Justice for Rekia Boyd and the Launch of #SayHerName

On March 21, 2012, 22-year-old Black woman Rekia Boyd was hanging out with a group of friends near Douglas Park in the West Side neighborhood of Chicago. The group got into an argument with off-duty Chicago police detective Dante Servin, and allegedly a member of the group pointed a cell phone at Servin. Servin responded by firing shots at the group from his car, fatally shooting Rekia Boyd in the back of the head.

Nearly two years after Boyd’s killing, in November 2013, the state’s attorney’s office filed involuntary manslaughter against Servin. It took an additional year for the trial to begin. The trial itself was an anomaly, as Chicago police officers are seldom criminally charged for killing civilians. Nonetheless, three years after the shooting, in a bench trial (meaning there was no jury) Cook County judge Dennis Porter acquitted Servin of all charges—including involuntary manslaughter, reckless conduct, and reckless discharge of a firearm. Porter noted that the state’s attorney’s office undercharged Servin, because his intentional actions rose to the level of murder, not involuntary manslaughter. Moreover, double jeopardy protections prevent Servin from being retried on the appropriate murder charge.

In the month following Servin’s acquittal, BYP100 issued a national call to action for state violence against Black women, girls, and femmes that provoked action in at least 19 cities. This aligned with the African American Policy Forum’s #SayHerName report, and the local campaign for Boyd was subsumed under that banner. In Chicago, #SayHerName served as a catalyst for a campaign to fire Dante Servin for killing Rekia Boyd with impunity. Every month after that initial call to action, several Chicago-based organizations and collectives, such as Assata’s Daughters; Black Lives Matter Chicago; the Let Us Breathe Collective; and Women’s All Points Bulletin, organized people to attend police board meetings at Chicago police headquarters in order to demand that Servin be fired without a pension. Organizers gave testimony at the first board meeting and strategized on how to use disruptive power to speak up and out for Boyd, primarilily by shutting down board meetings and claiming that the board was illegitimate as an accountability body for police who murder Black people. But the matter would not go before the board for several months—not until an internal investigation recommended Servin be fired and a review by the superintendent endorsed the recommendation.

The Chicago campaign to fire Dante Servin was unprecedented in that no other killing by a police officer in the city of Chicago had resulted in a termination recommendation from both the police department’s investigative body and the police superintendent. Although Servin formally resigned two days before the evidentiary board hearing that would have terminated his position, it is likely that his resignation was influenced by the relentless organizing and direct pressure on Servin, the Chicago Police Department, and the oversight body. Servin was only the second police officer the Independent Police Review Authority (IPRA) recommended firing for a shooting since its inception in 2007. Servin’s decision to resign not only saved him the indignity of termination, but also saved his ability to collect his pension once he turned 50 years old in July 2018. His salary, as of December 31, 2015, was 97,044 dollars.

The relentless pressure from Rekia Boyd’s family, activists, and organizers contributed not only to Servin’s resignation, but also to the firing of then Chicago police superintendent Garry McCarthy and the defeat of then Cook County state’s attorney Anita Alvarez. Nationally, this campaign provided a banner for local work that highlights the impact of violence on women, girls, and femmes. The political education provided through the campaign via teach-ins and social media on the ways in which Black women, girls, and femmes experience state-sanctioned, intra-community, and intimate partner violence was invaluable. The direct action for the police murder of Rekia Boyd followed a long history of demands for police accountability in Chicago. From Citizens Alert to reparations for survivors of police torture, Chicago’s social movements have long resisted police violence and surveillance by refusing to let it go unchecked. This was the tip of the iceberg for major reckonings the city would face regarding police accountability.

The Killing of Laquan McDonald and the Coverup

On October 20, 2014, Black 17-year-old Laquan McDonald was fatally shot 16 times in a span of 15 seconds by former Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke. The Chicago Police Department alleged that McDonald was a threat and that the shooting was justified. A deputy chief in the department at the time said, “Officer Van Dyke fired his weapon in fear of his life when the offender, while armed with a knife, continued to approach and refused all verbal direction.” However, dash camera video contradicted this statement, documenting that Van Dyke was unprovoked and that McDonald was walking away as Van Dyke unloaded his gun into him. The false statement was one of many indications of a larger coverup by the Chicago Police Department and city leadership. In addition to the false statements made by Van Dyke and 10 other officers exaggerating the threat posed by McDonald, city administration, under the leadership of then-mayor, Rahm Emanuel, fought to conceal the dash cam footage of the murder. The City Council voted to approve a 5 million–dollar settlement to McDonald’s family, which included a confidentiality agreement to prevent the family from having the video released. However, activist William Calloway and journalist Brandon Smith used the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to access the video footage. A judge eventually ordered the city to release the police dash-cam video by November 24, 2015.

Hours before the release of the now-infamous dash-cam video—more than 400 days after the shooting—Cook County state’s attorney Anita Alvarez brought first-degree murder charges against Van Dyke. Once released, the footage elicited massive protests across the city of Chicago where “16 shots'' became a rallying cry. Ultimately, the cover up had significant political ramifications, including the firing of superintendent Garry McCarthy; the failed re-election campaign of Anita Alvarez; Rahm Emanuel’s decision not to run for re-election; and a federal investigation of the Chicago Police Department.

In January 2019, Van Dyke was sentenced to six years and nine months in prison following his conviction on second-degree murder and 16 counts of aggravated battery with a firearm—one count for every bullet fired into Laquan McDonald’s body. Van Dykewas released on February 3, 2022, after serving less than half of his sentence.

Abolitionist Futures: Beyond Cages and Accountability

Racist institutions in the United States, like the carceral system, are historically rooted in the oppression of Black people. The prison industrial complex can have lasting effects on not just incarcerated individuals, but on their families and communities as well. As Bella says in the film, “When people are serving time, their families are serving that time with them… That’s where my fight [for] abolition comes from.” Janaé similarly discusses how the incarceration of her uncle and other family members shaped her analysis of the criminal legal system and has been foundational to her abolitionist view.

Imprisonment, policing, and surveillance are all part of the prison industrial complex and comprise what is commonly understood as “public safety” within popular discourse. Abolition, though, sees the humanizing potential of creating safety networks outside of these historically racist systems. Unapologetic sheds light on the police abolition movement that aims to dismantle carceral systems and reframe what safety can look like when it is guided by and supported in the community. Throughout the film, we see both activists helping to generate a cultural shift and supporting education to help people reimagine our “justice” system. They ask a crucial question: Justice for whom? As Janaé says, “I really want my research grounded in how we can envision what safety looks like outside of [the racist prison] system.”

Abolitionist reforms chip away at policing and reduce its overall impact on communities of color. Campaigns to defund police, like Defund CPD, as well as moves like Minneapolis public schools severing ties with the Minneapolis Police Department and the subsequent City Council vote to completely disband its police force to invest in community-led public safety, are abolitionist strategies. Abolition is as much about dismantling what’s harmful as it is about building alternatives for addressing harm, violence, and punitive impulses in our everyday lives. Abolition is not only about restructuring society, but also about restructuring the ways we have all been trained to instinctively think about justice, punishment, and restorative possibilities for building healthy and sustainable communities.

Queering Activism: Intersectionality in Collective Liberation

Activism is an accessible entry point for people joining movements in that anyone can—and should—take action on behalf of things they care about. Activism can take many different forms. Activists attend rallies, make phone calls, cook and deliver meals, write letters, and speak out against injustice. Organizing takes things a step further;organizers understand that true power lies in people, relationships, and long-term strategies. Unapologetic depicts organizers in a “leader-full” space rather than one that highlights a few select activist leaders. Collective leadership can inspire new generations to organize in their communities.

The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and the Black Power Movement of the 1960s in the United States established the foundations of Black American organizing of today. The legacy continues in the 21st century with movements to improve the wellbeing of Black communities as a whole and to be more intentional about centering further marginalized groups within Black communities. A Black Queer Feminist lens, as represented in the film, allows us to see that liberation for all Black people can only be realized by centering the voices and experiences of historically silenced and vulnerable groups within Black communities, emphasizing those who are queer, trans, femme, poor, disabled, and undocumented. In the words of BYP100 founding director Charlene Carruthers, “Organizing by using the Black queer feminist lens calls for us to be individuals and to work collectively, with neither being at the expense of the other.”

It is important to recognize intersectionality within movements. During the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, activists like Bayard Rustin and Marsha P. Johnson were pushed to the sidelines due to their sexuality. The Stonewall Riots, led by Black and brown trans women, started the LGBTQ+ rights movement we know today. The Combahee River Collective, an organization in the 1970s formed by queer Black feminists, highlighted the intersectional necessity within movements for racial justice led by people of color with the release of their “Combahee River Collective Statement.” Movements are strongest when they are rooted in past teachings and in methods, stories, and solutions that center the leadership and experiences of those society deems most deviant and most undeserving of justice.