Dec. 06--Sitota Ryan shivered in the morning cold, her eyes wandering as she tried to explain why the 7-year-old was out protesting police brutality.
"I don't know," she began as she stood near her mother, who organized the small demonstration down the street from the Near North Montessori School where her daughters attend.
"It's kind of. . ." Sitota began again. "Sometimes I learn more things when I protest."
She, her 12-year-old sister Aidan and their mother Sarah joined about 30 children and adults for a brief protest on the North Side Friday morning, much smaller and calmer than the crowd of hundreds that shut down Lake Shore Drive the night before.
But their feelings were just as strong, insisted Sarah Ryan, who brought her three children to last week's Loop protests after a Missouri grand jury decided not to indict a white police officer for fatally shooting Michael Brown, an unarmed black suspect.
The gathering Friday morning was to protest a similar case, the death of an unarmed black man, Eric garner, by a white police officer in New York City. A grand jury earlier this week declined to indict the officer.
Sarah Ryan said she believes partaking in peaceful protests helps form the world people live in. "Doing this has made me more aware of the privileges I have," she said.
Aidan Ryan said she believes protests are a good way to tell people when something isn't okay. "Everyone should be treated the same," she said.
"I think it's sad," she said of the deaths of Garner and Brown.
Her sister Sitota added, "I think it's nice to see how people care about black lives. I think it's important."
Later in the day, about 30 people gathered in the Loop to protest the New York grand jury decision.
Protesters repeatedly shouted in unison Eric Garner's last words -- "I can't breathe!" -- as they rallied at 1 E. Jackson and marched west. Many carried signs, including one that read "The blood is on your hands," as police tried to contain them to the sidewalk.
Demonstrators near the front tried to enter the street as they ventured south on Clark but a police official shouted "lock them down," prompting a wall of nearly 12 bicycle cops to thwart the attempt.
Police told protesters via megaphone that they were only allowed to walk on the sidewalk. They headed north on Dearborn at Jackson, many holding their hands up, alluding to the killing of Brown.
Protesters stopped briefly at Clark and Adams streets, where oranizer Elijah Obasanya, 20, told the crowd: "The city of Chicago needs to realize it needs to reform its system of policing. Each city needs to realize they need to reform policing, but that's only a fraction of the problem."
The beginning crowd of nearly 30 people swelled into roughly 100 as they headed south on State Street at Madison. Some onlookers put their hands up in solidarity, while one woman along the winding route yelled, "Don't shoot!"
After more than an hour of shouting as they took a winding route through the Loop, protesters rallied at the Christmas market at Daley Plaza.
Several protesters passed around a megaphone to lead chants, including Valerie Johnson, a DePaul professor, who called out "Silence is complicity!"
"If there is an oppression anywhere there's oppression I can be subject to," she said in an interview. "I want to offer a solution. Nothing has ever been done in America without demand. That's why I am out here. I'm demanding."
