MIDWAY — Protesters aiming to highlight the issue of police brutality in Chicago and demand resignations from top city officials took to Midway Airport to disrupt travel traffic Friday, but low temperatures and participation kept things small and unobtrusive.
"We are here to redistribute the pain," said Willie 'JR' Fleming, executive director of the Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign, from his post near 59th and Kilpatrick where he was joined by about two dozen protesters at 10 a.m. Friday.
The protest was part of an ongoing series of demonstrations following the release of the Laquan McDonald video. Though there was panic about the protest disrupting traffic on social media, only three dozen people showed up and blocked traffic for about 15 minutes.
Around 11 a.m., the protesters outside Midway began buckling in the frigid cold. The temperature hovered around 27 degrees.
"We need to get our people out of the cold," one protester said.
Fleming said the endgame of Friday's protest was a total shakeup in state and city leadership.
Protesters stand in front of cars at 59th and Cicero, yelling "Hey hey! Ho Ho! Rahm Emanuel has got to go!" pic.twitter.com/SF2dLkuYEa
— Ed Komenda (@ejkomenda) December 18, 2015
"Rahm must resign. Anita Alvarez must resign. We're not going to stop," Fleming said. "We're not going to let up. We're going to get more and more creative as the days go on on how to hurt this city economically."
The Midway protest is the latest in a series emphasizing "disruptions" of everyday life in Chicago meant to draw attention to the hardships facing some Chicagoans that other city residents may never experience.
"We think it's about time that everybody in the city of Chicago wake up to realize that it's beyond a cover-up and a concealment of the Laquan McDonald video," Fleming said. "This is a culture of corruption that exists in the city of Chicago, where politicians make decisions about our tax dollars without our input."
Fleming said the release of the video of the police-involved shooting of Laquan was the launchpad for the protest, but it encompasses multiple social issues that need attention.
Over the last 10 years, Fleming said, the city has spent almost a half a billion dollars on police misconduct settlements.
"All the while there's a demolition of public housing, the closings of schools and an increase in property taxes," Fleming said. "We're out here today to make sure the pain is felt by everybody. It is about time that the people of Chicago stand up and inconvenience our government like they inconvenience us."
On Black Friday, the shopping-focused day after Thanksgiving, protesters blocked access to stores along the Magnificent Mile. A similar demonstration is planned for Christmas Eve.
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