side came together to tackle the issues that youth routinely confront in the city. Generation Y has documented their research in a report called “Still We Rise! A Youth Action Research Report on Racial Profiling and Undocumented Immigrant’s Rights”, which the group made public last October. The study was published by the Summer Youth Liberation Institute – a program of Generation Y, along with the Arab American Action Network, Sisters Organized for United Leadership, and the 8th District YouthNet Council.

The report paints a disturbing picture of the treatment of youth of color in the city. The survey shows that while 32% of U.S. citizens reported mistreatment at work, a whopping 64% of undocumented youth workers report similar mistreatment that ranges from low wages and no benefits or health insurance to long hours and poor working conditions. Government institutions also mistreat immigrant youth, according to the study. Of the undocumented youth that report discrimination, 40% say they’ve been denied immigration and other services given to citizens and documented people. 35% feel they’re denied college opportunities. And even though discrimination is technically against the law, police are particularly aggressive in targeting youth for discrimination and mistreatment.

The study documented that 28% of surveyed African American youth, 18% of Arab/Middle Eastern youth, and 13% of Latino youth reported being racially profiled by police. No white youth reported profiling by police. Of the youth who reported discrimination, nearly half said that discrimination and abuse was at the hands of the police, with 45% also reporting discrimination by school staff and school security. Police abuse included ‘heavy’ searches – searches that are particularly aggressive or abusive – as well as false charges, physical abuse and other misconduct, including groping and sexual harassment by officers of female youth of color.

At Thursday’s press conference, young people read the testimony of a number of youth, including two girls who reported that police who raided a party that they were attending last January made young women remove their shirts and bras. The cops then ‘felt up’ the girls. Boys were forced to unzip their pants and officers felt down their pants. During the raid, one officer hit a youth over the head with a baseball bat, and when the youngster asked the cop why he was hitting him, the cop replied, “Shut the fuck up, you pussy. I didn’t even hit you that hard.” The women who reported this brutality say the cops never told them why they were being searched, and said they feared speaking out in public because they were concerned the cops would see them and brutalize them again.

Another youth reported that police threatened his seventeen-year-old cousin with torture and falsely charged him with felony auto theft, for which he could face from three to seven years in prison. Those charges are still pending.
 
 

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