Police chief was surprised by violence after fatal shooting

Months after Hamilton’s death, jurors determined that two Milwaukee police officers had to pay $506,000 to Leo Hardy for an illegal strip search.

City leaders blamed outside agitators Monday after a second straight night of violence wracked Milwaukee’s mostly black north side in protest at the fatal shooting of a black man by police.

The chief’s statement raised questions about whether authorities could have taken steps to curb the violence, perhaps by sharing details of the shooting earlier, including the officer’s race or footage from his body camera.

Imam Maulama Akonjee and friend Thara Uddin were both shot in the head on Saturday afternoon by a man who approached them from behind near the al-Furqan Jame Masjid mosque.

The man, whose name has not been released, was shot late Sunday during a demonstration to protest the killing of a black man by a police officer a day earlier.

But Smith was father to a 2-year-old toddler, too, his mother said.

“There’s so much anger in these kids”, Brewer said. The shooting “was like a spark in a powder keg”.

The handgun, along with 500 rounds of ammunition, were stolen during a burglary in nearby Waukesha in March, police said. The curfew usually applies to those under 17 years of age, but it will now apply to those under 18 years old.

Flynn also said that officers came under fire Sunday but that no officers returned fire.

People living on the north side are far more likely to live in poverty, to be incarcerated or to be out of work than those in the city overall or the metro area, according to a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee report. By state law, the Wisconsin Department of Justice will lead the investigation. The city was declared to be in a State of Emergency, and Governor Scott Walker activated the national guard (officials have yet to actually deploy them). Hundreds of people gathered near the scene of the shooting that evening, but remained peaceful.

Around 10:30 p.m., however, a group of perhaps 100 demonstrators began marching through the streets, eventually blocking an intersection next to a BP gas station that burned down the night before. He says seven law enforcement officers were hurt by rocks and other objects thrown at them or their squads Sunday. Dozens of officers arrived and forced the group down the street.

In July 2011, 22-year-old Derrick Williams died in the back seat of a Milwaukee police squad vehicle, according to CNN affiliate WITI.

One victim was shot during the Monday unrest and rushed to a hospital in an armored vehicle.

“Those individuals, in my mind, are deliberately trying to damage a great neighborhood in a great city”, Barrett said at a news conference Monday.

Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke held a press conference Sunday evening during which he addressed the mass unrest that broke out in the city following the police-involved shooting of an armed black man, 23-year-old Sylville Smith, by an unnamed black Milwaukee police officer.

The arrests follow skirmishes between protesters and police but without the widespread destruction of property that marked the first night after the man’s death.

The city’s police chief said Smith, 23, was shot and killed by a Black police officer Saturday afternoon after he turned toward the officer with a gun in his hand. Those protests dwindled in the ensuing weeks.

As Black Lives Matter was gaining traction in 2014, protests erupted in the city when 31-year-old Dontre Hamilton, who was homeless and mentally ill, was killed by a cop in a public park.

“People are just so angry”, he said.

Police Chief Edward Flynn said members of Milwaukee Inner City Congregations Allied for Hope and other representatives of the faith community have gone to the neighborhood to try to tamp down violence.

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“There is ample opportunity for second-guessing, I’m sure”, Flynn said.