Incoming DePaul student assaulted by police speaks out against violence
Miracle Boyd, 18, an activist with GoodKids MadCity, hugs a supporter as she speaks during a press conference in front of a statue of President George Washington near East 51st Street and South King Drive, describing a recent violent encounter she had with Chicago Police, Monday morning, July 20, 2020. Boyd was participating in a Friday evening protest against a statue of Christopher Columbus in Grant Park, when she alleges she had several teeth knocked out by a Chicago Police officer. (Ashlee Rezin Garcia/Chicago Sun-Times via AP)
The protest for Black and Indigenous Youth was winding down when fireworks went off and screams billowed from the crowd. Miracle Boyd, a 17-year-old activist with Good Kids Mad City, immediately began streaming on her Facebook as she saw a man being arrested by Chicago Police on July 17.
Boyd, an incoming freshman at DePaul, was on a mission to get the man’s contact information to connect him with legal help when two police officers approached her. One of the officers punched her in the face, knocking out at least one of her teeth.
“So, he punched me and I’m just right there holding my mouth and I looked on the ground for my phone. He took it and just, you know, walked away,” Boyd said.
Boyd said that she doesn’t like how the protests have been distorted and perceived as non-peaceful.
“I just hate that the message got complacent and people just started saying what they want to say, and say that the protest was not peaceful and that anybody who was hurt got what they deserved because police were being attacked,” Boyd said. “I think that is definitely unfair because I did not come to attack police and anything like that, I came to have a good time and protest and go back home.”
Since the protest, Boyd has received both support and harassment on social media. She said after the first few hate messages she received, she decided to stop looking at them. If she didn’t look at them, she said, they were imaginary.
“I want to say that they don’t like me because I speak the truth, and like, because of what I was saying on video, they want to use the language that I was using against me,” Boyd said. “But at the same time, me expressing my hate was the only powerful tool I had at the time.”
In support of Boyd, DePaul’s Black Student Union released a statement on Instagram on Saturday, July 18.
“Miracle, we are so sorry for what you’ve had to endure,” the statement read. “We are sorry that the unjust forces that rule this city have personally hurt you. We vow to protect you, and every Black student not only at DePaul but in our community here. We are here to listen to you, and to work with you so that this may not occur again.”
The statement also requests that DePaul cut its ties with the Chicago Police Department. The organization criticizes DePaul’s response to these requests and asks that Provost Salma Ghanem deliver a proper response.
“We are not going to allow for most of us to struggle financially, emotionally, and even academically, as officers from CPD are allowed to get almost their entire tuition refunded,” the statement continued.
Keith Norward, president of DePaul’s Black Student Union, spoke about the organization’s call for DePaul to separate itself from Chicago police.
“We’re telling them that we’re not feeling safe and then still continuing that after we see what happens to Miracle Boyd,” Norward said.
DePaul stands by its June 9 statement that expresses support for the Black Lives Matter movement and that education programs provide the opportunity for change. The university also stands by the statement made by Provost Salma Ghanem on June 22.
When asked about President Donald Trump’s intent to send federal agents to Chicago, Boyd denounced the action.
“I don’t know what he thought bringing feds and more police and then having police on their bikes… that does not do anything,” Boyd said. “You can’t combat gun violence with gun violence.”
Boyd is not pressing charges against the officer who assaulted her but has decided to sue the city of Chicago. Instead, she is asking to participate in a peace circle with him so that he can repair the harm that he has caused.
“Restorative justice is a very impactful decision and restorative justice actually helps people make amends with the people who’ve been hurt,” Boyd said.
A GoFundMe created to support Boyd after the incident has raised over $83,000. Boyd has decided to donate $50,000 to charity.
She is still developing her donation list but plans to donate to Black and Brown businesses, therapy services for Black and Brown girls, Good Kids Mad City Peacebook Campaign, and to her peers’ education pathway for college.
Anna • Aug 25, 2020 at 1:57 pm
I saw the videos. She was antagonizing violence. What can possibly be the outcome when you push yourself in the face of Police Officers yelling and screaming and antagonizing/provoking. Police are not there to be your friend when you are there to break the law, yell and scream, call names… You come with anger in your heart, you just might get it back and no one but you is accountable. She is responsible for her actions. On top of that she does this as a job!
There is a video showing exactly who she is. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB5oE9JgG7g
“These white people love a sad sob story” “The police didn’t do shit but make her rich as fuc*”
“My friend just got rich as hell doing this shit”
We need to seriously stop making bad people into martyrs. There are a lot of intelligent, virtunous people of color who are actually fighting and making changes for people. She is just a flawed individual who chose to take a path of hatred to get her point across.
As an alumni of DePaul I’m actually disappointed at the lack of investigative journalism here. I hope DePaul has not given over their moral structure to the political meat grinder.
John Smith • Aug 11, 2020 at 4:08 pm
https://www.facebook.com/ChicagoCodeBlue/videos/923250061482145/ for more background on your “victim”
Clayton Fern • Jul 29, 2020 at 11:34 am
I don’t know what he thought bringing feds and more police and then having police on their bikes… that does not do anything,” Boyd said. “You can’t combat gun violence with gun violence.”
Oh, okay, let’s have the leftist kooks in the Illinois General Assembly pass more meaningless anti gun legislation so the upstanding citizens of the world, the ones that kill people like Gary Tinder, could read, follow and respect the inherent language. Oh, silly me, I forgot. Vermin like that know not how to read, write, support themselves, their families or do much of anything, actually.
“We are not going to allow for most of us to struggle financially, emotionally, and even academically, as officers from CPD are allowed to get almost their entire tuition refunded,” the statement continued.
More power to the CPD officers who get “almost their entire tuition refunded”by doing well in their undergraduate and graduate studies. At least we’re not directly subsidizing marginally literate students from King, Farragut and Phillips who enter DePaul, drop out one quarter later and ask Jan Shakowsky or Dick Durbin to help them get their student loans forgiven. This inured CPD benefit should be construed as the cost of doing the business of protecting clueless 18 year olds who know not who Christopher Columbus is or was yet somehow believe it is their God given right to deface and destroy public property as impetitously as they copulate with anything that walks, and lots of things that do not. These are the same null sets throwing manhole covers through plate glass windows of merchants who risked everything to open a business in Woodlawn, Bronzeville, Englewood, Pill Hill, Uptown, et. al, and now have lost everything. Welcome back to the desert. The food desert.
I’m sure there’s a side story here. The 18 year old incipient DePaul student whose teeth were knocked out was of course just minding her own business and acting like the upstanding citizen we’ve been cajoled to believe she’s been her entire life.