Sylville Smith was SHOT in the chest and arm. Officer knew him personally reports say

The African-American man whose shooting death by police over the weekend sparked riots in Milwaukee was shot once in the chest and once in the right arm, the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's office said on Friday.

It did not release additional information about its autopsy on Sylville Smith, 23, fatally shot on Saturday by a police officer who said Smith refused to drop his gun.

Two nights of rioting erupted after the shooting, with many protesters saying racial bias by police was behind the incident. Eight officers were wounded, and dozens of people were arrested, police said. One person suffered a gunshot wound.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett has urged state officials to release video of Smith's shooting as soon as possible in hopes that it would corroborate the police department's account and convince protesters the use of deadly force was justified.

Wisconsin state law requires police shootings be investigated by an independent state agency, which controls such evidence.

Besides reviving a national conversation about race, inequality and the use of deadly force by police, the riots called attention to Milwaukee as one of the most racially segregated cities in the United States.

(Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Jonathan Oatis) Reuters

Timothy Batts who SHOT his daughter by accident delivers her EULOGY during funeral

           

Batts told police he fired at the youngster thinking she was an intruder entering the home as she slept - but police have video surveillance that shows him awake and on his phone just minutes before the shooting.

But friends and family have insisted the deadly incident was an accident, and raised the funds he needed to post bond.

He read a poem to mourners during the emotional service, The Tennessean reported.

'I wish it was a nightmare and I can awake now but it's all too real,' Batts said, 'Since the day you were born I never pictured life without you. Batts also released white doves into the air in her memory. His family and friends are supporting him insisting it was an accident. Rest in Peace Timea.

With files from Daily Mail UK

Thomas Gilbert Jr Accused of Killing Hedge Fund Manager Father Deemed Fit for Trial

Justice Melissa Jackson of the Manhattan Supreme court announced that Thomas Gilbert Jr., who is accused of shooting his father, 70, after he cut his allowance, was deemed fit to stand trial. Gilbert has pleaded not guilty.

Steven Crowder: Comedian Makes Video Attempting to Show How Little Anti-Gun Voters Know About Guns

The undercover video was "to see what people know, or don’t know, about firearms and just how far they're willing to give over the reins to the federal government as far as legislation," he said.  

S. Carolina Teens Deon Antonio Frasier and Michael Odell Anthony Dupree-Tyler charged with SHOOTING good samaritan

Deon Antonio Frasier, 17, and Michael Odell Anthony Dupree-Tyler, 19, have been charged with robbing and shooting Chadwick Garrett after he helped free their SUV from a ditch on Monday night. Ungrateful bastards. They must face the wrath of the law on this one.

Fairfax County #Virginia Police SHOOT and KILL Mentally Challenged man hurling threats and injured security guard

In a latest update and press conference, Fairfax County say that this man was mentally challenged.

A sheriff’s deputy shot a man who was threatening him with a sharp signpost, and had already injured a security guard, near the main building of Inova Fairfax Hospital on Monday night, the police said. The man who was shot dead by a sheriff’s deputy on the campus of Inova Fairfax Hospital on Monday night had just been released from the hospital, was having “what appears to be a mental episode” and had already injured a security guard with a sharp-pointed signpost, the Fairfax County police said Tuesday.

The man, whose name was not released pending notification of next of kin, died after being shot by a deputy who had been on the campus helping to guard a prisoner, Sheriff Stacey Kincaid said at a news conference Tuesday morning.

Fairfax County Police Chief Edwin Roessler said in the news conference Tuesday morning that after the man released, security guards helped him to a bus stop outside the Green Garage. Just before 10 p.m., however, security got two calls reporting a man with what appeared to be a weapon — a signpost with a sharp edge on the bottom, Roessler said.

The security guards returned to the bus stop, but the man hit one with the sign, injuring him. At that point, two 911 calls went out.

Meantime, Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office deputies were at the hospital, guarding a prisoner from the Adult Detention Center who was getting medical attention, said Kincaid. One of the deputies headed to the bus stop, while Fairfax County police were on the way.

The deputy tried to negotiate, Roessler said, but the man raised the post and began charging at him. The deputy had his gun drawn and was trying to retreat, Roessler said. The deputy shot the man what appears to be multiple times, then the deputy and police officers, who had arrived, tried to revive him until medical personnel took him to the emergency room, where he died.

Police had originally said the man’s wounds were not life-threatening; Roessler couldn’t shed any light on the discrepancy.

Roessler described the man as 29 years old and Hispanic; he said he didn’t know whether the man spoke English, or the deputy spoke Spanish.


Kincaid did not identify the deputy, but said his name will be released soon. She said he had been a deputy for 18 years. Roessler said the deputy had had Crisis Intervention Team training.


Roessler said he wasn’t able to provide much other information yet, such as how long the man had been in the hospital, why he had been in the hospital or the substance of the negotiations between the deputy and the man. He did say there was security-video evidence of the incident, though he wouldn’t say when or whether it would be released.

The deputy has been placed on administrative leave, which Kincaid called routine.

The security guard was treated for his injuries and released.

Asked whether the deputy should have waited until police arrived to begin talking with the man, Roessler said it was “absolutely appropriate.” Police and sheriffs “go to the same academy,” Roessler said, and deputies “have full law enforcement authority.”

The police are conducting a criminal investigation, while the sheriff’s office is determining whether all of its policies were followed.

With files from WTOP

Why the Sylville Smith police shooting case has all the ingredients of #Ferguson

AP

Over the weekend, as protesters set cars on fire, looted buildings and threw bricks at police squad cars, the streets of Milwaukee looked eerily similar to those of Ferguson, Mo., following the police shooting of Michael Brown.

The protests came after a black man was shot and killed by a Milwaukee police officer during a traffic stop on Saturday. As in the Michael Brown case, local media and law enforcement were quick to point to Sylville Smith’s ‘lengthy criminal’ record and his alleged wrongdoing –- he ran from police and refused to drop a gun loaded with 23 rounds before he was shot.

The incident seemed cut-and-dry to many Americans. Smith allegedly broke the law; he refused to drop his weapon and he was a criminal, charged last year in a shooting and then charged with trying to intimidate a witness in that shooting. Those charges were dropped. Smith had been arrested or ticketed nine times since 2011, but had only one conviction, a misdemeanor, for carrying a concealed weapon. In Smith’s case, the officer was African-American, causing many to further question why the shooting was gaining so much attention.

On social media, many said Smith was the last person protesters should support. But in Milwaukee, just like in Ferguson, it wasn’t just about Sylville Smith, according to Chenjerai Kumanyika, an assistant professor at Clemson University who researches communication for social justice and perspectives in popular culture.

“If you listen to the voice of people protesting, it’s not about a specific case, but part of the pattern of structural violence that people are protesting about,” Kumanyika said.

And as in Ferguson, where the Justice Department found that the officer who shot Michael Brown acted in self-defense, there are a series of background factors that led to protests throughout the city, according to Harold Pollack, a professor at the The University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration and co-director of The University of Chicago Crime Lab.

“In the case of Ferguson, the systematic predatory practices of the police department there had undermined community trust in the police,” Pollack said.

Pollack said Milwaukee and Ferguson share, “high levels of segregation and failure to attend to deep social-economic challenges in the community.”

In 2015, the Justice Department wrote in a scathing report that leading up to Brown’s death police and municipal court practices were found to “disproportionately harm African Americans.”

Attorney General Eric Holder said in 2015 the relationship between police and the African-American community was a "highly toxic environment, defined by mistrust and resentment, stoked by years of bad feelings."

“It is not difficult to imagine how a single tragic incident [Brown’s death] set off the city of Ferguson like a powder keg,” Holder said.

Following Brown’s death, Milwaukee Alderman Milele Coggs said Milwaukee was “just a death or two away from being Ferguson."

She told USA TODAY in a phone interview that she knew in 2014 that Milwaukee had all ingredients for the "recipe for what happened in Ferguson."

"There are definitely similarities [between Milwaukee and Ferguson,]" Coggs said. "What's going on in Milwaukee now is not about this one shooting, it’s about years of inequity, segregation, and years of racial disparity in this city."

Kumanyika noted that in communities like Milwaukee and Ferguson, people are frustrated with the consistent attempt to frame police violence and brutality as the result of a few problem officers who may have been racially motivated, and not deeper systematic problems of everyday policing.

“If the problem was limited to a few racist white officers, that would actually be an easier problem to solve,” he said.

Kumanyika pointed to the case of Philando Castile, a Minnesota man who was shot by police during a traffic stop.

Castile was pulled over at least 49 times, often for minor infractions, during a 13-year-span, The New York Times reported.

He said pointing the blame at one officer glosses over the economic issues and the historically untrustworthy relationship between low-income minority communities and the police officers who are supposed to be serving them.

Pollack noted that the situation in Milwaukee points to the need for police forces to build positive relationships with the communities they are involved in, so when tragedy occurs, dialogue, instead of violence, can happen.

"Public safety is the joint product of the police department, local communities and all the different constituents involved — that partnership requires a level of trust and legitimacy on both sides,” Pollack said.

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