(WBBM NEWSRADIO) — On the one-year anniversary of the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, there were renewed calls in Chicago to reform the oversight of police, and that brought activists to the Loop.
WBBM’s Steve Miller reports.
“Mayor Lightfoot, we are tired of your broken promises,” 35th Ward Ald. Carlos Ramirez-Rosa said Tuesday.
He is pushing a measure in the City Council that would create an elected civilian board to oversee police.
The mayor has just unveiled her own plan, which would let her keep hiring and firing power over top police officials. The plan does not go as far as ideas she campaigned on.
Community activists like Tanya Lozano of Healthy Hood are demanding more civilian control over police.
“Tomorrow Adam Toledo would have been 14 years old,” she said, referring to the Little Village boy who was fatally shot during a police foot chase.
The competing police-reform plans are before the city council.
Also Tuesday, the founder of a local non-profit says progress has been made.
Jahmal Cole, the man behind the group My Block, My Hood, My City, said he can feel a difference by simply opening up his phone to posts condemning police brutality.
“The same that post things online right now may not have posted things two years ago,” he said. “To me, that’s progress.”
He also would like to see more change when it comes to policing.
“Black and brown neighborhoods are being over-policed, terrorized and traumatized by law enforcement. I’ve talked to teenagers that say cops just turn on their sirens when they’re not even doing anything wrong. That’s not fair.”
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