Activists at CTA 95th Street station protest upcoming release of Jason Van Dyke, calling for citywide shutdown of trains and buses
About a dozen activists gathered Saturday at the 95th Street train station to protest the upcoming release of the former Chicago police officer who killed Laquan McDonald.
Jason Van Dyke, who was sentenced to 81 months in prison, stands to be released Feb. 3. But community activist William Calloway thinks the ex-cop who was found guilty of killing the 17-year-old in 2014 should remain behind bars. Calloway and others are calling for Chicago U.S. Attorney John Lausch to federally charge Van Dyke.
“You got a white man that murdered a boy, shooting him 16 times in cold blood on camera,” Calloway said at a news conference at the CTA Red Line stop. “And the federal government has not even touched him. That’s not justice. That’s racism. We got to call it what it is.”
The group is also calling for a citywide shutdown of the Chicago Transit Authority until its demands for Chicago’s top federal prosecutor are met.
But Rev. Marvin Hunter, McDonald’s great-uncle, told the Tribune he did not agree with the protest’s aim. Activists’ time would be better spent working for systemic change, he told the Tribune.
“Getting Jason Van Dyke to go to jail, to federal prison, at best it will only cost the taxpayers more money,” he said. “ … If we really want to have change, if we really want to use this for a moment for change, then let us get criminal justice reform for real.”
Hunter said he bears no “anger or ill feelings” about Van Dyke’s impending release, though he remains displeased that Judge Vincent Gaughan sentenced Van Dyke only on the second-degree murder conviction — not the 16 counts of aggravated battery of which he was also found guilty. The decision allowed for a shorter sentencing range and the opportunity for day-for-day credit, meaning Van Dyke only had to serve half his 81-month sentence.
“(Gaughan) threw the work of those jurors, those 12 men and women, he just threw that out the window,” Hunter said.
LaShawn Littrice, another activist at Saturday’s protest, implored reporters to look at the exhaustion on the group’s faces after finding out about Van Dyke’s scheduled release.
“We are here because we are outraged,” Littrice said. “We are disgusted. We are traumatized, and we are hurt.”
The protesters also chanted, “Say his name. Laquan McDonald,” and “Black Lives Matter” before fanning out to pass out flyers in support of a CTA shutdown. Calloway said they are trying to convince the transit unions to agree to halt movement on the trains and buses until Van Dyke is federally charged.
“You have Black men in the federal penitentiary for nonviolent drug offenses doing more time than Jason Van Dyke has done in the state penitentiary,” Calloway said. “That’s not justice. That’s horrible. And we can change that.”
