Gunshots were fired, businesses were set ablaze, people were detained and police vehicles damaged after a confrontation between police and protestors turned violent Saturday night in Milwaukee in the north-central us state of Wisconsin. The violence continued, to a lesser degree, on Sunday night.
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Fourteen people were arrested.
A Chicago-based communist revolutionary group blamed by Milwaukee’s police chief for stoking a second day of violence said that some of its members did go there to “support a revolution” but didn’t set out to cause trouble.
The Wisconsin Department of Justice has started its independent investigation into the Saturday shooting of Slyville Smith.
The Milwaukee mayor on Sunday said that the damage from Saturday’s unrest was “unlike anything I’ve seen”, he said. Police said an injured officer was taken to a hospital after a rock broke the windshield of a squad auto.
“I’m looking at a silent movie that doesn’t necessarily tell me everything that will come out in a thorough investigation”, Flynn said. Smith ran from police during a traffic stop.
Riot police faced off against protesters again on Sunday night, with bottles and bricks thrown at officers.
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. Authorities are now waiting for Smith’s autopsy results, and body camera footage of the shooting has not yet been released.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Smith was subsequently accused of pressuring the victim to recant statements that identified him as the gunman and was charged with trying to intimidate a witness.
Smith’s sister, Kimberly Neal, told The Associated Press the family wants prosecutors to file charges against the officer.
Unrest followed the fatal shooting of Alton Sterling, 37, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in July. “You get a lot of people that’s hurt, and they can’t vent the right way”, Smithtold WDJT-TV.
Last year, a total of 990 people were fatally shot by police in the USA, according to the Post.
The police officer who shot Smith is a 24-year-old, six-year veteran of the Milwaukee Police Department, though he had been an officer for just three years, according to Flynn. Barrett announced a new curfew will be enforced.
Donald Trump has defended the police shooting of a black man whose death has sparked protests in Milwaukee.
Such inequality has afflicted many U.S. cities over the past three decades, sometimes stoking unrest when police use deadly force.
The police have not yet discussed details of the case and it is not clear whether Smith pointed a gun at officers and fired or attempted to fire shots or not. Authorities said he was carrying an illegal handgun and refused orders to drop it when he was shot.
Information by the New York Times indicates that some squad cars have been destroyed since the inception of the confusion with four officers recorded injured and 17 protesters arrested.
Police say they arrested 10 people overnight but that Milwaukee’s north side was much calmer than over the weekend when violent protests over the Smith’s shooting rocked the area.
The violence over the weekend had prompted Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker to declare a state of emergency on Sunday.
The mayor wants Wisconsin state officials to make the video public so as to corroborate the police account. That allows local law enforcement to call in state help if and when it is needed.
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But Flynn, the police chief, said body camera video that investigators have seen shows that there was a “credible threat” to the officer.
