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| Police move in on a group of protesters throwing rocks at them in Milwaukee, Sunday, Aug. 14, 2016. Police said one person was shot at a Milwaukee protest on Sunday evening and officers used an armored vehicle to retrieve the injured victim during a second night of unrest over the police shooting of a black man, but there was no repeat of widespread destruction of property. |
MILWAUKEE
(AP) -- Following a night of violence that left half a dozen
businesses in flames, the Milwaukee police chief expressed surprise at
the level of unrest that erupted after the fatal shooting of a black man
by a black officer.
"This was, quite frankly,
unanticipated," Chief Edward Flynn said Monday, two days after the
worst of the rioting hit the Sherman Park neighborhood on the city's
economically depressed and largely black north side.
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.
Randolph McLaughlin, a Pace University
law professor and a civil rights attorney, questioned how Milwaukee
leaders could have expected the streets to stay quiet on Saturday night
given the national debate about law enforcement and race.
"For a mayor to say everything's fine (and) we just killed somebody, that's turning a blind eye to his town," McLaughlin said.
He
said Mayor Tom Barrett should have reached out to residents and
community leaders and asked, "What do we need to do to make sure your
community is safe?" McLaughlin said. "He needs to stay on the job."
David
Klinger, a University of Missouri-St. Louis sociology professor who
studies police use of deadly force, said it would not necessarily have
helped for police to release the officer's race sooner. He pointed out
that the city saw disruptions on Sunday night, after his race had been
publicized, though the intensity was less than the previous night.
He also said the city may have hesitated to give the officer's race sooner for fear it would identify him.
Remy
Cross, a criminologist at Webster University in St. Louis, said the
officer's race probably does not matter to many people in the community.
"They
see the institution as racist, not the individual," Cross said. "Once
you put on the uniform, you're blue, and blue sees black as bad."
Flynn
said it was "an error in narrative to assume" that because police shot
someone that the shooting will be controversial "so let's have a riot."
Cecil
Brewer, 67, who owns an apartment house directly across from the
intersection where protesters burned a gas station on Saturday night and
hurled rocks at police on Sunday night, said the rioting was all but
inevitable.
"There's so much anger in these
kids," Brewer said. The shooting "was like a spark in a powder keg. It
doesn't matter to them if what the authorities are saying is true."
On
Monday, the mayor issued a proclamation applying the city's curfew to
17-year-olds. Until then, it had applied to teenagers 16 or younger.
Barrett also moved the summer curfew back by one hour, to 10 p.m.,
and
warned that the rule would be enforced more tightly.
The
problems began Saturday afternoon when police stopped a rental car that
was driving suspiciously, Flynn said. Sylville Smith bolted from the
car with a gun, leading an officer on a short foot chase before the
officer shot the 23-year-old. Police said the man was fleeing a traffic
stop but released few other details.
The violence erupted later that evening.
During
a news conference around midnight calling for calm, Barrett said people
were gathering at the scene when he left at 5 p.m. Saturday, but they
were peaceful and he thought everything was under control.
At
another news conference Sunday afternoon, Flynn offered new details,
revealing that the officer who opened fire was black, like Smith, and
said body-camera video showed Smith had turned toward the officer and
refused to drop his weapon. He also said the officer shot Smith in the
chest and arm. Some people interviewed on the north side had speculated
that Smith was shot in the back.
The
body-camera footage has not been released. It's in the custody of the
state Justice Department, which is leading the investigation into the
shooting.
Flynn activated the department's
150-member crowd-control team on Sunday night, and Gov. Scott Walker put
the National Guard on standby if needed. Hundreds of people gathered
near the scene of the shooting that evening, but remained peaceful. Most
of them eventually dispersed.
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. They threw bottles,
chunks of concrete and rocks at officers. Dozens of officers arrived and
forced the group down the street.
Seven
officers were injured and 14 people were arrested by the time it was
over. An 18-year-old was shot near the intersection. Police had to use
an armored vehicle to rescue him. He was taken to a hospital, but Flynn
said his life was not in danger.
Smith's death was just the latest in a string of shootings involving police and black men to spark demonstrations and protests.
In
Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where 37-year-old Alton Sterling was fatally
shot in July during a struggle with two white police officers, protests
largely dissipated after three law enforcement officers were killed in a
shooting attack that appeared to target police. Demonstrations also
unfolded after 32-year-old Philando Castile was shot and killed in
suburban St. Paul, Minnesota, during a traffic stop by a Latino police
officer. Those protests dwindled in the ensuing weeks.
Last
year, the state Justice Department agreed to review Milwaukee police
procedures after a white officer shot Dontre Hamilton, a mentally ill
black man, in a downtown park during a scuffle.
DeShawn
Corprue, 31, who lives behind the burned-out BP station, said nothing
that police released about Smith's death would have stopped the
weekend's unrest.
"People are just so angry," he said.
Flynn blamed a Chicago chapter of the Revolutionary Communist Party for coming to town and inciting Sunday's violence.
"There is ample opportunity for second-guessing, I'm sure," Flynn said.
