Three Antifa protesters were arrested outside a Chicago courthouse yesterday after getting into a scuffle with police. From the Chicago Tribune:
About two dozen protesters, many wearing bandanas or masks covering their faces, gathered near the doors of a Cook County courthouse at 2452 W. Belmont Ave., where they held banners condemning white supremacy and chanted “Neo-Nazis go away! Racist, sexist, anti-gay!”…
After about 90 minutes, the protesters took to the streets, briefly blocking the intersection of Clybourn and Western avenues. Police ordered the activists to return to the sidewalk, when an altercation between an officer and a masked protester broke out.
As you can see in this video, when police started to arrest one man, other protesters tried to pull him away. That led to the arrest of a second individual. The third arrest came a few minutes later.
Breaking: Scuffle ensues between antifa and police outside North Center courthouse pic.twitter.com/puGTNG91Cm
— Tony Briscoe (@_TonyBriscoe) August 15, 2017
This video published by DNA Info picks up approximately where the one above ends. The protester in the blue shirt by the fence is struggling as two police officers try to arrest him.
Note that as the protesters are arrested, their compatriots are chanting “Cops and Klan go hand in hand.” The protesters also held up a banner which connected police with the Klan:
DNA Info reports this sentiment was widespread among the protesters:
As multiple marked squad cars rushed to the scene Tuesday afternoon, one demonstrator could be heard shouting to police, “F— you, you fascist f—s.’…
Protesters likened the police action to tactics used by white supremacists and accused officers of displaying brute force in an attempt to intimidate the activists.
“As organizers, we know, now as ever, that the police are part of the same fascist structures which have produced the state of social violence we see today,” wrote the organizing groups Black Rose-Rosa Negra Chicago and Haymaker Chicago.
These are extreme views which shouldn’t be given a pass by media covering these events. The Chicago Tribune included a photo of the sign above but made no mention of any of the anti-police rhetoric. Similarly, most of the news coverage of the arrest in Durham yesterday didn’t mention that the woman who was arrested had compared police to Confederate soldiers, nor did they mention that her fellow protesters were chanting “Cops and Klan go hand in hand” as she was arrested.” We’ve seen this kind of sanitizing of left-wing extremism by the media many times. It needs to stop.
