Sunday’s demonstrations weren’t as intense as the previous night’s, although some violence occurred and one person was shot under unknown circumstances. Police arrested 17 people who were charged with crimes ranging from disorderly conduct to burglary.
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The violence came after an unnamed 23-year-old man was shot dead while trying to flee from police at a traffic stop. Police haven’t said who shot the man, but that they continue to look for suspects. Officers used an armored vehicle to retrieve him and take him to a hospital.
There were no other reports of injuries and no major destruction of property.
Family members of Sylville Smith gather where he was shot and killed by Milwaukee police in Milwaukee, Aug. 14, 2016. Authorities are now waiting for Smith’s autopsy results, and body camera footage of the shooting has not yet been released.
“There were 23 rounds in that gun that that officer was staring at”.
At the same news conference, Mayor Tom Barrett said a still image pulled from the footage clearly showed a gun in Smith’s hand as he fled a traffic stop Saturday.
“There is ample opportunity for second-guessing, I’m sure”, Flynn said. But he also called for understanding for Smith’s family.
He was taken to a hospital, but Flynn said his life was not in danger. Flynn is not identifying the officer for that reason, but does say he is African-American and has six years of service with the department. Fourteen people were arrested overnight, and three police officers and four sheriff’s deputies were injured.
The National Guard has been placed on standby if Milwaukee authorities need assistance.
Police moved in to arrest several protesters and by 2:30 a.m. local time, reported that it was restoring order to a hot spot in a northern Milwaukee neighborhood. Online court records showed a range of offenses that were mostly misdemeanors.
The victim has been identified by CNN as Sylville Smith.
Though the city seemed to be on its way to recovery on Sunday morning, with residents cleaning up the mess that the angry protesters left the night before, the angry group resumed their movement against the police nonetheless.
The anger at 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 ambush killings of eight officers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and Dallas.
Almost 40 percent of Milwaukee’s 600,000 residents are black, and they are heavily concentrated on the north side.
Police Chief Edward Flynn has not revealed the identity of the officer who killed Smith, but says he or she is Black. “From incidents in the park, from a murder in the gas station, from a shooting by the gas station owner at children – this entire community has sat back and witnessed how Milwaukee, Wisconsin has become the worst place to live for African-Americans in the entire country”.
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Critics said the police department should have been subjected to a full Justice Department investigation like the one done in Ferguson, Missouri, after the killing of black 18-year-old Michael Brown in 2014 touched off violence there.
