Milwaukee was on edge Sunday after angry crowds took to the streets of the midwestern U.S. city to protest a deadly police shooting, throwing rocks at officers and torching buildings. The gathering occurred in the neighborhood where a Milwaukee officer shot and killed a man police say was armed hours earlier during a foot chase. Police say the man was armed, but it wasn’t clear if he pointed a gun at or shot at the officer.
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Over 100 protesters confronted a line of 20 to 30 officers, Journal Sentinel reported.
Police said crowds also broke the windows of an unoccupied squad vehicle and torched another.
Shots were being fired near the gas station, preventing police from extinguishing the fire, the Milwaukee Police Department said on its Twitter account.
Police Captain Mark Stanmeyer said in a news release that the two people in the auto ran off and the officers chased them.
As of 1:00 am Central time (0600 GMT), police had made three arrests in connection with the unrest, said Assistant police chief James Harpole, adding that gunshots were fired from various locations during the disturbances.
The relationship between police and minority communities in Milwaukee has been “tense”, Cheryl said “especially since a couple of years ago, a young man, Dontre Hamilton was shot by a white police officer 14 times”. He died as a result of his injuries at the scene.
Police said the suspect had a “lengthy arrest record,” though the specific crimes were not detailed. Police said he was carrying a semiautomatic handgun traced to a burglary in March. The name of the suspect or the officer remain undisclosed. He was placed on administrative duty during the investigation and subsequent review by the Milwaukee county district attorney’s office, a standard practice after shootings by law enforcement officers. “This is a risk they take every day on behalf of our community”.
Calls to action on social media were responsible for stoking some of the violence, Mayor Tom Barrett said, according to the Washington Post.
In July, two black men were shot dead by police in Louisiana and Minnesota, which sparked angry protests by African Americans across the nation against police brutality and racial discrimination. The officer was wearing a body camera, Barrett said.
Milwaukee resident Alderman Khalif Rainey said: “This is a warning cry”.
Fatal police shootings, mostly of black men, have triggered similar protests in cities across the United States in the last two years.
A BP gas station was also set on fire, but police said the blaze could not initially be extinguished due to gunshots being fired by protesters. Police spokesman Bruno Metzger said that the assailant poured the liquid on one woman, and that it appeared to have caught fire when it came into contact with oxygen.
This happened near Sherman and Auer just a block from the gas station.
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“Please participate in restoring order to these neighbourhoods”.
