From [HERE] National civil-rights leader Rev. Jesse Jackson has suddenly become a frequent visitor to Lake County, where he said he will establish a new Rainbow PUSH Coalition office in North Chicago.
During his second trip to that town in two days, Jackson on Saturday helped lead a march and rally protesting police brutality in the Nov. 6 arrest and ensuing death of Darrin “Dagwood” Hanna. Hanna died in November 2011, a week after he was beaten and repeatedly shocked with a stun gun at the hands of North Chicago police.
About 300 men, women and children carried signs and chanted “No justice, no peace” as they walked the 12 blocks from 17th Street and Park Avenue — near where Hanna, 45, was arrested inside his apartment on a domestic battery charge — to City Hall on Lewis Avenue.
“All Americans deserve equal protection under the law,” Jackson said. “Whether it’s Trayvon (Martin, killed recently) in Sanford (Florida) or Darrin in North Chicago, we want justice for all God’s children.”
Jackson, founder and president of the Chicago-based Rainbow PUSH Coalition, which works for social and political justice, said he will return for yet another rally on Monday, when North Chicago Mayor Leon Rockingham is expected to announce a decision on the fate of the seven officers who told state-police investigators that a belligerent Hanna had to be subdued.
“We’ll march to the city council meeting and we’ll stay until something happens,” Jackson said. “We’ll occupy City Hall all day and all night, like Darrin occupies the graveyard.”
Hanna’s family and their attorneys filed a federal wrongful-death suit on Dec. 13, alleging excessive force.
State Rep. Rita Mayfield from Waukegan, who is a cousin of Hanna, told the crowd, “He begged for his life — we have it on audio tape. I don’t care what you’ve done. I don’t care what your background is. Everyone deserves justice.”
A Lake County Coroner’s autopsy found that trauma, and physical and Taser restraint were contributing factors to Hanna’s death. But reviews by the coroner and Lake County State’s Attorney Mike Waller — the latter who found the police used reasonable force — dovetailed in the assessment that Hanna would have survived the arrest had he not abused drugs and neglected his health.
Jackson urged people of “good conscience” from different racial and ethnic backgrounds to live and work in harmony and to commit to non-violence as a tactic for social change. He urged them to vote. He said the justice system in Lake County needs reform.
“We want to be able to trust our government, trust the police, trust the prosecutors and the judges,” he said. “They have to earn our trust.”
Jackson said the coalition he founded in 1971 is bringing “a Lake County rainbow” that will help fight foreclosures and work for access to good jobs and good schools.
“We want good day care and jobs on the front end, not jail and welfare on the back end,” he said.
The former presidential candidate (in 1984 and 1988) has called on the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate numerous allegations of excessive police force lodged against the North Chicago Police Department in the last five years.
Also speaking during the rally was Juan Rivera, who was convicted three times in Lake County and served nearly 20 years in prison for the murder of a Waukegan girl — until a federal court cleared him, in January, based on DNA evidence.