City leaders blamed outside agitators Monday after a second night of violence wracked Milwaukee’s mostly black north side in protest over the fatal shooting of a black man by police. Sylville Smith bolted from the auto with a gun, leading an officer on a short foot chase before the officer shot the 23-year-old man. Police said Smith was fleeing a traffic stop but released few other details.
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Simmering anger over the fatal shooting of a man by police erupted in violence on Milwaukee’s predominantly black north side, with protesters skirmishing with officers over several hours and setting fire to at least four businesses in an outburst the mayor says was fed by social media.
A Milwaukee police spokesman didn’t immediately respond to messages seeking confirmation of Smith as the suspect.
The department is aware of some local threats against its officers and is investigating, according to the statement.
According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, at least 3,000 people have shared a Facebook photo of an officer they believe shot and killed Smith.
Police body camera footage showed Smith holding a handgun during the encounter, Barrett said at a Sunday news conference. Pending an investigation by Wisconsin law enforcement officials, the video will be released to the public, Barrett said.
Some two dozen officers in riot gear confronted a group who were throwing rocks and other objects at police near where the black man was fatally shot a day earlier.
A few hours after the shooting, violence erupted on the city’s largely black north side, with protesters hurling rocks at police and burning six businesses and a squad auto.
Police arrested six people in riots overnight in Milwaukee.
City Alderman Khalif Rainey said the area has been a “powder keg” for potential violence throughout the summer.
The police officer and Smith reportedly knew each other from the Sherman Park neighborhood. Flynn identified the man killed Saturday as 23-year-old Sylville K. Smith, and says Smith had a “lengthy arrest record”.
Cecil Brewer, 67, who owns an apartment house directly across from the intersection where protesters burned a gas station Saturday night and hurled rocks at law enforcement Sunday night, said the rioting was all but inevitable.
Remy Cross, a criminologist at Webster University in St. Louis, said the officer’s race likely doesn’t matter to many people in the community.
The officer joined the Milwaukee force in 2010 as a police aide and in 2013, he graduated from the police academy, the Daily News reported.
Four Milwaukee officers were injured, including two who had glass fragments in their eyes after concrete was thrown through the glass of their squad vehicle, Flynn said. Police said earlier that he was carrying a gun that had been stolen in a March burglary in suburban Waukesha.
“We have unrest happening in the city and we want peace”.
The city was calmer on Monday evening after two nights of unrest.
A BP gas station (pictured) and several cars in the parking lot were destroyed after the shooting caused unrest in Milwaukee Saturday.
Barrett has urged parents and guardians to keep their children home and away from the Sherman Park neighborhood where the violence Saturday night left six businesses burned.
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Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke has also ordered that Sherman Park, near the center of the violence, be closed at 6 p.m. rather than its usual 10 p.m. The state is investigating.
