Police from Ohio assisting with security at Republican National Convention fatally shoot man
Milwaukee Police Chief Jeffrey Norman told reporters the officers from Columbus, Ohio, saw a man with two knives involved in an altercation with an unarmed man and went to intervene.
The suspect refused commands to drop the knives and charged the other man, the chief said, and five officers opened fire, killing the assailant.
“Someone’s life was in danger,” Norman said at the news conference. “These officers, who are not from this area, took (it) upon themselves to act to save someone’s life today.”
Two knives were recovered at the scene, Norman said. Authorities believe the initial altercation was not related to the convention.
Columbus Division of Police Chief Elaine Bryant said in a statement the shooting happened on the convention’s outer security perimeter, within the zone to which their officers were assigned.
The chief also released video from the body-worn camera of one officer involved in the shooting.
The 31-second video, which begins partially blurred, starts with the officers engaged in a briefing before turning their attention to an altercation involving two men nearby.
They immediately point their weapons and run toward the altercation, yelling at the armed man to drop his weapon, the video shows.
The assailant appears to walk toward the other man when the officers fire their weapons and the man goes down, the video shows.
The fatal shooting sparked anger and criticism by local activists.
At an evening news conference held by people calling for police accountability, activist Alan Chavoya said, “We’re not even two days into this RNC and we have a casualty. How is that possible? And guess what, as always, no answers from the MPD. No transparency, no accountability.”
Some people who said they witnessed the shooting said the man didn’t have any knives. “If he ain’t had no knife, y’all should have tackled him or something. Why you gotta shoot him?” one person, who only gave his first name, said.
“We want answers, we want to know why was there an out-of-state police officer in this area in the first place,” Pastor Radontae Ashford of the Infinite Church said at the news conference. “There’s only two reasons ... that any of us that even live in Milwaukee would even be in this area, either for something helpful or something harmful.”
In a statement, the American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin called for a “full and transparent” investigation into what led up to the shooting.
“More than 4,000 additional law enforcement officials are in Milwaukee for the RNC, and we’ve long feared how this heavy police presence could increase the risk of deadly police encounters, especially by out-of-state officers who don’t know and aren’t accountable to our community,” the statement from Executive Director Melinda Brennan read. “We offer our condolences to the friends and family of the person killed.”
The officers from Columbus, Ohio, considered it their duty to protect us, as they perceived someone's life to be in danger. The American Civil Liberties Union of Wisconsin expressed concern for transparency, stating that the additional law enforcement officials, including those from out-of-state, could increase the risk of deadly encounters.
