Black Lives Matter Protest Takes Over Downtown Chicago

Chicago, IL - A Black Lives Matter march protesting police brutality has shut down traffic on the Magnificent Mile Monday night.

Droves of people were marching down the city's most prominent shopping district.

A tweet from the Black Lives Matter group in Chicago shows an ongoing video of the protest, which included an image of one protester providing a one-finger salute to the camera.

No official arrests have been reported as of 8 p.m., but Twitter accounts have stated Chicago police took down an older woman on State Street, where a sit-in was planned.

Some traffic is moving northbound on the street, while the southbound side is flooded completely with protesters.

Other streets in The Loop have been affected as well. ABC-7 Chicago, which has provided overhead video of the ongoing protest via their Facebook and Twitter pages, reports streets have been crowded with protesters at the busy intersections of State-Lake, Dearborn-Wacker and others.

Protests have been the norm in Chicago and other large municipalities throughout the country since last week, when the nation was gripped by the police-involved shootings of Alton Sterling in Louisiana and Philando Castile in Minnesota.

Monday night's protest marks the second time in three days that Michigan Avenue has been "shut down."

While some vowed to overrun the Taste of Chicago on Saturday, the one-mile stretch just north of Wacker Drive became the eventual site for the bulk of that protest.