Democrats are preparing to gather in Chicago next week. the shadow of the chaotic 1968 DNC there looms large. Some hope police will model a different approach to expected protest activity.
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Democrats are preparing for their party’s nominating convention next week. This will be the second time they have held this gathering in Chicago since 1968, when the event was marred by police and protester violence. NPR’s Odette Yousef has more.
ODETTE YOUSEF, BYLINE: Michael James says the die was cast the day before the 1968 convention began. He was in the crowd of young activists gathered in Lincoln Park on the city’s North Side. It was festive until about 11 p.m., the city curfew.
MICHAEL JAMES: And the police came in with riot gear, with gas masks on, set off tear gas. And that was because Daley said no one could sleep in the park.
YOUSEF: Then-mayor and Democrat Richard J. Daley took a hardline stance against the tens of thousands of activists that had descended on Chicago. They were protesting U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War, pushing for racial equality and an end to poverty.
On the third day of the convention, the tensions between his police force and protesters were on full display on TV screens across the country. The nation saw police walloping demonstrators with billy clubs and dragging them to police wagons. The events have since been characterized as a police riot. But in this clip from the Chicago Film Archives, Daley stood by his department’s response.
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RICHARD DALEY: This administration will never permit a lawless, violent group of terrorists to menace the lives of millions of people, destroy the purpose of this national convention and take over the streets of Chicago.
YOUSEF: Some circumstances around that convention and next week’s are strikingly similar. Then, as now, an incumbent Democratic president opted not to run for a second term. Then, as now, the party was challenged by a youth-led protest movement against an overseas war. This time, it’s the conflict between Israel and Hamas. But this time, Democrats have moved decisively behind the candidacy of Vice President Kamala Harris. And as James himself notes, Chicago’s police department has changed too.
JAMES: It was pretty much an all-white, un-college-educated force at the time – all male, mostly. Now, it’s, you know, everyone from every ethnic, racial group around the world.
YOUSEF: The makeup of the force is different. What’s less clear is how much the department has changed its approach to policing. In the spring of 2020, cities across the U.S. erupted in mass protest after officers in Minneapolis killed George Floyd. In Chicago, outside reviews found that police were unprepared and confused in their response and that officers engaged in excessive use of force.
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UNIDENTIFIED CROWD: (Inaudible).
YOUSEF: In one incident, officers beat in the windows of a vehicle in a mall parking lot. They dragged its occupants to the ground, one of them by their hair, and they allegedly used racist and sexist slurs. This was one of several police incidents in that time period that has cost the city millions in settlements. Craig Futterman at the University of Chicago Law School has been involved in police reform efforts for decades.
CRAIG FUTTERMAN: We’ve seen resistance, not just from the line officers, but from Chicago Police leadership to the kinds of changes and reorienting of what the fundamental job of policing is and what it looks like.
YOUSEF: Futterman and his students represent community groups in a federal civil rights consent decree that took effect in 2019. They have the power, through a federal court, to help shape and enforce Chicago Police Department policies. Futterman is worried that the department hasn’t learned from its mistakes in 2020. He was alarmed to hear about how it’s been preparing for next week’s convention.
FUTTERMAN: The police department decided, we’re going to put together a whole new set of policies, the focus of which was on mass arrest of people at protest.
YOUSEF: In its original format, this policy contemplated the use of canines on crowds. It also allowed for kettling, a controversial practice where police surround protesters and don’t allow them to leave. The department started training officers on these policies before soliciting public comment as is required under the consent decree. The department did not provide anyone for an interview with NPR.
Spencer Fomby is a retired police officer. He’s now with the National Tactical Officers Association. Fomby says best practices with crowd management now discourage mass arrests. He says, instead, officers should be acting more surgically.
SPENCER FOMBY: They should be able to identify those people who are engaged in criminal activity and hopefully communicate to people in the crowd to deter that type of activity. And if that doesn’t work, take some type of intervention that is specific to the people who are committing criminal acts.
YOUSEF: Fomby says this is a more dynamic style of policing. Instead of forming a wall to face protesters, for instance, it’s moving within the crowd, watching what individuals are doing and engaging in dialogue to deescalate tensions. More than five decades later, the shadow of 1968’s convention still lingers. But many in Chicago are hopeful that this time, the world will see a different story play out.
Odette Yousef, NPR News, Chicago.
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