A auto burns as a crowd of more than 100 people gathers following the fatal shooting of a man in Milwaukee, Saturday, Aug. 13, 2016.
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The shooting occurred near the location of an August 9 double homicide in which a man was shot dead and another was fatally stabbed, police said.
Both Barrett and Police Chief Edward Flynn credited church groups and “many others” for staging peaceful demonstrations, prayers and vigils earlier Sunday, as well as volunteers who turned out to sweep and pick up debris after Saturday night’s violence.
He also said the city may have hesitated to give the officer’s race sooner for fear it would identify him.
In a video posted on Twitter, journalist Tim Pool announced he would be leaving Milwaukee due to the rising violence in the city.
Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett said that an 11 p.m. summer curfew for minors that is already in place will be moved up to 10 p.m. and be more strictly enforced.
Barrett has repeatedly asked parents and guardians to keep their children away from the Sherman Park neighborhood.
Police body camera footage showed Smith holding a handgun during the encounter, Barrett said at a Sunday news conference.
The Wisconsin Department of Justice is investigating Smith’s death, as required by state law for police-involved shootings.
Barrett made the announcement as tensions remained high in the Sherman Park neighborhood, with police out in force. An 18-year-old man was shot and wounded Sunday night.
So when police shot dead an armed black man after stopping his vehicle for “suspicious activity”, tempers ran out of control and parts of the city burned.
Police Chief Edward Flynn says 23-year-old Sylville Smith ran from a auto after it was stopped for what authorities described as suspicious behavior.
Local Five’s Jordan Lamers has multiple reports on Walker’s Monday update on the protest situation.
Flynn said it was “an error in narrative to assume” that because police shot someone that the shooting will be controversial “so let’s have a riot”. The curfew takes effect from 10 p.m. until 5 a.m. He did not say what would happen to teens who are found outside in Milwaukee past the curfew deadline.
The clampdown follows two nights of violent unrest in protest following the fatal shooting of a black man by police on the city’s north side. At least eight officers have been injured and more than 30 people arrested.
City leaders have called on members of Milwaukee’s faith community to continue to help to calm the unrest that’s damaged a north side neighborhood following the police shooting of a black man.
A Chicago-based communist revolutionary group blamed by Milwaukee’s police chief for stoking a second day of violence says that some of its members did go there to “support a revolution”. Protesters hurled bottles and bricks, torched businesses, and damaged squad cars.
Milwaukee Police warned that they would arrest protesters. The chief said Smith was armed with a gun and pointed it at the officer.
Alderman Khalif Rainey, who represents Sherman Park, says Milwaukee’s black residents are “tired of living under this oppression”. Officers used an armored vehicle to retrieve the injured man and take him to a hospital. There has been no update on his condition. “It’s fair to say those systemic inequalities and long history of police department abuses condition the environment so that it’s an ongoing powder keg that can erupt at any point”.
About two dozen officers in riot gear confronted protesters who were throwing rocks and other objects at police near where Sylville Smith was killed Saturday.
The number of arrests was not immediately known.
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But there was no repeat of the widespread destruction of property.
