Activists have renewed calls for Mayor Lori Lightfoot and Police Superintendent David Brown to resign after the bodycam video showing the fatal shooting by Chicago police of 13-year-old Adam Toledo was released last week.
Protesters took to the streets throughout Thursday and into the weekend after the city’s police oversight agency released footage of the March 29 incident, which took place in Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood. Activists also criticized Lightfoot’s slow response to releasing the information, including the officer’s name, allowing almost a week to go by before doing anything.
Baltazar Enriquez, president of the Little Village Community Council, called for the mayor to redirect funds from the police department to the community. “The police department has a $1.7 billion budget,” he said. “They keep taking the money from our kids to give it over to the police department. We’re saying enough is enough. It’s a shame that these police officers, instead of protecting us, are killing us. This is how they treat Little Village because we’re Mexican and because we’re brown.”
Sunday morning, Mayor Lightfoot addressed the calls for her resignation and other rumors via her personal Twitter, saying, “It’s shocking and disappointing to see some media members and verified Twitter handles are peddling this trash as truth.”
Protests will continue throughout the week as jury deliberations in the Derek Chauvin trial begin and other police-sanctioned abuses continue to develop. Those in Chicago also have plans to gather outside of Mayor Lightfoot’s home to make their message heard, CBS Chicago reports.
