In the Middle of It

I tuned into AM-780 WBBM tonight at 10:18 p.m. just to catch the traffic report. It was a little scratchy, but I’m astonished and thankful that I can pick up Chicago’s best AM radio news station down in Huntsville, Alabama.

“You’re going to avoid the South Loop, as protesters have shut down streets in the vicinity of Michigan and Roosevelt,” the reporter said.

I’d been following the story since it began developing this afternoon. Police were pressured to release dash cam video showing the shooting of Laquan McDonald from last year. Once they did, protesters immediately began marching downtown.

I heard about the story, but it never really sunk in until today. Watching the dash cam video. Watching Jason van Dyke jump out of his police vehicle and shoot McDonald, and seeing him fall limp to the ground. Watching puffs of smoke carry the life out of his barely moving body as bullets hit him. And then watching even more shots hit him seconds after he’d been laying on the ground. He was struck 16 times in all. It was shocking. It was appalling. It was horrendous. No wonder thousands were protesting in the streets of Chicago Tuesday night.

That’s what most of us reacted to today. Context or not, it was hard to watch. Even knowing that McDonald had a knife, and was suspected of breaking into cars in the Archer Heights neighborhood, and allegedly slashed the tires of a police car and was wielding the knife at the time he was shot, even taking that all into consideration, it was tragic to watch.

Seeing that I was in Northern Maine at the time of the incident, I didn’t pay too much attention to it.

Only now do I fully realize how close to home this hits.

I’ve been to that Burger King on 41^st and Pulaski at that very hour. It’s two neighborhoods over from mine.

I went to DePaul University for four years. I walked those very streets that protesters are marching on hundreds of times.

I know a lot of cops in Chicago.

Friend’s and relatives’ parents who are cops, buddies who are becoming cops, old football coaches who are cops, cops who I ran into in my days running around Midway when I was a kid.

I know a lot of black folks in Chicago.

People I’ve become good friends with while going to school or working at the ballpark. I can’t imagine how they’re reacting, what kind of outrage they’re having when watching the video of the shooting, and seeing what’s going on with the protests.

I know a lot of liberals in Chicago.

People who’ve lived there all their lives, and people who haven’t. How they’re disgusted with police conduct, the mayor’s reaction, and how long its taken to bring this incident to light and hold responsible everyone involved.

I know a lot of kids on the South Side I grew up with.

People who are defending the police’s actions without a second thought. Some might be even ordering “16 shots” at the bars Wednesday night, tongue in cheek.

There’s so many conflicting thoughts going through my mind as I watched periscopes of the event all night. Live looks into the heart of the protesting crowds. People face-to-face with the very police department they were up in arms against.

My heart was being tugged in so many different directions. It felt like a whirlwind of issues and images was flying around me, and I was stuck right in the middle of it all.

And that’s exactly where I wanted to be.

I wanted to see the stone-cold look on the cops’ faces as they stood staunchly, in the face of angry mobs, trying to preserve peace and order in the midst of people berating them, mocking them, yelling at them insults and agitations. I wanted to see the people who were protesting peacefully and with dignity, the ones you wouldn’t see being carted off into paddy wagons or being shown on the TV news. People who were voicing their opinion with respect for everyone, even the very organization they were protesting.

I’m reminded of one of my heroes, Jean Shepherd (the man who brought us A Chirstmas Story). He participated in the 1963 March on Washington. In his recounting of that historic day, he prefaces the event by reminding us that you don’t know how it was unless you were actually there.

“Forget it, it wasn’t the way you think it was,” he said.

He talks about how reporters up in the grandstands at that march, standing next to officials, or safely behind police lines, didn’t capture the essence of the event.

That monologue has always stuck with me. News reports will never tell the full story unless you hear it from someone who is embedded inside the event, in the thick of it, shoulder to shoulder with the protesters, the police.

I wanted to be there to relay everything that is going on exactly as it was happening. I know what my true feeling is on the mater, but that’s not important. That’s not why I became a journalist.

I want to capture what’s really going on. I want you to have context, while looking at what’s happening now, and see it from the other side, from the inside, from the wayside, from his side, from her side. I want empathy. I want understanding. I want peace. I want voices to be heard. I want justice. I want mercy. I want everything. I want nothing. But in the end, I really don’t think it matters what I want. It’s what we want.