Two Arrested During 'Black Christmas' Protest
(CBS/AP) -- Police officers manning a bicycle barricade on Chicago's Michigan Avenue took two protesters into custody after a scuffle during which police bikes were overturned and officers and protesters grabbed and pushed one another.
There were no apparent injuries. The skirmish came about three hours into what had been a mostly peaceful demonstration.
Arrested were a 19-year-old man for disorderly conduct and failure to obey police at 1:30 p.m. At 3:30 p.m., a 22-year-old man was arrested and charged with battery and failure to obey police, Chicago Police Department News Affairs says.
Both incidents happened at Michigan and Erie, police said.
The so-called "Black Christmas" protest Thursday is the latest in a series of demonstrations in the city since the release last month of police video showing a white officer shooting a black teenager 16 times. A federal civil rights investigation of the city's police department is underway.
"We believe Rahm Emanuel's administration values profit over people so we are going to take the profit," Rev. Gregory Livingston, president of the Coalition for a New Chicago, tells CBS 2's Sandra Torres.
Protesters briefly blocked the entrance to a Michigan Avenue Apple Store, chanting, "No justice, no profits." Police on bikes slipped behind the protesters to secure the store's entrance.
Most shoppers on the street Thursday seemed undeterred, some walking through groups of protesters.
The release last month of police dashcam video showing the shooting of 17-year-old Laquan McDonald has led to weeks of sporadic protests. Organizers are hoping the Christmas Eve demonstration will be a repeat of another Michigan Avenue demonstration in which a few hundred people disrupted shopping there on Black Friday.
Officer Jason Van Dyke has been charged with first-degree murder in McDonald's death.
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