Chicago high-school students used permission to take part in nationwide gun control protests this week as an excuse to destroy a local Walmart.
Police are analyzing surveillance video of a Thursday rampage in Chicago’s South Side that led to a Walmart being turned upside down. Roughly 40 to 60 kids from Simeon Career Academy exploited the day of activism by looting and destroying property.
“We worked too hard to get to try and get these national retailers here in our community, and this doesn’t help us. It makes no sense to tear up the community, which you call home,” Alderman Howard Brookins of Chicago’s 21st Ward told a local Fox affiliate.
Amateur footage posted to social media includes on officer looking at the damage while exclaiming, “Oh my God. Look how they tore up our store!”
“We are very concerned by these allegations and we are reviewing the matter,” a Chicago Public Schools spokesperson said in a statement.
A police spokesperson told the station that students who are identified will likely face misdemeanor charges.
Chicago tallied 3,457 shooting victims and 650 murders in 2017.
Thursday’s protests, however, were in response to the Feb. 14 mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 dead.
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