4 protesters arrested outside Israeli consulate in Chicago

ChicagoDozens of pro-Palestinian protesters stormed a police barricade in a tense standoff with hundreds of officers outside the Israeli consulate on Tuesday during the second day of the Democratic National Convention.

Protesters chanted “Let them go!” as police handcuffed at least four people and led them away from the protest site. Officers with batons shouted “Move” and restricted the protesters to a street, preventing them from marching.

Some protesters set fire to an American flag on the street as a roll call vote for Vice President Kamala Harris was being held inside the United Center about 2 miles away. Some protesters carried Palestinian flags, while many others wore black and covered their faces.

As protesters regrouped and approached a line of riot police in front of the Chicago skyscraper that houses the Israeli consulate, a police officer shouted into a megaphone: “You are ordered to disperse immediately.” A woman at the front of the march responded from her own loudspeaker: “We are not afraid of you.”

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A man wearing a Chicago Bulls cap and a ski mask called on protesters to “shut down DNC,” using the convention’s acronym. The group, which is not part of the coalition of more than 200 organizations that held Monday’s protests, promoted Tuesday’s march with the slogan “Make it big like ’68,” a reference to the anti-Vietnam War protests that swept the city during the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

Dozens of Chicago police officers guarded the building and closed off most of the access points, leaving only one entrance open, which was also guarded by armed officers. Many of the stores in the building were closed. Martha Hill, a spokeswoman for the Metra commuter rail service, said service was operating without disruption.

Meanwhile, protest sites the night before remained calm. Thirteen people were arrested during Monday’s protests, most of them in connection with a “brief breach” of a security fence a short distance from the United Center, the convention site, Chicago’s police superintendent said.