Cornell William Brooks was reportedly kneeling in prayer on the street outside Chicago’s City Hall on Monday when police arrested and later released him and nine other protesters, according to Reuters. Brooks, the President and CEO of the NAACP, led a protest against the Chicago PD’s handling of an officer who shot and killed an unarmed African-American teenager, Laquan McDonald, in the latest high-profile killing of a minority youth at the hands of law enforcement. Brooks says that he was warned that he would be arrested if he didn’t leave the street.
"The NAACP has a long history of standing up for injustice by using all the tools for justice, common among which is civil disobedience," Brooks said, according to USA Today. "Sometimes, the best way for us to send a message to law enforcement in Chicago was to break the law."
Brook’s message? It might not be okay for police officers to make it more than a year before being charged for apparent excessive use of force cases that result in civilian deaths. The unarmed teen, Laquan McDonald, 17, was shot and killed on October 20th, 2014.
On November 24th, 2015, the officer who shot and killed him in reported hail of bullets was arrested and charged for first-degree murder following a successful media lawsuit for dash cam video of the shooting. Officer Jason Van Dyke made bail on Monday, the same day that Brooks was arrested protesting his alleged misconduct and the actions of the Chicago police.
Here’s the video that reportedly led to the indictment:
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