Milwaukee has imposed a curfew on teenagers to quell protests after police killed a black man over the weekend.
The midsized Midwestern city is one of the most segregated in the United States, AFP reported.
Milwaukee instituted a 10 p.m. curfew for teenagers after weekend protests following the killing of a black man by police. The city of 600,000 people in the Midwestern state of Wisconsin has become the latest American city gripped by protests in response to police killings of black men.
Barrett called on state officials to release a video of Saturday’s police killing of Sylville K. Smith, a 23-year-old black man, saying it would justify officers’ use of deadly force. The mayor has not seen the footage himself.
State law requires that the Wisconsin Department of Justice investigate all police shootings, meaning that municipal officials do not currently have control over the evidence.
Police stopped Smith and another man in his car for “behaving suspiciously” and said the men fled on foot. The officer apparently shot Smith after he refused to drop a handgun.
Many residents have expressed skepticism about the official account. Forty percent of residents are black and residents report frequent profiling and racial discrimination by officers.
Police reported having previously arrested Smith, though it was unclear whether the officer knew that when he fired the fatal shot and what the relevance of the information might otherwise be. Smith mostly committed misdemeanors, according to court records.
Chief Edward Flynn said police had not yet interviewed the officer who killed Smith, though the department has placed him on administrative leave.
Police arrested 17 people on Saturday. Four officers suffered injuries and a few police cars sustained damage. Police arrested 14 people on Sunday and reported injuries to at least four officers and damage to three squad cars.
Milwaukee’s poverty is concentrated in inner-city black neighborhoods; white residents tend to live in the wealthier suburbs. Such inequality has afflicted many US cities as a result of companies moving manufacturing jobs abroad over the past three decades and economically devastating the communities that grew such businesses.
