The fatal police shooting of an armed man ignited violent protests in Milwaukee Saturday night.
Police said an angry crowd hit one officer in the head with a brick, set fires and shot guns near in the clashes on the city’s North Side. Officers decked out in riot gear made several arrests as firefighters rushed to put out the blazes.
The uproar followed a traffic stop and chase around 3:30 p.m. according to Milwaukee police. The 23-year-old man killed by police and another suspect ditched a car and ran after the stop at N. 44th St. and W. Auer Ave, investigators said.
One of the men was carrying a stolen semiautomatic handgun, and a Milwaukee officer shot him during the foot chase, according to police. Officers captured the other suspect after the shooting, cops said.
Over 100 people demonstrated near the scene of the shooting in protests that started out peaceful, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. The protest devolved even after a woman who identified herself as a family member of the dead man asked everyone to leave.
“We don’t want anyone else to go to jail or get hurt,” she pleaded, according to the newspaper.
Another scene from the unrest tonight as smoke hangs in the street. Our coverage here: http://jsonl.in/HgLx303dno6
One officer was hospitalized after a brick came through the window of a police cruiser, hitting the cop in the head, police said. There was no immediate word on additional injuries or the number of arrests.
The crowd set a gas station on fire atSherman Blvd. and Burleigh St., according to the Milwaukee Police Department. Yet firefighters could not put out the blaze at first because gunfire had erupted nearby, police said.
The Milwaukee police tweeted an image of an empty squad car with its windows smashed. The demonstrators set another cruiser on fire and busted the windows of a third squad car, police said.
“Large police presence in area of Sherman and Auer,” the department tweeted. “Officers working on peacefully dispersing crowd.”
A police officer took cover behind a car at one point during the protests, and local journalists said they feared for their safety as well and left.
(CALVIN MATTHEIS/MILWAUKEE JOURNAL-SENTINEL VIA AP)
Police said the crowd also tossed rocks at them as they tried to clear the neighborhood. The crowd knocked down and punched one reporter for the local newspaper and chased other journalists from the area, according to the Journal-Sentinel.
“Just had rocks thrown at me photographing this burn[ing] car at Sherman Blvd near Auer,” photojournalist Mike De Sisti tweeted. The newspaper later said on Twitter that its staff members had left the area safely.
Near 44th and Auer
The races and names of the suspect killed by police and the officer who gunned him down were also not clear Saturday night.
Police described the gunman as a Milwaukee man with a lengthy arrest record. YetNefataria Gordon told the Sentinel she was close with the man who died Saturday afternoon.
Bystanders looked on and used their phones at the demonstration of more than a hundred people Saturday night.
(CALVIN MATTHEIS/MILWAUKEE JOURNAL-SENTINEL VIA AP)
“He was a nice good person,” Gordon said. “He was really respected. That’s why everyone came out. They’re angry.”
The man’s gun came from a burglary in nearby Waukesha, according to investigators. The victim said 500 rounds of ammunition were also taken during the March robbery, police said.
The 24-year-old third-year officer who killed him did not suffer any injuries. Police placed him on administrative review as they began investigating the shooting Saturday.
“That officer had to make a split-second decision when the person confronted him with a handgun,” Jessup said. “This is a risk they take every day on behalf of our community.”
Jessup said he didn’t immediately know why the officers stopped the suspects.
Police said the suspect had a “lengthy arrest record,” though the specific crimes were not detailed. The suspect was carrying a handgun taken in a March burglary in Waukesha. The owner reported that 500 rounds of ammunition also were stolen.
The officer is 24 and assigned to District 7. He will be placed on administrative duty during the investigation and subsequent review by the district attorney’s office.
The second suspect who fled on foot, also a 23-year-old man, was apprehended and is in custody, Jessup said.
The shooting occurred about one block northwest of the scene of a Friday evening homicide, and about four blocks west of a Saturday morning double homicide. Five people died in shooting-related homicides during a nine-hour stretch in the city on Friday night and Saturday morning.
“As everyone knows, this was a very, very violent 24 hours in the city of Milwaukee,” Jessup said. “Our officers are out here taking risks on behalf of the community and making split-second decisions.”
The clash comes after a series of tense episodes in Milwaukee involving residents and police, including one just before the Fourth of July weekend near Sherman Park.
In early July, a group of several dozen young people threw rocks and bottles, damaging windows of a gas station and a county transit bus near Sherman Park. Law enforcement beefed up their presence for several days there. Some activists said it was an intimidating presence. At the same time, the incidents also led to a surge in residents and local leaders promoting positive activity there.
Regular protests also followed the fatal police shootings of Jay Anderson in Wauwatosa in 2016 and Dontre Hamilton in Milwaukee in 2014.
On the same day federal prosecutors announced they would not seek charges against the ex-officer who killed Hamilton, Milwaukee Police Chief Edward Flynn requested the U.S. Department of Justice review the Police Department.
The review, called a “collaborative reform initiative,” is a voluntary process and a less adversarial option than a consent decree — formal monitoring through the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division resulting from a “pattern-and-practice” investigation.
More than 700 people packed the first listening session in the review process and described their experiences with Milwaukee police. Federal officials say the review will examine the department’s recruitment, hiring, and personnel practices; community-oriented policing and problem solving; use of force and deadly force practices; citizen stop and search practices; and systems for supervision, accountability, learning, remediation, and discipline.
The review is still underway and an initial report expected to be released this fall.