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you would probably have never seen this
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in years gone past law uncensored video
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showing how Chicago police responded to
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a stolen car report last summer what
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unfolded once police spotted the vehicle
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amounted to a death or told the suspect
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after all was black
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as it turned out fleeing he was unarmed
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eighteen year old Paul O'Neill would die
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on the way to hospital and the officer
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who killed him seemed mostly concerned
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about himself
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[ __ ] destiny for 30 days out
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[ __ ] I shot that might have been
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the case a few years ago but not now
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instead of desk duty all the officers
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involved were immediately suspended and
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this videotape was made public Chicago
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is trying to reform its police to end
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the impunity they've enjoyed for well
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over a hundred years a history so brutal
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and so racist that the city's black
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residents often refer to the
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Constabulary as an occupying force I
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think we're in the middle of what I've
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come to think of as a crisis of the
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civil order that really is
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simultaneously a huge and in some ways
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unprecedented opportunity for
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fundamental social change and at this at
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the very same moment and for many of the
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same reasons we're at a kind of tipping
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point and becoming a failed state I mean
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it's it's that dramatic the city has in
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fact become the boiling center of black
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American anger and it's all traceable to
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the killing of this young man laQuan
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McDonald a troubled teenager who one
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night in October 2014
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across the wrong police squad as always
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police justified the killing claiming
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self-defense
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they said laQuan McDonald appeared
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crazed and that he lunged with a knife
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at the officer who'd shot him that was a
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lie but it remained the official version
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for more than a year and then a judge
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overruled Chicago police and ordered the
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force to release video of the killing
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what it showed broke the public trust
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like an axe splitting wood
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in the video McDonald is walking away
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from police not lunging suddenly one
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officer rushes towards him opening fire
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there's a pause and then the policeman
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opens fire again the autopsy revealed 16
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bullets pierced the teenager 9 in his
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back
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laQuan McDonald's weapon as it turned
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out was a small jackknife it was closed
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when police recovered it from the body
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the night the video of the killing was
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released a collection of Chicago
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activist groups converged loosely united
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by the slogan black lives matter black
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citizens across America watched in
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outrage laQuan McDonald was quickly
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becoming a proxy for every unjust use of
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deadly force by police against blacks in
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America and there have been lots of them
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this isn't a new conversation in
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african-american community who say
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Werner is an activist and one of the
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organizers of the protests but across
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this country we've seen people get
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murdered for breaking no law at all on
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what was the recourse nine right because
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they're in army
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in the last seven years Chicago police
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have shot and killed a hundred and two
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people and wounded more than a hundred
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and seventy others four out of five of
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them black it's a war on black people
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says Werner they are an army they are
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occupying force that's what they are
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we're in a perpetual war so it's just
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the casualty of that war it's not a
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murder it's a casualty of their war the
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very day the video was released and the
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cover-up collapsed Officer Jason van
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Dyke was charged with murder
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Jamie Calvin is a renowned civil rights
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advocate in Chicago he obtained the
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autopsy results on laQuan McDonald and
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he led the efforts to expose the video
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he says the official cover-up went a lot
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further than the shooters fellow
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officers the machinery of government at
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all levels
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you know from cops on the scene all the
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way up to the highest levels of
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government had to mobilize to impose and
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sustain this false narrative that
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involved immediately destruction of
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evidence intimidation of witnesses
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falsification of reports withholding
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public information from the public
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notably the video and then ultimately a
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five million dollar settlement with the
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family and the hope of containing the
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story in the days before the video was
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released that Chicago City Hall
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officials were frightened about what
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might happen they remembered the
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eruption in Ferguson Missouri the
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killing of Ferguson resident Michael
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Brown another unarmed black man had
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triggered riots and looting zuv
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businesses and arson knowing what was
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really on the laQuan McDonald tape
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Chicago police feared a similar
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nightmare on the south side once it was
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released
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but Chicago's black activists were
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determined not to give police an excuse
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to crack down
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they attacked businesses too but they
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did it by disrupting Black Friday
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holiday shopping in the city's so-called
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Gold Coast that forced white Chicago to
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pay attention protest is the marketing
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arm of anything well not anything but
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was specifically liberation it's just
00:07:04
the marketing arm though you just hate
00:07:06
paying some attention and that goes both
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ways we want the power system to pay
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attention and we want those who are
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outside the power structure to pay
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attention to the displeasure of
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conservatives the tactics work Chicago
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Mayor Rahm Emanuel President Obama's
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former chief of staff publicly
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acknowledged that at its core the city's
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police force was racist and that is
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wrong and that has to change in this
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city that has to come to an end and end
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now no citizen is a second-class citizen
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in the city of Chicago the mayor fired
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the police superintendent and set up a
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public inquiry
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Chicago's police began to feel
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vulnerable and betrayed
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the president of Chicago's police union
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Dean Angelo and we have politicians here
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that call me on the phone and say how
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you doing and we're worried about you
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guys and your girls and you do such a
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great job but you know make sure you
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don't tell anybody I called but just so
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you know I'm not your back no like Helen
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you do you don't when the inquiry
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appointed by the mayor issued its report
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it was ugly it described a long sad
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history of death false imprisonment
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physical abuse and general discontent
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about police actions in neighborhoods of
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color the police forces own data the
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report said showed police have no regard
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for the sanctity of life when it comes
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to people of color so you hear it over
00:08:55
and over and over again bad police bad
00:08:57
police bad police well that's the
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narrative year so the accountability
00:09:01
Task Force comes out with a report that
00:09:03
Chicago policemen are systemically
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racist based on 400 people where's the
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other couple of million the mayor then
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agreed with it
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I think that's an unreasonable thing to
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say yeah there's a standing joke and
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please we're not racist we don't like
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anybody we don't care who you are if you
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are a bad guy we don't like you the
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world of the police has undergone an
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absolute Copernican revolution in this
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period so there is bewildered as the
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rest of us are in the city right now as
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to what the rules are and what you know
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reasonable expectations are
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today every kid on the south side of
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Chicago knows the name laQuan McDonald
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in their world the concept of legal
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rights is an abstract one at best they
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know that every cop effectively has the
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power of life and death even the
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youngest pull up and stuff I get scared
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and then instead of um I just do what
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they tell me to do like if they say go
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home I just go home and then like if
00:10:13
they um like say will you where you live
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and stuff and then I just tell them and
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then I didn't get it over with
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I just live would I think about ball I'm
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trying to make it out yeah black kids
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know the best way to survive an
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encounter with police is utter
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submission they inhabit a world that
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white children cannot possibly
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understand behaviors that might result
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in a curfew violation or you know an
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embarrassing conversation with your
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parents for middle-class kids can become
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a Greek tragedy for for kids in these
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neighborhoods they know it
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police say yes submit and obey if laQuan
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McDonald had just dropped his little
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knife that night they say he'd be alive
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today or not of course you think
00:11:03
compliance guarantees that you're gonna
00:11:05
be okay there's no guarantees anywhere
00:11:07
you know you don't know but if you look
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at the situations that we had here you
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drop the knife it's over you've been
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requested to drop the knife
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four minutes multiple minutes if you if
00:11:21
you stop fighting or stop resisting
00:11:23
mhmmm what what what merits opening
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fired is running away merit opening fire
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or drive or driving away this depends on
00:11:33
circumstances
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when we return murder City USA Chicago
00:11:52
police will tell you that most of the
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people they kill are black because most
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crime is found in black neighborhoods
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and there is no question the south side
00:12:02
is single-handedly raising the national
00:12:04
murder rate there have been more than
00:12:08
3,000 shootings in Chicago so far this
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year most of them on the south side at
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only to an oppressed segregated
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underclass and where this sort of
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hopelessness exists so does crime but to
00:12:27
sad Werner who's trying to raise
00:12:28
respectful educated kids on the south
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side says the police are basically
00:12:33
arguing that blacks are intrinsically
00:12:35
more criminal there's an innate fear of
00:12:39
black people we've been branded as these
00:12:45
animalistic overtly violent kind of
00:12:48
people all right but when you're really
00:12:50
from these communities you know better
00:12:52
because the minute that white power
00:12:54
structure steps in you bow down which is
00:12:57
why there's never been any real Rivera
00:12:58
resolutions in the first place you know
00:13:01
to me the closest thing to a revolution
00:13:04
was back in the 60s the Black Panthers
00:13:07
began as a neighborhood Patrol they
00:13:09
armed themselves they said for
00:13:11
self-defense against police it didn't
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work they were crushed two of their
00:13:17
leaders were killed in their sleep by
00:13:19
Chicago police that was eventually
00:13:21
deemed an assassination but the police
00:13:24
were never charged but he he would have
00:13:27
been an easy target
00:13:28
timuel black lived through those
00:13:30
turbulent times he worked alongside
00:13:32
Martin Luther King and he still believes
00:13:35
in dr. King's message of hope but the
00:13:39
killing of laQuan McDonald fills timuel
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black with disgust if not hatred when
00:13:45
this boy was killed 1610 shot 1610
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running
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away from police would they have put
00:13:54
that policeman have done that if he had
00:13:56
been wait why would he do that
00:13:59
when he was practicing what do you think
00:14:01
he did it he could break to his fellows
00:14:04
to his fellow policemen I shut that
00:14:08
[ __ ] at sixteen ten hit him every time
00:14:10
I said him then he can break that
00:14:12
becomes a matter of Honor for him being
00:14:16
black is in itself still grounds and
00:14:19
much of the u.s. to be stopped and
00:14:21
questioned or worse
00:14:23
black Americans just seem to take it for
00:14:26
granted no matter what their station or
00:14:28
their education especially black men I
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take this suit off
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and I put on my regular clothes which is
00:14:35
sweatpants and gym shoes and I walk down
00:14:38
let's say a major artery in the city
00:14:41
like 79th Street police will pull over
00:14:43
and they'll have a conversation with me
00:14:45
or tell me to move along get to moving
00:14:47
on yada yada yada yada right in no way
00:14:50
shape or form is that legal you are
00:14:53
guilty until proven innocent instead of
00:14:56
innocent until proven guilty so when you
00:14:58
you create that concept you can pin
00:15:01
crime or anybody you want to nobody's
00:15:03
gonna come to their aid still Werner
00:15:07
thinks this might be a National moment
00:15:10
that those videos of police killings
00:15:11
have America's attention right now
00:15:14
then we probably will we thank you live
00:15:16
all did you do in our lives I thank you
00:15:20
and the suicides legendary hard times
00:15:23
restaurant he and fellow activists
00:15:26
gather to pray and to strategize now we
00:15:31
start moving right now we start building
00:15:32
that we start pushing our own agendas
00:15:34
through politics we start pushing out
00:15:36
agendas to economic amen
00:15:42
white Chicago of course remains a place
00:15:45
uh turley apartment from the Southside
00:15:49
Bears fans can gather in a downtown
00:15:52
parking lot before game time drinking
00:15:54
openly and barbecuing a tailgate parties
00:15:56
knowing very well that police aren't
00:15:59
going to be roasting them or telling
00:16:01
them to move along White's can carry on
00:16:03
oblivious to the violence just a few
00:16:05
miles away on the south side but the
00:16:09
people who understand what's happening
00:16:11
in Chicago say oblivious is not an
00:16:13
option we're all challenged to elevate
00:16:16
our games you know to be worthy of this
00:16:19
moment and the possibility you know
00:16:21
we've been talking about for real change
00:16:23
we've got to elevate our games at the
00:16:25
campaign 2016 a major upset in the race
00:16:27
for Cook County State's Attorney and in
00:16:30
fact the state's attorney who mishandled
00:16:32
the laQuan McDonald case lost her bid
00:16:35
for re-election
00:16:36
earlier this year replaced by someone
00:16:38
voters thought better represented their
00:16:41
interests and more change could be
00:16:44
coming from Washington the federal
00:16:46
Justice Department is conducting an
00:16:48
investigation into the Chicago Police
00:16:50
Force and that report is due out any day
00:16:57
as for those officers involved in the
00:17:00
shooting of Paul O'Neill McCarthy it
00:17:02
turns out the shots they thought were
00:17:04
coming from O'Neill were actually coming
00:17:06
from other officers the union calls it
00:17:10
fog of war no charges have been filed
00:17:15
Neil McDonald CBC News Chicago
00:17:26
you
