Protesters including the Rev. Jesse Jackson and McDonald’s grandmother, Tracie Hunter, crowded near Federal Plaza downtown in a demonstration calling for Van Dyke to face federal charges.
Elorm Blake, a spokesperson for the U.S. Marshals Service in Chicago, confirmed that nine people — five women and four men — were taken into custody Thursday and charged with misdemeanor civil contempt for violating the chief judge’s order governing demonstrations at Dirksen. The arrestees were processed and went before a federal judge Thursday evening, she said.
Protesters later stepped off the curb and onto Dearborn Street and others in the Loop chanting for more to be done in the case. At sentencing, Cook County Judge Vincent Gaughan chose to sentence Van Dyke on the second-degree murder conviction — not the aggravated battery counts — meaning Van Dyke faced a lower sentencing range. And a procedural technicality gives inmates day-for-day credit for good behavior on many felony convictions, including second-degree murder, meaning he only had to serve about half his sentence.
That includes Derek Chauvin, the white Minnesota police officer who was convicted last year of murdering George Floyd, a Black man, by kneeling on his neck, a case that sparked nationwide protests and unrest, including in Chicago. Although he is arguably the highest-profile imprisoned former law enforcement officer in the country, Chauvin’s location, booking photos and release information are readily available on the website for the Minnesota Department of Corrections.
Van Dyke’s release comes as Black leaders, as well as Illinois’ two Democratic senators, continue to pressure the U.S. Justice Department over a federal civil rights probe into the McDonald killing that ended quietly after Van Dyke was convicted in state court of second-degree murder and aggravated battery with a firearm. Van Dyke, who is white, was captured on police video shooting the Black teenager 16 times as he walked away from police with a knife.
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