Violence erupts after officer-involved shooting

[HereSince1628]

31. The proximate cause was a police shooting of a man fleeing a car

We are told he had in his possession a gun. WI is an open carry state so just being armed shouldn't be enough to get a person shot. We are told by authorities that the man was told to halt and drop the gun, and that he failed to comply.

Of course, in the current climate, we can't be sure if police will tell the truth or just circle their wagons.

We are told that the officer who shot the man was wearing a body camera, and it was turned on. The camera has reportedly been turned over to the WI State Police, so investigators will better know what happened. The public may see the video, with the probability being highest if the video corroborates their reports.

But what created the current climate, which arguably represents some the underlying causes?

Last week a handful of news sources reported results of national surveys that name Wisconsin, and Milwaukee in particular as the worst place in the United States to live if you are black. There are many socio-economic stressers involved and mentioned in those reports. And historically the crisis that represents for Milwaukee blacks has gone ignored... after all it is WI, and we are the home of Happy Days, and that WI show, Right? Life here is quaint, not problematic.

Wisconsin has one of the highest incarceration rates for black men in the nation. The elevated risks of black men being shot in WI has been reported as high as 30 times that of non-hispanic whites. That would be 3 times the usual elevated risk for blackmen across the US

And police misconduct that really critically matters to black lives happens here and usually goes ignored...

It went unnoticed to most of the US that in the week or two before the recent BLM protests about police shooting in MN and NO that a black man was shot in his car here in WI. His crime was he had fallen asleep in the car in the parking area of a public park. The community here protested, but no one really seemed to notice. Police got off

You may remember the shooting of Dontre Hamilton by Milwaukee police. Hamilton was an unarmed mentally ill black man whose offense was sleeping in downtown park and spoiling the view of a person in Starbucks across the street from the park. The first police on the scene dismissed Hamilton as a problem. A second call from the Starbucks location resulted in a second police response, and the rousting of Hamilton that somehow escalated to a level where police 'felt endangered' and so shot and killed him. Police got off.

And you may remember the death of an unarmed black Milwaukee man in custody...who suffocated to death from an asthma attack, which was complicated by a sickle-cell crisis due to low blood oxygen from the asthma attack. Video from the police cruisers camera showed him telling police he was in distress and 'couldn't breath'. His alarm went ignored by the officers in the car, because the police, like most police, don't believe that people who can talk are having respiratory trouble. Police got off.

Regarding the rioting that took place last night. Some of it may have been targeted to problem businesses in the neighborhood.

The gas station that burned to the ground last night may have been the one where the owner shot at black teens last month. I'm not too clear on the address of that shooting, but that shooting was mentioned by aldermen during press conferences that were attempting to quiet last night's unrest.