On an April afternoon in 2017, 35-year-old Vairrun Strickland came to the intersection of 63rd and Ashland in Englewood with dozens of other people wearing black T-shirts and brandishing green, red, and black Black Liberation flags. As part of New Era Chicago, a community service and black empowerment group, Strickland and the others were there to clean up the neighborhood and mingle with residents. A firefighter with the Markham Fire Department who grew up in Englewood, he’d helped organize similar cleanup outings in other south- and west-side neighborhoods.
It’s unclear why more police officers arrived at the scene then, but within minutes an altercation ensued that ended with Strickland and several others arrested. Later, CPD would claim that New Era members started the fight by not getting out of the road when asked to do so by officers. (The department declined to comment for this story because of pending litigation related to the incident.)
Another officer tells the women: “If you’re gonna obstruct traffic, this is what happens.”
New Era Detroit’s video of the melee also shows footage of the cleanup. One man appears to give instructions to the group before they fan out through the neighborhood:
Strickland was worried that the charges would put his job in jeopardy, though he had the support of his supervisors in Markham. He fought the case tooth and nail, he said, because he believed that being convicted of resisting a police officer would probably result in an automatic termination from the fire department. He knew he’d be filing a lawsuit too.
