Some thoughts on Laquan McDonald and anticipated Chicago justice protest

1. For the first time in maybe ever, the Chicago corporate media is paying due to an anticipated large-scale protest (or protests) with a tenor that borders almost on righteous indignation, even respect. Whereas there has been advance notice of large-scale protests before — like the TABD in 2002, the antiwar protests of 2003, and the anti-NATO protests in 2012 — rarely has there been one where the protesters have not been belittled or considered kooky or spoiled. (The March 2006 protest against the anti-immigrant Sensenbrenner bill held that same tenor of respect, but most of the tenor by the massive scale of the protest reverberated after the fact, not beforehand.)

http://chicagoist.com/2015/11/23/video_of_laquan_mcdonalds_shooting.php

2. We are seeing more than just respect from Chicago's media and powerbrokers; we are seeing some actual tangible actions to hold those guilty of crimes accountable. For one, State's Attorney Anita Alvarez, who has long had a history of protecting police officers when facing criminal charges, has charged McDonald's killer with murder — the first time an on-duty Chicago police officer has _ever_ been so charged:

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2015/11/24/3725304/laquan-mcdonald-shooting-murder-charges/

What's more, police superintendent Garry McCarthy has publicly announced his support for the firing of the officer involved in the Rekia Boyd killing, something that justice activists have long advocated:

http://chicago.cbslocal.com/2015/11/23/chicago-officer-who-fired-into-crowd-killing-woman-should-be-fired-supt-mccarthy/

3. Even so, the point can be raised that justice delayed is justice denied; it's a bit disingenuous to respond to the shooting of an unarmed teenager a year after the fact. This rings especially true since Chicago journalist Jamie Kalven broke the story and called for the video's release — in December 2014:

http://invisible.institute/news/2014/laquan-mcdonald

Thus, what changes we have seen might be little more than throwing a bone to the #BlackLivesMatter movement, but the impacts shouldn't be discounted. There could be something deeper at play. It's very likely that there are other videos of other police crimes that could be released in the wake of the McDonald video release. This could be the start of something even bigger. It might be trying to plug a leak in a dam, but the dam is about to burst with precedents now set for video releases and police facing murder charges. Whether or not it continues long enough to affect Rahm Emanuel's re-election campaign in 2019, or even more, remains to be seen.

4. The timing of the video's release is peculiar — releasing a damning video in the late afternoon right before a four-day Holiday weekend. No doubt the thinking is that releasing the video at such a time, right before the biggest travel day of the year, will help mute any anticipated public protests. But the reverse might well be true: folks will have _lots_ of spare time on their hands to protest. There's now even calls for downtown protests on Black Friday:

http://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20151123/downtown/pfleger-tells-flock-block-mag-mile-on-friday-protest-laquan-mcdonald

5. The word from sources (quoted by the Chicago Sun-Times and Chicagoist.com) is that the video of Lacunan McDonald's shooting is expected to go public on Wednesday at 3PM CT; by court order, the video must be released no later than November 25th. There is already a Facebook group regarding any potential protests here:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1505404599787890/

One would expect details of protests — where and when — will be added to this group as they're made available. Expected flash points for protest include City Hall (121 N. LaSalle, between Washington and Randolph). the Cook County Jail at 26th and California on the South Side, and the Homan Square Police Warehouse at 1011 S. Homan on the West Side. We might not see _one_ protest, but perhaps a galaxy of protests all at once.

The National Weather Service is forecasting areas of drizzle with a low of 46 degrees for the evening of Wednesday, November 25th, with continuing rain on Thanksgiving day and rain turning to snow on Friday.