Anti-violence protesters shut down inbound Dan Ryan: ‘The people won today’

While waiting for a bus at St. Sabina Church, Loraine Woods-Lewis became emotional thinking of her son who was murdered in 2013.

She saw Saturday morning’s controversial Dan Ryan protest as “the only way we can be heard.

“Things haven’t changed in five years,” Woods-Lewis said. “I’m here to make noise.”

MORE: Pfleger, Emanuel, Rauner and Cupich: The inside story of the Dan Ryan shutdown

Woods-Lewis made herself heard along with thousands of other protesters led by the Rev. Michael Pfleger, who pressured the Illinois State Police into shutting down inbound traffic on the city’s busiest expressway after officials tried to keep two lanes open to vehicles during his anti-violence protest.

“The people won today,” Pfleger said at the end of the march, which Chicago police said ended without any arrests or hospital transports. “Today we got their attention, now we want action.”

Some who marched had lost children, godchildren and grandchildren, nieces and nephews, friends and role models, and their absences — and the gun violence that took them — created holes in their communities, marchers said.

Protesters clutched signs bearing the faces of slain loved ones or emblazoned with slogans like “Demand justice.”

Protesters pour onto the Dan Ryan Expressway Saturday morning. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

1 of 27

Protesters pour onto the Dan Ryan Expressway Saturday morning. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

2 of 27

Protesters march on the inbound Dan Ryan Expressway. | Courtesy of ABC 7 – WLS Chicago

3 of 27

The Rev. Michael Pfleger and CPD Supt. Eddie Johnson march arm-in-arm. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

4 of 27

Protesters pour onto the Dan Ryan Expressway Saturday morning. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

5 of 27

Protesters march on the inbound Dan Ryan Expressway. | Courtesy of ABC 7 – WLS Chicago

6 of 27

Protesters pour onto the Dan Ryan Expressway Saturday morning. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

7 of 27

Protesters pour onto the Dan Ryan Expressway Saturday morning. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

8 of 27

Protesters pour onto the Dan Ryan Expressway Saturday morning. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

9 of 27

Protesters pour onto the Dan Ryan Expressway Saturday morning. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

10 of 27

Demonstrators pour onto the Dan Ryan Expressway Saturday morning. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

11 of 27

The Rev. Michael Pfleger leads protesters on the Dan Ryan. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

12 of 27

Demonstrators pour onto the Dan Ryan Expressway Saturday morning. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

13 of 27

Demonstrators pour onto the Dan Ryan Expressway Saturday morning. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

14 of 27

Demonstrators pour onto the Dan Ryan Expressway Saturday morning. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

15 of 27

Demonstrators pour onto the Dan Ryan Expressway Saturday morning. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

16 of 27

The Rev. Jesse Jackson marches alongside the Rev. Michael Pfleger. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

17 of 27

Chicago police and Illinois State Police prepare for the march. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

18 of 27

Demonstrators pour onto the Dan Ryan Expressway Saturday morning. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

19 of 27

Motorists watch the Dan Ryan protest. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

20 of 27

The Rev. Michael Pfleger and the Rev. Jesse Jackson talk with state police. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

21 of 27

Police Supt. Eddie Johnson: More black people are busted for marijuana possession because, “as a law enforcement agency, we go where the data tells us to go. The South Side and the West Side, which are primarily African-American, have more open-air drug markets.” | Ashlee Rezin / Sun-Times

22 of 27

Demonstrators pour onto the Dan Ryan Expressway Saturday morning. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

23 of 27

Demonstrators pour onto the Dan Ryan Expressway Saturday morning. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

24 of 27

Demonstrators pour onto the Dan Ryan Expressway Saturday morning. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

25 of 27

Demonstrators pour onto the Dan Ryan Expressway Saturday morning. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

26 of 27

People watch the march from a Dan Ryan overpass. | Ashlee Rezin/Sun-Times

27 of 27

The morning started with confusion and tension when Gov. Bruce Rauner’s office issued a statement claiming protest organizers had agreed to limit their march to the shoulder of the Dan Ryan allowing traffic to pass — a claim Pfleger called a “lie.”

State police — who have jurisdiction over the city’s expressways, and initially warned that they would arrest anyone who marches onto the Dan Ryan — said Saturday they would “accommodate the marchers and provide them with limited access.”

Before marchers stepped off, Chicago police officers stood at the ready on the 79th Street ramp, creating a human barrier to block protesters from oncoming traffic. Hundreds of marchers were bused from Pfleger’s St. Sabina Church to 79th Street ramp, and several thousand protesters spilled onto the expressway around 10:15 a.m.

RELATED: 31 bullets: A Chicago Sun-Times campaign to end gun violence

But 30 minutes in, the march ground to a halt near 76th Street as Pfleger, flanked by demonstrators and with the Rev. Jesse Jackson at his side, confronted the line of police, demanding troopers close down the remaining two inbound lanes for a full expressway shutdown.

Some protesters grew impatient, chanting “Shut it down!” while others danced to the rumblings of drums near the back of the group.

Aldermanic candidate Anthony Driver and another demonstrator threatened to force the closure of the two open lanes by breaking police barriers. They were warned they might be killed by a speeding car if they did so.

“They are killing us already!” Driver said. “There shouldn’t even be a negotiation. They knew we have been planning this march for over three weeks. These lanes should have already been shut down.”

For more than half an hour, Pfleger and other marchers helped pass out water between talks with police, before state police agreed to shut down all inbound lanes for the march about 11:30 a.m.

Afterward, Pfleger credited CPD Supt. Eddie Johnson with helping force the issue, saying Johnson “stood up to the state police to let them know it was now a matter of safety.”

It wasn’t clear who made the final call to close all traffic, but Rauner sent out an angry tweet calling the shutdown “unacceptable.”

MORE: Rahm slams Rauner for Dan Ryan shutdown tweet

Johnson then got involved in the protest himself, marching arm-in-arm with Pfleger and Jackson, as the protest continued peacefully toward the intersection of Marquette Road and State Street.

In all, the inbound Dan Ryan was entirely shut down for a little over an hour before the rally was completed and traffic reopened about 12:40 p.m.

In the weeks leading up to the shutdown, Pfleger and protesters faced threats of arrest and pleas from police officials to not march on the Dan Ryan, one of the city’s main arteries. Johnson had joined ISP Director Leo Schmitz in calling on Pfleger to abandon plans, saying they had to to pull 200 officers out of violence-plagued neighborhoods to provide support along the march route.

Pfleger rejected calls to change plans.

“Our plans are exactly what we’ve been saying for several weeks,” Pfleger said. “We’ve come here to interrupt business as usual. To let people know that we are here to disturb the comfortable. I’m sorry for the inconvenience, but children are dying.”

Rauner spokeswoman Patty Schuh released a statement early Saturday saying “a comprehensive plan to allow controlled access to the shoulder of the Dan Ryan Expressway for a peaceful protest against Chicago’s violence was negotiated and approved by all stakeholders.

DAN RYAN PROTEST COVERAGE

Despite police warning, Rahm Emanuel says let Pfleger’s marchers onto Dan Ryan

Cardinal Cupich on Pfleger’s Dan Ryan shutdown: ‘I encourage them to be bold’

Father Pfleger, protesters threatened with arrest ahead of Dan Ryan protest

EDITORIAL: The logic and anger behind stopping traffic on the Dan Ryan

“Our primary concern is — and remains — the safety of the marchers, motorists and people of Chicago. We want their voices to be heard, not more senseless loss of life,” said Schuh, who claimed the agreement was reached Thursday. “We are taking every step necessary to ensure public safety and free speech. Those who choose to ignore the agreed-to boundaries of the planned march will face legal consequences and the dangers of an open expressway.”

Pfleger fired back at the governor’s office as marchers took to the expressway.

“The governor is lying. So we came out to make sure people know that we did not agree to that,” Pfleger said. “There was no agreement. The governor called yesterday and asked us if we would go on the shoulder of the road and I said absolutely not.”

Police officials eventually relented and closed off all inbound traffic for “crowd and traffic safety,” Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi tweeted.

“We had clear parameters that allowed the protestors to be heard while respecting law and order,” Rauner tweeted. “Instead, they chose instead to cause chaos . . . I am calling on the Mayor to take swift and decisive action to put an end to this kind of chaos.”

Mayor Rahm Emanuel fired back with a tweet of his own, saying it was “a peaceful protest” and urging Rauner to “delete your account.”

“The mayor’s hope is that today’s march may make someone realize they shouldn’t pick up a gun to settle a dispute, and if that happens the peaceful march the governor called ‘chaos’ will unquestionably be worth it,” Emanuel spokesman Matt McGrath said in an email.

Rauner later commended authorities on a “great piece of community police work today by ISP and CPD.”

Pfleger said now the youth want meetings “with the governor, the mayor, and all candidates running for those two offices to hear the plans to equal the unequal playing fields of the South and West sides of Chicago.”