Flynn said the streets were relatively peaceful through about 11:30 p.m. Sunday until a group from Chicago began marching and agitating.
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The Police Department tweeted that one officer was taken to a hospital after he was struck by a brick thrown through his squad vehicle window.
Flynn said seven officers were injured, mainly from bricks and rocks thrown by protesters. “In Milwaukee County over half of African American men in their 30s have served time in state prison”.
Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke blamed the recent riots in his city on households without dads, “questionable lifestyle choices” and Democrat-liberal policies in the Republican-controlled state on August 15 (video below).
An officer was injured after a brick was thrown through the window of another police auto.
Under armed police personnel a young man is rushed into a hospital in Milwaukee, Sunday, Aug. 14, 2016.
Violence continued for a second night in Milwaukee, as protestors fired shots and attacked police with rocks and bricks.
Although a vehicle was reportedly burned and some arrests made, there was no widespread destruction of property, as had happened Saturday.
Milwaukee Alderman Khalif Rainey, who represents the neighbourhood that erupted, said the city’s black residents are “tired of living under this oppression”. During a late night news conference at which city leaders appealed for calm, Mayor Tom Barrett said the man was hit twice, in the chest and arm.
The Mayor said the city’s existing 10 p.m. curfew for teenagers will be strictly enforced Monday night and the city is examining options for a broader curfew if necessary. “This is not the place where you go to gawk”. “This is not the place where you go to drive your vehicle around”.
The problems began Saturday afternoon when police stopped a rental auto that was driving suspiciously, Flynn said.
Gov. Scott Walker activated the National Guard on Sunday to assist the Milwaukee Police Department upon request in the aftermath of violence, after a request from Sheriff David A. Clarke Jr.
City officials pleaded with parents to help prevent a repeat of the violence Sunday.
TV footage showed a small group of protesters running through the streets Sunday night, picking up orange construction barriers and hurling them out of the way.
Fourteen people were arrested. Police moved in to try to disperse the crowd. The officer who shot him was wearing a body-worn camera that taped the interaction but the footage has not been released. Flynn said the man “doesn’t seem to be in medical danger”.
To say there have been no unjustified police shootings would be as irresponsible as it is false; but the idea that every police shooting of a black man is part of a systematic campaign of genocide is equally false.
Protesters earlier threw rocks and other objects at officers and police say shots were fired in a handful of locations.
The Associated Press reports, “Online court records showed multiple charges against the 23-year-old Smith dating back to 2013”. In a more serious case, Smith was accused in a shooting previous year and charged with recklessly endangering safety, a felony.
The Journal Sentinel reports that Smith “was accused of pressuring the victim in a shooting to recant a statement identifying him as the suspect, according to the criminal complaint”. Police say he was carrying a gun.
Smith’s death sparked explosive protests in northern Milwaukee, a town of 600,000 where roughly 40 percent of residents are black.
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The two men fled, prompting the officer to chase them, Police Chief Edward Flynn told reporters Sunday. In December, the Justice Department announced it would work with Milwaukee police on reforms. Critics said the department should have submitted to a review of its patterns and practices, as was conducted in Ferguson, Missouri, after the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown, who was black, by a white police officer in 2014.
