Crime & Safety
UPDATE: Poet, Four Others, Arrested After Night of Unrest Over Release of Laquan McDonald Shooting Video
Felony police assault charges against 22-year-old poet and co-organizer of Tuesday's protests dropped.
An aspiring poet and one of the co-organizers of Tuesday’s protests following the release of the Laquan McDonald shooting video was arrested along with four others after a night of unrest.
Malcolm X London, 22, of the 4900 block of West Huron Street, Chicago, was charged with felony aggravated battery of a police officer.
Chicago Police said in a news release that London was positively identified as striking an on-duty police officer near the 100 block of East Balbo Drive, around 7:25 p.m., about 90 minutes or so into Tuesday’s demonstrations. The officer was treated and released with non-life threatening injuries.
Demonstrators were turned back by police in the area near Michigan and Balbo when a scuffle reportedly broke out between bike cops and the protestors.
Witnesses said that London was standing on the sidewalk when he was “snatched up” by police.
Tuesday’s protest march continued into early Wednesday, when demonstrators briefly shut down an entrance ramp to the Eisenhower Expressway, was organized by the Black Youth Project 100.
A bio on London’s website touts him as an “internationally recognized Chicago poet, educator and activist.” He also sits on Steppenwolf Theater’s Young Adult Council and won the Louder A Bomb Youth Poetry Slam in 2011.
Several of the city’s black alderman are demanding his release from jail. Prosecutors dropped the charges against London during his bond hearing Wednesday afternoon at the Leighton Criminal Courts Building at 26th and California.
A fund has been set up for activists arrested during the demonstrations at the Chicago Community Bond Fund.
Four others were also arrested in Tuesday’s protests, including three charged with misdemeanor resisting a police officer, the Chicago Tribune said.
A Murietta, CA, man, Dan M. Vanriper, 38, was charged with one felony count of possession of a controlled substance, one misdemeanor count of unlawful use of a Taser, and another misdemeanor count for possession of deadly weapon (knife).
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