Christopher Watts was on a mission to hand out “Kindness Cards” at the Black Lives Matter rally.
“I was specifically there to pass out job information and kindness cards. You can see that in the Walgreens bag I was holding on to. It’s something I do regularly. It’s apart of the the Kindness Campaign.”
In a recent events of Black men being killed by police officers, the Black Lives Matter (Chicago) group took to the streets to protest police brutality. Watts, who is the Bridge Job Developer for POAH, went where the crowd was to pass out useful literature and kindness cards. His Facebook page has over 30,000 likes and is full of resources for the community. Watts was doing his job. He still doesn’t know why he was arrested.
“They started yelling at me and pulling on me. One of them was choking me and then the crowd came over and it turned into a melee.”
Watts was detained for 8 hours. He received a city ordinance for violating traffic although he was on the other side of the protest and was standing on the sidewalk. In a video taken by an onlooker you can hear someone asking “Why are you arresting him, he didn’t do anything?”. Afterwards the crowd chants “Let him go!”
Watts doesn’t want his story to take away from the Black Lives Matter agenda. However, he remains confused as to why he was detained. Chicago Police we must do better.
Do you think Watts was arrested because he’s Black?
Chicago Unheard
Latest posts by Chicago Unheard (see all)
- CPS High School and Academic Cut Scores for the 2022-23 School Year - April 4, 2022
- Q&A with Dr. Allison Arwady (Video) - January 11, 2022
- The Role of the Media in Education Reporting – from the Eight Black Hands podcast - October 26, 2021