CPD Squad Car Blasts 'Sweet Home Alabama' At West Side 'Black Lives Matter' Protest
By Chuck Sudo in News on Dec 8, 2014 5:00PM
With protests of the Michael Brown and Eric Garner grand jury decisions happening across the country, the last thing some police departments would want to do is antagonize demonstrators. But that seems to be exactly what Chicago Police did at a "Black Lives Matter" protest on the West Side Saturday afternoon. Video taken at the Garfield Park protests shows a squad car following demonstrators playing Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" from its PA system.
"Sweet Home Alabama," like Bruce Springsteen's "Born in the USA" has been co-opted over the decades by conservatives and bigots as a jingoistic rallying cry, although the members of Skynyrd have long defended the song as anything but a segregationist jingle (a stance corroborated by music critics). Still, blasting it from a squad car at a march protesting the deaths of unarmed black men by police comes across as tone deaf, at the very least and worst, a callous show of disdain for the protesters.
Chicago Police Department spokesman Martin Maloney said the incident is "under investigation."