{"id":21858,"date":"2015-12-01T22:22:29","date_gmt":"2015-12-02T04:22:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=21858"},"modified":"2015-12-02T12:49:33","modified_gmt":"2015-12-02T18:49:33","slug":"vigil-honors-mcdonald-community-leaders-call-for-justice-peace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/vigil-honors-mcdonald-community-leaders-call-for-justice-peace\/","title":{"rendered":"Vigil honors McDonald, community leaders call for justice, peace"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kayla Daugherty
\nVideo by Alexis Myers<\/strong><\/p>\n

More than 100 clergy, community leaders and citizens crowded together under a sea of umbrellas Monday night at Chicago Police Headquarters for a prayer vigil honoring Laquan McDonald, victim of a 2014 fatal police shooting.<\/p>\n

The vigil was calm, with uniformed officers guarding the doors of police headquarters at 35th and Michigan and surveying the crowd. The vigil followed several days of mostly peaceful protests <\/a>after the release of police dashcam video showing Officer Jason Van Dyke firing 16 times and killing McDonald, a black teen, in an encounter on the Southwest Side. Van Dyke was charged with first-degree murder and earlier Monday had been released on $150,000 bail.<\/p>\n

At the vigil, church leaders from a variety of denominations and cultural backgrounds took the megaphone and prayed for peace and justice. Many of the leaders asked for the community to come together to pray for the youth of the city and also for police officers.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am a mother. I am a stepmother to young teenage black men and this could have been them.”
\n– Evette Willis<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“When the video came out last week, we started talking about how we wanted to respond,” said Pastor David Swanson of New Community Church in Bronzeville. “It seemed that as people of faith, prayer was the best response. A great starting point would be to see more proactive interaction between churches, the clergy and the police. If we were to see more of that interaction and that relationship-building, that community policing, that would go a long way.”<\/p>\n

The video was ordered released by a judge last week<\/a> after the city fought for over a year to keep it under wraps. Police Supt. Garry McCarthy was fired early Tuesday by Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who faced growing pressure to oust McCarthy. Protesters have also called for the resignation of Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez, saying she took far too long to file charges against Van Dyke.<\/p>\n

Those in the crowd ranged from older adults to college-aged young people to families with toddlers brought by their parents to witness from a young age what it meant to gather peacefully and make one’s voice heard.<\/p>\n