Anti-violence protesters who blocked Lake Shore Drive are threatening to shut down access to O’Hare International Airport.
Rev. Gregory Livingston organized the Lake Shore Drive protest to ask Mayor Rahm Emanuel to help all of Chicago with gun violence.
"If the mayor doesn’t respond to the needs of his own citizens then we need to go and possibly disrupt airport traffic," Livingston said.
Mayoral candidate and Emanuel’s former police chief, Garry McCarthy, supports the protesters but says the city should’ve blocked them from Lake Shore Drive.
“People are protesting because they don’t have access to the mayor," he said. "They don’t have access to vent what’s going on."
By allowing the protests onto Lake Shore Drive, McCarthy says the law was broken.
"The city, not just the police, facilitated the illegal activity of blocking Lake Shore Drive by using sand trucks and snow plows to stop traffic," he said.
Local
The city also supported Rev. Michael Pfleger’s protests on the Dan Ryan Expressway this summer, so Livingston wants the city to allow protests on the Kennedy to O’Hare even if it impacts flights.
“That’s more the mayor’s worry than mine," he said. "He’s the one who’s going to have to talk to his friends who are flying in to make multi-million dollar deals."
There's no timeline for the O’Hare protest.
The mayor's office did not immediately respond to NBC 5's request for comment Friday night.
