18-year-old Chicago Activist Miracle Boyd said that an officer knocked out her front tooth during a violent encounter with police on Friday night. Boyd was attending a protest at Grant Park when the encounter was captured on video.
“The police officer came up to me, and he smacked the phone out of my hand, and it hit me in the mouth,” she said.
“They were macing everyone. I was trying to get footage of the police viciously attacking on people,” she added.
Miracle Boyd says she demands that the protesters' rights to free speech & safety be protected but police do the opposite of protect. She & @GKMC18 stay committed to restorative justice – Miracle calls on the CPD assaulter to make amends + no longer be employed as police. pic.twitter.com/guXvHUOTlK
— Indivisible Chicago-South Side (@IndivChi_South) July 20, 2020
Demonstrators gathered in the park to express their grievances with the city’s Christopher Columbus statue. Boyd said that he was upset that the officer “valued a supremacist statue over” her safety.
Chicago Police Superintendent David Brown responded to complaints from the protests on Monday.
“Criminal agitators pelted fireworks, frozen water bottles and other projectiles at our officers, injuring 49 of them. This is unacceptable and we cannot stand for this,” he said.
A number of videos show citizens being hit with batons and other weapons. In the aftermath of the incident, more than 20 complaints were filed.
