Chicago, IL – 100 cars surrounded the Thompson Center in Chicago’s Loop, April 20, during Governor J.B. Pritzker’s daily press briefing on COVID-19. The caravan protest was held to demand Pritzker free police torture survivor Gerald Reed and all vulnerable prisoners at Cook County Jail, Illinois Department of Corrections prisons and ICE detention centers in Illinois – especially those over 60, those with medical conditions, and those who the governor’s own Torture Commission has already confirmed are victims of police torture and therefore wrongfully convicted.

In the lead car of the caravan, Frank Chapman of the Chicago Alliance Against Racist and Political Repression, stated, “We're here because Governor Pritzker is moving too slow. Prisons and jails are death traps and we are demanding that the governor free them all and free Gerald Reed cause he never should have been in there.”

This action was organized by the Chicago Alliance, Black Lives Matter-Chicago, the Chicago Torture Justice Center, Southsiders Organized for Unity and Liberation (SOUL), and the families of police torture survivors and prisoners at Cook County Jail, juvenile detention, Illinois Department of Corrections prisons, and ICE detention centers in Illinois.

Aislinn Pulley of BLM-Chicago explained, “Gerald Reed is the face of thousands of other vulnerable prisoners and ICE detainees in Illinois who need to be released, including the immune-compromised, the elderly and the many others whose torture and wrongful convictions the governor’s own Torture Commission has confirmed.”

Kobi Guillory of the Chicago Alliance said, “Maybe Governor Pritzker thought he could ignore the cries of incarcerated people who are afraid for their lives in the death traps of prisons and jails, but he must hear the horns and chants and calls of the hundreds of people surrounding the Thompson Center right now!”

#ChicagoIL #OppressedNationalities #PeoplesStruggles #AfricanAmerican #PoliceBrutality #RacismInTheCriminalJusticeSystem #PoliticalPrisoners #Antiracism #PoliticalRepression #CAARPR #GeraldReed #FreeThemAll