CHARLOTTE—Violence broke out in Charlotte, North Carolina for a second night on Wednesday as police confronted a repeat of clashes ignited by the fatal police shooting of a black man.
Riot police with helmets, batons and body armor clashed with protesters and fired tear gas as several hundred people taunted them in front of a hotel in the city center, according to Agence France Presse journalists at the scene.
Meanwhile, Chicago is to hire hundreds more police officers to help it combat a murder epidemic that has claimed more than 500 lives so far this year, the highest homicide rate of any major US city.
Police chief Eddie Johnson said Wednesday that 970 additional sworn personnel will be recruited over the next two years — the bulk of the positions being patrol officers and detectives.
Violence broke out Tuesday night after police shot to death Keith Lamont Scott, 43, in an apartment complex parking lot earlier in the day.
It was the latest in a series of fatal police shootings of black men that have left the African American community demanding law enforcement reforms and greater accountability.
Earlier on Wednesday evening, several hundred angry protesters, mostly African American, marched to the Charlotte police headquarters.
Some chanted “No Justice! No Peace!” while others banged on the door.
A young boy held a sign saying “My life matters.”
Mike Smith, 27, a marketing manager in Charlotte, said tension has been building among the local black community. “These tensions, they popped yesterday and this is the outcome,” he said.
“These added resources will make us better, and give us the capacity we need to address our crime problems across the city,” Chicago police chief Johnson told a news conference.
Johnson evaded questions of how the increase would be paid for in a city that has suffered chronic budget shortfalls, and recently hiked taxes and government fees to shore up its finances. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office has not yet outlined its fiscal plan.
Chicago already has a full-time police force of 12,656 sworn officers, many of whom have been asked to work overtime to increase staffing in short bursts in order to combat rising gun violence.
Johnson acknowledged that that strategy has taxed officers. “They’re not machines. We just can’t keep pushing and pushing,” he said.
By the end of 2018, the city plans to have a police force totaling 13,535 sworn positions.
The city has already recorded more than 500 murders in 2016 — a rate not seen since the 1990s, according to an analysis by the Chicago Tribune. (The city has not seen a force surge since the 1990s either, according to the police department.)
To make matters worse, the police department reportedly only solves about 30 to 40 percent of homicides, which are mostly fueled by gangs and the drug trade.
Meanwhile, the police department has been under scrutiny, facing a federal civil rights probe after the release of a video late last year showing a police officer fatally shooting unarmed 17-year-old Laquan McDonald. The officer who shot the teenager 16 times was charged with murder, and Johnson recommended that seven others be fired for covering up the crime.
Johnson this week implemented mandatory training to teach officers conflict de-escalation techniques, which he considers part of his strategy to increase community cooperation in solving crimes.
