“I think it’s an error in narrative to assume” that because police shot someone that the shooting will be controversial “so let’s have a riot”, Flynn told a news conference. He said Smith ran “a few dozen feet” and turned toward the officer while holding a gun.
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He said Mayor Tom Barrett should have reached out to residents and community leaders and asked, “What do we need to do to make sure your community is safe?” He did not say what would happen to teens who are found outside in Milwaukee past the curfew deadline.
The department also tweeted Tuesday that only one shot was sacked, which is far fewer than the previous two nights.
Mayor Barrett commended the pastors and the community groups that have been involved in keeping the calm over the last day.
“This was, quite frankly, unanticipated”, Chief Edward Flynn said Monday, two days after the worst of the rioting hit the Sherman Park neighborhood on the city’s economically depressed and largely black north side. They threw bottles, chunks of concrete and rocks at officers.
Milwaukee was beset by protests and calls for police reform after an officer shot and killed Dontre Hamilton, a mentally ill black man, in 2014. Barrett says he’s concerned about the economic damage being done to the Sherman Park neighborhood.
“I had to blame myself for a lot of things, too, because your hero is your dad and I played a very big part in my family’s role model for them”, Patrick Smith said.
Flynn said Saturday wasn’t the first time the department has used deadly force and the disturbances that followed can’t be pinned exclusively on anger over the shooting.
Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke said Smith had been arrested 13 times.
Sunday and early Monday saw more chaos, with one officer hospitalized after his squad auto was pelted with a rock. Police moved in to try to disperse the crowd and warned of arrests. The men fled the auto, and the officers followed, shooting Smith in the arm and chest when he failed to put his gun down, Barrett said.
One victim was shot during the Monday unrest and rushed to a hospital in an armored vehicle. The police chief said he wasn’t sure what prompted the stop but described Smith’s auto as “behaving suspiciously”. The unidentified officer is 24 years old and has six years of service with the Milwaukee Police Department – three as an officer. There has been no update on his condition.
The police shooting brought numerous festering racial tensions to surface.
Fred Royal, president of the NAACP’s Milwaukee branch, noted that the recommendations would not be legally binding, unlike those for cities such as Cleveland, Ohio, where police use of deadly force and other practices were being scrutinized under so-called consent decrees – settlements without a final ruling by a judge. There was no repeat of the widespread destruction of property that marred Saturday night’s unrest.
At another news conference Sunday afternoon, Flynn offered new details, revealing that the officer who opened fire was black, like Smith, and said body-camera video showed Smith had turned toward the officer and refused to drop his weapon. The damage was not as extensive the following night, but shots rang out in three locations, and an 18-year-old man who was struck in the neck was hospitalized, police said.
Police took to social media to keep the public updated during the overnight protests. At least one officer was injured in the unrest.
The number of arrests was not immediately known.
Milwaukee has become the latest American city to be gripped by violence in response to police killings of black men in places such as Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 and Baltimore previous year.
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Smith died at the scene, and the African-American officer who fired the fatal shots was not injured.
