Earlier on Monday, August 10, 2020, a video emerged on social media which shows a group of Looters looting a store in Chicago, United States, while streaming themselves live on Facebook.
live-streamed video shows a half dozen people collecting clothes after breaking into a garment store.
On Monday, Violence and unrest erupted in central Chicago following protests on Sunday. Earlier a man was shot by police on the south side of the city.
Pockets of disruption on Sunday escalated overnight into looting on the so-called Magnificent Mile central shopping district and some other parts of the city.
The Chicago mayor, Lori Lightfoot, said police are investigating a possible link between the latest unrest and the shooting of the man in the Englewood neighborhood, but said there ‘cannot be any excuse’ for what she called ‘brazen and extensive criminal looting and destruction’.
Police shooting unfolds
The violent stretch began Sunday afternoon, when the Police Department’s newly created community safety team responded to a call about man with a gun in the Englewood neighborhood, authorities said. Officers found a man walking east on 57th Street and Racine Avenue matching the physical description and attempted to stop him, police said.
The man, later identified as 20-year-old Latrell Allen of Chicago, fled, leading to a foot chase by officers. Authorities said Allen shot at the officers during the chase and two officers returned fire.
Allen, who was taken to University of Chicago Medical Center, has been charged with two counts of attempted murder and unlawful use of a weapon, authorities said.
Outside Allen’s Aberdeen Street home, his mother, Latricsa, received a rundown from a neighbor of the prior day’s events that ended with her son shot five times.
The mother’s voice raised as neighbor Tenisha Caldwell cast doubt on much of the police version of events. Caldwell said she watched from her front porch as an officer fired gunshots at the fleeing man. She also told Latricsa Allen that her son tried to give up before shots were fired.
Allen expressed relief that her eldest son was expected to survive his five bullet wounds, each bullet having missed a vital organ.
“He said, ‘Mama, I’m all right,’” she recounted. “He said, ‘Mama I love you.’ I said, ‘I love you, too.’ He said, ‘Mama, they shot me. They shot me five times.’”
Allen said her son denied having a gun, though police posted a photo of a gun they said they found at the scene.
The community safety team officers were not wearing body cameras, meaning there may not be video to either support or challenge the department’s account. When pressed by the Tribune to explain the lack of video, a Police Department spokesman said those officers don’t wear cameras despite the team’s stated mission of intervening in Chicago’s most violent areas.
The Civilian Office Police Accountability, the city agency that investigates officer-involved shootings, said surveillance cameras showed “the pursuit of a man matching the description of the person (believed) to be in possession of a firearm.” Those recordings were not released. COPA also issued a public plea Monday for anyone with video or information about the shooting to come forward.
The lack of immediate, independent corroboration drew skepticism from several community groups, including Black Lives Matter Chicago.
More than an hour after the Sunday shooting, police and witnesses said a crowd of about 30 people faced off against officers holding a police line near 56th and Aberdeen. Police said a man among the crowd stoked the group’s anger by passing along misinformation, including that police shot a teenage boy. During a scuffle, one officer was hit with pepper spray and a second officer suffered a minor shoulder injury.
A large number of officers cordoned off streets in nearly every direction until the mood of the crowd cooled off. But by that time, Brown said, messages began appearing on social media encouraging people to head downtown.
The officers had stopped several people on Lake Street near Michigan Avenue when shots were fired from a passing car around 4:30 a.m., nearly five hours into the widespread vandalism, police spokesman Tom Ahern said. No officers were shot, but a squad car was hit, he said. It was not known if anyone in the gunman’s car was shot.
Shortly after midnight, the looting began as people darted through broken store windows and doors along Michigan Avenue carrying shopping bags full of merchandise. Cars dropped off more people as the crowd grew.
One woman with shopping bags in her hands fell on the sidewalk as an officer was chasing her. Another woman appeared to have been pepper-sprayed. A rock was thrown at a squad car.