2016 Milwaukee riots

Dominique Heaggan-Brown (born c. 1992) joined the police force in 2010 as an aide and then graduated from its academy three years later.

Sylville K. Smith (April 11, 1993 – August 13, 2016) had two sisters, and a two-year-old son.

According to his grandfather, Smith had cognitive and mental health issues, needing to take special education classes in elementary and middle school.

He also started carrying a gun on his person after being shot at or robbed several times in separate incidents.

Milwaukee police previously attracted controversy for two incidents involving the deaths of black suspects while in police custody—one in 2010 and the other in 2011 —as well as a scandal involving illegal strip searches and body cavity searches of 74 black people, for which a $5 million settlement was approved by the Milwaukee Common Council.

Residents have criticized policing methods in predominantly black neighborhoods, which they say often involve a lack of respect towards suspects and use of force.

According to the police department, Smith had a "lengthy arrest record" dating back to at least 2011.

He had been arrested or ticketed eight times for robbery, carrying a concealed weapon, theft, heroin possession, and other crimes.

In 2014, community protests followed the fatal shooting of Dontre Hamilton, a mentally ill black man, in Milwaukee.

The officer who shot and killed Hamilton was fired from the police force for not following protocol, but he was not criminally charged.

In December 2014, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it would work with the Milwaukee Police Department on reforms.

On February 3, 2015, he had been charged with felony first-degree "reckless endangering safety", in relation to a shooting at a party on August 24, 2014.

This charge was followed by felony witness intimidation, when Smith attempted, through his girlfriend, to get the victim to sign a letter recanting his account.

Both charges were dismissed after the victim willingly recanted his story.

Smith's family said he had, at some point, filed a lawsuit against the Milwaukee Police Department, but no evidence of such a suit—settled or pending—was found in state or federal court.

On August 13, 2016, a riot began in the Sherman Park neighborhood in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, sparked by the fatal police shooting of 23-year-old Sylville Smith.

During the three-day turmoil, several people, including police officers, were injured and dozens of protesters arrested.

A nightly curfew was set up for teenagers in the area.

Smith was running on foot and armed with a stolen handgun when he was shot.

Smith and the officer who fired the fatal shots, Dominique Heaggan-Brown, were both African-American.

Video from the officer's bodycam showed that Smith had turned with the gun in his hand toward the officer just before the officer shot him.

Heaggan-Brown was criminally charged with Smith's death and acquitted at trial.

This was the first homicide charge against a Milwaukee police officer in over a decade.

A civil lawsuit is currently pending.

On June 29, 2016, police in riot gear had to respond to unrest in Sherman Park, near 39th and Burleigh, a block away from the August incident.

Rioters smashed windows and threw rocks at police.

A BP gas station had been a frequent flash-point for unrest during June and July 2016, with several incidents taking place there, including a murder.

Later, it would be looted and set on fire during the August 13 riot.

The shooting of Sylville Smith occurred during a violent weekend in Milwaukee, with nine other shootings, five of them homicides, occurring within the preceding nine hours from August 12 to August 13.

Two of the crime scenes were located a few blocks away from the police shooting.

Several reports and Milwaukee residents have connected the riots to a history of segregation and discrimination in Milwaukee.

Black residents, who make up about 40 percent of the city's population, have higher rates of unemployment, violent crime, incarceration, lack of education, and lower incomes than white residents.

The poverty difference between black and white citizens is about one-and-a-half times the national average, and according to the Economic Policy Institute, Milwaukee has the nation's highest black unemployment rate.

One resident, Sharlen Moore, said:"It's a series of things that has happened over a period of time. And right now you shake a soda bottle and you open the top and it explodes, and this is what it is."

At about 3:30p.m. on August 13, 2016, two 23-year-old men were pulled over by two officers for suspicious activity while driving through the neighborhood.

Both men fled on foot.

One, who was armed with a semi-automatic handgun carrying 23 rounds, was later shot twice, in the right arm and chest, by one of the officers, and died at the scene.

The man's handgun, along with 500 additional rounds of ammunition, had been reported stolen during a March burglary in nearby Waukesha.

The second man was later apprehended and put into police custody.

The deceased man, later identified as Sylville Smith, was shot about 20 seconds after the traffic stop was conducted.