Protests on the second night of the Democratic National Convention ended in arrests after a pro-Palestinian group with militant leanings led several hundred demonstrators on an improvised path through the streets of downtown Chicago after police tried to block them.
Tuesday night’s protest was organized by Behind Enemy Lines, a leftist group with militant leanings. Another group behind the protest was Samidoun, which Germany and Israel have banned over allegations that it has ties to terrorist groups. (The U.S. has not declared Samidoun a terrorist group.)
"Dozens of people were brutally arrested outside the Israeli consulate by Brandon Johnson's thugs defending the genocidal criminals inside the DNC," Behind Enemy Lines said on Instagram late Tuesday, referring to Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson. The Chicago Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the number of arrests.
Police Superintendent Larry Snelling praised his officers for "showing restraint when no one else did,” saying they “did an excellent job responding to violence and vandalism.”
Some groups had come to the city with “hostility,” and “that’s exactly what we saw tonight,” he told reporters. “People got too close to officers.”
The demonstration began in front of the Israeli Consulate in downtown Chicago just after 7 p.m. local time, with protesters chanting pro-Palestinian slogans. The consulate itself was barricaded and heavily protected by police on bicycles.
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But the scene on the street outside the consulate quickly grew unruly. After a round of speeches, the group marched rapidly down the block, toward where police officers in riot gear had lined up. It marched right into the line of police, who quickly moved on the group and called for it to disperse.
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The calls went unheeded. Some protesters threw their signs at police, while others physically clashed with officers.
Police appeared to make arrests at that point, but the remaining protesters flooded back onto the street in front of the consulate.
“These are the enemy of the people, and we must move on these m-----f-----s,” said the leader of the protest, wearing a black mask and sunglasses.
At the opposite end of the street, a group of several dozen pro-Israel protesters behind a police barricade had emerged, heightening tensions further.
After several moments, pro-Palestinian protesters again confronted the riot police line, where officers gave another order to disperse.
Police officers then tried to funnel protesters away from the consulate down narrow paths, created by walls of officers on bicycles, onto other streets.
It did not work: Protesters re-formed their cohort and began marching on an improvised route through downtown Chicago.
They marched on some streets where traffic had not been blocked, at one point engulfing a taxicab with passengers inside it.
After several blocks, police officers in riot gear began to incrementally corral the group of protesters at various intersections.
Several times, police in riot gear would halt the forward progress of the protest, escort media members from the crowd, make a handful of arrests and order remaining protesters to leave before they allowed the dwindling crowd to continue forward.
That ended at the corner of Monroe and Canal streets, where police definitively halted the protest, ordering people to disperse for the final time before appearing to arrest many of the remaining protesters.
The Consulate General of Israel to the Midwest said late Tuesday that it was “appalled to see violence during the protest in front of our offices.”
“This is anything but peaceful and completely contradictory to the spirit of the DNC,” it said in a statement. “This vocal minority does not represent the vast bipartisan majority of Americans who stand strong in support of Israel.”
The consulate said it was “beyond disappointed with the ongoing support the mayor has been giving to the anti-Israel protests in Chicago, particularly during the DNC, and his continued disregard for the large pro-Israel and Jewish community in the city.”
It also said it was grateful for law enforcement officers who were protecting the city during the convention.
It was the second day in a row that protesters clashed with police. On Monday, 3,000 to 6,000 protesters showed up for the Coalition to March on the DNC’s kickoff march. That protest was largely peaceful, except for an incident when dozens of protesters breached a barricade at the point that was closest to the arena where the convention is taking place. More than 10 people were arrested, the DNC 2024 Joint Information Center said in a statement.
Earlier Tuesday, Snelling said the police were "up to the challenge" of policing the protests.
Those who took part in the breach Monday were not representative of the march as a whole, he said.
“Within that protest, we had people who simply wanted to exercise their First Amendment rights,” he said.
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