"Sixteen shots and a cover up!"
It's a familiar chant for protesters taking to the streets on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. They are protesting what they say is too light a sentence for too serious a crime.
"Our lives matter, all lives matter," demonstrator Joseph Williams said. "It's not right and it's not just for someone to shoot a young man 16 times and you do six years which will really only be half of that--so it's no justice."
So protesters made up of representatives from more than a dozen organizations gathered at 51st Street and Martin Luther King Drive. They planned to march south and demand changes be made to a system they say showed its bias by acquitting three cops accused of covering up the Laquan McDoanld shooting and giving the shooter, Jason Van Dyke, only 81 months in prison.
Frank Chapman is with the Chicago aLliance Against Racist and Political Repression.
"The reason there is no uprising in Chicago is because we haven’t organized one," he said. "It's time to organize an uprising. How many more of us do they need to kill before we get to this point."
But not everyone agrees that Judge Vincent Gaughan’s sentence was wrong.
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Activist Sharon Pena agrees with it, but says it needs to go further.
"Van Dyke got what he deserved," she said. "Frankly they need to see what made him do what he did. That means therapy, psychiatry."
Mental health resources say that should be brought to bear not only with Van Dyke, but that should be available in the community to stop situations like the one that lead to McDonald’s shooting.
"What the hell made him confront that many police with a three inch knife," Pena said.
