Some cops tried to intimidate a crowd of students who protested gun violence by taking a girl into custody, but their plan didn’t exactly go as they expected when an army of (also peaceful) classmates armed with cell phones shamed them into submission.
Video posted to Twitter shows a girl, identified as “Aminah” being taken by thugs with badges because she allegedly walked in the street.
Here’s police detaining Aminah Glenn, a junior at Kenwood Academy who participated in #NationalWalkoutDay pic.twitter.com/li8UIAnMJY
— Pete Grieve (@pete_grieve) March 14, 2018
A crowd of Kenwood Academy students followed the cops demanding to know what the girl did and why she was being detained. In an initial statement, Chicago Police claimed that she “walked out into the traffic lanes of Lake Shore Drive” which “disrupted the flow of traffic.”
“She was placed into custody for reckless conduct,” the statement reads. “The department is currently reviewing whether any charges are warranted.”
Unfortunately the viral video became far too shameful for Chicago police, who rushed to do damage control after realizing that taking a girl into custody for expressing her First Amendment rights didn’t exactly make them look good.
Journalist Elizabeth King later confirmed that the girl, whose name is Aminah Glenn, would not be charged.
One might believe that Glenn was taken into custody as a safety precaution if King didn’t also speak with other students who told her that “no fewer” than five others were handcuffed by police during the peaceful protest — and, of course, if “blocking traffic” was not already routinely used as an excuse to arrest people who had done nothing wrong.
It’s clear that the police in this instance were looking for any reason at all to show the peacefully protesting students who was boss — and that Glenn was just a casualty in their quest to satisfy their egos.
Image via screengrab