Chicago police arrest two Black Lives Matter protesters

[April 14, 2016]  By Suzannah Gonzales
 
 CHICAGO (Reuters) - Police arrested two people during a Black Lives Matter protest over the shooting death on Monday night of a black teenager by officers in Chicago, police officials and activists said on Wednesday.

Police said that the protesters became unruly on Tuesday night as they reached a police station on Chicago's West Side. Two hundred to three hundred people initially protested peacefully.

A 17-year-old female from Chicago was charged with causing less than $300 of property damage, a misdemeanor, after she climbed on top of an unmarked Chicago police squad car and jumped on top of the roof and trunk, police said.

When officers tried to remove her from the top of the car, 33-year-old Shimron Robinson knocked an officer to the ground, police said.

Robinson, of Blue Island, Illinois, was charged with felony aggravated battery of an officer and misdemeanor resisting and obstructing an officer, police said. He is scheduled to appear in court on Wednesday. A court date for the teenager was not known.

The protest was called in response to a police officer's fatal shooting of 16-year-old Pierre Loury during a foot chase after he was stopped in a vehicle believed to have been involved in an earlier shooting, police and media reports said. An autopsy found Loury suffered a single gunshot wound to his chest, the Cook County Medical Examiner's Office said on Wednesday.

The Chicago Tribune newspaper reported that the officer who chased Loury opened fire after the teen turned and pointed a gun at him. The report, which cited a senior police department official, also said that Loury had prior contact with police and was considered by police to be a gang member.

The shooting is under investigation and police did not disclose the identities of the officer or suspect.

Protests erupted in Chicago late last year following the delayed release of the video of white officer Jason Van Dyke's 2014 shooting of black teenager Laquan McDonald 16 times. Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder in November.

The case was one of numerous fatal police shootings of unarmed African-Americans across the United States that have stirred outrage and raised questions of racial bias in policing. Protests have taken place around the country, fueling a civil rights movement under the name Black Lives Matter.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel moved closer Tuesday to naming department veteran Eddie Johnson to permanently lead the police force, which is facing a federal investigation and racism accusations.

(Reporting by Suzannah Gonzales in Chicago and Eric M. Johnson in Seattle; Editing by Ben Klayman and Grant McCool)

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