More than a dozen protesters arrested after clash with police outside Chicago's Israeli consulate
CTV
More than a dozen pro-Palestinian demonstrators were arrested Tuesday during a protest that began outside the Israeli consulate and spilled out onto the surrounding streets on the second night of the Democratic National Convention.
More than a dozen pro-Palestinian demonstrators were arrested Tuesday during a protest that began outside the Israeli consulate and spilled out onto the surrounding streets on the second night of the Democratic National Convention.
The intense confrontations with officers began minutes into the demonstration, after some protesters -- many dressed in black, their faces covered -- charged at a line of police that had blocked the group from marching. They eventually moved past the officers, but were penned in several times throughout the night by police in riot gear who did not allow protesters to disperse. Officers called the demonstrations "an unlawful assembly."
Earlier in the night, officers carrying wooden clubs shouted "move" and penned some demonstrators in on the street, preventing them from marching.
Some demonstrators set an American flag on fire in the street as the celebratory roll call for Vice-President Kamala Harris took place inside the United Center about two miles (3.2 kilometres) away. Others carried Palestinian flags, while many others wore black and covered their faces.
As protesters regrouped and approached a line of police in riot gear in front of a Chicago skyscraper that houses the Israeli consulate, an officer said into a megaphone, “You are ordered to immediately disburse.” A woman in the front of the march shouted back with her own megaphone: “We’re not scared of you.”
A man in a Chicago Bulls hat, his face covered by a balaclava, called on protesters to "shut down the DNC." The group, which is not the same coalition of over 200 groups that organized Monday's protests, advertised the demonstration Tuesday under the slogan of "Make it great like '68," invoking the anti-Vietnam War protests that seized the city during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.
The atmosphere with rows of police in riot gear was a stark contrast to a day earlier when thousands of pro-Palestinian activists, including families pushing babies in strollers, marched near the convention site calling for a ceasefire.
