Participant accounts of police violence during black lives matter protests in Chicago

ABSTRACT

Black protest events in the United States have been characterised by police use of violence against protestors during periods, such as the widespread riots of the 1960s, when many white people and police see black people as posing a special danger to the status quo. It appears that the aftermath of the police killing of George Floyd, which triggered widespread Black Lives Matter protests, is another such time. However, social scientific evidence that addresses the question of whether police responded with unnecessary violence to these black-led protests remains in short supply. In this study, we conducted a content analysis of protest participants’ federal court statements about their lived experience with police violence during Chicago, IL, protests. Their accounts suggest that police, rather than protestors, initiated violence and relied on it to control protestors in ways that violated Chicago Police Department policies and constitutional protections afforded citizens. Despite efforts to reform police management of protests over the last half century, our findings suggest that the historical pattern of police use of militaristic tactics and gratuitous violence to control black protest events persists today. We consider the implications of the findings for relations between the police and black communities.

KEYWORDS:

• Black lives matter protests
• police violence
• police protest control strategies

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The reforms have yet to be fully implemented; the deadline for execution was extended by three years in 2022 (https://news.wttw.com/2022/03/25/chicago-police-extending-consent-decree-timeline-3-additional-years).

2 For example, The OIG notes that “at least 3” participants reported baton strikes to the head by police, whereas our analysis surfaced 19 such reports.

3 Six protestors noted that officers covered their badges to avoid identification.

4 One participant noted police use of rubber bullets, but other less-lethal weapons were not mentioned.

5 Kettling is a territorial strategy that aims to create a bounded space for containing and absorbing the energy of a protest (Neal, Opitz, and Zebrowski 2019).