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Milwaukee to Enforce Curfew on Teenagers After Second Night of Unrest
Angry After Milwaukee Police Shooting, Protesters Turn Against News Media, Too
(about 3 hours later)
MILWAUKEE — The authorities scrambled Monday to restore calm after this city endured a second night of unrest in the wake of a police officer’s killing of an armed man on Saturday.
MILWAUKEE — Demonstrators upset over an officer-involved shooting here took out their frustration on the police and property during street demonstrations over the weekend, but they also directed their anger at the news media.
“We’re going to make sure that there is peace and order restored to this neighborhood,” said Mayor Tom Barrett of Milwaukee, who blamed “angry people who want to cause problems” for the violence that shattered this city’s northwest Sherman Park neighborhood.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel said that its reporters and photographers were chased from the scene of the protests, and one of its reporters was punched. A local television station, CBS 58, said its journalists on the scene were attacked and its equipment stolen while covering the demonstrations. Another station, TMJ4, said it had pulled its crews from the streets because of threats of violence.
The disorder heightened concern that Milwaukee, with a glittering lakefront that belies its stark racial and economic divides, might be in the opening days of sustained protests about the practices of the police.
Other news organizations were similarly removing their journalists from the field and assessing how to cover the story while ensuring that their reporters were not caught in the crossfire of gunshots, bricks and rubber bullets.
As Mr. Barrett acknowledged the frustrations that course through Milwaukee, he and the police, who made 14 arrests on Sunday night and into Monday morning, planned more aggressive enforcement of the city’s curfew for teenagers. The National Guard remained on standby, and Mr. Barrett suggested that Milwaukee might impose a broader curfew if Monday night brought additional violence.
The hostility toward journalists underscores the frustration on Milwaukee’s north side, where many in the predominantly black population feel that they have long been mistreated. Joblessness and poverty are high, and the police are frequently out in force.
“This is not the place where you go to gawk,” Mr. Barrett said as he announced that people under 17 would be barred from the streets between 10 p.m. and 5 a.m. “It is not the place you go to take pictures. It’s not the place you go to drive your car around right now.”
“It’s about the portrayal of the black community by white media,” said Keyon Jackson-Malone, a community advocate who lives in North Milwaukee and hosts a black talk radio show. “Our stories get mixed.”
The decision to intensify enforcement of the curfew came after a night of trouble that left four police officers injured. The city said that its ShotSpotter system, which tries to detect gunfire, had been activated 30 times. An 18-year-old man was wounded late Saturday along North Sherman Boulevard, a hub of the violence, and the police said that he had been evacuated by officers who arrived in armored vehicle.
Of the protesters who were hostile toward the news media, he added, “They probably just didn’t want them there because of how it’s usually portrayed.”
National Guard soldiers, whom Gov. Scott Walker activated on Sunday “to aid local law enforcement upon request,” were not asked to intervene amid Sunday’s unrest.
Mr. Jackson-Malone pointed to an episode over the summer in which a group of black people and the police engaged in a tense standoff after officers confronted a teenager who had cursed at them. News reports later said the standoff had been the result of two children causing a melee, when that was not the case, Mr. Jackson-Malone said.
The nighttime standoffs over the weekend between protesters and the police were so intense that Mayor Tom Barrett of Milwaukee called for the enforcement of a curfew from 10 p.m. Monday until 5 a.m. Tuesday for anyone under 17.
The police arrested 14 people overnight on Sunday as the city said its ShotSpotter system, which tries to detect gunfire, had been activated 30 times.
An 18-year-old man was shot late Saturday along North Sherman Boulevard, a hub of the violence in northwestern Milwaukee, and the police said he had been evacuated by officers who arrived in an armored vehicle.
Not everyone thought the enforcement of the curfew would help things.
“It’s going to agitate the situation,” said Nozizwe Zemora-Bey, 29, who was sitting at a portable table she sets up each day across from Sherman Park to sell essential oils, figurines and other gift items. “People feel like they’re being told what to do.”
During Sunday night’s unrest, she said, for hours she was prevented from crossing the street to walk to her house. “I didn’t get home until 4 a.m.,” she said. “And they made me walk way around all this whole perimeter closed off.”
The Journal Sentinel has responded to the tense situation by sending its reporters out in teams of two and asking them to stay in well-lit, public places.
“This is just not a time to be a cowboy,” said Thomas Koetting, the deputy managing editor of The Journal Sentinel.
But Mr. Koetting said it was important for the newspaper to look beyond the details of what is happening on the ground during the protests.
“There are deep, rich stories here that we do try to tell and, actually, I think we do a pretty good job,” he said. “But, boy, you can always do better in finding out some of the root causes of the anger and the fury that’s in that community, that’s caused by economic instability and concentrations of poverty and joblessness and so forth.”
Although the initial shooting that touched off the violence is the focus of a state inquiry, as required by law, officials in Milwaukee have signaled that they believe the 24-year-old police officer was justified when he opened fire and killed Sylville K. Smith, 23. Both are black.
Although the initial shooting that touched off the violence is the focus of a state inquiry, as required by law, officials in Milwaukee have signaled that they believe the 24-year-old police officer was justified when he opened fire and killed Sylville K. Smith, 23. Both are black.
Mr. Barrett said that Mr. Smith had been armed with a handgun when he was shot after he and another person fled a traffic stop on Saturday afternoon.
The mayor said that Mr. Smith had been armed with a handgun when he was shot after he and another person had fled a traffic stop on Saturday afternoon.
When Mr. Smith did not comply with an order to drop his semiautomatic handgun, Mr. Barrett said, the officer fired, striking Mr. Smith in the chest and an arm.
“This event probably took 20 to 25 seconds,” Police Chief Edward A. Flynn said. “I mean, there was virtually no time between the officer unhooking his seatbelt, turning on his body camera, getting out of the car and immediately there was a foot chase.”
Investigators did not release a body camera’s video of the episode, but Chief Flynn said that the officer’s recorded actions appeared “credible and legally protected.” Mr. Barrett, speaking to reporters on Monday, said he wanted the video to be made public because he expected it would “provide a lot of context.”
But in some of Milwaukee’s predominantly black neighborhoods, some people argued that the killing was yet another outgrowth of what they believe are exceedingly aggressive and misguided police tactics in this city of about 600,000. The shooting occurred less than two weeks after a coalition that included the N.A.A.C.P. and the American Civil Liberties Union urged Milwaukee to create a civilian oversight panel in a city with some of the country’s highest rates of incarceration or unemployment for black men.
“Every time somebody gets shot, they put them on desk duty and then you don’t hear no more about it,” said Eddie Robinson, 63, a retired security guard. “Did they get charged for it? Was it a rifle shooting? They never tell the community nothing. So it looks bad. It looks like they can just kill you and get away with it. Even if that’s not the facts, that’s what it looks like.”
The Milwaukee police have been under closer scrutiny for months. The Justice Department announced in December that the city would participate in its “collaborative reform process,” which will yield nonbinding recommendations that federal officials hope will improve “community-oriented policing practices, transparency, professionalism, accountability and public trust.”
The entire process, which is also playing out in places like North Charleston, S.C., and St. Louis County, Mo., takes years and is distinct from a civil rights inquiry that could monitor changes to eliminate unconstitutional patterns or practices.
But on Monday in Milwaukee, the immediate concern was whether the tentative peace that took hold in daylight would last after sundown.
“The curfew isn’t going to stop nothing or nobody,” says Sabrina Sharp, 17, as she stood near her home with her daughter, Sarya, 2, in a stroller. “If you’re trying to enforce a curfew, you’re not trying to find a solution, you’re just trying to lock the kids up. The kids are going to be out here past 10 o’clock anyway.”
There were also mounting worries about what would come of Sherman Park, where some businesses were burned over the weekend in what the president of the Milwaukee Police Association, a labor group, suggested were “terrorist-like actions.”
Victor R. Vela, who is Hispanic, said he regretted that the charred rubble of a gas station was becoming a symbol of the neighborhood.
“That image alone is destructive psychologically,” he said. “You can look at that and it will be in your mind for two weeks.”
Yet the damage only did so much to take the edge off protests, like one on Sunday when a group of tuxedo-clad black men led hundreds of people in an angry march through Sherman Park. Marchers, some of whom were white, chanted over and over, “Indict! Convict! Send these killer cops to jail!”
The police, who were observing from across the street, began donning riot gear. One young female protester pointed at them and said, “They’re getting ready to kill.”
A woman replied, “Yeah, they are. They are.”
Others who gathered near the scene of the unrest said they hoped for greater unity.
“We’re praying that these young kids, that their anger dissolves,” said Marie Polk, who was waiting for a bus to head home. “I just prayed that everyone goes home and be peaceful. We’re not about violence.”
She added, “They want answers, that’s all, just wanting answers.”
