Police haven’t released the name of the officer who shot Sylville Smith on Saturday, but widely shared social media posts and at least one news report identified him as a 24-year-old patrolman.
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Milwaukee’s curfew on teenagers and community leaders’ calls for restraint brought relative calm to the city overnight after two nights of riots sparked by the fatal shooting of a black man by a black police officer.
Smith, 23, was shot and killed Saturday after a brief foot chase that followed a traffic stop. Before he was killed, Smith refused to drop an illegal handgun he was carrying, police said.
In all, 37 people have been arrested since Saturday night, police said. Protesters also broke the windows of an unoccupied squad auto and torched another, police said.
The heated demonstrations resulted in damage of three squad cars – one of which was set on fire – along with six business and a gas station that were burned to the ground. Seven officers and four deputies suffered from injuries after having bricks thrown at their cars during riots on Sunday night, and an 18-year-old man was shot in the neck. One person was wounded by a gunshot.
Police Chief Edward Flynn said spreading “rumor mill” will only fuel protesters. “We had folks from the community step forward to take a leadership role in reducing tensions”.
The mayor of Milwaukee said on Monday nightly curfews on teenagers would be kept in place “for as long as necessary”.
Milwaukee has become the latest USA city to be gripped by unrest after high-profile police killings of black men over the past two years. Numerous officers involved in the earlier shootings were white, however, and the victims were unarmed.
But unlike the two previous nights of unrest in the city, there were no reports of property damage or violence, the Washington Post reported. The state is investigating.
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Milwaukee Police Chief Ed Flynn says there is body-cam video of the shooting that shows Smith pointed a gun at police.
