Across the country, police murders of Blacks continue, as do prosecutors’ failure to charge the killers; if they do charge them, acquittal or a hung jury is the result.

Protests also continue. One of the most sustained and massive series has occurred in Chicago, beginning in late 2015. These demonstrations have resulted in a crisis in the city’s police department and the Democratic Party city government and have threatened to topple mayor Rahm Emanuel.

The protests are a result of the murder of African American teenager Laquan McDonald by officer Jason Van Dyke in October 2014. At the time, the official police version of events was that McDonald lunged at the cop with a knife, and the officer shot in self-defence.

There was video footage of the murder on a security camera at a nearby Burger King. According to the manager, police showed up and deleted 86 minutes of the video.

There were three witnesses to the murder. Police interrogated them for hours, threatening them and demanding that they recant. When the witnesses refused, the cops fabricated eyewitness accounts.

There was also a video of the killing taken from the police car’s dashboard. Records recently obtained by Chicago NBC show that Emanuel’s office knew about the video by December 2014 at the latest. The cops and City Hall did everything they could to prevent the video’s release.

In April 2015, the city administration settled with McDonald’s family. It agreed to pay $5 million in damages – a virtual admission of guilt – but with the stipulation that the video remain secret.

But in late November, a judge ordered the video to be released, and it was shown on national TV. The police story was proven to be a deliberate fabrication. McDonald is shown many metres away from the police, and walking away from them, not lunging at them. Officer Van Dyke, who had just arrived at the scene, is shown getting out of his car and six seconds later beginning to fire at McDonald.

McDonald is hit by the first two bullets and crumples to the ground. Van Dyke fires 14 more shots.

The Black community and many others, led by Black Lives Matter, exploded in mass protest. Trying to save face, prosecutors immediately charged Van Dyke with murder.

Emanuel, seeking to deflect blame, fired the chief of police and the head of the Police Review Authority. But this fooled nobody. The protests now demanded the resignation of Emanuel and the city council.

In the midst of the protests there was a new police atrocity. The day after Christmas, two unarmed African Americans were killed: 19-year-old college student Quintonio LaGrier, and Bettie Jones, a 55-year-old mother of five and activist in Action Now, a grassroots community organisation.

Quintonio’s mother, Janet Cooksey, spoke of her grief at a press conference. “Seven times my son was shot. No mother should have to bury her child … The police are supposed to serve us and protect us, and yet they take the lives. What’s wrong with that picture? It’s a badge to kill?”

Jones’ cousin, Evelyn Jennings, challenged Emanuel: “You meet me at City Hall. I want my cousin’s death avenged. You killed her in cold blood. Emanuel, call your boys. Chicago police belong to you. Now, you vigilante, you’ve been sending the Chicago police out to kill, to do nothing but kill. Get ‘serve and protect’ off of them [police] cars and write ‘We kill’ – because that’s your mission, you lying demon”.

The anger expressed in the protests has been building for decades. Chicago is the most segregated city in the United States, and that’s saying a lot, given that the country is more segregated today than in the mid-1970s.

Emanuel has continued policies that have resulted in vast income inequity for Blacks, job and housing discrimination, lack of access to food and inferior schools and health care. After he took office, the mayor ordered the largest public school closures in US history, primarily in Latino and Black neighbourhoods.

No wonder his approval ratings have fallen to 18 percent; we can only applaud if he is removed. But the deeper problem of institutional racism remains. Black Lives Matter protests will continue.