Activists From Chicago Blamed for Violent Milwaukee Protests

MILWAUKEE, WI - The violent protests that ensued over the weekend in Milwaukee following a fatal shooting of a 23-year-old black man can be partially blamed on activists from Chicago.

That’s what Milwaukee Chief of Police Edward A. Flynn says.

Flynn said publicly that the Chicago activists representing the Revolutionary Communist Party are the ones who “started to cause problems” Sunday night, the Chicago Tribune and others reported.

"The (group) showed up, and actually they’re the ones who started to cause problems leading into evening by marching and trying to take over Sherman and Burleigh," Flynn said. "That was about 11:30 at night. We made it to 11:30 in the evening, and we had these characters show up."

The group was primarily responsible for the march at the District 7 police station, an area that was barricaded before they showed up and one that has received a significant amount of threats since unrest began in the city on Saturday.

The protests Sunday were tame compared to the events of Saturday night, which followed the death of 23-year-old Sylville Smith. Smith, a black man, was shot and killed by an African-American police officer on Milwaukee’s North Side during a traffic stop. According to police, Smith was fleeing and holding a stolen handgun when he was shot.

Businesses were burned, people were shot and even more injured during a massive Saturday night protest that didn’t quell until well after 3 a.m.

Saturday night’s havoc and a Sunday protest that included a rock throwing incident have caused Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker to call for the National Guard to be on standby.

The city has also imposed a 10 p.m curfew for Monday night, with hopes of preventing what would be a third consecutive evening of violent protests according to Reuters.

Also on Patch: Fires, Gunshots, Looting After Officer Kills Suspect in Milwaukee

It’s not the specific shooting of Smith that has the tension between police and the African-American community on edge.

It’s the “undertone of racial tension” that has been rising nationwide, Flynn noted.

The summer of 2016 alone has seen controversial police-involved shootings of black men in Minnesota and Louisiana, as well as an orchestrated attack that took the lives of six police officers on a single night in Dallas.

Heated tensions in Chicago - just 90 miles south of Milwaukee - have been apparent all summer long. Some in response to the police video released last year showing an officer shoot an unarmed black suspect 16 times and others in response to another police-involved shooting in which an 18-year-old motor vehicle theft suspect was shot in the back and killed during a foot chase.

"Regardless of the factors of this situation, clearly there was an undertone of tension that erupted in violence, whether the shooting turned out to be completely justified or whether it wasn’t," Flynn said.