Police prepare to close a park in Milwaukee, Monday, Aug. 15, 2016.
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Milwaukee is moving up its curfew for teenagers following violence on the city’s north side after the police-involved shooting of a black man.
Milwaukee’s mayor and police chief say outsiders are fomenting the unrest that has wreaked havoc in a north side neighborhood for two nights since a black man was fatally shot by a black officer.
Police say they are making multiple arrests in Milwaukee after a second night of unrest over the police killing of a black man.
The BP gas station destroyed in the fires. Following a night of violence that left half a dozen businesses in flames, the Milwaukee police chief expressed surprise at the level of unrest that erupted after the fatal shooting Saturday of a black man by a black officer.
But the measures are controversial, with some people saying curfews violate civil liberties. Researchers also argue that there’s little evidence the laws work, particularly when it comes to curbing juvenile crime. Yet there is a major difference between the killing of Sylville Smith and the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., or the death of Eric Garner in Brooklyn that same year, in that Smith was killed by a black police officer with a similar upbringing as himself.
Riots broke out Saturday night after a Milwaukee police officer shot and killed a 23-year-old African-American man who police said fled a vehicle with a gun in his hand.
The agency’s Division of Criminal Investigation is conducting an independent review of the shooting, which is required under state law whenever someone is killed by police or dies in official custody.
Cecil Brewer, 67, who owns an apartment house directly across from the intersection where protesters burned a gas station on Saturday night and hurled rocks at police on Sunday night, said the rioting was all but inevitable. Some businesses were set on fire, one person was shot and multiple officers were injured. “This is not the place where you go to gawk. We have seen a very great reduction.in the disturbances that have taken place”. “This is not the place where you go to drive your auto around”.
Six arrests were made after some “heated confrontation”, but there was no destruction of property or rioting, Chief Flynn said.
In a midnight press conference mere hours after the shooting, Alderman Khalif Rainey asked, “do we continue – continue with the inequities, the injustice, the unemployment the under-education that creates these byproducts that we see this evening?” Many blacks saw it as further mistreatment of their community. But officers quickly grow exhausted of it, or priorities shift. Last year, charges were filed against 148 minors and eight parents.
Wisconsin State Representative David Bowen told CNN that, “these young people don’t have much, and they’re treated like they don’t have much. It’s a temporary solution to a bigger problem”.
“These children want their dreams, they want goals, they want to achieve in life”, he said.
Walker said the vast majority of Sherman Park residents are law-abiding people who want the best for their neighborhood.
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“If you look at what has happened in other cities where there have been disturbances”, said the Mayor, “By night three or night four unfortunately still going strong”.
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