Chicago police shoot and kill Joshua Beal leading to clash between BLM activists and pro-police protesters
Joshua Beal, 25, was in Chicago on Saturday for a funeral for his young cousin who died recently due to gun violence.
Beal was driving in the funeral procession of vehicles when he, a firefighter and 2 plainclothes police officers got into a traffic dispute.
A firefighter’s insistence that funeral vehicles were blocking an emergency fire lane and causing delays sparked an initial argument
Ultimately, one of the police sergeant fatally shot Beal
Chicago police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said Beal had a gun and refused to drop it.
Beal’s family said that, not only did he legally own the gun, he did not fire at the officer or firefighter.
She said the dispute was sparked by plainclothes police officers who cut off her daughter’s vehicle from the procession and pointed a gun at her daughter, without identifying themselves as officers.
Hours later local Black Lives Matter activists came out to support Beals’s family. Pro-police protesters in the area responded by threatening Beal’s family and activists with violence. Video and witness accounts reveal things got really ugly and racist.