In Milwaukee, in the Midwest state of Wisconsin, officers at one point used an armoured vehicle to rescue a shooting victim and rush the person to hospital.
Advertisement
Shots rang out during unrest after a fatal police shooting that killed a man Saturday. Several police officers also sustained injuries in the exchange.
The clampdown follows two nights of violent unrest in protest following the fatal shooting of a black man by police on the city’s north side. One volunteer picked up a bullet casing and handed it to police.
“A plan that’s fluid”, Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke told a press conference.
Around 11 p.m., police with shields and helmets moved slowly into the intersection, telling a crowd of about 50 people to disperse.
A gas station is seen burned down after disturbances following the police shooting of a man in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Aug. 14, 2016.
On Sunday evening, several of Smith’s sisters addressed the crowd, saying their brother, father to a two-year-old, “did not deserve” to be shot. At least one police officer was injured after demonstrators broke a squad auto windshield.
Police said early Monday that an 18-year-old Milwaukee man was seriously injured when he was shot during the unrest Sunday night.
“Officers continue to have rocks thrown at them as they work to disburse small, disorderly groups in area around Sherman and Burleigh”, police said on Twitter, adding that armoured vehicles were deployed to protect officers.
After watching the officer’s body camera footage, Flynn said the entire episode took about 25 seconds, from the start of the traffic stop until shots were fired.
The anger at shootings by Milwaukee police is not new, and comes as tension between black communities and law enforcement has ramped up across the nation, resulting in protests and the recent killings of officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Dallas. The crowd has been throwing objects at officers, blocking roads and firing some shots, police said. Barrett said the man was hit twice, in the chest and arm.
The shooting occurred after two police officers stopped a vehicle Saturday and two suspects inside, including Smith, had fled on foot, police said.
But Barrett said that “police officers did not fire a single shot”.
Smith had a lengthy arrest record, Barrett said, and officials said earlier he was carrying a stolen handgun loaded with 23 rounds of ammunition when stopped for unspecified “suspicious activity”.
“We are concerned for his safety”, Flynn said of the officer, who was not identified.
Smith was reportedly shot while fleeing a traffic stop. Seventeen people were arrested, and four officers were injured.
Meanwhile Wisconsin’s governor put the National Guard on standby against any further violence on the city’s mostly black north side.
Online court records showed multiple charges against the 23-year-old Smith dating back to 2013.
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. Both felony charges were later dropped for reasons that are unclear.
Chief Flynn says the officer who shot and killed Smith was also African-American.
Police violence against African-Americans has set off intermittent, sometimes violent protests in the past two years, igniting a national debate over race and policing and giving rise to the Black Lives Matter movement.
Policing in Milwaukee has come under scrutiny since 2014, when a white officer killed Dontre Hamilton, a mentally ill, unarmed black man, in an incident that sparked largely peaceful protests.
Advertisement
In December, the US Justice Department said it would carry a full review of Milwaukee’s police department, at its request, to look into areas for improvement. The officer involved was 24 years old and has been on the force for three years, according to the department.
