Protesters took down an American flag during #StopTheCops street protests against police in Chicago, replacing it with one that read “Unapologetically Black” on Saturday. The protests, which shut down streets, were organized as a response to the International Association of Chiefs of Police meeting at McCormick Center.
https://twitter.com/PaulGottinger/status/658013261468692480
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“Unapologetically Black” is the slogan of the Black Youth Project, a Black Lives Matter affiliated group that organized the protests. As CBS Chicago reports, the group opposes increased spending on law enforcement:
Protester Maria Hadden of the Black Youth Project says the money could be better spent elsewhere.
“To provide better education, to provide access to basic human needs, housing and healthcare, those are the ways that we address crime,” Hadden said. “Those are the ways we improve the city, not by spending more money on police so we believe we need to spend less money on policing, more money on community services.”
Chicago, which has some of the strictest gun controls laws in the country, has the highest violent crime rate of any large American city, with 884.26 violent crimes per capita.
Some protestors taunted the police by singing “Stop cops, stop cops whatcha gonna do, whatcha gonna do when we defund you?” to the tune of the Bad Boys theme song from the TV show COPS.
"Stop cops stop cops what you gonna do what you gonna do when we DE-FUND YOU" #StopTheCops #FundBlackFutures pic.twitter.com/9EQd75EGx4
— Disco Ric (@RicWilson) October 24, 2015
The protests had a social media component, as the #StopTheCops hashtag began trending on Twitter Saturday night, and people posted photos and video from the protests.
March has made it to Cermak and Indiana where a large group of people are locked down. #StopTheCops pic.twitter.com/OmS9Iin4f1
— Aaron Cynic (@aaroncynic) October 24, 2015
The fam is locked down for justice and to #StopTheCops. Follow @BYP_100 as we continue to shut it down! pic.twitter.com/WBBkOgLiqZ
— BlackOUT Collective (@blackoutcollect) October 24, 2015
https://twitter.com/PaulGottinger/status/658018386245517312
President Obama defended Black Lives Matter activists this week, saying the protests were based on “legitimate issues.” However, as Breitbart News reported, many of the President’s claims about the radical anti-police movement are contradicted by the founders themselves.
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