At least one person was shot as police moved in to disperse nearly 150 protesters during a second night of riots in Milwaukee following the death of a 23-year-old man who was shot by an officer.
The crowd of protesters marched through the neighborhood where Sylville Smith was killed by a 24-year-old officer Saturday afternoon.
Some two dozen officers in riot gear confronted the protesters who blocked an intersection near where Smith was fatally shot.
Police moved in to try to disperse the crowd and warned of arrests after protesters threw bottles and rocks at police.
Authorities said one person was shot and officers used an armored vehicle to retrieve the injured victim and take the person to a hospital.
An officer was also injured and taken to the hospital after a thrown rock broke the windshield of a squad car near Sherman Boulevard and Burleigh Avenue, the Milwaukee Police Department tweeted.
Police have tweeted five locations where they said shots were fired.
A car fire was also reported at 45th and Hadley, the department tweeted around 2am. The tweet said the Milwaukee Police Department and Fire Department were ‘en route’.
Officers made multiple arrests in the area of Sherman and Burleigh, but it’s unclear how many people were taken into custody.
Protesters were walking around on a main thoroughfare around 9.30pm but there was no sign of the violence that plagued the city earlier Sunday night.
The crowd was at a location near where rioting took place on Saturday night and circled back to a park to block an intersection.
Most protesters had dispersed after a vigil was held for Smith.
Some teenagers were reportedly driving up and down the street, shouting and honking.
Police had maintained a low key presence near businesses that were destroyed by fires on Saturday.
About a dozen officers guarded the BP gas station, while others stood in the shadows at a nearby park.
Mayor Tom Barrett had said earlier that no curfew had been imposed Sunday.
Wisconsin Gov Scott Walker says he would like to see the police bodycam video of the shooting of Smith released soon, as long as making it public would not impede an ongoing investigation.
Walker told WISN TV Sunday that transparency could help calm the situation.
He says it is important for the public to know that an independent investigation is being conducted by the Wisconsin Department of Justice.
President Obama, who is on vacation at Martha’s Vineyard where he was seen playing golf yesterday, has not yet commented on the shooting or subsequent unrest.
Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel issued a statement Sunday saying that his department would ‘work expeditiously to ensure a thorough and transparent gathering of the facts’.
Earlier in the day, police Chief Edward Flynn said cautioned that the shooting was still under investigation and authorities were awaiting autopsy results, but that based on the silent video from the unidentified officer’s body camera, he ‘certainly appeared to be within lawful bounds.’
Flynn declined to identify the officer who shot Smith but said he is black.
The police chief said he wasn’t sure what prompted the stop but described Smith’s car as ‘behaving suspiciously’.
The officer involved has been on the force for three years, according to the department. He’s been placed on administrative duty.
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.
He said Smith ran ‘a few dozen feet’ and turned toward the officer while holding a gun.
‘It was in his hand. He was raising up with it,’ the chief said.
He said the officer had told Smith to drop the gun and he did not do so.
It was unclear how many rounds the officer fired. Smith was hit in the chest and arm, Flynn said.
Gov Walker put Wisconsin’s National Guard on standby, and 125 Guard members reported to local armories to prepare for further instructions.
Milwaukee police tweeted late Sunday that the National Guard had not been deployed.
Six businesses were burned in the unrest earlier in the weekend along with one police car and 17 people were arrested, Flynn said.
A BP gas station, an O’Reilly’s auto parts store, a beauty supply store called Jet Beauty and BMO Harris Bank were among the businesses set ablaze Saturday.
By late Saturday night, fires were also reported at a neighborhood supermarket and a liquor store.
Several stores had also been looted.
Four officers were hurt from flying concrete and glass, although all of them had been released from hospital.
One female officer who was hit by concrete suffered a concussion.
Seven squad cars were damaged and two bus shelters were thrown into the streets.
Milwaukee Alderman Khalif Rainey, who represents the neighborhood that erupted, said the city’s black residents are ‘tired of living under this oppression’.
‘Now this is a warning cry. Where do we go from here? Where do we go as a community from here?’ he asked.
Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke said Smith had been arrested 13 times.
Online court records showed a range of charges against Smith, many of them misdemeanors.
Smith’s sister, Kimberly Neal, 24, said the family wants prosecutors to charge the officer who shot him.
Neal spoke at a vigil held for her brother as supporters surrounded her hours before Sunday night’s riots erupted.
When asked about the violence, Neal said: ‘People stuck together and they are trying to stand up,’ for their rights.
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.
Nearly 40 per cent of Milwaukee’s 600,000 residents are black, and they are heavily concentrated on the north side, where Smith was fatally shot.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3740898/Police-disperse-dozens-protesters-Milwaukee-braces-night-riots-following-death-man-shot-officer.html#ixzz4HP1PXTPV
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That 4 star idiot Sheriff Clarke ought to keep his ass at work instead of on tv all the time. Shoot them when they’re unarmed they riot. Shoot them when they’re armed they riot. Just ain’t no pleasin’ the monkeys.
Monkeys, huh? Do you include all Americans with the darker pigment of skin in this statement?
It is shit like this that drives people to embrace communism.
Do you think of these monkeys as soulless animals? You know, like the jews think of you?
Our enemies want us to hate and kill one another for any reason.
When these protests first started out, they were by American nationals opposed to the police executions of Americans. They were black people because it was in a black area. When one of these black Americans started to talk on a mainstream broadcast about the communists who were hijacking the peaceful protest, he was cut off in mid sentence. People like you jumping on the bandwagon is what makes these hijackings succeed.
We are the American nationals of the American race. Our skin comes in all pigments. It is our belief in and adherence to our Bill of Rights for all of us that makes us a people. United we stand, if divided, we will fall.
There are niggers out there, that is communist niggers, and they come in every pigment of skin. They will unite against us and apparently you intend to help them. Make no mistake, at the higher echelons, our enemies are of every pigment of skin and they laugh at how easily they can divide us, one against the other.
This isn’t rocket science, you are either for the Bill of Rights for every American national, or you are the enemy.
Well?
White people need these monkeys as you call them. Always have so lets not pretend. Your race has always had to have someone to hate. That’s how power and control works. If a minority doesn’t belong to whitemans power structure on some level, were screwed. You think we don’t know that?